R Factor - final help thread.

[Andrew Ford]

Okay guys, this is my 3rd thread - so i will try not to post anymore pleas for help!lol

basically, i have an xbox and love f1 2011 - i use a mad catz wireless wheel with open wheeler racing seat. the graphics are great but i read many people like the rfactor and say it's a better "simulator". the le mans 10 hour race and the mods are making me wanna get the rfactor.

i currently run a laptop as opposed to a pc. it has windows 7 and the necessary spec for the rfactor (Toshiba satellite pro).

What i'm hoping to do is:

buy one of these: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Xbox-Wirele..._2?s=videogames&ie=UTF8&qid=1313158253&sr=1-2 to allow my mad catz wireless wheel to work on my laptop.(£19)

Buy the rfactor on ebay for about £15.

Buy a latop to television screen connector for about £5-10. Total cost being £44.

1. Firstly, can anyone see any problems with these ideas of mine?
2. is there a version of rfactor which i should avoid or are they all the same?
3. is it independent people making mods for free download or is it the producers of the rfactor?

I notice that the graphics on rfactor (even on highest resolution) aren't nearly as good as the xbox but the possibilities are greater e.g. replays, vehicles and so on.

Any thoughts? basically i don't want to spend money if things won't work - ive spent a lot recently and trying not to be wasteful.

thanks for any final assistance.

 

[Brian Hodgins]

-I am not familiar with the wheel you are using, but that receiver looks identical to the one I have for my 360 controller that I use on occasion with my PC. I am not sure if it will pick up the wheel, it may be specifically made for the xbox controller. I would definitely check into that first if I were you. I know mine will work with any standard 360 controller (it does not need a special PC version), but I have never tried any other controllers such as your wheel.

-The latest version of rFactor is build 1255, it is really the only one you will find--or you will be able to patch to that version at least. Digital download is the fastest way to get it, and you can easily burn a copy of it to a DVD if you wish.

-Mods are made by independent groups and individuals for the most part. I believe that the only mods that ISI made themselves are included with the game. Mods are free.

Realism and 'pure' simulation will be much better on the average rFactor mod. This does vary from mod to mod though. If you have a powerful machine to run it on, you can install HDR mods and other bells and whistles to make rFactor look quite good, but I doubt it will be to the level that the Xbox can produce visually.

Basically, if you are looking to take the whole racing experience to the next level of realism, I would recommend rFactor. I don't know about your wheel though--it is pretty difficult to drive most mods without a decent FFB wheel. You might want to wait a bit and save up for a G27 or better wheel, it makes a huge difference.

 

[Andrew Ford]

Thank you brian. that was a great help.much appreciated. if i could give you a "gold star" i would

i looked into the wheel thing: http://www.apexracingleague.com/archive/index.php/t-3618.html?
and it suggests it will work - but the wheel doesnt have ffb. I wonder if this will make a massive difference - u suggest it will make a difference. the wheel itself is damn good on the xbox.

i can get away with the graphics not being so good if the gameplay is great and i read somewhere that the r.factor has been used to train racing drivers. not sure how true that is but sounds good.ty mate.

 

[Prithvi R Shankar]

I think racing drivers use rFactor pro.

The main thing of rF is Very good simulation of almost any type of car. And the graphics are not that bad.
You can install various plugins which improves the gameplay even more.
There are a countless number of mods. you can get them here and at rfactorcentral.
The only drawback is theres no changeable weather. Though there are some 'wet' tracks but unlike F1 2010,11 etc you cant have dynamic weather.

 

[Martin Bulgin]

rFactor 2 will be out soon (we hope) that will have weather effects and a whole lot more, but you cant go wrong getting rFactor now, dont worry about xbox having better graphics the gameplay is 50 x better than anything on a console.

 

[Andrew Ford]

Thank you guys. one thing i love is the replay footage - the RD Formula Pro Championship looks amazing - the graphics look far better than the demo - i'm assuming they're a mod.

have any of you guys played f1 2011 on xbox or ps? i only ask because everyone keeps saying that the driving is much better on rfactor. i'm not into a pc vs xbox war but if it's better on the pc i'll happily go with it.thanks again.

 

[Adam Eggbeer]

Thank you guys. one thing i love is the replay footage - the RD Formula Pro Championship looks amazing - the graphics look far better than the demo - i'm assuming they're a mod.

Yes, it is FSOne 2008.

have any of you guys played f1 2011 on xbox or ps? i only ask because everyone keeps saying that the driving is much better on rfactor. i'm not into a pc vs xbox war but if it's better on the pc i'll happily go with it.thanks again.

I played F1 2010 on the PC but didn't like the physics of the cars that much.

 

[Prithvi R Shankar]

I dont think the physics and car setup options of rF can be compared to both F1 2010 and 11. Theres so many settings to play with in rF.

 

[Andrew Ford]

having played rfactor anf f1 2011, i far prefer rfactor's handling - going back to f1 2011, i felt i had to throw a featherlight car around and it was just ridiculous after playing the rfactor.

so far i download the simsync application (which is great with the fone 2008 cars) but altho there is a league for pros, there don't seem to be any pro ams which are consistenly in one class. i would like to join a formula 1 type field and practise online as the offline seems full of bugs. maybe i just need to learn more about the game tho.

 

[Andrew Ford]

whenever i play the xfactor mods such as gp2 or fone2009, the car always breaks terribly. i either have to ease the breaks on way way before the corner or the back end comes out and i'm off. also, the ai tend to ram into me. is this normal?

is it the mod? is it my computer? is it me? when i race on legendary because i want to use manual gears, the ai just whizz passed.

also, the races are always 5 laps and the yellow flag usually comes out - usually most cars are just parked at the side of the road!

something is seriously wrong?!

 

[Philip Antonia]

Hi Andrew.

The race lengths can be adjusted in the realism tab. Either set to minutes or number of laps. Also you can turn of certain types of flag rules and the Ai's aggression etc can be adjusted to. Just browse through all the options in the settings menu. rFactors UI (user interface) isn't very simple to begin with.

As for the brakes on your car it's one of a few things. Either you're braking too hard too late causing the car to enter the turn too fast and your steering lock may be too high making you turn in to dramatically at the same time causing the car to switch ends on you.

Or the cars setup isn't suiting your style and your locking the rear wheels under braking. I often have to set the brakes Bias in the car setup menu (during practice sessions etc) more towards the front say 65-35 and maybe reduce braking power down to 90% too start with. Then if you start locking the front wheels under braking you can gradually adjust back the settings until it feels right for you.

Hope that helps. rFactor can seem a bit difficult to negotiate when your coming from simple Console menus .

 

[Jonathan Motteram]

philip explained it all very well, but you might want to decrease the brake pressure which should help with lockups.
you can customise the difficulty settings to have easier ai with the manual gears if you want, but if i were you i'd just do testing till you're consistent

 

[Andrew Ford]

thanks to both of you!

jonathan, could you come online with me sometime and do about 5- 10 laps testing? i need to see if it's my driving or the settings.

i can drive reasonably quickly around the track but the ai seem to speed passed - for example, if i do a 1.28 on catalunya (haven't really practised tbh) i realise that's slow, but the ai whizz passed on the str8's and leaving corners. maybe they're just on too high a setting.
i've managed to sort the brakes a lot - i don't think the situation was helped by the gp2 mod which is a bit laggy.

the main thing i feel is that, whenever i turn at reasonably high speed, if as i turn in, the front end seems to turn in, but the back seems to "block" the turn, so unl;ess i'm going really slowly, the angle of the turn is really small.

i don't mind if this is the norm but if its not, i need to do something.

 

[Philip Antonia]

the main thing i feel is that, whenever i turn at reasonably high speed, if as i turn in, the front end seems to turn in, but the back seems to "block" the turn, so unl;ess i'm going really slowly, the angle of the turn is really small.

Sorry Andrew, I don't quite understand this bit .

Do you mean that your not having to turn your wheel much to turn in, but the rear end of the car is stepping out on you causing you to spin into the corner?

If that's the case then your steering lock is too high and/or the rear end of your car is too stiff. For me the first things I have to get sorted b4 fiddling anymore is my brakes and the steering. Your steering lock in the setup menu will be affected by how much lock your gaming wheel has got. So if you have a more basic wheel that only gives you 240 degrees rotation and you have the steering ratio in the cars setup at say 20 degrees then you'll have a very sensitive car!!! You would need to reduce the steering ratio in the setup menu down to say 14 and see how that feels. If you have something like a Logitech DFP or G25/27 with 900 degrees lock (and you're using all of it) you would need to increase your steering ratio in the setup menu as you'd struggle to turn into corners as you'd have to turn your wheel too much!! You need to get the steering ratio right so that you feel comfortable taking high speed corners without worry about turning in too much, but not struggle to get through tight corner like hairpins.

If you get the steering feeling better, but the rear end still feels like it wants to brake away then you need to soften the rear end and/or stiffen the front. To soften the rear you need to reduce the rear anti roll bar and maybe the shock absorbers. To stiffen the front you'd need to increase the front anti roll bar and maybe the shocks. As you soften the rear is should make the car more forgiving going into corners, but if you soften the rear and stiffen the front too much it will start to understeer into corners. It's just something you'll have to experiment with to get it feeling right for you. Once you've worked this out with one car you'll start to understand how to get other cars to your liking:good:.

Hope it helps.

 

[Andrew Ford]

Sorry Andrew, I don't quite understand this bit .

Do you mean that your not having to turn your wheel much to turn in, but the rear end of the car is stepping out on you causing you to spin into the corner?

If that's the case then your steering lock is too high and/or the rear end of your car is too stiff. For me the first things I have to get sorted b4 fiddling anymore is my brakes and the steering. Your steering lock in the setup menu will be affected by how much lock your gaming wheel has got. So if you have a more basic wheel that only gives you 240 degrees rotation and you have the steering ratio in the cars setup at say 20 degrees then you'll have a very sensitive car!!! You would need to reduce the steering ratio in the setup menu down to say 14 and see how that feels. If you have something like a Logitech DFP or G25/27 with 900 degrees lock (and you're using all of it) you would need to increase your steering ratio in the setup menu as you'd struggle to turn into corners as you'd have to turn your wheel too much!! You need to get the steering ratio right so that you feel comfortable taking high speed corners without worry about turning in too much, but not struggle to get through tight corner like hairpins.

If you get the steering feeling better, but the rear end still feels like it wants to brake away then you need to soften the rear end and/or stiffen the front. To soften the rear you need to reduce the rear anti roll bar and maybe the shock absorbers. To stiffen the front you'd need to increase the front anti roll bar and maybe the shocks. As you soften the rear is should make the car more forgiving going into corners, but if you soften the rear and stiffen the front too much it will start to understeer into corners. It's just something you'll have to experiment with to get it feeling right for you. Once you've worked this out with one car you'll start to understand how to get other cars to your liking:good:.

Hope it helps.

thank you. only just saw this mate. haven't play rfactor much but found the steering lock made a big differnce - by increasing it from 20 to 30 for my xbox madcatz wireless wheel. the only downfall is that vary rarely, the car will want to go off as if magnetised to the barrier - even at 100 mpg going str8. hard to explain - like some kinda bug. maybe it's the laptop i'm running it on. much improved generally however, ty again mate