Do You Remember... RACE 07

[Paul Jeffrey]

Race 07 had a glorious few years in the sun as one of the best sim racing games on the market, but over a decade later - is it still a good title?

I admit the idea of an officially licenced and realistic racing simulation based on the FIA World Touring Car Championship was the sort of thing that would grab my attention back in 2005/6/7, and certainly Simbin Studios AB very much achieved that sort of reaction, releasing first the 'Race' standalone touring car sim and then later Race 07, Race On and the various DLC packs that would follow.

You have to remember that the years initially covered by Race and Race 07 (2006, 07, 08, 10) where arguably of the time when the World Touring Car Championship was at its very peak - drivers the talent of Yvan Muller, Andy Priaulx, Alex Zanardi, Gabrielle Tarquini, Alain Menu and Nicola Larini gracing some of the finest race tracks of the world for works team from BMW, SEAT, Chevrolet, Volvo, and strong independent outfits running competitive Alfa Romeo's and Honda's all combined to make a simply phenomenal championship, one that is hard to argue against as some of the best racing on offer of that era.

Keen to tap into the growing popularity of the series, along would come SimBin Studios and the 'Race' franchise of games, attempting to recreate the championship in virtual form, and taking sim racing by storm as one of the most popular on and offline racing titles of its time... even running trackside "eSport" series facilitated by your very own RaceDepartment! (remember this was before eSport was even a thing...).

In the first of a series of new videos (video at the top of the article), I thought it might be fun to blow of the dust from my copy of the game (ok that's a lie, I've got it on Steam), and see how it compares now, over a decade after initial release, and also use the opportunity to ramp graphics right the way through the roof and see how it looks in a way my original rig would never have been able to manage back in the day.

Hope you enjoy the video, and keep an eye out on our YouTube page for more from footage of olden but golden racing sims in the coming weeks ahead...

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 Have you fond memories of the now classic Race 07 title? Do you still play the game? What are your favourite moments from the sim racing series? Let us know in the comments section below!​

 

[David Wright]

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with the RACE07 series.

Although many hated it at the time, I loved that Simbin pioneered Steam for this series. And thanks to Steam it allowed the annual updates to be released as expansion packs/DLC - you didn't have to buy the whole game - I loved that.

I loved that it faithfully reproduced the format of the real races with reverse grids for the second race. I loved that it added wipers which were never included in GTR2. And it fixed some of the long standing issues with Simbin's version of ISIMotor2 such as being able to skip forward when part way through qualifying without ending up at the back of the grid.

But in optimizing the game for the WTCC, they dropped the day/night transitions and animated pitstops present in GTR2, as well as the dynamic track. So when GTR Evo came out, although it did improve on GTR2 in some areas, it felt like a poor relation even though it was 2 years newer.

And I never understood the graphics approach of dropping reflections on the cars and the near universal adoption of grey interiors for the cars.

And as fan of historic racing but also something of a purist, the Retro pack had me tearing out my hair in frustration.

 

[AzSchumey]

I really love this game and still playing this. Please somebody upload some of the missing mods & track files. There was a website upload a lot of Race 07 stuff but the site went down this year.

 

[DeVxC]

Good old days of running Macau race just before school on my MOMO wheel ^^

 

[Case_]

Then install this Borderless gaming mode and switch to windows mode.
Colors are better an 90% of the flicking it gone.

Colors are better? How does switching to borderless window have any influence on colors? They should be identical, unless you're using a wide gamut monitor and have issues with color profile not applying in fullscreen, which at least in up-to-date Windows 10 shouldn't really happen.
Also don't forget that windowed mode, even borderless one, forces vsync and therefore creates input lag.

 

[Takumi69]

Race07 was the sim for me. When i made the switch from GT4 to PC i tested various demos and Race07 was the best feeling game for me.
I still fire it up from time to time.
For those that are looking for mods, i can highly recommend "rennsimulanten.de". Install the Autoupdater from rennsimulanten and it will automatically download and install all legal mods available.

 

[Isaac Chavira]

I still have it and I race the Volvo.

 

[Bjarne Hansen]

Colors are better? How does switching to borderless window have any influence on colors? They should be identical, unless you're using a wide gamut monitor and have issues with color profile not applying in fullscreen, which at least in up-to-date Windows 10 shouldn't really happen.
Also don't forget that windowed mode, even borderless one, forces vsync and therefore creates input lag.

I find the colors to be more dynamic in borderless windows mode! compared to the more washed-out look I get in full screen
You could be right about the color gamut but an AMD Gpu also produce better colors on the old simbin games regardless on windowed or full screen..

DSR works too but image gets darker so I have to adjust the monitor brighter.

Since I got a 144hz monitor and run windows in 144hz I am not too worried about vsync.

 

[Bjarne Hansen]

What borderless gaming mode? How do I do this?

Sorry forgot the link!
https://github.com/Codeusa/Borderless-Gaming/releases
Install
Select windows mode in the config then start Race 07 press [ Alt+Tab] and add the Race? Race steam.exe to that favorites on the Borderless Gaming app and when you go back to race 07 it will change to borderless windows mode.
Works well for a lot of special older programs

 

[Øyvind Andersen]

Oh yes. I have it, with all the Addons pack, thought it was very good, and not least a good chat in the game. There, RR has something and learning

 

[Mickdrs]

Bought it thinking it was a GTR2 replacement, but it wasn't..it's ok but inferior to GTR2

 

[Shovas]

Also don't forget that windowed mode, even borderless one, forces vsync and therefore creates input lag.

This isn't true...at least for me. I'm definitely not vsync'd and running 100-200 fps, well above my 60hz screens.

 

[Case_]

I find the colors to be more dynamic in borderless windows mode! compared to the more washed-out look I get in full screen
You could be right about the color gamut but an AMD Gpu also produce better colors on the old simbin games regardless on windowed or full screen..

I find that very suspect, it doesn't make any sense, but I also have no way to verify your claims.

This isn't true...at least for me. I'm definitely not vsync'd and running 100-200 fps, well above my 60hz screens.

You're somewhat right, and I always forget about this, because it is a fairly recent change I believe. It is a bit more complicated. You are in fact running vsync if you're using windowed or borderless windowed mode (unless you're on Windows 7 with disabled Aero). But the thing is...you're running vsync with no framerate limiter. Normal vsync also limits your framerate to the refresh rate of your monitor, so on 60Hz monitor, you will never get more than 60 fps. The way it works in windowed mode currently is that there is still vsync enabled (because anything displayed in windowed mode goes through the Windows window manager, which has vsync always on) so you don't get tearing, but there's no framerate limit - you can indeed seemingly reach well over 100 or even more fps as the internal framerate of the game is not capped in this mode, but the image you see on your screen is still (obviously) limited to 60 fps, the unused frames are discarded. Which can mean the input lag is not as pronounced as it would be with regular vsync (at least if you can keep your framerate above your refresh rate), but it can also lead to microstutter and various other issues. Still far from optimal I'd say. But you're correct, the input lag is less of an issue nowadays because of that, and I always forget about it.

 

[Max_59]

I was actually playing it today

 

[Eckhart von Glan]

nice to be reminded of it. played race driver and started to do some online races, somebody on chat there talked about lfs, got that and had a lot of fun, somebody on chat there talked about race by simbin, got that and was hooked for good. basically racedepartment got started around a massive tournament we had on race with the original cars since one could not do any skins, this came with race07. four grids of 25 and the whole wtcc season, it was epic, even though i was one of the poorliest competitors in my lacetti down in grid 04. then this website sprang up basically around race, following an earlier website still focussing on race driver's dtm series. we then started a mini challenge (but maybe already on race07? dunno) and things developed from there. so in a way, this simbin title really is the midwife of racedepartment, isn't it bram?

 

[Glen Orpheus]

you know Paul
with your 980ti you can turn on some super sampling and give yourself even crispier graphics, i.e. you should be able to get the game running without any jaggies

 

[Shovas]

Don't buy this title if you need decent graphics to enjoy your gaming , hate front wheel drive cars, or already knew everything I just posted above and have since moved on to newer releases

Don't let the front-wheel drive cars thing discourage you, there are plenty (a lot!) of RWD content in Race 07 if you get the expansions and they're well worth it on sale.

Also the BMW WTCC is RWD.

 

[Blamer]

I remember crashing at the end of the long straight at Macau the first time I tried it.
I still have the cd that came in bundle with a gpu, a 8800 Gts. 360€. great times

 

[Kevin Bradley]

Don't let the front-wheel drive cars thing discourage you, there are plenty (a lot!) of RWD content in Race 07 if you get the expansions and they're well worth it on sale.

Also the BMW WTCC is RWD

Yep, true @Shovas. Well pointed out.

 

[Lentoveloz]

Race 07 was not in my heart like GPL, Nascar 2003, GTR2 and GTL. I play Race07 rarely.

 

[Hal Burns]

Great game...so much fun running STCC.....and for a blast of madness the WTCC Extreme cars on the Nords. Old Act-Labs wheel got a workout then! Still fire it up as there is so much content in there.