Don't judge a book by it's cover...

[jimortality]

Or a racing sim by it's graphics. I have to eat humble pie here and also apologise to @Gijs van Elderen. After my set up session the other night, I thought I would head into the club server for the upcoming Brands hatch Audi server. I did a couple of laps. came straight on here and posted a negative comment in the sign up thread about the poor graphics. This afternoon before I started my nightshift I thought I would have another go with the Civic on the same track using my new found knowledge from my set up session and with notes in hand I had another go. After about 10 minutes of fighting my way round this track, I started to make changes then go out and test then back in for more changes then back out and test. After an hour of testing, I hadn't even noticed the graphics because the feel of this track in my opinion was awesome. I still hadn't conquered the hatch but it just goes to show, that yes in a perfect world we would have photo realistic graphics with perfect physics, ffb, the whole works, even a fit blond giving you a BJ as you're racing but unfortunately, we don't live in a perfect world. So, my fellow racers, don't judge a book by it's cover or even a sim by it's graphics

 

[JoelGL]

Ok, thanks. I already have Texture Sharpening set to 0. So far I guess I've achieved a good compromise using 2x Sparsegrid and 8xQ. Thanks.

 

[hexagramme]

rFactor 2 looks gorgeous in most conditions, day and night, sunny as well as cloudy. It has an extremely natural look, because it simulates how the human eye perceives light. So we're not getting that silly overblown, cinematic, "looking through the lens of a camera" look that plagues most other sims. People are saying that AC and pCARS has the most realistic look? Nonsense. Those sims may have the most aesthetically pleasing look, but that's not also the most realistic.

 

[Kjell Eilertsen]

People are saying that AC and pCARS has the most realistic look? Nonsense.

Who are you to tell me (and others) that what we see, feel and think is wrong? I think most racing games released since rFactor one, including rFactor one, look better, more realistic and life like than rF2. You can't call that "nonsense", cos that is actually how I perceive it.

 

[JeffL]

rFactor one, look better, more realistic and life like than rF2

Interesting, I find that hard believe unless you have some strange settings. I am saying that with the utmost respect for you Kjell. I have heard that before and it again amazes me the difference of opinion on rf2. You gotta wonder what's up.

 

[Kjell Eilertsen]

I've seen the screenshots posted above, I'm quite sure it's possible to tinker with settings to get rF2 looking decent if not even great, but therein lays half of the problem, I have several other sims I can just boot up and with no hassle they look stunning and drive great, I just cba wasting my time tinkering with settings to make rF2 look good when I can rather spend that time on track in other games. And there's part of the other reason, I don't find rF2 appealing enough to warrant the time spent tinkering, it's too difficult to drive, official content is bland and I don't fancy messing with mods etc etc

 

[JeffL]

That seems to be the consensus of some people and I can respect that. I just like the ffb and tbh the graphics in rf2 enough that I don't seem to mind spending too much time on it to get the immersion. Still workin on that Iracing thing? I am still interested (off topic I know. I still keep an eye on that thread.)

 

[Frank]

Who are you to tell me (and others) that what we see, feel and think is wrong? I think most racing games released since rFactor one, including rFactor one, look better, more realistic and life like than rF2. You can't call that "nonsense", cos that is actually how I perceive it.

I just put everthing to max and I find it better looking than most other sims out there. But the graphics of this game are something you have to get used to. And above all else, I can fully understand others don't like it.

 

[Kjell Eilertsen]

Still workin on that Iracing thing? I am still interested (off topic I know. I still keep an eye on that thread.)

Sorr y to say that I'm not, I've got enough work to do with planning for the upcoming R3E club races as it is ><

I just put everthing to max and I find it better looking than most other sims out there. But the graphics of this game are something you have to get used to. And above all else, I can fully understand others don't like it.

Thats what I did too, all a max, but I'm not gonna beat a dead horse and I'm not on some crusade to stop others from enjoying the game
People should race whatever they enjoy and be happy with that!

 

[Andy_J]

People are saying that AC and pCARS has the most realistic look? Nonsense. Those sims may have the most aesthetically pleasing look, but that's not also the most realistic.

I'm not the biggest Pcars fan, But you are wrong in my opinion.
If this doesn't look more realistic than any other sim I'll eat my helmet.

 

[William Wester]

rFactor 2 looks gorgeous in most conditions, day and night, sunny as well as cloudy. It has an extremely natural look, because it simulates how the human eye perceives light. So we're not getting that silly overblown, cinematic, "looking through the lens of a camera" look that plagues most other sims. People are saying that AC and pCARS has the most realistic look? Nonsense. Those sims may have the most aesthetically pleasing look, but that's not also the most realistic.

Your "opinion", that's fine. I like rFactor 2 but not for the graphics that's for sure, I'll take pCARS and AC graphics any day of the week, heck, I will take R3E also over rFactor 2 "graphically".

 

[JeffL]

Miss America - 1880 - beauty is in the eye of the beholder

 

[Mat Holloway]

I've seen the screenshots posted above, I'm quite sure it's possible to tinker with settings to get rF2 looking decent if not even great, but therein lays half of the problem, I have several other sims I can just boot up and with no hassle they look stunning and drive great, I just cba wasting my time tinkering with settings to make rF2 look good when I can rather spend that time on track in other games. And there's part of the other reason, I don't find rF2 appealing enough to warrant the time spent tinkering, it's too difficult to drive, official content is bland and I don't fancy messing with mods etc etc

I keep hearing this from people and can't understand it.
I've a GTX780 and an old i5. Fresh install, everything on default, older third party converted track and it looks like:

I've upgraded from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 since that video and the clarity is outstanding. No aliasing, gorgeous texture fidelity and running in excess of 100 fps. I see some of the shots people post and wonder what the hell they have tweaked to make it so goddamned awful.

 

[hexagramme]

A few years back I remember some people actually posted lo-res shots to intentionally make rF2 look bad. Shows the length some of those rF2 haters are willing to go to.

The fact of the matter is that rF2 is in no way lacking, GFX wise.

 

[Greg Latty]

i think rf2 looks fine. My problem with graphics is the consistency. Some tracks/cars look great. And some look bad. But overall I think it looks good. Especially with DSR enabled. At the end of the day (in my opinion) Pcars, AC, and R3E look better graphically. But thats not what makes a game good. Heck, one of my favorite sims to drive in is Game stock car. And thats probably has the worse graphics of them all..

 

[hexagramme]

Who are you to tell me (and others) that what we see, feel and think is wrong? I think most racing games released since rFactor one, including rFactor one, look better, more realistic and life like than rF2. You can't call that "nonsense", cos that is actually how I perceive it.

I'm not talking about judging personal taste here. I'm talking about what I personally think belongs in a "sim" and what does not. Feel free to disagree. I'm not a fascist, you can say and think what you want, any time.

Lens flare and DOF are used a lot in games to suggest realism. People perceive it as realism, yet it is not realism. People are used to seeing cinematic effects through their huge intake of movies and TV.

I want realism in my sims, I don't want cinematic "looking through the lens of a camera" style graphics. Leave that for the AAA shooters, adventure games and arcade racing games. For me those kinds of overblown effects have no place in a piece of software that attempts to simulate reality in as many ways as possible.

Edit: sorry I wrote that in a haste and some of it came out a bit nonsensical... not talking personal taste and then myself talk about personal taste... hmm, sorry.

 

[David O'Reilly]

Yep real life racing when you watch it has lousy graphics compared to some "sims".
Oh one little thing that would really bug me about a recently launched driving game is the rain effect.
Big drops sit on your windscreen like they do on your mums conservatory roof. Then as you accellerate to 200 mph they still sit there like on your mums conservatory roof.
So maybe I am fussy about graphics after all.

 

[Greg Latty]

Yep real life racing when you watch it has lousy graphics compared to some "sims".
Oh one little thing that would really bug me about a recently launched driving game is the rain effect.
Big drops sit on your windscreen like they do on your mums conservatory roof. Then as you accellerate to 200 mph they still sit there like on your mums conservatory roof.
So maybe I am fussy about graphics after all.

Haha its funny i always say the same thing about the real life cameras. Sims always look better than real life. And as far as rain.. So far the only racing game that got rain right is driveclub. Unfortunately that game is no where near sim

 

[JeffL]

Blind in one eye and deaf in the other so perfection isn't what I'm lookin for.

 

[Kjell Eilertsen]

I was messing about today trying to figure out the camera controls to turn the camera around, I failed but got this screenshot at least.
I've got the game running with everything maxed out (yes, seriously).
This is the official GTR on Sao Paolo track.
Dunno whats wrong with my setup, but look at those textures, look at the lack of detail on the car.
Can someone, hand on heart, tell me that they think this looks good?

 

[Kjell Eilertsen]

I've gotten it a bit better, seems I thought I had max settings on Texture Filter, but turned that to 16x anisotropic and got much better looking results. But still, the car looks quite low res and foremost it feels like everything in the game is equally lighted.Its like there's no sun, like there's no source of light, light is coming from everywhere and hitting every surface equally (bar a few low res shadows being cast that is).