Never Knew This Game Was So Good

HypoToad · Oct 1, 2015

Just been playing GTR2 and it's a great game, not quite as polished or with the feel of Project Cars but pretty close. Especially for it's age.

It makes me wonder how come I get over 200fps with everything on high with GTR2 and 60 - 70fps with Project Cars, do shadows etc make that much difference?

I made a short video in HD but it lost a lot when I uploaded it to Youtube, this game is really old but still looks good in my opinion.

They should bring out GTR3 it might be the best racing game out there if they do.

Dave R · Oct 1, 2015

It truly is a timeless classic. I still play it a few times a week. Theres thousands of mods and tracks with new content still coming.

Christian Militzer · Oct 26, 2015

I did a 1 hour long 24h race at spa and have to say this feels the most like real motorsport to me. Not in regards of physics, FFB, or graphics, but just the game mechanics. The AI is between okay and good, you have lapped traffic, have to think about how to organize your stints. It just felt like you are really in a race and racing with a muliticlass field of 62 cars - thats great! At one point there was a AI car having a blasted motor on the kemmel straight, nice to see things like that in racing sims. The races in the sims I played recently were just all so "sterile" - nothing unexpected happens and the whole field is just a long line of cars. The motorsport aspect of gtr2, combined with GSCE for example would make a perfect game I believe

David Wright · Oct 26, 2015

Talking of not being sterile, GTR2 also features Livetrack - years ahead of its time. Its not as sophisticated as rF2's, iRacing's and pCAR's more recent implementations and more subtle than some perhaps but it is noticeable when braking and cornering off-line when the track has rubbered in and marbles built up.

Christian Militzer · Oct 26, 2015

David Wright said:
Talking of not being sterile, GTR2 also features Livetrack - years ahead of its time. Its not as sophisticated as rF2's, iRacing's and pCAR's more recent implementations and more subtle than some perhaps but it is noticeable when braking and cornering off-line when the track has rubbered in and marbles built up.

Okay - never really noticed that. I have the feeling that the gtr2 physics is a little bit too forgiving - so I never really had problems breaking at the limit and noticed changes. It's a litte bit sad that such things that were implemented back then are nowadays forgotten or invented "new".

HypoToad · Oct 29, 2015

itsmedavetn said:
It truly is a timeless classic. I still play it a few times a week. Theres thousands of mods and tracks with new content still coming.

I found Calder Park the local track I used to go to back in the day when they had touring car races, I found Bathurst legends with the Falcon GTHO, Valiant Charger E49 and Torana GTR XU1 (Australian muscle cars from the 70's), this game really is amazing.

I also found I could swap files around getting a selection of slicks on the cars that only came with street tires. There isn't a thing you couldn't change in this game, I love Project Cars but I enjoy messing around under the hood of a game which is something you can't do in PC.

Dave R · Oct 29, 2015

HypoToad said:
I found Calder Park the local track I used to go to back in the day when they had touring car races, I found Bathurst legends with the Falcon GTHO, Valiant Charger E49 and Torana GTR XU1, this game really is amazing.

I also found I could swap files around getting a selection of slicks on the cars that only came with street tires. There isn't a thing you couldn't change in this game, I love Project Cars but I enjoy messing around under the hood of a game.

It's simply the best. As good as R3E, SCE, PCars, AC, rF2 are, they all fall short when compared to GTR2 in my opinion.

HypoToad · Oct 31, 2015

itsmedavetn said:
It's simply the best. As good as R3E, SCE, PCars, AC, rF2 are, they all fall short when compared to GTR2 in my opinion.

I just installed the UI Upgrade Mod and it looks much nicer, I even changed that shoddy looking video at the start to something more classy, I just love this game.

Dave R · Oct 31, 2015

@HypoToad if you don't mind, send me a PM with the UI Upgrade mod. I don't think I've ever seen that. Thanks!!

HypoToad · Oct 31, 2015

itsmedavetn said:
@HypoToad if you don't mind, send me a PM with the UI Upgrade mod. I don't think I've ever seen that. Thanks!!

You can get it here:

http://www.racedepartment.com/threads/gtr2-ui-mod-the-new-menu-interface-for-gtr2.96576/

It sharpens everything up but it won't work with the Power and Glory mod which I downloaded and could never get to work.

HypoToad · Nov 1, 2015

The latest thing I have been doing is editing the classes, as I found that you download a team Bathurst Legends for example and then download TCL and you have them in your weekend races with Bathurst Legends when you only selected that class. I found this to help with it but did it manually at first making my own .gdb, .txt & .tga files:

http://www.nogripracing.com/details.php?filenr=9297

But like the warning says make sure you know what your doing and only amend the class line in the car files.

HypoToad · Nov 4, 2015

After a lot of messing about I wanted to get the cars in one list, eg: BMW, Ford, Nissan etc as well as having them in all their different classes.

It turned out easy in the end I have a category with all the different car brands in it, in those are the different models, like in some other games, no more searching to find my favorite cars they are all there at my finger tips.

I now understand how the team system works.

Hal Burns · Nov 25, 2015

Lemans in the rain at night.......awesome.

HypoToad · Nov 25, 2015

You can also make the spectators in hi-def, I have included several celebs in my Bathurst track crowd, Elvis, Roger Federer, The Queen etc.

I also experimented with the car textures and found that the best settings for me anyway is:

body.dds, mask.dds & cube.dds then I select "cube map add color reflect t1 t2"

This makes the cars shine like they just came out of the showroom.

Ryan Soucy · Dec 4, 2015

I am about to delete rFactor from my computer, but GTR2 will stay. Everytime I race it I am surprised it is so good.

There's a Championship Season manager program that makes custom seasons super easy. I can probably find the link if you can't.

The BPR and SpeedGT mods were my favorite. But lately I've been doing an FIA series.

HypoToad · Dec 4, 2015

Ryan Soucy said:
There's a Championship Season manager program that makes custom seasons super easy. I can probably find the link if you can't.

Thanks for the suggestion, I have that already, there isn't much you can't change in this game.

One major thing I did was to lower the dry grip of the tracks, I like them set at 0.95 instead of 1.00 as I thought they were too grippy, especially since also have Project Cars to compare it to, to me it makes it more realistic.

Peevee88 · Jan 25, 2016

Also just re-installed it and agree: simply amazing!
Considering this sim is a decade old it has some great features eg. championships, day/night transitions, acceptable AI - honestly it makes the modern stuff look silly. Sadly there has been little progress at all - have sims gone backwards?

On another note: anyone can point me to where I can find out about graphic tweaks to improve the look of the standard GTR2, as I am getting jaggies and I believe there are solutions... any advice appreciated

Lars Hansen · Jan 28, 2016

Peevee88 said:
Also just re-installed it and agree: simply amazing!
Considering this sim is a decade old it has some great features eg. championships, day/night transitions, acceptable AI - honestly it makes the modern stuff look silly. Sadly there has been little progress at all - have sims gone backwards?

On another note: anyone can point me to where I can find out about graphic tweaks to improve the look of the standard GTR2, as I am getting jaggies and I believe there are solutions... any advice appreciated

Turn off the in-game AA, and let Nvidia Inspector (or the Catalyst Center if AMD) handle it.

As for acceptable AI, try searching for GTR2 Reborn.
It's a complete physics/AI pack, but I'm sure I've seen the AI template as a stand-alone package.
But that cures a lot of things, most importantly the inevitable slow-down the AI has in 90min+ races, simply because they rub each other a lot, and the aero-damage accumulates.

Andy_J · Jan 28, 2016

I still use GTR 2 offline and I love it. I use the Reborn mod too. I also prefer 1988 to 94 F1 mods. I also have a very good Indycar mod that I tend to have a blast with around some US tracks now and again.

Hard to imagine the original devs went on to do Pcars. Well some did. The better ones went on and made better sims for us.