RF2: make the experience better?

[jimortality]

is a bit of an animal! downloaded the Spa track and did and offline race with F2 cars. It was a real struggle like I was driving on marbles all the way round the track. I realise this game is uber realistic and it's very good but for a crap noob as myself, what should I have done to help make the experience better? FFB I moved from 1 up to 2 and left the ffb smoothness at 4 but I never felt in control. I tried the long beach with Indy cars last night and that was different again. Any help with this plus I need more cars!!! there doesn't seem to be that many in the mods section.

Cheers

 

[David O'Reilly]

Jim
Edit: (my uninformed remark about # of threads deleted) dor

I'll fire some ideas at you.
a)Start in a car thats predictable in handling on a track you know well. The ISI GT4, GT3 would be a good place to start. The Ferrari 458 Challenge and the Spec Miata also. I was at Spa tonight in this car and it was wicked.
The F2 car reacts quickly and doesnt generate much feel (and with little or no caster adj you cant make it generate much feel. Stick wiith a car until you have mastered it. EG I have done over 200 laps of Silverstone in the Lola LMP1 to do that.
b) Use a low powered car and no assists to learn to drive it then add power/complexity as you can manage. Career mode in RF1 did that nicely but RF2 hasnt got it yet.
c )Get a heap of laps in at Nazareth speedway, might sound silly but you can slide away to your hearts content, fiddle with setup and get to know what a car does at the limit. With a such a short lap it gives you much time cornering.
d) Use accellerated real road to get a lot of rubber down.
e) If you are not experienced with setup, pick a car that has setups available here.
f) Learn about fore aft weight shift and control. Same for braking.
g) Identify at what part of the corner you are not in control (braking, turn in Mid corner, exit.) Identify what is happening IE oversteer understeer, brake lock up.
h) Experiment with different steering lock angles in the garage, you might get better feel. Same with brake force, balance.
i) Adjust AI speed to your speed so U can race them, get some serious lappage then gradually increase them.
j) Read Ramon Van Rijns setup guide and start to get a feel for set up.
k) read all you can on real world technique.
l) FFB smoothing is for Logitech wheels mainly. If your wheel doesnt rattle put it on zero.
m) Enjoy your progression!

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

Three threads for 3 questions is getting a bit crowded in a way.

Actually that is how a forum should work . A new thread for each question, although I'd prefer the thread to have a proper title as "RF2" means nothing to people that are browsing the forums trying to help out other people like @David O'Reilly above

When creating a thread post the question you have in the title please @Jim Brailsford

 

[jimortality]

Thanks for your advice David and Title issue noted Bram

 

[jimortality]

I think then I will just have to bang lap after lap in but I have GSC, AC Euro truck2 and Ftruck and I end up doing bits on each and not really learning any if you know what I mean.

 

[Simon Christmann]

...
d) Use accellerated real road to get a lot of rubber down.
...

This point can easily guide you to the "Drive on Marbles" feeling when you dont hit the AI line which is not always the best
You will have the advantage of having a lot more grip on the race line but if you miss the line there is a big difference between on line and off line.

And alway try to not overheating the tires. If they are to hot they lose a lot of grip

 

[David O'Reilly]

This point can easily guide you to the "Drive on Marbles" feeling when you dont hit the AI line which is not always the best
You will have the advantage of having a lot more grip on the race line but if you miss the line there is a big difference between on line and off line.

And alway try to not overheating the tires. If they are to hot they lose a lot of grip

If you do it with AI

 

[Simon Christmann]

If you do it with AI

I only read "accelerated" and associated it automatically with an ai generated rubber file

 

[jimortality]

Started today with the Ferrari at Silverstone. Going to just do a zillion laps but it is a very hard game this one but it feels great! I think apart from my AC lesson next week, I'm going to concentrate on this for a whole month and nothing else and see what kind of improvement I can make.

 

[Frederic Schornstein]

Started today with the Ferrari at Silverstone. Going to just do a zillion laps but it is a very hard game this one but it feels great! I think apart from my AC lesson next week, I'm going to concentrate on this for a whole month and nothing else and see what kind of improvement I can make.

I would recommend you the ISI Megane and Nissan 370z as well. The Ferrari is really hard to master, but a lot of fun at the same time

 

[jimortality]

I would recommend you the ISI Megane and Nissan 370z as well. The Ferrari is really hard to master, but a lot of fun at the same time

Yeah beautiful car but difficult. I will try the Megane or Nissan as well and see how I get on cheers

 

[jimortality]

Still struggling. I think I'm reading too much information on forums about this game and with it being so technical it's proving a hinderance.

 

[jimortality]

Starting to really like this game now. Had a blast last night on SPA with Formula 3.5 and Austin. I love the feel of the tyres, my only gripe now is to make the circuits look better especially Austin. I read on ISI forums about DLL files and what not but it all goes over my head so If anyone can do an idiots guide on how to mess with files that would be great. Out of the 4 titles I currently have, this and GSCE are the ones I'm enjoying the most. I want to like them all but I'm not getting AC at all If I'm honest. It must be good because of the amount of people that play it and comment on it but I must be doing something wrong as I'm not feeling it like others. Same with RRE, I want to like it but it's just not right for me at the moment. Cheers

 

[Frederic Schornstein]

Starting to really like this game now. Had a blast last night on SPA with Formula 3.5 and Austin. I love the feel of the tyres, my only gripe now is to make the circuits look better especially Austin. I read on ISI forums about DLL files and what not but it all goes over my head so If anyone can do an idiots guide on how to mess with files that would be great. Out of the 4 titles I currently have, this and GSCE are the ones I'm enjoying the most. I want to like them all but I'm not getting AC at all If I'm honest. It must be good because of the amount of people that play it and comment on it but I must be doing something wrong as I'm not feeling it like others. Same with RRE, I want to like it but it's just not right for me at the moment. Cheers

I have the same problem with AC and RRE and I can tell you you are not alone. Quite a lot of people have that problem. Running a few public and club races I know why most of them have no problem, because they are going very slow.

 

[Gijs van Elderen]

Starting to really like this game now. Had a blast last night on SPA with Formula 3.5 and Austin. I love the feel of the tyres, my only gripe now is to make the circuits look better especially Austin. I read on ISI forums about DLL files and what not but it all goes over my head so If anyone can do an idiots guide on how to mess with files that would be great. Out of the 4 titles I currently have, this and GSCE are the ones I'm enjoying the most. I want to like them all but I'm not getting AC at all If I'm honest. It must be good because of the amount of people that play it and comment on it but I must be doing something wrong as I'm not feeling it like others. Same with RRE, I want to like it but it's just not right for me at the moment. Cheers

I wouldn't mess with DLL files.

My recommendation:
Use the "ctrl-f" button. You'll see your fps in top right corner. Change some graphic settings with max AI on the starting grid until you are happy. Keep your fps above 60fps at all time.

Then use V-sync at 60fps on video. note: Some 3rd party track/car combo's are more fps heavy then others. Tune down "circuit details" or "opponent details" or "texture details". Until you find the culprit.

If you have some time tonight. click here.

 

[jimortality]

I wouldn't mess with DLL files.

My recommendation:
Use the "ctrl-f" button. You'll see your fps in top right corner. Change some graphic settings with max AI on the starting grid until you are happy. Keep your fps above 60fps at all time.

Then use V-sync at 60fps on video. note: Some 3rd party track/car combo's are more fps heavy then others. Tune down "circuit details" or "opponent details" or "texture details". Until you find the culprit.

If you have some time tonight. click here.

Yeah if you see 2 posts above about me reading too much info, it was the dll stuff I was referring to. I'm getting 60 fps exactly last night but just some of the detail seems sparse. Maybe that's how these particular tracks have been made. The track of the Americas (Texas) great but looks very bland but I have also turned off HDR as someone mentioned that brightens it too much. Obviously being a novice and coming from nice shiny console graphics, maybe I'm expecting too much?? what do you reckon? As for your invite tonight then I will have to decline as I know the best way to learn is to race and I'm good with that but I won't even have time to do anything as by the time I get home from work and get sorted it would mean straight into the race and I need to learn this game more. I'm also trying to learn the Formula Vee cars so it's all a bit twitchy at the moment lol

 

[Jason Hunt]

I think it was me who talked about turning HDR off. I turned if off to reduce the garish colours and over-brightening of the track - particularly with using the cockpit view.

I wouldn't recommend it for all tracks but it certainly works for some of the hastily converted tracks. With HDR off they look like they were originally intended to look when running in rF1 or wherever they came from. HDR on makes some of them look terrible imo.

The downside to keeping HDR off is that everything looks dull and de-saturated.

If I'm using HDR, I normally drive in bonnet or bumper view to reduce the over-brightening effect.

If the tracks look sparse it's probably because they were designed that way.

As well as CTRL-F, try CTRL-A. This shows the graphics (green bars) and physics (purple bars) as a graph and you can see the impact the engine is having on your system.

For v-sync, I have the v-sync type set to video but I also change the fps setting in one of the json configuration files to 60. This way I can see when stutters occur as it's usually the green bar peaking for a split second. If I don't set the fps, the green bar is always maxed out - even though I'm still getting the 60fps from having v-sync on.

(not sure if that last sentence helps or confuses even more)

 

[Gijs van Elderen]

rFactor is a racing simulator developer: click here, who wants to reproduce a full racing experience from a to z. In my experience it can give all challenges a real driver has to overcome: Visual limitations at night, changing road conditions, tire management. This is why it's popular for endurance races.

Marc Webber's LeMans simulator test: click here: You can almost do the exact same thing at home:
You'll need the audi: click here, and the track, click here (track layout is an old version)

All these features has to be calculated. So under the hood it's a powerful simulator. A professional simulator doesn't alway's look hyper realistic, but the feeling should be realistic, and the challenges the driver has to overcome has to be realistic. These things are more importent to me that putting down a perfect hot-lap in a beautiful looking sim.

But i do agree that it's not a plug and play game out of the box.

 

[jimortality]

Helpful info as always thanks. Just on the Vsync issue, I've put mine on adaptive in the Nvidia control panel. Does this still work with RF2?

 

[jimortality]

This game is starting to get under my skin (in a good way) Just the feeling it gives you makes me sit there smiling like a Cheshire cat. I started out playing all 4 of my sims and I do like them all but I've narrowed it down to this and GSCE now as to the ones I can see me playing the most. I can't believe that more people aren't raving over it.