So we've got a big year for PC sim racing, potentially 4 sims, but the 3 most likely are Assetto Corsa, Reiza's Ayrton Senna and GTR3, and who knows, we might get lucky and pcars ends up being close enough to be worthy.
That being the case, and also some of the comments surrounding the enthusiasm for Game Stock Car, I thought it appropriate to create this thread in a bid to define a sim, and also shamelessly copy Inside Sim Racings Sim/Game index, ie, one score for the sim aspect of the game, and another for the overall game itself.
To put the sim/game index into perspective{at least from my POV}.....FM4/GT5 would destroy Game Stock Car on the game index, but GSC would be pole position on the sim index.
Anyway, let's focus on the definition of a sim first, and then factor in the scoring indexes.
The best way to define something and largely if not totally distinguish something from something else is to break it down into it's fundamental parts, so what exactly are the minimum requirements for a game to be a sim.
Being that a racing sim is supposed to be simulating motor racing, it seems that the car itself is the focal point, in particular and in this order....
1...Driving model/physics
2...Steering wheel precision
3...Forcefeedback aka FFB
It's also very hard to remove any of these factors from the def of a sim IMO, but I know some people race without FFB, I don't know why, nor do I care as I'll never do it, FFB is way too important to the simulating part, even if zero FFB perhaps allows for a sneaky performance advantage.
1....Driving model.
Consider RACE07's F3000, thx to it's strong power to weight and the physics simbin chose, that car has a great range of car behaviour, but one thing to remember is that I have no idea of how realistic some of the cars are in the sense that at 260kph, the shortest braking distance is x mtrs, what I do know is that the F3000 is the fastest car round any track in Simbins games[excluding F1 mod/s], and you can brake very late relative to every other car, so US Muscle Cars{1800kg} have enormous braking distances.
There's also the technique of applying the brake and how the brakes respond to your technique and your set up, so for example, at Curitiba, a heavy front bias will swing you wide into that SOB of a left hander in the early part of the 2nd sector....but this is good, because it means not only does the car respond to set up, but braking technique as well....all good from the POV of simulating.
I remember when I raced F1 2010 online for a few weeks, only to come back to GTR Evo totally useless on the brakes, and I certainly don't recall either F1 2010/11 being anywhere as demanding under brakes, ie, you didn't need to have a definite technique beyond mashing the brake pedal, so when we start to analyse games vs games, we can quickly determine major differences....not to mention how hard it was to get either 20/2011 out of shape off the line, heck even Evo's 286bhp WTCC things will fly across the track if you're not careful at the start.
Anyway, without going into huge amounts of detail, the best sim driving model has the most car behaviour and the manner in which the car behaves closely approximates the real thing.
2....Steering wheel precision.
This one isn't too complicated and is heavily related to FFB, but for example, having a 1:1 relationship with your own wheel and what the onscreen car is doing is obviously fairly important, as is how the wheel feels thru-out the full range of motion and when your snapping at it in a bid to correct a slide....so if the game has good physics and the wheel is precise, you should be able to disco with the car so to speak, but with dodgy precision and weak and inconsistent FFB, it moves to the realm of guesswork as to maximizing your driving performance.
3....FFB
Critical to the enjoyment of sim racing and an area where sims typically wallop arcade games, but I'm not someone who likes huge amounts of FFB, so my FFB settings are usually around the 80-85% range.
One of the things I noticed with G27 is how fast and smooth it is when you're somewhere near the limit, it's impressive that it can load up yet be so smooth no matter if you're swinging left to right trying to avoid intercourse with a guardrail.
Also, after getting the G27, I realized how damn notchy and sluggish feeling the DFGT wheel is.....plus, when you do one lap with a G27 vs DFGT, the improvement isn't so apparent, but as I said, once you get motoring, the extra dollars you've put into the wheel becomes very noticeable, but of course if the game didn't have the overall quality of FFB, you'd be none the wiser.
Ok, let's take a deep breath....... and we're back.
I hope you can see that it's hard to accept a sim that lacks heavily in any of these area's and also why a decent wheel greatly improves the sim experience, but for those who say something like, hang on, GSC doesn't have wet weather, but does that mean grossly arcade Dirt3 is a sim because it does have wet weather.....of course not, especially considering how arcadey Dirt3 is in the scheme of things and even compared to Dirt2.
Another thing to consider is that the nature of sim racing is such that you do more practice than u race, well at least I do, and if you have a game that has a good driving model, it'll reward you for good racing technique, so the better you apply racing technique, the faster and smoother you'll be.
People can't accidentally go fast over the course of a race let alone a sector just by guessing or by having good reflexes......you go fast by applying racing technique, which in essence is smooth braking leading to a tight racing line and controlled exit out the corner.
Anyway, if you agree with what I've said by and large, then it should be obvious the sim index is an average score of factors 1/2/3...but a game index is an average of all factors of the game like GFX, car lists etc.
Ok, so let's try Ferrari Virtual Academy vs Shift2 Unleashed....all scores out of 10
FVA sim index
1...9.25
2...9.5
3...9.25
---------
9.35 on the sim index....and remember, this is just my guess, and it doesn't necessarily matter if I'm wrong compared to other sims, all that matters is that I'm relative, ie, I don't have to know for certain which sim is the most realistic, I just have to score it relative to other sims, for ex, I do think FVA has slightly better wheel precision than GTR evo, so evo would get a score below 9.5, but Evo's score will most likely always be higher than any arcade game.
S2U sim index
1.....3
2....5
3....7.5
---------
5.2......ouch, and again, just my opinion, but with the sway and all the other driving/physics related problems with this game, I think I'm being generous, as I'll never play this game again nor would I ever recommend it to anyone.
FVA game index....well, obviously this will include everything else the game does, and by this criteria, it's gonna get creamed by S2U, but does it matter, does it matter if S2U game index is 8 vs 6 for FVA, when the sim index is sky high for FVA....?.....it will if you're a sim player.
As for the details of the game index, basically not much diff to ISR, they have the right idea I think, but this type of scoring is what's needed to prop up games like FVA and GSC to those who prefer sims, and I hope we can work together as a forum and put the various genuine sims at least on the sim index so that people will have an idea of whether it's a viable sim, and maybe a decent game if it has enough of the other goodies, like Assetto Corsa GFX.
That being the case, and also some of the comments surrounding the enthusiasm for Game Stock Car, I thought it appropriate to create this thread in a bid to define a sim, and also shamelessly copy Inside Sim Racings Sim/Game index, ie, one score for the sim aspect of the game, and another for the overall game itself.
To put the sim/game index into perspective{at least from my POV}.....FM4/GT5 would destroy Game Stock Car on the game index, but GSC would be pole position on the sim index.
Anyway, let's focus on the definition of a sim first, and then factor in the scoring indexes.
The best way to define something and largely if not totally distinguish something from something else is to break it down into it's fundamental parts, so what exactly are the minimum requirements for a game to be a sim.
Being that a racing sim is supposed to be simulating motor racing, it seems that the car itself is the focal point, in particular and in this order....
1...Driving model/physics
2...Steering wheel precision
3...Forcefeedback aka FFB
It's also very hard to remove any of these factors from the def of a sim IMO, but I know some people race without FFB, I don't know why, nor do I care as I'll never do it, FFB is way too important to the simulating part, even if zero FFB perhaps allows for a sneaky performance advantage.
1....Driving model.
Consider RACE07's F3000, thx to it's strong power to weight and the physics simbin chose, that car has a great range of car behaviour, but one thing to remember is that I have no idea of how realistic some of the cars are in the sense that at 260kph, the shortest braking distance is x mtrs, what I do know is that the F3000 is the fastest car round any track in Simbins games[excluding F1 mod/s], and you can brake very late relative to every other car, so US Muscle Cars{1800kg} have enormous braking distances.
There's also the technique of applying the brake and how the brakes respond to your technique and your set up, so for example, at Curitiba, a heavy front bias will swing you wide into that SOB of a left hander in the early part of the 2nd sector....but this is good, because it means not only does the car respond to set up, but braking technique as well....all good from the POV of simulating.
I remember when I raced F1 2010 online for a few weeks, only to come back to GTR Evo totally useless on the brakes, and I certainly don't recall either F1 2010/11 being anywhere as demanding under brakes, ie, you didn't need to have a definite technique beyond mashing the brake pedal, so when we start to analyse games vs games, we can quickly determine major differences....not to mention how hard it was to get either 20/2011 out of shape off the line, heck even Evo's 286bhp WTCC things will fly across the track if you're not careful at the start.
Anyway, without going into huge amounts of detail, the best sim driving model has the most car behaviour and the manner in which the car behaves closely approximates the real thing.
2....Steering wheel precision.
This one isn't too complicated and is heavily related to FFB, but for example, having a 1:1 relationship with your own wheel and what the onscreen car is doing is obviously fairly important, as is how the wheel feels thru-out the full range of motion and when your snapping at it in a bid to correct a slide....so if the game has good physics and the wheel is precise, you should be able to disco with the car so to speak, but with dodgy precision and weak and inconsistent FFB, it moves to the realm of guesswork as to maximizing your driving performance.
3....FFB
Critical to the enjoyment of sim racing and an area where sims typically wallop arcade games, but I'm not someone who likes huge amounts of FFB, so my FFB settings are usually around the 80-85% range.
One of the things I noticed with G27 is how fast and smooth it is when you're somewhere near the limit, it's impressive that it can load up yet be so smooth no matter if you're swinging left to right trying to avoid intercourse with a guardrail.
Also, after getting the G27, I realized how damn notchy and sluggish feeling the DFGT wheel is.....plus, when you do one lap with a G27 vs DFGT, the improvement isn't so apparent, but as I said, once you get motoring, the extra dollars you've put into the wheel becomes very noticeable, but of course if the game didn't have the overall quality of FFB, you'd be none the wiser.
Ok, let's take a deep breath....... and we're back.
I hope you can see that it's hard to accept a sim that lacks heavily in any of these area's and also why a decent wheel greatly improves the sim experience, but for those who say something like, hang on, GSC doesn't have wet weather, but does that mean grossly arcade Dirt3 is a sim because it does have wet weather.....of course not, especially considering how arcadey Dirt3 is in the scheme of things and even compared to Dirt2.
Another thing to consider is that the nature of sim racing is such that you do more practice than u race, well at least I do, and if you have a game that has a good driving model, it'll reward you for good racing technique, so the better you apply racing technique, the faster and smoother you'll be.
People can't accidentally go fast over the course of a race let alone a sector just by guessing or by having good reflexes......you go fast by applying racing technique, which in essence is smooth braking leading to a tight racing line and controlled exit out the corner.
Anyway, if you agree with what I've said by and large, then it should be obvious the sim index is an average score of factors 1/2/3...but a game index is an average of all factors of the game like GFX, car lists etc.
Ok, so let's try Ferrari Virtual Academy vs Shift2 Unleashed....all scores out of 10
FVA sim index
1...9.25
2...9.5
3...9.25
---------
9.35 on the sim index....and remember, this is just my guess, and it doesn't necessarily matter if I'm wrong compared to other sims, all that matters is that I'm relative, ie, I don't have to know for certain which sim is the most realistic, I just have to score it relative to other sims, for ex, I do think FVA has slightly better wheel precision than GTR evo, so evo would get a score below 9.5, but Evo's score will most likely always be higher than any arcade game.
S2U sim index
1.....3
2....5
3....7.5
---------
5.2......ouch, and again, just my opinion, but with the sway and all the other driving/physics related problems with this game, I think I'm being generous, as I'll never play this game again nor would I ever recommend it to anyone.
FVA game index....well, obviously this will include everything else the game does, and by this criteria, it's gonna get creamed by S2U, but does it matter, does it matter if S2U game index is 8 vs 6 for FVA, when the sim index is sky high for FVA....?.....it will if you're a sim player.
As for the details of the game index, basically not much diff to ISR, they have the right idea I think, but this type of scoring is what's needed to prop up games like FVA and GSC to those who prefer sims, and I hope we can work together as a forum and put the various genuine sims at least on the sim index so that people will have an idea of whether it's a viable sim, and maybe a decent game if it has enough of the other goodies, like Assetto Corsa GFX.
