On 4/21/2011 10:44 PM, Andrew MacPherson wrote:
> (William Bradshaw) wrote:
>
>> I should probably get in touch with the guys at Sim Racing Tonight
>> and ask 'em not to review what is currently out for Top Sim Car.
>
> :-) To be harsh but fair, I'm not sure many people pay much attention to SRT. I
> kind of appreciate their efforts without actually finding them very useful. They
> fall into the same category as all other kinds of 'official' reviewing, where they
> can't afford to bite the hand that feeds them. And as the community feeds them zero
> in this instance that's fair enough!
>
> My own review of the mod goes something along the lines of... "good grief! I can't
> believe how much easier to drive these are than iRacing's cars!" This may or may
> not be a good thing. :-)

Truth be told, I've recently renewed my iRacing for a month and bought
their NASCAR Cup car...the Impala A or whatever they call it. Granted,
I'm still using a Momo wheel and Act Labs pedals, but no damn way is
that car realistic in regards to wheel input. With the Momo, the damn
thing is just way too twitchy to handle.

A pal of mine works for NASCAR and has given me some info about what
range the current springs are used in real life Cup series. Tried to use
those numbers and had zero success with a stable car. Those stiff front
springs are not used this day in age, and that has been an issue with
their software since NR2003 came out.

Personally, I hate to pay for that kind of inaccuracy. I'm hedging bets
on the new tire model. Sounds good, can't wait to try it.

>> I think most people (AKA sim racers) can agree that graphics
>> doesn't define a sim, but the physics in the background. So far,
>> it's been promising from their updates.
>
> Oh absolutely. iRacing have proved, among other things, that you certainly don't
> have to have flash-bang-whizzy graphics effects to be satisfyingly immersive.
>
> Having said that, in the long, lonely races I tended to have I would have
> appreciated a helicopter flying over occasionally to break the monotony. :->

I know the feeling!

>> Frankly, I got tired of the NSS cars not reacting as the real
>> life counterparts do!
>
> Which is a very good reason to lack motivation.
>
>> That, and I'm tired of seeing huge numbers of VHR
>> servers on the in-game server listing. lol.
>
> :-) I can imagine that must be pretty demoralising. As a past master of wasted time
> on under-appreciated projects I can feel a little of your pain.

It has been in the past, as far as I've heard from Alley. I'm just
focused on releasing as close to a 1:1 mod as I can and let the chips
fall where they may. NSS seems to be quite the underdog, though.
Accepted in some groups, but never really gained the hold like SCE or VHR.

>> Agreed. It's kind of strange of them to hype up the great damage
>> modeling and graphics, but not care about the physics so much.
>
> The same mystery applies to so many projects, including my current experience of
> Shift2. You'd think by now, with so much processor power available, even on
> consoles (compared to early sims), it would be relatively "easy" to approximate
> some kind of reality. Not iRacing standards, but good enough.
>
> I really do think those darned hand-held game controllers are to blame. If we were
> serious about improving sim racing we'd develop the very best, cheapest handheld
> controller, boosting the analogue stick controls in some clever way so that much
> better car control was possible, meaning devs had to work a little harder at car
> control... which, being realistic, would probably mean they'd just boost the aids.
> But a man can dream!

Even with consoles, it's easy to properly port over from PC to console
if they do the input correctly. But nobody does. But yeah, I feel like a
lot of 'em today are more focused on the eye candy and would prefer to
ease up on the realism factor. Granted, kids today are spoiled by high
rez textures. So I doubt they would accept solid physics and graphics
from 2005. I still find it hard to believe that Gran Turismo 5 is hailed
as the kind of console sim racers.

>> Also heard they outright cancelled release in Europe.
>
> Well, oval racing really *is* completely unknown to and ignored by most Europeans,
> so it was probably never going to sell. However the PS3 version isn't region locked,
> so we can at least import it if we want. I just don't want at current prices.

Agreed, at least it isn't region locked...like you said. I've seen a
number of posts where folks over there were quite upset over the
announcement. IMO, that company needs all the support they can get.
Especially since the dev's themselves are based in Europe.


-Will