rFactor, the best motor racing game

rFactor, the best motor racing game

May 9th, 2009 | Opinion


rFactor is a motor racing video game that runs on PCs, it is an accurate simulation, rather than an arcade game. And it has gained a formidable reputation despite not coming from a major publisher and so not having massive marketing support.

rFactor is probably the most accurate motor racing simulator there has ever been. The attention to detail is phenomenal, hardly surprising when the developer, Image Space Incorporated (ISI), come from a background of developing simulators for commercial and military use.

Here are some features that I like:

• Distributed mainly online. Little old fashioned cardboard and plastic distribution.
• Really brilliant physics, the best of any racing game to date.
• Does not require the latest and most powerful PC. Just a 1.4 GHz processor CPU, 512 MB of RAM and 128 MB of video RAM.
• Lots of tools released by the developers to the users.
• Extremely modifiable and extend-able.
• Which in turn means that there is masses of user generated content, add ons and mods. A staggering amount.
• There is a really strong and active global community supporting the game.
• Well organised and extremely popular online play.
• Realism, realism, realism. No other racing game comes remotely as near to the real thing.

ISI have done many of the things I have written about on here before and as an online niche publisher with massive community input they are a great pointer to the future of video games.

original article: http://www.bruceongames.com/2009/05/09/rfactor-the-best-motor-racing-game/

 

It looks very impressive, and hopefully it means that nobody else will ever need to make another realistic F1 sim.

 

rofl

 

I like Live For Speed more because LFS covers amateur motorsport better. The simulation isn't as in-depth as it could be (clutch wear is very primitive) but it's a complete blast to play with your friends and rather cheap.

 

I figure an open community project could grow to encompass all kinds of motor sports, eventually.

My original comment was kind of a joke, sure, but there was also a serious point. Simulations aren't creative. And I don't mean that in a perjorative sense; I'm not saying that simulations are wrong or bad. But if you are trying to create the most complete and accurate simulation of something that you can, then you have a specific, concrete goal to aim for.

Leaving aside elements like UI, target platform, userbase and so on... if you have two games that are trying to be a totally accurate simulation of something, then the only difference between them is how much that accuracy is compromised. And as hardware improves and software goes through more iterations, we get closer and closer to that ideal, and there is less to differentiate the two games.

Eventually, through continued iteration, we will get to a point where the simulation is as broad and complete as anyone could want, the UI is as functional as anyone could want, and it runs on whatever. And we'll have the only simulator of that thing that we'll ever need. Maybe there would be two or more competing brands, but the distinction between them would be analogous to competing operating systems, or word processors. And people would find ways to import data from one to the other.

This is mostly the case for F1 sims and flight sims, and other things that, by their nature, are able to be physically simulated on a computer with a high degree of accuracy (unlike, say, martial arts combat - at least not with current interfaces). It is not the case for arcade racers, or any other kind of game that doesn't set out to be an accurate simulation. There are infinite unique permutations of those, and they will continue to be made as games have always been made... whereas sims will become larger and, eventually, monolithic.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qw9oX-kZ_9k

 

And as a side grumble: we should have already achieved that with billiards games by now; we've been making them for a quarter of a century and they were reasonably accurate right from the beginning. It should have been effectively "solved" by now.

So why a game like Bankshot Billiards 2 on the Xbox 360 doesn't let you do so much as customise the rules you want to play with is inexcusable. It's fucking Bankshot Billiards TWO and you still haven't covered all the bases properly?!?

 

I agree with the main thrust of your argument (in the sense that we are making games) but I suspect you do not know how far away from simulating real physics we really are. The stiff spring systems on F1 cars are very hard to solve accurately when you consider the nonlinearities caused by undulating terrain, bump stops etc. And noone even attempts to solve aerodynamic problems with cars. Imagine you might want to modify car shapes and get realistic results.
... But at least for games what we have is accurate enough for 99.5% of gamers.

 

This post started really well, but I was disappointed in the lack of sword-fighting metaphors through the rest of it.

 

rFactor boasts the following physics:

Physics Updated 15 degrees of freedom physics engine
Advanced tire modeling
Support for 4-link rear suspension
Engine boost modeling
Complex aerodynamics
Head physics, cockpit vibrations, detailed bump modeling
All-new track-specific terrain data file system


And there is this:

In the first review of rFactor, published on AutoSimSport, Jon Denton says:

What the tyre model in rFactor does very well is that it models the relationship between slip angle, self aligning torque and cornering force - and it does this better than anything that has come before.






This article contains some (out of date?) racing simulator comparisons:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_racing_simulators



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Do you know what this means? If not you might as well state it supports advanced-sword-physics (there haowan I got one in for you). Most racing engines address these issues and some more. Do not believe peoples own hype. That does not mean it is even close to accurate. Stick a game in the hands of a top class racing driver and they will soon tell you what is not right.
Again, the physics is accurate enough for most people - it is a game after all.

 

touché!