Beam NG Drive

  • Thread starter JR98
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That's pretty neat, and I like some of the additional generic models they've added since the last time I looked at this, too. It's to a point now where I would think about buying in if not for the fact that my laptop would choke just trying to run it on the lowest settings.
 
Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm picking this up on pay day. I've been watching videos of it for a while now, but how's the FFB? The current tech demo is lacking in that regard, or so I've been told.
 
This is a fun simulator but it's not really a "game" yet. All you really do is drive around and crash into things, which does get boring eventually. The cars are so fragile that turning this into a racing game would probably never work so not sure what they are going to do with it.

Either way I still enjoy firing it up every now and then and destroying some vehicles.
 
TiZzla
This is a fun simulator but it's not really a "game" yet. All you really do is drive around and crash into things, which does get boring eventually. The cars are so fragile that turning this into a racing game would probably never work so not sure what they are going to do with it.

Either way I still enjoy firing it up every now and then and destroying some vehicles.
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Not entirely just crashing things. There's missions as well.
 
With enough different maps and roads or trails or obstacles of interest, a lack of objectives wouldn't bother me that much, but the fragility of the vehicles is a more significant problem. When I last tried the free demo, the pickup truck wouldn't just understeer, it would skitter and hop because the tie rods were wiggling like noodles.
 
A modder on BeamNG has skinned the new Burnside to my exact liking. Meet the Burnside Monte Carlo, or the Burnside Gordini
 

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They finally optimised this game, mainly scaling the tree textures so the maps with dense forest areas don't hog so much processing power. Looks worse but the higher frame rate looks great, really needs new sounds though. Every car has the same audio which is a bit weird. Also SMAA has replaced FXAA so everything looks nice and smooth.
 
I realize this is mainly a crashing game, but how is the actual driving physics? And can you use a wheel with it?

The sandbox style gameplay intrigues me, but I'm afraid it's gonna feel like one of those games where after 1 hour the novelty factor wears off and you don't have anything to do. It also seems like one of those games that is perpetually stuck in Early Access...
 
LeGeNd-1
I realize this is mainly a crashing game, but how is the actual driving physics? And can you use a wheel with it?

The sandbox style gameplay intrigues me, but I'm afraid it's gonna feel like one of those games where after 1 hour the novelty factor wears off and you don't have anything to do. It also seems like one of those games that is perpetually stuck in Early Access...
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Physics are decent. Not a simulator, since it's not what the game is intended for, but it's definitely not arcade either. The developers are constantly tweaking the physics, and so far, the game feels really good. There are race tracks in the game and some missions do require racing. I would compare the physics somewhat similar to the old Driver games, or GTA 4 (kind of wobbly and mushy) but with a much more defined weight transfer, oversteer and understeer.

As for the mechanics, you can customize almost every aspect of the vehicles, to the most technical detail. Differentials, brakes, engine, tire pressure, suspension and such. It's a lot of fun actually. You can actually modify, delete or swap almost every part of the car on the spot just to see how different they feel.

Game does support wheels. I play it with my G27, and as long as the car is equipped with a manual transmission, you can even select an H-Shifter option with clutch and it will work just fine. Force Feedback is also functional, although it is a bit strong (it can be adjusted), and it will go berserk if you break your steering or suspension.

This is not a game that you will buy to spend hours on it. It's more of a novelty and an experimental thing. It is worth having, I assure you, but don't think of it as a replacement for any other racing game. My sessions are usually 20 minutes at the most, but I personally couldn't live without it. As a sandbox, there are tons of things to do. You can even program AI cars, set props and other stuff to do whatever you want.

As for the Early Access thing, this game is being constantly updated, improved and new content is added almost in a monthly basis. The developers are amazing when it comes to that, as well with listening to the fans. With the Career mode soon to be released, the game will finally go to Beta.

The games has hundreds of fully supported mods, so there is always more content to add. Just check my video above. That's actually Trial Mountain from Gran Turismo :D
 
I have been looking at BeamNG Drive lately, most notably as a separate game to play with Automation. I have played "Rigs of Rods" again after so long, but RoR is more towards heavy trucks and not much on regular cars and sports cars. This game makes even the included Dodge Viper and Chevrolet Camaro feel like bulky trucks. So as I look at "BeamNG: Drive," this tends to have an environment better suited to average cars rather than heavy trucks or commercial vehicles. My only concern about trying to get this game is that my PC may not handle a few specifications listed on Steam for this game. However, since I was fairly impressed with "Rigs of Rods," "BeamNG Drive" seems like a worthy evolution of Rigs of Rods.

Again- I am looking to get BeamNG Drive mostly as a compliment to Automation. I may still want BeamNG Drive to play without Automation, though.
 
I picked up "BeamNG Drive" on Steam recently. I didn't spend too much time, but I did try to adjust a lot of graphics settings. I got it down to about as much as a high 640x480 setting. I have always learned "BeamNG Drive" as an evolution of "Rigs of Rods." "Rigs of Rods," though, is more focused on trucks and mostly commercial vehicles. "BeamNG Drive," however, is more like a sandbox of racing and driving. It is not a racing sim. However, this is one of few racing/driving games where you could pretty much do whatever driving you want. You probably could even want to test out your maps or cars casually before making them for other games (granted you are doing so). I'd say "BeamNG Drive" is worth the money. You do need to tweak settings if you like to try to get the game to work for you if you don't really have the base requirements.

I do like this game a lot from my initial runs. I don't really regret my purchase even though I don't really have the requirements. These comments I made just now are about the same comments I've made about "Assetto Corsa."
 
You know, I am pretty impressed with the driving dynamics of "BeamNG Drive." This is pretty much the most interesting sandbox racing/driving game in existence. It is a real do-anything kind of game in all kinds of situations and in all kinds of maps. Some people have created brutal maps for vehicles. I guess I like that you have a lot of open maps you can explore. Since I don't have the skill to build intricate levels, nor do I have a PC that can handle "BeamNG Drive" decently, I may mostly have to stick to designing basic courses and maps to drive vehicles around. I even like how this game has a combination of driving dynamics for tarmac, non-tarmac, and even something for true trucking types, such as rock climbing.

With low settings, I found 640x480 and 800x600 tend to work best for me. The 800x600 resolution makes it so that the speedometer doesn't mostly dominate most of the screen. A decent system is needed to play this game. Yet still, I want to enjoy this game to where I don't feel like I'd rather stick with "Rigs of Rods" since I can't handle the performance requirements of "BeamNG Drive."
 
JohnBM01
The 800x600 resolution makes it so that the speedometer doesn't mostly dominate most of the screen. A decent system is needed to play this game. Yet still, I want to enjoy this game to where I don't feel like I'd rather stick with "Rigs of Rods" since I can't handle the performance requirements of "BeamNG Drive."
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You can replace the standard speedo with a few smaller versions in the "APP" menu.
 
Thanks for the advice on shrinking down the tachometer! Knowing the limitations of my PC, I think I am going to develop my own Freeroam environment(s) to have something a bit more interesting to drive on without having to use the completely flat gridmap. One of my primary reasons why I bought "BeamNG Drive" was for essentially an all-purpose test bed for designing locations and vehicles. I had these plans initially for "Rigs of Rods" as well. However, "BeamNG Drive" is better at multiple vehicle types while RoR is better suited to heavy commercial trucks and other heavy vehicles.

Back to the locations thing for a moment. I was inspired by an earlier post of someone making Trial Mountain for "BeamNG Drive." So you could build a location and be able to test it to your heart's content, granted you do all the necessary stuff to get it to be properly implemented into "BeamNG Drive."

I haven't yet tried the Automation-BeamNG car exporting yet. So I can't say I've developed a machine I could then put into "BeamNG Drive." I almost wanted to try making a completely from scratch vehicle to try in "BeamNG Drive." As I have been trying to learn new techniques in 3D modeling, I feel I may one day develop some vehicle(s) to try out in "BeamNG Drive." The vehicle tutorial stuff is what I am reading from the Wiki page of BeamNG Drive's website.

Finally, I think I am respecting "BeamNG Drive" a lot as a simulation driver rather than just a crash-fest. In a lot of ways, I am kind of thinking of "BeamNG Drive" as a modern "Hard Drivn'" or "Race Drivin'" if you ever played either or both games. You know- two games that have simulation characteristics while also offering rather intense environments. There have been people who even said the wheel usage and such is great for this game. So while the game is praised for its crashing, the driving dynamics are quite great in "BeamNG Drive."
 
East Coast, USA. Utah, USA. West Coast, USA. Next? According to stuff I read on Twitter today, the BeamNG.Drive crew are working on a map for Italy. I've heard this Italy map is going to be as big or bigger than West Coast. It is supposed to be part of some update to come later this month from what I've been reading.
 
Ciao, Italy! Check it:


Excited for some driving in lovely Italy? I can already sense some nightmare drives with the narrow streets. For you Gran Turismo types, this may spark memories of Citta di Aria, Costa di Amalfi, and all the Toscana stuff. I would imagine this is going to be pretty dope to drive in BeamNG Drive.
 
The update is out today! Just started playing with the new car and map, already enjoying it for what couple minutes I've spent. These are the kind of switchback roads I wanted with the Forza Horizon series.
 
An admittance of mine is that Italy has been the country I have been most fond of lately. Maybe it is mostly because of Tuscany/Toscana. So I can semi relate to Italy's beauty. All I do know is that Italy is not a bad place to have BeamNG adventures in with its combination of tarmac and non-tarmac locales. I certainly want to see what certain streamers and YouTubers do with Italy- folks like Draegast, FailRace, WhyBeAre, and others.

I may or may not try Italy since I fear my PC can't handle every minute detail of such large maps.
 
Earlier this week, I saw YouTuber Neilogical do the Italy map. Not only is there the Italy map, but also a new car that kind of is a hybrid of a vintage Volkswagen Beetle and a vintage Fiat 500. The Italy map looks to have a whole lot of country roads and even a few Italian villages. Despite all the detail, I'm told the Italy map for BeamNG Drive is not really intensive. I even heard the Italy map took about two years to develop. So you know BeamNG didn't squander or downsize trying to make this map special.

Italy honestly seems like a map I would enjoy. In a way, the Italy map reminds me of what I've seen with Forza Horizon 4 as far as having a fairly even balance of on-road and off-road venues along with some urban driving areas. I did download the new updates through Steam. However, I haven't tried the new updates. Or maybe I fear my PC couldn't handle this massive map.
 
Memory fears confirmed. I attempted to load the Italy map (in Safe Mode, mind you), and the game said something along the lines of needing more RAM to load the level. So I will likely avoid playing this map until I upgrade my PC's RAM. If it were up to me, I would probably want to add RAM and also get a fairly decent processor. I had this current PC since about 2014, and I never bothered to open it up to see what I could upgrade. I know I can get this thing up to about 8GB of RAM. Other than that, I am not sure.
 
Surprised this goes back to 2018, Oh well. Finally got a gaming PC so i picked this up after years of watching videos on it and being mesmerized by the damage engine and physics. So much fun.
New update is great too. I love the WRC versions of the new car.
 
Darla Starch
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Meanwhile, still having fun breaking the game. 10000kg box v.s not-Fiat 500 smol pizza boi, who wins?
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I would ask for a picture of the aftermath but i guess some vaporisation occured:lol:
 
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