Hate to burst your bubble mate, but I've been racing Formula Ford for the past 3 years and in my humble opinion, sims (even iRacing) are nothing like driving a car. It's not just me though, a lot of friends that race higher powered cars have come to the same conclusion.
It matters little how many physics related calculations a sim performs per second or how good the physics engine is. Unless you are sitting in a real car, on a real track, with real feedback, the quality of the physics is irrelevant.
At best, sims have helped me remember a few tracks, and honestly, even the F1 Team Simulators are only used for the same reason.
That's why I don't care if Forza auto-corrects steering, or if I'm at a mates house who doesn't have a steering wheel or if the physics in F1 2010 are nothing like what an open wheel car feels like.
I'd love to see some of the "sim-elitists" among us miss their braking marker at turn 1, at over 230km in real lifeand see how well your GT5 experience has prepared you.
Unless you a in a real car, its a game, always will be. Treat it accordingly.
video games and real life?!? Wow what did I miss here? lol Come on a sim game will always be a sim game, never ever compare to real life racing for God sakes. It simulates how the cars look in real life but it will never simulate how a real car reacts on track, PERIOD!
While I quite agree that no racing sim will ever match the real thing, the forces at work and the sheer number of variables involved are impossible to fully recreate.
However to move to the complete opposite end of the spectrum and imply that no correlation at all exist is just as inaccurate as saying a sim can be perfect.
In particular this bit....
It simulates how the cars look in real life but it will never simulate how a real car reacts on track, PERIOD!
...you may want to look up what the word
simulates means, because its perfectly possible for a game to simulate how a car reacts with a track. Its however far more difficult for it to replicate it to 100% accuracy, and there-in lies the difference.
Its all a matter of degrees, even the likes of PGR and Burnout 'simulate' how a car acts, they just do it at a very low level, they are still however bound by a rough set of 'laws' that govern how the car, tyres, etc react. That the do it at a very base level does not change the fact that the word simulate can still be applied to it.
As you move up the 'food-chain' of what are known as sims, then the level of accuracy and the number of variables in the simulation increases and it gets more accurate, its simply that it can never achieve 100% accuracy, because that would be an exact 1:1 model with reality.
To give a little context to what I am saying here (and a number of people will be aware of this) I have a background in the motor industry, I have taught driver skills to both dealership staff and customers, I've delivered vehicle dynamics training and managed the product launch training for over two dozen different models. I currently act as a training consultant to the motor industry in the UK and Europe.
The argument being put forward that a sim is effectively so far from reality as to be useless flies in the face of what I have personally experienced.
Yes sane boundaries have to be drawn, but a correlation and use for simulation does exists and is used. Now while at a level beyond what is available for 'home use', manufactures have used simulators for a wide variety of applications during the design and set-up processes of a new cars development. No it can't ever 100% replicate the need for the real thing, but it does help out one hell of a lot.
So while I agree with your point to a degree, I feel you are both in danger of going far to far the other way.
Sims most definitely do replicate the actions of a car, they just don't do it with 100% accuracy and that accuracy will vary from title to title.
Now what degree is 'right' and should be aimed for is another discussion entirely.
Scaff
Ugh, I guess what I wrote went over you head. YES, the 360 can output 1080p - but NOT natively. When set to 1080p, what you are seeing on your TV is an upscaled 720p image. Just the same as with an upscaling DVD player set to 1080p, your TV will register a 1080p signal, but it is not TRUE 1080p - it is UPSCALED, ala, NOT 1:1 pixel mapping. Because of this, every game on the 360 that says it supports 1080p on the back is actually using false marketing because it's really just 720p.
