Simulating a real thing is tougher than making a fantasy. The end results can be measured against the real world and should be. People can have their own opinions but the numbers don't lie. Car magazines do comparison time trials at tracks. Developers can do the same thing with real cars vs. game cars. Hyping up a new tire or suspension model is ok but does it pass the test of realistic results.
Racing games need show off their realistic physics.
- Thread starter ctdc67
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MagpieRacer
Premium
- 16,559
- Wymondham, Norfolk
- MagpieRacer
Plenty have done in the past. Unfortunately it is totally irrelevant and even the most realistic sim will/should be faster than real life because the human fear factor and real life elements cannot be simulated.
- 84,449
- Rule 12
- GTP_Famine
Why? Crashes still hurt and still break your car no matter where you crash. Tell me you've never driven on a race track without telling me...
There are no consequences at all to crashing in a game. You can push the limit over and over again without ever being injured or mangling your car - either of which ends your day in real life - for thousands of laps, without ever using any expensive fuel, with your tyres always in perfect condition... and so on and so forth. There's no fear because there's no penalty for pushing it too far.
The potential fastest lap in a game that perfectly simulates real-world physics will always be faster than the fastest lap in reality.
- 12,783
- Cambridge
- Moglet85
- Moglet
There's only so far you can go with comparing real world laps with in-game ones. At some point you're always going to run into a difference that could affect the timings be that weather, track temperature, difference in tyres, driver weight, steering feedback etc. Without all of those being simulated and then matched up with real life you can't do a 100% accurate comparison even if the rest of the simulation is perfect. Which it rarely is because it doesn't make much sense financially to develop a super realistic simulation for public consumption. There are exceptions to this but the majority of racing games don't need to be super in depth in terms of simulating physics in order to sell well.
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Famine ; It's a dangerous job. LOL
Moglet ; You don't need to put it under a microscope. Take a Mustang on a sunny/ish day and 80 something degrees. There you go... (I will admit I hate seeing a car vs. bike video and it's a wet track)
Tell the TOP GEAR guys their score board is not accurate...
I think the most important thing is to get the same level of gamer and driver. If possible the best at both and adjust the game physics and time to results of the data.
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- 604
- Canada
- outsider819
I wouldn't even necessarily put it down to "fear," per se, I've met a few racing pilots of various disciplines over the years, they're not right in the head. What I would say is that there's simply too many factors involved that the games don't account for. Most of them seem to do pretty well with the cars themselves to a point, I don't think any of them have it exactly nailed, but when it comes to outside factors like track surface, environment, etc, they all miss things. Looking at track surface as an example, most tracks in most games are billiard table smooth and deliver a relatively consistent amount of grip. Watching the Indy race at Road America on the weekend, those cars were hopping and jumping all over the place. COTA is described by MotoGP riders as a virtually unrideable MX track in spots. The asphalt at Laguna Seca is so slippery, one driver who blogs about such things wrote "If you are coming from another track with a “normal” amount of grip, you will literally think something broke on your car," and that's before a windy day blows a bunch of sand onto the track. This is where they fall down a bit and this is just scratching the surface.
Scaff
Moderator
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- He/Him
- ScaffUK
I've met more than I can remember and none had a death-wish, not did many of them want to lose a job either, fear across it's broad spectrum is most certainly a consideration.
What titles are you playing? As outside of a small (and getting smaller) number of titles, most certainly do model it.
All I would say is give Sebring a go in RF2 or AC, and any title which allows a track to actually rubber in and has a decent road mesh.
Scaff
Moderator
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- ScaffUK
Then use /S or /Sarcasm at the end of your comment, as without sarcasm really doesn't come across well in the written form.
Safer, not 'very safe'. I've driven a few (current and past) and to claim that they are safe enough to completely remove 'fear' in any form (accident, mechanical damage, etc) completely is simply not true. Are you of the view that crossing a curb (particularly sausage ones) results in no issues at all for car and driver? Do you think that grass run-off is akin to how it behaves in games? As neither of those things is true, and even more so when you are running a road car on a race track. I've had cars wrecked from both of those on quite a few occasions when running product launches because an idiot thought the same as you.
In depth analysis of a cars behaviour in specific, isolated situations, ideally with the back-up of telemetry from both the sim and reality. Even then enough variables exists to mean you still do not have robust enough data for a 1:1 comparison. Titles such as AMS2 which use real-weather from a track on any given day in the past, that simulate track conditions (in terms of rubbering in, wear, etc) and has robust telemetry allow us to start, but titles such as GT7 are a long way from that right now.
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- 12,783
- Cambridge
- Moglet85
- Moglet
That's a good way of getting a game with physics that accurately match a RWD car on a specific track at a specific time of day with specific conditions, but then fall apart with other cars on other tracks in different conditions. It very quickly becomes an expensive exercise that isn't worth the cost. I'm sure that some simulators can make comparisons and they'll be fairly close to real life times but they're never going to match 100%, so where do you draw the line in terms of realism? What percentage would you be happy with? What percentage would the majority of the customer base be happy with? What about reviewers? Shareholders? The studio heads?
It's not. It's an entertainment show, not a time trial competition.
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- 3,719
- Null Island
Still waiting for a sim to delete either save files or uninstall itself after a hard crash because literal death is too hardcore.
They do. People have long claimed their favourite game is accurate because they've set a lap time similar to a real lap time. They just happen to ignore the thousands of variables that may be different whilst still ending up with the same result. Sometimes they can be obvious, like the game lap being much slower in corners but much faster on the straights, which levels out to the same time. Does that make it accurate? No. Even if you do show that the cornering speeds and straight line speeds match in your matched lap times, how do you know that's because everything was accurate, and not that one thing was off a little bit, another thing was off a little bit, and together the errors resulted in the same lap time. What if the simulated weight was a few grams lower than real life?
Also to answer your broad question, why don't more games advertise their realistic physics? It's quite simple. In a sample size of 10 million potential racing game buyers, probably 50,000 or less care greatly about the physics. The hardcore playerbase. The other 9.95 million care only to varying levels from "not at all" to "I'd like it to feel pretty realistic, but I'll still buy it anyway", they're far more interested in how it looks, and all the flashy stuff.
Pleasing the people who are into hardcore physics also tend to be MUCH harder, because they're so particular about how they think the game should handle. So why would you put so much time and effort into trying to please a tiny minority of players who probably still won't buy it anyway.
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- 24,608
- Anoka, MN
"Realistic" is just a marketing term in the commercially available sim racing world. Ultimately even the super cereal ones have to make concessions in order to properly translate the feel of driving a moving object at high speeds into something that feels realistic to someone sitting in a stationary position.
In other words, there's a reason the rigs top level teams use cost more than most people's entire setup's just to rent for a day and take up an insane amount of space.
In other words, there's a reason the rigs top level teams use cost more than most people's entire setup's just to rent for a day and take up an insane amount of space.
I would say ask Anthoine Hubert how safe he thinks modern GP tracks are, but sadly that's not possible.
"Realistic" is just a marketing term in the commercially available sim racing world. Ultimately even the super cereal ones have to make concessions in order to properly translate the feel of driving a moving object at high speeds into something that feels realistic to someone sitting in a stationary position.
In other words, there's a reason the rigs top level teams use cost more than most people's entire setup's just to rent for a day and take up an insane amount of space.
I would say ask Anthoine Hubert how safe he thinks modern GP tracks are, but sadly that's not possible.
In Realistic I am talking about car performance physics. The G-forces, seating ergonomics and many more aren't represented.
Was he alone on the track? Did you ever see the amount of people that die in car wrecks daily..
For the serious posters give a better way of showing a game is the most realistic representative that is available besides paying a race car driver influencer.
- 24,608
- Anoka, MN
Which is exactly my point. How can something be "realistic" if it doesn't even simulate quite a few things that directly impact the real world activity?
Driving simulators are sort of like biopics, they all use artistic license to hopefully tell the story more effectively.
Obviously I can't post the video, but if you have seen the footage you would know exactly what I'm getting at. The part of the track he crashed on was notorious for shooting the car back onto the racing line after the initial impact, it's part of the reason they completely redid that area of the track.
First post into this conversation and already going for thinly veiled personal digs? That does not bode well for your argument my friend, do better.
- 11,327
- Marin County
It's not impossible for an incredibly unrealistic fantasy racing game to deliver the exact same lap times around a given circuit as the same car on the same circuit in real life. It's not a really fool-proof way to validate a physics engine.
McLaren
Premium
- 44,474
- Texas
Since you've brought these rigs up & the element of fear is arguably the major factor in this discussion, I'm wondering:
Do professional racing drivers in these team rigs, whether it's Hamilton, Verstappen, or guys in Indy/GT/etc., spend their time in the rigs with discipline & use the element of fear to better replicate their approach on the real world circuit or will even they throw caution to the wind to get an idea of what they might be able to do?
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Scaff
Moderator
- 29,034
- He/Him
- ScaffUK
Tactile units go some way on g-forces, motion rigs go further, I've a seat in my rig that is a match for many I've had in cars (and in some cases better), still doesn't make it a 1:1 experience. None of which makes lap times a good measure at all, we've had people stating title X is accurate as they can match lap times further back than GT4 and the original Forza, doesn't make it true.
So not only have you clearly never been on a racetrack, you also don't know motorsport and can't use google.
I have, you ignored it, favouring a continuation of your diatribe of ignorance.
SestoScudo
(Banned)
- 3,000
- Australia
- Decepticon 47
Lmao they are videogames at the end of the day playing Cod or BF does not make you a soldier.
Same story here. You cant replicate real life.
Same story here. You cant replicate real life.
- 5,429
- Paint booth
- FMecha_EXE
Xpand Rally has a permadeath feature, for starters.
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