racing sim recommendation

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Zathra5_

Zathra5_

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Goes_To_11 GTP_GoesTo11
Hey guys,

I'm new to racing sims in general and I'm looking for a recommendation for a racing sim game that I can run on my Macbook pro. I only have 128mb of video memory which appears to be a limitation on what I can run. I would be running it under XP not os x and using my G25 as a wheel. I'm not terribly interested in formula one or NASCAR. I'm more interested in GT class cars or prototypes on road tracks. Basically I need something that I can play on my computer while my wife is hogging the TV. Thanks in advance.
 
rFactor
It's cheap, you can DL it online.. and heck load of FREE MODS, like the F1 mods, Nascar Mods, etc.. As well other cars and tracks, sky is limit with that one.. Its good one for G25...

And Get a Better PC so you can play other racing games ;)

Settings? Hmm.. you need 512 of ram.. and 128 video ram.. so you are good to go for Low-med settings
 
did you read correctly what he said Nox :P

since you're interested in GT cars I would recommend GTR2, there are also prototype mods for GTR2.
 
GTR2 might give him some problems though. Takes a pretty good computer to run even a dozen or so cars at High details.
 
GTR Evo, the successor to GTR2 is also worth a shot if you're interested. The mods from GTR2 are slowly being converted over to Evo, and many new mods are also showing up.
 
Check out the Liv For Speed demo first. It will probably run better on your system than the ISI based games., then check out the mods for rfactor, the default cars mostly suck, but there are lots of great mods, also many of the cars found in other games (GTR2, GT Legends, etc) are brought over to rfactor and have had the physics and graphics improved.
 
i wish rfactor and other games had visible tire deformation like LFS :p I just got my Porsche 911 Turbo wheel in the mail, and the Historix mod for rFactor feels soo good :D the corvette w/ the latest physics is very nice too @ the Long Beach street course.
 
GTR Evo is a great sim. Driving physics works real good, the damage model works great, the graphics is good and available tracks and cars is developing all the time. At the moment you can acess over 100 tracks. Shortly there will be a new SimBin development, Race Pro, out in the market. It will probably be posible just to add on you GTR Evo content. Already existing material from GTL, GTR and rFactor and GTR2 is together with STCC and Race 07 easy to add in your GTR Evo game. There is a lot of good communitys and a lot of organized online competitions. There is a demo at steam.com to download. You'll need a 512 video memory to run the game at best graphic quality

IRacing is a great Sim. Same great driving physics as GTR Evo but not as good graphics. Much of the same sim functionality in both race condition and in gameplay controlability. The big difference is in how the IRacing racing is organized. IRacing is the Hardcore version of all sims in this department. You start with a rookie licence and need firstly to drive safe to get promotions. This system creates clean racing. The not to good graphics in IRacing makes your 128 mb video card work out good.

Compeard to GTR Evo it lacks tracks and cars, it got the same great driving physics (maybe harder to handle) and a verry strong online mode - GTR Evo in the other hand got a great selection of tracks, a fair number of cars, great physics and a online mode that works.

Whatever you choose Its will be a great experience for you!

And what did I leave out? IRacing is a expencive experience. Its the Hardcore version of all sims and probably something of the best out in the market right now but its can cost you over 150 bucks a year.
 
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Actually, i spent over 300 bucks in less than a year on iRacing because i bought a bunch of tracks and some cars. -_- You don't have to though. I just wanted to run all the tracks in the advanced seasons. For the rookie class, you don't have to buy anyything, and for class D, maybe 2 or so tracks +1 or 2 cars.
 
I think that GTR evo needs a 256mb video card. I'm not really looking for a replacement for gaming on my ps3 just something to supplement it so I don't want to spend the money for iRacing. At least not yet.

I've picked up the demo for gtr2 and rfactor (Haven't tried rfactor yet). I'll download the demo for live for speed and check them out.

Thanks everyone for your advice.
 
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GT Legends. Albeit a bit dated these days, but still fun and would run on lesser hardware.
 
No mention for GTR?

GTR2 and GTR Evo will be way too hungry for a 128 mb video machine, but this amount gives him the chance to run GTR on high settings. GTR is dated, but it's still a very awesome racing game 👍
 
just for reference its a 2.2GHz core 2 duo with a geforce 8600M GT video card and 2GB of ram.
 
I checked your video card

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-8600M-GT.3986.0.html

You can do GTR Evo on your laptop. I wouldnt hesitate a min - go get yourself a copy. The easy way is to download it from steam. We're a lot of racers doing the game as we speak: GTP_Hun is on his way. GTP_fairplay, GTP_Stealtwinnr, GTP_Graffen is some of the guys i race regullary in the game. We all think this is the best out there right now.

On the steam web site you'll find a test whos checkin if your computer is up for the task. I really think it woild be fine.
 
Live for Speed ran perfectly on my iMac when I had Windows installed and the specs aren't quite as good as the Macbook Pro. It's worth playing just for great online racing, plus there's some fun cars to drive.
 
Is Live For Speed less resource hungry than rFactor? and How much is the full version?
I might buy it
 
Much less. I once ran Live for Speed on a crappy old 800MHz Windows XP laptop with an onboard graphics chip and 128MB of RAM. At the lowest settings with a lone car, it ran a good, playable ~20fps. My desktop at the time, with its GeForce 4 Ti 4200 and half-gig of RAM, struggled with rFactor and looked uglier, even with some "medium" settings enabled.

My Athlon64 3400+, 1GB of DDR RAM, and Radeon 9800SE now give me acceptable performance in rFactor at medium-high settings, but full-grid races leave more to be desired. On the same computer, Live for Speed consistently gets triple-digit framerates in time attacks and smooth performance in online grid races with all of the graphics at full. rFactor has more potential for graphic detail, though. Live for Speed is living off of an old DirectX8 engine.

Beyond the better performance, I personally think Live for Speed is head and shoulders above rFactor in terms of realism. The detailed suspension movement, tire deformation, and faithful understeer/oversteer can't be beat, IMO. However, rFactor should definitely be considered as a possible addition to Zathra5_'s game library just for its mods. The physics are still great, just not the best. :) I'd check first to make sure it runs well, though.

LFS uses an online download-and-license system. You can download LFS as a demo to try it from the official website, then purchase and unlock S2 (latest release) for £24.
 
Wolfe
Beyond the better performance, I personally think Live for Speed is head and shoulders above rFactor in terms of realism. The detailed suspension movement, tire deformation, and faithful understeer/oversteer can't be beat, IMO. However, rFactor should definitely be considered as a possible addition to Zathra5_'s game library just for its mods. The physics are still great, just not the best. :)
Click to expand...

A proper rfactor mod that works 100% with RealFeel can be just as realistic as LFS physics.

examples: Historx, GP79, CTDP 2006, Caterham, Legends Cars, Corvette C6, ext.
 
Marchbrown
I checked your video card

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-8600M-GT.3986.0.html

You can do GTR Evo on your laptop. I wouldnt hesitate a min - go get yourself a copy. The easy way is to download it from steam. We're a lot of racers doing the game as we speak: GTP_Hun is on his way. GTP_fairplay, GTP_Stealtwinnr, GTP_Graffen is some of the guys i race regullary in the game. We all think this is the best out there right now.

On the steam web site you'll find a test whos checkin if your computer is up for the task. I really think it woild be fine.
Click to expand...

Hun mention that in one of the FC threads. I downloaded the demo and it does appear to work on my computer. I didn't test it very well (didn't even hook up my wheel) but at the end it did say that my framerate was higher than my target rate and it recommended that I increase my settings so that's a good sign. It would be good to race with you guys.
 
nissan tuner
A proper rfactor mod that works 100% with RealFeel can be just as realistic as LFS physics.

examples: Historx, GP79, CTDP 2006, Caterham, Legends Cars, Corvette C6, ext.
Click to expand...
Isn't RealFeel just a force feedback mod? That won't help rFactor match Live for Speed's suspension detail or tire model. I'll have to look into that, though, maybe it'll help with the awful control lag I get in rFactor.
 
Nope. Just Touring Car Legends, and I downloaded the OBS Drift Mod to see how well it actually worked.

There's about a quarter-second delay between moving the G25 and the response of the wheel on the screen, which gets rather hairy when you throw in force feedback. It all works fine for slow adjustments of the wheel and a cautious driving style, but I like to race at the limit and the wheel just won't allow the reactions necessary.

Live for Speed is one of the few racing games I've tried on PC that doesn't have this problem.
 
Zathra5_
Hun mention that in one of the FC threads. I downloaded the demo and it does appear to work on my computer. I didn't test it very well (didn't even hook up my wheel) but at the end it did say that my framerate was higher than my target rate and it recommended that I increase my settings so that's a good sign. It would be good to race with you guys.
Click to expand...

Remember to download the latest G25 drivers form logitech. Ive tested most of the games out there, Ive got 360, PS3 and PC, and for me the GTR Evo is the nr 1 sim at the moment. Remember that the demo only contains 1 car and track. The really fun cars is in the extreme class. Tell me when ready to test your demoversion and Ill join in for some online racing. If you get the game its a good advice to download it frem steam.
 
Wolfe
There's about a quarter-second delay between moving the G25 and the response of the wheel on the screen, which gets rather hairy when you throw in force feedback.
Click to expand...
That actually sounds like a problem on your end. I've never noticed similar problems with my DFP or my Formula T2 in rFactor.
 
Wolfe
Nope. Just Touring Car Legends, and I downloaded the OBS Drift Mod to see how well it actually worked.

There's about a quarter-second delay between moving the G25 and the response of the wheel on the screen, which gets rather hairy when you throw in force feedback. It all works fine for slow adjustments of the wheel and a cautious driving style, but I like to race at the limit and the wheel just won't allow the reactions necessary.

Live for Speed is one of the few racing games I've tried on PC that doesn't have this problem.
Click to expand...
this Historix mod is the best mod for rFactor IMHO. I'm trying to think of what could be causing the lag... i would say to search rscnet, but that place is down right now. I'll try to remember to ask some people myself
 
Toronado
That actually sounds like a problem on your end.
Click to expand...
Could be, but I get the same steering lag in everything from rFactor to Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (1) with all of the settings on minimum, so it's clearly not a performance issue, and I consistently get it on the same games even when I've formatted and reinstalled Windows, so it's not spyware. It also just doesn't appear in other games, like Live for Speed.

I did a little looking around on the 'net after posting about the problem here, and I think it could be buffering/Vsync related.
 
I emailed simbin. They recommended that I don't run evolution with my graphics card. They said tracks like nurburgring would be like a slideshow. I'll check the others out.
 

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