Had a go at this again today for the first time a while, first impressions of build 90.
Renault Clio - I loved this little car, a good pick up and play/drive type of car that can be driven hard and rewards, the same off throttle characteristics that I noticed on all Rfactor 2 cars but less pronounced, this to me is the best feeling or most enjoyable car to drive in the sim of the official cars and driving it around monaco was a blast.
Nissan 370z - I drove this after writing this post and this is an edit. I loved this car too, it was an absolute dream to drive and with some setting changes I got the FFB with this car to feel fantastic, cockpit looks good and the driving position feels right, the sounds are good too. All I will say is that I love the way this car drives, I could drive it all day.
Formula ISI (F1) - I found it very strange the way it looks in the cockpit, as if you're sitting really high, and the front wheels are way more visible than they should be, as if they are floating above the ground. Driving it.. It certaintly felt like Rfactor 2, but none of the overly bouncy/skipping accross the road of the earlier build that I felt with the Formula Renault, however I didn't think it really felt or reacted right, it had to be driven in a very different way to the way I drove F1 cars in other games/sims and with the default setup it had a very unstable rear end at high speeds, taking it around Spa I lost the back end at 190 mph fairly randomly without warning, in a situation where I really feel the car would not even be flinching in the real world.
Classic F1 (Spark) - In low speed the car felt easier to drive than i remember but at high speed it was the same old, around Monaco I had a good time with it, but around Spa it was the same old "touch of a feather is the touch of death" kind of feel where the FFB transfering a bump through the wheel was enough to cause the car to spin off. I was able to make a lap of Spa being cautious but had many insane accidents where I felt like the FFB took control of the car for me and decided my fate. It feels very similar to the Grand Prix legends and the Project CARS version of the car, but slightly more unforgiving in almost every aspect (perhaps due to the FFB). Jackie Stewart once said that Grand Prix Legends was a lot more difficult than the real thing, and Rfactor 2 is certaintly more difficult than GPL, atleast at Spa. I tried to drive the Eve F1 car but the windshield was all blurry at Spa and I couldn't see a damn thing in the cockpit view, I don't remember it being like that before.
Trying the Eve F1 at Monza the blurry windshield issue was gone, much much much easier to drive and more stable than the Spark at high speeds, though Monza is a much easier track, flatter with more road meant you could push harder with much more room for error, and the Eve F1 being a much more stable car made it easier to drive, the old banked oval section though rattled the **** out of my wheel with the FFB and I didn't do more than 2 laps due to the this as I didn't want to break my wheel.
GTR GT1 - I had to adjust my brake/throttle sensitivity curve to get this car driving how I wanted but I wasn't a massive fan, again on the default setup and around Mills Park and Monaco. I found that it had a very sluggish desire to spin off throttle, weight transfer needs to be extremely careful and its easy to lock up the rear brakes under heavy braking, first gear is a little wild (reason for my throttle change) but if driven smoothly and within the limits it is a very easy and smooth car to drive, pushing the limits is where the car didn't feel like it wanted to work with me.
Overall all the cars have a sort of Rfactor 2 feel to them with the way they respond, especially on off throttle and even more so through the FFB, the FFB feels kinda spongy(or rounded) but very powerful, like it is transfering the bumps through the wheel over everything else and feels like its trying to drive me rather than me drive it. I feel like I would actually gain a performance advantage by turning the FFB off in some cars, especially in the 60s F1 cars.
Graphics - Bland and fairly badly optimised graphics, in some ways It looks even worse than Simraceways better looking tracks, and certaintly the car models are a lot worse than Simraceways. Which shows they haven't really grasped the full potential of this Rfactor 2 engine with this current content. That said, my eyes might be accustomed to seeing Project CARS, which could be changing my perspective, as I'm sure I remember thinking the graphics were pretty decent last time I played it. I liked what Virtua LM did with Mid-Ohio, while it could use more character in the actual road, it looks really nice and really clean and well done, showing potential of what can be done with mods.
All in all, I had some fun with it but I don't think the driving is close enough, Simraceway's Rfactor 1 based game certaintly has far more impressive grasp of the engine with their car models on a majority perspective, and preferable FFB in most cars for my liking. iRacing, Netkar, Ferrari Virtual Academy definitely feel like they are still ahead in driving feel overall, even if Rfactor 2 shines brightly in certain situations as a whole it feels like it isn't quite "there" yet.
Don't get me wrong though, I'm sure Rfactor 2 has much potential, I didn't delve into messing with FFB settings a lot, I didn't delve into car setup much. My favourite thing was driving the Classic F1 cars and Renault Clio at Monaco, I also had a lot of fun at Virtua LM Mid-Ohio in the 370z.
. I know it's coming but I'm anxious to drive the 458 GT car since I'll never get to drive it in iRacing.
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