rec.autos.simulators

Based on the demo, althought I think the physics are quite a ways off,
this game is pretty fun.

Just basically wondering if the full version is a worthy buy for a sim
biased gamer is all.

The cars are only slightly tweakable... suspension is either 'soft',
'medium,' or 'hard'.... you can run 'long', 'medium,' or 'short'
gears....you can set the steering to 'loose' or 'tight'.... and you can
shift drive power and brake power between front, med, or rear.  In that
respect, the options are similar to Rally Masters.

Some of the cars do feel good to drive.  In particular, I find that the Ford
Focus Rallycross and the Opel Astra from the same class can provide a
driving experience that seems realistic, predictable, and fun.  Almost all
of the faster cars feel off to me... way too exaggerated a sense of speed,
and unexpected handling quirks under braking.

A lot of people have mentioned lack of***pit driving view as a big minus.
There is no driving view from inside the***pit, but there is a view that
approximates a real world driving vantage point (looking out over the hood),
and that is the view that seems to work best in the game.

There are a lot of little things that I find annoying.  You cannot sensibly
save and manage replays; the car gets placed back on the track when it goes
astray; the inertia of the engine seems unnatural (when you let off the gas,
the revs stay very high until you apply brakes, and even then, the engine
seems to 'decelerate' too slowly); the menu interface is awkward to navigate
at times...requiring you to jump between keyboard and mouse inputs; there
are many locked cars and tracks that only become available after building up
points in a rather dull career mode; online play seems to be limited to four
cars at a time (there are circuits to race on); only a handful of preset
screen resolutions are available (1152x864, which I use for my desktop
resolution, is not one of the options).

I had a lot of fun with Rally Masters and was hoping this would represent a
big step forward from DICE, but the only area in which it makes a big step
forward is in the amount of disk space it takes up. A lot of the nice
features from Rally Masters actually seem to have been removed.

This somehow turned into a really long reply....I guess what I am trying to
say is, IMO, 'nah'.

Itazura

  The controls are very bad, at least with my Logitech wheel.  The
control is either under or over-sensitive, and I never get the feeling
of control I do in other games.  I can't figure out if it's
understeer, oversteer, oversensitivity, too much or too little speed
sensitive steering in the physics model...  Add onto this the force
feedback effects are useless, easily the worst I have ever seen in a
PC game. Bottom line is I don't feel like I'm driving a real car- it's
near impossible for me to do a gentle correction of the wheel, I end
up weaving down the middle of the road instead of holding a steady
line.  There's no "power steering with feedback" feel I get in other
games (Sports Car GT, for instance, or Nascar HEAT).  I don't feel
like I'm turning a wheel so much as flipping around one of those
little gamepad joysticks- probably the original intent.

  The physics don't seem like they are way off, maybe at most a bit
simplified over Rally Master's physics- the cars are less twitchy, but
otherwise the driving seems about the same.  Maybe the acceleration is
a little over the top, but not by much.  Sometimes I have a hard time
seperating the physics from the lousy control, though.

  Imagine Rally Masters with fewer options and features, bad force
feedback, slightly less demanding physics, and better graphics, and
you have a good impression of Rallisport.

  Just thought I'd post a follow up.

  I finally got a decent control setup.  I set the control to
joystick, medium sensitivity, with some deadzone.  I set the power
balance to front and they seem to drive better.  I'm not an auto
expert, so I'll leave it to others to say if that's realistic or not,
but the control seems to be smoother.

  I guess what doesn't help is the lack of in-cockpit view with a
steering wheel... it's hard to tell  what the "virtual wheel" and the
wheels on the car are doing.  With Rally Masters it was easier to set
up the controller because I could watch the wheel in the***pit move
about.

  The graphics though really are great.  There's extensive use of bump
mapping and environment mapping, so the graphics really have a depth
to them that many other games do not.  It's one of the first games
that looks almost photorealistic, IMO.  My only problem is the Radeon
9700 displays a ridiculous amount of stuttering framerate in this
game, and this has been noted by other Radeon users as well.

  I'm going to shelve this game and wait for a driver update from ATI,
and maybe a patch from Microsoft.  It might have some potential, but I
don't think it will appeal to people who must have realism in their
rally games, even though I don't think it's quite accurate to call it
an arcade game.

I'm in the same boat: total lack of "feel" and control in RSC! Microsoft:
why not bundle this title with a gamepad??? I'm using a Momo-wheel and will
check out your advises... thanks.

-on the other hand I have a tool for you called 3danalyzer. You can read
about it in several places and here is a link for you:
http://www.racesimcentral.net/(in german but its in the files
section).

In 3danalyzer you can point to an .exe (rallisport.exe) and tell it to
remove stutter. It seems like it can remove some directx-calls that are not
valid or something like that, like a wrapper. don't ask, but it works for
me, and i've seen the same app been used for other tasks as well (disable
t&l for instance). i am back into rally trophy and will check rallisport
challenge later on if there are some updates coming out. that's not too
often when it comes to microsoft games so I won't hold my breath.

(looking forward to play rally trophy on new tracks if it holds true that
someone are porting over the RC2000-tracks). an add-on by bugbear wouldn't
hurt either, but they are working *** the new project I guess...

I was hoping that rallisport would be rally masters in a dx8-suit, but it's
not. it's rally master ported to xbox then back to pc. not good at all. too
clumsy (read: console) menues and a total lack of "feel" in the control
department. in fact, rallisport challenge should not be discussed in this
group at all, but i am doing it right now. :)

/JoHS

Yeah, it take a few tried to figure out which controller setup works
best. I'm using the joystick setup with my game pad and it works and
feels pretty good. Haven't tried my steering wheel yet, not sure this
game needs it.

It would be nice but on bumper cam in the game I find the view  too
jerky. Every little bump or turn moves the view alot and I find it
dizzying and difficult to watch. Kind of like watching a train go by
when you're 5 feet from it.

This really sold me on the game. Absolutely amazing stuff especially the
ice tracks. No jerking gfx here btw, GF3Ti500, Athlon 1.4, 512mb

  I tried this, but it seems to make the framerate lower.  I'm using
DirectX 9 beta, though.

  I ordered both these games a while back, they haven't arrived yet, I
have played the demos alot.  Getting Rally games in the US isn't easy,
though- I have to order most of them.  One I did manage to buy at a
store was Rally Masters in a bargain bin.  It's my favorite but it has
some bugs with my graphics card, unfortunately.

  It was definitely simplified for a console.  From what little I play
it, though, I can see some influence from Rally Masters.

  Microsoft PC games are usually quality games that are known for
being configureable and editable, having an open architecture, and
appealing to *** and casual players alike, but Rallisport so far
isn't one of them.   Rallisport isn't up to their usual standards,
though- if it weren't for Microsoft on the box there'd be no
indication they published it. My guess is that Microsoft published
this game for the XBox 'cause they were desperate for some games, and
they are publishing it on the PC because they want to make some money
back- because the X-Box isn't exactly a eraging success story.  Who
knows, maybe DICE thought the XBox was going to be a bigger hit than
it was and designed it for the XBox first.

  Maybe we'll see a "Microsoft Rally Simulator" one of these days...

But download the demo and try it for yourself.

It has good graphics, I'll give it that, but the demo is VERY jumpy and
skippy, even on my pretty high-end system.

-Larry

For some reason, it's slower on a 2GHz PC with a GF4ti4600 than it is on the
Xbox - even in 640x480 and it doesn't look any better either.  Go figure.

You know, it's weird to be attracted to your computer... ;-)

Jason

Hmm...it shouldn't be a slideshow on that machine, but no matter what I set
the detail to, it's a bit slower and jerkier than the Xbox version.
Microsoft *** maybe. ; )