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An Excelent post there, shame there is no longer a reputation in place.

I always had this idea that PC sims offer the superior simulation but with the latest installment of GT5P the proffesional physics seem exceptional.

I don't really have the driving experience to know the answer but its great to hear somone putting the Sims to the test, it seems quite a logical approach you took also. 👍

Stevisiov.

An Excelent post there, shame there is no longer a reputation in place.

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Agreed, an excellent practical comparison. I have played the M3 challenge quite a lot, and our opinions on where the differences and where the similarities are are absolutely on par.

My conclusion is that some things are better in Prologue, some are better in the PC sim, and that overall, Prologue is on the very right way but still has quite some distance to cover.

I can't really answer that as well!!

I don't even own a driver license, and I'm 46 years old.. Gheee .. but i do have a few top 10 rankings driving GT5p

What i do now, is that.
IF! A Rally part is gonna be a part of GT5, i would suggest that the developers should take a close look at the PC Title from 2004, Richard Burns Rally.

I believe that, if they would consider choosing that direction of the coding part of handling and physics system for the Rally part , then they will succeed big time with That Part of GT5..

Richard Burns Rally is the Sim Title to beat, when we are talking Rally Car, Handling and physics system..

Another fine SIM and with a big community is Rfactor, Looks great , full modable system, Almost all kind of driving (motorsports) styles is to be counted for, even lawnmover rAce hehe..

But to be honest, I feel this Sim into my Bones and heart when i'm driving it, so It works already for me, and we are just getting started with Gt5..

Dream EXtreme

Flagmo-T

I'm also very interested in this GT5P vs Sims topics. Great original post.

I have LFS, GTR2 and GT5P. Sometimes I drive them each trying to find the differences. Of course damage is the biggest element missing in GT5P. That element hurts the realism especially when you bounce off a wall like a bumper car. But putting that aspect aside...

I think GT5P is harder than LFS. Get LFS and take the fastest non-F1 car you can find and drive it around Blackwood. You'll find it's really hard to oversteer. It's very easy to recover from oversteer. And understeer is very silent. You get no warning that you're dangerously understeering...not much noise and you find yourself crashed into the wall.

But overall it's driving in LFS is easier than GT5P. I took the fastest car I could find and drove in the Kyoto ring. I tried to turn hard while going as fast as possible...I couldn't get the car to spin out and crash.

I'll say that in GT5P the tire sounds are much louder and exaggerated. BUT at least you hear when you're understeering. Part of the reason ordinary people find sims frustrating is that you have realistic behavior without realistic feedback. You understeer without any kind of warning or feedback.

Also I think drafting is exaggerated in GT5P but I don't know for sure. I just know that if someone get behind you in Daytona they'll easily pass you because of the draft.

I suspect that IRL exiting a draft involves breaking a wind barrier that may drain most of the speed you gained while in the draft. Anyone know?

I have same feeling. I'm both, PC SIm racer and PS3 sim racer
I think GT5P is fist game from a console that now can stuck up to PC sim racing. Only Problem I have is that GT is Drving simulator with cars and Sports cars with few race cars... so physics are more for sports cars. PC racing sims are more of race cars. But to go back, GT5P and PC racing sims are really similar now and can now be compared.

When it comes to tracks. I think GT5P wins since they have better budget and seperate team to go to each track, take millions of pics etc. PC sim racing do the same, but I am always disapointed a bit that its not as good as GT5...

Cars, I think the Lexus IF mods were really sucky compared in GT5P, I read car reviews that car is really soft yet powerful, thats how GT makes it.. PC racing mods use RACING eninge thats why those cars like M3 mods and ISF mods are ROUGH.

I refuse to compare Prologue to full games, however, as a sign of what GT5 is going to be like, it is looking a lot better compared to GT4. Im naturally going to say I prefer GT5 over PC sims, before I can even play it - but thats because Ive not played very many PC sims.

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To me the biggest thing that sperates PC sims from GT5P is crash physics

The second biggest is that in PC sims controlling a burnout is hard and realistic, in GT5P you can just floor the gas pedal with a 600hp car from standing still and just go straight without the car trying to go this way or that.

The 3rd biggest thing that still seperates PC sims from GT5P is that you can be just as fast and have almost as much control over your car as another driver who uses a wheel. In PC sim racing drivers using a joypad or joystick or even a keyboard have no hope to beat someone who is just half way decent with a wheel.

orubasarot

What I want to know is if Gran Turismo is finally a sim. GT4 was not a sim in my opinion but a car collection pokemon extravaganza because of the ridiculous oversteer (lack of) physics. GT5P seems a lot closer, it's not as hard and rough as Simbin titles but it is a bit smooth like Live For Speed. I think if I understand and accept the compromises of GT5P being a console game then I can just enjoy it, and not feel guilty about playing a 95% sim rather than a 100% "you'll never make it through qualifying" palm sweating, butt bruising simulator.

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It is more of a sim then previous titles but not as difficult or realistic as a PC sim as everyone knows and accepts because it is a mainstream game.

I like GT more then any other racer even more then PC sims because you can jump into a car and just drive wtihout worrying about all the options etc etc you know what I mean. However I do wish they rewarded drivers who used a wheel and no aids by making them faster then what they are. I'm dissappointd that SIXAXIS drivers are as fast as they are. If this were a true true sim, then drivers with a wheel should have a huge upperhand.

Earth

The second biggest is that in PC sims controlling a burnout is hard and realistic, in GT5P you can just floor the gas pedal with a 600hp car from standing still and just go straight without the car trying to go this way or that.

The 3rd biggest thing that still seperates PC sims from GT5P is that you can be just as fast and have almost as much control over your car as another driver who uses a wheel. In PC sim racing drivers using a joypad or joystick or even a keyboard have no hope to beat someone who is just half way decent with a wheel.

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I have to agree with Earth in this regard. There is no way a person racing with a controller could have as much control over the car as someone using a wheel. For grins, I plugged in my DFP a while back. I found that the FFB felt much better than it does my G-25. The capabilities of the G-25 are under-utilized and hopefully this will be addressed by PD in the future. In almost all the good PC sims, the G-25 just feels absolutely wicked. In GT5, I would rate it as feeling only OK.

I have a lot of time in GTR:1 & 2 and GT: Legends, which is one of my all time favorites. I have limited time in some of the better rFactor mods because I could never find a G-25 setup that I was happy with...even with the RealFeel mod.

My most raced sim is Live For Speed. I can easily say that LFS sets the standard for what online racing should be. You can host a race with just about any option you can dream of. Not being able to find the type of race you want is a rare occasion. On top of that, you can have twice the number of cars on the track as in GT5. Stats are tracked in depth to even include miles driven online in each car. In LFS and other sims, the driver is forced to conserve his tires to complete a race with minimal pitstops. Because I am so used to tire conservation, I tend to drive too conservatively in GT5 out of habit.

Because the GT series offers so many cars to choose from, I give them a major brake in regards to accurate physics. It just isn't possible to get them all right. A lot of PC sims feel better because they have less cars to work with. I am not qualified to judge whether or not a sim's physics model is accurate, but "feeling is believing". The cars in LFS are not real, but they just feel right. In GT: Legends, many cars are running on bias-ply tires. When the grip starts to break, it is so much harder to recover...and so much fun! One of my big complaints in GT5 is that many cars seem to accelerate too fast in their stock setup.

I fully realize that GT5 is nothing more than a glorified demo. I hope that the final release will give us some basic options that we enjoy on the PC.

*Ability to adjust seating position/Field of View in Cockpit View.
*Accurate telemetry data (like Motec)
*Gear Ratio Calculators and other tools
*Multi-class racing
*Tons of wheel adjustment options (lock to lock, FFB, Center spring, etc.)
*Pedal axis adjustment options for more accurate clutch, brake, accelerator settings
*Fuel economy and tire wear as well as tire pressure adjustments
*Car damage affects aerodynamics, suspension, engine, radiator, etc.
*Damaged parts on track
*Options to change day, night, weather, etc.
*Black flags for driving wrong direction, wrecking, careless driving
*League/Tournament racing!

This is a very interesting thread, best in a while! It's definately interesting to see what other peoples opinions of the sims are, even if I don't agree with them!

Here are my 2 cents:

Firstly, I'd like to say that I consider LFS to be the absolute high water mark as far as simulations go. In fact, I don't really consider it a game, making comparisons to 'games' like GT and Rfactor almost pointless. Offline there is very little to do save for practicing for online races, what with the AI being even more dumb than GT5P's! There is no other simulation that has the subtleties and depth of LFS, right down to the feel of the tyres shifting under extreme forces.
Compare this to GT5P and I would go with LFS obviously, however, I feel that the tyre curves can be a little too forgiving in LFS. I have lost control with the big GT cars and managed to bring them back in line at speed. In Prologue If one loses control at speed with R tyres on, it becomes difficult to regain traction, something I feel is more realistic than LFS. Overall, I was very pleased and surprised to find that Prologue feels like a scaled down LFS in a lot of ways, although it lacks the organic, fluid and more realistic nature of the PC sim.

As for the BMW M3 challenge, I was unimpressed with it. My main issue, I think, was the force feedback, which felt more based upon 'canned' responses than physics based ones. The way that the wheel is very light to turn in yet becomes very heavy when straightening the car up is strange. I have not driven a car like this, and worse yet I felt it robbed me of a level of information from the wheel. In GT, because the steering pushes against you when you steer in, one can feel the overster approach due to the way the wheel starts to lose weight, allowing you to sense the movement as much as see it. I have found that I rely on this information and to take it away felt like losing a whole sense.

Anyway, they are just my opinions, and I look forward to some good old fashioned debating!

K

Adlyco - turn the FF efects on M3 Challenge to low and it will only use the physics based feedback - same with any ISI based sim.

As far as the main topic goes GT5P is far and away the best sim on a console ever, imo. The physics feel really good and while it does seem to cater more for road cars the few racing cars in the sim feel great too. I personally think that the F2007 is too easy to drive, but then I have never driven an F1 car so I can't really comment

I do, however, feel that it lacks in a few areas that will hopefully be corrected in GT5:

- damage - there's just something added to the experience when you know that a mistake could kill your car
- tyre/brake wear - as has been mentioned above racing is more than hotlapping, you need to look after your tyres and brakes (check out GTR2 to see how this should be done)
- practice/qualifying - I personally enjoy spending the time to get the car set up and then having a qual time to see who is quickest over a single lap, then a decent length race to see who is quickest over some distance, but that's just personal preference, I suppose - would be nice to have the choice though.
- the HUD - I sooooo wish there was a way to turn off everything on the screen, to me the track map, position indicators, etc makes it look like an arcade racer. Again, personal preference, but it would be nice to have the choice.

All of the points above should be fixed when the full sim is released, and it is perhaps a bit unfair to compare Prologue with a finished PC sim.

From an entertainment point of view the PP500 races with regular road cars can be huge fun (assuming there are no wreckers in the race) and this aspect is at least equal to what you can get from a PC sim.

Chris

I don't even consider M3 challenge or rFactor or any other ISI/Simbin game a sim. Aren't simulators supposed to have realistic physics?

To be honest, I think people calling those games as hardcore simulators don't have the skill or the experience to understand when a car is on its limits. Therefore they only look at the graphics, listen to the sampled real life sounds and think "wow, so this is what a proper racing simulator is like" while they are crawling through the corners un-aware of where the limits of the car are. Driving on the limit of a cars performance is what makes racing simulator a simulator for me. If I can not feel the car being right on the edge of control, it isn't a simulator.

To me, the only true PC racing simulator is Live For Speed. Though my love for that sim is slowly starting to die more and more as the developer(s) seem to have lost their will to actually do produce even mildly interesting. The alarmingly dropping average-age of the community sure doesn't help the cause either. Nor do the close minded people who insist on the game being focused in racing and nothing else. It's simply so idiotic, that the wonderful potential of the LFS engine is so close mindedly pinpointed in to racing, when it could be used in many other motorsport, such as drifting, rallying or autocrossing. Proper drifting support from the developers would be the easiest task, while rallying and autocrossing would require lots of improvements to physics, tires, track and autox layout modelling.

I've tried pretty much every car sim that there is on the PC, and I simply can't honestly understand people who say something like rFactor or GTR is a proper "hardcore" car simulator. The physics are simply horribly wrong on so many levels. Not to mention the completely ridiculous wonderland-FFB. Never has a steering gone totally light and numb in real life when a car has understeered on me. Niels' C6 Corvette for rFactor proved that the game engine has some potential, but it would require a helluva lot of work to be impressive on a larger scale.

My thoughts on the matter, had to speak my mouth clear.

My times in the BMW M3 imported into rFactor, or the Corvette C6 mod are very similar on Suzuka East to my GT5P times with similar cars (time trial mode in GT5P). The main factor we simply don't know is exactly what the tyres being simulated are in each case since they all use difference names.

Another decent comparison approach would be the mini cooper S from GT5P against the Race07 mini cooper works S. They actually feel very similar in terms of grip, weight transfer, etc... Although to my mind GT5P in /pro mode has just a fraction too good braking and tyre grip levels.

As for that comment about tyre squeal and grip levels: Don't forget that many PC sims are simulating race tyres which are proper soft slicks. As far as I'm aware even the R1-R3 tyres in GT5P are semi-slick, and the S2's we get to use in time trials are certainly not slicks.

Interesting topic. I've driven loads of cars over the years but I've never raced GT cars, just so you know where I'm coming from.

On the PC I've played GTR, GTR2 and GT legends (plus others in the past). I really tried to like the GTR series but in the end I just didn't get on with it. I couldn't get a good feel for when over/under steer was about to happen nor did I find it very communicative on weight transfer and so on. I tried a DFP and an MS wheel with it but neither really felt quite right. I did like the fact that it modelled variables like tyre marbles.

GT5P gives more communication, despite problems in many areas and that's what I like about it, along with a range of more "normal" cars.

For me the physics could be improved, but the key is making up for the things you can't feel through your backside when compared to real life. As these "clues" are not the same as real life I imagine they work better for some people than others. At the moment, in GT5P, I'm finding it a pig to get a feel for a tuned Elise, whereas the under steer in some of the FF cars is easier to "feel" coming on.

One thing which should be possible (perhaps it's been done) is to have force feedback via the accelerator/brake.

Still, we've come a long way since REVS on the BBC micro :-)

LOL @ ''car pokemon collecting game'' or whatever.

Nice write-up... but not having owned any of these and only having played the GT series since GT3 a few times, I really can't add anything useful.

That is all.

Thanks for the advice Cavanaugh, will give it a go. Unfortunately by including such an unrealistic FFB setting it does somewhat hurt the game's claim to be a simulator...

adlyco

Thanks for the advice Cavanaugh, will give it a go. Unfortunately by including such an unrealistic FFB setting it does somewhat hurt the game's claim to be a simulator...

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The aim of those canned effects is twofold:
- on old vibration only wheels they help in giving any sort of effects. The G25 is so communicative that such things are definitely only getting in the way however.
- they are there if you want to try to add "seat of the pants" feelings through the wheel. E.g. vibration when the brakes are locking up, or adding rumble to tracks where the modeller hasn't bothered modelling rumble strips but has just painted the colours.

I think most G25 owners set things to low or manually edit the controller.ini to remove the canned effects they don't want. Look on Racesimcentral for lots of information about these kinds of things.

I have to say I have never played any pc sims and I always slept easy at night knowing that GT was the best driving simulator in excistence. this feeling was reinforced especially after playing with the CTR2 in the nurburgring in GT4 with a DFP. I havent got a ps3 yet, but GT5P looks awesome so far. Nevertheless I was curious to look into the whole pc-sim thing and from what I gather from this thread LFS seems to be the benchmark as far as that is concerned. Having watched some videos of it in action the first impression that i get is that of watching a replay in colin mcrae rally with the the car seeming to float on the track rather than roll on it like in GT5P. Anyway what Im trying to say is I was glad to not be impressed.

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adlyco

This is a very interesting thread, best in a while! I
Firstly, I'd like to say that I consider LFS to be the absolute high water mark as far as simulations go. In fact, I don't really consider it a game, making comparisons to 'games' like GT and Rfactor almost pointless.

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LOL, rFactor is definitely a *sim* and not a *game*. You can believe LFS to be whatever you want, but to write-off rFactor so easily just doesn't make sense. I myself have found a new appreciation for LFS in past weeks, but that doesn't discount the quality of rFactor (especially in the hands of the exceptional mod community... one area where LFS falls completely short).

there is a new "sim" coming soon to the ps3 the ferrari challenge trofeo pirelli, i cross my fingers that that is a really good sim!!

I enjoy playing rFactor, LFS, and GTR2. These PC games/sims are superior to GT5P in many ways, most importantly for myself is the single player race options in GTR2 (where I spend most of my single player time). I can choose from many race tracks, Racer AI level, AI car(s), weather, time of day/night, wheel settings such as free zone, wheel turn radius, etc. I really hate the fact that the game picks out the race field for me! I want to choose who will be my opponent and what car they will drive.
The AI pilots in GTR2 are miles ahead (pun intended) of the AI pilots in GT5P. The GTR2 pilots will fight with you for a position and not hit your car most of the time. In GT5P the AI pilots treat me like a billiard ball and hit me all the time!! I'm really really sick of it!! lol
I do think the GT5P graphics are the best! Definitely superior to the PC graphics (but my rig is 4 years old! hehe).
And WTF is up with having to unlock everything in GT5P. That is so lame imho! lol
At this point the PC sims are definitely superior to GT5P. However, the PC sims are mature, older games. I can easily see some future GT games for the PS3 being superior to some racing sims. It really depends if KY et al want to make the game a racing/driving sim or a racing/driving game.

YMMV!!!!

Nissan GT-R R35 Nurburgring Nordschleife 7:29

GAME:GTR2

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=FxsPpI4qnNE

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Cavanaugh

I personally think that the F2007 is too easy to drive, but then I have never driven an F1 car so I can't really comment

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👍
+1

Everybody is always saying that the physics engine is not realistic enough, making a sim more arcade-ish then true hardcore sim.
But how can someone say if a game has realistic physics or not? Only a few member on this forum have real life racing experience.
90% or more of the pleople on this board have never driven a real race car IRL, most of them are even under aged and don't even have a driver's license, so how can we say if a game, pc or console has true realistic physics?

The fact that there are so many differences between pc and console games, proves to me that there is no such thing as realistic game physics, it's a simulation a game of the real thing. There are too many variables in real life that it's impossible for programmers to create true realistic physics and game developers make a game accessible for everybody and playable with a wheel as a controler, so the physics can't be realistic. If it was realistic, 95% of the people wouldn't even get a race car rolling. It is impossible that everybody can pick a race car in a game and start driving and some even have the same lap times as real race car drivers. That does mean only one thing, that the games are made to be played by everybody. Race cars are not made to be driven by everybody. So the physics in a game are not realistic. They may come close but not realistic like everybody says!

Richard Burns rally comes vey, very close though.

There is a video clip on this forum about a real F1 simulator (Toyota I believe and a real F1 pilot tries it out (Marc Gene?). At the end, he said that it is very good but not the same as the real thing! So if this real professional simulator is not as the real thing than games do not have true real physics, it still has to be playable for all ages and for everybody.


Now more on topic

I've always heard that it wasn't possible for a console to create a simulation because of the limitations of a console. PC's on the other hand had more freedom for the programmers to work with => better hardware.

With the PS3 and Xbox 360, it's going to be possible for developers to create a sim for console e.g. project Ferrari/Falcon form Blimey! games. Ian Bell from Blimey! games said so in an interview with AutoSimSport.

GTlegends is still my favourite game, although I don't have it anymore (sold my pc and only have a PS3). GT5p is the best console game at the moment although it is a simcade instead of a sim IMHO. But it is difficult to compare it with pc sims. Some pc games are arcade, some are hardcore. GT5p is no arcade, nor hardcore, so it is difficult to compare.
The tracks in GTR are 👍 but this is also the case with GT5p.
Like others said, GT series is a driving simulator, not a racing game.
GT5p is still a game in development, so it is difficult to compare it with pc games.
There is the GRID demo at the moment. The graphics are very nice but GT5p's graphics are much better. The sound in GRID are better but the sound effects in GT5p are more realistic (I'm using a 7.1 system which gives me the change to compare both of the games).
There is no damage in GT5p but there is in the GRID demo, although the damage in GRID ludicrous IMO. Comparing the two, I would say that GT5p is more true to life and more of a sim than GRID.

When I had played GTR, I use to compare the same car that is in GTR with the same car that is in GT4 on the same track and there was a lot of difference between the two. So which game was more true to real life? Hard to say because I have never driven that car on that track in real life.
The sounds in GTR are more appealing (I don't say that the sounds in GTR/GTL are realistic) than the sounds in GT4/GT5p.
GTR also tried to create more real features, like MoTec, grip on track (rubber deposites tire t° etc...). There is also some computer logging thing in GT4, not in GT5p but maybe there will be in GT5.
The graphics of GT5p (except for some jaggies) are top notch! These are very realistic (which can be photo realistic because it is a visual thing that can be created truely realisticaly).

The tracks in a pc sims (not the mods made by some modder) are as good as in GT5p or vica versa. Simbin and PD uses photo's, films, GPS etc... to create the tracks as realistically as possible. As long as we don't have the technology to create a holographic full 3D view instead of using a flat screen, the tracks won't be 100% realistic. Creating a 3D view on a "surface" can't be 100% realistic.

All by all, it is difficult to compare GT5p with a pc sim. GT5p has a different view, it's a driving sim and most pc games are raicing games.


pfffff

The thing is, you don't need to have real life racing experience to know when a simulator has its game engine upside down. It's enough to own a (preferrably) rear wheel drive car, find a large empty tarmac area and start messing around and feeling your cars limits. Experimenting with oversteer has always been a benchmark for me when testing a simulator, since it pretty much combines all the feedback that a real car gives you when oversteer happens.

Of course you will be lacking the G-forces on a sim and that is a MASSIVE loss of feedback, unless you are lucky enough to own a Force Dynamics. I was actually once able to do a few laps on a 301 Force Dynamics in the BMW F1 in LFS, and it really shocked me the first time braking in to turn 1, I felt a similar "hnnnngh" feeling in my chest/stomach as when I'm on a rollercoaster. Simply amazing.

This is also why using real life race drivers for development aid usually doesn't make simulator better in means of physics. Real race drivers are so used in the G-forces for car feedback, so when they do not feel those in a simulation, they can not understand what is really happening with the car.

There are thousands of variables in real life car racing, but you can get pretty damn close with a proper simulation. All it takes is development time. In a proper simulation, the choice of controller doesn't matter. A proper wheel is the only possiblity if you are even slightly interested in sims. Of course a controller doesn't affect the physics though, I have seen people do amazing world record times with a mouse+keyboard combination. Controller and physics do not walk hand in hand.

I can't even talk about GRID. Tried the demo and it was such utter arcade hell that I would prefer sticking forks in to my eyes rather than playing it one more second.

orubasarot

This is interesting and I'm glad to see so many different opinions. It seems like none of these games really have it quite right, but they come close in different areas for different people. I wish this wasn't the case, since I wanted there to be only one single correct answer, but I guess it'll never be that easy.

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It is that easy - get them all

I currently race LFS, GTR2, GT Legends, rFactor, NetKar Pro, Race 07 - each of them have their flaws and each of them excel at something.

The interesting thing is that GT5P is such a solid effort so if PD want they could make GT5 into the sim that does everything right - only LFS and NetKar Pro have that potential from the list above, but both are a long way from getting there.

Chris

I have GTR, GTR2 and rFactor on my PC. Years ago, I raced on aged “PC driving sims” as Indy500 or some other F1 games (my first driving gaming experience was on Atari 2600 Activision Grand prix early 80’s). Beside, I’m a flight simulation enthusiast.
I also tried LFS but not sufficient to be able to talk about it.

In real life, I have my driving licence from almost 20 years and had several fast cars (no exceptional etheir) and motorcycles with some tracks sessions. I was also a competitor in RC cars for years when I was teenager. More recently, I had opportunities to drive a Porsche 911 cup, which is my greatest (and convincing) racing car experience.

In my opinion, there are two different subjects in this thread.

First, comparison between PC games and Console games. Second, comparison between games/sims and real life.

So what’s the deal with PC games and Console games? I think targets (customers, you) are not the same. PC games offer a large choice between arcade games and simulation games. But PC offers the most accurate experience with some softs as GTR series, rFactor and LFS. If you want to get accurate simulation, go on PC, if you want more fun and drive “easy” fast cars, go on console. It can be really annoying to play on PC games as you must spend hours to simply get your first clean lap with a decent time. On console (GT series), you can experience fun almost immediately. For me, it’s kind of non sense to compares PC and console games/sims as the goal are quite not the same.

Now, irl and gaming.

Even if the cars are not exactly the same (production year, hp, weight), driving irl a Porsche 911 cup and in GTR2 gives a great comparison. For sure no games can give physical sensation and perception as irl so we have here the main difference. The view is also a huge difference. But regarding behaviour of the car, I was really surprised on how close the car reacts physically both on game and real life. You can feel almost the same tight limit on adherence on GTR2 as a simple slide can be uncontrollable. I feel the real car easiest to control in that case but mainly because of the wide difference between risks I can take in a game and irl and also ‘cause of the physical sensations. The weight transfers are also greatly reproduced on the game (you literally “feels” the car sitting on its back, gaining adherence and stability to the point of loosing all). Of course, I can’t appreciate this kind of difference on others cars but we can expect that’s cars game models aren’t so far from real cars.

I expect next big step on PC racing simulation will be on variables to implement (weather, mechanical issues, track conditions, AI, etc), which is far more complicate (and PC resource needing).

GT5P is, for me, a half step between simulation and arcade. You can start to feel great cars models with slight differences with irl to allow common people to get fun with it. To be honest, I think a perfect simulation, we could qualify “hardcore”, will not get much gamers as the more the cars are wanted (LM cars, F1, top of the top racing cars) the more it’s difficult to master them. The goal of a game is to have fun and certainly GT series give it greatly. I’m also curious on how many GTP members who ask for more and more accuracy on simulation aspect will be pissed by the difficulties. For sure, some good fellows here will master this kind of game but almost every people will say “it’s so hard, I’m off”. Somehow, flight simulation can give us this kind of assertion. The most accurate the simulation is, the less people play it month after month because it’s not so funny to have to start your plane respecting strict procedures as irl (talk about Falcon4 and its derivates). That’s what we can call “elitism”. For sure, a game developer must keep in mind this elitism to get a wide market.

Maybe the balance to obtain great game is to offer elitism sensations (some sort of community appurtenance) without the real needing background. GT series seems to aim this goal and it’s ok for me, I enjoy it, feeling to be a “race driver” as I’m none.

PS: sorry for my poor English which don’t allow me to explain my feelings as accurate as I want.