I did help with the skin pack only to blackcelica. I'm not the author of the mod. I'm sharing under Enver's permission.
What I experinced is:
- Grip and track is better.
- Has night lights.
- Grass is good enough for my taste.
- Rain? I didn't used it ever. So on that one you'll be the experinced one.
- GT4s, F1s and some other fast car mods are work better with it. (No China or Malaysia slipperyness i mean)
- Skin is a good +
- Also with good AI, DRS and other stuff, I prefer this one.
And yes all of İstanbul Park's are same base F1 2011 (Actually GRID)... but ACU's version has some lighting issues on grandstands. I don't like that look. So, you can download and judge it by yourself. It's not switch ACU track or it's data.
Thanks for the detailed reply. I just want to check, did you actually download and test the track I linked to? It's quite far removed from the ACU original and has been changed a LOT, so I was wondering if your comments might have been based on the much older ACU original?
If you subjectively prefer the other track then nobody can argue with that but it seems placebo or confirmation bias might be influencing some of your reasons, if they are based on the track I linked to:
- Grip and track is better.
Grip is absolutely identical on both tracks, FRICTION=0.99, so a little higher than Kunos recommended specs but exactly the same for both. I guess ACU originally set this and nobody's bothered changing it.
- Has night lights.
I actually get no night lights at all on your track but maybe the config hasn't downloaded from the Github or something, but there is definitely full track lighting (including digital flags) on the version I linked to. You can see the lighting config in the track folder.
- Grass is good enough for my taste.
General consensus is that GrassFX is a huge improvement over flat textures or old vanilla strip tufts, so it's possible your view won't be shared by many.
- Rain? I didn't used it ever. So on that one you'll be the experinced one.
OK, that's fine for you but it's not just you that'll be using this track. RainFX prep is getting requested more and more and is kind of expected now by default. Just look at all the requests in this thread for RainFX configs, and those are only going to increase when RainFX is included in the public release of CSP which should be any time soon... ish. Maybe. Hopefully.
- Skin is a good +
...and easily copied to the other track in a few seconds if it's a deal-breaker.
- Also with good AI, DRS and other stuff, I prefer this one.
Not sure what the 'other stuff' is and if DRS is missing then fine, but I actually prefer the AI on the track I linked to so again, personal preference. Again, the AI is probably interchangeable between the different tracks anyway.
Choice is always nice so it's a good job both tracks exist. I think there are actually at least five Instanbuls doing the rounds all based on ACU's original conversion, so I'm sure everyone will be able find their favourite.
Edit: and maybe someone will combine the best of these two tracks to give us the definitive version.