Forza Motorsport 3

[Wilbo]

Each driver does a few three hour stints I think, so just do a 3-hour race, toilet break, then another.

[Sekiro]

I'm there for the full week and a bit with work so if I see anything I'll try and get a hands on or steal a copy.

It's very common for drivers to piss themselves at Le Mans, Ring 24 etc, shitting less so but has been known to happen - never nice for the next driver as it gets damn hot and the smell can be...well, nasty.

Getting laid however? Pretty sure that is easier playing a game tbh

[McSpeed]

Damn you Bunta, why do you always get to do so much awesome stuff?

Either way, I wasn't really thinking about racing for 24 hours. It would be brilliant if there was an accelerated time system (like in GRID) though: imagine a one hour 'endurance' race in Forza 3 where it gets dark after about 20 minutes, followed by about 20 minutes of darkness, and so on.

Also, cruise control could be nice for the Hunaudières (the enormously long straight, although it's got two chicanes these days)

[Dimahoo]

I've just got back into Forza 2 and honestly, I'm not sure how much it could be bettered within the current generational limits. One criticism I do have though is that the replays are incredibly 'zoomy' meaning that they are quite uncomfortable to watch. I'd prefer a static panning camera in forza3.

Just an aside - this was another issue with the game engine. T10 said they couldn't do the replays properly as the game engine couldn't deal with it. And not only that, but they run at 25-30fps.

Its the same with GRID - the replays are terrible. Theres an auto view which gives you SOME outside pans and thats your lot. The rest of it is in-car

[McSpeed]

Just an aside - this was another issue with the game engine. T10 said they couldn't do the replays properly as the game engine couldn't deal with it. And not only that, but they run at 25-30fps.

Its the same with GRID - the replays are terrible. Theres an auto view which gives you SOME outside pans and thats your lot. The rest of it is in-car

A bit odd though, as PGR4 has awesome replay angles. Same goes for GT5 Prologue actually, where you can even zoom in yourself at any time with a press on the triangle button.

I do hope Turn 10 will produce a good dynamic replay angle for Forza 3, just so it becomes more enjoyable to watch. When watching one now in Forza 2, I use the 'behind the car 2' camera, swinging it around with the right stick to see all the action. Not all that comfortable.

[layten]

Its the same with GRID - the replays are terrible. Theres an auto view which gives you SOME outside pans and thats your lot. The rest of it is in-car

No problems with the PC version, which also happened to run at 60fps... http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~layte/pics...22-14-55-68.png

[Boozy The Clown]

He means the lack of trackside camera angles on replays. For my money Rallisport 2,GT and the Moto GP games gave the best replay action. Having tons to fiddle about with during replays is half the fun of rewatching them. Rallisport putting slow motion on the triggers was a stroke of genius. It's the only area in which Forza 2 fails hard. The replays should at the very least look like a Race on TV. Stick an auto-tune option into the 3rd one for non mechanics like myself and you'll have a near perfectly accessible sim racer that should be hard to beat.

[Dimahoo]

Rfactor does a freeze swingman so you can just stop the camera at any angle, then move it about. I was going to show Meerman a 63 car race on the Austrian track but fraps isn't playing ball and won't output smoothly.

But yeah, as Boozy says - it would mean you could make some great photos as well as seeing some great racing. And we could potentially upload movies.

[Meers]

Just an aside - this was another issue with the game engine. T10 said they couldn't do the replays properly as the game engine couldn't deal with it. And not only that, but they run at 25-30fps.

Less frames in a replay is hardly something worth complaining about. The camera angles should have a TV camera option in FM3, and you should be able to rewind and fast-forward the action on the fly, as seen in GRID and skate, for instance. It now loads on every button press, even when switching to another car.

Rfactor does a freeze swingman so you can just stop the camera at any angle, then move it about. I was going to show Meerman a 63 car race on the Austrian track

I've played Rfactor and although the game is great, it's PC gaming as a whole that stops me from playing it further. I sit behind one of the buggers all day at work and I'm not keen on spending whole nights in front of one them at night as well. Sofa console gaming FTW.

How detailed are those 63 cars then on the grid?

[Dudley]

Papyrus's final NASCAR games (4/2002/2003) supported a full NASCAR field of 43 cars. iRacing, the super-hardcore sim that evolved from them, might do similar numbers (i've not followed it that closely). though, thinking about it, I don;t think the NR4 engine would ever show all 43 cars online, just the 10 closest (tweakable up and down a bit in the options menu).

GT5 prologue does 16-player races so with that as the benchmark (and forza's still very much measuring itself against GT) I reckon that's the most likely number.

For that matter, EA's Nascar games are certainly not unattractive and can punt 43 around just fine. (although I don't know how they do online). The advantage of Nascar of course is you only need 1 car model.

[Dimahoo]

How detailed are those 63 cars then on the grid?

Actually its weird - their fairly detailed and if they bothered with filters properly (like the 360) it would look fairly good. The worlds aren't that well textured it must be said and with certain series the frame rate drops massively (i can have 19 cars in the Porsche series, but if i go to 20 might framerate takes a massive hit. Too big for it to be a problem with the card - its a bug of some sort).

I'm running the game at 1920x1200 so slightly higher then true HD and with an 8x Aniscopic filter.

I don't use Anti aliasing as theres no point - it kills my card and looks quite dull - i prefer sharpness at this resolution but it'll run at around 60fps in car - even at the back, dropping to about 30-40 in replays.

But these are wide angle replays. I'd love to vid it.

At Forza res (1024x768 i think) i could probably enable the AA to 4x to improve the low res look with no massive framerate hit.

I think thats what Turn 10 did (and they added glare/weather filters) so it doesn't look that bad.

Shame i can't really play Rfactor with a joypad - its pretty much impossible with all aids off unless its a low spec race (like the Octavias)

[Meers]

Hey Dim, SBK09 manages 24 bikes on the 360. What could be the excuse for FM3 not to have 24 AI cars offline? 60fps? Custom liveries? Inefficient game engine?

[McSpeed]

Hey Dim, SBK09 manages 24 bikes on the 360. What could be the excuse for FM3 not to have 24 AI cars offline? 60fps? Custom liveries? Inefficient game engine?

Well, if we're being realistic: virtual cars have a lot more polygons and detailed textures compared to bikes. I can imagine that's the reason why most current-gen racing games don't have that many cars on-screen.

Except for GRID though, which has races with 20 cars if I recall correctly. Hmm.

[Meers]

Exactly. There's no excuse really.

[SteveH]

Yeah but isn't Grid running at 30fps. Not to mention having nowhere near the same amount of physics going on in the background.

[sir stiff_one]

Exactly. There's no excuse really.

Oh fiddlesticks, as if you know exactly what's going on 'under the bonnet'. There are several thousand excuses I imagine, but lets hope that F3 is a nice big improvement is all these areas.

[Meers]

Oh fiddlesticks, as if you know exactly what's going on 'under the bonnet'.

I don't, of course. Calm down. What I meant is that with all these racers out now featuring large car numbers, there's really no excuse for FM3 to stay behind.

[Raide]

I don't actually want more cars on the track, I want more options for car upgrades, more race variety and more tracks...oh and more cars too.

[bradigor]

Twitter from Turn10 studio's 20:53

"Just got to LA. It's almost time, my friends! I'm damn excited. Watersporting season is here."

[Fugitive]

Twitter from Turn10 studio's 20:53

"Just got to LA. It's almost time, my friends! I'm damn excited. Watersporting season is here."

Twitter from Turn 10 Studio's 21:42

"Hah, if you think Blur's power-ups are cool, just wait until you see Forza 3's! Not long to go now."

[bradigor]

Twitter from Turn 10 Studio's 21:42

"Hah, if you think Blur's power-ups are cool, just wait until you see Forza 3's! Not long to go now."

They are playing with us....it matters not

Watch Forzamotorsport.net on Monday at noon for a massive FM2 car giveaway. Exclusive designs from T10.

[dan_tm]

Then explain 20 Fifa players on one pitch, online at the same time, all highly detailed?

As has been said, you can't really compare the two for multiple reasons.

Moving 20 glorified sprites around a football pitch is a tiny bit easier than running all the physics required for 20 realistic car simulations. I would imagine quite a bit more bandwidth is required as well.

There's not really any need to model the physics for any car other than your own, to be honest. Not to anywhere near the same standard anyway.

[Wilbo]

Watch Forzamotorsport.net on Monday at noon for a massive FM2 car giveaway. Exclusive designs from T10.

Do you know if that's the forums or front page? Noon GMT!? aaaaaaaargh!

[bradigor]

Do you know if that's the forums or front page? Noon GMT!? aaaaaaaargh!

Not a scooby, but I imagine 12PM LA Time. Right when I am likely to be racing on Forza sadly.

[amnesiac_3]

There's not really any need to model the physics for any car other than your own, to be honest. Not to anywhere near the same standard anyway.

Really? How do you replicate realistic reactions and physics without relatively complex simulation? Or is it all just smoke and mirrors? Example: I hit an AI car with something resembling a PIT manoeuvre... does the car react with realistic physics? I'd assume it was perhaps a combination of AI and physics, but I'm not sure. Although, if they're all human players then I guess it would simply be a matter of coordinates, orientation and collision detection.

[morcs]

Really? How do you replicate realistic reactions and physics without relatively complex simulation? Or is it all just smoke and mirrors? Example: I hit an AI car with something resembling a PIT manoeuvre... does the car react with realistic physics? I'd assume it was perhaps a combination of AI and physics, but I'm not sure. Although, if they're all human players then I guess it would simply be a matter of coordinates, orientation and collision detection.

Yep that's how LFS does it

Edit: Actually no I've got a feeling it does do physics for the other cars to interpolate positions inbetween network updates, I'm not sure now!

[Dimahoo]

With online games the physics i wouldn't have thought the physics are easy as you have it being calculated on each machine then sent to a server (there are still bugs with it - but not all the time).

I thought the main issue was surely the textures of the tracks AND cars along with the effects on each car. You have to calculate all that for each additional car (on top of the physics). The replays slowed down to 30fps with external cams so there was clearly graphical issues when the cars was close and the camera wide-angled. They did mention it was an issue with the graphics engine and the way it was programmed.

I find it weird because they modelled the ring and that was massive in size so you'd have thought a replay at 60fps with proper angles wouldn't be that hard but then i don't know anything about programming.

[SteveH]

I have wondered that myself. How come when in a race, you can use an outside car view, see all the cars in front of you, plus on some tracks see for miles, yet that can't be replicated during replays?

[dan_tm]

Really? How do you replicate realistic reactions and physics without relatively complex simulation? Or is it all just smoke and mirrors? Example: I hit an AI car with something resembling a PIT manoeuvre... does the car react with realistic physics? I'd assume it was perhaps a combination of AI and physics, but I'm not sure. Although, if they're all human players then I guess it would simply be a matter of coordinates, orientation and collision detection.

I was only referring to online play, the other player-controlled cars' movements would just be predicted from data sent over the network, using something like dead reckoning. The AI cars would be following some form of flocking pattern, probably tied into the 'racing line' thing you can turn on and follow yourself. So they'd probably require a full physics simulation.

I find it weird because they modelled the ring and that was massive in size so you'd have thought a replay at 60fps with proper angles wouldn't be that hard but then i don't know anything about programming.

The size of the track in general doesn't really make a difference. The engine is only ever drawing what you're looking at, so it doesn't matter that there's another 10 miles of Nurburgring around the corner.

[Wilbo]

Not a scooby, but I imagine 12PM LA Time. Right when I am likely to be racing on Forza sadly.

Because of you, I am now staring madly at the website every 15 seconds.

Whereabouts did you spot this?