dukestah’s gtr blog

the game:
the intro is nice, good music, nice line. the menu is the same like in the demo version, which is not a surprise but i still dislike it. the setup of the game works like a charm, lots of different settings for graphics, audio, controller and realism. nice to see that depending on the difficulty (arcade, semi, sim) some of the aids are disabled by default.
the tracks:
well, the game covers the fia gt tracks only, means, only tracks on which a fia gt race took place in 2004/2005 are included in the game. as an european, it is a pity that the vln long distance series is not included. this means no Nordschleife for example. the other tracks are not bad but i found a major disbalance for the frame rate for different tracks. this depends mostly on the scenery. if you are running a system which is a little bit ‘on the edge’ you have to change the graphic settings for each track and this is quite anoying. the details of the tracks are fine and especially with the new lighting system it is really impressive to watch races on certain tracks. for driving, it is very helpfull for finding brake points and turn in points, especially if it is not daytime.
the sound:
the sound is not very different to the first version of GTR. still no 5.1, still a little bit flat and liveless and i miss the incar feeling. compared to other sims like nascar, where you can feel the brutality of the engine, GTR2 is not really a reference. and i want to hear the engine where it is, means, for a mid engine or rear engine, the sound has to be placed in the back not in the front. and i also miss the sound of the tires, it is so great in richard burns rallye if you can hear which of the tires are scrubbing.
the cars:
the anouncement of 140 cars is a little bit strange, since there are less cars, just different skins. if you start a race with 60 cars (like spa) then you’ll get the warning that not enough cars available (red number close to the slider) even if i understand the concept of the different skins (driver, season, event) i don’t understand the promotion of 140 cars. the good think, or better, the very good point is, all cars are not encrypted. even if i dislike to mod or to change everything nor i want to drive a 1000 horsepower car, this is really a good decision to put the files non crypted on the disc. this will make things a lot easier (vln series, other privateer cars etc) and it gave me the possibility to add my modified exige to GTR2 as well. due the different seasons and cars, new tires are available, so i have to go for my tire test again ;). the quality of the cars is great, even at low detail and low textures, they look brilliant, especially in dusk or dawn.
the performance:
as i have said above, the performance depends on the track. the overall performance is much better than GTR. on my sony vaio 2 GHz, 2 GB, Ati 700, Soundblaster Audigy PCMCIA the game is running at about 30 fps without many hacks on graphics. if i go back to directx7 shaders (or no shaders i would say, it looks quite close to GTR then) i get 60 fps easily, even with 60 cars on the track and full scene antialiasing. rain is really demanding and also with full shadows at high quality i got frame drops to 10 on spa or other complex tracks. rain is good to handle without fsaa, which is not really necessary due the fog. the shadow problem (if you want to call it like this) can be fixed by decreasing quality and setting it to medium. but the shadow issue hardly depends on the track, a complex pit building cuts off about 30 fps easily while a flat track like china is no problem at all. motec eats up to 10 fps as well and like in GTR, outside the cockpit, the frame rate is much better and more consistent. overall, it is acceptable and still driveable on low spec systems if you can life with less details on cars and tracks.
the realism:
this is the most important part of a simulation, isn’t it? i’ve already tested the conversion of the Nordschleife from GTL and brakesmann has released a kind of official version for GTR2, so no editing and renaming necessary. now, with the final release of GTR2 i am able to use my former exige. so i can compare GTR and GTR2 side by side with the same car on the same track.
my first impression was – easy. my second impression was – more like a real car, and my third impression – great. GTR was often some kind of too predictable, means, i know befor a curve this will be a disaster because there was often no chance to catch a spinning car. from real life i know that there is a border on which everything is lost but in GTR this border is reached earlier than in real life due the handling of the cars. in GTR2 i think this border is set properly and, and this is a very good thing, the cars are able to slide more than in GTR. so if you throw a car into a bend and you know you are a way off the line for the current speed, you will be able to force the car into a more sideway motion and with some luck, this will rescue the situation. i do not talk about ‘need for speed underground’ drifting, i just talk about exceeding the tire grip a little bit without loosing the car completely. especially on tracks like Nordschleife, where you have a lot of places where you can not look ‘around’ the corner it is quite important to have at least a chance to avoid crahses initiated by spinning cars or whatsoever, especially for 24 hours races.
to test the physics a little bit in depth, i took my exige and went out for a couple of laps on Nordschleife. with a base setup (short gears, too much rear wing, wrong caster) i was able to drive a 7:55, which is not bad for this car. after getting my old settings from GTR i was able to get a 7:44. this is about 9 seconds faster than my best time in GTR. my first idea was, more grip on the track. so i went to motec and compared speeds and g-forces at certain sections of the track. surprisely, they are quite close together, so it is not only related to the grip of the track. so i started to dig a little bit deeper and i found that i was braking a little bit later and i was accelerating a little bit earlier than in GTR. i have no idea what is the major reason for this but i would say it is a better ‘feeling’. handling the car on the edge seems a little bit easier than in GTR and i’ve got the impression that the force feedback is different to GTR (i have modified the force feedback settings to get rid of this raddling feedback, maybe i have spoiled the feedback in GTR). i will spend some more time on this issue to get the reason for this improvement.
the analysis:
for me as a statistican, it is very important to analyse my driving. GTR2 requires the new Motec version I2. At a first look, this version looks very different to the well known Motec Interpreter. But at a second look, the new version is more flexible and provides better output. Handling multiple graphs, adding and removing channels, everything works like a charm, there are lots of detailed settings like filter, scale and color. handling different sessions is as easy as eating icecream, so jumping between different runs is very handy. a major improvement is the new selection of channels. the tire temperatures for example, this provides a great opportunity to adjust the caster settings in a more sophisticated manner than in GTR. what i miss is the brake temperature, especially for cars with non-motec displays or with the small motec display (there is no brake nor tire temp available while driving). to find the optimal brake cooling setting is more a shot in the dark.
overall:
GTR2 is definitely a great sequel to GTR. if you are into sim racing and if you like to get a complete package of gt racing, this is your choice. it is not without minor problems and bugs but it is a good game with lots of features like full seasons, driving school and time attack. hardcore sim freaks may not enjoy every option but i think this game offers a lot of different features to fullfil a wide spectrum of needs without the need to use every option. the non encrypted files offers great opportunity for modders or for people who wants to ‘adjust’ some parts. if you are a pure mod freak then maybe r-factor would be a better choice.