Rate the Sims: Community Edition | rFactor 2

Paul Jeffrey · Dec 23, 2019

We are looking to crown the 'RaceDepartment Community Favourite' racing game - get your votes in now for our next game on the list... rFactor 2!

Our dear RaceDepartment community. You folks are the most mighty fans of sim racing, often displaying an immense amount of understanding and depth of knowledge when it comes to our favourite hobby.

With sim racing and eSports in such a wonderful boom period of late. Gamers looking to have some fun with their virtual racing machines have never before had such a wide and robust variety of software to enjoy.

Now occasionally I've been in a position to rate new racing titles that have come my way, and almost every time I've received a wide variety of folks agreeing, or strongly disagreeing with my own opinions.

Opinions are great, but sometimes the opinion of one person, with their own likes and dislikes taken into account, can often give a bit of a skewed picture (intentional or not) to the greater cause in which said person is trying to explain.

As such, rather than doing one myself, and in the spirit of engaging some interesting community discussion, I thought it could be fun to let our own community rate each of the key sim racing / racing games available today.

As always with these things, please do try and respect each other and their opinions, and let's try to see if we can give a fun, but fair shake of the stick to each of the games included in this poll.

For transparency, I'm going to be featuring the following racing games over the next weeks:

I'm going to launch the article each Monday evening, and keep the poll running for a full week until the next new article is pushed live. So get your votes in quick!

Once I've completed the full list of games, I'll publish a final results feature, and we can award the winning developer the lofty title of 'RaceDepartment Community Favourite'!

Have fun, stay sensible and let the voting commence!

wombat999 · Dec 24, 2019

I really wanted this to succeed, paid for it way back when it first appeared, regularly updated and even paid for the Studio 397 'new version', still disappointing.
5 points for effort.

Chris · Dec 24, 2019

7 for me.

The immersion is good and I always feel in rF2 that I have to look after my car more than in any other Sim. The FFB is the best in the business.

But the tire model lacks some of the features of ACC, but that's just software development for you.

The online is good and the netcode is very solid!

It's the most technically advanced sim under the hood, but it's presentation and user friendliness is the worst of all Sims. Hopefully the new UI is able to solve some of this.

Edit: if anyone can recommend any settings for a CSW 2.5, would be much appreciated. Most cars feel really floaty, almost as if they're hovering just above the track surface, rather than the tires really biting into the tarmac.

Patrik Marek · Dec 24, 2019

it's got potential to be 9, but too many either "unfinished" or "old" , sometimes even broken things make it 7 for me.
it's the only sim that I get back to after some times, and my controllers dont' work anymore ,have to mess around with them for a bit to get it working again

S397 made a huge improvements, so there is a hope that it will get more polished and better overall package. We shall see

like for example ( and fair enough, I'm talking modded content), I drove the 90's supertourers and they felt great!
Then I tried Lotus Cortina - that has a great rating, and it was too bouncy/floaty, which I don't think was realistic. Similar cars in AC drive way more how I imagine

matiaslee · Dec 24, 2019

Sorry but only 2.
So what is the problem of rf2?
I think the largest problem comes from content. We do have some official content but we don't have much content from community.rf2 has been a game for more than 5 years and just think how many mods we had when rf1 has been out for 5 years(around 2010)?

Next comes to performance. rf2 has very poor multi-core support so my pc, which can happily run against 55 AI in pCars, was struggling to deal with 31 AI in rf2. The performance was so poor that my driving input lags!
Someone might say pCars was not a serious sim but keep in mind that rf2 also use simplified physics on AI.

If we come to detail of rf2, you will find rf2 still struggles on hybrid system when compared with AC. This also limited the mods.

Korva7 · Dec 24, 2019

For me rf2 is the most enjoyable sim to drive. Imo it's better at giving an impression of actually being in control of a real car than other sims i have tried. Also the driving is pretty much only thing i'm interested in sims, so for me rf2 is the best sim at the moment and i gave it 9/10.

mister dog · Dec 24, 2019

Best feeling FFB out there, devs are working on getting the game up to date with improved graphics and a new UI which already dropped in the beta so it looks good for 2020. Sounds are great already.

I gave it an 8/10, - 1 point for the fragmentation in DLC which means people have to pick up all sorts of different DLC in order to race some events if different content is featured (you need to own all content in the server in order to participate), and this scares away a lot of people. And also -1 point as the UI and graphics were updated but still below what other sims feature nowadays. Current UI and launcher can be a pain in the butt.

mesfigas · Dec 24, 2019

D_Moriarty · Dec 24, 2019

10 for me, with all the frustration it never fails to cause. I only gave 10 for AC and for rf2. AC brought me back to the simracing scene 5 years ago, rF2 made me stay, they are my most played sims today, with ACC rising. Though I hate all the tinkering one has to do in rF2, the empty online servers, the lack of proper offline champs etc., but whenever I come back for something new (Sebring, Nords - probably LM now in the winter sale), I'm just completely shattered by how much better the driving feels, at least to me - way more natural, way more informative than any other sim. And these tracks are also getting there visually, on the new combos, graphics is just superb.
But I have to admit, the dlc/item store model is a blunder that becomes all the more annoying with rising prices and weird combos (2-pack, or selling gte and gt3 versions of nearly identical cars for the same price, iracing-like track prices with no online to talk of), and imo seriously jeopardises the future of the title.

Zoof2 · Dec 24, 2019

Love this sim and it would get a 10 if only the UI wasnt so antiquated and no friendly way to set up a custom championship lije say a RRE.
So due to this it gets a 7 as just for pure driving feel its my favourite sim and automatic go to.

hozes · Dec 24, 2019

I gave it 9.
I am 95 percent offline player, rf2 is my sim to go. I purchased it when it was first released, then i sold my sim rig, quit simracing, by the time i played iracing ( invest good amount of money on that time) and rbr along with rfactor.
After studio397 takes over the lead, the changes that make rf2 not uglier anymore ( yes graphic wise, i think its one of the best, seems photorealistically realistic for my eyes ), the content they create, turn me back to simracing, i rebuild my sim rig.

Whrn they realesed sebring, i said myself that i have to drive on that track and i did. The way s397 choose i think right, the beauty of rf2 endurance racing, the driving physics, ffb, dynamic racing etc everything is very good, now along with rf2, i play acc, rbr, ams and slre, but 80% of my time i play rf2

Stereo · Dec 24, 2019

I gave it a 6, but it's on the special racing sim scale where 10 is "all the features I want are present and bug-free enough to use". It just doesn't have enough content to keep my interest, quality of AI doesn't come into it when I don't want to race anything.

Shovas · Dec 24, 2019

Robes said:
In some ways it is chronically lacking, but on the track it feels almost peerless.

+1

That's exactly the thing with rF2. Everything leading up to getting in the car feels subpar, everything about the feeling in the car feels top notch.

manu68 · Dec 24, 2019

I purchased rfactor 2 on sales recently.
I have been a big rfactor fan in the past.
Well, i dont have much time to dive deep into this sim.
It appears to me a fantastic potential but as with rfactor, It needs a lot of tweaking files, mods, ....
And as i have already all of this with ACC or assetto corsa. ..

But i like a lot the classic formula cars.

I am sure this is a great game, but It needs a time available that i just dont have.
7 for me

Redvaliant · Dec 24, 2019

Sebring is simply the best realised track in sim racing, and I don't even particularly like it as a race track. It's that good. The rest of Rf2 is pretty good too.

j_troc_71 · Dec 24, 2019

rFactor2 is probably my favorite sim to drive it. Still prefer their tire model over any others. New content has been pretty good, new UI and Comp system should do a lot of good for the game too. Count me in with the large group of others that wishes S397 spent more time fixing stuff that's already in the game though. They broke the GTE cars last June and still waiting for a fix, which is a bummer, the GTE cars were my favorite cars in the game

Patrick van der Meulen · Dec 24, 2019

Potentially a solid 10. But like every sim it does have its flaws. It does carry a lot of baggage of the past. That's why it gets an 8. But S397 have done a great job reviving a dead horse and slowly improving on the baggage of the past.

Dave Thayer · Dec 25, 2019

I gave Rfactor2 a 9 rating. Along with Assetto Corsa and RaceRoom, I really enjoy driving/racing in this game. The VR visuals in this game are great. Like Assetto Corsa I enjoy many of the 3rd party mods available for the game which many of the newer games now dont provide. I dont mind the old UI and looking forward to seeing how much better the newer UI is when finalized. I am not going to even try the current beta UI at this time cause of reading about some problems with it. I can wait for the final release.

Emery · Dec 25, 2019

Living with S397 ownership has been frustrating because good things are released, yet there is soooo much left undone, actually in worse shape than under ISI ownership and quality control has been slightly lower than ISI.

Despite this frustration, I still gave it an 8 because the driving experience and competition environment, the place where 90% of our sim time is spent, is still the best.

Hikonyan@rFS · Dec 25, 2019

7/10
They made a big leap this year, with the transition to DX11 and VR support that could not be done in the days of ISI, the release of DLC for courses and many vehicles, and the release of a new UI despite being in public beta.

However, the problem caused by stutter freezes in multiplayer has not been completely solved, and some communities (eg, GTR24h) have moved to iRacing because of this. This is a catastrophic issue and i hope that there is continuous improvement.

The advanced drivetrain system, the concept of wind and barometric pressure, and changes in road surface temperature due to changes in sunshine and temperature are not implemented, making it seem inferior to the surrounding race shims (iRacing, ACC).

I hope rFactor2 will be even better in 2020.

Boby Kim · Dec 25, 2019

I just love the rFactor game engine and how Reiza and ISI developed race games. rF2 (and AMS) is the only game in which i feel i can race on the pure limit. Im not saying rF2 is the best simulation...i like the game the most. Especially now that AMS content has been released (MR18). I only miss he supertrucks. Marcel....you hear me: "SUPERTRUCKS!!!"