Racing Sim Super Review, Part 2 – rFactor
July 27th 2009 – Adam Bauman

 

Image Space Incorporated has been in the Racing Simulation business for longer than just about anyone and was responsible for the development of the gMotor2 simulation engine which is still used to this day as the underpinnings for SimBin’s simulations, even the newer titles such as GTR2 and RACE07. In 2005 ISI released their newest entry into the simulation market based on gMotor2, rFactor.

 

Setting the simulator up and getting started is fairly simple, anyone who has worked with a SimBin title will find that the controller setup and other options are very familiar. rFactor’s mantra is “Customize. Control. Connect” which is precisely how the sim’s menu system is setup.

Starting with the Customize section you’ll find everything you need to get the game configured, the section for setting your player preferences and the screen that allows you to purchase, select and purchase upgrades for your vehicles. It’s this last option is an interesting one, before you can select a vehicle it must be purchased using credits you earn by winning races. In addition to vehicle purchases these credits can also be used to increase the performance of your car by purchasing a number of upgrades or upgrade packages. At first this sounds like a nice feature to those that were raised on Gran Turismo, but in the end it’s a pretty shallow upgrade system and doesn’t really add much to the game. The rest of the menus are pretty straight-forward, Control gets you onto the track and Connect gets you online to compete against others.

 

Out of the box rFactor isn’t terribly attractive, the graphics look very dated and the tracks seem very flat and lifeless. Fortunately the visuals don’t necessarily make a good sim, rFactor’s simulation feels pretty good and compares very well to GTR Evolution’s implementation of the gMotor2 engine. rFactor’s biggest problems comes to light when you start to bring GTR Evolution or any of the SimBin titles into the equation. In stock form SimBin’s simulators look better, sound better, include a much larger library of cars and tracks (all of which are real) and the way the gMotor2 engine has been tweaked by SimBin makes the driving feel a bit better and more realistic. SimBin’s games are even fairly customizable, they allow the addition of user-generated content such as new cars and tracks and offer fairly good access to the simulation’s underpinnings through editable configuration files. It’s only when you begin to lift the hood and begin tinkering that you start to see where rFactor shines.

 

rFactor was built with user-generated content in mind, ISI has given the users unparalleled access to the simulations guts and it is this reason that such a strong community exists to support the title. rFactor has a number of great tools available for generating new vehicles and tracks and has provided a well sorted website to allow the sharing and rating of these creations with http://rfactorcentral.com/. By downloading a few modifications you can really unlock the true potential of the simulation and can tailor it to fit your tastes. For this review I kept it pretty simple, I download a few tracks including Laguna Seca, the Caterham add-on and the Real Feel FFB plugin. Installation of the add-ons is simple (it usually just involves copying the contents of the download into the rFactor folder), the only one that required some tweaking was the Real Feel FFB plugin. Even that wasn’t too difficult, the plugin is well documented and I just needed to open its configuration file to change a few entries.

With the proper add-ons installed rFactor becomes a whole new animal. While the user-generated content varies quite a bit in graphical quality and presentation, the best of the items look, sound, and drive very well. I was impressed with the amount of detail that went into my new car which included bump mapping of the tire’s sidewalls, a great cockpit and many other little details. Laguna Seca looked pretty good, the track itself was well textured and the track’s scenery was well sorted and convincing. The one complaint I had with Tsukaba, Laguna Seca and a few of the other tracks was that in parts felt like they were too small in places and the track dimensions were noticeably off from their real world counterparts. After spending quite a bit of time with iRacing and its laser-scanned tracks (which will be reviewed later) these innaccuracies become even more apparent.

 

In the end I found that I couldn’t choose rFactor over GTR Evolution, even after spending some considerable time playing with plugins, custom tracks and cars it never felt as well sorted and fun to play. That’s not to say that rFactor doesn’t have its own merits, having the ability to dig into its underpinnings and customize to your heart’s content is pretty cool if you’re into tweaking things and/or have a specific simulated experience you’re trying to create. For the average user who just wants to jump in and drive with minimal fuss it’s not going to look very attractive.

 

rFactor isn’t the end for ISI, the community is abuzz with news regarding rFactor2 which promises to up the ante when it comes to the simulation’s graphics and presentation. Among many of the features it’s rumored to support are dynamic weather and much better support for high resolution textures, dynamic shadows and atmospheric effects such as fog. The rFactor is a series I feel is worth keeping an eye on, if rFactor2 can address many of the criticisms leveled against the first title we should see a simulator that will be able to compete with the best.