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Been lovin' Dirt3. One of the best looking looking games I've ever played. I don't have a wheel, and a KB and mouse is basically useless. But I do have a joystick and a 3Dconnexion SpaceNavigator 3D mouse. Tried my Satiek Cyborg with limited success, but the SpaceNavigator works quite well.

I recorded a run using the 3D mouse. This is after about 30 minutes after tweaking and practicing with it.

Been getting into driving so much, I went for it and bought a totally new product, a SteelSeries driving wheel. Great reviews, but it's only been out for a couple months, so I'm taking my chances.

Looks very realistic, is it? I'm still waiting for someone to figure out how much fun total realism would be in a driving game...
Like realistic crashes, where the car gets wrecked, or everything suddenly goes black when you hit a tree...cut_scene to the hospital or graveside Driving games are a weird genre, it seems that nobody is interested in what really happens when you screw up.

People rarely play games for total realism. I'm sure even many flight sims have certain undesirable aspects of flying removed in favor of a lighter, funner game.

Immersion, however, is different from, but similar to, realism. When most people say they want realism, they mean that they want immersion -- or, the appearance of realism that is subservient to the fun factor of the game.

Related: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5tRNs2X5Q4

MrTwosheds wrote:Looks very realistic, is it?

The cars feel very realistic. The caveat is, I have been using a steering device with about 15 degrees of travel from lock to lock with the SpaceNavigator. Even when I get the Steelseries wheel, the major compromise will be it has no force feedback. . . and is unmounted.

But the surround sound and graphics at 1900x1200 on my TV, with everything maxed except for multisampling, is very satisfying, and provides many moments and glimpses of 99% realism. Maxed @ 1900x1200 I'm getting 25-40 FPS.

I think a realistic crash simulation would enhance the multiplayer aspect of racing games no end. No longer would teenage kids win all the races just by driving like complete lunatics and who knows, they might even learn enough to survive the real world too.
Video violence is often blamed for kids going off the rails, but driving game unreality probably leads to more of them dying in the real world.
I like racing games, but I don't buy them or play them much, these days they're all pretty much the same as the last one, with a bit more weather and better looking trees. I want full realistic physics and their consequences.

games make me worry about how kids react when they get behind the wheel of a car for the first time and crash it, or behind the controls of a plane and crash it, or shoot a gun at someone for the first time in real life:

"Wow, that *really* hurts!"

"Huh, why don't they respawn?"

I've been away from driving games for several years. With the exception of a few hardcore offerings, most driving games in the last few years have been flooded with gimmicks. Police chases, morphing cars, Cartoon plumbers in go-carts, intentional crashing, unrealistic jumps, etc..

The last driving sim I played that was brutal in regard to basic driving skill was Grand Prix Legends.

I have missed PC driving and Dirt3's rally simulation really brings back the interest for me since it offers several surfaces to master from one minute to the next.

Red Devil wrote:games make me worry about how kids react when they get behind the wheel of a car for the first time and crash it, or behind the controls of a plane and crash it, or shoot a gun at someone for the first time in real life:

"Wow, that *really* hurts!"

"Huh, why don't they respawn?"

The games don't cause that, the kids are just morons.

Nielk1 wrote:The games don't cause that, the kids are just morons.

QFT.

I'm sure a vast majority of kids (even relatively 'slow' ones) are capable of separating fantasy from reality.

uh huh... from what i have seen, i seriously doubt that they could.

Sure it is easy to imagine kids doing that, but we rarely think of the 16 years of riding around in a car and assume they magically plop into one having never seen one before in their lives.

Red Devil wrote:uh huh... from what i have seen, i seriously doubt that they could.

Elaborate?

I always wondered how many people it would take to stop a car on a NYC sidewalk.

I'm sure a vast majority of kids (even relatively 'slow' ones) are capable of separating fantasy from reality.

Hmm, driving games do give people the impression that they can actually drive, This most definitely does NOT mean that they can. Reality is a different car game altogether.

I always wondered how many people it would take to stop a car on a NYC sidewalk.

I have always seriously not wanted to find out. I can tell you that it takes about 50 meters for an ordinary car to stop a fully loaded double decker bus doing 30mph, if you don't bother to put the brakes on And that it takes 12 feet to stop an ordinary car from 40 mph, if you use a stationary a skip full of rubble instead of the brakes...and that it hurts.

I think race games can teach fundamentals like where and how to approach the apex of a curve, how weather is generally going to alter the control of the car, how to pay attention in a cluster. But you're right, there are so many other aspects of driving, a sim can't yet simulate. One of the most important is courtesy and paying attention.

By the way, another driving game that is blowing me away is the new Codemaster simulation, F1 2011. It easily matches Dirt3 in graphical amazement. It's about time ultra-realism was here.

Side note, I played a lot of Burnout before I learned to drive. I started off driving my real car like an old lady. No correlation.