For context: https://arturmarques.com/wp/2019/08/25/f1-2019-my-f2-2018-career-with-a-i-98-part-1-3/
On event #2 of 3, the final laps of the Austrian GP, you have to deal with a broken front wing. The challenge is to recover the lost ground and go overtake your adversary. I failed. I lost no places after the forced pit stop, but I could gain none either. The race pace of the A.I. was just too strong for my current skill.
Video:
Codemasters’ “F1 2019” game, which I play on the PC, features a “career mode” that consists of three events of the F2 2018 championship: Spain, Austria, and Abu Dhabi, the closing race. When a player plays the “career” mode, he/she must first complete these F2 events, before graduating to F1.
There is no “practice” mode in the game; the closest to it, is an option to race timed laps. This means that, for first time players, like myself, the handling of the car will be a complete unknown and unless playing on a very low difficulty level, success (race wins) is impossible.
My career is against A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) set at 98% and no driver assists, other than some traction control. The game should warn you that you cannot change these settings, ever, unless starting a new career. Makes sense, but the game’s defaults for the Logitech G29 racing steering wheel – my controller – feel so bad, that I had to spend significant time in tuning it to an “acceptable” state. That meant many F2 2018 Spain restarts, until I could control the car, at all.
At some point, I was comfortable enough to complete the challenges. I recorded videos of those three F2 events.
F1 2019 has great visuals, but its handling is well below the superb rFactor 2 (RF2) standard. RF2 feels “natural”. The behavior you get from the RF2 cars is just credible. Yet, because of its “social” component, including ESPORTS, F1 2019 is gathering momentum. It is “unfair” from a realism perspective, but it is what it is. I suppose F1 2019’s realism deficit versus not only RF2 but also versus iRacing, is rooted on its compromise to support gaming consoles (Playstation, XBOX), which are devices for audiences who prefer “fun” with stick controllers above “simulation”.
Today and in the next two days, I publish the “TV perspective” videos of events #1 to #3 of 3.
Event #1/3 is the closing laps of the Spain 2018 F2 race. In this first game “career” challenge, the story sets you with a “turbo issue” and a request from your team, to let your teammate pass. I did not have the pace to hold my teammate, so the request was easy to comply with :).
As the video shows, although the car was “controllable”, I was locking the brakes too often, due to inexperience, a yet poor control setup (that would improve days later, but remains still far from perfect), and because of damage that I suffered from contact against another car. “Damage” is another setting that you cannot change without erasing all the saved game data and restarting the “career”. I am playing with “damage” one level below the max “simulation”, and that means that contacts will cause handling and performance problems. The video clearly depicts the car parts that have sustained impacts.
Video:
I decided to try the game “F1 2019” (it was 30% off on Steam), and the experience evolved from terrible to interesting. It is amazing how bad the game defaults are: unrealistic handling and audio stuttering are the top issues. These issues seem to affect many players, considering the frequency they appear in support forums, yet – and this is quite a mystery – the big review sites seem immune to such annoyances, not referring how they configured the game to bypass all issues and apparently enjoy a turn-key 9/10 game.
I always perceived the “F1 20xx” game series as “racing fun” for “kids”, i.e., for those just wanting to have a nice looking arcade experience with F1 cars in it. For those who appreciate a “simulation” approach, these games feel ridiculous, sand-to-eyes (look good, drive awful), and unfair to other games on the market, which are so much more “real”, and better handling out-of-the-box.
In my first minutes with it, F1 2019 greatly exceed my WORST expectations. It was unbelievably bad, with video synchrony drama (sometimes, as if driving in slow motion), audio stuttering (interrupts in the audio stream), and a feel of disconnect (not exactly lag, but rather disrespect to what I was asking from the virtual car) between inputs from my wheel + pedals (Logitech G29) and their effective result. I literally could not believe the game was that bad, so I endured in many configuration experiments (hardware and software), until I achieved something enjoyable and worthy of my “simulation” label. It took me three days (more like three attempts in three different days) and I nearly dropped the towel on day 2, but this afternoon was rewarding. Now, in my book, “F1 2019” is the best of all the games in the “F1 20xx” series, which would not mean much (its siblings are not good), if it wasn’t for the “simulator” label.
So, what did I do?
Having achieved a drivable “F1 2019” game configuration, I hit the track. In a matter of 2+ hours of game play, I progressed up to the top #400 spot in the fastest laps table, racing a Formula 2 in Spain. I still did not try the F1 cars.
Here is a video replay of a 01:31:919 lap. The game tells me that this lap is top #400 material.
On 2019-07-13, during the 2019 Formula 1 Silverstone weekend, I decided to try the 2017 F1 cars around that circuit. I played rFactor2 for 30 minutes, racing Nico Hulkenberg’s Renault, on soft tires. I am yet to learn how to activate the DRS, which is inexcusable, since I have played this mod before.
It was fun, as always. I recorded this 01:32:xxx race lap, where I am in pursuit of Massa on a Williams, and being chased by Hamilton on a Mercedes. I managed to overtake Massa in a maneuver that from the next Sunday on, would be named a “Leclerc pass”, due to what happened in the real race.
I started a Formula 1 “Fantasy League” named “Team AM League since Austria.” I am quite late to this F1 fantasy thing, and I am not quite sure I understand it or its purpose. For example, I built my team ahead of today’s Austria GP, and my picks scored big (including the top 3: Verstappen, Leclerc, Bottas), but last time I checked I had no points. Maybe that is because the results aren’t yet official, I don’t know.
https://fantasy.formula1.com/leaderboards/league?league_id=158202
I will not be sending emails, but anyone is welcome to join with the code 0ac53ce019. If you prefer, here is a direct link to subscribe:
https://fantasy.formula1.com/join?league_code=0ac53ce019
On the weekend of 2019-06-15+2019-06-16, there was yet another 24h Le Mans event. Curious about the circuit, using rFactor 2, I decide to run Alain Prost’s 1990 Ferrari (the famous “duck nose” car) around the 1991 layout of the circuit. Unfortunately, the 1990 mod I use only features the 1990 Ferrari cars (Prost and Mansell), so I injected the 1999 bolides (from a different mod) as the competition, in what became a very interesting racing spaghetti.
Long story short: I am 3 seconds slower than the fastest of the 1999 cars, which seems quite good to me 🙂
Here is a video of a 03:14:7xx lap around Le Mans. First, the outside camera, then the inside camera.
A warning: rFactor 2 seems to have a technical limit of 3 minutes per outside camera replay. This means that I cannot capture a full “Le Mans” lap with outside camera. For that reason the outside camera in this video not only skips 14+ seconds of action but also – and more relevant to the interested viewer – is actually the joining of the first ~14 seconds of a second lap the replay system managed to capture with the true footage of the inside camera.
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One RF2 lap around the Nogaro circuit, France, driving Alain Prost’s 1986 McLaren. Two mistakes of mine and one accident of others easily cost 2 seconds, which means this 01:20:5xx lap could have been a 01:18:xxx lap. Notice that the 2019 Indycar machines lap this circuit in the 01:16:xxx. In other words: 30+ years ago, these turbo powered F1 cars were nearly at the level of performance of modern Indycars, at least believing RF2.
The video includes a “TV” view and, after that, the in-car camera.
Virtual racing in rFactor2. The track is “Monaco”, in its 1966 F1 layout. The car is a Gen2 #FormulaE. This is I at the wheel, completing the lap in under 01:27. The main reason I play rFactor2 is because of how physically demanding it is. It makes me sweat :). These Formula E cars seem quite hard to race on the limit.
If there is one gaming genre that can be unfair to those really pushing ahead, it is the “racing” genre. Regular gamers are used to absurdly unrealistic software, where vehicles respond like they’ve done since the ZX Spectrum days, meaning like indestructible spaceships that make good use of the surrounding structures to stay on course. The average gamer can’t be bothered to learn about precision driving and delicate handling, using proper input devices. Surprisingly, professional game critics usually adhere to the same shallow standards: the “F1” series from CodeMasters is a very good example of how ridiculously deceiving ratings and scores can be. The “F1” games score high in most specialized publications and have been celebrated in BAFTA events (!), but they are less interactive than playing with a toy train in rails.
CodeMasters’ “F1” looks wonderful, but plays horribly, tricking the user to think that he/she is in control, when in fact, the player’s freedom is severely limited; it is literally like driving on rails with narrow margins for anything creative. It is disgusting because for casual racers and other outsiders it appears a worthy experience. It is not a worthy experience, and it is unfair that the true racing simulators must flourish in niches, under the shadow of such miserable titles.
From my experience, one of the “true” simulators available today is “rFactor 2” (RF2). RF2 is fun, demanding and reasonably realistic. If you ever drove a competition car, you’ll probably notice the extra care: for example, tires start cold, then get warmer; tires will get flat spots if you lock them under braking; and the car will get damaged, and respond accordingly, even if in very subtle ways, if & when you hit obstacles.
RF2 tires’ physics is unique. I am not writing about different temperatures for each tire – I am writing about different temperatures across different regions of every tire! It feels “organic”, it feels true! The vehicles are responsive and the pedals truly analogue. It is literally a physical exercise to put consistent fast laps against 100% strong computer opponents: in fact, you’ll probably sweat and burn a significant amount of calories. For real!
