Any Good PC Driving Sims?

[sxy_boy]

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone knows of any good driving sims for sale for the PC.

I would like a sim that has many of the modern and classic roads cars with the good tracks to race on including the Nurburgring if possible.

I will also need to get a steering wheel and pedals, so any suggestions for those would also be appreciated.

I look forward to your posts.

Thanks.

[PhillT]

Logitech's Driving Force Pro works on PC and is the best wheel I've seen available.
As for games, not sure on PC, will leave that conundrum open to the masses.

[warmfuzzies]

GPL, grand prix legends, absolute corker of 60's racing.

kevin

[mackie1]

GT Legends is awesome.

I believe GTR 2 is out soon too.

[eyebeebe]

Thrustmaster do a rally wheel which you can add a clutch pedal to!

www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000BRJG84/sr=8-6/qid=1155299599/ref=sr_1_6/026-9697270-8658019?ie=UTF8&s=gateway

The reviews on Amazon seem to be a bit of a mixed bag and I haven't tried it yet as I'm off PC gaming at the moment whilst the novelty of my Xbox 360 wears off!

I have one of their older wheels which comes with a mains powered motor for the feedback and I loved it until the gear change paddles broke. I hear it's quite a common problem with them

[chilled]

PhillT said:

Logitech's Driving Force Pro works on PC and is the best wheel I've seen available.
As for games, not sure on PC, will leave that conundrum open to the masses.

My PS2 GT4 wheel which is probably the same as the one above works well.

[Timberwolf]

Grand Prix Legends is untouchable for pure driving pleasure and "connectedness".

If you have like-minded friends, Live For Speed is a great multiplayer experience but the road cars are mostly "generic" models thought up by programmers, and none of the tracks are real. Great to drive though, and the Caterfield cars are very satisfying.

GT Legends is amazing. Serious hardware requirements, but you can't beat opening up a BMW CSL hard at Donington.

If you have plenty of time, check out the free Racer project which has some moderns, some classics and the 'Ring. Some of the downloadable cars are a bit questionable (to say the least) in the physics departments, but there are some good ones including some BMWs by our own Mr Whippy. Besides, it's free, so what do you lose other than time?

[UncleDave]

Another vote for GT Legends.. we have leagues going every now and again on the Pistonheads Games Forum..

[tangerine_sedge]

Timberwolf said:

If you have plenty of time, check out the free Racer project which has some moderns, some classics and the 'Ring. Some of the downloadable cars are a bit questionable (to say the least) in the physics departments, but there are some good ones including some BMWs by our own Mr Whippy. Besides, it's free, so what do you lose other than time?

Do you have a link? plugging "racer" and "free" into google returns noise

edit - this one perhaps? : http://games.softpedia.com/get/Freewa

Edited by tangerine_sedge on Friday 11th August 14:57

[Timberwolf]

tangerine_sedge said:

Do you have a link? plugging "racer" and "free" into google returns noise

www.racer.nl/ - main site.

http://forum.rscnet.org/ - forum. (Look for "Racer Free Car Simulation"

It's a bit of a pain to set up and needs lots of web hacking to find cars and tracks for, but can be pretty rewarding.

[D_Mike]

GT Legends is probably the most popular hereabouts with the advantage that you can play it against us over the internet.

[FourWheelDrift]

rFactor - 1960's GT cars, F1 cars (1979, 2006, 1991), sportscars, Touring Cars, DTM, loads more.

rFactor is developed by ISI who produced F1 Challenge for EA Sports using their own physics engine called GMotor, this was licenced by Simbin for GTR and GTL. ISI have since imporved GMotor and produced their own completely modable game rFactor using their new GMotor2 (which has also been licenced by Simbin for GTR2).

Have a look here for currently released cars - www.rfactorcentral.com/list.cfm?cat=Car%20Mods

Here for work in progress - www.rfactorcentral.com/wips.cfm



To buy you go here - www.rfactor.net/ - download the latest version v1.150 install it, try out the demo cars and tracks. Like it, pay online and get sent an activation code, put the code in and enjoy the rest and install lots more tracks and cars.

Edited by FourWheelDrift on Friday 11th August 20:00

[NiceCupOfTea]

Timberwolf said:

tangerine_sedge said:

Do you have a link? plugging "racer" and "free" into google returns noise

www.racer.nl/ - main site.

http://forum.rscnet.org/ - forum. (Look for "Racer Free Car Simulation"

It's a bit of a pain to set up and needs lots of web hacking to find cars and tracks for, but can be pretty rewarding.

Wow!

Been playing the other freebie one for a while now and it's OK but I want real cars & tracks.

GTL looks lovely but I get about 0.5 fps on my PC.

Would Racer work OK on mine?? (1GHz Athlon, 768MB memory, NVIDIA GeForce 2 or something...

[old64er]

geforce 2 will struggle with most recent games at most detail levels.

get a higher end card before you start racing on a PC.

[NiceCupOfTea]

Is the rest of the machine up to it?

Not sure whether I have an AGP slot or whether it's PCI. Guess the machine is around 5 years old, does that make it AGP?

[old64er]

Its an AGP and probably at 4x speed not the later 8x.

The other machine specs only have a slight effect on games but the main work is done by the graphics chip.

Try and find out what motherboard it is and see what speed the agp port is, then if it is an 8 speed get a geforce 6 or 7 based card.

Dont bother with the 6200 it is useless for games.

I use a 5950 card that i installed nearly three years ago and still plays all the games i need at good quality.
The best card available for the AGP ported motherboards is a 7800 with 512mb memory and it is a stunning card.It is able to play GTR at 1920 x 1440 at maximum detail on my friends PC but these cards are around the £250 mark.

Hope this helps

Edited by old64er on Friday 11th August 20:36

[D_Mike]

NiceCupOfTea said:

Timberwolf said:

tangerine_sedge said:

Do you have a link? plugging "racer" and "free" into google returns noise

www.racer.nl/ - main site.

http://forum.rscnet.org/ - forum. (Look for "Racer Free Car Simulation"

It's a bit of a pain to set up and needs lots of web hacking to find cars and tracks for, but can be pretty rewarding.

Wow!

Been playing the other freebie one for a while now and it's OK but I want real cars & tracks.

GTL looks lovely but I get about 0.5 fps on my PC.

Would Racer work OK on mine?? (1GHz Athlon, 768MB memory, NVIDIA GeForce 2 or something...

NCOT... I assume you have tried the GTL demo? Did you set the direct X level to DX7 in the graphics config program?

[NiceCupOfTea]

D_Mike - haven't tried that, will give it a go.

old64er - thanks for that - will I be able to get something fairly cheaply do you think given that it's old tech?

Mobo is an MSI MS-6330

Graphics card is an NVidia GeForce 2 MX/MX400, 32MB.

According to the following page it's 1x / 2x / 4x AGP.

www.active-hardware.com/english/reviews/mainboard/k7tpro-2a-4.htm

[NiceCupOfTea]

D_Mike, it plays better but still pretty unplayable - 2fps, then when another car appears on the scene back to about 0.5

[pwig]

Just buy GPL and have done with it