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If you want to try the track for free, you can get a Nurburgring addon for Racer (you'll need a wheel or at least an analog gamepad to play)

One of my favorite cars to drive around there is a fictional Le Mans-style car, can't remember the name of it, I remember it's white, has a metric shit-ton of torque and sounds MEAN...I'll reply to myself with the name and hopefully links when I get home.

Racer (driving sim)
Paintball2

Indeed, it just needs a kickstart to break out of routine. I naturally go through phases of being interested in different stuff anyway, I just want to try and make my next several phases something that will get me coding some games again :)

Unfortunately my attempt to get myself back into photography again just involved me buying an expensive camera and it sitting on a shelf in my cupboard. Despite the fact that I've got into a habit of going for walks on weekends rather than driving everywhere, I never think to bring my camera with me. As a student I used to wander around town just taking pictures of random stuff and uploading it to deviantArt, but I stopped doing that when I got a job.

I need to think of some solid project to work on for the Pandora before I get it otherwise it may suffer the same fate :( A port of Racer could perhaps be a good way to do that. I had wanted to write a car simulator around the time that I started university - I loved Gran Turismo on the PSX but there weren't really any good alternatives for the PC at that time, and since the PlayStation was at home I had nothing to play! Unfortunately I didn't have much knowledge about how tyre grip, suspension etc worked back then (though I think I could have a good go at it these days). A year or 2 later I found Racer - seems that some other guy had the same idea around the same time as me, but actually carried it out. Perhaps I should just try writing my own from scratch - I'd learn a lot more that way really. I used to dream of working for a games development house until I found out that most people at these places get paid sod all ;) So now I'm kind of like you, I've been doing a bit of web/database development, and some other engineering simulation apps for simulating performance of the tools our company designs and builds (I didn't design the equations for them, but at least I understand what is going on most of the time!), the rest of the time I'm IT support, but at least I get good pay and benefits like a company car, phone, etc. I do enjoy it, it's a great place to work, but it's not as intellectually challenging as working as a games developer would be..

http://racer.nl/

The graphics aren't great and the crash physics suck, but you won't get much better realism than that, and it runs on Windows, Linux or MacOS. Lots of addon cars and tracks are available. All cars are fully tuneable and all tracks are fully editable! There's even an AutoX track available for download. Online play basically isn't going to happen though. There are only a few servers (which you have to search for manually) and the chance of you being on a working one the same time as someone else is basically zero.

Then forget forza, and go get GT3, or GT4.

Better graphics on 4(on an inferior system), you can turn the music off, and you have to play a ton to get cars you actually want to race.

I'd actually recommend against getting GT3 or GT4, or at least get them along with FM2.

• Graphics: You're comparing PS2 games to an Xbox 360 game. GT4 launched a few months before the original Forza, back in 2005. Forza 2 launched this year on Xbox 360. That in itself means it has better graphics, but Forza 2 also has per-track lighting effects (a desert track like Laguna Seca has much more harsh lighting than the fictional Maple Valley track, for example), collision damage which actually affects driving (If your wing comes off, you lose your downforce, for example), much better track depictions (compare the Nurburgring Nordschleife in GT4 against the same in FM2), and more detailed cars. There are only two little issues I have with FM2 graphics: Cars with movable parts like retractable spoilers (Porsches, Lamborghinis, etc) don't move, and there's no in-cockpit view. Neither of those are in the GT3/4 games either.
• Gameplay: Forza 1 had a much better/more realistic physics engine than GT3/4, and Forza 2 takes that even further. The Gran Turismo series uses a modified version of Pacejka's Magic Formula, which is decent but not entirely realistic and suffers at the limit. Forza uses a more expensive model based on actually modelling the suspension and tires (across three separate points on the tire contact patch), which leads to a much more realistic physics model. FM1 ran input and physics at 60fps with graphics locked to 30fps. FM2 runs input and physics at 360fps with graphics locked to 60fps. Collisions are realistic, compared to GT's bumper car/billiard ball collision model (no wall-riding in FM, using other cars as movable ARMCOs risks damaging your own car). Real-world tracks are the most realistic yet, with a real sense of elevation changes, traction surface changes, etc. There are PC games that have better physics simulations than FM, but FM is leaps and bounds beyond GT.
• Control: Assuming you're using a controller rather than a wheel, the analog triggers on the Xbox and Xbox 360 are much better for throttle and brake control than trying to use a PS2's analog buttons. There are a few third-party PS2 controllers with triggers, but they're few and far between and suffer from typical third-party controller problems (fragile, sloppy, etc). GT3/4 may play better on a PS3 with its fully-analog L2/R2 buttons, but if you're trying to play on a PS2 you pretty much have to have a wheel. And that's the only place that GT beats FM in my opinion -- the Logitech wheels are the gold standard, and they simply don't exist for 360 (yet?).
• Cars: I don't know about you, but GT's car selection has never really done it for me. While it's great that you can choose from 15 different models of Skylines or 12 different Civics, the cars I want to drive aren't available in GT. I want to drive Porsches, Ferraris, and Lamborghinis, and those aren't in GT3/4 (GT5 is supposed to have Ferraris and maybe Lamborghinis, but I don't believe they'll have Porsche this time around). And no, RUF cars don't cut it.
• Sound: Who cares about in-game music? When I'm driving, I want to hear the engine so I can know when to shift without having my eyes glued to the tach. And when it comes to engine sounds, Forza has always been better than GT (this video pretty much says it all. That's FM1 vs. GT4, but FM2's engine sounds are even better. It's pretty obvious when you hear the Corvette comparison). If you must have in-game music, use the 360's custom soundtrack feature and play your own music. I'll guarantee that any music you choose to play will be better than the built-in soundtracks for either series.
• AI: GT's AI is comp

Get the free alternative: http://www.racer.nl/ and donate if you think their development effort needs reward.

all 4 years of it? or will they decide that 4 is far to long for the system and knock it down to 3 years? then the one after that would be 2 untill we are buying a new console every single year! :P

Well, the 360 is designed to eventually break-even or even make money, which the Xbox was not. So, Microsoft will not be as pressed to get the Xbox 3/720/Next/whatever out in another 4 years. And if all goes well (poorly, that is) with the PS3, Microsoft will be in a much more comfortable position and not have to fight for first-mover status like they did with the 360.

That said, even during the Xbox's four years, you could visibly see developers making advancements in technology. A good example is Halo vs. Halo 2. Not only did things get shinier/bumpier (adding more detail through bump mapping techniques rather than geometry), they also were able to render in widescreen while the original didn't. If you compare Project: Gotham Racing to PGR 2, you'll see similar changes -- better trackside textures and models, better textures all around, better car models and environment maps, etc. And then compare PGR2 to Forza, and you'll see even more differences (though some are under the covers, such as the 4-wheel independent suspension physics simulation used in Forza, compared to the standard of Pacejka's Magic Formula). It's certainly not as much of an improvement as we saw through the life of the Playstation (compare Final Fantasy VII to Final Fantasy IX), but it's still there and once would expect similar advances on the 360 as developers get used to the technology.

Actually, this is not correct. The Bosch Automotive Handbook has graphs on this, but I could not find them online. A very similar graph is found here. Notice the black line, which represents acceleration/beaking force. The X-axis of that graph is the slip ratio. From the graph you can see the highest braking force comes from a relatively low slip ratio (~5%). The force quickly drops after passing this ratio. Therefore - locking up the brakes will _not_ give you better braking than keeping the slip ratio at the peak braking force area of the curve. Also see threshold braking.

Personally, I prefer Racer, the Free Car Simulation developed by Ruud van Gaal.

Currently stable at v0.5 with some very realistic behaviour and scope for enhancements.

But this looks rubbish. There are far better free driving games on the net, like Racer for instance. Win/Lin/Mac.

It seems to me, though, that the use of these resources would be better utilized by making the experience more satisfying. Oh well.

Others have already commented on your other points, so I'll address this. What would make a game experience "more satisfying" that could be achieved by under-utilizing the GPU? In a racing game, it's all about physics (usually by implementing Pacejka's Magic Formula (and yes, that's really the name)), which are not going to be pushed to the GPU. For example, Forza Motorsport uses a different physics system than Pacejka's (they model each tire of the car independently). It's much more CPU intensive, and this results in a lower framerate (30fps, as opposed to GT4 running at 60fps). Reducing the size of textures the game uses won't gain any more frames per second, because the engine is taxed by the physics calculations.

Where else can you control the affections of scores of lesbians?

On behalf of every Navy SEAL (IMHO), I must say to that, Hooyah. Nothing hotter than a pair of lesbians (or for that matter, twins)...

...but no, I've never been with one, so don't ask how it feels. Not that forum posting helps my chances.

Side-note: if sim-lives aren't your thing, how about sim-races? Me likey teh Racer and its developer's drawing gallery; look around there for a Drew Barrymore in the midst.

...does it run Lin--ah, just about everything does.

But, does it run Racer --ugh, runs that too...

BUT, does it use x86-64? YES, something it can't do! But then you all knew that.

It's one of the games that comes prepackaged with SuSe 9.1

You can find more info here. It actualy is a nice car simulation with good physics.

Unfortunately, its not open source

There have been misunderstandings about the source code in the past time. This project is NOT OpenSource. The source code IS and will REMAIN for the oncoming time copyright (c) of Ruud van Gaal / Dolphinity BV. The source code is provided for general interest, and to build platform-specific versions (for Linux mainly) in case the provided binaries don't work.

All suggested changes to the source code will be reviewed by me, but before you do that, realise that the source code will remain copyrighted. Fixes are appreciated ofcourse, but I would advise against putting much into bigger things.

Link to statement

I believe they are talking about this.

but, since you state "will never be commercial" , I can't for the love of me figure out why you haven't tried to improve an existing project doing a racing/car-sim? Why have you chosen to "re-invent the wheel"? ... of say, Racer

/* From my POV, you aren't that much into "ooh oohh, our engines is so much better then yours"-cockfight (these weird Big Business Players are) - but more into a "Creating Game Content"-approach instead - why I find it odd that you've decided to 're-invent' an engine of your own, instead of going with something allready _proven_ to be a worthy engine. That's all.*/

PS, and did I mention, it too is cross-platform?

An excellent racing sim - still "in development" but with very accurate physics... Live For Speed. It's not OSS, and for Win32 only.

For OSS racing sims, there's Racer, or TORCS.

Realistic racing sims like LFS are a great tool for teaching a new driver, IMHO, because they'll teach respect for control of your vehicle. and that there are consequences to bad driving... unlike some of the "arcade-y" driving games where it's not even possible to get go off the track.

i am the lead developer of an open source game,Fmorg and somehow these arena unlimited people got my emailaddress, and sent me THIS....

First, let me apologize if the e-mail was unwanted. Your e-mail address is listed on the Fmorg project page and we thought you might be interested in what we're doing.

this sounds like a sort of scam to get us OO & indie game developers into some kinda contract on the off chance our game hits it big, and creates a demand for this crap

Second, we're not a contract-based service. We don't charge or require anything from developers. Period.

Personally, I'm an advocate of and contributor to the Open Source community. As long as I have any input, games released under any approved license will never be required to pay licensing or developer fees to use our system.

We are constructing and offering a set of tools to be used at will by any developer who might benefit from the inclusion of such features. For example, if a developer wants to sell, say, cars to augment a racing game to help support development, etc., then we would like to help facilitate that in a convenient and secure manner. We don't have or want any say in setting the price. We're looking to support ourselves by collecting a small percentage of the sale (the majority of the revenue goes straight to the developer).

my personal recommendation, JUST SAY NO TO SUITS!! -Ted

We're really not suits, we promise! (If you don't believe us, then check out our pictures.) :-) So far the project has been entirely self-funded (all our cars are beaters and paid for if you don't count the repair bills -- by the way does anyone have a spare alternator for '92 MX-3?). Our biggest hurdle to date (aside from trying to find Other People's Money) is tearing ourselves away from BZFlag and Armagetron long enough to get some work done.

But if you feel violated by our approach, I sincerely apologize. I hope you continue work on Fmorg with our without our help, as it looks very promising.

Umh, that's a little vauge. The reason that the license was not stated as "Open Source" was to maintain a high standard of quality. The page you pointed to was not as useful as this page.

Unlike most copyrighted works, you can include the code in non-commercial products, Linux Distros can include the game without paying, and there's pretty much no fear of you ever having to pay for the game.

Please stop spreading that. Racer is NOT Open Source.

Next thing you know they'll be telling about this "new thing" called the GPL... It's Shareware, and it's been around a lot longer than the internet.

See there used to be this thing called Mail (No E at the beginning) and when ppl used floppies (that's the slot in your PeeCee that you never use) they had Public Domain collections (Like Fred Fish for the Amiga). And some were freeware and others were shareware...like, oh Castle Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, etc (ID Software distributed via shareware for a long time)...

And why this game? There 's a much better Open Sourced game called Racer...and unlike this game, it's available for Linux...

My guess is this KrackHouse guy probably has a stake in the company...

Honestly, Racer just looks better than this...

And the award for most blindingly obvious headline goes too...

LFS is a bit like Gran Turismo in the physics. However, Racer, which is open source, is going to kick it's ass. If anything, Racer should be getting the press here, not LFS. LFS are only doing what titles going back as far as DOOM have done.

I recommend people check out Racer instead of LFS. LFS isn't newsworthy. Certainly no more so than any other shareware project.

I was just at ATI's driver site Sunday (well, and Saturday, and Friday, and Thursday...) looking for a driver supporting X 4.3.

Vendetta looks a lot better with the ATI binary driver and maybe Racer will crash less with it.

Well, Racer isn't open source, but it's definitely free and source-available, and Ruud is pretty good about taking patches. You could definitely do what you're talking about with it.

A realistic driving sim models:
a) tire temperatures/wear curve/slip curve
b) aerodynamic drag and downforce (very important for simulating slipstreaming effect)
c) weight distribution (shifting fuel load, engine placement and ballasts)
d) suspension geometry (camber and toe changes, caster angles, and the effect of anti-roll bars)
e) suspension dynamics (damper rates and spring rates)
f) powertrain
g) drivelines (differentials, gear ratio, clutch)

The parameters listed above are not reserved for some pie-in-the-sky simulation program written in the academia. Every *realistic* driving simulation games have had those parameters modelled, and in some case user-modifiable, since 1998.

Here is a list of realistic driving game:
1) Grand Prix Legends
2) Nascar 2003
3) F1 2002
4) M3 mod & GTR2002 mod for F1-2002 (free)
5) Viper Racing
6) NetKar (free and add-ons)
7) Live for speed (free during beta testing)
8) Racer (free)

My personal favorite these days? M3 mod for F1-2002.

A better game is Racer, it's simply the best car simulation game to grace Linux (or even windows). Talk about Realism. Havn't seen a story about it on /. yet.

You should try Racer then.