At first glance I was honestly expecting footage of Gran Turismo 3 running through PCSX2 with HD texture and ultrawide resolution mods. What I actually saw was the author utilizing an underused...
At first glance I was honestly expecting footage of Gran Turismo 3 running through PCSX2 with HD texture and ultrawide resolution mods. What I actually saw was the author utilizing an underused console feature that really surprised me.
This feels like one of those novelties that was groundbreaking for its time but ultimately incredibly wasteful and over-the-top to set up, requiring three monitors and three PlayStation 2 consoles. Why an ultra-widescreen mode was added as a feature using technology clearly intended for LAN parties... I don't understand.
Likely to cater to the prosumer "immersive" racing sim market, where this sort of triple-screen setup wasn't actually that uncommon even back then, and is still relatively common. My...
Why an ultra-widescreen mode was added as a feature using technology clearly intended for LAN parties... I don't understand.
Likely to cater to the prosumer "immersive" racing sim market, where this sort of triple-screen setup wasn't actually that uncommon even back then, and is still relatively common. My brother-in-law is a semi-pro stock car racer (APC Series Late Model), and his son/my nephew races Karts. They have a similar setup in their basement (albeit with a huge, curved, ultra-wide screen instead of triple-screen) to play iRacing on, which they both use for practicing in the off-season.
Attempt at a more immersive experience. Gran Turismo has never really been a "racing game" as most racing games of the time were, it was a "Driving Simulator" made with the best available tech for...
Why an ultra-widescreen mode was added as a feature using technology clearly intended for LAN parties... I don't understand.
Attempt at a more immersive experience. Gran Turismo has never really been a "racing game" as most racing games of the time were, it was a "Driving Simulator" made with the best available tech for each generation. Good enough to have spawned actual racing careers out of experienced players.
So having an obscure way to get a more immersive simulation experience for those that could afford to do so makes perfect sense when approached as a simulator and not a game.
I don’t know much about the series but I’ve played GT7 in PSVR2 and I don’t think a more immersive simulation exists. They have painstakingly modeled the interiors of all the cars, which you can...
I don’t know much about the series but I’ve played GT7 in PSVR2 and I don’t think a more immersive simulation exists. They have painstakingly modeled the interiors of all the cars, which you can barely even see to appreciate without playing in VR. I drove some cars that I’ve owned and ridden in IRL, and the realism was uncanny.
This is hopefully not too gatekeepy, but there's some really crazy stuff past GT, even in the graphics department - sims get as deep as the money and time you want to dump in. On the arcade-to-sim...
I don’t think a more immersive simulation exists
This is hopefully not too gatekeepy, but there's some really crazy stuff past GT, even in the graphics department - sims get as deep as the money and time you want to dump in. On the arcade-to-sim spectrum GT isn't Cruis'n USA, of course, but it's aiming to be a video game first and there are a ton of sims that outclass it in dynamics. Even though Assetto Corsa is like 12 years old it has kept up in being a good entry-level simulator, and graphics-wise the community has kept it up with mods to look absolutely gorgeous when people keep the modeling up to snuff. iRacing is a proper standardized entry to certain IRL spec racing series.
GT understands that a lot of people play for the tuning and gameified progression, and for that angle I sometimes prefer firing it up quick to strapping into VR Assetto, but for lap times and driver improvement I go to Assetto. I've also seen a ton of people complaining about the dynamics of cars they own IRL to their simulacra in GT (AE86 and ND Miata drivers in particular for reference, curious what you thought did well though!), and GT has had to patch some issues since launch. Also the AI is, eternally, butt. It gets free license to do pit maneuvers that you can't do anything about. I'm really biased though, I despised how Polyphony handled the GT7 launch.
I actually just got a PSVR2 and GT7 last week. The first drive was stunning with how immersive it was, and then some of the cars are definitely familiar. One of the first cars you get is a Honda...
I actually just got a PSVR2 and GT7 last week. The first drive was stunning with how immersive it was, and then some of the cars are definitely familiar. One of the first cars you get is a Honda Fit, a car I'm very familiar with, having driven multiple years. And then one of the cars in the license system is a Civic Type R...and I presently drive a Civic Sport Touring. The cabin is basically the same, and even the engine has a similar sound to it.
Sadly, I'm apparently prone to VR sickness, so I'm having to limit my sessions and stop when nausea starts up or I start feeling too hot. Hopefully that'll be better with time.
At first glance I was honestly expecting footage of Gran Turismo 3 running through PCSX2 with HD texture and ultrawide resolution mods. What I actually saw was the author utilizing an underused console feature that really surprised me.
This feels like one of those novelties that was groundbreaking for its time but ultimately incredibly wasteful and over-the-top to set up, requiring three monitors and three PlayStation 2 consoles. Why an ultra-widescreen mode was added as a feature using technology clearly intended for LAN parties... I don't understand.
Likely to cater to the prosumer "immersive" racing sim market, where this sort of triple-screen setup wasn't actually that uncommon even back then, and is still relatively common. My brother-in-law is a semi-pro stock car racer (APC Series Late Model), and his son/my nephew races Karts. They have a similar setup in their basement (albeit with a huge, curved, ultra-wide screen instead of triple-screen) to play iRacing on, which they both use for practicing in the off-season.
Attempt at a more immersive experience. Gran Turismo has never really been a "racing game" as most racing games of the time were, it was a "Driving Simulator" made with the best available tech for each generation. Good enough to have spawned actual racing careers out of experienced players.
So having an obscure way to get a more immersive simulation experience for those that could afford to do so makes perfect sense when approached as a simulator and not a game.
I don’t know much about the series but I’ve played GT7 in PSVR2 and I don’t think a more immersive simulation exists. They have painstakingly modeled the interiors of all the cars, which you can barely even see to appreciate without playing in VR. I drove some cars that I’ve owned and ridden in IRL, and the realism was uncanny.
This is hopefully not too gatekeepy, but there's some really crazy stuff past GT, even in the graphics department - sims get as deep as the money and time you want to dump in. On the arcade-to-sim spectrum GT isn't Cruis'n USA, of course, but it's aiming to be a video game first and there are a ton of sims that outclass it in dynamics. Even though Assetto Corsa is like 12 years old it has kept up in being a good entry-level simulator, and graphics-wise the community has kept it up with mods to look absolutely gorgeous when people keep the modeling up to snuff. iRacing is a proper standardized entry to certain IRL spec racing series.
GT understands that a lot of people play for the tuning and gameified progression, and for that angle I sometimes prefer firing it up quick to strapping into VR Assetto, but for lap times and driver improvement I go to Assetto. I've also seen a ton of people complaining about the dynamics of cars they own IRL to their simulacra in GT (AE86 and ND Miata drivers in particular for reference, curious what you thought did well though!), and GT has had to patch some issues since launch. Also the AI is, eternally, butt. It gets free license to do pit maneuvers that you can't do anything about. I'm really biased though, I despised how Polyphony handled the GT7 launch.
Outside of the retail sim space, professional sims for team use get beyond absurd amounts of detail, effort, and as expected swimming pools of cash.
I actually just got a PSVR2 and GT7 last week. The first drive was stunning with how immersive it was, and then some of the cars are definitely familiar. One of the first cars you get is a Honda Fit, a car I'm very familiar with, having driven multiple years. And then one of the cars in the license system is a Civic Type R...and I presently drive a Civic Sport Touring. The cabin is basically the same, and even the engine has a similar sound to it.
Sadly, I'm apparently prone to VR sickness, so I'm having to limit my sessions and stop when nausea starts up or I start feeling too hot. Hopefully that'll be better with time.