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Post by TomasT (PC) on Jan 19, 2010 21:21:59 GMT
I wanna raise the issue and hear what more of you think about this.
I'm sure most have heard rcgldr's theories about that the game acts differently on different machines, not just that it gets laggy/twitchy with unsufficient graphic memory, but that the cars actually are faster, have more acceleration, have more grip etc, depending on hardware. That would mean that the game actually changes, or adapts, very strangely, to what hardware youre using, which I've not seen any convincing evidence of in written explanation at least. I first dismissed rcgldr's arguments totally, cause I personally found it very illogical. And as then I hadn't seen any evidence of it in online play either.
Though, lately, Ive seen some stuff that I cant explain online.
I've got some ok lap times, 2,00 at spa, 6,05 at nord etc. I use no assists, I have tried various tunings, gearing set ups, use no downforce for most tracks, also done about over 3000 online races. So I think I havent missed some hidden settings in the game, like traction control slowing down starts and so on.
My own feelings is also that there is probably more cheaters, than most think there is. Since anyone can just unpack the game and mod game files how they wish, and still show up on leader boards. I know for a fact of some people, that have modded the game just slightly, so that their cheat wont be as apparent, and keeping track of possible lap times, and trying to keep just within those lap times to not get busted. This is something that really takes the joy out of spending time on getting better at this game for me.
Then theres this issue, that might be true, that rcgldr is talking about. When racing zx12rcr, who I'm sure some of you know about, that is not considered a cheater by most people, it's very obvious that his car is much faster than mine. Very much like when I'm racing cipriani. It's not just that these are fenomenal drivers, I'm sure they are, but everything from the start to mid acceleration is much faster. A couple nights ago, in a rating 10 game. (and again I use no assist, know how to get the fastest start possible) Both me and cipriani used the stingray. I held my nitro button down just before the start to try to get a good chance from the start. And Cipriani still just blows past me and the rest of the pack. I'm not talking about a liiiittle faster because of slightly different gearing settings here. After that I had a pretty bad race and he was gone and I'm sure he did a better race, so I'm not saying this to point him out specifically, just an example of the start.
I'm really not trying to point out anyone as a cheater, but I would like to know if more have experienced the same differences, if you think that rcgldr might be right.
So if the game actually acts so differently on different machines, what is the point on spending the countless hours at practicing and competing like we do here?
I've tried to get EA to answer these questions, if there is differences in handling and acceleration on different hardware, and got no reply.
I have a ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2, 12 ggb's of ddr 3 ram and a i7 processor. I run the game on a 10000 rpm disk and run a 64 bit system on that. It's probably a bit faster than most peoples systems, and maybe why I'm faster than most people online. But then theres this other group that I dont think are cheaters, that it's shown to be obvious that their same cars are faster than mine.
Sorry if it got a little long to read, a little hard for me to express myself in english.
Would like to hear more opinions and experiences of this from you guys that have experience of online play or/and might know something that I dont.
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Post by aarog5606 on Jan 20, 2010 1:28:01 GMT
Well i sure believe different PC hardware have something to do with our performance in shift, online and off. I also believe internet speed makes a difference online and i am speaking from experience, having fairly recently upgraded my PC and internet.
I think internet speed, along with setup(mostly) helps with takeoff during a race. I take off as fast as Cipriani and i hear crap about it all the time. I assure you, i do not cheat. After i take off, i can hear the final horn from other racers start and they take off the exact time i hear the horn, so im sure that is not coincidence. All my blueprints are setup for acceleration, just because i was curious, i changed my LP640 to gearing more towards top speed and tried an online race. I still took off faster than everyone else, but slightly, it wasnt near like usual.
I also believe different wheel settings, in profiler and in game, make a difference from track to track, online and off. Changing wheel and accel sensativity makes it easier to take corners at higher speeds.
Of course, its extremely hard to find a way for online play to be fair. Between everything i mentioned above, people cheating, people crashing others for no good reason, people not knowing how to use advanced setups, lag! and so on.
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Post by TomasT (PC) on Jan 20, 2010 2:17:55 GMT
Well, I dont know if internet speed/bandwidth makes difference more than lag, which definetely as we know makes us see other cars where they are not because the information isnt sent fast enough. If I've understood it right. But perhaps as you say too, I've always just used my 100 mbit fiber line.
I dont believe you cheat aarog, I've raced you and I didnt see that obvious speed difference while racing with you. It was most apparent when racing zx12rcr. I've talked to him about it and he says that he believes that stuff that rcgldr is talking about. He also said that Cipriani have even more grip than he does, I dont know where the info is coming from. rcgldr talked about comparing videos from different people and judging what their grip looks to be, which I think is a little too hard to judge fairly from. I dont believe Cipriani or zx12rcr cheat either.
It's kind of hard to talk about since we have to consider what might be caused by lag, that what we see isnt actually what is happening on that players screen. But in some cases, to me, there is some significant differences in actual speed, accelelaration and perhaps grip.
The top competitors here are all very good, and all has some serious practice time behind their results, I'm sure. But when races are determined by one or half a second on two laps, you gotta consider how much that difference is between individual systems. I'm just guessing here, with the starts I've seen a couple times, perhaps even a second is gained on lap time just there?
I also get accused of cheating. Mostly by sore losers that are quite new to the game and just wanna say something bad. This also contributes to how hard it is to actually judge and come to a conclusion of this.
It would be interesting to test this. We have this track, part of nordschleife with a long straight in the start. We could share one specific tuning and setup and see if there is any difference, if any interest?
Rating 10 is where I've noticed the difference the most so far.
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Post by TheGreenMonster (PC) on Jan 20, 2010 3:33:57 GMT
Tomast I have never seen you online... What name do you race under? I can tell you by experience that Cipriani, Grnkjr0, rcgldr and aarog5606 are all fast as hell and always have been all the way back to ProStreet I just started to using manual shift just to keep up with Aaron off the line, My major bottleneck is to beat him off the line, and so far it's not working...... Maybe you should check your internet speed and show us results www.speedtest.net & www.pingtest.netLets see if you can beat the Monster in a few races then we'll see if there's is a problem.......
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Post by Grnkjr0 on Jan 20, 2010 3:46:38 GMT
Hey
Tomas did you start off in 2nd gear with that Stingray trying to keep up with Norman (Cipriani)? It is also impossible to compare takeoff from start using pad (like you use) vs G25 wheel (Norman uses), along with the difference in tuning.
I think that this game has more lag playing online than any other NFS game I played before. In my 3rd or 4th race the lag gets really annoying. I start almost 1/2 a sec behind Aaron or Sunny and it might look that you are starting at the same time as them, but suddenly they are way in front of me - or the other way around - just in front of me. It gets worse be writing in the lobby and I usually have to reconnect to try to avoid this. When I practiced with Aaron for our PBRC at London Royal Mile, I started the race at the same time he did in the first 3-4 races - then he needed to reinvi me. Frustrating I know, but there does not seem to be anything to do about it. When we tested our internet connections my ping time was even better than Aaron´s, and I had no jitter what so ever - he did have some. The start of a race online - who is out of the block fastest - is almost impossible to determine, since the players connections and the server is not 100% synchronized.
Tomas I do not know who cheats just by a little in Shift, but rest assure I never modded anything in this game - do not even know how to. But from watching videos on youtube by various people, I too am wondering why some have better grip than others.
Tomas post a setup you wanna use for that comparison in here and we can have as many people test it as possible. Though perhaps we need to try a stock car and one tuned?
Poul
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Post by Grnkjr0 on Jan 20, 2010 4:00:16 GMT
Tomas I know you do not think Norman cheats, only that he has better grip or even better acceleration, but then it is within the game and not modded in any way. We all know that wrecord uses a program to check if anything has been modded - so the fact his latest result in our PBRC at Willow Springs (1.06.558) shows up in wrecord, should convince those questioning whether his times are legit or not. www.wrecord.com/records_new.phpPoul
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Post by TheGreenMonster (PC) on Jan 20, 2010 4:05:14 GMT
Oh Tomas, I recognize the name now after Poul used it. Your the dude that needs to start driving clean. No more short cuts across the grass or ramming someone to get the lead.
Your a member of an Elite crew now. Of clean and up most respected racing drivers on the planet. No body in this crew should be using any cheat code of any sort.
Only little kids use cheat codes to make them feel good about the game. EA should limited cheat code to career mode only.
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Post by TomasT (PC) on Jan 20, 2010 4:44:22 GMT
I dont have time to answer very much now since I'm at work and really need to get going, but ... woo woo woo chill. I'm not accusing anyone here of cheating.
Yes I have a feeling that there are more cheaters than some think, and in no way accusing anyone here by that statement.
You totally missed my point now when your starting to defend yourselfes.
Greenmonster: I dont know what your reasons are really for accusing me for that, I dont think it's true. But lets not make this into something it's not, like a meaningless arguing about something else.
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Post by rcgldr on Jan 20, 2010 5:26:27 GMT
I have a ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2. In normal mode your video card should be OK, but in this patch 1.02 preview, when running NFS Shift at absurdly high resolution and max graphics, they made this comparative statement about gameplay between the 4870x2 and the 5870: Though the difference in framerates is small, the difference in gameplay was huge. Using the HD 4870 X2 at 2560x1600 with 24X CFAA, the game was not smooth at all. It was choppy and there was a huge amount of input latency. It took longer for the car or brake to turn after we pressed the button telling it so, and so we crashed a lot more.www.hardocp.com/article/2009/11/10/need_for_speed_shift_gameplay_performance_iq/7What started me questioning the gameplay in NFS Shift wasn't grip or power, it was the lack of bouncing in Anak's (ardathrokok) video of an untuned works Z06 at Nordschleife, running a 6:05.690. www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNaEPUnxs68&fmt=18I'm pretty sure this video was made before anyone was aware how to modify the game, and the main issue is the lack of bouncing, not the apparently high amount of grip. Note Anak won all the early youtube NFS Shift challenge events (do they still have these?). Here is Anak's thread about his videos. The purpose was to compare untuned cars, yet he ended up setting what would be world record times for these cars in untuned mode: forum.nfsunlimited.net/viewtopic.php?f=140&t=17940There there's this more recent example found by Grnkjr0 in the youtube videos thread in the Shift videos section: Here is a video from ZESTxKruiZ who does Nordschleife in 6.01.700. It is not so much the time I am wondering about, it is the absolutly no hood bouncing at all. The car is glued to the road looking much heavier than my Zonda which goes up and down like its on jet fuel. Not once does it look like his front wheel are off the track - looks to easy to me I have to say. www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKzEv1MFpFo&fmt=18
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Post by Grnkjr0 on Jan 20, 2010 5:27:04 GMT
Tomas I am not defending myself here - no need for that since everyone in here knows I would never cheat. I understand why you think the game plays differently on peoples systems - I think it could be true too. But the fact that there are so many variables in this game, using different controllers and wheels, makes it impossible to figure out if it is the game itself, game settings or even hardware.
Poul
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Post by rcgldr on Jan 20, 2010 5:47:08 GMT
Continuing from my previous post, the most obvious visual cue that something is different because of the lack of bouncing.
Also rather than focusing on the faster players, how many here have paid attention to somewhat slower players online, to compare your own car's performance versus that of the slower players? In many cases it seems like I'm getting more grip than other players. I can outbrake many players, but that may be due to manual downshifting, however it doesn't explain why I'm often able to pass cars on the inside on a long sweeping turn like Willow Springs turn 2 where I hold an inside line while the the "slower" players cars seems to slide off track.
zx12rcr mentioned that he getting some type of grip bug that still exists after patch 1:02. What he told me is that his best laps at Willow Springs are low 1:07's and sometimes high 1:06's, but about once in every 30 laps or so, he gets a 1:05.xx (which he made a video of, he said it took over 40 laps to get that one absurdly fast lap), but he can't sense any difference in the feel of the car, other than getting an absurdly fast time.
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Post by TomasT (PC) on Jan 20, 2010 5:48:54 GMT
First, 24X CFAA, is not possible just by game settings, it needs to be reached by tweaking something I dont remember in the ATI Catalyst Center. Perhaps it's just me, or else quite many others dont even know that this option/tweak is possible. And the resolution, I dont think is something very many use. By my logic, I dont see anything there that points to any logical difference, except that the game is laggy, input latency as they mention is normal consequence as it would be for any game. I might be wrong? I didnt think that argument through that article was satisfying for me though, and still dont, in regards to the game actually changing as far as grip, acceleration and so on. Although I now think you might be right about your point. Don't think that we'll come to any conclusion reasoning about that specifically though. What would be interesting would be to really test this online as I mentioned. The discussion about grip, which I have to agree looks very strange in some videos you've mentioned, would be harder to conclude something on though I guess. I have a ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2. In normal mode your video card should be OK, but in this patch 1.02 preview, when running NFS Shift at absurdly high resolution and max graphics, they made this comparative statement about gameplay between the 4870x2 and the 5870: Though the difference in framerates is small, the difference in gameplay was huge. Using the HD 4870 X2 at 2560x1600 with 24X CFAA, the game was not smooth at all. It was choppy and there was a huge amount of input latency. It took longer for the car or brake to turn after we pressed the button telling it so, and so we crashed a lot more.
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Post by rcgldr on Jan 20, 2010 5:56:34 GMT
It's done via Catalyst Control center. Go to 3d settings, antialiasing, choose "edge detect" and set the slider to far right (8x), and it reports 24X AA (edge detect is a 3x multiplier, so 3x x 8x = 24AA). Note that it's common for video card testers to set this stuff outside the game to make sure of the exact settings, rather than rely on what the games report. Again, it was just a benchmark setting, not something that a player would normally use. The point was that the framerates were almost identical, but the game play was hosed up. It's virtually impossible to see a slight difference in grip. However, as I just previously mentioned, the lack of bouncing in some of the youtube videos is very easy to notice. Look at this video, it's like he's playing a different game: www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKzEv1MFpFo&fmt=18
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Post by TheGreenMonster (PC) on Jan 20, 2010 6:04:59 GMT
Greenmonster: I dont know what your reasons are really for accusing me for that, I dont think it's true. But lets not make this into something it's not, like a meaningless arguing about something else. Tomas I understand what you are talking about and yes there are alot of cheaters out there. But as far as you beating Cipriani off the line forget it. I've been trying to beat Aaron off the line for 3 months now and it's no win situation for me.... and I have the same hardware configuration as he does, beside the video card, plus we both have a G25 wheel, so why is he so much faster than me...... I gave Aaron a nick name? I call him the little "falker" as I'm hoping he crashes so I can catch up... As far as you driving dirty we'll kick that under the rug and start new.
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Post by TomasT (PC) on Jan 20, 2010 7:51:46 GMT
Well my point wasnt that I was sore from getting beat by cipriani, I have no trouble admitting that hes faster than me. It was an example, and as I mentioned not the point at all to point him out specifically, either as a cheater or not better than me. But his start was so drastically much faster than mine, though I was considerably faster than the rest, except him (which I interpreted as they probably used assists and/or slower cars). My interest for starting this thread was to bring light into this possibility that there might be differences related to hardware, what we all could do to get the best of our situations by sharing knowledge and experience, or at least maybe understand it better.
Well, again, I get the feeling that you think I disrespected someone, which was not my intent here. Though I've beated Aaron online I think two times. Maybe he crashed, got crashed, I dont have enough experience racing him to tell whos the big daddy, and I'm not really interested in making a status struggle out of this. I have no trouble admitting that I'm impressed by some of the times I've seen him done on some tracks.
Well, please can we do that. I do get offended when you call me out publically like you did, yes. From what I remember, you've been avoiding me online for quite some time, youre actually the only one I recognize on here from online play. The last time we raced, it was on willow springs, remember? Not long ago. You had a bad turn, I tried to pass clean on the inside, there was much room, somehow we bumped in to each other, I do not take full blaim for that one. However after that I pulled over and let you pass, and after I apologized in the lobby where after you said it was no problem and "good race".
Youre very welcome to join the races I do online and tell my in private message if you have a problem thanks. =)
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