So it took me almost a week all told, including refunding it once and buying it again after watching a race on youtube and REALLY wanting to make it work. Running this thing has been one of the most painful gaming experiences I’ve had in the last 10 ish years.

It turned out to be one of the c++ redistributables hadn’t installed properly, but man did it take me a long time to get to that point. And then I discover that the rFactor 2 interface is straight-up awful. I now understand why not every racing driver is jumping on the bandwagon. It’s pretty much the least user-friendly game I’ve seen in a very, very long time. Given my UX design history it’s hard to deal with.

Anyway. With all that said. The first thing I did today when it finally coughed into life, was install Knockhill and a TCR mod. I then proceeded to grin from ear to ear for about 7 hours. My arms are /killing/ me now. All that pain was worth it. I cannot understate how amazing the simulation is.

All afternoon I was making mistakes, but I was making mistakes in /exactly/ the same way that I’ve seen them happen at Knockhill as a spectator over the last 2 decades. And that whole complex from the SEAT curves to the John R Weir chicane was just a thrill to drive. Thumping the kerbs and rising up on two wheels, especially at the chicane was bang on how it happens at the BTCC. I’ve got some cracking shots of Matt Neal on two wheels there from ages ago.

Needless to say, I am totally hooked. My next step is plugging in the Rift S, but I’m already contemplating a t300 purchase, and am ogling some very expensive motion systems. The latter will never happen, but the T300 might. 🙂

Anyway. I’ve got two vids. One is a fastish lap ( the warm-up is lairy). I actually got a faster one, in the low 55s, but it didn’t record. That’s about 3 seconds off the BTCC lap record I believe, which isn’t bad on full fuel and for a noob,let’s be honest 😉

The other one ( a ten lap, ten minute race) is uploading to youtube slooooowly because we’re breaking the internet, kids. I’ll post it tomorrow. 🙂

I’ve also got Autmobilista 2 which I’ll probably try tomorrow. 🙂