RFACTOR 2 F1 TRACKS INSTALL
RFACTOR 2 F1 TRACKS MOD
RFACTOR 2 F1 TRACKS MODS

RFACTOR 2 F1 TRACKS INSTALL

Anyone who was around rFactor in 2009 will have experienced that sense of frustration as they hunted the net in search of the ‘right’ version of a track (for which there existed perhaps a dozen versions made by a dozen modders) only to install and discover that it had been updated, and the update was available on a site that had gone down three months earlier.

RFACTOR 2 F1 TRACKS MOD

But it was the lack of coherence in the structure of mod delivery that resulted in sim-racers’ precious racing time being taken up by finding the right version of this track or that car. This, at first, unveiled an astonishing array of tracks and cars and series before, ever so gradually, the promise of utopia began sinking into a dystopia of mismatches, poorly rendered mods, a modding community who, by and large, refused to allow any oversight, and a tyre model that, though very accomplished on release, was soon overshadowed.

rFactor’s longevity (and ISI’s stroke of genius) was the engine’s open nature, and the craft that it brought to modders’ desktops. The good times, though, were not to last.

And that’s not to mention the engine that was developed for rFactor (gMotor2) that has powered a plethora of other sims in the intervening years, everything from ARCA to Game Stock Car: Indeed, ISI’s gMotor2 went on to become the ubiquitous sim engine, the Ford Cosworth of the sim-racing world.

RFACTOR 2 F1 TRACKS MODS

Developed as an open framework that provided a playground for modders of all abilities to create content, rFactor maintains a healthy player base to this day along with a head-swimming library of mods delivering every race car and every race track any sim-racer could ever want (or dream of): Want to race 1979 F1 cars at a modern Thruxton? Caterhams around Monaco? Huge, lumbering UPS trucks around Melbourne GP circuit? You can do it all with rFactor. Yes they had developed various F1-derived titles in the years before 2005, mostly for EA Sports, as well as the superb (and largely ignored) Sports Car GT, and yes, it was on their engine that GTR (both the mod and the game in the box) was bolted, but it would have taken a brave man to suggest ISI was about to challenge the Kaemmer/Crammond stranglehold on the sim-racing community.įast forward to 2011, and it’s remarkable what rFactor has become. Michigan-based ISI, back then, was but a blip on the sim-racing radar. When Papyrus went belly-up, and Crammond was sucked off the earth by a UFO, the darkness seemed complete. Aside from that, there was only darkness, and it’s ironic to recall that the community was never closer than in those grim days when all could unite behind a single sim-the one that no-one had ever made.

And then there was the sim that made SimBin, GTR. Grand Prix Legends, even then almost a decade old, enjoyed a large following-particularly if you were into road-racing-while oval racers were a little better catered for with Papyrus’ seminal NASCAR 2003. In the distant future, when someone decides to step from their hover-car contemplating writing a book about sim-racing in the 21st Century, there will undoubtedly be a large chapter devoted to rFactor and its gMotor2 engine.īack in 2005, the sim-racing market was sparse with three titles dominating the scene.

Rfactor 2 f1 tracks