Wolfram

I don't mean to support piracy, especially against one of my most favorite games, but just would like to mention it isn't the 20th century anymore. As for someone building the game piece-by-piece, for a 6,950 file game, that is lurking hundreds of boards requesting almost 7,000 files... well that's a pretty image. It will not help anyone to complete the game - bittorrent doesn't damage files, unlike the physical medium sometimes does. Just my two cents. I understand the individual files are formally copyrighted material as well (and I got the message, won't do it), but let's call this what it is - just strict compliance with the laws, not fight against the piracy. [mod edit:] Discussion of warez or illegal activities is strictly prohibited, thanks!

[mod edit:] Please do not link to original game files, thanks!

This one is actually better, according to reviews, than G25. http://www.fanatec.de/webshop/new_eu/product_info.php?cPath=21&products_id=72&osCsid=55e855db20c864ca3565cafc702c3542 You'd have to wait though, they seem to be sold out for April. If you don't need the H-shifter, go for Logitech MOMO, it's got a better brake pedal and more buttons, but the wheel has a bit of a wobble (less than any cheaper one, but more than G25 and Fanatec), there's no clutch pedal, and it's not leather. As far as force feedback goes, it's hard to say - G25 is stronger and smoother, but lacks measurable vibration, while MOMO gives a way better feel of the road. Seeing as TDU lacks road texture effects, G25 with reduced force (via the Profiler) feels better. The quality is very good, I had one for ages and there's not a hint that it's not new. If pure performance is the goal, joysticks and keyboards work best - they're de-facto legal cheating. And force feedback is a performance killer too. So you'll find out that the better the wheel is, the harder it is to play. It's just way more fun.

I drive a stick shift IRL, hate automatics... But in this game, it doesn't work well. If the cars had a bit longer gearing, it would be fine, otherwise there's too much shifting. Besides, the G25 shifter is way too fiddly, I always miss the gear with it :-( And there aren't enough buttons. I really was somewhat disappointed with G25, the old MOMO is still better unless you use the clutch. Wish I had this thing: http://fanatec.de/html/index.php?id=250&lang=en - if only they weren't charging so much...

Have you ever got into the areas that are fenced off? Well, you have probably, but I'm wondering how. So far I only managed a warehouse East of the airport, and only on a motorbike. What I really want, though, is to get into the airport (airbase?). It seems like a great test track for cars. Is it possible, and if so, where and how could I enter?

I tried it with the shifter, and it's certainly more fun, but in a race everyone's accelerating past while you're busy with your shifter, so I had to forgo it. The ability to skip a gear in downshift is useful only on a few tracks. The paddles are annoying, but they work better all around.... Playing with MOMO now - it also provides enough buttons, always lacked them with G25.

Nay. Yes, they may be ugly. So what? It's a game. If people want to ruin their cars... Me personally, even in NFS, little as I've played these late games, I still always likes the stock body best of all. Why not do both? You don't have Atari design the bodykits? Trust it to the community! Give the game a proper plug-in system like in Fallout 3. Well, hoping for GECK is too much, but at least make a simple tool for players to stuff their bodykit into an in-game shop and release it. And then let anyone design as many body kits as they want. [ In online games, this might increase server load, but that's easily solved by only loading bodykits on cars than are near you - or, better even, introducing a peer-to-peer connection for this data. And only if the player turns the option on. ] There's some stuff that requires professionals, such as coding, and a lot more that doesn't. Not just custom challenges, but models and textures. And a lot more. That's not the most important bit. This is just a minute inaccuracy. The biggest letdown in TDU for me is physics engine itself. It's not just that it's unrealistic, rather it's unrealistic and not fun. Try and play NFS Porsche Unleashed. Yes, the physics aren't super-realistic, but it's just the feel of the thing. It feels absolutely mechanical. You can feel the wheels, how they are touching the road, how good the road is, how much grip do you have. You can feel the car's engine and transmission. On the screen, the car actually tilts in turns, depending on how stiff the suspension is, and the weight shift affects everything. The tires and the brakes squeal in hard corners, and you feel it through the wheel as well. You can almost play it blindfolded, for you can always tell what car you're driving and at what speed just through the wheel. You don't doubt for a moment that there's a real rack and pinion in front of you. A minute drawback is that with the exception of a few tracks, the road is always dry and the tires are apparently soft (not the stock kind, but quality performance road tires), but can you call it a drawback even? It's loads of fun, it's more fun even than rFactor or Dirt. In TDU, it feels like you're driving a hovercraft. There's no grip at all. IRL, if you turn the wheels to the lock and step on the throttle, you make a bit rough U-turn. In TDU, the vehicle just spins out in a cloud of smoke. IRL, the car only lets go after you overstep the limit. In TDU, it seems to be hydroplaning all the time. Negotiating corners is no fun, it's solely a matter of braking enough before entering the corner - playing with throttle and brakes through it is pointless. High-speed driving is even worse. IRL cars keep their direction very strongly, you need to wrestle them away from it, while in TDU they're just waiting for a finger touch to the wheel to turn 45 degrees. And it's better not to mention the force feedback, what is it connected to - a randomizer? Of course, it's nowhere as terrible as Need For Speed (any other than Porsche Unleashed), but being better than that is not much of an achievement. Really, if they just fix the physics, it won't be a game any longer - it will be a drug. [mod edit:] Please do not double post, use the edit button, thanks!

Running foobar2000 in the background works, checked. I even have hotkeys set up for it. But that takes away the option of controlling music with the buttons on the wheel, as well as the "theme" music in locations (although it does get tiresome). --- Hmm, BTW, in that case I might have found a partial solution. You can do the following: 1. Run foobar2000, add the user station's folder into a new playlist. 2. Edit -> sort -> randomize 3. Right click -> File operations -> Rename to... 4. Enter into the Pattern field: [%list_index%] - %artist% - %title% (just once, it will remember) That will rename the tracks, adding a random number in the beginning.

Well, I've kept the original music, and filled up the Radio folder with a few bands. That is all cool, except the game always starts to play the first song when it starts, which makes you listen to it a hundred times and grow tired with it. Is there any way to make it shuffle the songs? Or, any trick you use or can suggest to do it?

OK... if I got a problem that way, any idea on what should I do? Change the IP, change the MAC, clean the register, try on another Windows copy, on another computer?

Possibly. But the thing is, when I try a serial from the Internet (deleting cdkey.txt), the results are different - the game doesn't pretend to have bugs, but rather just tells the serial is wrong and requests the right one. Mine rather seems to work, but have a bug with the servers. Is there some info on how it should behave with an "expired" serial?

Yes, I did a try-before-buy with a downloaded rip, over a year ago. The game was freezing for a minute every next minute, though, so it was impossible to play (good thing I tried it out first, otherwise I'd be extremely mad). After getting a new video card (GTX285), I tried to run all games that used to be buggy or slow before once again, and the problem with TDU miraculously disappeared. So I got the DVD from ebay (could that be an issue?) and installed the full game. However, trying to use the ripped game online produced a completely different effect - the game just asked for a new serial. I did a full uninstall of the old version, deleted the user data folders too. Now as I install the 1.45 edition, it apparently actually can connect to servers, at least it rejects already taken nicknames. When I log in with a unique one, it requests for updating to a new version. With patch 1.66A, and a unique nickname, it gives a failed to connect to servers message. The problems can be related to my connection still. It's not a very straightforward one, a bit buggy [uT2007 says "your connection can't host games"; some sites don't load w/o a proxy; other bugs]. But if so, what can I do to try and fix it?

Perhaps I'm not the first one to post this. More precisely, I've seen threads before, so I know I'm not the first one. Either way, I'm having a problem connecting to the servers with the newly created online account. I bought the game recently, played offline for a few days (as not to embarrass myself online), haven't tried MP before. At first [a couple hours ago], I was using an existing GameSpy account, and the game gave the "you're already logged in with another password" message. Well, I created a new account, tried alphanumeric names that can't possibly be taken, but now it says "can't connect to TDU servers". Any idea what the problem might be? Firewall and antivirus disabled, haven't explicitly opened router ports, but it seems that if it gave the old message, it did connect to the servers... or no? Or, is it that the servers are actually not online right now?