I couldn't get my head around race 07 until recently, downloaded the BTCC mod, it's fantastic. It can be a bit if a pain setting up your wheel initially. But it's worth the tinkering.
Awesome to see GTR 2 content. I started sim racing with Simbin's first GTR game and with GTR 2 they just perfected the formula. Hooked ever since. Another amazing older sim is Richard Burns Rally.
Great vid! We love this game. The time it portrait, the second generation of FIAGT rules, was a great period, not so impressive as the previous but a important milestone that pave the way for what we have today. And the cars ... ah the cars are amazing! All those V12s, V10s and V8s made history! Here in Brazil, in Curitiba we had an international race with the BTCC previous series (1996) and subsequently a local FIA GT championship (2000s) with Maseratis, Vipers, Ferraris and Lambos. Then the games as GTR2 came with the cars and was a bliss. It was so great that we are going to make a 12 hour virtual race in Assetto Corsa to honor our beloved track that is being destroyed with these cars and also prototypes from the era. It will be an international event so, anyone interested are invited to come and checkout.
My first ever "real" sim racing experience was with the SimBin GTR/Race series when they were on sale in college right about the release of Race 07. Still love playing Race On an doing hillclimbs in the Radical SR3.
I love this game, my only issue is with the track lol. "it's not that long!" "it's not that smooth around that corner!", I loved it back in the day, still do!
This was made when sim devs really cared about there game but now its just about the $ and nothing else One thing i noticed is the AI dont swerve dramatically when you get close like in Ams2 where you get on the right side rear of the car then suddenly the AI swerve violently to avoid you which puts me off so much
The thing i like most about gtr2 is the massive amount of cars you can run at once. Not only spa with 64 cars, i've ran the nurburgring with 104 cars in the grid and it's Just pure insanity
Yeah exactly, I remember when the announcement was made about ACC (which is very good by the way) and it was announced that it would be a limited grid. I could sense the whole GTR2 fan base sigh in disapproval across the world. 😂 GT racing always had huge grids, I went to the Silverstone to see the BPR series back in ‘95 and ‘96 and they had almost 55 cars in the main race. I still don’t know how they managed to fit them all in the pits!
@@andrewharper4296 the thing with acc is the AI uses same physics as player so the AI is VERY cpu intensive. And actually at spa and Silverstone you can run 50 cars in acc but you need a good cpu to do so
Miss the days of popping on Nogrip and seeing what cool mod or upgrade was out this week. Racedepartment has some these days but nothing like nogrip had. So much lost content when they went down.
Yup i lost touch with the gtr2 community over the years after I stopped playing /modding the game. I released a handful of street cars and never backed them up. So now they are gone too lol. Oh well, should have backed them up. I kinda want to remake some of my mods but that was windows 7 days, I dont even have win7 anymore and would have to get whatever software works with windows 10 and relearn how to make cars/tracks. But asseto corsa seems to be where all the mods are today.
GTR2 is a great sim. It feels like it was made by motorsports enthusiasts who could adapt the game code as they saw fit. Don't forget to try Race07 and its DLC.
The CEO of Simbin, Henrik Roos drove in the FIA GT Championship between 2002 & 2004 in the Chrysler Viper GTS-R. His name is on the cars in the game as well 👍
can someone please help me with race 07??? the game has auto clutch turned on DESPITE turning it off in the menus. i can shift without clutching basically, also when i downshift it auto blips for me. it breaks the immersion, i want it manual, and i mean, no auto blip, no auto clutch, i want complete control. i like race 07 a lot, but this has been bugging me a lot lately, and im looking for another sim, cos i tried fixing it, but it still isnt fixed. please help
Race 07 with mods is great, but the problem is you need to adjust every time during hours your Wheel setup for almost every car. I can enjoy GTR2 during houres One Car with One circuit just doing lap times
I was chatting a couple of days ago with a fiend when I bought F1 2021. And we came to the same conclusion. Why don't all the racing games have an Adaptive AI? Friend told me there's a page dedicated to calculating your in game AI because it's so inconsistent - at some tracks you set it 92 at some 86,.. I was saying things like: Why don't you have an option to practice race starts? I, for the life of me, cannot get a good start. 2. Same at the pits. Why don't AAA game like F1 2021 don't have some "training ground" where the game shows you things, evaluates your performance and then you go from there? They are a big studio with EA backing... Things that can be implemented ONCE and then included in every version of the game? Why do you have to study books or pay someone to understand basic setup things? In ACC everyone knows correct PSI. But it's nowhere to be found in the game or explained. I'm a software developer and I know a small studio (kunos) cannot do everything, so they made the best physics and handling model. I understand. But they could outsource these "little" things. "Making life better" things. Like: The Game itself could teach you how to trailbrake with soundblips and graphical indicators on a special part of the track with one corner where you could repeat the same thing 5 times in a minute. Then longer/shorter corners.
I heard forza 6 had a adaptive ai, not sure if it's true though, but i agree with your statement, atm only Gran Turismo has done it with their license test stuff
Raceroom has an adaptive AI but you have to train it carefully, because if you beat than easily in your first race they will all of a sudden go much faster than you in the next event. Lol. There are a few decent guides online about how to work it properly. The AI in raceroom is pretty good. I’ve read comments from some saying it’s too aggressive, etc but I’ve never really experienced that for some reason.
@@andrewharper4296 Adaptive AI should work something like this: In F1 game you can set it from 0 to 120 in 1 increments. If you are good at 65 then AI should set itself up to 70 or down to 60, depending at how you race currently. So you set a race 50% and if you are competitive at 90 but not at 94, AI should look at your previous laps and correct it's difficulty. I think if you set at 65 and win by 60 seconds then it's up to you to up the difficulty. AI should tweak itself in small increments during a race. My opinion on AI. This should be easy to implement in all racing games.
@@alpha007org In Raceroom you need to race a couple of 10 minute races at whatever track you`re racing on, then it simply has the AI roughly match your lap times +/-
@@jwork5680 They might call their Driveatars "adaptive" but they are just trash. I did a race at Le Mans and the AI kept braking on flat out corners and and get into pileups into the first corner. The this was on FM7 at Max difficulty, I'm also not the fastest driver out there and can easily beat them.
Most of the older Sims were way more immersive in terms of actual racing incidents, such as the ai cars unexpectedly breaking down, pulling into the pits or being involved in accidents. Play any of the older sims and be amazed at all the extra surprises going on around you.
An interesting fact about GTR2: The CEO of SimBin Studios was a a Swedish man named Henrik Roos. He used to race in a Saleen S7R during the GT seasons covered in this game. Also, Blimey! Games (the predecessors of Slightly Mad Studios) did a lot for the game in terms of development in tandem with SimBin.
Also, this game had the ability to log data about the car whenever you drove it and if you had the i2 pro software from MoTeC, it was another level of realism in terms of looking at the data and seeing where you're strong and where you're weak.
I believe Simbin and Blimey/SMS were one and the same at the time this was made. Simbin started out under Ian Bell as a mod team for the EA F1 games. They then brought on Roos as an investor when they became a full-fledged game dev and did GTR, GTR2, and GTL (which I think is actually the best of the bunch). After those games the Ian Bell part of the company split from Simbin to form Blimey, which then morphed into SMS.
Getting it to run is actually not that hard. You just buy it on steam, put in a No-CD Patch (needed to get the Porsches and Ferraris, that are locked away otherwise due to licensing) and put the NT Core 4 GB Patch over the Application. Than you need to turn on compatibility options on GTR2.exe and GTR2_Config.exe: Run it in Windows XP SP3 and always as an administrator. That should be enough to get it going and get playing. Only thing that might be difficult is getting modern gear to run on it. I have a G27 for it, which works with it natively.
Go for it dude. It's quite tedious to set up like he said. I had to manually tell my INVIDIA controller that I want to use my graphics card on the config file.
All the good feelings in this, and other games of this period come with custom FFB profiles, get into the advanced settings and you can totally transform things for the better, or worse as well, invest time there for sure is the message. Simbin was the class leader at the time, and Doug Arnao (our physics guy for the GTR and GTL games) did a great job with the GTR/GTL titles. Race/Race07 had very deep levels of authenticity that will only be detected by the very deepest players in terms of physics, including tuning the lap times as close as possible to the real lap time, and tuning the drag levels on the cars to match "exactly" with the speed traps and the real cars, overall the feel has stood the test of time quite well I think. I think people misunderstand the physics in Race/Race07 as "too easy" initially - and they are relatively easy on default setups, things only get interesting and really dynamic when you start to customise your setups and start pushing for final few tenths of a lap in speed, that's when things start getting really tough.
Back when race sims tried to mimic a real life series in every way imaginable, instead of a one size fits all kind of way with 100 half baked cars from 20 different categories.
@@GuyGamer1 did they implement Safety Car? How about ghosting during formation, is that fixed? What's the state of flag rules? How rich is the penalty system nowadays, when I tried it a while ago it was very minimal. Lastly, how is the damage, do cars lose parts, engines burn, gearboxes fail?
Actually there are a lot of people still driving the game online. I am one of them and we still have that amazing feeling with the mods and everything. :)
@@jonathanchung7209 LFS is good because every car is made within the sim. The cars were made to fit it so they all act how you think they should. Also, LFS came out 2 years before GTR2.
You should check out nr2003. I know it's a nascar sim which you don't really cover, but it's physics still hold up, and the modding community has kept it alive with updated tracks, cars, and textures. A Next Gen Cup mod is even releasing in the near future. The indycar and redline gtp mods also are pretty great, although the redline mod doesn't support AI since it was an online competitive mod only. And it's completely free as well since it was forced to be abandoned when EA gained exclusive licensing causing Papyrus to close and reopen as iRacing. I still very much prefer nr2003 for nascar sim racing. Of course I'll play iRacing for online or Heat for career, but the amount of adjusting you can do with nr2003 to perfect the AI like reducing the draft distance for plate tracks and blocking out a line of code makes plate racing super close and intense going three wide and being stuck in the middle. I honestly still prefer its physics over iRacing NASCAR. Don't know why, but the car feedback is so much more informative on the edge than iRacing.
I remember being a kid, leaning over the back of the sofa watching dad every night racing on gt2. He did leagues and won trophies and some prizes. This game really started everything for me, i was hooked just weatching.
it's still pretty crazy how when it comes to pure immersion and features a game from 2006 still beats out most modern sims same with grand prix 4, that and GTR2 were some of the peaks of the era if not of simracing in general
Really good idea for a vid. I absolutely loved GTR2 at the time and I still do. Its turned into a very playable piece of history. You must try the Power and Glory Mod for it.
That's a very good mod. Like first thing I thought when trying it out was that a game this old, with a mod, has NO BUSINESS with having such GOOD FFB in classic car racing. Insane. Crazy it can all be had for a fiver. In the UK that's two entire cans of Red Bull lol.
GTR2 is my favorite. I wanted to comment that I raced in the UK GPL league years ago. GPL can be a challenge to set up. The mods make it possible to race a F1 career from 1965 - 69. They also have 1955 F1 mod and two years of Can Am. I gelled with the Can Am cars the most. GPL is the Grand Daddy of iracing
Been playing sims since microprose grand Prix days. I miss the feeling of weight . I miss the fact that you actually bought a complete game, not something that continually needs updates. I miss what once was. Don't get me wrong some great looking sims out there. Lol pc upgrades are a must to keep up these days making us all move forward but in many respects our sims we love have stagnated how did Sim Bin do this. I miss Sim Bin
RaceRoom really needs to improve its graphics. This game really shows how dated the graphics engine is, that goes for Iracing as well. Iracing makes too much money for their game to look like that. Raceroom is my favourite and it is only missing the SUPER GT GT500 and GT 300 cars and better graphics.
The game that made me buy my first wheel, as it was too tough without. Been hooked on racing sims ever since. Raceroom is my modern choice, but I often go back to GTR2 now and again. It has the best connected to the road feeling of any I've tried. Thanks for the vid.
Got into sim racing again after 10 years off. Bought a G920, a few modern titles, and I have to say... I'm not that impressed. I was expecting an incredible step up from GTR2. I watched this video just to confirm that I wasn't looking back through rose-tinted glasses. Looks like I'm buying it again lol!
GTR2, GTL, and the original rFactor was what fully got me into simracing, and I'm proud to say that I still have it on my hard drive along with all the mods that I've downloaded. I would like to hear your opinion on Race and Race07.
Great game and great points! I agree with you. If GTR2 could do all these features, why isn't at least some of them implemented in some way in more modern sims. That's why I like GTSport's track learning features. Someone completely new to motorsports and sim racing would probably find them useful
Gt legends and race 07 are also amazing! Spend hours off racing with all the games off simbim. They did great. Still waiting till they drop a new game.
@@crpearson2004 Yep, Ian Bell was a founder of SimBim, he then was bought out of the share and founded SMS with pCars, while the other founders of Simbim moved onto Raceroom. Loved pCars 2 myself, still have it installed, I think its still the best. Race 07 was absolutely fantastic in its day.
Great review! I did GTR2 for a year or so. Bit I am really exited to hear your thought in GPL, because I spent YEARS racing that. You might also try out the GPL Demo that has been made a couple of years ago.
This title is a classic, I still play it to this day. I think you nailed it when you said it's as if Simbin decided to create a pure sim, not watered down for the masses. That's exactly what the appeal was back in the day (and now).
Hey Mike, nice trip down memory lane - I still have my own CD/DVD? of this game somewhere lying around (yes, I'm one of those oldies that grew up on it)..... If you can get it for the same price, my own personal preference between these two (though for DD owners, this one is probably better?) - but check out GT LEGENDS, if you don't have that one already. It's as good as this title, in my humble opinion???
Something you didn't mention are the few thousand car and track mods that are (or were) available for it. I think there are still a few active groups where you can download them. I spent hours in GTR2, even after newer titles were being released. You can also edit how the cars are categorized, and even make new categories, and there were even modders adding "CSP-like" features to it. I still have my "mega-modded" version somewhere, but eventually Assetto Corsa consumed most of my time, with its' VR capability, it now has a few thousand mods and Content Manager and CSP. When I'm browsing through all the AC mods I have, I often think about GTR2, all its' mods, and how it was, for me, the solid predecessor to AC and many of the newer sims I use.
I remember it fondly. I believe the tag line was “Easy to drive, hard to master”. You must try GT Legends Mike. If I had a spare corner for PC I’d run both still now. As it stands I’m stuck with the PS4 and PC2 and ACC. GT Sport never tempted me to try it because I knew what it was trying to do but could see it done poorly. GTR2 should be the datum point for all sim development.
The only downsides of GTR2 are heavy understeer and kerbs sucking you in so hard that you basically lose control everytime you run over them. And apparently, endurance racing doesn't work. All in all, solid sim and ahead of its time.
I actually bought whole simbin package couple days ago, (my first ever proper sim was race 07 many years ago, i started doing some triple screen benchmarks for my videos, thus the spark to try them all) yesterday i did a small session of race 07 with all the dlc's and the impression is ok-decent'ish but apparently i didnt set up my ffb right, i didnt enable "reverse effects" and in result of that i had very weird ffb, so sometime soon im going for round 2 on race 07 with adjusted ffb. Now i play on triple screen and sadly simbin tittles dont support it fully so i have very stretched view even if i tried messing with fov (understandably without proper triple screen support there is no way to fix it). So yeah havent played gtr2 yet but i have it installed and ready to go, i will give it a try sometime soon. Now from what i played on race 07, physics have definitely aged but they are still serviceable, overall i would strongly recommend to try picking it up (race 07) for guys who have aged hardware or who played all recent sims and want something fun to try on the weekend or for people who are not sure if sim racing is their thing, base race 07 is very cheap, like >3€, thats basically nothing on top of that, race 07 have quite a few mods as well, so its still worth a try even in 2022 for one reason or the other.
I agree.. GTR2 was the PC sim that got me in to league racing. It's still very relevant today, just as the three free (abandon-ware) titles are.. ie.. Grand Prix 4, Nascar Racing 2003 and the always relevant Richard Burns Rally. This time 2004-2010 were the golden years for PC racing sims. Lots of super excellent titles and ALL of them are able to be modded!!!
Love gtr2 and race07, puts many of todays titles to shame. You are an excellent presenter, too many youtubers nowadays do nothing but shout and scream while putiing ridiculous emphasis on every single syllable
Oh man, the memories on this. One of my first sims also. Back in time I used it with a keyboard casu I didnt had a wheel then... guess I must give it a try with nowdays rig tho
I think that the most incredible thing regarding this amazing GTR2 SimRacing is the multiple extensions and above all the various independent mods made by a vast community of fans, developed over all these years which helped to prolong its existence until today. In my umble opinion, this was one of the most imoortant secret of this awesome simracing game.
GTR2 is a timeless classic. It has so many features like weather (which is simulated kinda sophisticated), and day-night change. Man, I spend so many years on that game, driving in leagues against other GTR2 players. What awesome memories that were. In offline mode you could even save the point you played to, just to continue on some other occassion. The only feature I missed in that game was online driver change. That's why sportcar racing was that popular on rFactor and not GTR2.
Not only did I start sim racing with GTR2 but we had the first racing team and I learned to make a website for it. It's now 2024 and I have been self employed as web designer ever since and was able to live in the Caribbean and now Asia and all because I bought this sim.
This is the first time I tried a sim after getting my G29 and having no decent gaming PC's to plug it in. Prior to that I used the G29 on my PS4 with PC1. But I wanted the wheel mostly for PC Sim Racing, so GTR2 was my only option after borrowing my sisters laptop that had an ancient but dedicated AMD GPU. GTR2 is the reason why Catlunya is, to this day, my go to track for performing the fastest lap times. That was because GTR2 had Barcelona as it's first season race so I practiced like hell for it, it really got me immersed into sim racing. And that Catalunya track was burned into my muscle memory ever since. Since then, Sim Racing was really the specific motive that made me grind hard IRL as I wanted the best PC to run the the best VR games etc. I went from borrowing a laptop, to using my own MBP with an eGPU and Vega 56 card, to an actual PC, to my current rig with a 3070 FE and a 5900x. But in the process it had me started on my burgeoning tech retail company, where now I sell 3090's and other peripheries week to week. I don't know, just seeing this game took me on a memory trip where a lot of my life has changed drastically since I decided to spend my £300 savings on a G29, maybe about 2-3 years ago from today. It's insane, but I'm proud to say a lot of these things were due to my love for driving and sim racing. GTR2 being at the forefront of it all I suppose. Life is a wonder.
I still do jump into GTR2 if I want to do GT3 racing, there are several great GT3 mods out there. Even after so many years I am still enjoying it, even if I never do any online competition.
Excellent video, Mike! I love the fact that you are delving into the classics too. The first race I ever saw in person was the 1968 South African GP (Jim Clark’s last F1 victory before his untimely death), and GPL was a dream come true for me when it was released in 1998. I am looking forward to your video with much excitement!
You might be late getting to GTR2, But I am also very late in saying,You are very welcome for the copy Of Grand Prix Legends. I hope it has brought you many hours of joy!
This (and the original GTR) were two of my faves for sure! IIRC, these were gMotor based. I still have my retail box for these games. The only bad part is that when this game transitioned to Steam, they couldn't include the Porsches... Did anyone ever patch those back in? Anyway, I can tell you for a fact that even back then, the GTR games ran reasonably well on a modestly spec'd machine. Oh yeah - if you decide to get GTR 2, go ahead and get the original GTR as well - also on Steam!
I still play GTR2. My folder is 50 GB big, with era of 70´s, 80´s, IMSA GTO, BPR Endurance, Group C, and ofcourse the GT´s of 2000´s.. I love that GT1 Bombers.. GTR2 had so much potenzial you cant descript it in few words.. For me the best ever Racing Sim.. The open files.. you can create Engines, gearboxes.. you can do everything in this sim and the community is still alive! Trackaholics or EEC Forum aer awesome with that Stuff for GTR2. also the AI.. with some changes you had a real challenge in GTR2 with a great speed. For Sim today with the content of GTR2 (mods) you need min. 10 Games..
I’ve heard of the GTR series before. Thanks mike for this cool video I’ll definitely buy this to try it out so I can get more acquainted practice with sim racing in general. It’s great this sim has a training mode. Which more sims had this accessibility feature for newcomers.
"it looks aged but it doesn't feel aged" exactly! This game doesn't have shiny, eyecandy graphics or let's see how authentic are rain water droplets and nonsense like that. It is pure, bare bones racing simulator, like a thoroughbred of racing sims.
Hi Mike you mentioned in your video that you had trouble setting up your triple screen display (3 x 32" & RTX2080Ti). I'm having the same trouble. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
If you have F1 2002 laying around you can grab the original GTR mod put out by the old SimBin mod team, who ended up splitting off to give us the GTR sims, GTLegends, RaceRoom, and Project Cars.
Great video on GTR2 there, Mike. Was wondering if you've tried out Power and Glory mod for GTR2? Also it seems the 10th Anniversary Patch install instructions seem pretty obscure. I spent almost 12 hours trying to get it to overwrite the files. I understand how to add mods but maybe someone should put out a video on the 10th Anniversary patch install, cause I have searched all over RU-vid and not on single video on it. Speaking of CrewChief, you can run the application with GTR2, as long as it remains a Steam install. Great to hear Billy Strange Racing as my spotter.
The main cars in GTR 2 are GT2 class (GT) and GT3 (NGT). Man I would love to see an official GT2 DLC for Project Cars 2. GT2, especially with the Chrysler Viper GTS-Rs and Lister Storm GTs as they are some of my most favourite GT cars ever. I raced GTR-2 quite a lot back in the day on a site called Race2Play. So many awesome memories.
I’m having trouble trying to setup my TS-PC racer in GTR2. In options menu under FFB. I set it to high effects with around 75%, 61% FFB strength or lower. When I accelerate and steer the car on the straights and while cornering the FFB is completely dead. I only feel it when I’m under braking and coasting at low speeds on track or in pitlane. But randomly all of a sudden when I set FFB effects to full. The wheelbase comes alive when driving on track and feeling the kerbs and strips. Most of the times it’s hard to control the bucking resistance. Help please??
It is the perfect game to begin sim racing. GTR2/GT Legends/Race 07 are all cheap on steam, very playable with a gamepad and run on low spec PC's with lots of good dlc's and mods.
Big thank you first of all for making me re-install gtr2, with the 2 anniversary packs its awesome. And the HQ tracks and cars actually look good for it's age. The setup/config file that comes with the packs can be a bit daunting and tweaking the ffb, but its worth it as it unlocks everything. The game play and the racing is awesome, the feel in wet and dry conditions is brilliant and the choice and feels of the different tyres makes a massive difference if you pick the wrong set. The AI is really good too and its great to see cars fly of track when they misjudge a corner. Thanks Mike and anyone who's thinking of getting gtr2, don't think just get it and the 2 anniversary packs and have some awesome racing 👍👍
This + add ons and mods, and RACE 07 + add ons and mods - hold up really well. The only downside is whoever owns the game rights now - killed off the race 07 multiplayer server hosting - so if you want MP, you need to either serve on LAN or serve on LAN and do a VPN to said LAN.
I think it's time for GT Legends! Different than this game! The sounds and the driving, truly retro! There are big differences between the cars, as there are smaller ones and bigger ones, but they all sound fantastic, which adds to the experience! From GT 350 to Alpine A110.🥰These programs were then on a higher level than any other driving game, in everything! (There is video on RU-vid how to unlock all the tracks and cars!) +1 A small team created a retro mod pack for GTR 2! Among others, the physics enginer of Assetto Corsa, Aris, contributed! More lifelike and harder than the base game, and unlike GT Legends, it's set in real time, back in the day, with realistic cars and drivers from the old days, like Jim Clark and Niki Lauda! Completely unique physics, new sounds and a manual describing how the real-world tire models of the time behaved! Amazing! The mod name is: Power & Glory! So I recommend to try GT Legends and Power and Glory (GTR2 mod) as well!
I think it was about a month ago but the GTR3 project was canned I’m afraid. It’s been "teased" for a very long time on social media but I think what maybe caused it’s downfall was ACC. Maybe they were trying to do a deal with SRO and that never happened because Kunos got there first.
