Jack Nicklaus Perfect Golf Available Now on Steam, Soon For Consoles

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Here it is almost three years after the announced release date, and FINALLY we see the next incarnation of Perfect Golf, using NVIDIA's Turf Effects for 3-D rough and HDR graphics - Virtual Golf 2. The only problem is you have to have a Trackman 4 launch simulator to play it It really looks better than I imagined it would. Check out the first gameplay video I've seen of it in action. The guy is playing approach shots on the practice course:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_c...ature=emb_logo

Behind the scenes, the creators of Perfect Golf and Virtual Golf 2 are pushing for a PC version release, with possible console releases to follow. Not much to go on at this point, but it seams to be a shame to have course graphics that were created with Unity on a PC, playing before such a small, limited audience!

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Here's something closer to complete tee to green play (the golfer has auto-putt enabled) at Silverleaf Golf Club. The desert mountain backdrop is easily the best looking I've ever seen in ANY golf game or simulation! I questioned the poster and he says he's only interesting in ball striking and that's why he has it in auto-putt. I'd love to see how the full putting experience goes with this though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzkPwto9xxs

[capa]

Wish I had a room where I could fully swing real golf clubs and 20K for the simulator

C

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Quote: Originally Posted by capa

Wish I had a room where I could fully swing real golf clubs and 20K for the simulator C

I do too Capa, but I'm also learning from those who are more experienced with launch simulators that Trackman doesn't do a great job with the short game and putting using indoor launch simulators. A lot of them say that Skytrack and CG2 do a much better job of capturing the intracacies of the short and putting game. Unfortunately, neither of them will be compatible with Virtual Golf 2, as that will be exclusively Trackman 4.

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Here's a link to a You Tube video of a Trackman 4/Virtual Golf 2 full round at Sweetens Cove. It's rendered smoothly in 1080p, although for the first time in the Virtual Golf 2 videos and images I've seen thus far, the difference isn't as obvious in this one. The 3D rough doesn't really show the advantages of Turf Effects, but it might be down to the late evening lighting used and the lack of a much light rough at this course. The panorama looks really nice as does the sky dome. The winds are pretty much still so there's nothing to see in terms of sashaying tree foliage in this one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_gxJpqofpU

What impressed me most about this video is how quickly the ball's flight is depicted on the screen on full shots. There's almost no delay between the impact of the ball on the screen and the animation depicting the ball flight starting. This guy also gives us the first look at the "Broadcast Camera" perspective on the cut views, and I really liked it, although I'd prefer to have cut views that were more reverse than side angle. None the less, I strongly prefer the Broadcast view shown here to Follow Cam, which I shied away from in the early Tiger Woods PGA Tour series years.

Finally, I thought the putting looked pretty decent. The player in the video had some very believable results with his 10 to 20 foot putts he hit. There was a bout a two second delay between the putt strike and the ball rolling on the green, but the path an behavior looked consistent with the strike. It's just a shame that Virtual Golf 2 software is playing to such a small audience, when there are millions of gaming computers and consoles that could support it so well

[scagwi]

Quote: Originally Posted by OnlookerDelay

It's just a shame that Virtual Golf 2 software is playing to such a small audience, when there are millions of gaming computers and consoles that could support it so well

It's a major bummer. I would pull out my VISA and pay for it right now if I could play it on PC with a controller.

It looks really great to me. A nice incremental update to PG1.

[ncp10]

Quote: Originally Posted by OnlookerDelay

What impressed me most about this video is how quickly the ball's flight is depicted on the screen on full shots. (

That might have been technically challenging to do but quite frankly I thought the side view of the ball wasn't good--it was too far away to even be able to evaluate how good ball physics are modeled. I believe scagwi complained about ball physics in TGC2019 or TGC but we have found almost nothing odd about how ball physics are modeled in that TGC2019 save they did not model backspin effects well but that's not a major issue to improve on if they continue with the product at some point in the future. I also thought the ball itself in VG2 looked almost as unnatural as the ball does in WGT where the ball looks like it's been photoshopped on the turf and just doesn't quite look real. As for general terrain texture graphics they were very nice and quite photo-real w/ VG2.

Very fortunately for me and my playing partner we might shoot anywhere from +6 to -8 on very challenging courses, and there are so many in TGC2019 it's phenomenal the thoughtfulness and the quality of work so many have put in gratis for all to enjoy. The game clearly captures the idiosyncrasies of golf and brings out the identical psychological reactions we experience in real life golf. We find ourselves not exceptionally good at anything in particular but decent in all parts of the game so if you watched our matches on TV you wouldn't have a clue who was going to win the match. A few weeks ago we flip flipped being 3 up on the other guy twice each in 18h! It was a nail biter at the finish! I tell you I don't need any other golf software to be happy in virtual golf--it's all about the golf itself and the competition, and TGC2019 is ideal for our particular skill level such that outcomes are very comparable to tour player performance overall. Did you know in TGCTours Xbox users typically shoot 20 or more strokes worse than PS4 players in 72h events? PC players are in between. I'm glad we are Xbox users it keeps our scores in line with RL golf.

[scagwi]

Quote: Originally Posted by ncp10

....we have found almost nothing odd about how ball physics are modeled in that TGC2019 save they did not model backspin effects well but that's not a major issue to improve on if they continue with the product at some point in the future.

A. "Not modeling backspin effects" is a big issue to some of us
B. "If (HB/TGC) continue" is a somewhat precarious "if" right now with the TGC series

Related to B: I'm pretty disappointed with their model that turned into "release, barely update/fix and quickly abandon"...which was all nearly a year ago now with nothing new in sight. Major bummer.

If they're working on something big for 2020/Scarlett/PS5 release window (which I hope they are), it needs to be a major evolution at this point. It's time to eschew some of the holdover roots, issues and niggles from all the way back in TGC1.