New PC racing sim - Assetto Corsa

New PC racing sim - Assetto Corsa

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trashbat

6,005 posts

152 months

Friday 21st November 2014
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Nor here.

When you buy Early Access, you buy speculatively on the evidence at the time, hoping that the finished product will be any good.

In general you shouldn't expect a public bug list or even acknowledgement of your issues. If you get those things, it's a bonus - Bohemia Interactive, for example, are very good at it, as are popular open source projects - but sadly it's not the norm.

Then a note on significance: you might think that the bug you're experiencing is really obvious and high priority, but you might be one of only a few experiencing it, and thus given the finite resources of a software developer, it's a long way beneath bugs that potentially affect all customers (which you might not notice because that's not how you use the product) or indeed new features - especially ones that make money. It doesn't mean that it won't get fixed, or that the developers don't care.

It's subjective, of course. I have a fairly sympathetic attitude towards AC and its developer, which is not something I extend to certain other developers.

Stig

11,817 posts

283 months

Friday 21st November 2014
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Does anyone know when the Toyota TS040 (among other Toyotas) is going to be released for it? They announced the licence agreement, but no release date?

Mr Whippy

28,941 posts

240 months

Friday 21st November 2014
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RobM77 said:
Regarding the jitters; when exactly do you get them? I've never seen anything like that.
It's kinda like the cockpit is solid in the view-port, but the track/terrain/panorama stuff is jittering a pixel up/down/left/right at high frequency.

It does it all the time pretty much... but is mainly noticeable when going slowly or stopped.


Possibly still related to those low-speed/stopped damping issues... but like I said it's there all the time for me.


I'll try make a video at some stage so you can see it in action.



Maybe it's a bug, maybe it's a config issue. But in the end if there is a config setting that makes things 'wrong' then it's in their interests to fix things.


Ultimately it is early access too, so I'm happy for bugs.

But I still think they've got another year of hard work to get it really nice... given how long it's taken for them to get from the first release to now, and it still generally feels the same but with more cars and tracks.

Dave

RobM77

35,349 posts

233 months

Friday 21st November 2014
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Interesting, thanks. I must confess, I've not seen that. The only graphics issue I had was trying to run it on two Radeon cards linked in Crossfire. I had issues with most games, so have now switched to a single fast card (NVidia as it happens). I can therefore also confirm that it's not an ATI/NVidia issue as I've run AC using both makes of card.

I discovered a little bug last night actually - the damping bump settings for the AC Cobra move in steps but the steps aren't the same, so you can't set the bump settings the same between left and right. To credit the development team, I mentioned an innacuracy in the 2-Eleven settings compared to the real car and they fixed it overnight. In that light, with regard to their failure to address the jittering issue, I can only assume that as the game's got bigger the number of bugs have got bigger.

Mr Whippy

28,941 posts

240 months

Friday 21st November 2014
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In the end it all comes down to how it feels.

Correct values go so far, but if you're tyre model is out by 5% on slip angles, ratios, heating/cooling params, then toe, kpi, castor could all be out by 20% and you'd probably not feel it.

That isn't to say they're important, but the dogged approach to saying a car feels like XYZ because XYZ specs are right is not a good approach. It also needs to feel right too, and dynamically feel correct in certain conditions.

I'm not sure a lot of real cars would drive like they do in AC.


Remember here they're still fudging lots of stuff in AC. Drive-train flexibility is just done via the tyre model, so tyres are overly 'springy' in rotational torques... or under-damped, to give that 'effect'
There is no real drive-line twisting, nor even the effects of the engine rebounding when we slip the tyres, with forces going to the chassis. Even just stood still the car doesn't move when revving... by design!!!

So lots of stuff missing there.

Everything is rose jointed from what I can tell. Great for all the racing cars, but road cars... stuff like the Honda NSX was setup very very specifically with certain bushing forces in mind to work with the kinematics of the car.
You can't just ignore these things in road car feelings and resultant kinematics.

Ie, look at old Peugeot hot hatches with the flexible rear sub-frame mounts that add loads of kinematic toe/camber changes under specific loading conditions. Ignore the bushes and you completely change the behaviour... as evidenced when people remove them for solid mounts for track use, for more friendly track-level force on the limit behaviour.


Ultimately it IS all gonna be a compromise, but AC are saying X and doing Y.

They talk about accuracy this, drives right because of exact spec that, but then the next minute they completely forget to tell you about all the fudges they make, and how they might just make the entire thing a bit of a fudge-factor fest after all those accurate numbers are put in any way.


It just frustrates me that they tell you all the positives as selling points, but then skip over all the stuff that actually offsets all those positives... and then you're left just hoping they actually care enough to do the final tweaking so stuff 'feels' right, rather than is 'technically' right.


Dave

RobM77

35,349 posts

233 months

Friday 21st November 2014
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Again, that comes down to the commercial viability really; the time taken to satisfy 90% of the buying public (equivalent to Gran Turismo 5, which as far as I know only models weight, power, CofG and size and very basic things like that), or the huge amount more effort to work away at that final 10%. AC are obviously a step away from the likes of GT and Forza, and I must admit in terms of the feel you mention I find AC has a more realistic feel than RFactor or even iRacing, but obviously they're not going into every tiny detail, because I doubt it's commercially viable to do so.

Like you I suspect I'd love to see a wholly accurate sim which models absolutely everything, as I mentioned earlier, selling for a few hundred pounds a piece. I suppose the key answer to that question is whether we'll see simulation move away from F1 and down into other branches of motorsport.

Out of interest, for anyone out there creating their own Assetto Corsa vehicles - could you list the parameters that they model for a particular aspect, for example the suspension? We'll never see the code, but I'd be very interested to see the details for a vehicle as read in by the programme.

Mr Whippy

28,941 posts

240 months

Friday 21st November 2014
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Without saying too much, racing simulators are MORE about the fudges and knowing what those fudges are, to then get useful data from them, than absolute accuracy.

You don't just step into a professional simulator and get RealismTM smile


I'd argue that in many ways the stuff you get is worse than a good simulator in many ways, but in specific ways that are being addressed in that test session, things are better but probably abstract to the 'fun' side of sim driving.
Ie, damper velocities being measured might be really good but everything else could just be fairly place holder in nature.



I don't think AC is any better than rFactor deep down... indeed AC seems to do less in some ways. Looking at the 'weight' of the sim definition files there is much less in the AC ones.

That is no bad thing, but it means more characteristics are probably fudged, so you have to hope they are fudged well.

rFactor's weakness was that no one took the time to feed in good values... with good values it's quite excellent at recreating specific real-car characteristics.



Again, AC may turn out to be great. I just think they've compromised it a bit too much for me already.

The entire focus on race car type setups with not much consideration for road cars is a big weakness imo... for anything that will ever turn a wheel on a public road, legally, AC is gonna struggle to simulate it really nicely.

Dave

FourWheelDrift

88,375 posts

283 months

Friday 21st November 2014
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It's a racing simulator, so I want racing cars. I don't really want road cars.

trashbat

6,005 posts

152 months

Friday 21st November 2014
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I just can't get on board with that level of criticism. It costs £30. As a package, it's not hard to argue that it's the best one available.

Saying that it could be better is one thing, and it almost certainly can. Labelling it compromised and consistently attacking it is another. Everything is compromised. Whatever you drive is compromised. Enjoy what it is for what it is.

Software products evolve. ARMA III, probably the best non-driving comparison, is at its core a long way from its roots in OFP and vanilla ARMA, even though you might not always really notice. And it took 7-13 years to get there. But if you didn't support the preceding project(s) in the first place, it'd never have done so.

Edited by trashbat on Friday 21st November 14:13

RobM77

35,349 posts

233 months

Friday 21st November 2014
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FourWheelDrift said:
It's a racing simulator, so I want racing cars. I don't really want road cars.
I agree with you, but road cars are what sells because road cars are what most people know about and want to drive.

Mr Whippy

28,941 posts

240 months

Friday 21st November 2014
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Don't read it as a criticism, just a more rounded look at what it can do and doesn't do.


I suppose I'm upset because they've offered a huge raft of road cars and yet really they're just racing cars in road car clothes. I was expecting that LaFerrari to be simulated like a LaFerrari, not just a LaFerrari as good as the "racing sim" could fit it into the game.


There is an inferred angle that this is an all-round simulator that is doing it all perfectly, but you could argue that about rFactor too... or NFS Shift1/2 which use a very similar engine with fancy graphics.

Even Game Stock Car Extreme appears to have most of the same fundamental capabilities that make a 'good' sim.



AC has clearly marketed itself very well, but in my opinion it's misled me and probably many others about what it's focus and intentions really were.


I think it's important to be realistic and rounded in opinions on it so that others don't fall into a non-refundable purchase and find the game missing out on a lot of what they expected it to have, given the feedback many give it.

RobM77

35,349 posts

233 months

Friday 21st November 2014
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trashbat said:
I just can't get on board with that level of criticism. It costs £30. As a package, it's not hard to argue that it's the best one available.

Saying that it could be better is one thing, and it almost certainly can. Labelling it compromised and consistently attacking it is another. Everything is compromised. Whatever you drive is compromised. Enjoy what it is for what it is.

Software products evolve. ARMA III, probably the best non-driving comparison, is at its core a long way from its roots in OFP and vanilla ARMA, even though you might not always really notice. And it took 7-13 years to get there. But if you didn't support the preceding project(s) in the first place, it'd never have done so.

Edited by trashbat on Friday 21st November 14:13
yes I completely agree, and I hope that was evident from my post. ARMA is a great example, but there is a pro version sold to armies all over the world that costs about £500 a copy (IIRC), but then the £30 consumer version is also available. Personally I find it hard to work out how it's even possible to make a profit on ARMA or AC at £30 a copy, considering the amount of work that goes in (and I work in IT, so I'm not totally out of touch).

trashbat

6,005 posts

152 months

Friday 21st November 2014
quotequote all
RobM77 said:
yes I completely agree, and I hope that was evident from my post. ARMA is a great example, but there is a pro version sold to armies all over the world that costs about £500 a copy (IIRC), but then the £30 consumer version is also available. Personally I find it hard to work out how it's even possible to make a profit on ARMA or AC at £30 a copy, considering the amount of work that goes in (and I work in IT, so I'm not totally out of touch).
A few ways for ARMA:

- it's mostly the same underlying product as VBS2/VBS3

- the consumer product ships in volume, and to people not necessarily interested in ARMA itself (e.g. DayZ)

- their model is once you've paid the headline price, new features for free, new content costs money (DLC)

- to an extent, the consumer product serves as QA for the commercial one

- as well as VBS costing ~£500 per head, it makes a load more money out of consultancy etc

It's definitely a symbiotic relationship. I don't know which makes the most money but I doubt the contemporary consumer stuff would exist without VBS, which in turn came into being as a result of the OFP game.

I suspect Kunos aim to do something similar for the motorsport industry, but who knows.

Mr Whippy

28,941 posts

240 months

Friday 21st November 2014
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RobM77 said:
trashbat said:
I just can't get on board with that level of criticism. It costs £30. As a package, it's not hard to argue that it's the best one available.

Saying that it could be better is one thing, and it almost certainly can. Labelling it compromised and consistently attacking it is another. Everything is compromised. Whatever you drive is compromised. Enjoy what it is for what it is.

Software products evolve. ARMA III, probably the best non-driving comparison, is at its core a long way from its roots in OFP and vanilla ARMA, even though you might not always really notice. And it took 7-13 years to get there. But if you didn't support the preceding project(s) in the first place, it'd never have done so.

Edited by trashbat on Friday 21st November 14:13
yes I completely agree, and I hope that was evident from my post. ARMA is a great example, but there is a pro version sold to armies all over the world that costs about £500 a copy (IIRC), but then the £30 consumer version is also available. Personally I find it hard to work out how it's even possible to make a profit on ARMA or AC at £30 a copy, considering the amount of work that goes in (and I work in IT, so I'm not totally out of touch).
The army won't just pay for copies either, it'll be license fees and possibly even hardware on top.

Iirc, an rFactor Pro seat is £3000 a year.

Then there are probably content package costs on top of that.


KS do similar from what I've seen, and I'm sure most of what is in AC will be levered into their pro commercial offerings too. No doubt that is why it's also so track-car focussed for now.



But again, not being purely critical about AC. Just the way they have sold it to me has grated somewhat.


As per VFM, there are other good solutions out there.

Ie, GSC is very good. It's also quite a bit cheaper than AC pre-release, and assuming AC doesn't drastically change in the mean-time then I think it's a great game for the money. I also happen to know that underneath the physics are just as capable of delivering the apparent realism you'd want in a car sim.

http://game-stockcar.com.br/?lang=en

Perhaps it just hasn't been marketed quite as well as AC.


It's easy to overlook other stuff because AC has sold itself so very well. Flashy graphics, promises of amazing physics, a top-quality car list etc.

But all that doesn't automatically make it the best.


There are other very good car sims out there for the PC! smile

Dave

Aphex

2,160 posts

199 months

Friday 21st November 2014
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Mr Whippy said:
There are other very good car sims out there for the PC! smile

Dave
Out of interest, which one of those do you work for? hehewink

SlipStream77

2,153 posts

190 months

Friday 21st November 2014
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I don't agree with the harsh criticism about AC, I've worked on vehicle dynamics software in the past and I've used sims since before Geoff Crammond's F1GP. In the last few years I've worked on mods, both for rfactor and AC.

In my opinion, AC is now the best sim around for realism, I used to be a big fan of rFactor and I used iRacing for a while too.
Vehicle dynamics are much more complex than most people think, for example a truly accurate tyre model still does not exist, they all use 'fudge factors' or approximations.

It is possible using a combination of accurate figures and fudges to get pretty close to the real thing though, that's what most of the major sims try to do.

In addition, the whole business of a car 'feeling right' is going to be very difficult to measure, everyone has different force feedback equipment, settings, handling preferences, and differing levels of experience.

Overall, I would say that AC does need more development but that's exactly what they're doing. They're also very keen to hear from the community and feedback to them which is really encouraging.

SlipStream77

2,153 posts

190 months

Friday 21st November 2014
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FWD, do you have a link to the D-Type mod please? I can only find a payware one.

FourWheelDrift

88,375 posts

283 months

Friday 21st November 2014
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SlipStream77 said:
FWD, do you have a link to the D-Type mod please? I can only find a payware one.
This page - http://thesimreview.blogspot.com.es/2014/11/assett...

Hang on it says "link down". I'll find the original

Ps. It's the same Forza conversion, the same Forza conversion the Russians are illegally asking money for.

FourWheelDrift

88,375 posts

283 months

Friday 21st November 2014
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SlipStream77 said:
FWD, do you have a link to the D-Type mod please? I can only find a payware one.
Ps. YHM

RobM77

35,349 posts

233 months

Saturday 22nd November 2014
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Slipstream77: I completely agree yes