New PC racing sim - Assetto Corsa

New PC racing sim - Assetto Corsa

Author
Discussion

garyjpaterson

137 posts

103 months

Friday 22nd April 2016
quotequote all
Here's something a bit different...

Ford Transit for Assetto Corsa; soon we can all be Sabine Schmitz. Its still a WIP, but am going for as much authenticity as possible with the model and physics, and provides a really good change of pace from all the other cars.






Video below is onboard the Transit at Brands Hatch against many many Abarth 595s biggrin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSJhXM7T6FA

PS If anyone is or has experience of driving a MK6 Transit, please get in touch. Looking for as much feedback in terms of driving experience as possible!

Mr Whippy

29,080 posts

242 months

Friday 22nd April 2016
quotequote all
Haha, nice work on the model!

What AC really needs now are some realistic roads with bumps and things, then this kinda vehicle will be really fun to hoon down them like a proper white van man biggrin

garyjpaterson

137 posts

103 months

Friday 22nd April 2016
quotequote all
Mr Whippy said:
Haha, nice work on the model!

What AC really needs now are some realistic roads with bumps and things, then this kinda vehicle will be really fun to hoon down them like a proper white van man biggrin
Its a hoot at the Nordschleife... for the most part. Any long straights are incredibly dull, and uphill sections just kill any momentum, but the twisty bits are mega, and you can clobber it over kerbs that would unsettle everything else.

Can get about 110mph on the downhill Foxhole section too hehe

SlipStream77

2,153 posts

192 months

Friday 22nd April 2016
quotequote all
FourWheelDrift said:
Great video of a 'track day' on the Nordschleife on Assetto Corsa - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8298nK9X2mM
Not matching his revs though!

Rawwr

22,722 posts

235 months

Monday 30th May 2016
quotequote all
Has anyone else used the cars in the Japanese Pack yet? If not, you need to!

The tuned version of the RX7 is now my favourite car. It's one of the very few I can do both a quick lap around Mugello and score 50,000 drift points around Vallelunga without much change to the standard setup. It's hilarious fun.

The Supra drift car is a bit bonkers and with the turbo cranked up all the way requires some nerve to flick it about.

So yeah, get it.

GrumpyTwig

3,354 posts

158 months

Monday 30th May 2016
quotequote all
Rawwr said:
Has anyone else used the cars in the Japanese Pack yet? If not, you need to!

The tuned version of the RX7 is now my favourite car. It's one of the very few I can do both a quick lap around Mugello and score 50,000 drift points around Vallelunga without much change to the standard setup. It's hilarious fun.

The Supra drift car is a bit bonkers and with the turbo cranked up all the way requires some nerve to flick it about.

So yeah, get it.
I can't stop driving the mx5 cup, under 8 min BTG times with so little power means you're leaning on the car a hell of a lot.
Then there's the time attack supra, which is great on 100% boost as it's tish's and wooshes like a proper boosted 90's JDM car smile

Mr Whippy

29,080 posts

242 months

Monday 30th May 2016
quotequote all
I'm quite liking AC by now. Lots of stuff fixed and generally most cars feel ok, sound ok, and things look ok.

I've paid for all the DLC to suppor them further.


  • but* the devs really need to fix up some of the long-standing issues.
The game UI is still a complete and utter abortion.

Some attention to detail on cars is still a bit squiffy for a nigh on £40 game with DLC. Ie, automatics not working right for nearly 2 years now.

The tracks still feel like freeze-frames. The best we have are flags which wave with all the convincing flappiness of a 1990s racing game. This stuff should be simple and was in Nvidia GPU gems a decade ago at least!

Dave

RobM77

35,349 posts

235 months

Tuesday 31st May 2016
quotequote all
I have to admit the absence of rain is a big one for me; with NetKar the rain was fantastic. The other glaring omission are more pure racing cars, particularly in more recent updates - there's not even a Formula Ford (there were two on NetKar and they were my favourite cars to drive by a long way). AC seems to be turning into a Gran Turismo rival.

The other thing that sims never seem to model is bumps and texture to the track surfaces (by texture I mean physical texture, not graphics 'texture'). Given that they go to the trouble of laser scanning, is this not possible? Most of the tracks drive like a brand new Formula One circuit, whereas in reality most tracks like Brands, Maggione and certainly the Nordschliefe have undulations and bumps that cause cars to move around a lot more than they do in AC. For example, in a slicks and wings single seater (e.g. Formula Abarth) this is very noticeable in real life; once up to high downforce speeds, they jitter around following every tiny undulation in the road, whereas in AC it's all very serene, save for that odd force feedback effect that wobbles the steering at high speed (but not the actual car!).

Rawwr

22,722 posts

235 months

Tuesday 31st May 2016
quotequote all
I just wish they'd get DCC racing working. I'd love to do 1-on-1 racing against friends.

Mr Whippy

29,080 posts

242 months

Tuesday 31st May 2016
quotequote all
RobM77 said:
I have to admit the absence of rain is a big one for me; with NetKar the rain was fantastic. The other glaring omission are more pure racing cars, particularly in more recent updates - there's not even a Formula Ford (there were two on NetKar and they were my favourite cars to drive by a long way). AC seems to be turning into a Gran Turismo rival.

The other thing that sims never seem to model is bumps and texture to the track surfaces (by texture I mean physical texture, not graphics 'texture'). Given that they go to the trouble of laser scanning, is this not possible? Most of the tracks drive like a brand new Formula One circuit, whereas in reality most tracks like Brands, Maggione and certainly the Nordschliefe have undulations and bumps that cause cars to move around a lot more than they do in AC. For example, in a slicks and wings single seater (e.g. Formula Abarth) this is very noticeable in real life; once up to high downforce speeds, they jitter around following every tiny undulation in the road, whereas in AC it's all very serene, save for that odd force feedback effect that wobbles the steering at high speed (but not the actual car!).
I've paid to support the game by buying the DLC now, but some of it is making the out of the box content seem a bit half-finished now and needing to be brought up to spec.

I'd have thought the laser scan tracks should be pretty damn good vs reality. Which then leaves you asking what isn't working right for it not to 'feel' right.


I'm just starting some mod content in AC so hope to learn a bit about all it's implementations.

It's a little sad to hear that the quality scan data isn't coming through very well from bumpy tracks properly.

I'm still sat wondering a lot of the time if what we're feeling is actually 'right', or just their interpretation of 'right'

Ie, I know for a fact the MP4 12C fancy suspension system isn't simulated at all. It's just springs/dampers implementation (or it was for months into development), and likely still is. So what else has had corners cut just to make it all work?

Dave

sanguinary

1,349 posts

212 months

Tuesday 31st May 2016
quotequote all
I keep giving up on this game and then coming back to it, only to experience the same problem.

I've no idea why, but my graphics card and processor overheat, meaning that I can't clear more than a lap and a half of Nordschleife before the PC closes down.

I won't bore you with my spec (unless anyone else has the same problem) but suffice to say I can run Codemasters Dirt Rally on full power across 3 screens. When trying AC on 3 screens, my PC falls over after a couple of minutes, but as above, I get a little of 10 minutes with just the one screen.

It's a bit annoying!

GrumpyTwig

3,354 posts

158 months

Tuesday 31st May 2016
quotequote all
sanguinary said:
I keep giving up on this game and then coming back to it, only to experience the same problem.

I've no idea why, but my graphics card and processor overheat, meaning that I can't clear more than a lap and a half of Nordschleife before the PC closes down.

I won't bore you with my spec (unless anyone else has the same problem) but suffice to say I can run Codemasters Dirt Rally on full power across 3 screens. When trying AC on 3 screens, my PC falls over after a couple of minutes, but as above, I get a little of 10 minutes with just the one screen.

It's a bit annoying!
Are you sure it overheats? As in you've monitored the temperatures? Odd problem but there's 101 things you could try.

Maybe try stress testing it using a benchmarking setup like https://unigine.com/en/products/benchmarks/valley and see if you can get it to do the same while not using AC.

If it's not doing it in that might be worth posting a bug report, it's still in development effectively anyway.

born2bslow

1,674 posts

135 months

Wednesday 1st June 2016
quotequote all
sanguinary said:
I keep giving up on this game and then coming back to it, only to experience the same problem.

I've no idea why, but my graphics card and processor overheat, meaning that I can't clear more than a lap and a half of Nordschleife before the PC closes down.

I won't bore you with my spec (unless anyone else has the same problem) but suffice to say I can run Codemasters Dirt Rally on full power across 3 screens. When trying AC on 3 screens, my PC falls over after a couple of minutes, but as above, I get a little of 10 minutes with just the one screen.

It's a bit annoying!
I had similar issues, only one crash but I was getting high temps in Dirt and PCars too. I used hwmonitor to originally spot the CPU overheat and invested in an H100 AIO liquid cooler for £70 (I should have got the single fan one in hindsight). Then my gpu temps were hitting 90c so I installed afterburner and used it to increase the fan speed earlier (free!) as it lets you set your own fan speed curve a little noisier running PCars and AC but much better temp wise now. Nothing gets above 60c now.

Boring_Chris

2,348 posts

123 months

Wednesday 1st June 2016
quotequote all
RobM77 said:
I have to admit the absence of rain is a big one for me; with NetKar the rain was fantastic. The other glaring omission are more pure racing cars, particularly in more recent updates - there's not even a Formula Ford (there were two on NetKar and they were my favourite cars to drive by a long way). AC seems to be turning into a Gran Turismo rival.

The other thing that sims never seem to model is bumps and texture to the track surfaces (by texture I mean physical texture, not graphics 'texture'). Given that they go to the trouble of laser scanning, is this not possible? Most of the tracks drive like a brand new Formula One circuit, whereas in reality most tracks like Brands, Maggione and certainly the Nordschliefe have undulations and bumps that cause cars to move around a lot more than they do in AC. For example, in a slicks and wings single seater (e.g. Formula Abarth) this is very noticeable in real life; once up to high downforce speeds, they jitter around following every tiny undulation in the road, whereas in AC it's all very serene, save for that odd force feedback effect that wobbles the steering at high speed (but not the actual car!).
I remember reading a developer get-together interview thing and they discussed bumps in racing games in detail. It was one of those subjects I had no idea they're dedicated so much resource to! The gist of it was that in real life you feel the bumps as much as see them, which is impossible to translate on screen so they reach a compromise in FF and head-movement. The detail (in the game) is there, its just not translated very well.

I do know what you mean, though. Its the difference between a motorway eating Audi and a Lotus Elise. The Elise follows the roads every imperfection where the Audi glides over it. You want the game to feel more like the Elise.

I actually found AS to be one of the better games for this, though. If you think it's vague try playing Project Cars or Gran Turismo... like driving on ice.

Mr Whippy

29,080 posts

242 months

Wednesday 1st June 2016
quotequote all
I quite liked GT5, and I'd call myself an aligning torque/FF pedant!

The feel in that game is very natural and 'right' feeling between many different cars. Things like Lotus feel more alive, big heavy cars feel more flat.

Edited by Mr Whippy on Wednesday 1st June 19:39

RobM77

35,349 posts

235 months

Wednesday 1st June 2016
quotequote all
Apologies - I'm wrong. I've just tried AC for the first time since Friday, when I drove my new car for the first time which was also my first time in a single seater for six years (I have a Tatuus Formula Renault, and AC has a Formula Abarth). There are bumps in the sim, but the car doesn't quite react over them like the actual car does. I remember this about my previous track car too (Lotus 2-Eleven, of which that exact car is in AC). Someone better than me with video created a side by side video on of me driving my 2-11 and him driving the 2-11 in the sim and put it on You Tube (bizarrely without asking me first, but there you go - I liked it though!). You can clearly see that in real life the wheel is bucking about quite a bit and the car is 'breathing' over the bumps not just vertically but also in yaw as the balance shifts subtlety. The vertical movement over the bumps is there in the game, but not the yaw movement (i.e. instability). The other thing that I mentioned above in my previous post is high speeds in downforce cars: in real life I've driven four different single seaters with varying levels of downforce and they all get increasingly nervous at higher speeds - not nervous in the sense of instability (it's the opposite as the downforce pushes you into the road), but nervous in the sense that they hunt out all the little ridges and bumps in the road and move around over them - funnily enough it feels just like an invisible hand is pushing you into the road (which is sort of what is actually happening). I've not felt that in a sim yet, although the hyperactive way the car reacts at those speeds is present.

Mr Whippy

29,080 posts

242 months

Wednesday 1st June 2016
quotequote all
It seems quite hard to get definitive information from the AC devs. When asked questions which reveal the limitations of the sim they become quite cagey.

I'm asking right now on the official forums about FF defaults and the naff vibration I get with my G25 due to the 'effects' features, and the excuse is that they like people to be able to 'tune things' to their tastes.

But isn't reality reality? How does taste come into a simulation? Surely they have a preference?

This would be like Porsche selling a car with adjustable suspension set up really badly, and saying it's up to the driver to choose their preference. At least choose amazing defaults and let people only tweak if they think they know better... not to find a half decent setup to begin with!



Which leads us to the compromises they make to get something workable. What are they?

Contact patch size, damping in the tyre in lat/long and compression (x/z/y), movement against the rubber bushings, undamped motion in rubbers, etc.

For instance, I heard that the drivetrain 'bounce' in AC is actually just some effect done via the tyre model, so not really the engine twisting against all the rubber elements of a drivetrain.


This isn't to say AC is bad, all sims compromise... it'd just help to know what they are so we can appreciate why things don't always stack up.



Generally I think AC is a good solid steer. But I do question how super-accurate sim-like it is.

Many people bemoan Gran Turismo, but in all my experience I've got just as much reason to think AC is no more 'right' at the steering wheel than Gran Turismo is.

There is little evidence to suggest some never before seen level of quality of the final simulation of any given car between one or the other.

If there is some super extra level of detail in AC then it doesn't come through to me sat driving the sim, sadly.


So I like AC and I think it's good, but I do think it needs to do a lot more to really convey what a car is doing.

Dave

RobM77

35,349 posts

235 months

Thursday 2nd June 2016
quotequote all
I'm not sure that anything for the home market is going to be 'super accurate', but I agree, AC is a fantastic sim and I reckon it' the best I've tried on a home PC. It feels jolly close to reality for my current (Tatuus Renault) and previous (Lotus 2-11) track cars in real life.

Gran Turismo and Forza are way off - the cars behave nothing like real life at all, which isn't surprising as I think they just match weight and power and a few other simple parameters from the real car and that's it (my info is from an Evo article a while back, so a generation or two ago for GT). It's hardly surprising as it's designed to be driven with two tiny rubber mushrooms!

On the subject of controllers, we mustn't forget that it must be hard to re-create accurate force feedback and actuation for a variety of controllers, most of which are built down to a price, and to do this across a huge variety of cars, so that aspect will never really be simulated that well. The actual mechanics of driving a given car are so different in real life to any PC based sim (steering weight, clutch biting point, gearchange actuation etc) and also different from car to car, that that'll always be a serious limitation of any sim.

LittleEnus

3,228 posts

175 months

Thursday 2nd June 2016
quotequote all
AC is the only racing game I play- the feel through the wheel is pretty darn good.


Boring_Chris

2,348 posts

123 months

Thursday 2nd June 2016
quotequote all
RobM77 said:
Apologies - I'm wrong. I've just tried AC for the first time since Friday, when I drove my new car for the first time which was also my first time in a single seater for six years (I have a Tatuus Formula Renault, and AC has a Formula Abarth). There are bumps in the sim, but the car doesn't quite react over them like the actual car does. I remember this about my previous track car too (Lotus 2-Eleven, of which that exact car is in AC). Someone better than me with video created a side by side video on of me driving my 2-11 and him driving the 2-11 in the sim and put it on You Tube (bizarrely without asking me first, but there you go - I liked it though!). You can clearly see that in real life the wheel is bucking about quite a bit and the car is 'breathing' over the bumps not just vertically but also in yaw as the balance shifts subtlety. The vertical movement over the bumps is there in the game, but not the yaw movement (i.e. instability). The other thing that I mentioned above in my previous post is high speeds in downforce cars: in real life I've driven four different single seaters with varying levels of downforce and they all get increasingly nervous at higher speeds - not nervous in the sense of instability (it's the opposite as the downforce pushes you into the road), but nervous in the sense that they hunt out all the little ridges and bumps in the road and move around over them - funnily enough it feels just like an invisible hand is pushing you into the road (which is sort of what is actually happening). I've not felt that in a sim yet, although the hyperactive way the car reacts at those speeds is present.
bow

I absolutely love proper track / racing cars but have nowhere near the income to get near it in real life (I try, but nothing like what you've got) hence my interest in sims (well, games hehe )

Its great to hear from people who're properly knowledgeable about these things, and how they compare real life to the games.