New PC racing sim - Assetto Corsa
Discussion
Absolutely love the MX-5 in AC, even more so than the GT86. I prefer the way it rolls and dips under braking, where the Toyota is a lot stiffer and corners flatter - neither is really better or worse, just preference.
Anyway, coming to AC in an undetermined amount of time - the S2 & S3 Transit.
S2 is mostly and engine swap, still very much a Transit (live axle etc.), just extremely... lively.
S3, well, its a different beast altogether. Proper power, proper downforce, proper laptimes. The splitter/winglets etc are just placeholder at the mo, they will look far more aggressive eventually.
Anyway, coming to AC in an undetermined amount of time - the S2 & S3 Transit.
S2 is mostly and engine swap, still very much a Transit (live axle etc.), just extremely... lively.
S3, well, its a different beast altogether. Proper power, proper downforce, proper laptimes. The splitter/winglets etc are just placeholder at the mo, they will look far more aggressive eventually.
Boring_Chris said:
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.
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
)Its great to hear from people who're properly knowledgeable about these things, and how they compare real life to the games.
Plus at club level, single seaters are usually all lumped into one race, so you'll enter a race in a Formula Renault like mine and find ten F3 cars on the grid with you! You'll then log into PH on Monday morning to find someone telling you you're s
t because the "cars are all the same and you couldn't keep up". Yes, really! The cars are just wonderful to drive though, which is what has drawn me back to it.The difficulty in comparing real life with a sim is that driving a single seater is such a dramatic experience dominated by noise, g forces and vibration (oh, and being squashed into a cockpit designed for a dwarf!) that it's very difficult to compare it with sitting comfortably in my study at home with a glass of wine and the volume set to family friendly levels! There's certainly nothing about the 2-Eleven or Formula Abarth that's hugely dissimilar to real life though; I think the tyre model is probably the most obvious thing (I've also driven a FR in a pro sim with a tyre model based on real data); the cars in AC are more forgiving and easier to drive than in real life, and the lack of the car moving around on the bumps as described above. AC is the best sim I've tried though and I do love it
james_gt3rs said:
The main difference I've found with AC is the steering weight isn't enough. In my car on track it weights up nicely as the forces increase, then as you approach understeer it lightens off gradually so you can drive with feel. As the steering is lighter on AC, it's harder to judge.
They added a setting a while back which simulates the feeling of understeer through the wheel. I can't remember exactly where it is but it's somewhere in the controller options.It works pretty well in that you can feel understeer as a progressive lightening of the wheel, which echoes what your eyes are telling you on screen.
I'm never aware of any increased weighting for increasing loads though, which is a shame.
james_gt3rs said:
The main difference I've found with AC is the steering weight isn't enough. In my car on track it weights up nicely as the forces increase, then as you approach understeer it lightens off gradually so you can drive with feel. As the steering is lighter on AC, it's harder to judge.
Absolutely. Everything about the steering is just completely different: the weight, feel and feedback; it's all way behind the physics. I doubt my Logitech wheel could replicate genuine steering weight though, both in terms of its strength, it's force feedback mechanisms or the clamps that hold it to my desk. You also get no brake pedal feel, so threshold braking is tricky. You obviously also can't feel the car underneath you.RobM77 said:
yes: Absolutely. Everything about the steering is just completely different: the weight, feel and feedback; it's all way behind the physics. I doubt my Logitech wheel could replicate genuine steering weight though, both in terms of its strength, it's force feedback mechanisms or the clamps that hold it to my desk. You also get no brake pedal feel, so threshold braking is tricky. You obviously also can't feel the car underneath you.
My big gripe is the clutch. The start of every practice session is like a learner driver.Rawwr said:
My big gripe is the clutch. The start of every practice session is like a learner driver.
This, I've mentioned it numerous times and the devs just can;t seem to see the issue. No car IRL just drops all revs as soon as you begin slipping the clutch, but it does in AC. The devs reckon you just need to practice more 
garyjpaterson said:
Rawwr said:
My big gripe is the clutch. The start of every practice session is like a learner driver.
This, I've mentioned it numerous times and the devs just can;t seem to see the issue. No car IRL just drops all revs as soon as you begin slipping the clutch, but it does in AC. The devs reckon you just need to practice more Yeah its nothing to do with the hardware, more the way the sim reacts to clutch use. Its almost impossible to control the car purely with clutch adjustment, as you could in real life. In AC, the revs dive instantly. The only way to pull away without revs diving is with unrealistic amounts of throttle.
They announced today that they have an official Porsche license.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jv-cPGa9Zsg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jv-cPGa9Zsg
kowalski655 said:
"505 Games? are proud to announce that after more than 12 years away from the sim-racing world...."
Eh? Fora have had Porsche for ages!!! Other games have had Porsche too.
Only Forza (not exactly a sim so to speak) had Porsche, all the rest used RUF to get round the deal between EA and Porsche, which I assume has now expired.Eh? Fora have had Porsche for ages!!! Other games have had Porsche too.
Rawwr said:
Have we been enjoying the Red Pack? 
Didn't take me all that long to master drifting in the Aventador a and the Maserati 250F is just insanely wonderful
Got to be honest, don't like any of the additions much. Then there's the issue with running the Ferrari's against other cars being locked out, I guess due to licensing and Ferrari's unique way of doing things.Didn't take me all that long to master drifting in the Aventador a and the Maserati 250F is just insanely wonderful
The Levante? What a turd of an experience that thing is.
The Aventador seems pretty anticlimactic to be honest, it doesn't seem all that fast for something with 700hp if anything it feels dull to me.
The Maserati GT4 is quite good though, maybe if they add a few more GT4 spec cars in we could have balanced racing outside of the usual F1 cars and GT2/3.
garyjpaterson said:
Yeah its nothing to do with the hardware, more the way the sim reacts to clutch use. Its almost impossible to control the car purely with clutch adjustment, as you could in real life. In AC, the revs dive instantly. The only way to pull away without revs diving is with unrealistic amounts of throttle.
This is all down to the damping system.As a car approaches zero, lots of values approach zero too. Momentum, rotational velocities, forces, etc.
As they get near zero, you approach divide by zero in lots of areas, so numbers can get quite noisy and large.
So damping things gets important.
More damping means the car feels like it's stuck in toffee, and it's hard to get it rolling. But it also means when you're stopped, it's rock solid.
Less damping means the car feels perfect just like real life, easy to do the clutch and everything. But it also means when you're stopped, it's not solid as a rock, and drifts around very very slowly, or a lot maybe.
Park your car on a steep camber with the brakes on in AC, or Gran Turismo, and other games, and see how well damped it is. In GT5 for instance the car will slowly slide down to the edge of the track over a few minutes.
In AC it probably stays put perfectly.
Imo, the AC system is too aggressive.
It makes dead-stop (braking to one) behaviour weird. It makes accelerating from a dead-stop weird (clutch issue and needing to usually spin wheels to do it)
The AC devs pretend this is 'ok' but it's just their compromise.
There are likely better compromises out there, but rather than implement them, they just keep the same limited compromise.
This once again exemplifies my point that AC isn't "the best sim ever"... it's just another interpretation of a car simulation with good and bad points.
AC's good points are that what they do well, is really good
The bad point is mostly that what they do badly they bullishly defend, leaving little scope or expectation that it'll be improved later
Are any of you able to do the Audi Quattro drift challenge? It's driving me nuts!
I thought I had a reasonable degree of knowledge when it came to behaviour but no matter what I try I can't get it to sustain anything anywhere near enough to be able to get to 5,000 points, let alone the 20,000 needed for gold. I've tried unsettling it at high speed, trailing it in, ramping rear pressures, stiffening the rear, running it with so much positive camber that it looks like someone got the whole idea of stance really wrong and just nothing seems to make it want to do it.
I'm a total failure.
Tips?
I thought I had a reasonable degree of knowledge when it came to behaviour but no matter what I try I can't get it to sustain anything anywhere near enough to be able to get to 5,000 points, let alone the 20,000 needed for gold. I've tried unsettling it at high speed, trailing it in, ramping rear pressures, stiffening the rear, running it with so much positive camber that it looks like someone got the whole idea of stance really wrong and just nothing seems to make it want to do it.
I'm a total failure.
Tips?
Mr Whippy said:
This once again exemplifies my point that AC isn't "the best sim ever"... it's just another interpretation of a car simulation with good and bad points.
I don't think anything available for £30 on Steam is going to be 'the best sim ever'. I think what people mean by that is that in terms of off the shelf games you can buy and play at home, it feels the best and it feels the most realistic, and in that sense, I completely agree.Gassing Station | Video Games | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff