Home / Sim Racing News /
Gamescom: Assetto Corsa Hands-On
One of the stands we were looking forward to see on Gamescom 2012 was the Assetto Corsa stand. After having seen a series of impressive screenshots over the last couple of months we were finally about put our hands on the wheel and see how the images meet with physics and sounds.
Graphics
Kunos shared a stand with Acer and Fanatec, so we got a chance to try Assetto Corsa with Fanatecs Club Sport wheels and pedals. Having taken place in the simulator a first look at the screen showed us that what we were about to experience was still pre-alpha material. It might as well have late beta material because it looked slick. The screenshots we saw earlier never lied. Assetto Corsa looks as good as we were shown.
Physics
Time to fire up those engines! We took place in the BMW Z4 GT3 for some laps around Monza. We were never disappointed. From the moment the throttle was first floored the car felt instinctively good. It was the most natural sim racing experience we’ve had so far. It appears that anyone with sense of driving or racing a car can get in and drive laps without crashing off everywhere. The car gave a nice direct response to my steering input and I never had the feeling I was driving on ice when I floored the throttle or the brakes, even on Pro Driver level. Bram tested the limits and got out of a corner with heavy oversteer. After catching it he noted that it was the first time a sim had not backfired his correction manoeuvres, which would usually send him to the wall in the opposite direction. Just an example of how this sim is different from what we’re used to.
This is not to say that the car or this game is easy to master. On the contrary, it’s easy to drive, but hard to master, because as soon as I started to push it for faster lap times, braking late, clipping curbs and slamming the throttle, more forces joined the fray. The more input you give the car, the more feedback it produces and the closer you get to making mistakes. Eventually I found myself fighting to keep the car straight under hard braking and felt the car starting to break away as I hit the throttle too hard. You can get within a couple of seconds range from a fast laptime relatively easy, but to get those last seconds and tenths out of it, you’ll need a lot more work. We’re in for the challenge.
Sounds
The thing that least impressed Bram and me were the sounds. The BMW did have a nice whizling sound coming from its engine, but we weren’t exactly blown away by that. Nor did the tyres seem to produce much noise as we put them to the limit, though we were told they turned that sound down a bit. The devs admitted the sounds were still lagging behind, but promised improvement were being made. We’re looking forward to hear about that.
Other Features
The final feature that drew our attention was that the simulators were remotely controlled form a tablet. From a distance the tracks and cars were selected and I was loaded into them. We never pressed a button. It was all done for us from a tablet.
Assetto Corsa is going to be a game with high customisability. Drivers can move around parts of their interface with a click of the mouse and race and A.I settings can be adjusted in detail. The game is open to modders too with the possiblity to add their own interfaces, cars, tracks and features to the game.
The first impression from the game Assetto Corsa exceeded my expections. From what I’ve seen and tried it looks and feels good. Actually, I can’t wait to sit behind my own PC and get my hands on it. Unfortunately we still have to go through alpha and beta stages. Imagine the possibilities…
Nice detail to post was that we ran into Bsimracing.com owner Wim Bries and had a long talk about our hobby. We also hooked up with fellow RaceDepartment member Adam Mocarski who shot the following video of AC in action.
Yoeri Gijsen & Bram Hengeveld
For more on Assetto Corsa visit our forums where you can find more news, discussions, mods & online racing league announcements.
Share this Post
Tags
Related Posts
About the author
- R3E: BMW 320 Gr 5 Released
- Webber Prepared For Monaco GP
- Assetto Corsa: Interview with Marco Massarutto
- Assetto Corsa: Ferrari 599XX Evo Revealed
- Lotus Confident That Raikkonen Stays
- F1 Owners Vote To Keep Ecclestone
- 2013 F1 Monaco Grand Prix
- 2013 Le Mans 24 Hours Entry List
- Lowe And Hamilton Reunited At Mercedes
- Reiza Racing Club This Week / 21
55 Comments
In case anyone has questions about AC. Please drop them in the comments below so we can do our best to answer them.
I see in the video that there is steering lag, I supose it’s only visual lag and not actual lag when you steer, am I correct?
Great hands-on write up
Have they mentioned if they have any plans to adapt the interface with phones as well as tablets?
I have the Samsung Galaxy Note and i would love to be able to use it as seen in game!
Happens always when you are filming a screen.
Only shame about the FOV imo. They have a nice triple screen setup but are not fully using it. Should be more to the front so you cant see the steering wheel.
We briefly spoke with Kunos about the use of tablets. Apart from what I would like to see as it being a device to setup the servers they have some clever ideas for it as well. Certainly not something thats only for the Gamescom show I am sure.
The game is so unbelievably open to modders and even webdevelopers and coders. You can even insert your own html to customize stuff.
Lots of potential for our upcoming statistics and ranks for sure
I understand it is still in alpha/beta stage but I would like to know how the feeling of the forcefeed back was compaired to NKpro? Great read, and I hope you guys don’t have too much fun there without us… lol…
@bram : Are we going to have to upgrade our aging 260′s or will they run it?
@Joe Hubbard: FFB I can’t really compare as at home I am using a Logitech G27 and as you can see on the picture above we were using the latest Fanatec wheel. Felt pretty solid and very precise though.
@Dave Begley: actually the pc configuaration of the triple screen pc wasnt that high and still the output looks like the video above shot by Adam which is equal to what we have seen in screenshots before.
I´ve always wondered about this but could you explain why this happens?
A camera should not be aware of whatever it is filming so if there´s no lag in reality then the camera should not pick up any lag.
Maybe they are using Vsync which is known to be smooth but will introduce a slight lag.
Any clues at all on expected release?
Still 2012?
want to know for sure if it will be compatible with motion cockpit
Oh, and will they implement the option to put a picture of your favourite pin-up girl on the dashboard?
As this build was labeled pre-alpha (lol) during the show I think its too early for a release date. Must admit we haven’t asked for one either, sorry
Don’t know for sure about other products but the Fanatec motion sim worked with AC.
I tried myself by using 2 different cameras and there was a lag with Race07, maybe its because you film it as a third person.
Somewhat optimistic for this. Enjoyed what I played of NKPro, and this looks like it could take us all by surprise. I’ve always wanted a sim that had the harsh sim aspects of the likes of rFactor or iRacing, but the feel and immersion of games like Shift and other Codemasters titles. Often when I play rFactor, I feel detached from everything, with static props, sub par sounds (in a lot of sims), and no progression. The only excitement I get from it is racing other people.
I would love to know why and what does this, because the camera would have to pick up the movements of the wheel on screen with a slight delay then your own wheel movements.
I believe you don´t worry, i can see it myself in the video but it doesn´t make sense to me how it can be
Hopefully someone knows the science behind this phenomenon.
How much practice did you get before filming? I asked because you seemed to be able to drive fairly well. Were there physic adjustments for the driver and AI (like pCARS) that can make the game easy or hard? I noticed that after spinning out it did not seem to hinder your driving…similar to pCARS. At least the AI did not crash out in T1 like it does in pCARS. :rolleyes:
I noticed lag as well in the vid FWIW.
Finally, any word on live multiplayer with real people? Hosted by AC or go to R2Play and form a league?
Thanks for the video and information!! :thumbsup:
Maybe the refreshrate of the monitor is higher than the camera.
That is probably it. Camera is what 30fps? Game at least 60?
Every game has some lag. There’s a greater-zero time for the signal to go from your hand, throught the sytem and back out to the monitor. What matters is if that Total Lag disconnects you from the game and impairs drievability. Sounds like the answer is No based on the subjective feedback in the "Physics" section in the article above.
I fear thats because you were having to much fun and forgot to ask!:O_o:
Yeah but then again asking for a release date is always a bit pointless as I am sure that proud developers can’t wait to share it with their fans so they obviously would have informed all of us if they knew :giggle:
Is the pre-alpha remark supposed to be a little hint? :giggle:
The CARS in Assetto Corsa seem to behave pretty amazing for Pre-Alpha :giggle: :geek:
Bram: Thanks for a very pleasant and interesting talk at Gamescom. My already existing appreciation for the efforts put in to Racedepatment.com have only grown.
Its nice to know that real passion for the hobby still exists, and that a nice and honest talk is still possible in this scene when you meet the right people.
Respect.
Oeps, This was not intended to be a reply.
Sorry Marc.
No problem at all
@Wim Bries same feeling here buddy, was great talking to you… We should organize a Racecom sometimes at Zolder
Maybe you can discuss it in the conspiracy theories thread
I´m impressed. With only 5 in IQ you sure seem to have figured out language and stuff.
You continue believing muhammad atta´s driver´s license went into a steel building at 500mph, through the plane, through ignited fuel, through the building and down on the street in perfect condition.
They really can fool people with whatever shit they come up with these days.
BÄÄÄ
lol :thumbsup:
Thanks for the write up Yoeri. With the way things are shaping up with AC, I think we finally have a title here that all sim racers can rally around and agree upon. Glad to hear that the actual drive is matching up to the hype.
Yeah, it’s a pleasant drive. I think the game is very accessible from what I’ve experienced. It seems to be that both beginning and experienced sim racers will have fun with it, at least where it concerns getting into it. Let’s see what the future brings.
Most cameras are at 24.95 fps I believe. (That is the speed for film cameras at least, I don’t know if newer digital cameras shoot the same way or not)
But It’s definitely much slower than the 60 hz that you would see standing there, and there’s always differences between actual eyesight and film.
That’s the reason a wheel will appear to spin backwards on screen even if you’re standing there watching it spin forward. Also the reason television and computer screens (especially old CRT displays) will look distorted when filmed.
Keep in mind the game in the video above is being rendered by the GPU at a certain FPS, likely being reproduced on the display at a different FPS, then captured on a video camera at yet another FPS, then uploaded to youtube which may have changed it further. So there’s almost no chance for the frames to sync up correctly.
The main difference in response times is probably due to 1 frame of the camera catching 1 frame of the game and not updating quick enough. The human driver of course is not limited to a certain FPS and will appear fluid in the camera.
Good stuff thanks.
Btw, i dont remember but im fairly sure things will seem to go backwars IRL like a wheel rim?
(when you reach a certain rpm)
Aliasing.
The Ai smoked you :whistling: And to be fair you had a dodgy out-lap while you familiarised yourself with it, then settled in pretty well for the other 4.
At that rate I will be playing on arcade mode .
After shifting to 5th gear, you will always hear a rattling.
Is that coming from the game or from the environment?
other than that looks like a great game coming up
To all of you who have mentioned the difference between the real steering wheel and the virtual one. This is not due to the camera recording, it is because of the input lag, caused by the screens used for the stand. There is a lot of difference in input lag between the different screens you can buy now a day, and especially TV screens are very very bad for sim racing, because they have a huge amount of input lag, even in "gaming" mode.
If you see this video, you can see this input lag is way smaller, and almost not notisble for the human eye:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSRBALL0gj4&feature=g-user-u
You can ask Niels Huesinkveld og Remco Hitman about the phenomen, they know a lot about it.
Also in this video, you can see how slow a TV screen really is, compared to a PC:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6tXq8Ec_wM&feature=plcp
Regards
Kasper Stoltze
Must say i am still waiting for the catch.
As the sim sounds to be good to be true.
if i win the lottery or rob a bank and have some money, i’ll be sure to tag along
don’t think there will be any catch, these guys are true sim racers and have been honest in everything they have said.
I never agreed nor disagreed with anything posted in there. TBH I don’t really care what the truth is. It’s of little consequence to me.
Wasnt trying be negative about it. And i didnt say they arent honest.
Its just good to be true so i am waiting for something negative about it. Dont get my wrong i dont want it either. But there isnt a perfect game and there never will be. For example we dont know anything about pricing yet or maybe we need to pay also for the server like rF2 you never know.
So i am waiting for some sort of catch.
So you just wanted to make a low joke for the sake of it?
Honestly it was a low move to do. If you know yourself that something isn´t right then ridiculing people who actually believe something isn´t right is not the way to handle things.
We have enough heat by getting called conspiracy theorists and automatically being put in a psycho folder.
It´s a sensitive subject and you are not exactly helping the situation.
I bet one Jew suspected some things were wrong in the 1940´s.
People probably laughed in his face. Even Jews.
How many do you think laughed when the gas was turned on?
And by saying "it´s of little consequence to me" really means
"I don´t give a damn about other people as long as it doesn´t affect me"
When it starts to affect you it´s too late.
No matter what your stance is, do you not care about human beings in general?
Don´t worry. Not many people actually do.
paying for servers is a good thing imo, "dedicated server support" fingers crossed they allow the dedicated boxes to install servers on them aswell as renting individual servers.
Hampus, you should start trusting your own reasoning – because you are entirely correct.
There is no science to this, because the "phenomenon" described here does not exist.
The delay between the real wheel and the rendered wheel is correctly captured by the camera (of course), since the photons from the screen and the ones reflected on the real wheel arrive at the camera sensor at the same time (well, at least VERY VERY VERY close to same
)
This has been discussed much already, and hopefully soon we can bury this incorrect belief.
Thanks Pax, i will be more "firm" from here on
Love netkar pro so can’t see me being disappointed with AC, just hope we get our hands on it by end of the year
Goodbye rFactor 2.
No more shitty graphics. No more poor performance. No more poor FFB. No more unrealistic physics. No more excessively bumpy tracks. No more innefective setups.
nKPro already had the best physics and FFB of all the sims and now we are gonna have this improved in a beautiful, complete and moddable game. It´s a dream coming true.
Not sure which rFactor 2 you have been playing but I wouldn’t call the FFB poor really. Same for the physics being unrealistic.
Don’t recognize anything in your post really. I must have been playing another game than you
My Facebook buddy from school said on steam he wanted to get F1 2012 i told him how i did not like F1 2011 and to get this Race 07 with GTR expansion. You can mod the cars tracks and build the season your way. Don’t like the track delete it from the calender its that easy.
I have a 18 race F1 championship with RR1 models.
I have a sports car series with a Radical prototype and all 50 tracks
What in the name has that got to do with asseto corsa?
"No more poor FFB. No more unrealistic physics"
I completely disagree : IMO rF2 is a very good sim (good physics and FFB)…but perhaps, AC will be even better!