Impressions on driving after 1.3

[Matheus Machado]

AC just gone wrong with what made it stand out in the crowd: FFB.
All the details are gone, now it just feels like a slightly improvement on GSCE ffb.
Also, they mentioned the new tire model would cause LESS understeer on GT cars. Well, at least for me it works, until the car hits 100 kph where at some point it just magically starts to go straight, without a single tip or notice that it's going to happen.
At least to me, it is a huge stepback from what they have done so far.

PS: I would like to know if anyone is able to match GT2 pace around spa, where in WEC qualy this year, drivers were putting high 2:16s to low 2:17s

 

[Tobbe Bergman]

Geoff Crammond making a new F1 game.

F1 was fun in the 80's but these day it's more like

1. Start
2. First corner
3. Pit stop

In other words Boooooooooooooooring !

 

[ouvert]

I remember when I first tried AC EA on day 1.

I felt like: Is this really it ?
But after a couple of hours I was convinced.
The mind can play some strange tricks on you sometimes.

I personally didn't touch AC for weeks prior to 1.3 + Dream DLC due to becoming addicted to DR but 1.3 is definitely a step in the right direction and I will most certainly be adding time to the +850 hours that I already have put into AC.

It's a good time to be a sim racer in 2015
AC & DR - What more do you need

GSC and strawberry pie

 

[Reik Major]

its very forgiving.... i can get into some ridiculous positions in my car and recover, either im a very good sim driver or the sim is forgiving, ill go with the latter.

The question is what lap times can you achieve with that kind of driving? Maybe it's easier to slide and to catch it now. But maybe it's (still) even easier to do so in a real GT race car (which most of us can't judge I guess)...

Through all the history of sim racing there were always "complaints" about cars being (too) easy to drive. But it's ever been a challenge to get the fastest lap time out of it. From what I hear from real race drivers, a GT car isn't hard to drive at all and thinking of there power and stiffness I bet it's not hard to learn to slide and catch them, too. But it's the lap time what matters.

Whoever runs AC Facebook and Official Forum is a complete Nazi !
I got banned from both regarding dream pack 2 when I said "How about dream AI & MP"

Well, I see you could've meant it just funny without bad intentions but it's impertinent comments like this one, which cause a chain reaction of other useless posts. This blows a thread up and makes it hard to read through and find out the quintessence.

BTW there are always real people behind a product, so adressing critics requires a bit of sensitivity, too.

 

[Rui Santos]

Geoff Crammond making a new F1 game.

That won't happen because F1 is crap nowadays and Geoff as a true F1 lover will not do a "sim" based on current carousel called F1...

 

[Msportdan]

The question is what lap times can you achieve with that kind of driving? Maybe it's easier to slide and to catch it now. But maybe it's (still) even easier to do so in a real GT race car (which most of us can't judge I guess)...

Through all the history of sim racing there were always "complaints" about cars being (too) easy to drive. But it's ever been a challenge to get the fastest lap time out of it. From what I hear from real race drivers, a GT car isn't hard to drive at all and thinking of there power and stiffness I bet it's not hard to learn to slide and catch them, too. But it's the lap time what matters.



Well, I see you could've meant it just funny without bad intentions but it's impertinent comments like this one, which cause a chain reaction of other useless posts. This blows a thread up and makes it hard to read through and find out the quintessence.

BTW there are always real people behind a product, so adressing critics requires a bit of sensitivity, too.

the two cars i tested was the alfa 155 and the mclaren gtr, didnt go near a gtr car. I was doing stupid recoveries in the alfa i shouldnt be able to do.

 

[Rui Santos]

Well, bringing a car into an unrecoverable spin should be pretty difficult to do in real life. I've always thought that other games handled this pretty terribly, because once things went sideways, you had to either know the games' physics engine really well or just go off into the runoff. (remember iRacing's old tyre model? holy **** that was bad)

AC has handled this pretty well in most cases and I think it still does after the update. The new tyres made some of the odd low speed behaviour much more predictable (more realistic in my opinion).

My suggestion would be, give it a bit of time. Go into the game with a fresh mindset and fresh setups if you've not already done that.

Recovering a car in real life is not easy, but it's not impossible either! People allways forget that in real life they can't recover a spin because they sh*t their pants before the brain even gives command to recover it, that's the main difference from a "sim" to real life...

 

[Rui Santos]

its very forgiving.... i can get into some ridiculous positions in my car and recover, either im a very good sim driver or the sim is forgiving, ill go with the latter.

MSportdan go on with a green track, of course in optimal conditions it seems a bit easy, but those conditions are not easy to find in real world racing. It's true that optimal rubbered track seems glue when driving on it...

 

[Cristian Haba]

@Reik Major what nonsense are you on about, do lap times even matter <e-sarcasm>

I dont usually post in these threads but I will since there might be an audience of simracers like me.

Initial impression are good, even great so far regarding the new content since I've only been able to race a few hours to the discontent of my gf. For the ones that race in our racing club this patch is an excellent addition but for one small gripe. That is "-GT3 performance balancing", which now with two new cars thrown into the mix (not the SCG since that is somewhere in the middle of gt2/3) doesn't seem quite so balanced. The Huracan is on GT2 levels of pace, the car communicates beautifully once on song and so far has been a joy to drive.

There seems to be an improvement in sounds as well, bonnet, in car and outside/trackside the cars sound better than they did, ofcourse the new ones sound stunning. Can't wait to see what some of the sound mod gurus will do with some added sampling @Fonsecker.

On to the meat and potaters, the new tires/physics. I have no Idea what it's like to drive one of these GT3 monsters, I can only 'speculate'. These new cars (ie. 2010-present) with their current setup and tires seem quite planted when driven on the limit, I have rarely seen unrecoverable spins unless cars are forced into a really acute angle by an opponent. With that out of the way, testing the Huracan for some 20 odd laps on Monza the warming up of the tires is such a welcome improvement. Whatever tire you have on, you must take care now in the first few laps to avoid graining and blistering pushing beyond the limits. There's a noticeable difference in driving feel as the tires warm up.

With the new physics I would say, so far, that I can be more consistent in reaching the car's limit (in this case only the Huracan) and staying there. The limit of adhesion is now somewhere else, I suspect it seems like it is higher since I can now more easily understand what the tires are doing and why. I can push deeper into corners and control the understeer and oversteer a bit better, not a whole lot, but def better. It's also much easier to understand why you understeer or oversteer, the communication through the wheel is improved probably about 25%. Wheel chatter is another improvement, something that was at times lacking in the last patches. Under braking theres a huge improvement, cars with abs and without will benefit from this as most of us dont have elite level equipment to help us.

Overall I have found I can brake more consistently and go throttle earlier with more assurance, however when both those things go wrong I can make the appropriate corrections lap after lap and see a gradual improvement, there's definitely more clarity with this new physics/tire model.

Setups are so far improved as well, small changes are noticeable which is such a welcome change for a noob like me in the setup department.

Beyond that I've not encountered any game issues with the new patch, other than I get no power graphs for some new cars which I suspect is due to the fact that I have mod cars for those makes and something is interfering. There's a sizeable FPS improvement which is so welcome for a low end machine like mine with a GTX960 and i5 4450. I'd say 15fps with upgraded details.

Huge thanks for the boys/girls at Kunos.

EDIT: Forgot to mention tire/rubber flex. This seems to be a new thing. The example is running the cars tires over the kerbs @ Monza first chicane and second as well, not the sausage kerbs. Before the car would get quite unsettled. Running over those would send the car into a stiff bounce and when throttle was applied soon after part or full there was some severe tire spin and loss of traction at times resulting in a power on spin which was unrecoverable.

Now, the bounce is still there however not as pronounced and it is more elastic rather than stiff. There's definite weight transfer as you run over the kerbs but it seems there's tire/rubber flex as your car bounces and fights for traction. It seems very true to life when looking at how Blancpain GT3s negotiate those chicanes. The result is a more consistent experience when pushing for those extra tenths.

 

[ouvert]

Recovering a car in real life is not easy, but it's not impossible either! People allways forget that in real life they can't recover a spin because they sh*t their pants before the brain even gives command to recover it, that's the main difference from a "sim" to real life...

Quite oposite, last time i was catching slide between car and truck, first thing was instinct and than i sh*t my pants fortunately fwd so just counter steer, squeez throttle, counter-counter steer and safetly to that sh*ting part

 

[Reik Major]

@Reik Major what nonsense are you on about, do lap times even matter <e-sarcasm>

Depends on the event. I think stunt shows aren't about good lap times?

But seriously thank you very much for this detailed review. A very apreciated opinion from a trusted sim racer in the jungle of messages which are difficult to value.

 

[Reik Major]

Quite oposite, last time i was catching slide between car and truck, first thing was instinct and than i sh*t my pants

Could be true for us sim racers, because we learn those reflexes in the virtual reality. That's a big pro for sim racing...

 

[Rui Santos]

Quite oposite, last time i was catching slide between car and truck, first thing was instinct and than i sh*t my pants fortunately fwd so just counter steer, squeez throttle, counter-counter steer and safely to that sh*ting part

Ahahah, congrats, it's not easy to have that "light" in difficult situations, the fear factor counts a lot

 

[Cristian Haba]

Depends on the event. I think stunt shows aren't about good lap times?

But seriously thank you very much for this detailed review. A very apreciated opinion from a trusted sim racer in the jungle of messages which are difficult to value.

That's nice to hear, from the same @Reik Major from the old days of Race 07, chapeau monsieur.

 

[ouvert]

Ahahah, congrats, it's not easy to have that "light" in difficult situations, the fear factor counts a lot

Just good habit of driving with both hands on steering wheel.. Saved me few times

 

[F1Racer]

Whoever runs AC Facebook and Official Forum is a complete Nazi !

I got banned from both regarding dream pack 2 when I said "How about dream AI & MP"

Maybe don't be so antagonistic then.

 

[Marian Zelenka]

The new FFB is great. Finally, it doesn't feel springy and it feels communicative.

Tyre skid volume onset cuts all sounds when set to 150% or so. Tyre squeals are overblown.

The DRS is broken for the P1 when you are not allowed to use it wherever you want to.

Spectators on Spa are blue. Yep, I got Smurfs on grandstands. Looks ridiculous.

Are there any soft locks at all? Did I miss something?

 

[ouvert]

The new FFB is great. Finally, it doesn't feel springy and it feels communicative.

Tyre skid volume onset cuts all sounds when set to 150% or so. Tyre squeals are overblown.

The DRS is broken for the P1 when you are not allowed to use it wherever you want to.

Spectators on Spa are blue. Yep, I got Smurfs on grandstands. Looks ridiculous.

Are there any soft locks at all? Did I miss something?

You can enable soft lock in config but from what i heard i causes oscillation in stone cases

 

[bmanic]

its very forgiving.... i can get into some ridiculous positions in my car and recover, either im a very good sim driver or the sim is forgiving, ill go with the latter.

I wonder if there is a common denominator for people with your opinion. One thing that seems to be very common is that people with this opinion have rarely or never actually driven a real car around a track. They are what I call "simracing neck-beard know-it-all's" with zero real life experience.

It may not apply to you personally but it is always interesting finding people who demand that a "true simulator" be difficult as hell to drive. We also know, for a fact, that one of the reasons all the old sims where like ice skating was due to simplified tire models that just couldn't cope at or around extremes. A simple or even simplified Pacejka tire model does not take into any account flash heat, tear grip etc that happens in real life when you are at or over the limit. Hence the old sims had less grip as they followed a simplified transfer function of a sort.

Now the more complex the tire model gets the closer to reality it becomes.. and what has happened? We get more consistent grip and cars that "make more sense" (some call this "easier to drive"). This has now happened with updates to rF2, iRacing (especially noticeable here.. OTM vs NTM v6 is just crazy different), GSC (yes even here some of the updates made cars easier to drive), Assetto Corsa and Project CARS.

Heck.. if you are a connoisseur of simulators you'll remember that the same thing happened with updates of netKar Pro and also the original rFactor!

Not sure why people think cars that makes sense and are fairly easy to drive at the limit are somehow unrealistic. Especially modern cars with all driving aids enabled are virtually impossible to spin unless you do something absolutely ridiculous. Heck, even turning off all the aids you'll still have great traction on modern street tires and plenty of control.

 

[ouvert]

I wonder if there is a common denominator for people with your opinion. One thing that seems to be very common is that people with this opinion have rarely or never actually driven a real car around a track. They are what I call "simracing neck-beard know-it-all's" with zero real life experience.

It may not apply to you personally but it is always interesting finding people who demand that a "true simulator" be difficult as hell to drive. We also know, for a fact, that one of the reasons all the old sims where like ice skating was due to simplified tire models that just couldn't cope at or around extremes. A simple or even simplified Pacejka tire model does not take into any account flash heat, tear grip etc that happens in real life when you are at or over the limit. Hence the old sims had less grip as they followed a simplified transfer function of a sort.

Now the more complex the tire model gets the closer to reality it becomes.. and what has happened? We get more consistent grip and cars that "make more sense" (some call this "easier to drive"). This has now happened with updates to rF2, iRacing (especially noticeable here.. OTM vs NTM v6 is just crazy different), GSC (yes even here some of the updates made cars easier to drive), Assetto Corsa and Project CARS.

Heck.. if you are a connoisseur of simulators you'll remember that the same thing happened with updates of netKar Pro and also the original rFactor!

Not sure why people think cars that makes sense and are fairly easy to drive at the limit are somehow unrealistic. Especially modern cars with all driving aids enabled are virtually impossible to spin unless you do something absolutely ridiculous. Heck, even turning off all the aids you'll still have great traction on modern street tires and plenty of control.

Oh it is so easy to spin road car without electronic systems ..and strictly based on YouTube videos spinning super /hyper cars seems to be just mater of heavier leg... In the other hand gt3 cars should be stable as hell.. And as i said somewhere in a forum it is fine if it is done in believable natural way like ac does (opposite to pCars or some other simcades) ..

 

[Arne Dopudja]

the two cars i tested was the alfa 155 and the mclaren gtr, didnt go near a gtr car. I was doing stupid recoveries in the alfa i shouldnt be able to do.

Oy, its AWD, front will pull and you can do stupid stuff with it.