Physics right or wrong?

[Frederic Schornstein]

Disclaimer:
First of all please don't make that a fanboy discussion. I always try to be objective and leave my personal preferences out of the way. I am always willing to accept, if something I don't like on emotional basis, is better than what I like on emotional basis.

Ok I hope I covered that part and this won't get into a "You are a fanboy of this and that thread".

Prequal:
Like most people I eagerly awaited the release of Assetto Corsa. I read about all the licensed content, loved the screenshots and everything. I didn't drive the tech preview, because I didn't want to get a false impression, because it was all still WIP. The day AC was released on Steam I bought it.
I started really testing it after the first update were the FFB was fixed.

I do really like the game and wanted it to be good and so far my only issue are the physics. Most people praise them and they get a lot of love and I do confess, that in external videos they look great.
The car dives in on the braking, you see all the weight transfer and everything. No other sim offers that!

Example:
But as soon as I drive it, it feels just so wrong to me. Just one example: I tested the BMW Z4 GT3 at Monza. I know the track very well and usually drive GT cars, so a perfect combination for me.
Despite all the massive understeer you get everywhere in AC even with setup tweaks, I wanted to point out something you can judge on a much more objective level. So I will talk about the braking distance.

Every racer knows how hard the first braking zone in Monza is. You have a low downforce car and arrive at 260+ kph and have to break down to 60-80kph. So if you look at a lot of GT3 onboards on youtube even with cars, that do have ABS and are a bit restricted due to BOP. They all break before the 200meter board.
That said, I can brake at the 300meter (270kph) board and have the car at a total stand still at 150meters. If I brake for the corner I can brake at or after the 150 meter board.
So we already have a 25% shorter braking zone compared to a real life car with equal or less power and ABS, which I didn't use.

Test conditions:
So now people would start arguing, that I maybe run more downforce and stuff and that is the weirdest thing. I tried to figure out the "worst" braking performance. I used hard tyres and removed all the downforce from the car for this test.

I don't want to get to much into the details of the cornering behaviour and the understeer and that you can just pull on tons of lock and don't get any turn-in oversteer.

Is my opinion qualified?!:
A lot of simracers don't have a lot of reallife experience and I didn't race a GT3 car in my life, but just a quick background:

I drove Race07, rFactor1 and now rFactor2 and I am a pretty good driver in rF2 especially in rear wheel drive touring or GT cars. Even in the new Civic I was racing for wins after 30mins on an unkonw track, so I can quickly adapt to new cars and tracks etc.

In my free time I did some kart races with friends and even on an unkown track with for me unkonw more powerful karts than the average rental karts on a bit cold track I got within 1,9 seconds of the track record within 15min and reduced it to 1,5 seconds in a further 15min.
Keeping in mind that real professional Kart drivers practice their and I had maybe 2 or 3 hours track time in karts ever, I would say I am not a bad driver.

So when I jump out of rF2 into a kart it just feels like home. I apply nearly the same technique and everything. When I jump into AC it all feels wrong. It is so hard to get wheelspin. You can turn the wheel so much, that you would end up in a wall in real life.

I also spoke to some guys with actual racing experience and they got the same feeling.

The end:
I really wanted AC to be a very good sim and I do love everything about it, but these physics keep me from driving it.
In a sim I don't want it to be easy, I want it to be as realistic as possible, but in AC you can apply some really bad driving technique to get quicker laptimes.

 

[William Levesque]

If we had a modern Corolla in the game it wouldn't be fun though

 

[Pedro Cunha]

My main complain about the driving experience at the moment is:
regardless of what FFB setting, most cars don't provide enough FFB when the car is starting to loose grip.
I think that is fine to keep people from going crazy fast all the time. But i rather have real damage system for that purpose!

 

[Joco Gorenc]

Agreed, with every update AC is getting a little bit of the iRacing skate

 

[Stelios]

Agreed, with every update AC is getting a little bit of the iRacing skate

I disagree. Yes i had to reply with text instead of using rating under your post.

 

[Joco Gorenc]

I'm not saying the FFB and physics aren't superior to any other sim. It just seems to me that Kunos are playing abit just for the community saying the driving was too easy(threads like this).

The transition from when the car has grip to when it's on the limit of it isn't clear enough, like it WAS before 0.5. It's too progressive now and should be abit more on-off.

But that's just me.

 

[Pedro Cunha]

I'm not saying the FFB and physics aren't superior to any other sim. It just seems to me that Kunos are playing abit just for the community saying the driving was too easy(threads like this).

The transition from when the car has grip to when it's on the limit of it isn't clear enough, like it WAS before 0.5. It's too progressive now and should be abit more on-off.

But that's just me.

I feel the same.

 

[Pedro Cunha]

I have a friend that works at a rent car and today went with him to pick up a BMW 1.
I drove it from airport to my town about 70km distance (highway road and street)
So i fired up Assetto corsa and quickly tweeked FFB and this is what i did to be closest to the real thing:

I no longer experience lack of FFB with this car

 

[Frederic Schornstein]

I have a friend that works at a rent car and today went with him to pick up a BMW 1.
I drove it from airport to my town about 70km distance (highway road and street)
So i fired up Assetto corsa and quickly tweeked FFB and this is what i did to be closest to the real thing:
View attachment 50082

I no longer experience lack of FFB with this car

Thanks for the info maybe I need to apply some filter. I increased slip effect with my G25 and was thrown into rattling heaven

 

[Hany Alsabti]

I'm not saying the FFB and physics aren't superior to any other sim. It just seems to me that Kunos are playing abit just for the community saying the driving was too easy(threads like this).

The transition from when the car has grip to when it's on the limit of it isn't clear enough, like it WAS before 0.5. It's too progressive now and should be abit more on-off.

But that's just me.

+1
Feeling when the car is at its limits is missing atm. I need to crash the first 10 laps to be able to feel where the limit is. I don't know if its a physics issue or a ffb issue. Making the wheel feels lighter when the car understeers should fix the problem.

 

[Frederic Schornstein]

+1
Feeling when the car is at its limits is missing atm. I need to crash the first 10 laps to be able to feel where the limit is. I don't know if its a physics issue or a ffb issue. Making the wheel feels lighter when the car understeers should fix the problem.

At the moment it is the same for me. I go into a corner and think ok I can go faster the next lap and after going a bit faster and faster I suddenly crash and often you can't really feel it until it happens. Major issue for me is that even with diffrent FOV settings the sensation of speed is pretty low. 200kph+ in a GT3 car are really fast, but it feels more like 100kph on a highway.

AC is very easy to drive below the limit, but on the limit it is really hard, because you can't really feel it.

 

[Hany Alsabti]

Sense of speed AC feels much better than RF2 for me.

Here are two laps with the same FOV in both sims. AC is much better imo.
FOV is 40 in both sims.
Laptimes are almost the same but the car in rf2 should be faster.

 

[Frederic Schornstein]

Sense of speed AC feels much better than RF2 for me.

Here are two laps with the same FOV in both sims. AC is much better imo.
FOV is 40 in both sims.
Laptimes are almost the same but the car in rf2 should be faster.

I have to say, that the sense of speed in your AC video looks much better than with my settings. The URD mod is pretty beta and it looks like you didn't had so much rubber on track in rF2, that could explain the bad rF2 laptime.

 

[Hany Alsabti]

I have to say, that the sense of speed in your AC video looks much better than with my settings. The URD mod is pretty beta and it looks like you didn't had so much rubber on track in rF2, that could explain the bad rF2 laptime.

yes I didn't had much rubber but look at the parts where I drive in a straight line. for me AC wins in that part.

 

[Aris Teidis]

Sense of speed AC feels much better than RF2 for me.

Here are two laps with the same FOV in both sims. AC is much better imo.
FOV is 40 in both sims.
Laptimes are almost the same but the car in rf2 should be faster.

(Off topic) I noticed, comparing your videos, that turns are better seen in rFactor...

 

[Frederic Schornstein]

yes I didn't had much rubber but look at the parts where I drive in a straight line. for me AC wins in that part.

Yep I have to try it on Silverstone. On some tracks in AC the sensation of speed especially in a straight line was very poor compared to your video it felt 100kph slower. I dont know which FOV i am running at the moment. The suggestions go from 20 to 90 FOV...

 

[Joco Gorenc]

Use this to set an optimal FOV:

http://carsfov.moritzlawitschka.de/

But FOV is something everyone likes different, so it's only reference.

 

[Mapu]

It's funny since AC almost looks like live media footage. The car behaviour looks incredible real in your video.

 

[Tim Meuris]

+1
Feeling when the car is at its limits is missing atm. I need to crash the first 10 laps to be able to feel where the limit is. I don't know if its a physics issue or a ffb issue. Making the wheel feels lighter when the car understeers should fix the problem.

At the moment it is the same for me. I go into a corner and think ok I can go faster the next lap and after going a bit faster and faster I suddenly crash and often you can't really feel it until it happens. Major issue for me is that even with diffrent FOV settings the sensation of speed is pretty low. 200kph+ in a GT3 car are really fast, but it feels more like 100kph on a highway.

AC is very easy to drive below the limit, but on the limit it is really hard, because you can't really feel it.

eh, that's not a good sign imo
if a sim can't translate that feeling of being on the limit
it has failed an important aspect of simracing
not?

 

[Terry Rock]

I think a large factor in how we respond to sim behavior has to do with seating position in the virtual cockpit.
Take those two videos above for instance, the McLaren's dash view (relative to the track's surface) is spot on. The same cannot be said for the URD Venom where the driver is actually looking way over the top of the steering wheel and down on the track's surface. While that gives a better view of the upcoming turn, it leaves you less prepared to deal with slight corrections due to car upset from center-line.
The loss in reaction time has to do with the fact that when the back-end first starts to move, it's not immediately apparent due to the higher incidence angle (relative to the horizontal plane).

 

[Frederic Schornstein]

I think a large factor in how we respond to sim behavior has to do with seating position in the virtual cockpit.
Take those two videos above for instance, the McLaren's dash view (relative to the track's surface) is spot on. The same cannot be said for the URD Venom. You are actually looking way over the top of the steering wheel....which gives a better view of the upcoming turn, but leaves you less prepared to deal with slight corrections due to car upset.
The loss of reaction time has to do with the fact that when the back-end starts to move, the higher incidence angle relative to the horizontal plane is not immediately seen or felt.
It's smaller but similar to the reference some pilots experience during landing vs takeoffs.

Yes seating position is important and usually you have a driving position like in AC in rF2. The main diffrence is not what is transfered on the visual side, but through the wheel. On the braking it feels great in AC, but in fast and slow corners I can't really feel what the front axle is doing.
If you compare the URD Mod to the ISI Corvette in rF2 you will realize, that in the ISI Corvette you get a bit of a feel on the brakes like you get in AC, so you feel in AC and rF2 the limit of braking power on the front axle, but as soon as you turn in AC looses a lot of this feel.

Everytime I start-up AC it's like this (in the order): Uh it looks great, it sounds good, acceleration is nice, feel on the brakes is amazing, turn the wheel and the feel is gone.