Any Cruze drivers tried the Cruze in R3E?

Connor Caple

Slowest Racer in Town...
I drove a Chevy Cruze for 3 years, even took it on several track-days. I can make the one in Race 07 WTCC pack feel reasonably like it.

How does the one in R3E compare? I'd be willing to throw some money at the WTCC R3E pack if the car is up to scratch.

Please, only answer if you've taken a real Cruze round a track and have the experience with which to compare it. ;)
 
Okay - tried a few sessions with the Test Drive Cruze on Get Real.

My results: Car is a bit 'twitchier' than the real thing, this could be down to a couple of things:

a) I have not got the Force FeedBack dialed in just right yet (changed it 3 times during testing and it's better) or
b) They made the 'sim' too hard, thinking that makes it more realistic, when it doesn't or
c) G-Force feedback is lacking so you can't accurately tell where the grip is at.

The real car (1600 Turbo) is solidly planted and has a chassis that eats corners, that's why it won the WTCC when Chevrolet ran the team. The sim model just suddenly lets go on a corner and suffers from various kinds of oversteer that I never saw on the real one and which it refused to 'drive out of' like the real FWD cars do.

Honestly, it feels like the Race 07 car drives more like the real one than the R3E does, for me, at the moment.:confused:

I'm all for advancement in Sims, and I'm happy to buy new ones. I have Asetto Corsa, which has its own issues with FFB, and I realise that Race 07 is 7 years old and can't last forever and that this should be its successor, but I shouldn't feel like I'm fighting a car I actually know how to drive, should I? :cautious:

I want to see R3E be a success - I wouldn't bother criticising it otherwise. I'm just not like that. I criticise things, discuss things and argue about things when I actually care. If I don't care about something, I ignore it.

If you are willing to listen, @Jay Ekkel , I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is, but I've never been a 'fanboy'. I criticise, I suggest, I aim for advancements, I push the sim to be closer to reality. I'll never be a 'yes man' - that's just not me. :sneaky:
 
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Could it be that you have so many hours in Race 07 that anything else just feels different. You may have a comfort zone and muscle memory for the cars in that sim. I found a lot of Gran Turismo racers had a similar opinion when it came to other games - those that have many hours into GT. I actually remember Shift 2 feeling OK after many laps but if I try it now it doesn't feel like I remember - pretty bad, and this is on the PC with mods.
I haven't driven the Cruze IRL, having quite a bit of fun with it in R3E, but I have owned quite a few performance cars over the years - Corvettes, Camaros, Trans Am, BMW 3 series, Infiniti G35, and today a BMW 135i - no game feels like any of these in my opinion. I never can get the same feeling from a game - but that doesn't stop me from enjoying virtual racing. My $.02
 
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You don't need to buy the whole pack either...I just bought the Cruze on its own and in single player all the WTCC cars are on the grid. Online, I just drive the Cruze in WTCC events. I picked it after a test drive and noticing there were a lot of Hondas! Its good fun. No idea if its accurate, I drive a Golf wagon!
 
I do understand what you mean about getting used to certain sims and the way they use the FFB, but I also have a good memory of the Cruze irl because I only just sold it 6 weeks ago. ;)

I tried 'Amateur' instead of 'Get Real' and the Cruze felt much less twitchy under steering and much more like the real car. ABS wouldn't change that, but the TC would help when cornering under power. I used to turn TC off for track runs, but turning the ABS off was more trouble than it was worth, involving computers and under-the-bonnet work. :O_o:

I have continued to adjust the FFB which will always feel different to Race 07 because it's using different tyre/spring/drive simulations if I read the game engine specs right.

I just wish someone would come up with a Sim that actually felt/handled like the real car. Race 07 has come close, but I've had years - as you point out - to modify the settings and tweak it to what I wanted.

Probably 5 years from now I'll be complaining about the next round of new sims and how the FFB sucks because it's not as good as R3E or rF2 :whistling:
 
I hope I can answer your question, as I wrote the physics for both Race07 WTCC and R3E WTCC cars.

Can you clarify if your doing track days in the race car, or if you just do trackdays in a road car ?

I have been in the RML Chevrolet Lacetti media car, and have been driven by both Nicola Larini and then anothor time by Alain Menu, while the car was only the media car it was basically a fully prepared road legal semi race car, as close as you can probably get without getting a ride in the real race cars, I can tell you that car was plenty sideways on demand if required, so it stands to reason the Race07 Lacetti bears a "fair" resemblance to the real cars I suppose.

When the cars are created they are created with tons of research having taken place, anal details taken note for things like how high the rear wheel may or may not lift in hard cornering, how much body roll a car has, all the technical specifications we can get from the teams, and sometimes even telemetry, tons of onboard footage watched for driver inputs, external footage watched to watch the body language of a particular car, nothing is taken lightly, the only killer in the quest for detail is time, you have to realise a cut off point at some moment.

One of the secrets for the Chevrolet chassis is that it can be made quite loose when required, a key benefit on the tighter street tracks, and the longer wheelbase makes the car nice and stable on the faster flowing tracks, with options to loosen it when required, it is a highly adaptable chassis, this is something time and time again I have observed as a trait of both the Lacetti and Cruze when watching all the media for them, that is what makes it so successful IMHO, most FWD are by design slightly hobbled and end up having to innovate compromise to overcome their natural tendencies, not so much with the Chevrolet, it just seems they found a sweet spot to make that FWD handle really well.

So while I take your points on board I think we are comparing apples and pears here, not withstanding the fact that an identical car is almost certainly setup to handle differently by an individual driver to suit his style, Nicola was lairy for example, where Alain was smooth as silk, I can even testify to the fact 2 seemingly identical cars never drive exactly the same, I owned 2 identical 2001 BMW 330i's at one time, both had a different feel in the handling.

Road cars are setup safe, they also do not have trick differentials normally, so it is very natural you will find your road car more stable even on a track day, especially on non race tyres, if your track days are being done in a race car then feel free to send me more data and we can try and work towards adding anything we missed last time around.

You may want to tighten the coast side of the diff and you will find the lift off oversteer and rear end stability off the throttle becomes much improved, I setup the car by default to have a slightly lift off oversteer tendency to combat mid race understeer which will result from the front tyre wear, as per the kind of things they do in RL.

I live and breath realism, so if there is a way to make something more realistic then you can bet your backside I will be striving to achieve it.
 
Excellent response, thank you.

I'd noticed that the car was looser than I'm used to but mine is/was the Factory chassis, not the Race one, with the 1.6 Turbo engine as opposed to the 1400 that was in the standard road car at the time.

The differences in the Race car caused by the other non-factory parts and, possibly, deliberate loosening of the rear end had not occurred to me. I still have access to a couple of race engineers from our past excursions, so I will hit them up for some tuning lessons as that was never my forté. My driving style was always described by the rest of our group as "understeer or bust", but I did manage to keep it really smooth and avoid kicking out sideways as much as possible.

I've never been comfortable with going round corners sideways. The Cruze in the WTCC always impressed me by how much more tightly it could hug the corner than the other cars travelling at the same speed.

I appreciate your help, since obviously I know very little about the actual mechanics of setting the car up - I just point them down the road and try to keep them out of the tyre walls.

Since you created the physics for both versions, am I correct in my reading of the different modelling of the handling in R3E to Race 07 as I mentioned in a post above?

I will continue to tune in the FFB to get the drive I need while someone who knows more than me looks at the default setup and tells me how to change it to my usual 'feel' since that seems to be the main issue, rather than a lack of accurate modelling of the car.

This, of course, means I'll have to buy the WTCC pack now so I can fiddle with it properly. *chuckles*
 
one thing i found on most wtcc cars the steering rotation and lock is 540/23 i run 540/19 on the fwd , you have to put a bit more effort in on hairpins etc but it does save the tyres and makes the fwd more catchable even if you set it up very loose

Andi
 
fwiw I use between 23 & 26 degrees steering lock @ 540 degrees rotation generally.

Tightening the coast side diff, that means increasing the value, basically you are locking the wheels more tightly together in coast which lessens the effect of the car wanting to rotate during the weight transfer, in general I think all the WTCC13 cars are an evolutionary step forward from Race 07 physics set, especially with regards to the visual dynamics, the cars look that little bit more solid and alive with the road surface, the way the cars drive to me at least feel more planted and respond move realistically to control inputs for me at least, but then I am always going to be biased :p

The biggest thing to get right here is your FFB settings, bad FFB or wheel settings can ruin a car really quickly.......they can also improve what previously felt like a bad car.

Work will continue with the touring cars, I hope that in the next instalment they can be made better again, nothing after all is ever perfect sadly.
 
I grabbed the WTC and the ADAC packs (second mainly for the tracks) and I'm just working on getting used to how the Cruze handles on Pro. I'll adapt to it eventually.

I'm still fiddling with the FFB but it's getting close. Still a little strong in the corners so I'll experiment with changing one value at a time to see which gives me the feel I'm looking for.

I immediately hit Monza as it's the track I know best and it looks really different with all the extra textures and shadows compared to the old Race 07 version. It also has quite a different feel and I liked it. The car handled quite well and the leaderboards showed I was about 4+ seconds off the top 15 pace - which is normal, because I'm slow. ;)

I tried the GTR and broke 2 minutes easily, so I guess I can still manage a RWD when I have to. :barefoot:

I'd love to get a new driving wheel as the G25 has seen 5 years of service now, but I'll probably have to wait until next year as they seem to cost about the same as a mid-range PC now :laugh: All I seem to see is people criticising my lovely old workhorse and telling us all how ThrustMaster make the best wheels now. I never thought I'd see that day...

Thanks for all the help and suggestions guys. Just need some RD R3E servers now :thumbsup:

(and some minis)
 
Well, after trying the Cruze out a LOT more on a lot more tracks, including the hillclimb, it still feels very, very unstable and no racing driver in his right mind would drive a car which was that twitchy.

The steering on the Hillclimb course is very suspect. My factory Cruze would have handled it better than the one in game. Something needs to be fixed, but I have no idea what.

The handling in Assetto Corsa, even though people tell me it's not as 'simmy' as R3E, feels more like the real thing.

Physics in R3E are pretty good, the car reacts to bumps in the road and so on very well, BUT the handling is just not there. It takes me going and driving one of the other sims to realise this sometimes as I have been so engrossed in R3E over the last week or two.

I loved driving the Cruze in real life - the most PLANTED track car I ever had. Sadly, the one in game does not drive the same way. It's not just the FFB issues, which isn't that hard to set up, it's the weird 'floaty' feeling you get at times where it almost feels like your steering input is not that attached to the rack, or that the wheels are floating over the tarmac!

Still don't mind having paid S3 the money as it was (in my mind) an investment in the future of the game. I just hope they can figure this out and correct whatever is causing the handling issue. (Did the WTCC cars get the 'physics update' yet?)

( also - add Minis, as usual )
 
The handling in Assetto Corsa, even though people tell me it's not as 'simmy' as R3E, feels more like the real thing.

Assetto Corsa is miles ahead of RRE in terms of physics,It still suffers from what Race 07 suffered from that is a "floaty" feeling. FFB has been improved greatly but it still doesn't feel right, catching a slide is almost impossible, Just watch the starts on most mp races lol. The only thing that RRE does better than any of the other sims are the sounds. The sounds are top notch until AC does more work on fmod.

And yes I kind of hate how you say AC isn't as "simmy" as RRE, what next? Need for speed more "simmy" than iRacing? :D
 
if you watch the start of most mp races you quickly realise two things ,

there is a large amount of people that have no idea what to do

there is a large amount of people who do know what they are doing (trying to ruin every ones day)

when sat on the start line , your there and we are in simulated 500+bhp rear wheel drive machines that weigh about as much as a bag of crisps and your sat in your car and you can hear the people around you bouncing of the limiter , im sorry , but the problem at that point isnt the physics its the retard attatched to the pedal that drives the physics ....
catching a slide , mmm that depends on you ; how you read whats happening and more importantly how you have your wheel setup /and the car setup ... i catch a lot of slides ; i also fail sometimes but thats pretty normal

comparing one sim to another ; well lets see......... nah lets not as thats totally pointless

i dont like washing up , so i avoid it ... if you dont like a sim i suggest that avoidance is a great method ...

Im sorry guys if my posts have been a little pointed lately , but i spend a load of time on r3e , and yes i play every other sim out there and all of them have there moments of brilliance and all have there fail points ... i can bug pick on all of them but im not going to compare them , its like trying to compare a piece of mozart and a piece of Dead Kennedys , they are both music , the both make noise , but the approach and interpretation isnt the same ... is one wrong ? Nope ; its just me that decides which makes me smile...

Love and Fluff ; happy Sunday , wec race is on today , its raining at mine , the dogs on the sofa ...

Andi ;
 
Also bear in mind the test drive doesn't allow you to change the lock so you do get very twitchy cars. I find I have to put the lock 540/9 to stop the twitching In the fwds.
 
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I've tried different setups and locks and I own the cars, I am not test driving them.

Sorry, the Cruze is just not right. There is no way in hell the Race Team chassis should be twitchier than the Factory one. I watched years of that car racing at WTCC events and it was NEVER twitchy. Go grab some replays from three or four years ago if you don't believe me. It just goes 'light' and floaty in game and then offline for no good reason. The steering response just doesn't feel right. The feeling in AC, of the car's response, is better when I compare it to real race cars which, as I keep saying, stay PLANTED while you drive them.

I'm saying AC isn't as "simmy" not because I don't like AC, I do, but because R3E and rF2 both claim to be putting a lot more effort into tyre models, contact patches, weight distribution and so forth - if you read their blogs and posts you'll see what I mean.

AC has the best 'feel' and, for me, nails the way the cars should perform on tarmac, however they are working it out.

I drove the REAL car for THREE YEARS on and off track and along winding country roads at speed on private estates. Please, get Rob Huff, Alain Menu or Ivan Muller and sit them down in R3E and get their honest opinions on tracks they know well. Believe me, it won't be complimentary.

Like I said - I'm buying into the FUTURE of this Sim, not it's current state. I'll keep checking it until it behaves, but since we can't 'mod' the game then there is no way some community based engineers can try to sort it out.
 

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