Assetto Corsa Competizione: Release Five Out Now

[Paul Jeffrey]

Kunos Simulazioni have deployed the fifth major build update to Assetto Corsa Competizione today - adding the Emil Frey Jaguar G3 and Circuit Zolder to the simulation.

I suppose anyone who has a passing interest in sim racing has already downloaded, installed and played the new update already, so this article is pretty much preaching to the converted, but just in case you are not still immersed in the new update on your gaming PC, here's the details for what comes included with build release number five:

Release Five Notes:

• New Emil Frey Jaguar G3 car.
• New laser-scanned Circuit Zolder racetrack.
• New special events with online leaderboards.
• Fixed disappearing main menu UI in VR.
• Texture memory optimizations.
• Fixed a chase cam rotation bug.
• Fixed a TV camera bug.
• Car light improvements in TV camera views.
• New inertia calculation method and new more accurate inertia value (advice for setups, use a softer fast damper to let the body move and settle, instead of having the car and wheels jumping)
• New motion ratio calculation for dampers resulting in more accurate values dedicated to each car.
• New ABS feature. ABS now never let’s higher than 70% difference between left and right brake pressure. Improves behavior on extreme torque vectoring, like braking and going through a water puddle with one side of the car, but can result in inner wheel locking if driver insists braking hard while turning into a turn. Might need more rear brake bias on certain cars.
• Improved ABS logic, resulting in better turn-in under braking, on certain cars (most notably modern cars such as the Huracán, F488, BMW M6).
• Improved TC off on gear-change functionality. TC is instantly switched off and on again when a gear change occurs, in order to protect the engine and drivetrain from heavy vibrations,
• especially on situations where kerbs and the engine limiter are involved (part of real cars’ TC logic too, occasionally they will even not allow the gearchange). Now the TC off timing is car-dedicated and optimized. Some cars might handle a gear change better than others.
• Improved tyre thermal model, especially wet tyres.
• Improved tyre grip when tyres are overheated, such as after a spin.
• More tyre wear when tyres are overheated, no free meal.
• Corrected bumpstop position and functionality of the Ferrari 488 GT3.
• New ECU maps for all cars. ECU maps now influence power, fuel consumption and throttle maps. Usually, the lower number is the more powerful and has the most power consumption. After the initial 3-4 values, it switches to wet ECU maps with similar power and fuel consumption but different throttle maps. Please check the official forum for all the released cars’ ECU map characteristics.
• New launch control for all cars. Now with manual clutch, just engage 1st gear, put the clutch and accelerator to the floor and the engine will stabilize around 5000rpm. Release the clutch gradually while keeping the accelerator fully open to avoid stalling.
  Audio engine optimizations
• Fixed potential wrong volumes switching cameras
• Fixed time multiplier for the end race replay
• Fixed wrong track map cars position during replay
• Intro sequence updated

Now that isn't too bad of an update change log is it?

Assetto Corsa Competizione is available on Steam Early Access now. Currently at build release 5 status.

To keep abreast of all the latest news and discussions from the world of Assetto Corsa Competizione then don't forget to check out our very own ACC sub forum here at RaceDepartment.

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[Tigerteeth]

My description would be Zolder is a pretty flat track with one hump half way round

Yep - you're right. It's certainly a lot flatter than I thought, I guess I got a bit carried away...

 

[Jason Mullin]

I'm no developer, but I am a small business owner and get to see both sides of the fence.
I can't help but wonder with it being 2019 what the acceptable requirements are for a serious sim racing title.
Specifically meaning within reach of the developer and acceptable to the end user.

1) VR
2) Triples
3) Stability and good fps on equipment less than 5 years old.

Do you think when Marco, Stefano, and 505 were in their first meeting putting pen to paper about development ideas anyone stood up and said Guys, UE4 doesn't support triples and will be a big headache for us later?
Many sim racers run triples and prefer it over VR, it should have been a top priority from day one imo.
I know "we're still in EA", but are we? Release is under 60 days away I think they are feeling the pressure and honestly hope they delay if it cannot be optimized on time.

 

[whip]

I'm no developer, but I am a small business owner and get to see both sides of the fence.
I can't help but wonder with it being 2019 what the acceptable requirements are for a serious sim racing title.
Specifically meaning within reach of the developer and acceptable to the end user.

1) VR
2) Triples
3) Stability and good fps on equipment less than 5 years old.

Do you think when Marco, Stefano, and 505 were in their first meeting putting pen to paper about development ideas anyone stood up and said Guys, UE4 doesn't support triples and will be a big headache for us later?
Many sim racers run triples and prefer it over VR, it should have been a top priority from day one imo.
I know "we're still in EA", but are we? Release is under 60 days away I think they are feeling the pressure and honestly hope they delay if it cannot be optimized on time.

i have a feeling ue4 was chosen because it will probably be easy to port to consoles afterwards, thats a lot of sales for a brand with a good rep like Assetto Corsa

 

[tlsmikey]

Big picture wise, I'm now worried about the viability of this title. The strength of this title was supposed to be its graphics (UE4 engine), but not only is the clarity lackluster but VR performance is off and overall optimization leaves a bit to be desired. Triple screen support is non-existent and doesn't seem like it's on the horizon.

This is a PC only title right now and aimed at the hard core sim enthusiast, but if it continues to lack triple support, poor graphical quality and FFB that is rather middle of the road (some love it, others hate it)....I don't think this is going to end well.

 

[Burke Wells]

At the moment, except for drastic solutions we've read (i.e. replace monitor with an Ultra Wide one), we know that a good amount of professional partners of us deployed ACC with a wider angle triple monitor in a 5760*1080 res. set on the graphics card tool suite, that is less affected by deformation related visibility issues, with good results I must say. That said, we so know that you want a better implementation and as said above if it was an easy solution, it would have been already implemented. We can’t tell more about the subject right now and unfortunately a triple monitor dedicated support isn't something we can guarantee in this precise moment, but we do read you and hear you and the topic is in our list.

Another triple user here and I had not seen that info from Kunos. I continue to hold out hope that one day I'll see one of these "latest update" threads saying something about "finally some good news for triple users", etc. But until then, still feeling a bit sad & gutted, especially after seeing how awesome triple screen support was handled in AC, PC2, and AMS.

 

[Mr Deap]

i have a feeling ue4 was chosen because it will probably be easy to port to consoles afterwards, thats a lot of sales for a brand with a good rep like Assetto Corsa

The best trick to see if it was meant for multiplatform is the CPU usage in medium setting with vsync locked at 60fps & compare with the original AC CPU usage.

The strength on using a PC is CPU power where console just can't match up due to size limitation.

 

[Michel Bélisle]

I did not like the first iteration of the game that I played back in October 2018. However, I see constant improvements from one release to the next. I don't mind if it takes them more time than originally expected to complete the title as long as the quality keeps improving from one release to the next as I have seen so far. I am very encouraged by what I have seen so far.

 

[Dan Costa]

if you don't mind artifacts

To be fair, reprojection is pretty awesome in WMR headsets. Barely any artifact.

 

[Brandon Wright]

if you don't mind artifacts

Blah blah blah. I don't notice any artifacts on my end, see for yourself. Wish people would stop acting like just because they can't run VR well it means the game is wholly incapable of a pleasing VR experience.

 

[whip]

^ i've used vr for 2 years, i know what im talking about regarding asw

thank you mr condescending

 

[Dan Costa]

^ i've used vr for 2 years, i know what im talking about regarding asw

thank you mr condescending

It has artifacts on the Rift (I used to have a rift), but they are almost gone in WMR

 

[Brandon Wright]

thank you mr condescending

Right, because "if you like artifacts" isn't at all condescending. You get what you give son.

 

[tlsmikey]

In terms of VR performance, it's not the artifacts....it's the clarity and quality of the picture. I have a top end PC (i7-7700K @ 5GHz, 1080GTX) and the performance is not good. I can run at 90FPS with settings at medium which is fine, but the clarity of the picture is terrible compared to any of the competitors.

 

[Neils on Wheels]

Blah blah blah. I don't notice any artifacts on my end, see for yourself. Wish people would stop acting like just because they can't run VR well it means the game is wholly incapable of a pleasing VR experience.

If running the game at 45 is fine for you that's all well & good, but it certainly does effect visual quality in certain conditions why else are Oculus working on version 2.0? So i would i would say running it at 45 is not ideal but probably all we could hope for in this game.
The biggest problem is having to push pixel density higher to counter the poor AA & that's really hitting the GPU. Not sure much can be done about that as i think it's down to the engine.
Although not ideal i can live with the ASW but even then I find in its current state thats its not a great experience graphically in VR in comparison to other sim titles. Even when Oculus sort out ASW 2.0 that will hopefully reduce or eradicate distortions there is a fair bit of work to do imo.
But priorities are not going to be VR & the game clearly has a ton of work left to do. Some will wait for improvements some will already be getting stuck in.

 

[shadow118]

Polarizing opinions seem to show that the major difficulty ( graphics wise ) that ACC has is having a middle ground... for some looks like crap...for some is awesome...

I didn't test it in this version, but in 0.4 and before, if you set the texture quality to anything below Epic, it would look like absolute garbage. Might be something to do with me having a GPU with just 2Gb of Vram, idk, but If I set the textures to Epic and everything else to medium, the game looks just fine and runs ok-ish on my GTX 650 Ti Boost

 

[protonv5]

i have a feeling ue4 was chosen because it will probably be easy to port to consoles afterwards, thats a lot of sales for a brand with a good rep like Assetto Corsa

It's safe to say UE4 was chosen because it's free. You can develop it to the full and not pay a dime until you sell licensed copies. With Digital Bros. fronting the development costs I'm sure they pushed this direction. It's not the best engine as far as graphics and performance but it is the best to avoid up front costs.

 

[Brandon Wright]

In terms of VR performance, it's not the artifacts....it's the clarity and quality of the picture. I have a top end PC (i7-7700K @ 5GHz, 1080GTX) and the performance is not good. I can run at 90FPS with settings at medium which is fine, but the clarity of the picture is terrible compared to any of the competitors.

Weird. I have a similar but slightly lesser system and don't really have any problems with picture quality/clarity (beyond the normal VR clarity issues that happen with every game). It's not quite quite as sharp or clear as AC but it's about 90% I'd say, certainly nothing that bothers me enough to keep me from enjoying.

If running the game at 45 is fine for you that's all well & good, but it certainly does effect visual quality in certain conditions why else are Oculus working on version 2.0? So i would i would say running it at 45 is not ideal but probably all we could hope for in this game.
The biggest problem is having to push pixel density higher to counter the poor AA & that's really hitting the GPU. Not sure much can be done about that as i think it's down to the engine.
Although not ideal i can live with the ASW but even then I find in its current state thats its not a great experience graphically in VR in comparison to other sim titles. Even when Oculus sort out ASW 2.0 that will hopefully reduce or eradicate distortions there is a fair bit of work to do imo.
But priorities are not going to be VR & the game clearly has a ton of work left to do. Some will wait for improvements some will already be getting stuck in.

I'm one of the lucky ones who can't even really tell a difference between 90fps and 45fps with ASW, all looks the same to these eyes. Ignorance is bliss.

 

[Turk]

Do you think when Marco, Stefano, and 505 were in their first meeting putting pen to paper about development ideas anyone stood up and said Guys, UE4 doesn't support triples and will be a big headache for us later?

Well I don't think they walked into the lobby of epic games and said "throw me out a copy of the ol epic engine there" and walked out the door.

They more than likely did discuss it and probably got assurances about it which made them go with the engine.

The difference between AC and ACC is there's more people involved now. ACC was just Kunos more or less. ACC includes 505 and epic people in the mix. For all we know Epic games has a general nondisclosure agreement with developers when it comes to their products development. They may want control over any feature announcements and don't want 3rd parties doing it in case they say something they don't like. 505 probably have a say too and all it would take is for one lay person to say "I'm not signing off until I see the thing in front of me" for there to be a complete ban on talking to the public.

It's probably true that there's more work involved than they expected. This is all brand new to them and there are always unforeseen problems in any business that cause delays. It wouldn't surprise me if they miss their deadlines, I don't have an issue with that.

But based on my experience with AC, Kunos take pride in their work, they over developed AC long after it went final release. I think there's a level of artistry in what they do and they wouldn't be able to just let it lie. I think you can judge a company better by how it acts after it's taken your money than how it goes about getting that money off you in the first place. Kunos haven't let us down yet.

I think triples will come, it's not just Kunos that are asking for it at this stage and it's in epics best interests to bring in that feature for future sales.

All that's required here is a bit of patience, we may not get everything exactly when we expected too, but I'd say ACC is going to be an active title for the next 5 years at least. It's probably going to be tinkered with for the rest of this year, even after it's gone final version.

We'll get all we were promised and more before the year is out. I have no doubt.

 

[Peter Kerényi]

As a single screen user, I just want better AA without ghosting and better mirrors (and a little bit of optimization). Mirror resolution will be increased according to the forums, there is no word on AA yet. And I don't have the GPU power for upscaling from 1080p (GTX 1060).

I hope they deliver in the end, for everyone (triples and VR users as well). I want to believe they are concentrating on the core gameplay/code now, and the graphical polish and optimization will come between build 6 and release. We will see.

 

[thepharcyde]

Hot fix just deployed:
- VR now stable with a 3dfx Voodoo 5, AA sampling updated to X1000 with neglible hit on performance.
- Jag sounds CTRL-Z and copy paste of correct file completed.
Still on track for a Q119 release - the full year yet to be disclosed