Assetto Corsa Competizone - Release 5 Review & New Hotfix Details

[Paul Jeffrey]

Assetto Corsa Competizione hit version five recently, and to celebrate we've recorded a quick review video, as well detailing the contents of the latest hotfix release...

Ok, so before we get onto the hotfix released earlier today, you might want to check out our version 5 release review video, set to air live on our Twitch RDTV channel at 20:00 UTC Saturday 19th January. You can catch the action on Twitch HERE.

In the video, we will be taking out the new Emil Frey Jaguar G3 on the wonderful Zolder racetrack in a variety of different weather and time of day conditions. Looking at the update in detail, and sharing our thoughts on the way Assetto Corsa Competizone feels post V5 update, the video is a quick and dirty look at one of the most interesting and packed full of potential racing simulations of 2019, check it out..!

RDTV Twitch Channel

In other news, Kunos have released another small hotfix update to the title earlier today, the second such update since deploying the new version 5 build back on Wednesday. The new hotfix, available now, contains various small improvements to both the car, track and simulation itself, details of which can be seen below:

Hotfix V 0.5.2 Notes:

• Jaguar collider fixed with soft collisions
  
• Minor updates to Zolder
  
• Fixed incorrect sound played in UI when Zolder is selected
  
• Fixed look left/right with chase camera when Lock to Horizon is enabled
  
• Fixed camera pitch change when Lock to Horizon is enabled
  
• Enabled look left/right with dash and bonnet cameras
  
• Fixed look back input using a controller binding

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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[Ghoults]

I've literally watched racing series where they roll into an event, Practice & Qualifying both get rained out, and teams maybe get 30 minutes of practice in before the actual race itself. And in that time teams are still able to consult previous years of experience & throw reasonable numbers at the setup & get a car that's pretty close to on rails.

But somehow, simplified virtual cars are now more complex than the real thing? Is that what you're wanting to argue?

What planet did I wake up on today?

Yeah, you sim racer can visit a kart center and drive for 20 minutes which is a 10 minute practise and 10 minute race. Just because you can do something does not mean you can give useful feedback after it. Or you can download a sim which takes more than that to just download and install. Not because it is more complex but because unlike real car you need to download and install the files, set up your settings (ffb, fov, graphics, buttons). All of which takes time. All that inside one hour and you feel confident to give final opinion about it? No. I'd never trust that person and I am not making any arguments about acc's realism here one way or the other.

In sims it is just not just how it drives but whether it drives realistically and which part are realistic or not. Not to mention you need to set it up all by yourself. You don't have engineers setting up the car, mechanics not fixing issues with your computer and team bosses downloading graphics driver updates.

Not to mention the fact that this magical person can jump into a totally new sim and within one hour he is driving at his 100% skill level at maximum pace to make comparison to his real car which he has also spent long time learning to be fast in. Because he is a "real life race car driver" he just does it? A person we have no idea how good he even is in the sim in the first place.

There's really no need to do that to experience the base of the simulator. And, in regards of the IRL pilot that made the assessement, his case was quite clear cut: test IRL setup used on a IRL Gallardo and do a A2B comparision.
There's no need for "weather testing " "FFB testing" or "whatever testing". It's a simple A2B test. If the car is not handling the same way, there's something wrong in the physics that don't allow the replicability or IRL setups into the virtual Gallardo.

Pretty clear cut.

I never said to test ffb or "whatever". I said he needs to setup those things in the game which takes time. Unless all his settings are magically perfect on first time when he hits the track... perfect fov, perfect ffb, perfect fps, all buttons work exactly like he wants, all the right controllers are detected... He did all that in 1 hour and not just that but a lot more. He drove a lambo in sebring which was setup for sebring. Yet after driving it in sim for 15 laps around paul ricard or whatever with a totally different setup he just knows. Did his car in sebring even have the same tires as the gt3 cars in acc? Nope. Blancpain runs pirellis, imsa runs (ran) michelins in sebring 12hours.

Real race car drivers can be totally horrible with identifying car behaviours in sim. I had one driver tell me a car was fine that had 70% front downforce balance (a car which had no downforce generating parts at the front at all). Basically totally loose as soon as the car started moving forward. He felt confident enough to voice his opinion yet he was unable to identify a basic problem that totally broke the car. For him that car was same ("spot on") as it the real car he had driven on anger on race track yet it was so far off it was a total joke. After the downforce fix the car "felt little better". In other words his feedback about the real car was totally useless. Wasn't my mod so I did not push the issue but boy was it an eye opener.

Comparing a sim to real car is not a simple A to B test. And depending the person anything can be spot on realistic (or unrealistic trash). If you want to compare for real you compare data. If you ask for driver feedback you ask him to compare memories and I'd never trust anyone who after 15 laps in a totally new sim can have a strong opinion about a full sim and all of its cars after he has driven one for 15 laps ish. I'd not trust lewis hamilton after 15 laps. But if his engineer told me the car was spot on after looking at the data for 15 minutes I'd believe him (after asking what did he look at). Maybe he is right maybe he is wrong. 50% chance.

 

[numbersevenhull]

Here is Nicky Thiim assessing a new car in iracing. Using his IRL experience, it takes him 2 minutes to make a starting set up, 15 minutes to reach a conclusion on the car. Just as people have suggested. Guess being the Porche Supercup winner 2013 counts for nothing for some folks with a logitech.

 

[MarkR]

@Ghoults I’m interested in why you disagreed with my post that repeated practice is more important than innate traits or skills. You then seem to be making some practice based arguments yourself in your following posts.

Please tell me more about innate skill without practice.

 

[randomcallsign]

I never said to test ffb or "whatever". I said he needs to setup those things in the game which takes time.

No, he really doesnt. FFB is for immersion and not necessary to dial in to understand the workings of the sim. In reality, there are a great number of top 1 per cent drivers that drive with.... zero FFB.

Unless all his settings are magically perfect on first time when he hits the track... perfect fov, perfect ffb, perfect fps, all buttons work exactly like he wants, all the right controllers are detected... He did all that in 1 hour and not just that but a lot more.

And zero of that has impact on understanding how the sim works. All of those things are for immersion and its not like any time really needs to be spent on those things. Ive spent literally 10 seconds setting FFB and less than a minute in everything else.

He drove a lambo in sebring which was setup for sebring. Yet after driving it in sim for 15 laps around paul ricard or whatever with a totally different setup he just knows. Did his car in sebring even have the same tires as the gt3 cars in acc? Nope. Blancpain runs pirellis, imsa runs (ran) michelins in sebring 12hours.

Two problems with your analysis
1. Setting up cars with a setup for a different track doesnt make the underlying game logic to brake. The car would still react the same way under similar workloads
2. Tyre brand change wont undermine a setup. In reality does close to zero nowadays.

Real race car drivers can be totally horrible with identifying car behaviours in sim. I had one driver tell me a car was fine that had 70% front downforce balance (a car which had no downforce generating parts at the front at all). Basically totally loose as soon as the car started moving forward. He felt confident enough to voice his opinion yet he was unable to identify a basic problem that totally broke the car. For him that car was same ("spot on") as it the real car he had driven on anger on race track yet it was so far off it was a total joke. After the downforce fix the car "felt little better". In other words his feedback about the real car was totally useless. Wasn't my mod so I did not push the issue but boy was it an eye opener.

Your anecdote is useless. The person in question simraces.

Comparing a sim to real car is not a simple A to B test. And depending the person anything can be spot on realistic (or unrealistic trash). If you want to compare for real you compare data. If you ask for driver feedback you ask him to compare memories and I'd never trust anyone who after 15 laps in a totally new sim can have a strong opinion about a full sim and all of its cars after he has driven one for 15 laps ish. I'd not trust lewis hamilton after 15 laps. But if his engineer told me the car was spot on after looking at the data for 15 minutes I'd believe him (after asking what did he look at). Maybe he is right maybe he is wrong. 50% chance.

Yes it is a simple A2B test. Otherwise the SIMULATION VALUE is zero.

Hijacking your reply to Autin

Not to mention the fact that this magical person can jump into a totally new sim and within one hour he is driving at his 100% skill level at maximum pace to make comparison to his real car which he has also spent long time learning to be fast in.

At this point you should be taking a step back to understand the nonsense youve just typed. This undermines your position in a way you dont understand and possibly will not understand.
Jumping to a new sim is a trivial matter. Childs play, even. There are a few idiosyncrasies between the sims, but generally the main difference between them is just the half per cent they are scrapping to get ahead in replicating and simulating.
A person constantly fast in one sim will still be consistently in another. If the sims require significant change in inputs that will require a deep retraining and real life training, other sim experience cannot be replicated, then theres something wrong with it.

Yet, your position requires fudging the conversation and put an artificial bar in something that doesnt make any sense. The simulation value of a sim can be tapped into within the first 10 minutes of trying it out. A2B testing takes literally a couple of laps and a few testing scenarios.[/QUOTE]

 

[henrisal]

Here is Nicky Thiim assessing a new car in iracing. Using his IRL experience, it takes him 2 minutes to make a starting set up, 15 minutes to reach a conclusion on the car. Just as people have suggested.

New car in a game which he has played hundreds of hours...

 

[MarkR]

Curious to see what other people think about the Huracan with the current build. For me, it's very difficult to catch after even minor wheelspin on acceleration. It feels like something is wrong with how the grip drops off with slip angle. It falls off a cliff.

I've driven on slicks IRL. They aren't like that. Especially with hot tires, we'd routinely blow up differentials because they had so much grip. They would wiggle under acceleration and you could get the car loose, but it was incredibly easy to hold a slip angle on corner exit - way easier than trying to do it on street tires.

Turn off TC in the Huracan and just try to have a little fun nailing the throttle on corner exit. It feels like someone dumped oil on my back tires.

Agree about catching slides and this also seems quite track dependent for me. For example at the Nurburgring the Huracan seems quite unpredictable across kerbs and if it slides. At Zolder it doesn't seem so much of an issue. It could be track grip level dependent but might be something to do with the car too.

 

[Ghoults]

No, he really doesnt. FFB is for immersion and not necessary to dial in to understand the workings of the sim. In reality, there are a great number of top 1 per cent drivers that drive with.... zero FFB.

I'll try to explain this really simple. He played 1 hour. In that one hour he had to set up everything so that it works. Ffb too high or low? Need to exit the sim and go adjust it. Fov wrong. Exit sim, adjust. Every little setting takes time just to set it up so it isn't completely wrong. All of this takes time away from the 1 hour he played the game. That's my point period.

Your anecdote is useless. The person in question simraces.

Is he quick?

A person constantly fast in one sim will still be consistently in another.

You don't know if he is even fast.

I don't even care to argue with you two. My point was that just because someone who claims to be a real race car driver and has spent 1 hour in the game does not automatically make his opinion valid. 1 hour out of which he drove maybe 15 laps. A driver whose skill level is totally unknown to us both in sim and real life. Twist it any way you want.

 

[After_Midnight]

What a pointless discussion There is a real driver who don't like ACC. There is also a other real life driver out there who like the sim and is actually fast in it.
So what exactly is the point here?

@randomcallsign You should take your pills to stop your negative mood mate

 

[randomcallsign]

I'll try to explain this really simple. He played 1 hour.

Ill put this in really simple terms. Immersion is different than simulation value.

Is he quick?
You don't know if he is even fast.

Those are non-questions. A2B replicability has zero to do with being fast and everything to do with simulating real life mechanics in in a sim. Its that simple

I don't even care to argue with you two. My point was that just because someone who claims to be a real race car driver and has spent 1 hour in the game does not automatically make his opinion valid. 1 hour out of which he drove maybe 15 laps. A driver whose skill level is totally unknown to us both in sim and real life. Twist it any way you want.

And yet, your entire argument revolves zero about that and everything about non-issues.

@After_Midnight Im ok with my pills.

 

[numbersevenhull]

You don't know if he is even fast.

I don't even care to argue with you two. My point was that just because someone who claims to be a real race car driver and has spent 1 hour in the game does not automatically make his opinion valid. 1 hour out of which he drove maybe 15 laps. A driver whose skill level is totally unknown to us both in sim and real life. Twist it any way you want.

I think you will find he is a real life driver ......... ( and PS it doesn't mean you can't enjoy the game, nor that your view of it is invalid. It simply means, on this occasion, someone with real life experience didn't find, in it's current state, great value in it's attributes as a simulation. This should hardly come as a surprise to anyone, if you put a World War Two pilot into a VR headset and said here is IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Stalingrad, does anyone seriously think they are going to say it was like the real thing? Doesn't mean it's not a great hobby with the games and tools we have, and doesn't mean it doesn't do a great job in tricking our brains that we are close enough to reality so that we can suspend our disbelief and have a blast. But realism, it's really a bit of a false God )

In 2018 Josh will race for his second year in the Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup Championship, a support race to nine events of the the FIA Formula 1 Championship. This year Josh races for the Momo Megatron Lechner Racing team in car number 4.

In 2017 he finished in 7th place overall and 4th place in the Rookie Championship and he’s looking forward to building on the experience gained in his rookie year to develop further with the support of the Lechner Racing organisation.

Let’s hear from Josh…

Pretty early on it was obvious that I was never going to be a football, rugby or hockey player. Both my sisters were really good at sport so I enthusiastically tried everything but I was pretty hopeless to be honest! Then my sister and I tried karting at Buckmore Park when I was 12 and that was the start of a complete change to our life as a family.

From the first novice kart race in September 2006 to winning the Junior European championship three years later in September 2009 I then moved on to four years in single-seater formula cars.

After winning the two-year Porsche Carrera Cup GB (PCCB) Scholarship I raced in PCCGB for two years, winning the championship in my first year with Redline Racing.

I’m delighted to be able to race in Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup again in 2018. I’m keen to get the season underway and look forward to working with my new team.

 

[dajdosta]

Unless he has fundamental error in his setup such as input lag, controller calibrated wrong etc. to experienced real driver few minutes will be enough to judge core physics.
So it is a missed opportunity that this Webster guy didn't leave any valuable feedback.

 

[kondor999]

Unless he has fundamental error in his setup such as input lag, controller calibrated wrong etc. to experienced real driver few minutes will be enough to judge core physics.
So it is a missed opportunity that this Webster guy didn't leave any valuable feedback.

He's a paying customer, not a paid beta tester. I'm happy he said anything at all. If I were Kunos, I'd reach out and see if he's willing to give some additional input for the finished product.

What I'd like to see more of: Honest raw opinions from real drivers who are not affiliated with the development team of the sim in question.

 

[JonnyCombat]

I'm not overly concerned with whether something is 80-90-100% realistic or not, but whether I enjoy it when I play it. Is it fun? Only you can answer that.

 

[Jozsusz]

Sim Racers and Star Wars fans. Two cheeks of the same arse.

And I'm both
And so far ACC sucks for me and the episode 7 & 8 are horrible

 

[kondor999]

It's like that if you do strange things like drive without TC or do donuts. There is first too much grip and then none (something which iRacing used to be famous for). 488 has this same slow speed burnout behavior. Haven't tested every car but with new Jag it's possible to donut around and continue with burnout (and stay in control).
In normal driving it's not a problem. You can provoke cars to drift in fast corners and it's very similar to catch like in AC.

So driving without TC engaged all the time is now a "strange thing"??

In GT3, don't a lot of drivers disable TC during qualifying?

 

[John-Eric Saxén]

Unless he has fundamental error in his setup such as input lag, controller calibrated wrong etc. to experienced real driver few minutes will be enough to judge core physics.
So it is a missed opportunity that this Webster guy didn't leave any valuable feedback.

A few minutes is nowhere near enough. First of all there are sim-specific aspects like FFB (at least basic parameters), field of view, monitor setup, road condition (grip level) and of course the car setup itself, which everyone has a slightly different preference of.

Even if you have all those parameters above nailed, a few minutes is simply not enough no matter how experienced the driver is, because the conditions are not identical. When I drive at my friend's sim racing rig, everything feels different and I can't match my lap times, simply because the chair and monitor is in a different position. If this alone can be a big factor, imagine the difference going from a real car with real G-forces to driving a sim with mostly visual feedback. This transition process is not something you accomplish in a few minutes.

 

[dajdosta]

Lap times and car setup don't matter.
I am talking about judging fundamental physics.

 

[David Wright]

A few minutes is nowhere near enough. First of all there are sim-specific aspects like FFB (at least basic parameters), field of view, monitor setup, road condition (grip level) and of course the car setup itself, which everyone has a slightly different preference of.

Even if you have all those parameters above nailed, a few minutes is simply not enough no matter how experienced the driver is, because the conditions are not identical. When I drive at my friend's sim racing rig, everything feels different and I can't match my lap times, simply because the chair and monitor is in a different position. If this alone can be a big factor, imagine the difference going from a real car with real G-forces to driving a sim with mostly visual feedback. This transition process is not something you accomplish in a few minutes.

You do realise the guy is an experienced simracer? He may only have an hour or so in ACC bit he does have 250 hours in AC. There are no translation issues. His rig isn't different.

IMO you can evaluate a car in an hour. Lets face it most simracers evaluate a car in a lot less time. But it is just an opinion, and while a drivers opinion may carry more weight than yours or mine, just as you or I will differ in our opinions, so will drivers.

Drive what feels realistic to you. Quote the drivers who share your opinion and ignore those who don't.

 

[John-Eric Saxén]

Lap times and car setup don't matter.
I am talking about judging fundamental physics.

You can't separate the setup and conditions completely. Let me give an example. The first time I jumped into AC1, it felt very arcady and wrong to me. I then realized the road rubbering was set to optimal and turning it down a few steps solved about half of the problem, simply because the reduced road grip allowed the cars to feel more "alive". I also remember back in the days when rF2 used to come with rather bad default car setups and everyone would complain the cars handled more twitchy than in real life. But now a few years later with the same sim and same physics, Studio 397 has released DLC cars which are very drivable. So what changed? I bet it's 95% in the default car setup.

 

[farjam]

Curious to see what other people think about the Huracan with the current build. For me, it's very difficult to catch after even minor wheelspin on acceleration. It feels like something is wrong with how the grip drops off with slip angle. It falls off a cliff.

I've driven on slicks IRL. They aren't like that. Especially with hot tires, we'd routinely blow up differentials because they had so much grip. They would wiggle under acceleration and you could get the car loose, but it was incredibly easy to hold a slip angle on corner exit - way easier than trying to do it on street tires.

Turn off TC in the Huracan and just try to have a little fun nailing the throttle on corner exit. It feels like someone dumped oil on my back tires.

So far ,this is my main disappointment in ACC (and also in iracing!) , yes i'm an amateur , i use basic plastic gear (g27) and i have a few limitations but i don't think the cars should be that twitchy ,may be i'm just wrong but iRacing and ACC are the only sims that i have this problem , the grip just scuks(180 Degree opposite to Original AC,rfactor2,RRE for me)