Do you feel that AC will be the last sim of your life?

[Elaphe]

I do. Maybe if you are younger than me (and more optimistic) you have expectations in a brighter future. I have the feeling that there is no logic in expecting new sims in the future (such Assetto Corsa 2, for instance). The reason is the hardware. Newer games with photorealistic graphics with ray tracing, 4k, running in triple screens or high resolution VR headsets with lots of FOV, with real physics ala BeamNG Drive? That's impossible now and it will not be possible in many decades. The evolution of CPUs and GPUs is slow and almost stuck, with absurd prices and unable to supply enough computing power even for the games with have now under certain circumstances. Ten years ago I dreamt with better games; nowadays I dream with better hardware to improve the experience I have with AC.

 

[RobertR1]

I respect modders like URD, RSS, VRC, and many of the people here who create high quality cars, but sometimes I feel AC has too many cars and tracks, that I spend half of my time trying to weed out the crap, and the other trying to find stuff to recreate real races/racing series.

Bolded is the answer. I've stopped trying out random mods and stick to those three. The only exception to that being the KTM Xbow mod that was commissioned by KTM and done by one of the modders here.

 

[Kyuubeey]

Hey, don't forget DRM Revival, the top of Physics Excellence ™. I am so glad we have so many high-effort paymods in AC with lots of research and expertise going into the cars.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

I will not be buying anything from URD ever again. Some cars were crashing requiring data changes, some had non transparent windshields, also requiring some model tweaking. Modder knows about the problem but refusing to fix it.
Putting it in the same sentence as RSS is an insult to the latter.

 

[AccAkut]

Bolded is the answer. I've stopped trying out random mods and stick to those three. The only exception to that being the KTM Xbow mod that was commissioned by KTM and done by one of the modders here.

Lol you'll be missing out a lot then. Sort by Rating and enjoy.

 

[Mogget]

After ACC, AC feels quite old school with simplified physics and dated graphics....

I do not get that feeling at all. In fact, the rather "on rails" feel of GT cars makes the physics engine in ACC feel nowhere near as good as the amazing feel of the road cars in AC. I would also argue that there is not a massive difference in the graphics. Yes, ACC has more effects and technical wizardry (and a bit more trackside detail), but I do not see a huge difference with respect to the graphical quality of the tracks themselves.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

Road, vintage cars, yes, they are more "alive" in general, but ACC just doesn't have any.
But if you compare GT to GT, AC is just lacking the richness and complexity of ACC FFB/physics, feels almost simcadey simplistic at times. For non GT content, AC is still a king though.

 

[Kyuubeey]

For whoever didn't realize, my above post was sarcasm. You can't release high-quality simulation cars for 5eur a pop and still make any money.

I kind of wish it was viable to charge more, perhaps 20-25eur a car, to put some actual effort into the physics. Then if 1000 people buy it, you didn't just lose money. Ideally more people would buy it so you can charge less, but that's a fantasy.

I'm just not sure how many people would pay 2-10x price for something that they're not even sure is better, or how it is better.

 

[pumpkineater23]

Road, vintage cars, yes, they are more "alive" in general, but ACC just doesn't have any.
But if you compare GT to GT, AC is just lacking the richness and complexity of ACC FFB/physics, feels almost simcadey simplistic at times. For non GT content, AC is still a king though.

Can you explain what you mean exactly.. in detail. I have never bought ACC because of the bad reports of the VR. The physics and FFB in AC GT cars seem really great to me but perhaps I just don't know what I'm looking for. Also, just out of interest, what do you think of the physics and FFB of AMS2? Is this an improvement over AC do you think, or not? Cheers!

 

[Deleted member 197115]

Can you explain what you mean exactly.. in detail.

That would require starting from Big Bang.
Seriously, sims vary in the level of simulation accuracy they support, ACC is based on advanced and improved version of AC physics with new 5 points tire model. In addition to that due to limited content and access to manufacturers data Kunos were able to produce more accurate recreation of simulated cars.
These physics improvements translate to FFB signal as well, steering rack forces in particular. You can find more "exciting" FFB with tons of road effects, when cars even in GT category can be jumping and dancing on the track in some other titles, sure it's fun, but not really reflective of real car behavior and counterproductive to proper car control.
ACC FFB while more muted provides much more fine and nuanced "useful" information on what car is doing including effects from factors like temperature, track conditions, etc.
It just takes a good wheel and back to back run of the same or similar car in both titles to see the difference. Some appreciate it, some don't.

 

[pumpkineater23]

That would require starting from Big Bang.
Seriously, sims vary in the level of simulation accuracy they support, ACC is based on advanced and improved version of AC physics with new 5 points tire model. In addition to that due to limited content and access to manufacturers data Kunos were able to produce more accurate recreation of simulated cars.
These physics improvements translate to FFB signal as well, steering rack forces in particular. You can find more "exciting" FFB with tons of road effects, when cars even in GT category can be jumping and dancing on the track in some other titles, sure it's fun, but not really reflective of real car behavior and counterproductive for proper car control.
ACC FFB while more muted provides much more fine and nuanced "useful" information on what car is doing including effects from factors like temperature, track conditions, etc.
It just takes a good wheel and back to back run of the same or similar car in both titles to see the difference. Some appreciate it, some don't.

I see. Is there a reason why these things can't be 'adjusted' in AC in some way? Like a mod to update AC physics and FFB? Didn't IER do this to some degree with the ARX-03c ?

 

[RasmusP]

I see. Is there a reason why these things can't be 'adjusted' in AC in some way? Like a mod to update AC physics and FFB? Didn't IER do this to some degree with the ARX-03c ?

You could do it. Question is who would pay for the work time

 

[Gevatter]

I see. Is there a reason why these things can't be 'adjusted' in AC in some way? Like a mod to update AC physics and FFB? Didn't IER do this to some degree with the ARX-03c ?

The 5 point tyre model could be implemented, Stefano said as much. But then all mods would break and people would be salty that they cant use their mods anymore. BUT! - CSP already added a lot of physics features, so who knows what Ilja can still pull out of his hat for AC.

 

[pumpkineater23]

You could do it. Question is who would pay for the work time

You could do it. Question is who would pay for the work time

I happily pay for quality mods. As I understand it, (and correct me if I'm wrong), Ilja has a pretty good monthly income for the amazing stuff he does.

 

[pumpkineater23]

The 5 point tyre model could be implemented, Stefano said as much. But then all mods would break and people would be salty that they cant use their mods anymore. BUT! - CSP already added a lot of physics features, so who knows what Ilja can still pull out of his hat for AC.

Could the mods be updated along with the tyre model? If so then most of the good ones probably would I think? And while we're at it, let's have a small cost to buy these new updated cars (except for the ones we already paid for of course). It would be a great step forward for us and an incentive to the modders.

 

[Kyuubeey]

I don't think anything would break with how they do the ACC 5-point model. It's plug and play. At least, it should be. Should they come back and implement it to old AC content? No, the AC cars are inaccurate to begin with and we will have a better implementation via Cphys eventually. We also already have a relatively correct FFB system via Cphys that doesn't need any tweaking via sliders or anything.

Let them focus on making ACC better. It was entertaining enough when I've tried it so I would actually like it see become an actually accurate sim that runs well and has easily accessible online racing; not see it fail. But I'm still gonna be honest about it.

@pumpkineater23

We already have a more accurate tire model in AC, it's usable via CSP for modding. Any modder can use it and if you have some specific slip or SAT curves you want, it can be arranged. It has correct~ slip, SAT and heat behavior, which I doubt are correct in the other competitor sims. I mean, heat is clearly not working realistically in ACC and that's kind of a big one. I've gotten slicks, track tires and passenger tires all working relatively accurately in track driving, drifting, highway driving and cooling down in the pits so it's good enough for my uses. Although due to the nature of these features they're not plug and play at all apart from better SAT which is automatically enabled for extended physics cars IIRC. Vanilla AC, ACC and from what I've seen every other consumer sim has large issues with obeying the laws of thermodynamics to begin with; forget accurate behavior. If there does exist another consumer sim with accurate heat, do tell me about it because I'd be extremely curious to see it though.

I'm not ragging on ACC, it's a step forward for consumer sim content IMO but this idea that ACC's cars are any better than the BK R8 for any intrinsic reason (Average ACC car likely has much less data than BK R8 and I do not think Aris is as competent at implementing it as actual sim engineers), or that the CSP tire model is the inferior one while the ACC one is the serious professional one that we should be looking forward to is misguided.

ACC did do other things that CSP hasn't yet but I wouldn't get too hyped about them unless you actually understand the implementations. If you do and still feel hyped, go ahead.

By the way, Ilja hasn't done any of the Cphys stuff. It's by mclarenf1apapa or "JPG_18"; you know, an actual sim and race engineer and not a game developer.

 

[Kabanito]

We've seen how the price of top-tier graphics cards has escalated with every new series, and that's even without the current gouging. That's likely to continue as extreme UV, etc., becomes required for new fabrication nodes. Chiplets and 3D circuitry may help, but these all add expense too.

I don't know what to do if my RX 580 breaks down. There is no money for a new one. But I read that AC goes even on Vega 8 or 11.

Has anyone tried cloud gaming for car simulators? Maybe this is the way out?

 

[mclarenf1papa]

Biggest differences to ACC and AC are that tire temps are less broken and cars use more realistic data... "5 point" model, new aero (which does 90% the same thing as the old one), chassis flex, all of that buzzword stuff is a very small amount of what's felt through the wheel. The distinction between the two titles is mostly the same as the distinction that causes you to download mods from certain people/groups and not others (i.e. the general quality of work).

The 5 point tyre model could be implemented, Stefano said as much. But then all mods would break and people would be salty that they cant use their mods anymore. BUT! - CSP already added a lot of physics features, so who knows what Ilja can still pull out of his hat for AC.

The only thing that would break would be the CSP if KS updated the game, and that'd be easily fixable. You can do a fairly reasonable multipoint model without any additional parameters. If it happens for the patch, it's mine to code, not Ilja's (as with the rest of the patch's physics features...trust me, you don’t want Ilja coding physics haha). The way ACC does its "5 point model" is kind of lame and not physically all that accurate, so I'd rather a bit better of an approach, which I'm working on.

 

[Kyuubeey]

Biggest differences to ACC and AC are that tire temps are less broken and cars use more realistic data... "5 point" model, new aero (which does 90% the same thing as the old one), chassis flex, all of that buzzword stuff is a very small amount of what's felt through the wheel. The distinction between the two titles is mostly the same as the distinction that causes you to download mods from certain people/groups and not others (i.e. the general quality of work).


The only thing that would break would be the CSP if KS updated the game, and that'd be easily fixable. You can do a fairly reasonable multipoint model without any additional parameters. If it happens for the patch, it's mine to code, not Ilja's (as with the rest of the patch's physics features). The way ACC does its "5 point model" is kind of lame and not physically all that accurate, so I'd rather a bit better of an approach, which I'm working on.

Are the tire temps actually better? I didn't do a super in-depth test so maybe in telemetry you can see a better trend, but when I tried it, it looked basically like AC1 to me. Same old slow to heat, slow to cool style. Has it changed just recently or what?

 

[Deleted member 197115]

@mclarenf1papa, outside new gyro, that cphys is that something that works on existing, including vanilla, AC content or just tool for modders?

 

[Ghoults]

I definitely hope it is not the last one but at the same time it does so many things well that it is hard to replace by any one single product. Just the fact alone that the official development has ended years ago and the actual game engine is still getting new features added is not just insane but also something never done before. Even in whole of game industry that is really unique. The quality of mods is also still very high and lots of new mods are being made and even started. There are lots of players online and lots of match makers and other services. And to top it off there is nothing out there to challenge it.

Even if you take long break from ac and come back it will be new and different. For sure ac still has many years in it. And not just in it but at the peak of all sims on all measurable meters. Player counts, content, hours played.

I remember playing gpl a lot and for long time after it was released. It was not because I thought gpl was so amazing. It was more about the other games being not that good or the other games had issues I did not want to deal with. Mostly physics issues. But gpl also had a problem that it was relatively stagnant game at the time. There were addons that improved some of the base game engine functionality but in the end what kept gpl afloat was new tracks and car models. Not even new cars per se. Mostly new tracks. Which gpl had tons and tons.

Finally what made me move away from gpl was live for speed. It was better all around. Except mods. But lfs still added skins, online skin downloading system and autocross track creator. Also lfs had pretty solid user experience and good online racing component. It had good car and track selection. It was good, fresh and more fun than gpl. At its peak lfs was amazing with its ranking systems and such, way before iracing. So I then played lfs a lot and for long time. The community was great and there was lots of things to do like skinning competitions in addition to actually just driving. It was progressing and it was fresh, fun and interesting.

But then lfs started to become stale. Its small amount of content started cathing up to it. Development has effectively been stopped for the last 14 years. I can keep doing the same thing for a while but what kept me playing gpl was the new tracks and other smaller things. Lfs hasn't added even those. It is weird looking back how quickly lfs died for me. But what killed it for me was its stale development and just its oldness and nothing being added to it. Then ac came. It added new things that I cared about. Good quality physics, extremely well done modding support, lots of new cars and tracks. I had occasionally played gpl while playing lfs. Gpl still had new content coming. But once I moved on from lfs it was dead. There was nothing new, nothing to see, no change.

So now I have played ac for quite some years. There is nothing better out there overall now that would made me switch like I did with gpl or lfs. Ac has just so many things going for it. Everything from gpl and lfs and a lot more. It just keeps getting better. There is also no chance of ac just dying of developer inactivity like happened with lfs. Even though official development has ended years and years ago.

So for me to move on from ac I think what it takes is that ac stops improving. That effectively means that people just lose interest. Once fewer and fewer people play ac and make mods and improvements for it and fewer people play online... once ac goes from being actively improved and new stuff being added to just a library of content that was once released then I'd guess it will be the end. It can be a slow death like with gpl if there is nothing to take its place. Or it can happen quickly like for me with lfs when something else is out there. But as long as you can take, say, a 6 month break and come back to improved game with loads of new content.. ac is not going anywhere.

The thing is though even if ac2 comes out it is not a guaranteed replacement or even an improvement. For example rfactor1 was the king of sims and modding for quite some time. But rf2 did so many things wrong that it is almost impossible to look back and think its predecessor used to dominate. Ac2 can also make many mistakes and not end up anything for anybody but a very small and vocal group of people. Maybe after 10 years we look back and think how could ac2 get it so wrong. Or we could all be playing ac2 and seeing no reason to even occasionally drive ac1.

So it can so many ways. Ac could just die on its own with nothing out there to really replace it. Or it can die relatively quickly if something better comes out. Or ac can just fizzle out as people move to the other games. Or ac can just keep going for really long time if the important key people stay interested and new people with the right abilities can step up. However, sooner or late the age of the sim starts working against it. More mundane upkeeping is required to keep it running on new systems and once that starts to become not fun. I think eventually people will move on. It is just life and life happens in many ways. I very much like ac but if we are still playing ac after 10 years I'd find that more worrying for the simracing as a whole than compliment to ac. It is good. But that good?