If rFactor 2 is unplayable on my system, will AC also be unplayable?

Vaughn Stegeman · Mar 5, 2014

I've been looking forward to AC since I first heard of it. However, aside from my graphics card (nVidia GTX 560 Ti 1 gig) my system is pretty dated (Pentium D Dual 3.4ghz with 3gigs RAM, Win 7 32-bit)
Not wanting to drop money on a product I'd be unable to use, I decided to try out the rFactor 2 demo, thinking that would be a decent test of my system's ability to play the 'next gen' racing sims.
Well, that didn't go well at all. rFactor 2 was completely unplayable, even with everything on the lowest settings.
SO! My question is: Does this inherently mean that AC would also be unplayable on my system? I assume so, as the system specs for rFactor 2 are lower than they are for AC.
Thanks!

vee10 · Mar 6, 2014

Rfactor 2 does need some tweaking via Nvidia inspector on my system as well to get it looking nice and running well. Where as i can run AC on full settings when hotlapping no problem (AI racing 15+ cars i have to lower the AA and ANSIO). So all is not lost.

My System:
Intel i5-3570k (over clock) CPU
Asus p8277v-lx2 Motherboard
16Gb DDR3 Ram
1Tb Hard Drive
DVD-RW
Card Reader
Wireless Card
Geforce GTX 660Ti
ATX Case with 650w OCZ PSU
Windows 7 Home 64Bit

Ben Lee · Mar 6, 2014

Without wanting to sound unkind, I think that PC is probably a little long in the tooth now to be expecting great performance from modern titles. I last did a rebuild of my own PC about 3 years ago and to be honest, it still cuts through most games at medium – high settings. Modern hardware progress has also slowed down massively, seemingly gone are the days now where every 6 months you would get new hardware with a 20-30% increase in performance. I remember upgrading from my X850 to a X1900 and getting double the performance, that was a year gap between the hardware.

Chris · Mar 6, 2014

Sodemo said:
Modern hardware progress has also slowed down massively, seemingly gone are the days now where every 6 months you would get new hardware with a 20-30% increase in performance. I remember upgrading from my X850 to a X1900 and getting double the performance, that was a year gap between the hardware.

I've noticed this too! My first GPU was a 9800GT, six months later I upgraded to a 5770 and it gave me around a 50% increase in performance.

Audren Lavenerable · Mar 6, 2014

I own a HP Probook 4540s equipped with the 2nd Gen intel i5 with Intel HD 3000, rfactor 2 is pretty much unplayable on it but it plays Assetto Corsa very well. Although I am not sure for your case as you have a Pentium Dual Core and a very good card graphic, I have a very good processor but not a very good graphics card.

Vaughn Stegeman · Mar 6, 2014

Thanks! Interesting comments. Perhaps AC would run playably. .. I do run nVidia Inpector, but I just used the pre-configured settings for rFactor 2.
I would LOVE to upgrade my system, but it simply is not financially feasable for some time to come -- especially since I had one of my monitors die on me yesterday.
I'll just stick with Race 07 and GTR2 for now then, and someday I'll be able to upgrade my CPU, MB, and RAM.

Stelios · Mar 6, 2014

Hey @Vaughn Stegeman , i say you must buy it. NOW. Because it is -33% for this weekend.
I am pretty sure it will scale nicely but you must run it with low settings.
You dont want to be missing the progress of this fine sim, trust me.

Stereo · Mar 6, 2014

Your CPU's most likely to cause issues when driving against AI; might be limited to small fields. Hard to say right now how optimized multiplayer will be in that regard - it doesn't need to simulate every car's physics of course, but the graphics/audio load is still there.

With low settings my 460GTX could produce usable framerates so in that regard you're probably fine.

Nobby76 · Mar 7, 2014

As someone with a computer a little closer to your settings i will give my (for what its worth) input.
I run a AMD Phenom X2 black 3.1 (dual core)
4gb ram
and an Nvidia 650 gfx card

While i cannot run with everything turned on full. i can run 1920x1080 and a lot of the settings on medium. just things like AA and reflections turned right down.
I get perfect play during hotlap/ practise. and if i race i can have about 9-10 AI cars on track with me. and apart from the first corner where they all pile up, i usually get decent playability out of it. Despite not having everything on full, i really dont notice if trees look a little jaggy and things like that as they pass you so fast. you need to spend all your time making sure the car is not trying to kill you to worry about if trees look nice or not

Steven Scott · Mar 7, 2014

I downloaded AC because of the weekend sale, and I was pleasantly surprised how well it ran while rF2 definitely struggles. I run it at medium and get steady 40-50 fps. I'm on AMD A8-3820 2.something ghz, 8 gigs ram, AMD HD7755 (doesn't even use external power connections) 1 gig DDR.

Kjell Eilertsen · Mar 7, 2014

In terms of optimization, rF2 is horrible, it needs a bit of tinkering to get running well on anything less than high end computers (and possibly on them too, i don't own one so can't tell). AC is running a lot smoother on my system.
What I'm trying to say is that you should not judge how well AC runs on your system based on how rF2 runs, because they are very very different that way.

Jasjeet Suri · Mar 8, 2014

The Pentium D Dual 3.4ghz, is the issue, this CPU is so old and pretty awful in terms of todays standard, it will bottleneck your GPU for sure.
Even a sandy bridge i3 would be a huge upgrade, allowing your GPU to work at full potential.
You can check this by monitoring GPU usage whilst playing rFactor 2, if the GPU is not pegged at 100% (with vsync off) then the CPU is holding it back.

Nobby76 · Mar 8, 2014

Also another thing is recently there was another optimise in the update IIRC, which made a difference to my system at least. before if i had more than 6 AI cars it would stutter a bit. now i can go to 10 and apart from that first "bunch up" at the first turn of a track it runs ok. better with 10 now than it did with 6 ai before.

Raig Strehlow · Mar 10, 2014

Buy it now 33% and when you updated your PC, you will love the guy who said: buy it now^^

InsaneOzzie · Mar 12, 2014

Your problem is definitely the CPU, being the fact that it is 775 CPU architecture you might be able to get a Quad core for it 2nd hand, this would no doubt increase your FPS and stop the bottlenecking of the GPU, as well as being a little easier on your wallet. I would suggest checking out some of the overclocking sites, as they usually have a for sale thread where you might be able to get a CPU cheap, if not, sell your body and upgrade that PC

Vaughn Stegeman · Mar 12, 2014

Well, I didn't buy AC while it was on sale. Just didn't feel comfortable buying something that I may well not be able to use. I'd rather save up for a new system.
Regarding new system, I'm certainly not going to upgrade this one any more. It would make MUCH more sense to get a new motherboard-CPU-RAM combo .. for many reasons, considering what I do with my machine.
Thanks everyone!!

Georg Winter · Mar 14, 2014

I have Intel i5-2500k, 8GB DDR3 1333Mhz and a GTX285 and AC is running perfect. Normally I have 2*GTX285(1 broken few days ago) and then I can play at all max.

Chris James · Mar 14, 2014

I'll just add that on my system, AC runs much better than rF2, and at better settings. I do agree that it may be time for you to start saving for a new processor, though.

Kristóf Kerekes · Mar 14, 2014

I had the same-ish system as you, and while rFactor 2 run nearly flawless with full grids, Assetto Corsa struggled with hotlapping. That was in patch 0.3 though. I've upgraded my PC since then, so I can't really comment on the current performance of the game.

perform3r · Mar 17, 2014

i got HD6870 and phenomII t1100 x6

VerticalSync off
AA 2x
FA-AA 2x
cubemap resulotion low

and no matter how high you set other values, you will have over 30-50fps on hotlapmode.
this enables nice grafics and good performance to 2-4years old systems