Let me start off by saying that I've been playing ACC exclusively for the last year so that’s really my only point of reference. I don’t have Automobilista or PC2. This post is quite long but I think it may be of interest to potential customers who also don’t have those sims.
Having heard all the praise for the original Automobilista, and in particular for the FFB, I've been looking forward to trying AMS2 for some time. Recent reports from those trying the beta have been, in general, very positive so I had high hopes of something good. I’ve now tried AMS2 and have formed an initial opinion. So what do I think? The short answer is that I’m a little underwhelmed!
Remember that this is purely my opinion and I’m aware that AMS2 is still in EA. Here’s what I think of the various aspects of the sim (all single player):
Graphics - generally good. The AA seems to work well enough and playbacks looked smooth. I would say that ACC is better though (better lighting, reflections and the environment generally) but I’m aware that we’re still some way from the full release of AMS2.
Sound - again, generally good. The problem for me is that the sounds in ACC are excellent and, comparatively speaking, AMS2 is nothing to write home about.
FFB - I tried a lot of different settings and, following some suggestions online, settled on 70-40-30 in the options for my T300. I was expecting a lot here and I have to say that I’m a little disappointed. Some cars seem to have much better FFB than others. The Formula Ultimate was fun to drive but seemed to have a lot of random, small inputs through the wheel at all speeds as if the track was very bumpy. However, others, like the Caterham 620R, just felt strange. I was getting an odd left/right delayed input whilst holding the wheel steady down most of the straights (almost like a heavily damped, low-frequency oscillation) which then tightened up noticeably into the corners. I understand that the FFB has improved markedly since the early beta releases and can only think it was quite bad initially.
Handling/physics - I’ve only driven a handful of the cars so far and then with default setups to see what the basic handling is like and it was something of a mixed bag. The Formula Ultimate was the best of those I tried. The handling seemed to be fairly neutral and slides were quite easy to catch. That said, I can’t believe that it’s realistic to be able to lock the brakes with so little pressure when initially slowing down from high speed. I re-calibrated the brakes and even set the brake sensitivity to 20% but still found it too easy to lockup. Considering that real F1 drivers talk about stamping on the brakes at the end of straights, I couldn’t even get to half travel without locking the wheels making it difficult to follow other cars closely. Some of the other cars I tried had a lot of oversteer by default and were quite easy to spin when cornering. A particular example was the Caterham. I could get half way around a bend and with no additional steering, throttle or brake inputs the back end would just suddenly break away almost as if it had hit a patch of oil. Work to be done here by the devs.
AI - I’ve only had a few short races so far but the AI looks promising. They seem to want to race you and, encouragingly, I did come around one corner to find the road blocked by two cars which had clearly had contact so appeared to have been racing each other!
Performance - seems very good. I have a 6700K with a GTX 1080 and 16GB RAM and at 1440p had no problems with a grid of 25 in the rain with mostly the highest settings.
Some observations - driving on the grass is like driving on ice. It’s also so bumpy that it was almost impossible to control the car at anything other than a very slow pace. In a few instances, even at low speed, as I drove back onto the tarmac in a straight line with very little throttle I was getting a sudden snap spin. The Caterham Super Sport had very sluggish acceleration compared to everything else I tried. I thought at first I had a lot of traction control set but TC was off. There were also some minor UI issues but I’m sure these will be fixed quickly.
My overall impression is that it’s quite good in some parts but not so much in others. It’s in EA and potentially has a lot of improvements coming but, although I’m optimistic, some things are definitely a bit of a disappointment for me at the moment. Unless there’s some magic combination of settings I’ve missed, I can’t currently understand why anyone is saying how impressive the FFB is. If what I'm feeling is as good, if not better (as some have said) than AMS1, I’m glad I didn’t buy that. I’m going to keep the sim because I’d like to think that Reiza will improve it significantly over the coming months. Ignoring the problems caused by coronavirus, it’s hard to imagine how they could have improved it enough in just a month of beta testing to have achieved the originally planned full release date of the end of March. I read recently someone saying that, even at this stage of development, it compares favourably with ACC. In my opinion that point is still a long way off at best. Its big advantage, of course, is the number of cars and classes it has compared to ACC. I bought AMS2 primarily to race open wheelers which, based on my limited testing with the Formula Ultimate (locking brakes aside) looks like being good fun. For GT3, I just can’t see how it will compete with ACC.
Remember that these are purely my personal opinions so please don’t reply telling me I’m wrong unless there’s some specific setting you think I’ve missed that improves any of the issues I’ve mentioned.
Having heard all the praise for the original Automobilista, and in particular for the FFB, I've been looking forward to trying AMS2 for some time. Recent reports from those trying the beta have been, in general, very positive so I had high hopes of something good. I’ve now tried AMS2 and have formed an initial opinion. So what do I think? The short answer is that I’m a little underwhelmed!
Remember that this is purely my opinion and I’m aware that AMS2 is still in EA. Here’s what I think of the various aspects of the sim (all single player):
Graphics - generally good. The AA seems to work well enough and playbacks looked smooth. I would say that ACC is better though (better lighting, reflections and the environment generally) but I’m aware that we’re still some way from the full release of AMS2.
Sound - again, generally good. The problem for me is that the sounds in ACC are excellent and, comparatively speaking, AMS2 is nothing to write home about.
FFB - I tried a lot of different settings and, following some suggestions online, settled on 70-40-30 in the options for my T300. I was expecting a lot here and I have to say that I’m a little disappointed. Some cars seem to have much better FFB than others. The Formula Ultimate was fun to drive but seemed to have a lot of random, small inputs through the wheel at all speeds as if the track was very bumpy. However, others, like the Caterham 620R, just felt strange. I was getting an odd left/right delayed input whilst holding the wheel steady down most of the straights (almost like a heavily damped, low-frequency oscillation) which then tightened up noticeably into the corners. I understand that the FFB has improved markedly since the early beta releases and can only think it was quite bad initially.
Handling/physics - I’ve only driven a handful of the cars so far and then with default setups to see what the basic handling is like and it was something of a mixed bag. The Formula Ultimate was the best of those I tried. The handling seemed to be fairly neutral and slides were quite easy to catch. That said, I can’t believe that it’s realistic to be able to lock the brakes with so little pressure when initially slowing down from high speed. I re-calibrated the brakes and even set the brake sensitivity to 20% but still found it too easy to lockup. Considering that real F1 drivers talk about stamping on the brakes at the end of straights, I couldn’t even get to half travel without locking the wheels making it difficult to follow other cars closely. Some of the other cars I tried had a lot of oversteer by default and were quite easy to spin when cornering. A particular example was the Caterham. I could get half way around a bend and with no additional steering, throttle or brake inputs the back end would just suddenly break away almost as if it had hit a patch of oil. Work to be done here by the devs.
AI - I’ve only had a few short races so far but the AI looks promising. They seem to want to race you and, encouragingly, I did come around one corner to find the road blocked by two cars which had clearly had contact so appeared to have been racing each other!
Performance - seems very good. I have a 6700K with a GTX 1080 and 16GB RAM and at 1440p had no problems with a grid of 25 in the rain with mostly the highest settings.
Some observations - driving on the grass is like driving on ice. It’s also so bumpy that it was almost impossible to control the car at anything other than a very slow pace. In a few instances, even at low speed, as I drove back onto the tarmac in a straight line with very little throttle I was getting a sudden snap spin. The Caterham Super Sport had very sluggish acceleration compared to everything else I tried. I thought at first I had a lot of traction control set but TC was off. There were also some minor UI issues but I’m sure these will be fixed quickly.
My overall impression is that it’s quite good in some parts but not so much in others. It’s in EA and potentially has a lot of improvements coming but, although I’m optimistic, some things are definitely a bit of a disappointment for me at the moment. Unless there’s some magic combination of settings I’ve missed, I can’t currently understand why anyone is saying how impressive the FFB is. If what I'm feeling is as good, if not better (as some have said) than AMS1, I’m glad I didn’t buy that. I’m going to keep the sim because I’d like to think that Reiza will improve it significantly over the coming months. Ignoring the problems caused by coronavirus, it’s hard to imagine how they could have improved it enough in just a month of beta testing to have achieved the originally planned full release date of the end of March. I read recently someone saying that, even at this stage of development, it compares favourably with ACC. In my opinion that point is still a long way off at best. Its big advantage, of course, is the number of cars and classes it has compared to ACC. I bought AMS2 primarily to race open wheelers which, based on my limited testing with the Formula Ultimate (locking brakes aside) looks like being good fun. For GT3, I just can’t see how it will compete with ACC.
Remember that these are purely my personal opinions so please don’t reply telling me I’m wrong unless there’s some specific setting you think I’ve missed that improves any of the issues I’ve mentioned.
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