PC1 Is Project CARS a simulation? lets vote!

[Mike85]

Hi guys!

The time has come and many sim fans have purchased and tested Project Cars already! So lets express our opinion about how ''SIMMY'' this title is!

 

[Kyle Pearson]

At the end of the day it was not made for racing teams to develop cars and train drivers, it was made as a piece of racing entertainment with realistic driving.

FWIW, part of the licensing deal for the Formula Gulf *is* that it's used a trainer for their drivers. They have a setup at Dubai for training their drivers using pCARS and the Formula Gulf (as well as the Dubai track).

 

[Disco42]

Now, where is my dictionary

 

[Anthony Hodges]

Yes I think its a sim to.

 

[ouvert]

It is inconsistent ..sometimes grip level is arcadish as hell, sometimes leaning more towards sim, most of the time I suspect some kind of stability assistant in play (eventhough in settings is everything off) as it is impossible to spin any car due to agressive throttle application on corner exit (haven tried all cars to be honest, but I tried most classes) ...

 

[bmanic]

That's complete bollocks.. Try the Lotus 49, 98turbo (not wastegate pressure defaults to mid levels! set it to full and it's one of the trickiest simcars ever), some of the american muscle, old mercedes benz (forgot the model but that old huge piece of junk), BAC Mono, McLaren P1 (which is way way harder to drive in pCars than for instance in AC where you can literally floor the pedal at any point in time without any consequences.. so I guess AC is complete simcade, right?).

I think most of you guys who say you can't spin the tires are driving cars like the GT3 series or LeMans prototypes and stuff. Just go ask Rene Rast on his youtube channel about this. He has already replied to a lot of people exactly about this issue.. turns out it's not as easy to light up the rears as you'd imagine.. unless you dump the clutch, then you can spin some of the racing slicks easily just like in pCars.

Finally, it is possible you are still having TC or Stability Control enabled.. to be absolutely sure they are off you need to go into an external view and have the HUD on. Then you can see the aids if they are on or not in the lower right corner (if you see no markings then they are off).

The exceptionally quick self centering forces from the tires, which come quickly and lag free from the game into your FFB wheel makes catching slides and oversteer moments a lot easier than in many other sims. The reason is that pCars is running it's FFB and steering input processes in completely separate CPU threads. SMS coded a completely new low latency, high process priority system, from scratch, due to all the input lag complaints of the early builds and the Shift series. So they went from "worst of the bunch" to "class leading" in this area.

 

[bmanic]

oops double post

 

[Kurupt CDN]

Not sure what to say? I've spun several cars while exiting corners with too much throttle, he'll I spun the Mercedes-Benz dtm 3 times in today's club race lol even saw a few others pushing too hard and spun out

 

[ouvert]

well I would expect to spin Lotus 78 on cold tires (that one is on rails .. jumping over curbs without loosing stability).. will try some of your sugestions and will check those asistants (in settings it is set to Real so I expect some level of TC and ABS on GT and possibly on older touring cars).. so far no spinnig cars for me .. I`m used to drive GTR Evo and GSC mostly so I`m used to drive with lots of grip (GTR Evo).. I`m not expecting extremely low grip, I`m just surprised how gripy cold tires on cars I`ve tried are ..

 

[bmanic]

.. and if this single "issue" makes pCars be "simcade" then that would automatically mean that Assetto Corsa is simcade as well. There are so many cars in AC where it truly is impossible to spin the wheels on corner exit (and ironically quite a few of these cars spin their wheels just fine in Project CARS.. some of them even being pretty lethal whereas they are completely docile in AC).

 

[Leynad777]

The arcade-level IMHO depends on the class. GT3 is more sim than in AC due to the weather changes. They have the same breaking points with full grip, but pCars don´t have full grip all the time. Super Kart on the other hand is very arcadig. The real karts aren´t that fast, robust and accelerate like a F1

 

[bmanic]

well I would expect to spin Lotus 78 on cold tires (that one is on rails .. jumping over curbs without loosing stability).. will try some of your sugestions and will check those asistants (in settings it is set to Real so I expect some level of TC and ABS on GT and possibly on older touring cars).. so far no spinnig cars for me ..

If you put assists at REAL it means that if the real car has them, they are enabled by default (you can turn them off though with individual buttons/keys). To be absolutely sure you don't have any assists, turn them to OFF in the menu.

As for the Lotus 78.. sounds weird. At slow speeds it should pretty easily spin it's wheels if you mistreat the shift. Are you perhaps using auto clutch?

It's a tricky car to drive with fully manual gear box.

As for it's stability.. if you drive corners at moderately fast pace then the down force will keep you glued. It is after all one of those down ground effect/down force monsters of the past.

What kind of laptimes are you setting btw? The reason I ask is that in the past, people who complained that the cars are too easy to drive and don't ever spin, were all off the general pace by a significant margin (some as much as 10 seconds per lap!!).

Finally, check which tire you are running on the Lotus 78. I think they defaulted to a newer tire but I'm not sure. At one point we had tons of different tires we could select for the 78 and some of them where almost impossible to drive. Not sure if they are there now (at work.. so can't start up the game).

 

[F_B]

What some people seem to forget: many many many race with 100% grip in AC and wonder why there is so much grip. If you turn that down to green for example things look different.

Can you change the grip level in PCars? Haven’t checked that, yet.

 

[bmanic]

Super Kart on the other hand is very arcadig. The real karts aren´t that fast, robust and accelerate like a F1

Are you sure? Check your facts.. and also check super kart videos on youtube. It's ridiculous how fast they reach 200km/h speeds from standstill. These are WICKED fast machines in real life.

Though I think the chassis physics are a bit weird on the karts in general but the speed sure isn't exaggerated as far as I know.

EDIT: From wikipedia "Powered by a 2-stroke 250 cc engine producing 62 hp for an overall weight including the driver of 205 kilograms, Superkarts have a power/weight ratio of 440 hp/tonne (330 W/kg)(c.5 lbs/hp). Superkarts can accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in less than 3 seconds with a top speed of 155 mph (250 km/h).[8] Their low weight and good downforce make for excellent cornering[9] and braking abilities.[10] A Superkart is capable of braking from 100 mph (160 km/h) to standstill in around 2 seconds, and taking corners at nearly 3 g (30 m/s²).[11]"

 

[Leynad777]

Are you sure? Check your facts.. and also check super kart videos on youtube. It's ridiculous how fast they reach 200km/h speeds from standstill. These are WICKED fast machines in real life.

Though I think the chassis physics are a bit weird on the karts in general but the speed sure isn't exaggerated as far as I know.

EDIT: From wikipedia "Powered by a 2-stroke 250 cc engine producing 62 hp for an overall weight including the driver of 205 kilograms, Superkarts have a power/weight ratio of 440 hp/tonne (330 W/kg)(c.5 lbs/hp). Superkarts can accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in less than 3 seconds with a top speed of 155 mph (250 km/h).[8] Their low weight and good downforce make for excellent cornering[9] and braking abilities.[10] A Superkart is capable of braking from 100 mph (160 km/h) to standstill in around 2 seconds, and taking corners at nearly 3 g (30 m/s²).[11]"

Yes, i checked the real performance, but you didn´t check the performance in pCars i guess. They drive nearly 275 Km/h and 220 they reach within a short straight. You can see in this video (250 cc), they are very fast, but not so fast than in pCars:

 

[ouvert]

As for the Lotus 78.. sounds weird. At slow speeds it should pretty easily spin it's wheels if you mistreat the shift. Are you perhaps using auto clutch?

It's a tricky car to drive with fully manual gear box.

As for it's stability.. if you drive corners at moderately fast pace then the down force will keep you glued. It is after all one of those down ground effect/down force monsters of the past.

What kind of laptimes are you setting btw? The reason I ask is that in the past, people who complained that the cars are too easy to drive and don't ever spin, were all off the general pace by a significant margin (some as much as 10 seconds per lap!!).

Finally, check which tire you are running on the Lotus 78. I think they defaulted to a newer tire but I'm not sure. At one point we had tons of different tires we could select for the 78 and some of them where almost impossible to drive. Not sure if they are there now (at work.. so can't start up the game).

I`ll try it .. currently I`m on autoclutch (still blipping and cutting power ... old habits) cause my pedals with clutch are disassembled as I`m rebuilding them (pC made me breake my "no touching any sim till you finnish them" rule ) .. could be that .. I haven`t really check the lap times, I`m mostly trying cars and tracks and not pushing super hard, but enough to loose grip in other sims ..

And I`m not trying to say it is bad game or arcade, just rather inconsistent through classes/cars .. I`m not gamer I used to be 10-15 years ago and sims are pretty much all I find myself enjoying these days after few years long pause, I`m glad for any new sim/simcade and pCars seems to be on a good way to be fun and relaxing one ..
On the other hand I consider GSC to be a solid sim with talented people behind its physics and yet V8 Stocks are super stable after update (tricky to drive before) and it is not bug as I was told by Reiza .. so who really knows

 

[Connor Caple]

I voted Sim because it simulates a full career/race weekends for me.

The handling is not bad at all. FFB has plenty of feel to it. Graphics decent (wishing I had NVidia though). Weather simulation is great fun. No complaints, other than AMD being bad at drivers

 

[Sean Kenney]

The AI...not sure what it simming?

Having a tough time with the AI raping me in corners atm. Had fun with the formula1k cars though. Don't want to get deep into a career bc I will get frustrated.

 

[Brent Mills]

I love how the tires still have a level of grip when sliding, unlike others *cough* Iracing *cough*.

I think if God had modelled 'Real Life' on some others that are regarded as full blown sims there would be 1000's of fatalities every weekend, they are just that hard! Do some light braking on the skip barber in RF2 at speed on a mild bend and you'll see what I mean. And that's on a training car! Racing would be seen as more thrill seeking dangerous than wingsuit flying!

 

[Andy_J]

I'm still not too sure. It does not simulate racing with DRS properly for one thing. Allowing drivers to use it willy nilly during a race whenever they feel like it is just so wrong.

 

[Peter Hooper]

I'm still not too sure. It does not simulate racing with DRS properly for one thing. Allowing drivers to use it willy nilly during a race whenever they feel like it is just so wrong.

Wow.. really.. I didn't realise that was possible.