Jimmy's not wrong, but he's not right either

Shovas

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You may have noticed a flurry of positive videos about AMS2's latest release, Racin' USA. Well, Jimmy Broadbent noticed and put up a short video about it and his opinions on the latest Racin' USA improvements. Jimmy has such a large audience that his opinion will attract by far the most attention of sim racers, outside of a small subset who know what other channels to watch.

Now, he's not exactly wrong, but he's not exactly right, either. He's probably absolutely right about some of the behaviour of cars over kerbs, or a generally bouncy ride, or the feel of skipping over the road surface as opposed to rolling over it, and perhaps other things.

But when Jimmy contrasts the physics, ffb, handling, and driving experience to titles like iRacing and ACC, I have to question whether he's coming at this objectively and whether he's put in enough time with AMS2 (he admits he has put little time into AMS2).

iRacing's nickname, iceRacing, is well-earned, to this day, even though it's on a physical tyre model. How Jimmy talks about being "connected to the road" in iRacing blows my mind. ACC still exhibits awkward lumbering slides and tyres that feel on edge all the time with little threshold to play.

Yes, AMS2 can and must improve in some areas to really nail the experience, but I feel opinions on what's "realistic" in sims is missing the point, and we really should all know this by now...

Because all sims are pretty bad if you compare to real life driving. If we're honest, they're almost nothing alike, we're just interpreting one mode to another. In fact, when it comes down to "realistic" physics, ffb, and handling...

I suggest a term like "intuitive" is better than "accurate", "simulation", "simcade", or "arcade" to describe the way we interpret sim handling.

For me, rF2 with its rubber grip catching and releasing, is the most intuitive I've felt in any sim, followed by AMS2, no surprise because they're both using physical tyre models. ACC follows after which, for having an empirical tyre model, is actually really good, you can feel a bit more in ACC than other empirical tyre model sims. iRacing follows somewhere after and its hit or miss depending on the car.

What do you guys think? Do we even have an objective way of talking about sim handling? Has Jimmy put in enough time on AMS2 to be objective given he's put in hundreds or thousands of hours on iR/ACC?

Here's Jimmy's video and a response from Ermin Hamidovic:


 
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I’ve had AMS2 in my library since early access, bought with the complete season pack, and yet I’ve never played it, but I really want to.

Why don’t I? Well, whenever there’s a new release off I go to the usual YouTubers and watch - not listen, watch. Then I say to myself, ah well, maybe next time.

And why is that? Well, when I see what’s supposed to be a highly tuned and prepared race car lurch, wobble and bounce around a flat tarmac track as much as the cars in Wreckfest do on a bumpy dirt track then as far as I’m concerned the simulation is way off, and not for me.

One day I hope I’ll be able to say it’s fixed, but it’s looking like it’s a limitation of the Madness engine, like it models springs but somebody forgot to include dampers.
 
" Why don’t I? Well, whenever there’s a new release off I go to the usual YouTubers and watch - not listen, watch."

tenor.gif
 
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One day I hope I’ll be able to say it’s fixed, but it’s looking like it’s a limitation of the Madness engine, like it models springs but somebody forgot to include dampers.
The weird thing is PC2 didn't do this. It had all sorts of other issues, some of which AMS2 also exhibits, but it didn't bounce around like crazy as AMS2 does.

I was going to talk about my particular issues but honestly what is the point? The AMS2 community has become really hostile to other owners who have issues so I have stayed away from discussing my issues on it and playing it, I just don't like the game but its community is much much worse than the game actually is, so I avoid it more than I otherwise would as I enjoyed PC2. PC2 had problems but not the same ones and its community was a lot more accepting of the games limitations.
 
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The AMS2 community has become really hostile to other owners who have issues so I have stayed away from discussing my issues on it and playing it, I just don't like the game and its community is much much worse than the game actually is so I avoid it more than I otherwise would as I enjoyed PC2.
Sorry to hear that. The AMS2 community doesn't strike me as particularly hostile, not better or worse than any other simacing forum currently. Sure, we're a bunch of know-it-alls, but usually constructive criticism is met with scrutiny, but that should be the norm anyways. If you'd just go in and declare AMS2 to be crap or that you don't like it, people firstly can't help you and secondly will have some remarks for you, but that's the same in any gaming community I ever was part of. There are black sheep and carebears anywhere.

Edit: Haha Emoji, hm? Maybe that's your issue :)
 
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Here is my two cents...If the first Sim you got into was AC then that game feels the most real and you like it because it is what you know..If on the other hand your first game was PC2 like me, well then that is the one you think of as the standard...They are all just games so if it is more real or not isnt important...What is important is if you have fun playing them...I get it people crap on PC2 because the cars are crazy, but to me it makes the races more exciting because anything can happen and often does..AC on the other hand seems less exciting, the cars are too rooted and it just does not have the same wow factor that is in PC2 and AMS2..Point is give them all a chance, if you have spent lots of money for a system and wheel, dont let 30 or 40 dollars keep you from and awesome game..On a personal note, AMS2 in VR at a night race..just wow..people talk about smelling the exhaust, but it look so real that my brain started putting things in and for a moment i could smell the interior of a car..true story.
 
What is a little telling to me is just how different the various sims feel, even given the same cars on the same tracks. For example, the Lotus 49 in PC2 is an easy to drive car with good grip. In AMS2, it's a slippery beast that skates across the road like on ice. In yet another sim, the tires feel notably like solid objects (no deformation, etc.). This is not unexpected, given the different engines, etc.

Now, I haven't driven a '49 (I wish!), and you can quickly get used to any of the sim's models, but the wide disparity in behavior suggests that the sim's are, first and foremost, just "different" rather than objectively "accurate vs. inaccurate."

Some people are very concerned about the accuracy of every element in sim racing, e.g. those using a sim as a training aid for real racing. For most, though, the differences aren't worth squabbling about, as it ultimately all comes down to personal preference.

I'm on record stating that no sim can possibly be even remotely "realistic" compared to actually driving a real race car. What most people want, I think, is a sim that provides the best and most satisfying illusion of racing given an ample helping of suspended disbelief. That illusion doesn't actually have to be "accurate" or "realistic," the sim just has to provide the right kind of visual, auditory, and other feedback cues to maintain and reinforce that suspended disbelief in a fun and satisfying way.

Example: Euro Truck 2 is not likely high on most people's list of sims with realistic driving dynamics, yet the first time I was blind-sided by another truck was shocking to me in a way that crashes in racing sims have not been. The context, a familiar one of normal highway driving, primed an emotional reaction much as I would have had in real life. Despite mixed driving realism, the game succeeded in sucking me into that suspended disbelief.
 
Well the fact that Jimmy is right is not lost on the majority of the simming population. If it was wrong then more than a couple hundred would be playing it. He is right.

I think the thread was an attempt to obscure and mitigate the fact that he was right. I don't mind reading what people write except to think its just redundant since the thread is a fallacy and the guy was basically correct in the video.

Another month and I bet you they barely make any headway into any of these issues. Its too huge a task to wrangle the madness engine into being anything more than worth dusting off at best once per year- which is a real problem - since AC and even forza horizons is worth dusting off literally all the time.

Like Jimmy also said iirc, even when or if a huge IF they get it somehow right and I don't see how - will anyone be left playing it to notice?
 
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If I had to name the sim that most feels like driving a real car, I would say Rfactor 2. Am I saying it has the best physics? No, not at all. I know there are issues physics wise, but that can be said of all sims. When I drive other sims such as R3E, ACC, iRacing and Rfactor 2 even though they are different, there are seldom moments I have where I think "What the heck was THAT?"
In AMS2 it happens far too often where things happen that just don't feel believable. It's less noticeable in lower powered cars and in some cars I can really have a good time. In other cases you get really odd forced understeer, some cars feel like they are somehow AWD, The camera and the ffb sometimes feel like they disagree on what the car is doing, sometimes to cure understeer you can simply add more wheel lock and poof, problem solved, you take the V10 to Suzuka and sometimes you hit the curb and are going on the grass and it just feels like you are going into a motion capture moment like in the Madden video game and none of your inputs actually do anything. There are just way too many times where I say to myself that didn't feel right at all.
 
I was going to talk about my particular issues but honestly what is the point? The AMS2 community has become really hostile to other owners who have issues so I have stayed away from discussing my issues on it and playing it, I just don't like the game but its community is much much worse than the game actually is, so I avoid it more than I otherwise would as I enjoyed PC2. PC2 had problems but not the same ones and its community was a lot more accepting of the games limitations.

It's not just the community, I have raised my concerns and issues in a friendly and as detailed manner as possible to help with issues I have had with the game (I can't call it a sim) and try and fix them and got told by Renato Simioni to learn how to drive and that my issue didn't matter. Completely turned me off the game.

I run a community which is mainly based in AMS 1 and it is a great platform, AMS 2 not only doesn't have the content to run leagues which people here (in Australia) are interested in, but the lack of modding ability and the completely unusable and poor multiplayer code has lead to the admin team to despise the game and we've begun looking towards other platforms once AMS 1 is too long in the tooth, and that's not even taking into consideration the physics or steering issues.
 
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How many sims do we have from the last 15 years : 100 ? 50 ? No, less than 15 so if sim-racing is your hobby then you can buy 1 sim per year and now you certainly have them all. So what's the point to say A is better than B ? It is only a question of taste like colors : is red superior to blue ? No...except if you are scuderia fan...well they could argue that yellow is the real original ferrari color :D
By example some need modding but others just don't care.
In the end just buy and test things by yourself, don't trust any review as feeling and preferences are really personnal (I don't own the same car of my neighbour, neither the same wife and you ? :D ) :
- you like, keep it and enjoy :)
- you dislike then erase it and get a refund from steam, and PLEASE STOP WHINING OR TROLLING because it is so boring honestly.
 
you dislike then erase it and get a refund from steam, and PLEASE STOP WHINING OR TROLLING because it is so boring honestly.
Like many others, I suspect, I keep AMS2 on my system because I live in hope that it will develop into something that I’ll really get to like. Prospective buyers use forums like these to get an idea of how the game plays and how it might work with their setup. Unless the mods allow both praise and criticism, it gives an unrealistic impression of the state of the game. Critics are not always trolls.
 
The way the cars handle and the steering (which I have mentioned various times here) feels like something from Grid to me, I input steering and the cars don't start turning until 80-90 degrees of steering lock is applied, only games I have had that is arcade games geared towards controllers. Before you ask, I have tried changing every steering option, steering wheel rotation etc. on my own wheels settings as well as in game settings to try and alleviate this and it still does it.

Add in the basic tyre model, handling quirks with the various cars and appalling "netcode" make it exactly like the arcade/casual racing games i've played which liter the console market.
 
The main issue is with the ”community” that they are listening to average simracers youtubers who are no alien drivers, no real racing driver, no engineering background who would understand the underlying physics of a car.
These people can then freely spout whatever and people take it for fact.

just because Ermin thinks a car on one track feels bumpy or whatever doesent mean his opinion holds more truth than anyone of us here.

All sims are still games and no one of them are accurate enough to simulate reality.

play whatever sim you want, ive played loads of AC before but now im mainly playing Ams2.

Stop with the gatekeeping, we need more simracers not less.
 
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The way the cars handle and the steering (which I have mentioned various times here) feels like something from Grid to me, I input steering and the cars don't start turning until 80-90 degrees of steering lock is applied, only games I have had that is arcade games geared towards controllers. Before you ask, I have tried changing every steering option, steering wheel rotation etc. on my own wheels settings as well as in game settings to try and alleviate this and it still does it.

Add in the basic tyre model, handling quirks with the various cars and appalling "netcode" make it exactly like the arcade/casual racing games i've played which liter the console market.

Well it quite clearly isn't like that, there is something wrong with your wheel calibration. Which wheelbase is it? Are you following the calibration instructions precisely? Is it reporting the correct wheel rotation on screen?

And the tyre model is not "basic", it's one of the most advanced of all the current sims. And I've seen no netcode issues in my last several races, might be just related to host bandwidth/reliability issues.
 
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Well it quite clearly isn't like that, there is something wrong with your wheel calibration. Which wheelbase is it? Are you following the calibration instructions precisely? Is it reporting the correct wheel rotation on screen?

And the tyre model is not "basic", it's one of the most advanced of all the current sims. And I've seen no netcode issues in my last several races, might be just related to host bandwidth/reliability issues.
Read my earlier posts, I have tried, changed every known in-game and fanatec hardware and software setting possible as well as delete old profiles after updates etc. Done it all, still does it.

That's great, we ran a fun night with 15+ cars, all people based in the same region, cars warped all over the place and had cars who were racing close end up warping and appearing in the other car causing big problems.
 
Im on the east coast US and I'm in a Australian league. Never encountered any real netcoding issues or warping.

My wheel inputs turn the cars.

Anyone who says its not a sim or for casual driving has never tried to maintain 10% wheel slip angle with the rears around silverstone in an M1 Procar which I was doing just two minutes ago.

I come here and its like another planet.
 

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