PC1 pCars = crap to start with

[Marco Versele]

I'm playing most of the recent racing games except iRacing.
Never had any difficulty to setup the game (with Reiza's Game stock car Extreme just 100% right out of the box).
Having to find out and adjust as well the controller as the car setups each time again and again is IMHO a slip and very unpleasant There are to many variables, and that cannot work.
It's like a walking stick with a hinge in the middle. You never get it right.
The number of posts each with the same question: "How to setup FFB?", but each with a different outcome, speaks for itself.

As for me, I went back to rFactor2. At least I can race.

 

[PaulH]

Totally agree! I don't want to spend 6hours(I did yesterday) faffing about with FFB settings on one car, they you have to do that again in a different car, way too many settings.
I don't mind spending 6hours in the car setups but FFB.......

 

[Sean Kenney]

It wasn't crap, but it sure wasn't good.

 

[Kyle Pearson]

Many people now are releasing FFB Tweak files which can just be placed into a Project CARS/FFB folder in your Documents folder. I would suggest checking out the official forums as they are starting to be posted now.

Unfortunately, FFB is quite subjective. Personally, with a few minor tweaks, I enjoy the default FFB. There are Jack Spade tweakers which a lot of people like, but personally I never did (tried them out during the testing the WMD members did during development). But again, each person will have what they like and don't like...

I think a lot of the sim community have forgotten (or were not in sim racing at the time) all of the FFB tweaking and testing that went on with GTR2 and rFactor.

 

[Simon Hulbert]

I think a lot of the sim community have forgotten (or were not in sim racing at the time) all of the FFB tweaking and testing that went on with GTR2 and rFactor.

Yes, that's because of progress, the likes of iRacing, Assetto Corsa, rFactor 2 & GSC have brought to sim racing. Something which WMD have completely ignored. This really is like going back in time to the early days of Real Feel without any of the benefits.

 

[vee10]

Totally agree it is far to complicated. Its like Slightly Mad don't quite trust themselves to get it right so they just let us try and work it out.

Why they never used the RF2 way of doing things is beyond me. Check you are not clipping too much then you are ready to go.

 

[Kyle Pearson]

Yes, that's because of progress, the likes of iRacing, Assetto Corsa, rFactor 2 & GSC have brought to sim racing. Something which WMD have completely ignored. This really is like going back in time to the early days of Real Feel without any of the benefits.

I find it funny when people mention iRacing. Either they weren't part of the iRacing beta or weren't part of the initial rollout of iRacing. Most of the initial complaints of iRacing was it's FFB and lack of options for configuring it. What happened is that iRacing ignore the complaints and people eventually moved on to take iRacing for what it is.. iRacing doesn't have the best FFB, but it's ok.

As for AC, what a lot of people like with AC is that they have a lot of canned effects. I'm not saying canned effects are bad, but a majority of what they provide is canned effects. If you disable all of the canned effects, the FFB is (interestingly) similar to pCARS out of the box. Technically, pCARS has quite a few canned effect in the engine but they are disabled (they were usable in the dev builds with the dev menu).

Personally, I think people are too conditioned to overactive FFB implementations. I don't think it's wrong, as everyone has there own idea of what FFB should be for "them". The goal would be to have something that is flexible for everyone to have their "own FFB" but not be complicated to get there. I'm not really sure that is possible, but there will be a lot of preset XML's coming from WMD members as well as the new pCARS community as they understand what they can tweak. I may be alone in this, but I'm interested to see what people come up with given the tools they have.

 

[PaulH]

I find it funny when people mention iRacing. Either they weren't part of the iRacing beta or weren't part of the initial rollout of iRacing. Most of the initial complaints of iRacing was it's FFB and lack of options for configuring it. What happened is that iRacing ignore the complaints and people eventually moved on to take iRacing for what it is.. iRacing doesn't have the best FFB, but it's ok.

As for AC, what a lot of people like with AC is that they have a lot of canned effects. I'm not saying canned effects are bad, but a majority of what they provide is canned effects. If you disable all of the canned effects, the FFB is (interestingly) similar to pCARS out of the box. Technically, pCARS has quite a few canned effect in the engine but they are disabled (they were usable in the dev builds with the dev menu).

Personally, I think people are too conditioned to overactive FFB implementations. I don't think it's wrong, as everyone has there own idea of what FFB should be for "them". The goal would be to have something that is flexible for everyone to have their "own FFB" but not be complicated to get there. I'm not really sure that is possible, but there will be a lot of preset XML's coming from WMD members as well as the new pCARS community as they understand what they can tweak. I may be alone in this, but I'm interested to see what people come up with given the tools they have.

Yeah, I willing to wait for people to come out with preset XML's as its just too frustrating for me at the moment, I want to like the game, so hopefully within a few weeks I will be able to sing its praises too
I will say though I did get the Formula Rookie car setup nicely and enjoyed that car in a few races, so there's hope.....

 

[Colin O Callaghan]

To be honest I recall spending hours setting all of them up, Asetto, GSCE and now project cars, finally got it running near max settings and a FFB thats good for all cars and loving it, yeah it could have been better, but its just released, with patches and modding this Game will be amazing in the future. Having some stunning races with PCars career and AI, I love all 3 Sims, they all have their ups and downs but all 3 are brilliant. Just saying, it took a long few months and a great few mods and graphics tweaking to get GSCE and Asetto to where i have them now. The same will happen with PCars once the tools come out to mod and add cars tracks apps etc. And as an out of the box, its damn good, just bought it 2 days ago and already tweaked graphics, FFB and have it running superb. Don't know what all the fuss and comparison is all about to be honest.

Final Thought: All sims are unique and different in their own way, all of the major contenders are really good, including PCars.

Regards

 

[Kyle Pearson]

I will say though I did get the Formula Rookie car setup nicely and enjoyed that car in a few races, so there's hope.....

Off topic, but the Formula Rookie was one of my early favorites in pCARS. I could really see some fantastic league racing with this car.

 

[William Wester]

You can go into "every" specific racing gaming forum and read posts on the same type of issues - bugs, FFB, graphical performance, lack of features, lack of content, etc.. I guarantee you will see "this or that sucks" type of posts in the GT, Forza, rFactor 2, AC, GSCE, R3E, Dirt Rally, ... forums. Many are fueled by user frustration brought on by impatience or unrealistic expectations. As a good example, the first time I tried GSCE (demo) I couldn't see what others were seeing in this game, but a few months later I gave it another shot and I'm so glad I did - great sim!
I predicted pCARS was going to have to weather a storm after release, it is such a huge and ambitious undertaking that bugs and lack of some expected features still remained when May 2015 rolled around.
It's taken many many months for AC, rFactor 2, RE3 to get where they are today AFTER being released. Project CARS is no different, some will stick around some will not.

 

[Radu Oros]

As for AC, what a lot of people like with AC is that they have a lot of canned effects. I'm not saying canned effects are bad, but a majority of what they provide is canned effects. If you disable all of the canned effects, the FFB is (interestingly) similar to pCARS out of the box. Technically, pCARS has quite a few canned effect in the engine but they are disabled (they were usable in the dev builds with the dev menu).

I don't think there are canned (fake) effects in AC's ffb. I only use Gain to setup the ffb. I turned off everything else, including in logitech profiler (using 100% overall effects, anything higher or under will mask the game ffb). So I just adjust in car setup the ffb gain for the car, so to not clip. That's all.
AC's ffb reacts to the forces and bumps of other cars, of the kerbs, the elevation changes, uneven surface, the car weight transfer, grip, slip angle etc. There is no extra vibration or fake effects. Though you can add using kerbs, road, slip effects in the controls menu. But I play with them off, to feel the car in a more pure way. And if you still think about canned effects, maybe you just feel vibrations of the wheel base, but not of the steering wheel.
DD wheels also only need to use Gain (and some damper maybe), or through the dd wheel software.
GSCE also has options for pure ffb, or with other effects. For a more direct ffb, use low or medium. The high setting is for other effects.

 

[bmanic]

If you turn off spring and damper in the logitech profiler and turn off all the slip, road and stuff from AC and only run the main FFB, then indeed you have pure FFB and no canned effects.

.. at least on a Thrustmaster TX 458 AC feels pretty dead this way (and usually with a horrid no-force dead zone in the middle of many cars). I usually add a little slip and road noise to get a better feel for the cars. I also add springs and dampers in the control panel (periodic and somethig.. whatever it's called in thrustmaster speak).

One thing I'm sorely missing from Project CARS is a proper implementation of ABS "shudder". They unfortunately screwed it up a bit with the 600hz physics tick. Apparently the lack of ABS shudder is due to the fact that the ABS calculation too is running at 600hz which is way too fast and not at all like in reality where it only calculates at a few hertz. Hopefully they remember to look into this issue because breaking just at the threshold of ABS total lockup gives you the best breaking distance (easy to verify). It's probably one of the reasons people say there's no break feel to the cars.. if you have ABS enabled there simply is no feel at all. It just breaks "perfectly" (albeit not optimally) which is sad. iRacing does the whole ABS thing quite nicely, even if it is a canned FFB effect. Wish we could get that in pCars too.. canned or not canned, doesn't matter.

 

[Kyle Pearson]

AC's ffb reacts to the forces and bumps of other cars, of the kerbs, the elevation changes, uneven surface, the car weight transfer, grip, slip angle etc. There is no extra vibration or fake effects.

Actually, most of that is fake. A real life steering wheel doesn't do that... If it did, I'd get the heck out of the car!

Those things aren't bad, as I mentioned. In some cases they are desireable as we are using virtual hardware which isn't moving. This requires "some" level of faking to bring immersion. Some of those are in pCARS, you just have to understand and use them. I will say the pCARS FFB system is quite complex unless you spend time to understand everything. I don't profess to be that person.. I tinker around with things to get them to feel like my real life race car does, but that doesn't mean I understand the meaning behind what I change.

 

[Marco Versele]

I don't want to be too annoying, but the FFB is far from simulating IRL forces.
In a straight line the car goes OK, and than suddenly the FFB pushes me strong to the left during the rest of the straight. When the car has stopped, with wheel to the utmost right, FFB turns my wheel to the utmost left! Simulating reality? I don't think so. I have copied some of the available XML files and I feel some change. But the annoying unnatural forces remain. It is like if I'm driving with negative caster.

 

[Jyri Kettunen]

Your settings are all screwed up.

 

[Radu Oros]

Actually, most of that is fake. A real life steering wheel doesn't do that... If it did, I'd get the heck out of the car!

Those things aren't bad, as I mentioned. In some cases they are desireable as we are using virtual hardware which isn't moving. This requires "some" level of faking to bring immersion. Some of those are in pCARS, you just have to understand and use them. I will say the pCARS FFB system is quite complex unless you spend time to understand everything. I don't profess to be that person.. I tinker around with things to get them to feel like my real life race car does, but that doesn't mean I understand the meaning behind what I change.

This car must also have fake ffb then It seem in some places he's just trying to look for grip between the tyres and the asphalt, that's why in some places you'll see the steering a bit more exaggerated than usual.
But just pay attention to the forces coming from the car/tyres, and the driver's response through the steering. This does look like the forces when driving AC on this track with a gt2/3 car, especially with a DirectDrive wheel.

 

[Matheus Machado]

all of the FFB tweaking and testing that went on with GTR2 and rFactor

That's why I regret buying my rFactor after getting a pc that could run the game. (After 9 years of the game release)

 

[jimortality]

Totally agree! I don't want to spend 6hours(I did yesterday) faffing about with FFB settings on one car, they you have to do that again in a different car, way too many settings.
I don't mind spending 6hours in the car setups but FFB.......

You can do a set up in the garage and save it to all and it will be at every track you go to. all you need to do then is just tweak a little for that track.

 

[PaulH]

You can do a set up in the garage and save it to all and it will be at every track you go to. all you need to do then is just tweak a little for that track.

Doesn't that only save for one car though Jim? I have tried that and when I tried a different car I had to start again
It will come I suppose, will keep testing