PC1 Project Cars weight transfer

[W_Akira]

What do you think about weight transfer in PCars? Can't notice that as clear as in other titles (AC, RF2, RaceRoom, iRacing and GSC). In these games working the steering while releasing throttle or graduating the braking provides more reaction in car dynamics for me. I haven't messed with the cars setups as i'm still trying to get used with the ffb (jack xml files). Just my impression or weight transfer is not on par with tyre physics?

 

[Kyle Pearson]

@Kyle Pearson , can you perhaps share your FFB files, or at least those you've modified? Might be useful for us not too versed enough to adjust these parameters well enough.

@Joel Locsin , here is what I do for my G25 (so they may not work well with other wheels (anything not mentioned is left to initial defaults:

Tire Force -> 110
Dead Zone Removal -> .02
Scoop Knee -> .50
Scoop Reduction -> .10


My usual default tweaks to the car setup FFB:

Fx Scale - Increase this to around 120
Fy Scale - Decrease this to around 90
Fz Scale - Decrease this to around 80
Mz Scale - Keep this at the default 110

Fx Smoothing - 0
Fy Smoothing - 0
Fz Smoothing - 0
Mz Smoothing - 0

Spindle Arm Angle - I usually start with testing at 1700. A good test car is the BMW Z4 GT3 and use Watkins Glenn. I will say these don't work too well for the street cars and I'm working on some settings for those.

 

[Marco Versele]

I am a little bit very frustrated now. I got somewhat acceptable G27 wheel FFB settings, and trying to tweak it further and better.
Then, suddenly, no FFB, zero, nada! This is really never seen. What a mess.
Really can't appreciate the game on how they created this soup of parameters.
Why can't it be like: 1. the right profiler settings, 2. configure in game wheel settings, 3. some FFB variation in accordance with the players whish, and finally 4. the car setup. Done and go racing!
I must admit, I never saw a car where the car setup depends or varies with a steering wheel FFB setting. Why FFB settings per car in the car setup?? One and only one FFB setting for all cars should do, I guess and would have been nicer and more 'simulation'.

 

[Brandon Wright]

I am a little bit very frustrated now. I got somewhat acceptable G27 wheel FFB settings, and trying to tweak it further and better.
Then, suddenly, no FFB, zero, nada! This is really never seen. What a mess.
Really can't appreciate the game on how they created this soup of parameters.
Why can't it be like: 1. the right profiler settings, 2. configure in game wheel settings, 3. some FFB variation in accordance with the players whish, and finally 4. the car setup. Done and go racing!
I must admit, I never saw a car where the car setup depends or varies with a steering wheel FFB setting. Why FFB settings per car in the car setup?? One and only one FFB setting for all cars should do, I guess and would have been nicer and more 'simulation'.

Here's my opinion on the multitude of FFB settings: When you only have a handful of settings (like in AC or GSCE) you tinker for a minute, find something you like, and then go race without thinking about it again because there are only a few options. When there are dozens of options you constantly think that if you tweak a little more you can make it better, so you spend more time in the settings screens searching for the elusive magical combination when you could be spending that time learning/practicing a new track or adjusting the setup on your car to improve your lap times.

I only speak for myself, but I got into sim racing to sim race, not spend hours a week in a setup menu searching for something that may or may not exist.

 

[Kyle Pearson]

I never saw a car where the car setup depends or varies with a steering wheel FFB setting. Why FFB settings per car in the car setup?? One and only one FFB setting for all cars should do, I guess and would have been nicer and more 'simulation'.

You don't have iRacing? iRacing allows you to tune FFB per car.

 

[Rob Milliken]

Personally I like the separate FFB per car adjustments .after all a ford escort has deferent suspension then a P1 ! so you can tune the FFB accordingly .. that's a sim feature not alot of sims even have ! think about it ..??

All the cars have a deferent feel this way ,as they should .. the more I explore Pc the more sim like feature's I find ..

I like AC but seriously ,all the cars feel the same to me ,ya slight deference but in the end they behave the same .. but this is not the place for that !

I have a G27 we all know the 18% deadness in the center , In AC I have tried everything to get more than a 'spring resistance with some bumps' feeling out of the wheel . In rf2 I can feel the contact patch twisting and stressing in every movement ..I can recreate this in P-cars where it almost feels as good ..lol almost ;-) tuning out the 18% dead zone takes that dead 'no feel in center' feeling I get in AC out of the picture ! .. Oh and as far as cockpit movement IN AC being the best ever? Its not bad ,,after downloading the RHM it has improved but for me its average ..;-) Not saying P-cars is any better but I have had such a blast racing this sim that I haven't noticed ...the Helmet cam has the "look ahead" and a lot of that's tunable in the settings ..

I think a lot of the aliens will not like Pcars as it seems theirs not a huge learning curve ,theirs not a nitch to tweek to learn about the software to be faster or spend endless hours practicing , its not on a a steep learning curve but you do need to know wtf your doing , maybe because ive raced on PC's for 10 years it seems easier to make the transition ,for someone new to sim racing it might look/feel completely deferent .. In Pcars its comes down do your driving .. if your sloppy your not going to do well, if your on it you can be fast ! .. set ups and all make a big deference but lets face it driving a car is not that hard at all, driving a car on the edge of its limits is and can be a challenge more so with low down force cars , I think Pcars does a good enough job here ,,its very believable & competitive unless your under the belief that "unless its impossible to not spin out its not real" ...

It seems more players like it then dislike it by around 75%like -/25%no like ...

PC keeps the players engaged and fills the void between hard core and good fun racing .. it allows players to feel good about them selves and that's where its a win for me .. its taken 2nd place in my racing world and its giving 1st place a run for it money !

1st ! rf2 - 80% of my league racing and my hard core endurance racing ..
2nd! p-cars --slowly taking all my sim racing time (but its new so.. lol)
3rd! AC - some 'league sprint racing' , but mostly a hot lap game ..

bash away gents I still love ya long time ...

kro.........

 

[Blkout]

@Rob Milliken

I'm fine with separate adjustments per car, but there are WAY too many adjustments to fiddle with. I prefer most other modern racing sims(AC, GSCE, rF2, iRacing) way of going about individual car adjustment, you adjust the total strength and minimum strength, that's it. All of the small details in the FFB for every car has already been adjusted properly based on what the developer knows its supposed to feel like. Its as if someone else stated in another post here, its like SMS doesn't have enough confidence to do that part for you so they left all of those settings in there for you to adjust it yourself. To make matters worse, the sliders aren't really intuitive, there's little description to what they actually do, leaving even more wasted time adjusting sliders hoping to improve something that might not even be accurate for that car. The fact that there's so many threads in the last week talking almost completely about PCARS FFB should signal there's a problem with this design.

 

[Kazumi]

To respond to the original topic at hand, here's my view:

If there is one single area where Project CARS is a bit weak it is indeed weight transfer. I'm not sure what kind of system SMS uses but compared to all the other highly complex models (tire model, heating model with proper heat transfer from breaks, volumetric throttle and exceptionally complex engine and turbo models) I feel like the dampers are a bit simplistic somehow. It's like they are the most simplified, basic look-up-table type of affair in the whole system.

Don't get me wrong though, even tiny suspension and damper tweaks make an immediate and very obvious difference to how the car drives (more so than in any other sim in my opinion) but I suspect this is due to the awesome tire model. I don't feel like there is enough "fidelity" somehow of the suspension.

Partly it is also down to their animation system so it's a visual thing as well.. the way the cockpit moves is not on par with for instance Assetto Corsa (which is completely class leading in this regard. No other simulator feels so "real" in the way the cockpit moves when inside the car, in my opinion. It is in such a class of it's own here that it isn't even funny. Worst would be iRacing in my opinion which is just very weird and I've never been happy with it).

These are areas I hope they improve over time or perhaps for the inevitable sequel (pCars has been selling really well it seems).

It's also interesting how some of the responses on the forum have been that suspension systems are relatively easy to calculate and pretty straight forward physics while Kazunori Yamauchi has specifically said that modeling dampers properly is one of the hardest things to do, on par with tire modeling (though this I feel is a bit of an overstatement). You really need to model the fluids and resistance of the holes and how that whole system works when it heats up and is being worked. Probably it's a bit like electronics.. you can easily make a simplistic analogue filter model in digital but compare the two side by side, the real thing and the simplistic model and they sound absolutely nothing alike. Even though they should be the same on paper.

So yeah, I think SMS is taking the easy way around the suspension (more specifically the dampers) system. They are also not modeling chassis flex which is probably the main reason the karts are a bit wonky. According to some of the devs there the chassis flex shouldn't have a large impact on rigid body race cars and that may be true but for ordinary sunday cruisers / cars that people actually own it makes a real difference. Hopefully they'll model this at some point.

Or maybe some default set-ups are wonky. Is there a car where this is less of an issue? I don't think AC or rF2 are that much ahead in terms of suspension model, as far as I know.

GT at least gets the progressiveness right. Cars are often kind of bouncy and stable at the same time. It looks right in a lot of cars and of course the physics are not disconnected from the visuals to make it a pure visual effect as that would have other side effects. On the other hand the set-ups are unfortunately just ticks so you don't get any info of damper strength per speed and motion. I guess his point was while not as important as other things, it can influence other physics things heavily.

 

[bmanic]

@Rob Milliken

The fact that there's so many threads in the last week talking almost completely about PCARS FFB should signal there's a problem with this design.

I disagree. More options is better but there should have been a much more robust User Interface designed for the options and a proper "preset" system where users can share their settings online.

The reason for all the options is very sound. There are a multitude of ways to squeeze a highly dynamic range of FFB effects into the tiny dynamic range of our consumer wheels and thus they are all represent in Project CARS.. instead of just having a single hard-coded/built in option.

 

[Marco Versele]

It's just that I would like to start racing...
Then I hope I can feel if the car's setup is under/-oversteering, stiff, loose, etc...
But no feel at all without knowing why is a bit harsh. As a consequence I was never able to feel anything of FFB .xml files neither.
Wheel is working fine in other sims though. It's really trial and error for the moment, but I'll restart from the beginning and see where thid leads me

 

[Blkout]

I disagree. More options is better but there should have been a much more robust User Interface designed for the options and a proper "preset" system where users can share their settings online.

The reason for all the options is very sound. There are a multitude of ways to squeeze a highly dynamic range of FFB effects into the tiny dynamic range of our consumer wheels and thus they are all represent in Project CARS.. instead of just having a single hard-coded/built in option.

To each their own I suppose. Based on user feedback thus far since the game's release, most people don't agree with you though.

 

[Kjell Eilertsen]

There is no such thing as having to many options. This would be a non issue if they provided well working base settings for all the common wheels out there, if they did then the majority would be happy with just adjusting overall force settings. Just because there's lots of options it doesn't mean you have to use them.
But there needs to be an ability to adjust these settings for different wheels and tastes out there. The settings I ran on GSCE, rF2 and AC when I had my GT3 wheel felt absolutely horrendous on my CSW v2, and to be honest I've not been able to get GSCE and rF2 to feel good on my CSW v2.

 

[Brandon Wright]

To each their own I suppose. Based on user feedback thus far since the game's release, most people don't agree with you though.

Count me as one of them. I spent 5-6 hours on the game over the last two nights and all I did was tinker with FFB.......on two cars, and I still didn't have a satisfactory feel. At this rate I should be ready to finally start a race by the end of summer.

 

[W_Akira]

Count me as one of them. I spent 5-6 hours on the game over the last two nights and all I did was tinker with FFB.......on two cars, and I still didn't have a satisfactory feel. At this rate I should be ready to finally start a race by the end of summer.

The option to tweak ffb per car is akward. For general ffb they could put as many options as possible, but to do that in every car , never heard of that before... Many people spending too much time on the game, but not on track .
To put an example in iRacing there is only a slide that you really must change for every car, keep things simple. Although tire model is not good, ffb is quite right for me.

 

[Brandon Wright]

The option to tweak ffb per car is akward. For general ffb they could put as many options as possible, but to do that in every car , never heard of that before... Many people spending too much time on the game, but not on track .
To put an example in iRacing there is only a slide that you really must change for every car, keep things simple. Although tire model is not good, ffb is quite right for me.

To make it worse, you can't adjust all of the settings from the track so you constantly have to exit the track and wade back through the settings menus to make adjustments, then load the track back up to see how it feels. And you have to do that for every single car in the game, which has to be one of the most asinine things I've seen in a sim racer.

 

[Kjell Eilertsen]

What settings are you not getting to from the pit menu?

 

[Brandon Wright]

What settings are you not getting to from the pit menu?

I forget what it's called, something about arm angle that can only be adjusted from your garage car setup menu and not the on-track setup menu. I find it to be one of the most useful things to adjust.