AC Multiclass Abarth500/MazdaMX5@Motopark, Wed 25th January 2023

[HF2000]

Edith: I have no knowledge about these things, but how about a Discord server just for us as a trainings server so we can help each other out?

I hope Edith can answer this!

Yes I can ask Brian how to do that as he has created the Rookie Discord channel.
But on the other hand, it's not problem that you use the standard Assetto Corsa channel.
You only have to stay off this channel if there's an AC race event running.
That is only Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday from 21.00 - 23.00 CET.

 

[Douglas Aird]

I updated my CSP from 1.75 to 1.79 before went on to the practice server to check everything works OK and no issues.

*edit* I also installed Han's RD skin for the Abarth so I know whose train I am following.

 

[RasmusP]

I updated my CSP from 1.75 to 1.79 before went on to the practice server to check everything works OK and no issues.

The bugs are really ironed out by now. Barely anything happens when simply always updating to the latest version.
The features get improved or extended with every version, which is nice!

Only if you're using sol/pure with weather fx & lighting fx with less professional mod tracks/cars, weird bugs might happen.
The old Road Atlanta got scattered like into multiple, broken space dimensions with one certain version, that was fun

Only bug I encountered over the years with RD clubracing though

 

[Boukâh]

@RasmusP I read ‘Sol’ all over the posts here, can you explain what it is? Some kind of weather app or something? Is it useful for me or should I just let it be?

 

[Boukâh]

Other question, about the mazda tyre settings. From the rookie events I understood 26 psi hot should do the trick mostly. Is that because the tyre model wants it to be for optimum results on the mazda or more like a general center of playing with the psi for hot tyres?

I’ve been fiddling with psi a bit on Motopark, and I can feel differences in grip levels between the extreme high and low psi’s. But it’s quite hard (in some ways/sectors not doable) to get/keep ‘em hot. For Motopark, lower psi seems to work best (for me) because of the technical turns, and I don’t seem to loose a lot at the long straight on low pressure tyres. But I was wondering how to approach psi and the tyre model in general for mx5 or any other car in AC for that matter (‘cause I easily barbecue the tyres on a 911 in one lap or so).

 

[RasmusP]

@RasmusP I read ‘Sol’ all over the post here, can you explain what it is? Some kind of weather app or something?

Ah, that's a nice little story
Peter Böse is the creator of all this and he started by using his photography hobby and AC's easy texture swapping to give us prettier cloud-textures.
He then found out that Content Manager could use additional "weathers" (yeah, you really need a plural of weather for this).
So he created his own custom weathers that looked really nice and more realistic!
That's his "GbW Suite".

Then CM got CSP added and the real journey began!
It was now possible to fake-change the lighting to make the sun become a moon etc.
Peter and Ilja started to cooperate and "scripted weather" became a thing.
So not only you could change the lighting, but also change the weather in realtime!

Instead of using a fixed weather with a mix of different cloud textures and parameters, the sol weather controller app was made.

It can mix all parameters and textures and create lots of different weathers that weren't possible before. And also transition smoothly instead of putting a new wallpaper on the sky dome.


So in summary, you have:
- content manager
- scripted fixed weathers, controlled by SOL
- a SOL ingame app to change the weather
- weather FX from csp to transition between the weathers smoothly and allowing for in-between mixes instead of selecting one after another
- lighting FX from csp to adjust the lighting too

And yeah, this is complicated and I honestly never bothered to find out how this all really works.
But I know what the individual parts are doing and how it should work in theory

You also have a sol planner app, where you can plan the weather changes for a session.

And there's also a whole ton of stuff for servers, where you can add a script to your sever that will tell the clients' AC what to do.

And additionally, if you subscribe on Patreon, you get the Rain FX beta for csp with an "extra physics" option in CM to use rain with fake-wet-physics.


So yeah, if you spend about 50 hours for all this, you can do a full 24h race with night, rain, fog, drying up, sunshine coming out, overcast again etc in AC now!

Instead of having dry, fixed weather between 6am - 6pm

 

[Boukâh]

Ah, that's a nice little story
Peter Böse is the creator of all this and he started by using his photography hobby and AC's easy texture swapping to give us prettier cloud-textures.
He then found out that Content Manager could use additional "weathers" (yeah, you really need a plural of weather for this).
So he created his own custom weathers that looked really nice and more realistic!
That's his "GbW Suite".

Then CM got CSP added and the real journey began!
It was now possible to fake-change the lighting to make the sun become a moon etc.
Peter and Ilja started to cooperate and "scripted weather" became a thing.
So not only you could change the lighting, but also change the weather in realtime!

Instead of using a fixed weather with a mix of different cloud textures and parameters, the sol weather controller app was made.

It can mix all parameters and textures and create lots of different weathers that weren't possible before. And also transition smoothly instead of putting a new wallpaper on the sky dome.


So in summary, you have:
- content manager
- scripted fixed weathers, controlled by SOL
- a SOL ingame app to change the weather
- weather FX from csp to transition between the weathers smoothly and allowing for in-between mixes instead of selecting one after another
- lighting FX from csp to adjust the lighting too

And yeah, this is complicated and I honestly never bothered to find out how this all really works.
But I know what the individual parts are doing and how it should work in theory

You also have a sol planner app, where you can plan the weather changes for a session.

And there's also a whole ton of stuff for servers, where you can add a script to your sever that will tell the clients' AC what to do.

And additionally, if you subscribe on Patreon, you get the Rain FX beta for csp with an "extra physics" option in CM to use rain with fake-wet-physics.


So yeah, if you spend about 50 hours for all this, you can do a full 24h race with night, rain, fog, drying up, sunshine coming out, overcast again etc in AC now!

Instead of having dry, fixed weather between 6am - 6pm

That’s a lot of answer , thanks! For now I’ll stick to whatever shows up on my screen than. Still need all the focus and time for getting my braking/steering/throttle act on track together . Might explore other environmental things when I can stay ON the track decently.

Thanks for explaining Rasmus!

 

[RasmusP]

Other question, about the mazda tyre settings. From the rookie events I understood 26 psi hot should do the trick mostly. Is that because the tyre model wants it to be for optimum results on the mazda or more like a general center of playing with the psi for hot tyres?

But I was wondering how to approach psi and the tyre model in general for mx5 or any other car in AC for that matter.

To give a quick answer to this topic too:
AC has a few different equations for the tyre grip.
- Lower psi = more heat & rolling resistance
- Higher psi = less heat & rolling resistance

And then:
- A table for grip coefficient for different temperatures

- an equation how much the inner/middle/outer & core temp influence the grip equation

- a table for grip coefficient regarding too high and too low pressure


Now the fun stuff about AC is:
- psi, toe, camber barely have an impact on the temperatures or rolling resistance

- the perfect psi has a big impact on the grip

- too low temperatures are a way smaller issue vs too high temperatures.


I don't have the data at hand but in the end you can completely ignore the influence of the psi for the temperatures! (and also toe & camber)

And for the temperatures:
The big factor here is the core temp!
But without the table from the tyre data, you don't know what range would be good...
In summary a short moment of red tyres is totally fine but when they slowly progress from orange to red, you're in trouble!

And when your soft tyres are orange all the time and you then spin out, you're screwed for a minute or longer since both the core and the surface is cooking.

Example numbers:
30°c too low temp = 90% grip
10°c too high temp = 70% grip



So the rules are:
- always simply go for the "perfect" psi and ignore everything else

- if you have the choice between orange to red tyres throughout a lap and blue to green tyres, go for the colder ones for races!

- rear toe to balance out oversteer (positive values = more control, negative values = sliding rear)

- front toe = no idea but most race cars use -10 to -20

- camber = use camber extravaganza and ignore inner/outer temps

 

[Boukâh]

To give a quick answer to this topic too:
AC has a few different equations for the tyre grip.
- Lower psi = more heat & rolling resistance
- Higher psi = less heat & rolling resistance

And then:
- A table for grip coefficient for different temperatures

- an equation how much the inner/middle/outer & core temp influence the grip equation

- a table for grip coefficient regarding too high and too low pressure


Now the fun stuff about AC is:
- psi, toe, camber barely have an impact on the temperatures or rolling resistance

- the perfect psi has a big impact on the grip

- too low temperatures are a way smaller issue vs too high temperatures.


I don't have the data at hand but in the end you can completely ignore the influence of the psi for the temperatures! (and also toe & camber)

And for the temperatures:
The big factor here is the core temp!
But without the table from the tyre data, you don't know what range would be good...
In summary a short moment of red tyres is totally fine but when they slowly progress from orange to red, you're in trouble!

And when your soft tyres are orange all the time and you then spin out, you're screwed for a minute or longer since both the core and the surface is cooking.

Example numbers:
30°c too low temp = 90% grip
10°c too high temp = 70% grip



So the rules are:
- always simply go for the "perfect" psi and ignore everything else

- if you have the choice between orange to red tyres throughout a lap and blue to green tyres, go for the colder ones for races!

- rear toe to balance out oversteer (positive values = more control, negative values = sliding rear)

- front toe = no idea but most race cars use -10 to -20

- camber = use camber extravaganza and ignore inner/outer temps

Wow, thanks again Rasmus! (Now cool those typing fingers down in ice water!!! ).

Yeh, I noticed that low psi vs high psi gave big differences in (lateral) grip, so for instance to exit the last left hander before the long back straight at Motopark as quick as possible, I needed the extra grip of low psi tyres. But I thought I’d lose some time by resistance, which it didn’t seem to do. As is clarified by your explanation. I even tried with 15psi cold and it also worked quite well. But for me it’s still hard to judge whether it’s a setting making me go faster (by being able to brake/steer better) or if a setting only ‘supports’ my bad(?) driving inputs better. Working on that part most of the time, aiming to be a better driver on whatever setup.

Thanks Rasmus, I’ll play with it a little more!

 

[RasmusP]

Wow, thanks again Rasmuss! (Now cool those typing fingers down in ice water!!!

I'm used to type a lot so easy work there

I needed the extra grip of low psi tyres.

But I thought I’d lose some time by resistance, which it didn’t seem to do.

It also doesn't give extra grip. It gives less grip! It's a bit counter intuitive since the racing series like F1 always want to use lower psi.
But that's not how the AC tyres are coded!
For AC, it's more like in real life with your road car. Underinflated tyres will wobble and have no contact in the center so you'll start sliding.
Overinflated tyres lose contact on the edges so also less grip.

So just aim for the green psi number and ignore everything else for your psi.

The only important thing is that the psi need to be green for the corners where you need the grip. No need to have green psi on a straight.
Sadly these aren't recorded in replays (offline instant replay within a session might work, not sure).
So when I really build a setup, I record my session with OBS (using nvenc from my gpu, I think amd has something similar?).

And then I watch the video and pause or slow down for the important parts.
Looking at the psi and at camber extravaganza.
You can also enable the suspension dev app set to ride height to see if you're bottoming out or hitting the surface.

But for me it’s still hard to judge whether it’s a setting making me go faster (by being able to brake/steer better) or if a setting only ‘supports’ my bad(?) driving inputs better

Yeah just stop judging and set them to be green

 

[Douglas Aird]

Wow, thanks again Rasmus! (Now cool those typing fingers down in ice water!!! ).

Yeh, I noticed that low psi vs high psi gave big differences in (lateral) grip, so for instance to exit the last left hander before the long back straight at Motopark as quick as possible, I needed the extra grip of low psi tyres. But I thought I’d lose some time by resistance, which it didn’t seem to do. As is clarified by your explanation. I even tried with 15psi cold and it also worked quite well. But for me it’s still hard to judge whether it’s a setting making me go faster (by being able to brake/steer better) or if a setting only ‘supports’ my bad(?) driving inputs better. Working on that part most of the time, aiming to be a better driver on whatever setup.

Thanks Rasmus, I’ll play with it a little more!

I usually keep it simple and aim for psi of 26 or 27. On the Mazda you will find it's almost impossible, certainly for me, to get all tyres in the green for temperature so I ignore that.

 

[HF2000]

@RasmusP It's so great that your share your knowledge with us! I much appreciate it.

So now I've licked your heels, I dare to ask you for something too.
When driving on a road track with white, broken stripes in the middle of the road, they become blurred quite visible in about 20 - 30m in front of the car. What can I change to make those stripes look sharp at that distance?

 

[RasmusP]

@RasmusP It's so great that your share your knowledge with us! I much appreciate it.

So now I've licked your heels, I dare to ask you for something too.
When driving on a road track with white, broken stripes in the middle of the road, they become blurred quite visible in about 20 - 30m in front of the car. What can I change to make those stripes look sharp at that distance?

Can you take a screenshot?
It can be a few different things and I should be able to differentiate them in a screenshot.

My first guess would be Anisotropic Filtering.
What are you using there?
I have it set to off in CM but forced to 16x High Quality in the nvidia control panel.

Btw if you click on the little i icon next to the settings in CM, you'll get nice Screenshots with performance costs for each step of the setting.
Do this for AF and you'll see the blurry mess when it's off.

 

[homer1007]

Sign me up with the MX5 with the Ferrari skin #55 please.

Thanks

 

[HF2000]

Can you take a screenshot?
It can be a few different things and I should be able to differentiate them in a screenshot.

My first guess would be Anisotropic Filtering.
What are you using there?
I have it set to off in CM but forced to 16x High Quality in the nvidia control panel.

Btw if you click on the little i icon next to the settings in CM, you'll get nice Screenshots with performance costs for each step of the setting.
Do this for AF and you'll see the blurry mess when it's off.

 

[RasmusP]

View attachment 633101

Looking at everything else in the distance, the white line is only part of the problem
For how long are you racing like that?
It definitely looks like anisotropic filtering set to off or wax too low!

 

[HF2000]

For how long are you racing like that?

Don't know but I haven't touched the graphics settings for at least half a year.

Which screenshots of my settings do you need?

EDIT: Aniso was off indeed. I'll try it immediately. It goes to 16x.

EDIT2: Amazing! I'm seeing all new things now! I don't understand why I had this setting off.

EDIT 3: These are my NVIDIA 3D settings

 

[RasmusP]

Don't know but I haven't touched the graphics settings for at least half a year.

Which screenshots of my settings do you need?

EDIT: Aniso was off indeed. I'll try it immediately. It goes to 16x.

EDIT2: Amazing! I'm seeing all new things now! I don't understand why I had this setting off.

Nice!

I had a little laugh though to see you were driving without AF for half a year while other users here are chasing more and more supersampling with their VR headsets to get them as crisp as a monitor.
Definitely not as crisp as YOUR monitor

Enjoy your HD AC

 

[HF2000]

So is it better to force Aniso in the NIVIDA settings than let the application decide?

 

[HF2000]

Nice!

I had a little laugh though to see you were driving without AF for half a year while other users here are chasing more and more supersampling with their VR headsets to get them as crisp as a monitor.
Definitely not as crisp as YOUR monitor

Enjoy your HD AC

And now the big question! Does this make me go faster?