PC2 Sim Discussion Monday - Project CARS 2

[Paul Jeffrey]

First day back in the office for many this morning, what better way to pass the time than have a good discussion about the new Project CARS game?

Now the dust is beginning to settle around the recent release of Project CARS 2, we thought it a good time to look deeper into the game, driven by our community, and share our findings and impressions from the heavily hyped new racing title from Slightly Mad Studios.

Do you have some useful tips for getting the most from the sim? Found a magic setting to really unlock the FFB? Got a trick up your sleeve that helps bring sharper graphics for little FPS trade off? Or do you simply want to share your most / least favourite car and track combinations?

So long as it remains on topic, respectful and mature, we want to know your thoughts!

Mondays be like...

 

[RaceNut]

Overall, I feel like PC2 is a good improvement over PC1 and the graphics / weather / day-night transitions are especially amazing in VR and unlike any other title I've played.

Using an OSW, I find that the Low Alt version of Jack Spade's FFB setups feels very good with many cars but, the results can vary quite a lot along with the car sounds so finding the best car/track combinations requires some time but, the overall racing environmental effects are quite impressive.

On the audio front, things are pretty messy and feel unfinished as is; some sounds are carry overs from PC1 but, some of the new ones are very nicely done and have very effective positional audio in VR; overall volume balance among various cars is very inconsistent and needs further tuning so I hope SMS plans on some audio updates soon.

I don't feel like PC2 can quite match the same level of handling / FFB I enjoy so much in AC / AMS / rF2 but, combined with the other aspects on offer, it can be super immersive in other ways - especially in VR. I just find the driving a bit lacking in certain visceral ways but, given enough time, I suspect I can adapt to it just fine and have plenty of fun.

The UI is really nicely done and the range of possibilities in racing conditions is superb IMO. There is a lot to explore overall although, there are also some inconsistencies in content quality / detail that may require some serious digging in order to fine the best bits.

 

[turbo86]

If devs are reading this thread, please check this:

<< Is it intended behavior? This type of collision physics dates back to original NFS Shift. I'm no expert, but this wouldn't happen very often in real life, right?

That's because underneath it's still NFS Shift, i think it's common knowledge by now. But lets not ignore the big white elephant in the room shall we?

Just look at how soft those cars are. They lean as much as a 90s corolla with bad suspension man.....come on how can you people call this a simulator....and a good one? Come on....get serious people.

 

[Noobiix007]

To me PCars 2 is a huge improvement from the first one, the FFB feels good out of the box with my T300RS, and there is a nice selection of tracks and cars, especially for endurance lovers, the weather system is AMAZING, truly (snow, rain are so challenging to drive at, dirt too, speaking of surfaces), feels good also to have a licensed Indycar thing with the 2016 skins and chassis. I'd give it a 9/10 just for the improved FFB lol

 

[TylerDurden4321]

I think this thing is a pretty disgusting bugfest - especially hearing the experience from a friend of mine on his PS4 Pro with constant crashes, multiple seconds between menu transitions and car setups saved wrong and loaded even more wrong(from another car seemingly).
Some older H-pattern shifter cars and dogbox manual sequential that usually are clutched have a "minimum time spend in neutral gear" between gear out and in. WHAT?? If I shift the Lotus 98T faster than 230ms, I get a mis-shift? Wait WHAT?? Man...


Am I a annoyed? Yes.
Do I feel ripped off? No.
Why?

Because the FFB is AMAZING!!! I'm not saying 100% ReelFeel true-to-life and so, but that might be just the not 100% sim physics with very forgiving sidewall flex and slip, but you do feel all that and it gives me an immense amount of car control and trust in a car (a few cars are badly off, but then again some are even beyond amazing). SMS have done something truly special with this tire model.

Just like I love autumn versions of mod-tracks in rF2 and AMS, it's even better here with fully dynamic sun-angle for each season, different leave colors, higher chances of rain, fog and more wind. Not so sure about their track-getting faster over time feature... I don't think they treated that with the seriousness it deserves in racing, seems underdone, judging from my 2 longer races so far.

 

[rw3]

That's because underneath it's still NFS Shift, i think it's common knowledge by now. But lets not ignore the big white elephant in the room shall we?

Just look at how soft those cars are. They lean as much as a 90s corolla with bad suspension man.....come on how can you people call this a simulator....and a good one? Come on....get serious people.

Underneath it all iRacing is still that old Papyrus Nascar game (or you could go back to GPL if you like) and RFactor 2 is just RFactor 1. Your point being?

 

[ermo]

I
Do I feel ripped off? No.
Why?

Because the FFB is AMAZING!!! I'm not saying 100% ReelFeel true-to-life and so, but that might be just the not 100% sim physics with very forgiving sidewall flex and slip, but you do feel all that and it gives me an immense amount of car control and trust in a car (a few cars are badly off, but then again some are even beyond amazing). SMS have done something truly special with this tire model.

With the RAW preset, what you're feeling (absent bugs that have yet to be discovered) is *exactly* what the Seta Tyre Model is feeding through the suspension to the steering rack.

Which means you're essentially praising the physics solver and the physics data (chassis/suspension model/spring/damper) calibration here.

If you're used to either a Pacejka (AMS?) or stiff-ish Brush Tyre Model (AC?), then yes, the feel is going to be different -- mainly because (AIUI) the STM simulates way more than either type of model in the tyres.

 

[FeltHat]

Underneath it all iRacing is still that old Papyrus Nascar game (or you could go back to GPL if you like) and RFactor 2 is just RFactor 1. Your point being?

joking aside, to vr users, is there a proper leg placement, footwork etc? i love how my legs clip the floor in raceroom, rfactor etc

 

[Chobonator]

Just look at how soft those cars are. They lean as much as a 90s corolla with bad suspension man.....come on how can you people call this a simulator....and a good one? Come on....get serious people.

The amount of reaching is REEEEE-DICULOUSSSS!

Underneath it all iRacing is still that old Papyrus Nascar game

iRacing has always been a cheap NASCAR mod that doesn't make sense. What's stopping them from creating proper car physics and keeping their great online system? Laziness? Lack of talent? Afraid to scare away the whales who have been learning how to drive these fantasy cars?

 

[2112]

I was one of those who felt that PC1 fell short in many areas. I was skeptical about PC2 but the guys I race with were going to continue the league with PC2. Most of them are from the GT series and did not like the handling and physics of AC or RRE (my personal favorite).

So I have PC2.

Not a bad effort at all. No, it is not a full-on sim, but neither are AC, RF2, RRE or any other "sim" on the market. All are merely interpretations of what the developers believe racing should be. I, personally, find the FFB on RF2 wanting in that the steering is dead. AC steering feels heavy and unresponsive. RRE is the only game in which I felt the physics of the car and the FFB were real.

Yet I play all of the above games because I want to be entertained and I want to race cars I would never have a chance to drive in real life. The, together, meet my expectations.

PC2 does that for me. It is difficult to express the fun I had driving the Newman 280zx GTO in Long Beach. That is my "home" track and when I was a pup I dreamed of driving that very car, for Paul Newman. It was nice to jump into that car, fire it up and learn how to throw that car around the streets of Long Beach in the manner in which it was supposed to be driven: Letting the rear end slide, just a bit, as you exit Pine Ave. onto Seaside, and then gas it just enough to get the grunt but not so much you break the rear loose.

If a game can let me be something I dreamed of as a child, while sharing the fun with other like-minded people, then the game will be played.

Yeah, there are a lot of bugs, bugs that get frustrating, but if SMS can smooth them out then they have my thumbs up for fixing a broken PC1.

Lastly: Some may not like PC2, or they may dismiss it as a simcade. Ok. Yet others, like me, see a game that has vast improvements. Many of us have never driven a real race car in anger but we have expectations. So far PC2 is close to meeting those expectations that, for me, were only met in RRE.

The big difference, even though I prefer RRE, is that all the other games, except iRenting, are vast, deserted on-line wastelands. I want to race against you, not the computer. I can get that in PC2.

 

[apex11]

The amount of reaching is REEEEE-DICULOUSSSS!


iRacing has always been a cheap NASCAR mod that doesn't make sense. What's stopping them from creating proper car physics and keeping their great online system? Laziness? Lack of talent? Afraid to scare away the whales who have been learning how to drive these fantasy cars?

You seem very dismissive of every driving game aside from PCars 2 so i'd take anything you say with a pinch of salt, either you are a mod on the official forum sent here to do a job, or desperate to be accepted as one..."Ian can you see me!!"

 

[rw3]

joking aside, to vr users, is there a proper leg placement, footwork etc? i love how my legs clip the floor in raceroom, rfactor etc

Yes there is. The driver's feet move around correctly and they're in the right place in the cars I've tested.

 

[Chobonator]

You seem very dismissive of every driving game aside from PCars 2

How do you determine that?

 

[apex11]

How do you determine that?

You can't seem to discuss PCars 2 without slagging off other games, or saying other games are as bad...
Main reasons for me not keeping PCars 2 and getting a refund from steam was because i have all the current sims so don' t have any need for it. Is it a terrible game? No, just simply its quite over saturated these days on PC for these games and they pretty much all do the same thing, I don't see the point in having PCars 2 when i have the rest of them.

 

[aka2k]

Far better than the first game. Almost a reboot. Funny to see so much hate around while so many people crazily defended PCars 1.

 

[Sky]

Underneath it all iRacing is still that old Papyrus Nascar game (or you could go back to GPL if you like) and RFactor 2 is just RFactor 1. Your point being?

they were good

my impression: shiny but hollow. no where near as shithouse as the first, but still not really something i can be bothered with long term yet.

 

[Chobonator]

You can't seem to discuss PCars 2 without slagging off other games, or saying other games are as bad...
Main reasons for me not keeping PCars 2 and getting a refund from steam was because i have all the current sims so don' t have any need for it. Is it a terrible game? No, just simply its quite over saturated these days on PC for these games and they pretty much all do the same thing, I don't see the point in having PCars 2 when i have the rest of them.

And in my case, Project CARS 2 replaces all the others for the most part. Each racing game has exclusive content, so they're all worth having anyway, except iRenting, which has such an obsolete engine that it's only good for multiplayer, kinda like Mario Kart.

I have no problem with Automobilista, Assetto Corsa, rFactor 2 and Raceroom Racing Experience and I'd gladly recommend them to someone if I thought they would enjoy it based on their requirements.

they were good

Damn straight they were good, especially for that time period and for simulating oval racing. I wish I still had my Craftsman Truck boxed copy.

 

[MSKbeans]

So.. in defence both of iRacing and Project Cars re the driver rating and safety rating:

Visit any racing forum after an F1 race in which an incident has occurred and see if everyone agrees who is at fault. Even once you get beyond national partisanship and the odd bit of racism, you find that people can't agree on what is acceptable racing behaviour, and whether a particular move caused the incident or not.

I'm a software developer in my day job, so I know what computers are good at and what they're bad at. They're very good at maths. They are very bad at making judgements about things. If you're thinking AI, forget it. AI can just about determine that a picture of a chicken is in fact a chicken and not a horse, but it takes a lot of processing power to achieve. To determine who is at fault in a crash is way beyond.

So we're left with only the ability to create simple rules. We can for instance create a rule that says that if the guy behind hits the guy in front it's the guy behind's fault, after all he's just rammed the other guy off the road right (highly prevalent in iRacing in the Skippy where the rear of the car is made of paper and the front of titanium). So I go into a race knowing this, all I have to do is hit the brakes when the other guy is behind me and he's going to get penalised when he hits me. Not how I roll but plenty would do it. When designing any system you have to consider what inputs you can trust and what ones you can't. Users are an input you can't trust. Ever.

In general, a no-fault system works pretty well. It will trend long-term towards fairness, with better drivers finishing higher on average with fewer wrecks, and thus improving their license and rating, and worse drivers crashing more often and finishing towards the back. Wreckers will have poor ratings on all fronts. That works. Except it doesn't on iRacing because you can just time trial your safety rating back. It seems then that PC2 has done better than iRacing on that front.

In short, in one-off races you might suffer a minor injustice. In the long term it'll end up about right.

Okay so simple rules, First corner rear ends are common. It's all good but when you take ages to build a rating then get 10 races worth of points knocked off in 1 go!!!!!. The first crash should be the highest then drops as the incident carried on. Live timing can get incidents to 0.1 of a second, the information is there just needs to be used right. Okay I'm a mere mortal, but I do drive for a living.

 

[Nick Hill]

I'm totally guessing and this may or may not be obvious, but is Chobonator = Austin/James?

 

[Chobonator]

I'm totally guessing and this may or may not be obvious, but is Chobonator = Austin/James?

What about Oggy?

 

[Alexandre Lino]

Again talking about that "thing" on this wonderfull simracing website ?
I thought the "P" in Pcars2 was standing for "Poor Cars 2" ...
Go immediatly wash your souls on rF2 or AC ^_^

Great!