Assetto corsa v forza 6 v pcars at mp4-12c brands & nordschleife

@Johnnypenso and @Radiantm3 My thoughts entirely.


No need to go down the flaming route and that is why I like the original post. MBK wrote what he felt about a set of games, he made them all sound good and never knocked one or the other. It's a shame when others have to feel offended because someones opinion is different from theirs.

The options in PCars do help you set the game up to what you want, but if those same settings/options become the game then when do you get on track? There was a moment in the live streams where there was a question about adding this that and the other settings into the options/settings of AC. The quick and concise answer was Kunos will be leaving the more advanced/silly setting only accessible via the ini files to keep the GUI clean and easily navigable.

It matters little to me as I do not like consoles (the Wii is okay). PCars is just a updated Shift, I have no time for EA games. I know that will start a fuss, but it is what it is. Sorry.

 

I own PCARS but don't play it as often as I play AC.

I had a go yesterday (in the Rift) and expected, as I'm influenced by what people write, PCARS to be easier than AC but actually I found it more difficuly. Like you I went for a familiar car and track the McLaren GT3 at Brands - but found it to be very slippery. Cars in AC seem to have much more grip. I didn't change any settings though so maybe it's just default tyre or track grip settings being different.

It's a strange one - I seem to be more competitive online in PCARS, I win much more often, but I enjoy MP in AC more. I feel like I have much more control over the car.

 

Inspired by this thread I gave pCars another shot yesterday and despite some reports of "SMS have done a great job with the latest update, cars feel so good now!" that pop up every now and then I found it as ever before. I drove the Audi R8 Plus on the Nordschleife and the Escort 1600 RS around Brands Hatch and if anyone knows how to get a decent FFB feel with my system please let me know because I don't ;-) There was no weight shift feel, at all...it felt really floaty to me and hard to predict when the grip limit was reached. So I slipped around below, on and over the limit. The wording "drive by numbers" matches really well with my experience.

Another cherry on top in AC is how lean the graphics engine is. In pCars I had to set everything to maximum low/off in order to achieve steady 60 on my triples during practice mode whereas in AC I can have most settings on high/maximum and achieve steady 60 even with 24 cars online and on the starting grid. If you do this FPS-based graphics comparison AC beats pCars by miles.

 

Graphics are much better in the other titles, but I think thats mostly cause in AC with HDR and stock PP there is heavy glare and everything looks bleached, that can be fixed with less exposure, however then the game looks pretty dark.
And somehow the cars seem stronger saturated then the tracks. The tracks look a bit undersaturated.
Custom-PPs are often hit and miss, too.

But its not all about polys, textures and lightning.
Especially compared to PCars AC's tracks appear like still lifes. No sounds, nothing moves (few flags aside), garages are closed, no people in the pits, just a few marshalls that look depressed. After one year after the release they could at least include ambientsounds again (there were some at some point) not to mention improving the sounds of the old cars, to bring them to the standard of the new ones, before those are released.
Huge pro for PCars regarding immersion minus the missing animated pitstops, while there seem to be many bugs and the performance with AMD is bad, too.

And 24 cars on the Nordschleife during a race are a joke. 60+ is decent. Multiclass is important, too. I rate rain and night as a bonus, but those are pretty nice to have, too.
In 2015 pitradio should be usual if its about circuitracing, not to mention singleplayerpits.

Ac is kinda like Forza, both somehow not really focused, with features missing I would expect from a racingsim, many streetcars, without the fun environments of games like Test Drive, but Turn 10 has the budget to make it better, they just don't want/care to change it.

PCars offers the least I would expect from a racingsim - if there is a decent budget, of course.

And AC's default-cockpitcams are bad. RHM-mod shows how its done right.

A sim with just good physics FFB is kinda like a good relationship with bad ***. Or vice versa. So you wait for something that get both things right.

 

For people complaining about pCars FFB. Remember that they had a different approach, in which they only put in the wheel the feedback you should feel through the well (front wheels data).
In all other games I played, the FFB was passing forces you would feel on your body through the wheel.
Maybe because we all get used to this now, there are some people complaining about pCars FFB. And yet, it may be the most realistic one. I know when I get people to try AC and pCars they feel the second one is the most close feel to real life.

So what is it better for me??
I got to say AC's feels familiar to me, in a perspective to all the gaming I did so far. But I feel so many things I don't feel while driving a car in real life.
pCars sometimes feels disconnected. But that's to be expected. I got no feel other than the front wheels, so there is always something missing.
I do love their FWD FFB. Clio Cup feels awesome.

 

but isn't the FFB from AC also coming directly from the physics (from the tyres) to the Wheel? (obviously you must disable the fake effects in the preferences - road effects, Curbs and slip)

 

Yes, it all does fall out of the physics engine but in some cases it's a bit over-processed in order to have a "enhanced reality" FFB to compensate for the lack of G-Forces. pCars has a (or ten?!?) "seat of the pants" slider that tries to compensate for lack of g-forces. AC is said (I don't know if true or not) by some to have stuff like that built-in. If I compare it to what I feel in my car through the wheel AC comes closest.

 

From my understanding, and as @LeDude83 said, all other games has that built in. As in they use the data from suspension (both front and rear) to feed the data for FFB.

And yes, pCars has those slides of Seat of pants in order to achieve the same result. Never tried those

 

That no is for me @Aristotelis ?
Because I never said the forces was coming from anything else than suspensions. Maybe in the first post it wasn't clear??

 

Looks like a reply to LeDude's post in which he was saying about "enhanced reality effects" and that some say it's built-in into AC FFB.

 

Ahh. Makes sense

 

I was under the impression the rear suspension was used. I stand corrected then.

But then, it's hard to believe there is so much information on the wheel. For example, running in a straight line at average speed and feeling bumps in the road on the wheel. That's something you feel on your body in real life.
I understand the intention to do it though. We have limited ways to feel what the car is doing.

 

Slightly scared to start a fire here, lol. But anyways: I have a Peugeot 206 cc that's fairly low on power but AFAIK it uses the most sporty suspension that was available to the standard 206 back in the day and it's been lowered further by 25 mm with some Eibach springs (in the front) so you can really say it's a stiff and responsive car.

Ever since starting to sim-race I payed attention to what I feel through the wheel and through the body in my car. For instance, my old winter tyres were getting kind of hard so I used to pick up a little understeer when entering the Motorway...like proper scrubbing across fronts for a split second. I didn't feel that too much in the steering, more the change of car rotation in my body.
As for the bumps and road texture: I feel that in the wheel AND in the butt. It is quite subtle through the wheel but it's there, for sure. Gets a lot more notable at speed. Experiment: next time you drive on cobblestone surface, slowly and safe, let go of the wheel and watch it move. The fact that my car's power steering is on the weak side helps in noticing these effects. If I put my GF's Punto in "city" power steering mode the forces you need to counter the suspension movements is so small you barely notice bumps and texture, anymore.

 

The sound.
pCars have more dynamic - Yes it is.
but realistic? - I don't think so.





check the 'onboard sound' AC is more realistic.

 

This is true. But from what I read in forums everybody want's to have every minor bump shake the house fundations, otherwise it just isn't sim enough, or the track isn't laser scanned enough

I agree with you @Aristotelis.

We're lucky to have so many different approaches at our disposal

Happy Holidays

 

Nice post and a good read ... pretty much sums up my thoughts ... as Driving Simulator AC is ahead of the competition and can called a sim rather than a racing game.

Jay

 

That last post from Aris should be mandatory reading for all simracers.

It might just dampen the amount of ranting and bashing that happens on sim forums..... At least for a week or two

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