Launcher Options and ease of use in Game

Please add a binding to reset your oculus drift so that you can hammer it from the steering wheel.

Thanks.

 

I agree with the opening post. But, I think for technical reasons it is like it is now. I have seen it been done in other sims too, like Rise of flight (they eventually added in game options) and DCS/Lockon (you can finally change controls in game in this now too). I think part of the reasons is to do with resource usage, and making sure they have the maximum memory and CPU etc available to run the game. The same way they made the launcher and game 2 separate applications. It would be interesting to hear a developer explain the reason.

+1 to having this fixed if possible anyway.

 

Have you looked at how much RAM the launcher uses in the background, when ACS.exe is running?

 

No, like I say I'm no programmer etc. This is just my guess as to why it's designed like this (the resources thing). They also have to be aware of memory space for 32bit systems etc. Again though, just guesses from me, the real reason will have to come from a Dev .

PS I also think LFS is great benchmark for user interface design (with regards some functionality, I have to add that I do also like some of AC's unique features too, and it's visual style)

 

What about a track selection without preview pictures?
Just the names of the tracks. Due many upcoming tracks (new DLC's and Mods tracks) we could see more on one site.
An option for preview pics on/off would good then.
Just an idea tho

Gesendet von meinem HTC One mit Tapatalk

 

i like the UI - the fact it is a HTML based UI makes adding modifications really easy (i suspect) however i feel the UI should have been designed from the start to be used by a controller/wheel as using a mouse and keyboard to get a race started isnt particularly great.

 

I like the UI very much, but there is just one thing missing and that is sorting of the replays. It would be great if we could sort the replays by say their 'size' and 'date recorded'.

 

I have no complains about the User Interface menu, Car-Track Setup menus are intuitive but I do feel the need of some Setup options to be either in Pit menu or while driving. Also basic car setup while driving like brake-bias would be a bonus. A bit offtopic about the Force Feedback on G25/7 I'm scared of crashing because it might rip the mounts even at 75%.

 

Just my tuppence worth....

When I first picked up the game I quickly found the car and track I wanted to drive on. Simple with pictures (yes I really am that way inclined) which makes for a quicker selection time.

The options/graphics settings menu is getting a bit long winded, but to be fair when we have v1.0 the majority of us will probably never visit this menu again....hopefully

Finding the tabs for changing things such as time of day, grid starting position and such can be a bit of a guessing game but there aren't too many tabs to choose from so it's not that bad. Perhaps hovering over the tabs can show sub categories? (First world problem I know )

Overall I quite like it. Much less confusing than some other titles I won't mention, especially for a not so techy type old fart like me, who really just wants to race without the need of a degree in computer technology, or whatever it's called nowadays.

 

After the dev explanations I can see there is more in this UI and launcher than meets the eye.
But I have to ask, why is all this info so arcane, so hidden that you have to either look for it for hours or stumble upon it by accident. An example: Is it explained anywhere that you can exclude things in the UI? I can find references to this in February changelogs but that is it, no explanation of how to use it. Excuse my ignorance if this is clearly explained somewhere and I missed it.

That aside, I love the pictures in the car/track selection UI. Very descriptive both for tracks and cars.

 

I absolutely adore fast loading times of AC. Thank you very much Stefano!

And allow folders!

You are doing great job KUNOS! . I only wish we get some of the options available in game (controls!), it's really important.

 

On the whole i'm pretty happy with the main UI. The only things i'd add are direct links from the sub headings which would help speed up navigation. I always intuitively want to click on those.



Aside from that i can't think of much which is a good thing

The car setup menu could use some usability tweaks though. The whole scrolly tab thing feels a bit clunky, and use of screen real-estate isn't great. Also needs options for deleting and assigning favorite setups as well as draggable sliders. Just my opinion

I also think steering lock and brake pressure settings should be available in car setups but I suppose that's more about features than UI itself.

 

M2C's I have no issues with the UI in general and am quite comfortable with it.
There is only a couple of things I do have niggling issues with:

• I do agree it is a bit of a pain to have to be in game to access the settings for the apps, could this not be implemented in pits/pre race time just like car setup is?.
• Having to get back to the main menu to any settings that you might want to adjust in the actual game core. (I believe I have mentioned this some time ago in another thread)

 

Thanks a lot for the replies (including the one from Aris) my main problem is the in game usability, I mentioned in my first post that I really like the flexibility of the main launcher, it is well though out (there are things that could be better, like the intro forcing you to wait for a couple of seconds) but thats only minor stuff and not really worth mentioning.

My main problem, and thats where I think you can directly compare it to Netkar, is the UI once you start up a single player/multi player (I just guess it will be the same, correct me if I'm wrong) session, everything from that point on is fixed, you can't quickly change some graphics, controller options, the car or other small options that you may only notice when you actually drive. This is a big thing when it comes to multi player racing, you should be able to change all the necessary options without having to leave the game/host, for me that was a big turn off point in Netkar and I can see it going in this direction for Assetto yet again. Of course I don't know what is planned on your end for multi player I just speak from years of experience in Netkar and from what I see right now in Assetto.

I can see there went a considerable amount of effort into making everything as open as possible but core features like the ability to change options on the fly in game is something that is high on my list of things needed to really make playing online an experience you enjoy. Just as an example: There will probably be a lot of people without the time or the desire to do longer races, so you probably want to get in the game quickly, do some races against people from all over the world with a wide variety of cars and leave again once you got enough. If you did that in Netkar and wanted to change track/car every couple of races you where forced to turn off the server, change options, start the server and hope that everybody finds his way back, same with race/qual length, one lap more -> restart server. That for me is something that should be avoided at all costs, I do think it is important to make it easy for users and server owners to be able to keep everything running even if you want to quickly change some things.

That is what I wanted to say with ease of use, I'm sorry if I couldn't get my point across as I may have wanted to but English isn't my native language.

 

This has the flip side that there now are two completely different GUIs in the game - one for the launcher and one in-game. The two look and function very differently, offer different options and while the launcher UI is highly customiable the in-game UI is not so much. The fact that the two are developed separately is visible to the user and it feels like you are stepping from one application to another - which is arguably not the most user friendly design. Especially when you are setting up your controls and video options and you need to switch back and forth between them constantly instead of having everything available in the same place.

I can imagine it can also cause duplicate development. Like many people want the UI to be useable directly with a wheel/gamepad - the support then needs to be added separately by the launcher devs and the engine devs so both the launcher UI and in-game UI (setups etc.) can be used without a kb/mouse.

I think the ideal approach would be to have the two applications merged into one, use the nice html/javascript based UI directly from the engine and not from a separate launcher application. But I'm sure that is not practical this late into the development, but maybe it could be done in some future major update.

For multiplayer though I do think it is critical that in v1.0 already you can change cars, tracks, server settings, etc. directly while you are in-game instead of having to go back to the launcher.