After 8 years in sim racing - AC has made me fall back in love - here's why.

Preface to the preface - This is a long 'blog' post that many of you will find boring, I've spoken about my thoughts and opinions on the sim and some of the cars most recently added, if this interests you please take the time to read through at least the cars you like the sound of, if not I've added a TL;DR section at the bottom. Thanks!

Preface - I started my driving sim 'career' in 2005 with Live For Speed. At the time I was a kid who'd put far too many hours into games like Gran Turismo 3 and Forza, I needed a new fix. I came across driving sims by stumbling across LFS (I think while googling NFS, oops) and was immediately drawn to the realism, that what I'm doing in this game is a replication of what I could be doing in the real world - As a 13 year old, I felt like I was really driving a car. Since that moment I've been hooked, poured hundreds of hours into sims like LFS and iRacing, raced in leagues, events, drift competitions, I even managed to win a rally league and clock some world record laps in LFS, I think out of everything I've tried to be good at in my life, driving sims are my forte.

Assetto Corsa has been the first game since picking up LFS as a kid and getting hooked that has given me genuine excitement for what's coming up, and this latest content patch has been even more encouragement that we're onto a winner here. To help both me and anyone else who's interested in reading on understand some of the cars being added to this game, I scribbled down some notes after testing each car. The laptimes posted are not hotlaps and they're not fast, they're just an indication of what sort of pace I was driving at to produce the opinions and feelings I got from the cars - it may turn out that I'm completely wrong about how a car drives because I wasn't going fast enough, I felt like I was going pretty quick at the time though.

Ferrari F40 - Everyone's pinup driving machine, the ultimate toy for the driving fanatic. This car has a reputation that AC needs to live up to and provide a good simulation for, I think it's done pretty well. The car in game drives very mechanically, you can feel where you have grip and where you don't, the power delivery is exciting and on the upgraded stage 3 model, this is only amplified. Having watched a lot of reviews of people driving this can in real life, you can tell that it's a special car that invokes emotions that other cars don't, it's terrifying and exhilarating at the same time and this car in Assetto Corsa gives a feeling along the same lines.

BMW E30 M3 Drift - As someone who has spent a lot of time sliding cars around in sims this was the car I was most excited about trying, it definitely didn't disappoint. The oversteer physics in this sim are what sets it apart from the current generation of sims, being able to predict and accurately control a car through oversteer is pretty much what makes driving cars fast the most fun you'll ever have. It was such a disappointment to me with sims like iRacing where oversteer was something you needed to avoid at all costs, it shouldn't be like that. This E30 is the dream sim drifters car, with a wheelbase short enough that you can transition fast and hard, but enough control and power to maintain some insane angles for a long long time. Suspension customisation is great, a very realistic set of options to work with and the changes I was making were doing exactly what I expected them to do from previous experience in other sims. Having made what may have been the first cinematic drifting movie in AC -
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(plug plug plug) using the original E92 M3, which for drifting was pretty damn awful, this car has gotten me excited for the moment free camera is added to replays (please please please) so I can start working on something so much better.

Z4 GT3 @ Silverstone - No times recorded - A very soft feeling, easy to control GT car. FFB doesn't seem too intense but nonetheless this car is a lot of fun and quite easy to take to the limit of grip - will be a good car for online championship and multiclass racing.

Ferrari 599XX EVO @ Monza - 1.45.220 - This car terrifies me, it's loose and oversteery on corner exits, understeer on the way in, but I think this adds to the charm and difficulty that this car presents. Low speed corners are very twitchy on exit and require an early upshift to be safe, setup changes will hopefully add some crispness to the slow corners and allow you to be more aggressive on the throttle.

Pagani Zonda R @ Monza - 1.43.932 - Incredible car, much more planted and 'mechanical' than the Ferrari, gives you real confidence to drive it hard and when you do it rewards you. From the cars I tested this seems like it's the fastest by quite a far margin, the sound above 7k revs is insane, one of my favourite cars, if not my outright favourite so far.

P4/5 Competizione model 2011 @ Monza - 1.51.936 - This car surprised me, a lot. For a car that looks about as forgiving as a guillotine, it's incredible how hard you can throw this beast into turns for it to do nothing but grip you out of them, in terms of feel it's very much like a single seater, turn in is instant and predictable, you can place the car exactly where you want to and power out of corners with confidence because of the relatively low power output. This will be one of the most fun and rewarding to race once multiplayer hits.

BMW M3 E30 Group A @ Magione - 1.19.948 - This one has made me quite angry at Kunos, but only because it's made me fall back in love with driving sims and will probably lead to me spending money on a new wheel/pedal set so I can have even more fun in this car. It drives exactly as you'd wish an E30 Group A Touring Car to drive, like heaven. The only criticism I have is that the FFB seems a little dull, but the way this car drives almost makes up for that - it's predictable and a handful at the same time, you can drive like a nutter throwing the wheel around everywhere and have an incredible amount of fun while doing so. Like I said, this car is going to cost me money.

MP4-12C @ Mugello - 2:05.608 - At first I didn't really like this car, it's odd, it floats through corners twitching between over and understeer, sometimes it feels like you have to throw it into corners and power through them in oversteer, other times like you need to do the opposite. I wasn't happy with this car, until I learned that I was driving it wrong. To make this car go fast you need to drive with your right foot, not with your hands. Throttle control holds the balance to this car's performance, drive it like you'd drive a Group B rally car around a track with slicks and you'll find the balance.

Here's a little TL;DR list for what I've blurbed about above:

Preface - I love driving sims.
Assetto Corsa - The best one yet.
Ferrari F40 - Lives up to the hype and expectation.
BMW E30 M3 Drift - Incredible fun, the drifter in me is very pleased.
Z4 GT3 - Fast and easy, a nice car.
Ferrari 599XX EVO - Fast and hard, a terrifying yet exciting car.
Pagani Zonda R - Very very fast, very very fun.
P4/5 Competizione model 2011 - Drives like a 160mph go kart.
BMW M3 E30 Group A - Insane fun, you can drive it as hard as you want to.
MP4-12C - Learning curve but rewarding and fast when driven properly.

PS. If anyone from Kunos happens to read this far through - please add a variation to the drift circuit that isn't totally flat, hills and uneven tracks make drifting 100x more fun. Please add Ebisu!

 

Excellent review from someone very similar to myself, viva Kunos, long live real sim racing!!

 

Good review

 

Well said , i really think this sim has got what is needed to survive a long time and be regarded as the best . Just cannot wait for the nordschleife and bathurst they will just be absolutely epic !!!!

 

You're not alone! Back in '96 I started racing online with TEN (Total Entertainment Network) and Nascar Racing 2 by Papyrus. Then came Grand Prix Legends in '98. I fooled around with some PS3 racing titles, but nothing ever grabbed me again like Assetto Corsa has. This is gonna be good

 

After years of playing Forza and console racers using options available to make them as real and "hardcore" as possible I finally found myself in a position financially to build a gaming computer and buy a wheel and get good internet to sim race about 4 years ago. All I knew was that I wanted as much realism as possible and a gaming pc and wheel could take me there...I pretty much didn't even know how to google at that point. I had a couple online friends that had been on iracing for a few months when I put my computer together and the thought of laser scanned tracks were constantly in my head.
I joined iracing and after years of playing so many versions of Laguna Seca in so many games actually being on the definitive version of the track was all that I could ever ask for; I was a very happy sim-racer. I couldn't stand how the cars drove (honestly, they felt nothing like anything with 4 wheels made of rubber I had ever driven in my 40 years) but I couldn't get enough of the tracks and you never knew, that next car you bought just might be "the one". And even if it wasn't at least there were updates every 4 months and a new tire model was on the horizon so the driving was bound to get better, right?
Well a little over three years and a thousand dollars and so many headaches from so many things such as the racing not actually being any cleaner than on console despite safety rating, protest system that was a joke, and driving model that IMO was no better than when I started it was about time to kiss that money goodbye and let my membership lapse.
About a year or so ago I discovered rfactor (mods are so cool but the driving physics just didn't do it for me) Race series (driving physics felt pretty good but online seemed like a ghost town) and finally Netkar Pro. The driving physics, and general overall "feel" of driving a real car blew me away...even though the graphics were what I would call "functional" and there was nobody to race against I was in heaven...this is what steadily upgrading my computer and pedals was all for; a driving experience that made me forget I was sitting in front of a pc and made me think I was behind the wheel of a Shelby Daytona Cobra. I finally got a couple of my friends (guys that I have never met but we have been racing the hell out of each other since PGR 2 and Forza 2....we talk everyday on Ventrillo) to buy it and getting us all in a server was a general pain in the *** and most of the time we would all finally get in somebody's game would randomly crash but the driving was so awesome it was worth it.
We were all getting pretty burnt out with how things were going and at different points we each were considering selling our rigs...then we discovered the P&G V3 mod....And I was in sim-racing heaven again. Cars that I absolutely love and adore and they felt like driving a real car (maybe a bit simplified, but still wonderful). Getting together online was as big of a pain in the *** as ever but there was so much fun to be had when everything worked right. I was really starting to think that hotlapping on my own in P&G and Netkar and occasionally getting a race or at least practice with my buddies was as good as it was ever going to get.
Rfactor2 finally started to show a little bit of promise a few months ago and as much as I really wanted to like it there is just something "off" to me that I can't quite get over; and don't even get me started on the pain in the *** of trying to get online with other people.
For the last year in a half the main thing that kept me from selling my pc and giving up totally on my only hobby was knowing that AC was coming. Combine the facts of Stefano made Netkar, Aris had alot to do with P&G, and for some reason I was more than willing to buy into the hype machine and kept faith through so many delays and promises of "soon" that this would be the one that would actually live up to the hype and be worth the wait. For the last year my buddies and I pretty much every day would make the comment, "One more day down between now and when we are driving AC". Now that it is out, albeit in early access with pretty much only hotlapping, I can say that the hype and the wait were well worth it. I completely lose myself making lap after lap and constantly being blown away by how much I forget i am setting in front of a pc and think I am a world class driver living the dream driving the piss out of fantastic cars on epic tracks. Once multiplayer gets here even if it is a pain in the *** to connect with my friends and the game keeps freezing and crashing it will still be worth it and will keep me enjoying my hobby for many years to come...if the online experience is anywhere near as good as iracing I will be in absolute sim-racing bliss.
Wow, looking up that is one massive wall of text from a rambling old guy but that is pretty much my story and I look forward to reading yours. Thank you for your hard work Kunos, it is very much appreciated by me; a simracer that was getting ready to throw in the towel. I am now saving up (the wife said I could have it as an anniversary present next month) for a proper cockpit "obutto" and will have a Fanatic H-pattern shifter soon after. I can't wait to see most of ya'll on track (I'll be the slow guy in the back that although grumpy and upset that I am slow deep down inside I am still having a blast).

 

Nice post Michael

I hate to be 'that guy' but separate those paragraphs man! Wall of text hell

 

Now this is something I love to read. Such a magnificent counter weight to all the childish whining that's been spinning out of control around here. Thank you guys for these stories, they're much appreciated, and if I wasn't on the phone I'd tell my own.

Another day.

But yeah this sim finally feels like what I always was looking for! I've been hoarding sim games for years and constantly jumped between them restlessly without ever settling in.

Nowadays i race AC at all times except for a drive around the green hell in P&G when the abstinence gets too prominent. This sim is so god damn wonderful to drive!

My best friend has a Lotus Elise that's hauntingly similar to drive in assetto as in real life. It's crazy.

<3

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

 

I swear I tabbed each paragraph at least....not sure what happened but yeah, major wall of text that most won't read..I'll try to edit
crap the edit button disappeared....

 

Skopey, I noticed you didn't mention the very under appreciated Lotus 2-11. Just wanna give you a heads up that it really really grows on you.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

 

The 2-11 at Magione blew me away....Any other sim I probably wouldn't even try that car...my friends decided it would be the combo of the night and WOW, awesome car.

 

Will give this a drive tomorrow! Thanks for the tip

 

I just love the weight distribution of it, and how easy it can slide its tail from lift-off... It's a wonderful machine and feels very very much like a Lotus in every way, but as a track day car instead of more focused for roads. I think I love it.

Mugello is fantastic with it

 

Nice "review"! Even tough I might not be as experienced as you seem to be, I have the same opinion.
You can really drive the cars. They are easy while driving "slow" like driving should be. They start to get interesting and fun when driving fast and very very rewarding when trying faster.
With this sim I constantly want to faster to have more fun, especually with the F40.
In other sims it gets unpredictable at a point and gets frustrating (in pcars the FFB is awful and hard to cobtrol, rF2 is icy especially on the green track) Nobody would love racing real cars if it would be like this.

Some questions regarding your setup:
What do you have and with what stettings in windows/AC do you race/Drift?
What are you planning to buy?

 

Not sure if your questions were towards me but I can't sleep and apparently like to type:

I use a DFGT with CSR Elite pedals (brake and clutch inverted)
If things go right I will finally be getting an Obutto cockpit next month and a Fanatic H-pattern shifter the month after that.....Hopefully an Occulus Rift but probably not until version 2 or 3.
The only setting not set to high or max is cubemap resolution is set to low and not using any motion blur......frames are locked to 61 and camera is not locked to horizon.

 

Cool stuff, here's my take on it as I don't want to start a new thread!

Preface - I started my driving sim 'career' in 1983 with the arcade game 'Pole Position'. Then moved on through some other games including one called Hard Driving. Then fast forward until the first ever Grand Turismo in 1999 on Play Station 1, which blew mt away with it's realistic nature, very ahead of its time. It wasn't until GTR2 by Simbin 2006 that I fully understood the possibilities of racing on the PC. Have moved on to Race 07, Rfactor 1 and 2, Formula Truck, NetKar Pro and Kart Racing Pro.



Assetto Corsa - has been the bet thing since I first played Grand Turismo on the PS1, where I think, 'wow, that's much better than the rest'. But still not finished, so not sure of how much better it will be.

Formula Arbath - My favorite car, grips well until pushed very hard and set-up properly.

Ferrari 599XX EVO @ Monza - Love this car, I think it's because it reminds me of driving the Ferraris in GTR2, I think it's probably in the top one or two cars in the sim love it. Monza is just a stunningly beautiful track to drive in AC.

Ferrari 458 Italia - Good fun, but eclipsed by the 599XX

Ferrari F40 - The car is sweet, but it's not my cup of tea, laggy twin turbos and mediocre brakes, make it hard to adjust to coming from more modern machines.

BMW E30 M3 Drift - This car is massive fun

Most of the Lotus cars - Lightweight fun, but with the more powerful ones the suspension and alinement needs to be set-up right or they can behave weirdly on weight transfers. When set-up well htey are as much fun as any Ferrari, especially on tighter tracks

 

Currently using a G25 wheel with some Logitech Driving Force EX Pedals bodged in as for some reason when I took a break from racing I got rid of only the pedals + shifter of my G25, which I now greatly regret! I might try and find someone with a G25 who's looking to upgrade and try and buy the pedals/shifter cheap to go with my wheel, not sure if I could afford the full Thrustmaster kit!

For both race + drift my windows settings are 720 degrees, 101% overall strength, 0% on everything else with centering spring enabled set to 0%. In game settings are all left default for now!

 

There is real potential with this game

It is getting there. I'm seeing it with my own eyes lol

 

720 degree is interesting. As far as I know AC is programmed that if you set your wheel to 900 and ingame as well, you will automatically get the realistic steering lock/ratio for each car individually.
Of course for drifting 720 is advantageous.

For the pedal set I can highly recommend the CSR Elite Michael uses as well. It offers god value for the money (got mine for 100€ on ebay), especially with the load cell brake. After getting used to the force you have yo apply, you can modulate the barking far far better.
Haven't got the inversion accessory though.

 

I started in LFS back in 2005 as well.
I found it because of drifting and LFS had a hugeee reputation for the sport.
2005 was the year I found drifting, found LFS, and ultimately, found the one thing that would keep me from becoming rich for the rest of my life
Assetto is like a dream come true for me, though. LFS over the past few years has gotten extremely stale.