Gsce bonanza

Yep sure but I suggest you to read the reiza threads on racedepartment to best ffb results

 

Keep or refund dilemma.
Quite underwhelmed but what it is in a current state, literally see no reason to spend already limited time there when AC is around with better graphics, physics and force feedback.
Is AMS going to be that much better?

 

Like I said, thanks everyone for your tips. The ffb is working properly finally. GSCE is an ok sim. Will need more tweaking but it's getting there. Nowhere near what I was hoping for but it's... useable.
Love the Formula Vee, the Opala , and that closed cockpit single seater with giant turbos which name I forget. Will need to get in more seat time, for sure.

Let me just say sorry to the legion of people I have offended by saying it could use a little more hardware setup accessibility. I was not on a mission to start a holy war.

@David Dominguez where would that other forum be? on RD?

 

@Andrew_WOT You have 2 options:
1) keep it, receive your AMS free copy (if you bought SCE before 5 january). You will have two sims at price of one and you can follow AMS progress during time.
2) go for refund, follow AMS (reading on forums, you tube videos) and only when you will be sure of quality decide if buy it or not, at least you can buy a couple of AC DLCs with refund.

If you don't liked it I will suggest you to go for option 2...

 

Good. One thing I forgot to mention is that I'm always disabling look-to-apex and head movements from every ISI-based titles. These are things that can make you feel unnecessarily disconnected.

 

I’d keep it. As DaVex already mentioned you can grab AMS for free.
One thing I appreciate about GSCE: the huge amount of outstanding mods and the good AI. If I want to race offline I choose GSCE or rfactor 2.
Imo The CART Extreme mod alone is worth keeping GSCE, but that’s of course just my personal taste.

And if you don’t like the looks/colors of GSCE, there are also some nice mods.
I for example use this mod: Klick

I just wonder if AMS will still support all the mods?

 

No, it's not going to. At least, not until the authors of every single mod get around to updating their work... but, being a game based on such old content, who knows how many modders are still around. (besides Patrick Giranthon).

All car mods will need to be reworked because there will be physics engine changes I believe, along with other things Im forgetting. Perhaps Im mistaken on "what" the changes are, but none the less, the mods will need to be redone. Patrick is already working on his mods so they will be ready when AMS releases. I think he has pretty close ties to Reiza... so, he has an advantage there.

Tracks, Im not certain on. I think they will need to be reworked as well since there will be new track features like a rubbered in racing line with marbles.

So, it really would be best to keep GSCE installed with all of your mods... and use AMS for the crowdfunding campaign content. ie. Super Trucks, the 2000's f1 car, etc. At least until the mods get updated to work with AMS... if they ever do.

 

Yeah, the AA in GSCE certainly isnt very good out of the box. Seems to be a problem with all rFactor based games. The AA choices in the graphics config leave a lot to be desired, especially since they arent labeled at all either.

I found a nice way to vastly improve the graphics however. Are you familiar with Nvidia Inspector? Basically, it is a piece of software that allows you more customization of your graphics card. For instance, allowing you to force different types of AA. Some work better than others and some games are a bit finicky, but GSCE works quite well with this feature. If you are interested, I can give you a more thorough run through of exactly what you need to do to get it to look good. It really is quite simple.

And if your gpu is a gtx 770, you have more than enough horse power to crank up the AA to get rid of the jaggies.

 

I think not. With triples... Atleast I can't with GTX 770 OC.

 

Yes, I'd like to know these tweaks

 

I got the Power & Glory mod on GTR2 to look decent by throwing 32X CSAA and 8x Supersampling at it; I would imagine the same thing would work with this old game.

 

My old 770 and current 970 both have trouble keeping a good enough framerate when using highest graphics settings + SweetFX + 20-plus AI cars on my triple setup.

The game for me still needs shadow to be max or off, or I could have flickering shadows here and there sometimes which makes it really hard to drive.

I use about 20 look-into-apex and it feels quite natural though, but higher than that I feel my neck being torn.

 

Look to apex, in any form, is always disconcerting.
We depend to much on what we see to know what the car is doing.
It can be fun, I guess when driving casually, but as soon as you push, you need a stable view to anticipate what to do when the car is starting to over steer.

 

@LeDude83

About graphic tweaks and other stuff, you can read this:
http://www.racedepartment.com/threads/stock-car-extreme-all-the-tips-you-need-to-know.91704/

Spoiler: Tweaks AMD

Follow this tweaking guide, credits goes to Spinelli (I don't know if he is on AC forums too), can be applied to all ISI engine games (rF, rF2, GSCE, GTR2):

RFactor engine based games recommended AMD Catalyst Control Panel (CCC) Settings
I have noticed over the years that getting ISI based games to look great while using AMD graphics cards is very straightforward and always follows the exact same formula....

NOTE: If you don't feel like reading everything below then just basically make sure the in-game/game config AA is set to none/0x, and in your graphics card's control panel set AA to override app settings, with 2x, 4x or 8x, and type being supersampling. The key here is supersampling.


A. Anti-Aliasing Mode - Override Application Settings - Unlike most games, make sure to disable all game controlled Anti-Aliasing and leave it up to your graphics card's control panel.

B. Anti-Aliasing Samples - 2x, 4x, or 8x - 8x will most likely kill your framerate (supersampling AA method, see "D" below) even on new hardware and an older sim, but looks pretty much perfect. Everything, and I mean everything is sharp, clear, clean, defined. Fences, trees, painted lines on the ground, leaves, poles, wires, even when they are far off in the distance all look great, like a photoshopped/edited picture but in live gameplay motion of course . It makes, for example, Toban at RFactor 1 (w/ high res texture mods) look beautiful and real. Don't worry though because 4x is a VERY good compromise. 4x gives you much more frames and less slowdowns than 8x but it is very, very close to the image quality of 8x. 2x gives even more frames and is what I mostly use because I play with triple monitors and like frame rates to be between 90 & 120. Unlike the IQ of 4x which is hardly a reduction in IQ compared to 8x, 2x does see a noticeable decrease in IQ and you do start noticing the jaggies. I would always though, 100%, rather have 2x supersampling over even 16x or 32x non-supersampling (multisampling or adaptive multisampling) in most ISI based sims, see option "D" below for the reason why.

NOTE: Experimented tons with quality versions of AA for each respective AA sample amount, for ex. 4xEQ instead of 4x, etc. doesn't do much, if anything, for ISI engine IQ.

C. Filter - Standard - Experimented tons with edge-detect, doesn't do anything for ISI engine IQ, regardless of AA mode.

D. Anti-Aliasing Method - Supersampling - The image quality of ISI's engines hardly improve when using regular multi-sample AA even if you're using something insane like 16x or 32x, and unlike most DX9 games the adaptive AA setting (I believe NVidia calls this Transparency AA) hardly improves the image quality as well. This is where Super-sampling AA comes to the rescue, and boy does it ever. The problem with non-supersampling is that many of the things on screen don't get affected by your AA, so even setting the amount of samples to 10000x wont do anything because certain objects/things on screen are just not affected by the AA, period. Supersampling is different because it doesn't care about what's on screen, it affects the entire picture. It uses a technique where it sort of upscales the entire image to a higher resolution and that's why everything looks incredible with supersampling, but also why it kills frames especially with 8x.

NOTE: Raceroom Racing Experience doesn't seem as dependant on supersampling AA in order to get a clean picture as other ISI engine based games. Simbin seem to have worked the ISI engine in RRRE very nicely in terms of getting a pretty clean picture while not using supersampling.

E. Morphological Filtering - Off - AMD's version of FXAA. Generally speaking, I'm not a big fan of post-processing AA. They are POST-processing which means they affect the image after it's already been drawn so they don't really "talk" to the game much and therefore they affect and blur out entire objects/surfaces and textures themselves. FXAA in Battlefield 3 at 1080p turns the ground from insanely sharp, detailed and beautiful to looking like a blurry, console, low resolution, game from 2005. I might as well just buy a console or turn down my game's resolution to 800x600 if I am going to be using FXAA/Morph AA. SMAA is the only one that seems "intelligent" to not affect textures too much while still getting rid of jaggies, but it has to be "injected" with Radeon Pro and can be picky depending on the game you're using, settings, etc. Some games that have badly designed AA programming, and are too intensive to use supersampling AA with, do need a bit of FXAA/Morph AA though. For example, the FXAA in BF3, I still have to keep it on "Low", (1 tick from off) rather than off like I really want to, because BF3 is like RFactor, you can use 10000X regular AA but some things like power lines and many other things just don't get affected by the regular AA mode. Also, if you don't mind/don't notice the lower IQ of FXAA/Morph AA then, for the most part, it is a great and extremely efficient way (fps wise) of getting rid of jaggies. I imagine in a racing sim, as opposed to a shooter, that you would hardly notice or care for blurred textures if it means getting rid of jaggies without having to resort to frame-per-second killing supersampling.

F. Anisotropic Filtering Mode - ...
1. Use Application Settings - Set it in-game for the sims that have that option like RFactor 1, RFactor 2 and sims based on those engines (ex. Game Stock Car 2013, ARCA Simracing, Simulador Turismo Carretera, Formula Truck 2013, etc.)
2. Override Application Settings - For sims based on an older/custom version of ISI's engine with no in-game AF setting (ex. GTR2, GT Legends, Race 07 series, possibly RRRE, etc.).

G. Anisotropic Filtering Level - Use Application Settings unless if "F" (above) is set to 2 then set to 16x or 8x. In some games 8x may give a boost in frames while hardly being a reduction in IQ from 16x. I can rarely notice a difference in far off angled texture sharpness/blurriness (ex. the ground as it gets further and further away from you) between 8x and 16x, but the reason I keep it on 16x is because most games nowadays get like literally a 2 fps improvement when going from 16x to 8x so if that's the case then I might as well max the IQ. There are rare exceptions though, there is a sim (not ISI/RFactor based) that, to my surprise, receives some pretty large gains in fps when going from 16x to 8x, and even from 8x to 4x. Real rare though but it happens.

H. Texture Filtering Quality - High Quality...
I. Surface Format Optimizations - Off...
- My OCD makes me always put these to their highest IQ settings for just about all games, period (unless there's a special circumstance for a specific game, which I don't know of any as of now). However, don't be shy in experimenting. You may not notice IQ reduction and may notice fps improvements from changing those settings to "Standard"/"Performance" and "On".

The last 4 options are for vsync, openGL, and tessellation. Pretty much leave vertical refresh to "Off, unless application specifies" as the game itself should handle vsync on/off unless a special circumstance makes you need to force it from the control panel (very rare). OpenGL triple buffering I leave to default Off, but it's mostly irrelevant as the setting only affects OpenGL based games while most games (including just about every race sim out there) are DirectX based. The 2 tessellation options I actually keep on "Use application settings" instead of the default "AMD Optimized". It won't make a difference to almost any current racing sim, but for any games and benchmark programs that do use some tessellation I like to just use the pure/raw way the tessellation was designed in-game, without any graphics card control panel driver "optimizations" going on.

For the Nvidia ones read the forum thread posted from RD...

 

I find this function guides me to look farther ahead than what my instinct makes me to. I guess I'm not experienced enough to always look far enough

 

Can be. You should learn to always look one step further and your hands and feet follows naturally.

 

I cannot find where to change minimum force

 

Sorry mate, was long time ago, I don't remember the thread where I foud the way you can do it. I gave it a look right now but nothing appeared to me too (search button isn't my friend).

 

Hmm, saw someone mention you use triple monitors... If that is the case, running extra AA might be tough if you want to keep good frame rates. I have 2 gtx 660's and only run one 1080p monitor, so it is quite easy to keep high frame rates (like, 150-200).

In any case, search google for "Nvidia Inspector". Im not sure if I can link you to it here, but it should be the first result. Download and install that program. Once that is done, launch the Nvidia Inspector. It should pop up a small screen listing the specs of your gpu...



Once that is open, click the little screwdriver and wrench icon on the right side, next to the "Driver Version" section. This will open a window that will allow you to change many settings for any game you have. At the top left of that next screen, there is a "profiles" section. Click that and scroll down to "Game Stock Car". (That is what Stock Car Extreme is listed as, and it works fine) Once you select the game, scroll down to the section titled "antialiasing". Highlight "Antialiasing-Mode" and select "override application setting". Highlight "Antialiasing - Setting" and try whatever works. I used "8xS [Combined: 1x2 SS + 4x MS]. This may be too strong if you use triple monitors, so you could try the "4xS [Combined: 1x2 SS + 2MS] setting. This is basically just super sampling the image to a much higher resolution, which then helps get rid of the jaggies. Lastly, highlight the option titled "Antialiasing - Transparency Supersampling" and select "2x Sparse Grid Supersampling". I cant explain what that does exactly, but you need to choose it if you use the AA setting I outlined above.



Once done with that, look at the very top right of that window, and click "Apply changes". You need to do this to make sure the settings are applied obviously. Then close the window!

Now, one final thing to do before launching GSCE. Navigate to your GSCE file folder. Launch the GSC config. Find the antialiasing option and completely turn it off. The option should be "none". This is so the only AA being used in the game is the AA you just enabled in Nvidia Inspector, and not any AA that the game has built in.

Try this and see if the results are favorable. For me, this vastly improved the image. But, with 3 monitors, I dont know how well this will work for you. Although I would still try it and see! If you need any more help with this, Ill be glad to try and see if I can offer advice.

Cheers

 

I've set 4xMSAA and 4xSGSS in inspector and have practically zero jaggies and still get 120+ fps and smooth ride with full grid on any track.