Should I play AC?

Hello Forums,

I am looking for a racing sim / simcade game for PC. I was attracted to Forza due to the size of the car roster and tracks and also how easy it is to upgrade cars and tune them. I also like how easy it is to just get into an online race with everything being organized. The main thing I do not like in Forza is the crashing.... Its actually more about crashing than actual racing which bothers the hell out of me.

I bought Project cars thinking that the experience might be better but I dunno that game to me feels like its lacking something and a bit of polish and the online isn't like super active in my opinion.

I paid 6$ ( on special ) for an iRacing sub the other day thinking I would be blown away by the multiplayer racing experience but I dunno if its for me. I feel like the game is kind of expensive even though I know I could be very selective with what I buy but still. Maybe I need to put more time into iRacing ? I see a lot of negative about the game as well on other forums about people realizing its not worth the money after so many years and they just switch to other games.

I am looking for a game with a good selection of cars and tracks that has decent graphics ( I know this shouldn't matter if the game physics are good but it matters to me ) with good multiplayer or atleast active multiplayer. I don't play career mode or race by myself I almost always race online against other players because that's what I enjoy. Could AC be a good option for me? I am willing to buy the 60-90$ of DLC as well if it will enhance the experience.

Thanks!

 

Yes.

 

You should figure out what you want first of all, you went from full-on-arcade (Forza) to serious "hardcore" sims (iRacing).

These are some of the most popular options, and what they deliver (I'm assuming you use a steering wheel):

- Assetto Corsa: great physics, huge selection of cars (not Gran Turismo 1000 all-really-the-same-car, each single one is unique and feels completely different), laser-scanned tracks, countless mods, a lot of serious racing leagues. The AI is really good, especially in tin top racers (GT3, GT2, etc), not quite so in F1 cars. Netcode is decent, but if you want online racing you should find a league, only visit public servers if you want to race until turn 1. Pricing is extremely competitive.

- rFactor 2: some argue it has even better physics than AC, it's certainly a proper sim and the offline experience is even better than AC. The AI is the best I've seen in a racing game, it can even handle multiclass races fairly well. Not a huge selection of original content to choose from, especially when it comes to tracks (most Studio397 tracks are American circuits I never heard of), the rest are - mostly debatable - mods. It's not the easiest to set up and the graphics are not up to speed, but in the next months there should be some major updates so maybe things will change. Everything used to be free, provided you bought the base game, but now they're switching to paid DLC, more on the iRacing side on the prices.

iRacing: your to-go sim if you want to invest a lot of time and money in it. I don't personally have it, but a lot of friends say it offers the best online sim-racing experience of the field. It's freaking expensive though.

Project Cars 2: after the Project Cars fiasco, they made a lot of big promises for the sequel. It doesn't seem they planned on actually delivering. Mediocre sim-cade with pretty graphics and some really idiotic AI. Rain races look pretty though.

Forza: haven't tried that to be honest, it's not a sim, but it looks fun on a controller. Not sure about a wheel.

 

Yes

 

Thank you for the reply. Yes I am using a racing wheel and to be honest Forza doesn't feel that bad on a wheel but I have heard the controller is faster and I do for sure feel that its way more arcade. I think that AC might be the best option for me at this point because its the only one out of the above mentioned games that actually got me hyped to race. I am assuming that all of the DLC for AC is worth it? I haven't played the game in years.

How do mods work? I am really lost when it comes to mods even though I have heard its a big part of the game. I like the idea of having all these extra tracks and cars added to the game but I don't know how to find the good mods or even how to use them or find races that use mods.

 

there's raceroom and automobilista of course.

 

I saw Raceroom on steam but it has kind of mixed / negative reviews. Whats the deal with that game? Is it any good?

 

Well you certainly have the rig for AC to run very well. It will be a welcome new addition for you especially when you run whatever car you choose on The Nordschleife layouts all laser scanned Go get it!

 

If you check SteamChart, AC is the most popular PC simracing title at the moment.
Plenty of good reasons for that.

 

Mods can be found on racedepartment.com
Crazy amount of stuff for AC, just about anything you can think of

 

Raceroom is quite good as well, since it is free to play, you could easily give it a try and see if you like it. I spent quite some time on it with the Racedepartment clubs and had a lot of fun with it.
Forza feels much more arcade than most over games/sims that you mentioned, I'd say if you try Raceroom and like it, you're probably going to like AC as well.
I have all the DLCs for AC and I don't regret paying for them. Usually there are only 2 or 3 cars I like in the entire DLC but they justify getting the DLC and I see the others as a simple bonus.
The issue you might encounter with AC (and any other sim) is that racing on public servers is rarely enjoyable because a lot of players lack the skills to survive going through the first corner with 10-15 other cars on the track. I highly recommend the Racedepartment clubs for a good experience but you might still need to spend a bit of time doing hotlaps to get rid of the bad habits from Forza and learn sim-driving in order to enjoy online races.
One thing where AC does not shine is its career mode that is not as exciting as most sim-cade games. I am not a huge fan of the AI and the difficulty levels are a bit all over the place so offline racing is mostly limited to hotlaps.
Mods can be a bit tricky to figure out at first but once you get used to them, AC has a lot of available mods and the quality is often quite good. Tools like Content Manager can make your life easier depending on where you get your mods from but if you plan to play mostly online, you ll probably use mostly official content.

 

Ja watt denn nu' ? Sim, or simcade? Two different things.

My list of taste:

AC is a sim. Could be tried cheap if you wait for another sale, they have the customer-friendliest pricing policy. Best car modelling (interior, exterior, except lights). Second best AI. Best physics. Laserscanned tracks, looking good. Great moddability. Very customer-orientated. Friendly pricing. Intense public customer orientation: live interviews, exstensive developer streams.

Raceroom is a sim. Limited free playability, if you go into it, it becomes more expensive, microtransaction business model. Like AC, it is really good. Focus on GT3 in it, for reasons that currently are valid - but I will not dive deep into it here (there is a RR thread). Best sounds. Best AI. Second-best physics for GT3, other cars' physics: amongst the best as well. But GT3 is where it shines. Best looking tracks. Extremely limited moddability: no cars, no skins, no tracks, no sounds, only some tools. Very friendly developer team, public events. Slowly being transformed into a serious organised e-sports league thing: if iRacing ever gets a serious competitor in that, than here he comes.

Gran Turismo is simcade. Great looks, great overall composition of the package, Best looking car lights, especially rear lights, extrenely good exterior car modelling. Sound so-la-la, AI scripted and not worth being called that, physics are arcade. However, in total ia very enjoyable experience, different than AC or RR, but pleasurable.

Wreckfest. Simcade. Surprisingly, very enjoyable. The title is the agenda. Chaotic developer.

RFactor 2 is simulation. I do not like: tried if four times, four times fail for me. Driving experience was - I found it terrible.

Automobilista I have never tried, since my time already gets consumed by the games I have. But I hear and read many good things about it

iRacing you know, organised and moderated online-focus - this is its business idea, and this is what it does best.

Project Cars: 1 was simcade, 2 I do not know. Part 1 did not really convince me. I read they do the same troubles and mistakes due to rushed release again: that tells me I do not like the developer.

If I were you, I would try out both Assetto Corsa, and Raceroom. Wait for a sale on Automobilista.

P.S. Raceroom had a lousy start many years ago, but has been fundamentally improved since then. Some of the bad stuff your read abiout it, still bases on sentiuments rooting in those early years. To me it is the best out there beside Assetto Corsa. Some detials the one game doe sbetter, other details the other does better. All in all I now rank them on par.

If you are more in the mood for simcade, Gran Turismo sports trumps Project Cars, in my opinion. With fanfares.

 

I see from your signature you have decided already Well Assetto Corsa has one thing missing: a good user manual. There are a lot of keyboard shortcuts/functions and stuff that you don't know about the first time you play it.
Just for your convenience, let me list some of the basic ones:

• Rearview mirror: if you press F11 you show a virtual mirror that is very useful especially if you are on a single display like me
• Turbo: a few cars have adjustable turbo (in the loading screen of a race, check on the right to see if the car has it). You can use the numeric buttons on the keyboard or assign some buttons on the wheel like i did.
• ABS, Traction Control: some cars have those, in order to set them you go Ctrl+A and Ctrl+T. Traction control number is inverted, which means the higher the number the less the traction control. You can set them also in car setup. Make sure you activate the "Electronics" app when driving so you can see easily if they are active or not.
• DRS: some open-wheelers have the drag reduction system, assign a button on the wheel to activate it while in the DRS zones. Using the electronics app you can see when you are in a DRS zone.
• Braking balance: also useful to assign the controls to buttons on the wheel, sometimes adjusting the brake balance on the fly saves your life.
• In-game leaderboard (bottom edge of the screen): use F9 to cycle through the different styles and to disable it.
• Check the list of keyboard shortcuts here: https://www.assettocorsa.net/forum/index.php?faq/keyboard-shortcuts.18/
• Driver position: use the app to set the position to your liking. A personal recommendation is to try and lower the FOV a bit to get a more realistic view of the road ahead, which makes racing more natural and easy.
• Track map: make sure you activate it to see where the other cars are on the track, this will make you avoid a few crashes. There is also a track map mod which shows the whole track.
• Tires: make sure you bring up the tires app and check the temperatures: good tire temps are critical in AC. There are also third party apps with more features, like ProTires
• Screen brightness: you can quickly adjust the exposure by using the pageup/pagedown keys.
• Force feedback: you can quickly adjust the force feedback strength for each individual car while you drive it: press the +/- keys on the numpad
• Watching other people drive: Press Ctrl+Numpad 1 or Numpad 3 to cycle through the cars, and Ctrl + numpad 2 to get back to your car. Useful to learn a track by watching someone good driving.

Must-have third party apps (personal opinion):

• Helicorsa: a radar app that shows you the position of the cars around you, extremely useful in multiplayer if you are on a single screen, along with F11 mirror.
• Content Manager: this is not an in-game app, it is basically an advanced menu interface for AC with tons of additional features, brings AC to the next level IMO.

Must-consider Multiplayer free services:

• Minorating (MR) an automatic safety ranking system. Servers that use Minorating can filter out wreckers and unsafe drivers. Check for servers showing "MR" in their name, or have them listed in Content Manager. Try to get to ranking "B" at least and enjoy some clean racing on AB servers.
• Sim Racing System (SRS) a free multiplayer racing system which is kind of close to iRacing: races every hour in different categories, you book a race, choose car and skin, get points for your race results, get penalties for accidents, some races are live-streamed on YouTube. Very good.

Other apps to consider:

• RSR live timing: a leaderboard (and an in-game app) with the fastest times for each car/track combo. Not used by many people any longer, but still fun to try an beat the records, plus a good reference to see where you stand.
• pTracker: a great in-game app that shows you your position, gaps, your real-time gap from your best lap, allows to exchange setups with other players etc.

You can find all this stuff and MUCH more on racedepartment.com. Also search this forum in the "Programming Language - Apps - GUI Themes" thread.

 

I will give Raceroom a try right now and report back

 

So I downloaded Raceroom Experience and practiced in single player for a bit with AI but when I went to the server listing on the multiplayer I was kind of dissapointed..... There are currently 2 servers right now with players in them and I mean like 3 players each. If I scroll down I can see the lobbies that I do not have content for so all the DLC and they are also empty..... Is Raceroom Experience a dead game?

 

I don't know about RRE but you also might find less active MP in AC too because most of the players are Europeans.

 

So yeah I was playing AC earlier and I noticed all the online lobbies are EU........... I have like 120 ping in almost all the servers. Maybe iRacing is the only option for me at this point or I stick it out in Forza lol

 

120 ping is totally ok, as long as it stays the same while you drive.

 

If you want to race online, want great ffb and driving feel, tons of content (official and mods) and all this for not much money Assetto Corsa is a no brainer.
You might find better online competition in Iracing but it’s expensive and imo has not that great driving feel.

Want to spend some time racing against the AI after all? Then there’s still Automobilista, R3E and rfactor 2 which all have a decent AI.

 

By far not, it is in a slow and constant rise since at least 2 and a half years , since a new team took over and started revamping it. Personally I do not play MP and last time I checked they had several dozen servers active, though, like most of the servers in AC, most servers are empty at a given time. It depends also on where you sit in the world, and time of day.

Note that Raceroom limits access to content in free play, I never liked that label "free play" anyway, it brings up wrong expectations. Just one or two tracks are free to race on all the time, plus they hold events when the range of free content is wider for some time, too.

Its not really free to play. Have eagle eyes when shopping, they make it easy for newbiews to spend more than they must. Your best bet is the premium pack, that everybody can buy ONCE in his life. It will contain, for 99 Euros, ALL content (cars, skins, tracks) available at that point of time, and I mean ALL content. Using that option makes Raceroom one of the cheapest sims around, measured by content quantity (and quality anyway). Buying one by one instead, makes it to one of the most expensive titles around. So: buy this or some of the other packs.

You can test-drive all cars for 5 minutes from the shop page. You do not need to own all cars to see those you do not own on track driven by the AI. They will be there, all cars and skins, just not accessible for you.

I recommend to test the AI at 95+ at Spa in GT3. Or Suzuka. Or Nordschleife. Pflicht zuerst, Kür zuletzt. If you drive Macau (a blast), tighten your steering wheel's steering range, else you get stuck in that famous killer hairpin. I use 17 as a standard value (default is 13), in Macau I tigthen it to 20 or more.

In general, for online Assetto corsa was and is the most played racing title on PC in the past year. Raceroom is smaller in playerbase, but in no way "dead". It blossoms slowly, but constantly, and its active developmement probbaly will outlive that of AC1, I take that from the announced business plans of Sector3, and what Kunos said on support for AC in the past. Kunos will maybe, likely switch focus in the forseeable future to "AC-2". Raceroom will only switch its graphcis engine in one or two years or so. Its two different product philosophies there, and two different business plans.

So: online races: Assetto Corsa. Offline races: Raceroom and Assetto corsa. Thats how I do it. I love both games.


Kunos media channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgrlBI6OzHgVA-iVupI4TuQ

Sector 3 media channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/RaceRoomRacing