Total beginner to racing games/sims

Hello, Assetto Corsa players!

Assetto Corsa is my first racing game/sim of any type. I've got a G27 and really enjoy the premise of the game, but I have basically zero experience with these sorts of games and find breaking into the genre to be incredibly daunting, and at times very frustrating. I've got about as much experience driving cars in real life as anyone else (IE I don't bring any knowledge of complex driving mechanics into the game with me)

That said, I've watched many of iRacing's tutorials and understand some of the more basic concepts (apex of turns, braking before entering the turn, steady angle, accelerating out of the turn.) When I try to apply a lot of this theoretical stuff, I have a lot of trouble with consistency - I often have to correct my speed/wheel angle mid turn and often find myself flying off the track. It can feel pretty frustrating when I work so hard to learn the ins and outs and don't feel that I'm making progress.

With that established, I was wondering what suggestions you guys might have for me getting started. I tried the new car but felt that it was incredibly difficult to handle relative to the P4/P5 I had started with. I feel like I should pick a car/track/settings and stick with that to learn some of the general basics.

What do you guys think?

1. Should I practice using races, or just time attack? It's really frustrating to stay in last place the entire time and I feel like time attack might be nice if I had a way to watch my scores improve. Where can I find time attack records per car?
2. What car(s) would you recommend starting on?
3. Tracks?
4. Are there any mechanics you feel I should really try to get down?
5. Best FFB settings for the G27 to give me the feedback I need to learn what the car is doing?

I understand that some of this information (wheel settings) is already out there, but a lot of it seems to be aimed at the crowd who already knows what they're doing and understands why they want it that way. I'm looking for advice relevant to me as a complete beginner to racing.

I know that's a lot to read, but I really appreciate your input - I'd really like to break into this genre but find the sheer amount of information and skill required to be incredibly intimidating, and it'd mean a lot to me if you guys'd help me find my way. Feel free to respond at length or in short.

Thanks again!

 

Too drunk and lazy to reply now but remind me tomorrow

 

Practice, a lot. There are some good video tutorials online like the Skip Barber one that demonstrate the basics.

Personally I'd pick one of the slower cars, Lotus 2,11, X-Bow, F Abarth if you like single seaters and just drive it at the same track. With practice you will improve, consistency and smoothness are key, sliding is fun but it's also slow unless grip is very very low.

The drift track is good for practicing slides. In the centre there's a circle, drive round it adding speed and practicing g counter steering,catching slides. As you get more comfortable try to drift at greater angles.

Practice...

 

Welcome

Just a quick response to a few of your questions...

While you're looking just to get used to the sim and find consistency i'd just stick to hotlap mode.
I would recommend the X-Bow or Lotus 2-11 as good "beginner" cars . Not too daunting to drive handling wise yet still great fun to learn the essentials. The P4/5 is a good choice to stick with though if you like that type of car. It's pretty forgiving.

It doesn't really matter what tracks you use, though personally i always use Imola as my 'test track'

I'm sure other will chip in wish their wheel settings.

Just stick at it and dont get frustrated... just make sure you learn from your mistakes. There's no quick fix to anything. Improvements will only come with laps... usually many hundreds of them Dont get to fixated on lap times other people are running, a huge amount of us have been sim racing for many years and have hundreds of thousands of miles on the board.

EDIT: It's essential to get your FFB and FOV set correctly..it will make a huge difference to your control and overall experience. I'l try and find some threads with good advice for those a bit later.

 

Got it! Thank you all for the input so far - I'll try the cars you mentioned out and work on practicing the fundamentals.

For anyone else reading, feel free to continue adding to what's already here. I appreciate it!

 

Have fun, remember it's a game so don't take it to seriously and join in on the weekly challenges, I have and I must say it's a great way to learn from some of the faster guys. Watching their videos of fastest laps is very informative. I'm a mediocre driver in AC but it's fun so I'll keep trying.

 

some good suggestion in the Steam thread
http://steamcommunity.com/app/244210/discussions/0/648814841935000635/

 

G27 settings:

In logetech soft:

And in game- you may want to try Road Effects at around 20% to feel the bumps in the road.

 

Odd...my wheel was working fine with the game yesterday, but for some reason it becomes totally unresponsive about 50% of the time and all of the axes lock. I'll be applying gas and turning a bit to the left, then stop doing both and the wheel in game will continue turning left/accelerating. Needless to say, this makes the game completely unplayable. I'd conclude it was my G27, but both the windows config and the in game options represent all axes with 100% precision and don't feature any of this "input loss", and attempts to find something on this online haven't been very fruitful. I'm setting up another racing game I own to try it out there, but am not sure what to do to fix this or what the problem is.

 

Do you have Logitech profiler/game software installed? http://www.logitech.com/en-gb/support/g27-racing-wheel?osid=14&bit=64
I believe its a must, windows native soft is not enough

 

Yes, I do have the logitech profiler installed. I had only meant to explain that the OS apparently agrees with what I'm doing with the wheel axes. Thanks for the link!

EDIT: GTR2 is buttery smooth. Looks like it's just Assetto. It seems like it was working fine before I updated my NVIDIA drivers today...could that have affected it?

 

Hm, not sure then...
Download Live for Speed demo to see if your wheel is ok- its FFB is among the very best, and the installer is small as its an old sim. Its time unlimited too (not that you'd want to come back to it after AC )

 

Edited my last post; It's definitely just Assetto.

 

Hm, try running the wheel configuration wizard in settings in AC (you can see the button in my screenshot above)

 

No mastering of race events possible - before being able to master your car. You would do like sequence in real life, too.

Nothing compares to logging track time. So: drive, drive, drive.

Some techniques you will need to adopt for sure. Because some of the slow cars just seem to not turn if you do not know how to apply weight to the frontal axis. That can be difficult, I struggle myself with that art, you need to be precise in your timing, and racing line.

Check for videos at youtube regarding the car you currently "train" and the trck you currently use. Find the ones that indeed feature good drivers and a solid performance, and then just watch gear, speed and raceline, especially brake points. Memorize. Then try to copy in the sim what you saw in film.

 

Yeah, as for general advice- have fun on the track! Tires give optimum speed at less then 10 degrees slide (but not 0 degrees) through a corner, so learn to slide, learn to control sliding, learn to stop being afraid of oversteer. As J Clarkson said - taking a corner fast is quite a sexy feeling. AC is awesome for giving that feeling , especially for people with a good wheel like our g27

 

Bit of random advice...

Whatever track you're at, and it'll help a lot initially if you pick one* and stick with it for a bit, make sure you try and pick out some braking markers for each braking point, preferably picking stuff that's a bit further away than you reckon is right. Bits of curb, corner distance markers, changes in tarmac, trees, buildings... it doesn't matter. As long as it's permanent (shadows, for example, are a bad idea!) and works for you, it's good.

Then, try and consistently hit those marks (as in, brake at the same point each lap). Some of them, maybe all of them, will be wrong. For the stuff you think's not right, move them around a bit an experiment. If there's no convenient feature, you can always use "pass convenient feature, count to 1, brake" or something similar - there are certainly a few places where I do that in fast-braking cars.

The key thing's try and be consistent. It's much easier to reach a conclusion such as "I'm braking way to early here" when you know where you're braking every lap than it is if you're just winging it and trying to remember exactly what you did the last time. Similarly, if you've got a corner pretty well nailed, having the start of it marked by something obvious makes it a lot easier to repeat your success. Okay, so "nailed" is a relative term here as declaring something perfect is a bit daft unless you're topping the lap charts, but "good enough for now" is definitely what you (and, for that matter, 95% of us!) are aiming at.

It's fair to say that there are a load of extra points worth memorising - apexes (which aren't necessarily "in the middle of the turn"), acceleration points (especially in long corners where you can't see the exit, such as Luffield at Silverstone), turn in points for certain corners, etc. - but initially just stick with getting a braking point sussed out for each corner as it'll make it so much easier to analyse what you're doing right and wrong.

* The best choice being the one you like the most. Enjoying it is the point of the exercise, after all.

 

My suggestion is take either the BMW E92 M3 or Z4 (street versions) and make about a thousand laps at Magione.......I promise you will be a much better driver afterward.

 

Like others said, I would choose one track and an easy car (Abarth 500 fe.) and drive a couple of laps for a couple of days. You will sooner or later get into it. No doubt. Have fun!

 

Gotcha! Thank you all for the wonderful advice so far.

It certainly makes sense to pick a car/track and stick with it. I'll experiment with that some.

I like the suggestion to create mental "brake points" - I'll look at how I can apply that to the track that I practice on.

@claudiopolez, what exactly do you mean by slide/10 degrees slide?

@Skybird, what sort of techniques do you have in mind when you talk about applying weight to the frontal axis? I'm aware that braking shifts weight forwards/accelerating rearwards and turning shifts it to the side, but it's all very theoretical for me and trying to think about it while on the track can be a bit difficult. I find that while I understand it on paper, thinking about it under realistic circumstances can be pretty difficult sometimes.