Le Mans Ultimate Will “Leverage The Performance” Of PS5 Pro - But Not At The Expense Of The PC Version

Le Mans Ultimate COTA screenshot.jpg
Images: Motorsport Games
Motorsport Games CEO Stephen Hood hints at PS5 Pro support for Le Mans Ultimate in the future.

Yesterday saw Motorsport Games unveil Le Mans Ultimate’s second major update. With the long-awaited arrival of co-op multiplayer, free 2024 liveries, and new DLC including Circuit of the Americas and the Alpine A424 completing the 2024 Hypercar grid, there is much for fans to celebrate. However, console players are still left out.

It's no secret that Motorsport Games aims to bring Le Mans Ultimate to consoles in the future. Now, CEO Stephen Hood has hinted plans to take advantage of the recently announced PlayStation 5 Pro.

Motorsport Games Confirms PS5 Pro Plans For Le Mans Ultimate​

It’s heartening to hear how many people want a console version, and this is something we still target but can’t share anything concrete yet,” Hood said in a September update video. “We know our advanced simulation can run on current consoles, and with the recent announcement of PlayStation 5 Pro, we have plans to leverage this performance in the future. But right now, our focus is on continuing to develop a solid PC simulation.”


Launching on November 7, the PS5 Pro boasts an upgraded CPU, advanced ray tracing technology, and AI-driven upscaling. However, its eye-watering €799.99 / $699.99 / £699.99 retail price has been widely criticised.

Should Le Mans Ultimate hit the PS5 Pro, we can likely expect higher frame rates and resolutions with enhanced fidelity. During last week's announcement video, Gran Turismo 7 was shown running on PS5 Pro with ray-traced reflections on AI cars during gameplay – this was previously only possible in replays and menus. Ubisoft’s The Crew Motorfest will also support PS5 Pro.

There is more than that, however. "We know we can run LMU on console", Hood told OverTake. "The PS5 Pro enables us to take that to the next level of what we are planning and also improve visual fidelity. We are talking about the kinds of races with 60-plus cars in it - and if we have our way with additional content and do all sorts of classics - that is a lot of content you put on screen at any one time. A few years ago, I would have totally steered clear of trying to do that."

Studio 397 and MSG always had the ambition to move LMU across to consoles according to Hood - but not if the PC version is at a disadvantage. "We have spoken to a lot of studios that would complement the team - PC is still the prime pillar for us", explained Hood. "If we cannot get the PC version working and make more people happy there, I could not care less about doing a console version. We have launched what I think is a really solid simulation in LMU - let's get this right first, and everything else will come in time."

When Will Le Mans Ultimate Come To Consoles?​

Le Mans Ultimate doesn’t currently have a release date for consoles. However, a console release could happen sooner rather than later.

Le Mans Ultimate Will Leverage The Performance Of PS5 Pro.jpg


In last month’s Q2 Financial Report, Hood announced plans to “accelerate efforts” porting Le Mans Ultimate to PlayStation and Xbox. "Given the strong reception to our ongoing development of the Le Mans Ultimate game, we have decided to accelerate efforts to bring this title to games consoles and reach a larger audience," he said.

Are you looking forward to playing Le Mans Ultimate on consoles? Let us know in the comments below, or join the discussion in our forum.
About author
Martin Bigg
Arcade racing addict. Can usually be found causing carnage in Wreckfest and still craving a new Driver and Burnout game. Car movie nerd.

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It's good to see that the developers of LMU are doing their best to make the sim better. I hope they have an extra team behind them for the PS5 version and that it doesn't come at the expense of developing improvements for the PC version.
Despite being one of the first group of users, I'm looking at it from a distance now. I don't see any improvements in fundamental shortcomings such as still a cumbersome user interface, very long startup time (of the game and loading a track), but above all, the steering. I'm also surprised that I don't hear anyone talking about it. The steering is not linear. I only see the wheel on the screen in the same position as my physical wheel when it is all the way to the left or right or in the middle. But in between, the position of the wheel on the screen deviates from my physical wheel. I don't have this in any other racing sim on my PC with my wheel. It not only looks strange, it also drives very strangely. This makes LMU unusable for me. I wonder if I am the only one with this problem, or if others have this too. The fact is that I have several race sims on my pc and only LMU has this problem.
 
ifr console sales can give money, with more money they can do more updates, so okeeeey
I'm not sure about that, what will that do with the extra cash? emply more people to find and fix bugs?
If they can make a whole game with the folks they have then those people are in a far better place to chase down bugs and fixes, and designing and creating updates, it's not like they're busy making the game now is it... it's aready done.
 
Well speaking from experience the game already has great gamepad support and works really well. Far better in my opinion than ACC does with an Xbox controller. Also on my system at least it runs a lot more stable than rf2 ever has.
 
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ACC utilises the console compatible Unreal Engine. LMU is an rFactor 2 derivative, so you're comparing apples to oranges here.
I believe "The Grand Tour Game" is based on rF2 and was done for consoles with (MSG/S397 support) so can't be that hard as they already has previous experience on making it work.
 
It's good to see that the developers of LMU are doing their best to make the sim better. I hope they have an extra team behind them for the PS5 version and that it doesn't come at the expense of developing improvements for the PC version.
Despite being one of the first group of users, I'm looking at it from a distance now. I don't see any improvements in fundamental shortcomings such as still a cumbersome user interface, very long startup time (of the game and loading a track), but above all, the steering. I'm also surprised that I don't hear anyone talking about it. The steering is not linear. I only see the wheel on the screen in the same position as my physical wheel when it is all the way to the left or right or in the middle. But in between, the position of the wheel on the screen deviates from my physical wheel. I don't have this in any other racing sim on my PC with my wheel. It not only looks strange, it also drives very strangely. This makes LMU unusable for me. I wonder if I am the only one with this problem, or if others have this too. The fact is that I have several race sims on my pc and only LMU has this problem.
sounds like you haven't setup your wheel correctly. The discord is a great place to get instant help with this matter.
 
All the doomsayers were saying it was going to be dead in the water by now... So we know how trustworthy they are...

LMU has it's warts, but compare them to the rest of the industry and they're minor... It's more about what it is missing because it's being worked on...

Given how far the consoles have gone over the years it's a great time for this engine to move onto that platform... The fact they're doing it with an outside team doing the porting as the only way is great news...
 
So................when does this become an actual game ?
Seems MSG views it primarily as an online multiplayer game, and with that they can get more revenue charging for the private lobbies (NOT private servers as they call them). Has been for me as an offline racer only a hotlapping sim, tried the AI on release, but the AI was not programmed to have any awareness of the player car. Have to race them again to see if the AI have any more "I".
 
Seems MSG views it primarily as an online multiplayer game, and with that they can get more revenue charging for the private lobbies (NOT private servers as they call them). Has been for me as an offline racer only a hotlapping sim, tried the AI on release, but the AI was not programmed to have any awareness of the player car. Have to race them again to see if the AI have any more "I".
What makes people think that LMU is just an online multiplayer game when the biggest feature of the new update is the asynchronous COOP mode that relies heavily on a proper SP system? I generaly feel that they are working on both sides - even briding between the the two with the COOP mode - eventhough it's obviously no secret that you will allways get a more active community for such a title with a healthy MP infrastrucure, and private servers or dedicated servers are very important for this. Besides that I allways found the AI in LMU pretty enjoyable to race against after they fixed the first issues from release when AI couldn't judge braking points properly.
 
ACC utilises the console compatible Unreal Engine. LMU is an rFactor 2 derivative, so you're comparing apples to oranges here.
The original AC runs on console and utilises an in house developed engine. Truth be told, all modern consoles, including last and current gen consoles, use the X86-64 instruction set together with an AMD on chip GPU so there's no real technical barrier to porting to console. Sure it's not as simple as hitting "compile" - there will need to be some work, but equally it's not like the code would require an entire rewrite.
 
Is LMU singlecore cpu intensive as Rf2 is? As in badly optimized? If so, there's not gonna be much difference between PS5 Pro and non pro performance.
RF2 CPU intensive? Since when? It ran fine for years on my good old laptop Core i7 7700hq , a CPU released more than 7 years ago.
 
RF2 CPU intensive? Since when?
Always has been? Multihread cpu use is a disaster. PS5 has 8 cores/ 16 threads, you would probably see 1 thread used at 100%, 2nd at 50% and the rest barely used. Since the PS5 Pro does not get a cpu upgrade, performance will remain the same. As in framerates with large grid of cars...
 
What are the chances of it been cross play between console/PC? Me and my friends are all on different systems and would love to be able to race each other but were unable to with ACC
 
Premium
sounds like you haven't setup your wheel correctly. The discord is a great place to get instant help with this matter.
Yes I have found a solution. But it is very disappointing that an elementary setting has to be changed in a file, instead of in the GUI. That says everything about the GUI of LMU. It is also not very strong that in rF2 (and also in the old rFactor) many settings cannot be changed in the GUI and are only accessible by changing the content of files. And unfortunately this "tradition" is continued in LMU.

But, also important to mention, LMU drives really great now. I've driven rFactor and rF2 for years and have been driving AC for a while now. With the bad handling in LMU and the "messy" mod scene for rF2 I had kind of left rF2 and LMU behind and went full-on for AC, I thought. But, LMU drives really great with the modified steering wheel setup and in comparison AC just feels a bit less good. Everyone will have their own preference, but for the driving mine is for LMU and rF2 for now.
 
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