WATCH: Comparing Sim Racing AI In 2024

Ai in almost every game I play (a lot, including bike games) have 3 core problems:

1) difficulty scaling
2) awareness of the player
3) consistancy over tracks

Large Style said:

GT7's Sophy feels like you're driving against their self-proclaimed "super AI" which is inhumanly perfect.

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Sophy is awesome, cutting off one car can make them retaliate to you and you really notice different behavior compared to the stock AI.

Every game so far just had the "AI" braindeadly follow a set line, but sophy processes everything in real time.

It seems that everyone here has an idea of what is wrong with the AI without recognising or highlighting the actual problem faced.
An AI con only truly be fully immersive and foolproof if it's an outside entity as is the player, AI needs to have eyes, ears, and a desire, and a few other faculties that human beings have, putting the competition inside the program (no matter what game/sim) gives it an unfair advantage (insider information) this then has to be diluted and hobbled with scripted events and rubber stamp percentages, AI needs to play the game as an person would with the joys of competing and the emotion that runs with high adrenaline levels (Stroll and Leclerc in Spanish GP, FP3 highlight this) the game/sim rulebook needs to treat AI with the same stick as the player and 'real life' with the AI believing that reputation, bans, and Terminal actually mean something.

Don't get me wrong, I know nothing about dev programming, and what makes folks in the industry tick, and what ticks them off, but I do know that they are (mostly) human beings with all the things that would make a good AI but they don't put it together in a program.
My observations come only from the so, so many WTF? moments when playing sims and games, and it all comes down to the enemy being inside the program and I'm outside the program playing with the information that is given to me... that is an unfair disadvantage, my ideal enemy/AI would be a attachment* to the game/sim that has to use eyes and ears to play the same game as me.

*configurable

Damage Inc said:

Ai in almost every game I play (a lot, including bike games) have 3 core problems:

1) difficulty scaling
2) awareness of the player
3) consistancy over tracks

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I agree with you. It´s sometimes different from one game to another, but overall yes thats the problems.

I just thought about it deeper and realized that Multiplayer faces exact the same problems especially No. 2 !
Most of the time it´s more pleasure vs the AI than against humans (yes always depending on the league, community and so on.)

Pete Conway said:

It seems that everyone here has an idea of what is wrong with the AI without recognising or highlighting the actual problem faced.
An AI con only truly be fully immersive and foolproof if it's an outside entity as is the player, AI needs to have eyes, ears, and a desire, and a few other faculties that human beings have, putting the competition inside the program (no matter what game/sim) gives it an unfair advantage (insider information) this then has to be diluted and hobbled with scripted events and rubber stamp percentages, AI needs to play the game as an person would with the joys of competing and the emotion that runs with high adrenaline levels (Stroll and Leclerc in Spanish GP, FP3 highlight this) the game/sim rulebook needs to treat AI with the same stick as the player and 'real life' with the AI believing that reputation, bans, and Terminal actually mean something.

Don't get me wrong, I know nothing about dev programming, and what makes folks in the industry tick, and what ticks them off, but I do know that they are (mostly) human beings with all the things that would make a good AI but they don't put it together in a program.
My observations come only from the so, so many WTF? moments when playing sims and games, and it all comes down to the enemy being inside the program and I'm outside the program playing with the information that is given to me... that is an unfair disadvantage, my ideal enemy/AI would be a attachment* to the game/sim that has to use eyes and ears to play the same game as me.

*configurable

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I don't disagree with your synopsis here. I think the issue is, if you wanted a 24 car field you'd need 24 pcs for you and the AI to operate. Todays PCs aren't powerful enough to do all that you stated. Marcel talked some about that in the Last Garage interview. Were the player would have FFB updates at 100Hz but the PC would not be powerful enough to do that for many AI. Sophy seems to be the way of the future. Not sure on Sophy limitations either numbers wise. But I would be fine with AI that show some good race craft and personality even if it is not running on the same physics that I am using.

Pete Conway said:

It seems that everyone here has an idea of what is wrong with the AI without recognising or highlighting the actual problem faced.
An AI con only truly be fully immersive and foolproof if it's an outside entity as is the player

Click to expand...

Yeah, FWIW I personally don't agree with that either. I get your point in that you see it as "the system vs you" regardless, but "the system" is just the platform / game engine and the AI are participants just as much as we are.

There's no conspiracy against anyone / you, and they don't have or use insider knowledge outside of scripted moments, which in "serious" simracing titles generally doesn't happen. Some GRID games use a one-to-one nemesis system, but is that AI unrealistic or incapable of thinking realistically because it's contained within one game? What could be called basic humanistic AI has already been in simracing for years anyway, with individual racers having some personalised behavioural tweaks, albeit limited to mainly "just" pace and aggression, but they still operate on a reactionary basis as opposed to your ideas of predetermination.

AI are currently bound by the constraints of themselves / their artificial intelligence, but only because AI hasn't advanced to true realistic intelligence form, so I think that you might be confusing the limitations of current AI with your belief that the platform itself is the restriction and limitation.

What actual difference would it make if the same AI was computed externally rather than internally? The location of the AI has no relevance at all as long as each AI themselves were computed completely independently from each other. I see the principle in your belief but it doesn't make much if any logical sense.

If what you say is true, then a self contained racing game will never ever feature realistic AI, which I respectfully think is just wrong or at least short-sighted, and you're likely underestimating what AI can and likely will become.

It's an interesting angle, concept or just question to ask though of if multiple beings can co-exist in a single entity. Humans can already do this, albeit not simultaneously, but I just don't see why one day simracing AI can't do everything it needs to all at once (if unbound from software and hardware limits) as it isn't restricted by one life-form due to the inherit nature of their existence.

Heck, we're all probably living in the Matrix anyway, and "real life" racers race like humans and not like current form AI, so there goes your theory.

Man this got well off-topic.

There's a reason so many still say that GP4 has the best AI ever...

The abilities of AI have increased ten fold since, the average home PC in comparison has improved at a rate far slower, maybe even as slow as 5% of the pace of AI...

The current F1 series is what it is because of a lot of tuning within the same engine on a single class of car (2 with F2 involved) and far less sophisticated physics which anyone with half a brain would realize looking at the set up page...

The days of single player racing on sophisticated physics being anything more than a suspended disbelief session akin to watching a WWE show are long gone... It's just a game, not a competition...

Racing is however a competition at it's core... So the average racer wants more than the average gamer when it comes to AI... Which is why most racers gravitate to online races where the competition is realistic...

I wonder if there is any way the Ai system could (similar to LOD) only give the Ai cars near the player a higher level of physics and Ai, that could solve the issue of CPU resource useage.

Damage Inc said:

I wonder if there is any way the Ai system could (similar to LOD) only give the Ai cars near the player a higher level of physics and Ai, that could solve the issue of CPU resource useage.

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Maybe the AI don't need all the physics the player gets, if it gets other things the player don't, get like G forces.

HF2000 said:

I must say that the AI lines are not customized for a cartype so on most tracks the AI really sucks when in a front wheel drive car.

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I wish authors of track mods for AC made two layouts differing by just the AI: one for higher-downforce cars like GT3 and one for low-downforce like AC Legends' GTC and GTR.

aasasd said:

I wish authors of track mods for AC made two layouts differing by just the AI: one for higher-downforce cars like GT3 and one for low-downforce like AC Legends' GTC and GTR.

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Oh this is one of those inscrutable ones when you are racing multi mixed classes as me - in fact AC Legends Prototypes, AC Legends GTRs, GTC Legends, TC Legends and affiliates in one pack.

Maybe possible to set a flag for each classes (for which unique AI lines should be taken in advantage), but could imagine quite some CPU resources at the expence...

However still very rough since huge difference between a Jim Hall Chapparal 2E and a '67 L-88 Corvette within same class pack...maybe with a professional AMD Epyc or Threadripper Pro CPU ..

stenovitz said:

Maybe possible to set a flag for each classes (for which unique AI lines should be taken in advantage), but could imagine quite some CPU resources at the expence...

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As I understand, this would require more memory, but not so much CPU. Since in any case each AI car needs to consult the line, and what would differ is just which line to use. However, I don't know how the AI is optimized or what happens when two AIs are side by side—which both could change this access pattern.

There's a logistical issue, though, in that specifying a particular class for each line makes it an M×N problem, where the track mod author has to enumerate every known class; and anyone outside the specific defined classes—i.e. new car mods—would presumably drive a shitty generic line. The usual solution to an M×N problem is to have a limited set of intermediate 'classes' like high-downforce, low-downforce, or something like that—so that track authors only need to create a few lines, and car mods are slotted into these categories.

stenovitz said:

huge difference between a Jim Hall Chapparal 2E and a '67 L-88 Corvette within same class pack

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Another approach of which I can think is for each car to have some parameters as to how it should take corners compared to others: wider entry or faster cornering and such stuff. The same kinda way the AI in AC knows to brake earlier with some cars. This method would require defining a bunch of numbers that mean 'wide entry', and possibly having a known target for comparison: e.g. some of GT3 cars as the standard for all others.

I wonder if modern games implement any of these solutions.

In terms of distribution of AI on the track AMS 1 is funny and varies a lot! AMS 2 is not at the same level.

Large Style said:

The more I think about this, the more I feel that current AI is getting behind the times.

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The whole of sim racing is getting behind, look at the most popular 'sim', AC, full of random mods and in the download section here is chase cams that 'look like burnout!!' and traffic mods and free roam forza clones without the looks, drift tracks drift cars, then the silly stuff roller coasters etc.
Any dev looking in sees what the masses want and sees the money AC is making and real sims are dead in the water so AI is way way down any list worth working on.

For the simmers devs just throw out a few words, Tyre carcass, laser scan to get them wet.
But in my life time of simming its taken a massive regress because devs know via AC what most people want and its exactly what Turn 10 did ages ago, silly random selection of cars and free roam.

How many people are setting up long races with a clear focus on real life series, very few, OK if that is you then you will assume its loads of people, but it really isn't...
Certainly not enough for a dev to target them thinking they will make a lot of money.
The numbers fully back this up to see where players spend their sim time...