PC1 Latest Build testing.

[Andy_J]

As you all know, Ian gave me a free pass to test the latest builds and that's what I have been doing for the last week. I will report here as and when I see fit to tell all about my findings.

But I will say that the latest build (296) is quite good. Now lets make some sense of my statement. I used a Lotus 98T in helmet cam using my antique MOMO red wheel and I can honestly report it is coming along much better than I anticipated. The actual feel and immersion is damn fine at this point. The handling is strange at first compared to say...RF2 and FVA, but it grows on you within minutes. At this point in time, this actual car feels good. I like it and I love the Milan circuit. The damage model has come on leaps and bounds.

I am doing some more testing all of next week using a G27 and I will also test some of the other cars that don't interest me as much (I am a F1 nut) and see how the feel in comparison to Shift 2, because that is what I was initially comparing PCars to.

I would like the replay function to have a directors mode though. Something that jumps from action to action and from car to car.

Aside from that, the replay's do crash my PC quite often but I understand that is being looked at.

Watch this space.

 

[Andy_J]

Well Graham, I don't think I will be testing it for much longer. They don't like my reports and have said so on the WMD forum. And when one says something, quite a few of the shall we say "fans" jump in and have a go too. It's quite shocking to see it happen.

But I am still testing it daily for now.

Thanks.
Andy

 

[Richard Eriksson]

My 2 cents:

Performance even better in this build. The CPU usages has gone down a bit, despite AI seeming to behave a bit better.

Sound needs some work still.

The general vehicle dynamics and physics is still way off, unfortunately. Cars feel dead and behaves strange. Weight shift is not really felt. Suspension dynamics is not realistic. Force feedback is still dead and dull. FWD cars are hilariously broken, managing to give "snap" understeer

RWD GT type works best at the moment, just like it did in Shift 2.

It's improving, but the core is still flawed as far as "simulation" goes.

I want to see more steps towards GTR 2, than towards Shift, dynamics wise.

But the package as a whole is likeable, albeit in a lighter sense.

 

[Andy_J]

Richard, you do know you are running the risk of being hung, drawn and quartered by the investors? Of course you do.

I too wanted it to step closer to GTR2 and I thought it was going that way. I am doing some more testing this week to see if any improvements have been made towards that goal.
But like you say, at this present time it is a pleasurable game.

 

[Mircea Rad]

The general vehicle dynamics and physics is still way off, unfortunately. Cars feel dead and behaves strange. Weight shift is not really felt. Suspension dynamics is not realistic. Force feedback is still dead and dull

Did you try, for example, Formula B or C on the tires that are getting very close to RC? Because if the answer is yes and you still have this general perception about the vehicle dynamics & physics, then it could be something you're missing (e.g. wheel settings, FFB tweaker, etc.)

For a more accurate perception of where things should be getting towards release, I suggest to watch the Physics thread in the WMD forum, otherwise you might be trying out place holder things or very early passes for physics, tires, sounds, etc.

 

[Raikku]

What I want to see is fps-optimization, this runs too badly when compared to other sims. And that directly affect to everything else, force feedback/steering feel/general fluidity.

 

[Richard Eriksson]

@Mircea Rad, tried the Formula B as suggested and FFB still strike me as very dull and dead with no feel for the road surface undulation or weight shift.

But the tires feel better on the Formula B, that seems to hold true. It has a more realistic slip angle and seems to have a somewhat reasonable feel of lateral grip levels.

But the weight and suspension shifting is still off... For instance you can advertedly try to upset the car by lifting off the throttle hard at max corner load, but get no reaction at all... Or brake hard and deep into a corner but feel no lightness or squirm at the back end. Further testing shows that even swerving steeply in a corner, something that should really upset a stiff car, does little to break fromt end traction.

Also, a strange pushing feel to it. Could dial some out by settings...

Mixed bag so far...

Right now it is hard to know what is intentional and what is due to work in progress. This is worrying, this close to RC. If we are really closing in on RC i find it difficult to believe that much change will happen with regards to core physics, even if it is often stated.

And yes, it is still Shift 3 to me. I'm sorry, but that's how i genuinly think it feels. That in itself is not a bad thing however. It is just not the same target and scope as some other titles. And i am not really sure that is the intended goal at all. I mean, this will sell a load of copies, by just challenging GT and Forza on their home turf... So that is actually a sensible option.

 

[Richard Eriksson]

It's also slightly worrying looking at the very "heated" discussions popping up here, on WMD, and elsewehere on this title, where many dirty discussions take place. There are natural born haters as well as an extremist group of key investors with lots of money to claim, that leads to the sane "middle path" being drowned in the total sum of opinion. This makes it hard to actually discuss the flaws of this title in a constructive manner, sadly.

As for me, i accept the title for what it is and i do like it. I am still not agreeing on some of the direction choices it has taken, but i understand them from a developer as well as investor point of view.

But when people generally have a fear of "the investors" clamping down on you, as evidenced by some beliefs here... As well as beforementioned investors thinking eberyone else just wants to shoot their moneymaker down in flames out of spite, as evidenced by some replies on WMD... Now that is sadly drowning out the more qualitative discussions that would benefit all.

 

[Mark Quigley]

Don't worry about these heated discussions as there is always going to be conflict when you ask for thousands of peoples opinions on how something should develop.
The alternative is the general public have zero input as things will be developed behind closed doors.

Some people are confused by the difference between liking something and supporting something which has caused some weird things to be posted on forums.

Will anyone open up their development process to random punters in the future?
If it were me, not a chance.

 

[Andy_J]

Will anyone open up their development process to random punters in the future?
If it were me, not a chance.

I think you are wrong. They get the money up front by doing it like this so they can get started. Remember, they need our money and our support and the free advertising that comes with allowing every punter in. Good and bad advertising that is.

 

[Mark Quigley]

I am not wrong in asking a semi rhetorical question, nor am I wrong in saying if it were me I would not.
My question stands, who would because I would not.

 

[Andy_J]

Whatever, not arguing over pedantics with you.

 

[Rui Santos]

Richard, you do know you are running the risk of being hung, drawn and quartered by the investors?

Why this??? Can't he have his own opinion? Richard seems a credible person to me, glad there's people like him, that alert us to not spend money on s***. Following your logic can we process René Rast too for saying bullsh*t and induce people in error?

 

[Andy_J]

Why this??? Can't he have his own opinion? Richard seems a credible person to me, glad there's people like him, that alert us to not spend money on s***.

Richard knows what I mean.

 

[Mircea Rad]

@Mircea Rad, tried the Formula B as suggested and FFB still strike me as very dull and dead with no feel for the road surface undulation or weight shift.

But the tires feel better on the Formula B, that seems to hold true. It has a more realistic slip angle and seems to have a somewhat reasonable feel of lateral grip levels.

But the weight and suspension shifting is still off... For instance you can advertedly try to upset the car by lifting off the throttle hard at max corner load, but get no reaction at all... Or brake hard and deep into a corner but feel no lightness or squirm at the back end. Further testing shows that even swerving steeply in a corner, something that should really upset a stiff car, does little to break fromt end traction.

Also, a strange pushing feel to it. Could dial some out by settings...

Man, it's really mind-boggling what you are driving after reading this Which tire did you use with Formula B? How fast are you going, are you driving really on the limit? Braking hard and deep into a corner feels amazing. Btw, I hope you're not expecting the same thing from the Formula B like you see with the BMW Z4 in AC, for example. And I'm mentioning AC because for me it does the whole weight shifting thing miles ahead of everything else. Don't forget this is a light, high DF, very stiff car.

What wheel + pedals you're using (sorry if you mentioned it before and I haven't seen it). It's just I'm surprised that some of the things you're mentioning are really there and impossible to miss. You're mentioning front end grip, at least the last time I tried it (my CSP v2 are broken since 2 weeks) that felt very good (CR2 tire). I mean even heating up the tires, at slow speed turn fast and hard and you can feel the tires scrubbing. Of course at high speed you have plenty of DF and excellent turn in (see Abbey or Copse), but if you're carrying to much speed you lose front grip (see Brooklands or Stowe). It's impossible to miss it. And you can feel the front end improve once you put some heat into the tires, usually 1-2 laps. And then it's very consistent and you can really push hard.

Again, I don't want to say what you feel is not true, but it might be a thing of setting up your wheel and pedals, deleting your profile, etc. I mean if you're hoping for "arrive and drive" at this point, this is not possible, it's not final specs yet. But if you follow the forums you can find things that will make your driving experience really good. Some things are getting there, some still need work (like FFB, for example). But it definitely doesn't feel like Shift 3, I would even say that, even right now but definitely at release, it will provide at least for OW and prototypes a far superior experience than a very highly regarded sim out there.

 

[Richard Eriksson]

@Mircea Rad , at the moment i am using Fantec GT3 v2 wheel with CSR Elite pedals (loadcell). Also tried it with an old G27 but that made it feel even worse.

I have tried to tweak a lot, but still the force feedback is not satisfactory. But my gripe is also not restricted to feeling it, but also to behaviour of the car. It strikes me as artificial.

Yes, there is tire scrub, and heat buildup, as you say, i can easily sense that. But not in a realistic way. It is like you have hardcoded values and tresholds and not fully simulated dynamics.

For instance, in rF2 you can easily sense different lateral load on the same tire at different time deltas in a turn. Meaning dynamic camber, rubber flex and slip is changing dynamically all the time.

In pCars it is like a treshold where it scrubs, then loses grip. This treshold is not dynamic but constant. A bit like how Forza feels...

In other words, i can feel it being simulated in a sense, but i can not see the finer details of a full dynamics simulation being there. Hard to tell without data readouts and knowledge of the physics code, but it strikes me as less authentic and more based around arbitrary values. The canned FFB does not help either, as it devalues it more...

If you have settings for Fanatec i am however willing to give them a spin

 

[Richard Eriksson]

Also, this is of course something that may or may not change with the full release, so i am not going to judge it definitely before that of course. But more work is needed in my opinion.

 

[Mircea Rad]

Go have a look on the WMD forum, section "Game Controllers". The last FFB tweaker file I used is one from bmanic, but things could have changed in the last 2 weeks, I haven't driven at all since my pedals are broken. Give it a try, it can't hurt, just go in the WMD forum, Game Controllers and search for bmanic's posts, he posted a general tweaker for all wheels and the some specific ones for different cars.

I do agree that rFactor 2 tire model is the one of the best around and AC's dynamics is ahead of competition, but I can't help but having a good overall feeling when I try pCARS, especially these 2 OW and some of the prototypes. I'm not saying it has the best FFB or tire model out there, but then again let me know when there's a sim that makes everything perfect With the proper settings it's getting on par with the best out there.

 

[Andy_J]

Can I ask why the devs don't release builds with the proper settings for different wheels in the first place? Save all the bother of doing tweaks.

When I am testing and comparing race sims I use the default settings for my wheel (for all of them, so it's a fair comparison) and I would expect the FFB to just right.

 

[RaceNut]

Can I ask why the devs don't release builds with the proper settings for different wheels in the first place? Save all the bother of doing tweaks.

When I am testing and comparing race sims I use the default settings for my wheel (for all of them, so it's a fair comparison) and I would expect the FFB to just right.

Because the FFB and tires are still in development. They are working to determine the best FFB for the majority of wheel users.

@Mircea Rad In other words, i can feel it being simulated in a sense, but i can not see the finer details of a full dynamics simulation being there. Hard to tell without data readouts and knowledge of the physics code, but it strikes me as less authentic and more based around arbitrary values. The canned FFB does not help either, as it devalues it more...

You can turn off the canned effects in the F1 menu/Input/Force Mask settings.

 

[Mircea Rad]

Can I ask why the devs don't release builds with the proper settings for different wheels in the first place? Save all the bother of doing tweaks.

When I am testing and comparing race sims I use the default settings for my wheel (for all of them, so it's a fair comparison) and I would expect the FFB to just right.

You need to understand the difference between launching your software (or content from that software) in beta (beta means finished product, as in physics, ffb, graphics, etc. for the launched content and just ironing out bugs) like AC or rF2 and having access to development builds for a software set to be launched on a set date. PCARS has done something new and people struggle to understand this. If PCARS would have gone the standard way, the builds we are testing now would have never seen the light of day outside their office. Imagine hired testing people complaining about bugs in a regular game, what's the point of that? You should point out the bugs and let developers fix them and provide feedback and solutions to the inherent problems any game has during development. That's what people signed for when this project started, but few people actually understand this. AC and rF2 launch builds months apart after plenty of in-house testing, while PCARS development builds are daily. For PCARS we are the in-house testing.