PC1 Project Cars mostly hype? Your opinions

[Azfalt Raser]

This thing has been hyped so much.
I swore I wouldn't buy another car game unless i tried a demo first. But like all the other sheep, I followed and purchased it.

Thus far it's been a massive disappointment
Played in: 4800x900 resolution
No driver's aids
Logitech driving force GT
DTM car at Spa
Default force feedback settings

*Little to no steering feel.- I don't feel like I'm driving on ice though.
*Arcade style driving (extremely forgiving) on the hardest settings.
*cockpit sides are stretched oblong
*BEAUTIFUL GRAPHICS overall though.
*audio left alot to be desired.

Are either tracks accurate?
I compared DTM cars in R3E at Hockeheim & pCars at Hockenheim.
pCars seemed more difficult due to the shadows cast on the track, light reflections... so I had difficulty picking up some brake markers, but the track itself seemed easier to drive (less turning in corners), no tire squealing, basically turn the steering wheel according to the video on the screen - like an arcade game.

The cars were worlds apart.
R3E: you felt the weight transfer, heard the tires scrubbing then squealing as they lost grip, felt/heard the oversteer, the understeer.
pCars: I just hear alot of wind noise. or what sounds like wind noise.
Drive too fast? no problem in pCars just slam on the brakes mid-corner.
Drive too fast in R3E, slide off the track - tires squealing & screeching the whole way, then dig yourself out of the gravel.

Right now, my impression is that pCars is a better version of Grid Autosport.
Somewhere between Arcade and Sim - leaning more towards arcade.

Admittedly, I have optmized R3E and I was only in pCars for about half an hour and need to change fov, force feedback, and audio settings.

What's your impression of pCars to other games?

 

[ML2166]

A few little details need to be addressed that have been mentioned many times before, so no need to go into them again......but after playing around with a few settings here and there it isn't at all bad really, not a sim by a long stretch, but good enough to have a quick blast around with the AI or with online buddys without having to spend an age setting up the full in's and out's of the car just to get around a lap.

I had the luxury of being able to try an earlier build at a friends house, and the first thing that crossed my mind was this is what Grid 2/ Grid Autosport should have been.

On the whole, not as immersive as AC, GSC etc, but enjoyable in it's own right if not taken too seriously. There has been far worse out there than this.

 

[NLxAROSA]

I understand I need to tweak the settings ... but is there any standard advice for the ingame settings ?

This is definitely a drawback, the amount of FFB settings/tweaks is insane, and with no documentation means it's going to be a black art for most of us mere mortals. OOTB settings also leave to be desired IMO.

Yes, the FFB is awesome, but if it's not clear how to 'get the diamond out of the coal' people are going to hate it. And with no feel, people are going to assume the physics are not there.

 

[Msportdan]

@NLxAROSA

this unfortunatly i couldnt agree more with, its all there with pcars but as current trends with sims you have to go hunting for the ideal ffb, and learn law of physics!!! But the above post is spot on with pcars!

 

[vee10]

The FFB is/was never going to be RF2 standard but I think it's pretty decent in communicating what the car is doing. The problem is that the settings are a faff like all Slightly Mad games. I find RRE like this also, never quite sure if it's the FFB setup, the car setup or just you. There is decent FFB to be had and I more than happy with some of the cars I have tried.

I just wish the FFB setup was more RF2 like in that all you really need to worry about is the FFB multiplier to stop your wheel clipping, after you have that set all you need to worry about is your setup and driving as you can be confident the car is set as it was intended.

For a game that is also on console the bewildering approach to FFB is a strange one.

 

[Msportdan]

Official meaning s

General FFB strength
Output strength of the FFB to the wheel after it has been calculated by the FFB engine. This is basically the final 'volume' adjustment of the FFB. This means that if the FFB is clipping, turning the FFB strength down won't help anymore.

Tyre Force
This is the strength of the tyre contribution to the FFB, which is also the main contributor to the FFB. If the FFB is too high or too low for all cars, you can adjust this value to get it equally stronger/weaker for all cars.

The car-specific settings
These you want to adjust when the FFB of one car is good while for the next car it's too weak or strong (or has a wrong subjective balance of the individual force contributors).

Spindle Master Scale: this scales the forces below it equally up and down, i.e. it's the FFB 'volume knob' specifically for that car. Turn it down if the FFB is clipping, and up if it's too weak.
Fx: this is the FFB component representing the longitudinal force on the tyre contact patch. This should determine FFB when accelerating or braking, but I haven't really experimented with this one yet.
Fy: this is the FFB component representing the lateral force on the tyre contact patch. Very important for feeling mass transfer/inertia of the car when cornering.
Fz: this is the FFB component representing the vertical force on the tyre contact patch. This plays an important part in the 'road feel' of the FFB, i.e. when going over bumps in the road.
Mz: this is the FFB component representing the twisting force of the wheels, i.e. rotation along the vertical axis of the wheel. It is the self-aligning force of the wheels into the driving direction and is most important for getting the 'classic' feel of the FFB getting lighter when the front tyres lose grip.

So when you want a particular force to stand out in the FFB, raise its relative contribution to the total FFB, and after that adjust the Spindle Master Scale value if necessary to get the FFB stay within the full range (i.e. not clipping or getting too weak).

 

[vee10]

Thanks for posting that Dan.

 

[David O'Reilly]

What on earth are you talking about. The FFB has so much more adjustability compared to other titles like R3E. You obviously haven't tried it. You obviously have absolutely no idea of what you are talking about. It's too complex for most people but if you take the time to learn what each of the adjustments do it's superb. It was developed for the PC first and consoles later.

You missed his opening sentence in which he admits he doesn't know what he is talking about.

"Disclaimer: I don't own pCARS."

 

[Dietmar]

Only tried it a little bit (many car / track combos, but all just a few laps).

I am actually pleasantly surprised by the game. It came a long way, I was a junior member and only tried it every now and then, as I did not like it at all. But in the last few month there was significant improvements.

After the lengthy discussed FFB tweaks, it actually feels pretty good. Are the cars to grippy? I have no idea, I haven't driven a GT3 in real life. It's fun, it feels good and when I hit the throttle to much I feel the back of the car wants to overtake the front. So all good.

One thing that I do not like, some of the tracks seems to be a little bit off, not that I can judge it, as I havent seen any of them in real life. Some of them feel to narrow. But again, in the lack of real life comparison, that's more about getting used to them.

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

Are the cars to grippy? I have no idea, I haven't driven a GT3 in real life.

GT3 cars generate a ton of downforce by their aero package and diffuser. A lot of grip in these cars is certainly not unrealistic

 

[Msportdan]

i love how "some" simracers think cars have to be difficult and slidey to be real.!

 

[Alx^]

My 5p's worth. I think pcars is actually a potentially important title for racing, and places like RD. It's a crossover title. It could well bring in new blood and £$€ to siming and RD. It's a far more complete product than AC for example, and more accessable than the likes of rf2, regardless of how good they feel 'out of the box'. In fact to me, a very casual "race for fun" type, it's what I was hoping AC would be as a product.

Yeah SMS ought to consider giving a few options for preconfiguring all the ffb as a baseline, maybe "Arcade / Casual Racer / Simer" or something, rather than the 1 default, but... as a crossover title, I can only assume that they were thinking that all the serious simers would love diving in to all the ffb settings, including on a per-car basis, whereas the casuals wouldn't. It's trying to cater for 2 markets and pull them towards each other. That said, all the settings are there to be tweaked. If people can't be bothered, well....

I'm not a simer, too slow and easily distracted, but I've tweaked my ffb settings, and starting tinkering with the per-car settings, and it feels just as good as AC to me, but in a slightly different way somehow. AC almost feels overly grippy in comparison now to me (although AC does give you a really good sensation of weight transfer imo). While driving the oldskool Escort I also noticed that if you have the driver aids in pC set to Real, a lot of the cars inc' this one still have some level of traction control on in their setups (maybe that's real, I dunno, but I don't like it), so setting driver aids to None removes that, and things get a bit more interesting.

 

[Andy_J]

You all forget one thing. The targeted customer base is mainly Console owners. That is where their profits are going to be made, that is what they were aiming for.
I argued at the start that us PC race simmers would want modability and good FFB and I hope we would have got that. I am sure with some more testing we will get a good baseline for the FFB settings and perhaps SMS/WMD should have sorted all this out before release? I have high hopes for a Racedepartment club section here and some great online racing.

 

[Ace King]

What on earth are you talking about. The FFB has so much more adjustability compared to other titles like R3E. You obviously haven't tried it. You obviously have absolutely no idea of what you are talking about. It's too complex for most people but if you take the time to learn what each of the adjustments do it's superb. It was developed for the PC first and consoles later.

I just made the purchase and i'am very pleased with how much FF input i receive since i raised the default FF to 100% on my G25. I still want to experiment with the many more FF settings available which i'am sure will make additional improvements. I want to say that i'am still a proud owner of AC for close to 2 years and still enjoying it too!

Another note: The default car sets are extremely stable (not fast) which makes you feel it has too much grip but once you start tweaking the setup to be faster and competitive it's a whole new story line.

 

[Brandon Wright]

On the whole, not as immersive as AC........

It has weather, night racing, a spotter that talks to you, fans all around the track, waving flags, an actual career mode that simulates a real race weekend/career, decent AI........sounds a LOT more immersive than The Real Hot Lap Simulator to me.

 

[Msportdan]

if steam could give refunds...

Assetto corsa and Raceroom will be the only 2 sims i would ask for my money back... Although i like to support these guys, i just dont think ive had my monies worth out of these.

Race 07 DLC etc, GSC. RF2 and pcars however i would gladly keep and play..

 

[Andy_J]

if steam could give refunds...

Assetto corsa and Raceroom will be the only 2 sims i would ask for my money back... Although i like to support these guys, i just dont think ive had my monies worth out of these.

You might not have had your monies worth, but a lot of us here certainly have and continue to do so. AC is superb for our Racedepartment club racing. I am sure RRE will once we get dedicated servers for that one. I love RRE. Its cleaner, smarter looking than Pcars and in my subjective opinion, drives much much better.

 

[Brian C Hayes]

the floating feeling i didnt like either but its mostly correctable, try something like this in car setup

master spindle: 40 (default 26)
x-50/60 (default 100)
y-50/60 (default 100)
z-100

this greatly increases the vertical FFB meaning you can feel road detail, will let you feel curbs, bumps in the track, etc thru the wheel.

Thanks ... this has improved it quite a bit

 

[Sean Kenney]

RRe has the worse physics and ffb I've every played in a current sim.. Pcars is on another level...

pcars is good ignore the elitists!!

Ohhh god lol

 

[Edu Martinez]

FFB is 9/10 for my T500rs. very good, very close to AC. I can feel the car everytime, FFB is smooth and precise.
Setup car is very deep 10/10 too
Physiscs are very very good for me.
Inmersion 10/10
Circuits are very good, no scanned of course. 8.5/10
Career is fun. (started with Radical, 90% AI)
AI is a bit agressive but the best I have seen. 9/10
Replays are very basic, I hope a big improvement. 5/10
Weather is amazing 10/10

Audi R8 GT3 has the dirección too fast, I changed it for 16.9:1, slower, and it´s much better for me.

This game has all I want, LMP, GT3, open wheels, popular circuits, Le Mans of course. I only miss Sebring.
Paint liveries soon

To make the own champ would be nice, like R3E.

Best racing game atm IMHO.
+90/100

 

[Jyri Kettunen]

I was very pleasantly surprised how Lotus 72D handles at Brand Hatch, with '72 slicks, after the FFB was dialed in, and with my own set-up. Definately not worse than old formulae with AC, and much better than anything with RRE (which can't handle open wheelers, I suppose).