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Project CARS | OT | Made by 80.000 slightly mad developers

danowat

Banned
Anyone fancy a challenge? You'll need the LE car pack though.

McLaren F1, all assists off, preferably using a gamepad, Silverstone National Circuit, Rain.

Try as I might, I can't get under one minute, hitting around 1:00.5, just wanted to see if anyone else can do it!!!
 

Afro

Member
Dirt Rally has an amazing sound design. Some of the best work in racing audio to date.
Dave Sullivan and co. must be commended for their outstanding work thus far.

But to call CARS sound design amateurish?
Wow.
Greg Hill and Steve Baysted are among the top guys imo when it comes to audio in racing games.

Anyway, for those interested, there's a good article/Q&A featuring Greg Hill, Steve Baysted and Nick Wiswell on the design of audio in racing games

http://designingsound.org/2014/08/vehicle-engine-design-project-cars-forza-motorsport-5-and-rev/

Yes. Project CARS sound mixing, specifically, is completely amateurish. Listening through a Fidelio X1 headphone/DAC/amp combo and I can't stand to play more than ten minutes at a time at normal listening levels. Again, harsh, fatiguing, synthetic, and distorted/clipped to hell.

I'll make a longer, more in depth comparison vid in the near future, but here's a quick one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peqcNpbBEco
 

doomquake

Member
Simply amazing. Glad I contributed back in the day. Love the ui, controller default feels good - I guess we all have different tastes. Tuning could have been made more interesting though.
 

Dilly

Banned
Yes they used a few drivers who gave feedback, but I don't know what they did to implement that feedback. It's accepted that the road cars are awful and weren't finished in time for release so if you're having trouble with the cars it maybe down to that. You may just, unfortunately, need to do the sim racing thing of sitting there for hours trying to sort out the FFB to get things in order. Both PCars & RRE are guilty of this with so many settings/effects which aren't explained very clearly. Check RacingDepartment and other sim racing forums to see if people have done the leg work for you because out the box the game handles like shit.

To answer your other question: Yeah lots of drivers promote other games- Rubens promotes GSCE, DTM drivers for RRE, AC had Ferrari test drivers I think? Take it with a pinch of salt to be honest.

What do you mean, you don't know? It was a public conversation between devs and drivers on the WMD forum.
 

Jezbollah

Member
OK. After a PS4 control adjustment thanks to another forum, and some more time getting used to the handling model, I love this game.

I'd still love to see a fix for customised HUD modifications to stay but god damn it feels good driving in this game. The starts are still messed up though, especially if you're on a hill..
 
To answer your other question: Yeah lots of drivers promote other games- Rubens promotes GSCE, DTM drivers for RRE, AC had Ferrari test drivers I think? Take it with a pinch of salt to be honest.

Yes, but i don't know of any work close to what Nic and Ben did. Reading their feedback book is like everything i've ever wanted to tell a dev. There's a difference between showing up once or twice in an office to give a few comments like it's mostly common than to be a person who always hated sims and drove most of the cars in real life (Ben) and a race car driver who is also a hardcore sim racer (Nic).

I can feel the cars behaving exactly the way they've asked, so the input was very valid. They actually co developed the game.

I consider myself to pretty demanding in my games, people who see me in Gran Turismo threads know that although i love the game i'm almost always bashing. I could give you a list of bugs and annoyances of Project Cars, but the only thing i can think of is, i've never had this much fun with a racing game ever.

Tonight my plan was to advance in my career and to try a few new cars (i'm yet to drive 62 of them), but i stopped by the community events, there's five of them open and i spent almost three hours there. Each combo is amazing. The clio car is tons of fun, the procar is a beast, the SLS AMG drives like a dream and i had a blast with the Mustang Boss in Willow Springs... then once this was over i just had to run some laps in the Fa car in Barcelona.

I can see myself playing this two or three years from now. And i barely scratched the surface. Can't wait to change my steam settings so i can try online.
 

Dilly

Banned
I mean I don't know. I didn't compare the before and after the feedback.

Collins but especially Hamilton had a lot of influence in the 14 revisions of the FC tire that ultimately was the base for every modern Open Wheel slick. Hamilton also provided great and detailed feedback on the Clio because of his own experience. Oli Webb also provided setup feedback in relation to his experience with the BAC Mono.

Collins and Hamilton helping out during development is nothing like Anthony Davidson popping into the studio of Codemasters to record a video of him driving the F1 game.
 
What do I have to do to not make this game feel like crap on a G27? I used the in-game calibration which made some things better and some things worse. 90degree steering, wtf? Also I had to uninstall the Logitech profiler, game would not start with it.

... And this game feels like an arcade racer compared to Assetto Corsa.
 
After a bit more testing at basically default FFB settings on G27 (100 strength and 100 tire force, no other changes except for 0.18 for deadzone reduction which is the optimum setting for G27s) nothing is inherently wrong with the FFB except for the fact that completely misses giving any info about the grip level of the front tyres.

I noticed this especially during the SLS GT3 online time trial event at Brands Hatch. To get through turns here in an understeery car you need to generate oversteer by braking hard and early and turn in sharply, as the mandatary ABS on GT3 cars eliminates lockups.

However on turn in the wheel keeps the same sort of feel even at the edge of grip. There's no vibration or countersteer feel at all like there is basically any other sim. This also seems to apply with longitudinal grip, as late heavy braking in pCARS tends to turn into sudden oversteer and a complete loss of grip with the wheel feeling lifeless throughout.

Maybe the recommendations to changes in the FFB might give me back some feel for front end grip, but these changes are likely to cause the FFB to clip due to the increased master scale (my settings now already introduce very slight clipping) and too much clipping means you lose the slighter nuanced effects of the FFB, in particular road surface bumps and kerbs. Finding the balance will be a tough process.
 

fresquito

Member
What's the consensus on FXAA vs SMAA in this game for IQ?
Neither. FXAA will add some blur and SMAA will ad some shimmering on shadows. Only use SMAA when you want to take nice pics. other than that, I'd say off to both of them.

I'm tired of reading AC fans talking bad about the FFB of this game. They sum it up with "I can't feel nothing". Yeah, the default settings of Project CARS don't break your wheel, it's way more subtle than AC is.

The thing is, they oversell AC as it is the perfect sim, then talk at lengh about how you can feel all the four tyres through your hands. Excuse me? What kind of car are you driving that lets you feel the four tires through a driving wheel? There's no car in real life that makes you feel the four tires through your driving wheel. That's a gamey approach. You can tell me you like it better because it's compensating for things you should be feeling if inside a real car, but that's totally unrealistic from an output point of view.

The approach of Project CARS is different, what you feel is more subtle, but also more in line with what you'd feel in a real car only through your hands. So it's more of a sim approach. You can dislike this approach, but it's a more ralistic approach, that's for sure. I know people with sim motions that love this game because the wheel provides the info that's relevant to the wheel, while the sim motion gives the rest of the info.
 
Neither. FXAA will add some blur and SMAA will ad some shimmering on shadows. Only use SMAA when you want to take nice pics. other than that, I'd say off to both of them.

I'm tired of reading AC fans talking bad about the FFB of this game. They sum it up with "I can't feel nothing". Yeah, the default settings of Project CARS don't break your wheel, it's way more subtle than AC is.

The thing is, they oversell AC as it is the perfect sim, then talk at lengh about how you can feel all the four tyres through your hands. Excuse me? What kind of car are you driving that lets you feel the four tires through a driving wheel? There's no car in real life that makes you feel the four tires through your driving wheel. That's a gamey approach. You can tell me you like it better because it's compensating for things you should be feeling if inside a real car, but that's totally unrealistic from an output point of view.

The approach of Project CARS is different, what you feel is more subtle, but also more in line with what you'd feel in a real car only through your hands. So it's more of a sim approach. You can dislike this approach, but it's a more ralistic approach, that's for sure. I know people with sim motions that love this game because the wheel provides the info that's relevant to the wheel, while the sim motion gives the rest of the info.

Now I did not play PC much yet, but it's certainly not just the FFB that feels better in AC. I just took a RUF on a spin on the ring and it felt like a VW Golf. The handling is very tame. All assists off.
 

Buburibon

Member
Does anyone know what anti-aliasing "high" is exactly? It seems to be less demanding than "msaa", so I'm thinking it's some sort of custom post-process AA? Thanks!
 

Spookie

Member
I'm tired of reading AC fans talking bad about the FFB of this game. They sum it up with "I can't feel nothing". Yeah, the default settings of Project CARS don't break your wheel, it's way more subtle than AC is.

To be honest. Both are fairly shit out of the box. Though I've had a LOT less trouble setting up AC.

The thing is, they oversell AC as it is the perfect sim, then talk at lengh about how you can feel all the four tyres through your hands. Excuse me? What kind of car are you driving that lets you feel the four tires through a driving wheel? There's no car in real life that makes you feel the four tires through your driving wheel. That's a gamey approach. You can tell me you like it better because it's compensating for things you should be feeling if inside a real car, but that's totally unrealistic from an output point of view.

See you say this. But then you've got a racing driver saying:

"I can, however, say that games like Assetto Corsa feel leaps and bounds ahead of other certain sims on the market, and Assetto Corsa on its own is very close to what a real race car feels like."

I'm not saying you're wrong but I'm inclined to believe the racing driver who drives these things for a living.
 

fresquito

Member
Now I did not play PC much yet, but it's certainly not just the FFB that feels better in AC. I just took a RUF on a spin on the ring and it felt like a VW Golf. The handling is very tame. All assists off.
I never said you can't like AC FFB better or think it feels better. I just said that people praising AC FFB as the best FFB ever should realise that, as better as it might be, it's also totally unrealistic.

What Ruf was that?

"I can, however, say that games like Assetto Corsa feel leaps and bounds ahead of other certain sims on the market, and Assetto Corsa on its own is very close to what a real race car feels like."
I never said the experience of driving in AC is bad. It has great output out of the wheel that helps you understand what the car is doing. I only point out the obvious: that's info that in real life you don't get out of your driving wheel.

I could easily quote you things from real drivers praising Project CARS as well, including one saying the FA is the best he's tried after a real F1 simulator he ran on.
 

Spookie

Member
I never said you can't like AC FFB better or think it feels better. I just said that people praising AC FFB as the best FFB ever should realise that, as better as it might be, it's also totally unrealistic.

Well the same complaint can be given to Project CARS then? But you say:

"The approach of Project CARS is different, what you feel is more subtle, but also more in line with what you'd feel in a real car only through your hands. So it's more of a sim approach. You can dislike this approach, but it's a more ralistic approach, that's for sure."

Uh?

Oh cool it looks like someone else is having issues with a deadzone when the wheel is centred too. Hopefully this sorts my issues as I'm tired of spending 45 minutes setting up a wheel. :/

Edit: The problem is even worse on PS4 apparently, infact it looks unplayable. They should be getting blasted for this.
 

Mascot

Member
There's a publicly-accessible PS4 Fanatec support thread over on the WMD forums. Apologies if already posted:

Click

Here's what I posted there in case it's of use to anyone here:

Great thread. Hope the devs are paying very close attention.

My setup: PS4, Fanatec Porsche 911 GT2 EU, Clubsport V1 pedals (not sure what firmware, but it has to be over a year since I last updated it)

Like others here my wheel is also recognised as a 911 Turbo wheel, not a GT2, and there's no image of the wheel or access to the wheel-specific calibration and FFB settings. It's almost as if the game thinks my wheel is a gamepad. FFB feels much weaker than in GT5/6, FM 4/5, GTR2, AC but that might be due to the lack of access to the full calibration menu. My wheel shows up as a gamepad in my profile.

I'd previously stated elsewhere that I'd used the h-pattern and clutch OK, but this was while switching between different games on PS4, PS3, X360 and PC to compare the FFB. Turns out I got confused and haven't yet tried it in pCARS, so can't comment on the clutch support. The cars I've been driving so far all use sequential shifters.

Button assignments on the wheel are not being saved despite the save icon flashing.

We desperately need the PS4 gamepad to work alongside the wheel (or the UI changed accordingly) as some functions simply aren't accessible through the wheel.

Despite these issues it sounds like I'm one of the lucky ones because my GT2 actually functions pretty well, and using it in pCARS is an absolute blast (mainly using GT3 cars at the moment on Spa, RA, Silverstone, Catalunya). I think the game will really come alive once full Fanatec support is properly implemented and we can access all the detailed calibration settings. More detailed FFB would be appreciated but my Buttkicker has always helped with the tactility of the experience - there's nothing quite like feeling the rumble of the road under your seat, the vibration of revving the engine on the start line, or the punch in the back on aggressive gear changes. I'd definitely recommend trying one if you have the chance.

I'm loving pCARS so far. It's undoubtedly a rough diamond right now with multiple issues that should have been ironed out before release, but the actual racing itself can be superb.
 

fresquito

Member
Well the same complaint can be given to Project CARS then? But you say:

"The approach of Project CARS is different, what you feel is more subtle, but also more in line with what you'd feel in a real car only through your hands. So it's more of a sim approach. You can dislike this approach, but it's a more ralistic approach, that's for sure."

Uh?
You can dislike Project CARS FFB, of course. What you can't say is that it's bad because it's not like AC. It's a totally different approach that you may like less, but that makes it not bad. And if we are talking about simulating, my opinion is that what Project CARS tells through the wheel is closer to what a real car tells through the wheel.
 
AMD should hurry up with this fix. Can play with everything on highest (no AA) at Imola and get perfectly playable FPS (looks above 30) with just me on track. But change to Monaco and it's barely playable with everything on low.
 

v1ncelis

Member
So they didn't got the license for Suzuka? Not that I'm complaining, Sakitto is pretty similar but still with a lack of Japanese cars and tracks in recent racing games is shrinking Japanese market to blame or it's because of expensive license fees?
 
AC's FFB is the best solution for most people IMO. Most of us only have a wheel and is therefore the only source of connection between us and the virtual road. Canning in slight effects otherwise felt in the seat of a real car to increase the feel for the track is beneficial to me. A very small minority of us have stuff like buttkickers, d-box hydraulic seats and all that other stuff. PCARS may well provide the more "realistic" experience and be better on these complex sim rigs, but that realism is lost on most of us, and hell, you can tune out the canned effects in AC anyway if you want a "true" experience.

That being said, if I don't ever find a fix for the lack of feel for the front tyres like I described earlier, it's a big oversight as you do get some feel through the wheel for grip levels of your front tyres. AC has always done this exceptionally well, and finding a good FFB setup for AC isn't anywhere near as difficult as the overabundance of options available for tweaking in pCARS. Hell, gMotor based games have only a single slider for FFB and in many cases they provide more information than pCARS does, especially GSCE which feels great out of the box on just about everything. Having so many options really feels like a crutch for SMS to lean on with complaints about FFB. "If anything feels wrong, it's your fault not ours" sort of thing.
 

saladine1

Junior Member
I am absolutely in love with the physics in this game!
I'm loving it more than AC.

The combination of great handling and great sound creates a truly immersive experience like no other imo.

My back is sore from the 8 straight hours of tweaking, tuning,racing and hotlapping. Might take a few more days off work because of my injuries...
 

doomquake

Member
is a wheel pretty much required for this game or no?
No but you will need to learn the art of feathering the triggers and thumb sticks. Not so bad with triggers but most gamepads are badly suited for fine movents near the dead zone - although you can spend a day or so configuring your controller sensitivity...which is really not easy with a car simulator that has high customization of the car itself.
 
Cheers.
Ditto.

Just checked, don't have that specific issue with my wheel in regards to the livery selection.

It seems like a lot of the issues are wheel model specific, each with their own quirks. Same with the pedals, I just have the basic CSR pedals and they work fine, yet some people with the clubsports have having a few issues.
 

Malcolm9

Member
What a game, absolutely loving it! I'm used to the handling now and the game is really something else, I think I may have to invest in a steering while for the first time.

Hats off to SMS, brilliant.
 

Mascot

Member
I am absolutely in love with the physics in this game!
I'm loving it more than AC.

The combination of great handling and great sound creates a truly immersive experience like no other imo.

Totally agree, but I don't know if I've been spoilt by the amazing GT3 cars. They sound like angry dragons and have immense levels of grip..! I just tried the Ford Escorts for the first time and (quite rightly) they were sliding all over the place, and the audio sounded pathetic by comparison. I think I'll be spending a lot of my time in the GT classes.

The Ginetta Juniors are a lot of fun, by the way. And Watkins Glen - what a superb track!

One little thing I love about pCARS - no excessive and persistent tyre squeal! It could probably do with being dialled up a little bit (I'd love more detailed audio tuning, full stop) but it's a pleasant change from GT and FM in that regard.

Just checked, don't have that specific issue with my wheel in regards to the livery selection.

It seems like a lot of the issues are wheel model specific, each with their own quirks. Same with the pedals, I just have the basic CSR pedals and they work fine, yet some people with the clubsports have having a few issues.

Ah, thanks. Interesting to note.
 

ValfarHL

Member
Some good info on car ffb settings
I found a very simple guide the "may" work for many as a good starting point - everyone's mileage may vary.

Project CARS short guide to FFB parameters:
Credit to Remco Van Dijk (WMD)

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).

I don't have time to play with these before tomorrow. :/

Source: http://www.racedepartment.com/threads/project-cars-thrustmaster-t500rs-settings.105356/

When you also add this info:
1) I recommend setting the ingame FFB strength setting to 100 (very very important!). Then instead set the FFB strength in the Thrustmaster CONTROL PANEL between 60 - 75, depending on how much of a workout you want.

Other than that, yeah, you got it nailed.

2) Also make sure to experiment with the car setup FFB settings that you find in the garage/edit screen of each car. The most important setting there is called Spindle Arm Angle and can ONLY be found when you are not on the track/in the actual gameplay part but rather in the main menu (I have no idea why they didn't include it in the in-game garage/setup screen). The spindle arm angle is set a bit weird on many cars. For instance the Ginetta G40 has it default to 15 I think but it works much better when set to 21.

I also usually tweak the Fx, Fy, Fz and Mz settings to something like this:

Fx = 80
Fy = 50 to 70 range
Fz = 60 to 70 range
Mz = 100 to 110 range

Then also set the Spindle arm multiplier (first setting on this screen) to something higher than the default 26. I usually end up at around 32 to 40, depending on how much down force the car produces (more down force = stronger FFB)

And these settings:
Damper = 0
Force Feedback = 60

Tire Force = 100
Change the following settings but leave the rest below Tire Force unchanged:
Deadzone Removal Range = 0.05-0.08 (depends on your preference)
Relative Adjust Gain = 0.98
Relative Adjust Bleed = 0.10
Relative Adjust Clamp = 0.96
Scoop Knee = 0.70 (this is the most important one)
Scoop Reduction = 0.10

Does anyone with PC version and T500RS have time to test a bit?
 

leeh

Member
Was really looking forward to this game, bought it and played it this morning and its the worst game with a controller I think I've ever played.

The timing seems off, the car seems like it has a mind of its own and doesn't respond to any fine responses and its pretty much unplayable seriously with a controller. Really buggy, its hit and miss whether the clutch actually works on the starting line, audio just loves to break halfway through the game and motion blur when you let off brake to accelerate just goes crazy.
 

saladine1

Junior Member
Totally agree, but I don't know if I've been spoilt by the amazing GT3 cars. They sound like angry dragons and have immense levels of grip..! I just tried the Ford Escorts for the first time and (quite rightly) they were sliding all over the place, and the audio sounded pathetic by comparison. I think I'll be spending a lot of my time in the GT classes.

The Ginetta Juniors are a lot of fun, by the way. And Watkins Glen - what a superb track!

One little thing I love about pCARS - no excessive and persistent tyre squeal! It could probably do with being dialled up a little bit (I'd love more detailed audio tuning, full stop) but it's a pleasant change from GT and FM in that regard.



Ah, thanks. Interesting to note.
Yeah, the GT3 cars are an absoluete pleasure to drive.

I read somewhere that the Road cars aren't done right or something. I don't know about other road cars but the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo feels pretty spot on to me having taken one out on some track days months ago.

Yes. Project CARS sound mixing, specifically, is completely amateurish. Listening through a Fidelio X1 headphone/DAC/amp combo and I can't stand to play more than ten minutes at a time at normal listening levels. Again, harsh, fatiguing, synthetic, and distorted/clipped to hell.

I'll make a longer, more in depth comparison vid in the near future, but here's a quick one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peqcNpbBEco

I agree, there are a few things that could've been better (mixing is a little off, cockpit resonance and some cars are more distorted than others). I'm just saying that amateur is a harsh word to use.
 

These settings are useless becasue he doesn't mention what controller mode he is using. It is very important as it changes a bunch of other settings not available in the release version of the game.

My settings for Xbox 360 controller on PC.

Mode 2 (make sure you change this first)
Steering sensitivity 5
Steering deadzone 13
Throttle sensitivity 20
Gamepad filtering 100
Speed sensitivity 60

Advanced settings On
Soft steering Dampening On

Leave everything else at default.

All cars should be pretty drivable with these.
 

Mascot

Member
Yeah, the GT3 cars are an absoluete pleasure to drive.

I read somewhere that the Road cars aren't done right or something. I don't know about other road cars but the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo feels pretty spot on to me having taken one out on some track days months ago.

Considering the many, many niggles, performance issues, bugs, quirks, silly UI and baffling design decisions in pCARS it's amazing that this game gives me such a mile-wide grin every time I play it. It's the game Shift could have been five years ago before EA started jamming their shitty sticks into the mix and fucking up the physics. Perhaps its faults are deliberate to stop me exploding with pleasure every time I strap myself in? Loving it. Loving it.

Got any plans to build a cockpit to complement your PC Uber Rig..?

DO IT.
 

saladine1

Junior Member
Considering the many, many niggles, performance issues, bugs, quirks, silly UI and baffling design decisions in pCARS it's amazing that this game gives me such a mile-wide grin every time I play it. It's the game Shift could have been five years ago before EA started jamming their shitty sticks into the mix and fucking up the physics. Perhaps its faults are deliberate to stop me exploding with pleasure every time I strap myself in? Loving it. Loving it.

Got any plans to build a cockpit to complement your PC Uber Rig..?

DO IT.

Trust me, if I had the room I would've built/bought a cockpit a long time ago.
 
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