Running high end pc, no issues graphically with everything maxed, but game looks very cartoonish, sort of white and hazy. How do I get this looking life like, clear and crisp?
by curiosity, are you using your triple 4K at 7680x1440 ? or 11580x2160 ? I don't see the purpose to play at 11580x2160, to be limited at 60hz, and having 30fps by night with rain with AI with ultra graphics....or low fps with dusk... For me the perfect combo is triple 32" gsync HDR 1440p 144hz (but for 120hz) with 3090ti or maybe one 65" 4K 120hz like the C165 OLED, but the input lag has disguted me, the virtual wheel is so slow....the latency is so much noticeable. About your issue I don't know
Does deleting the contents of the cbash & shaders folders make any different? I recall it fixed some weird looking colours for me at one point in time.
@LibranRabbit the outside screenshot is proberly to make sure its not the "frontscreen window" giving you this effect. Is it same washed out with other cars on same track? you sure you dont have any applied color adjusting on your graphics card software?
It seems to be all cars and tracks. What can I delete so steam can reinstall the graphics setup/settings?
Im not the correct one to ask about what to change or delete and would'nt suggest doing so until someone here suggst so. Im just trying to help getting much info on the problem. but Im curious, does it also look washed out with high sun and no clouds?
This white wash is clearly a windshield effect. This car is Sauber C11 from MAK-Corp and all his cars has this ugly stuff. Outside camera won't have this. You can install my simple mod that gets rid of it for Sauber and Mazda and the first livery of porsche (in case of porsche this is per livery). It also increases mirror resolution. Now, I'm only talking about the white wash, not the overall graphics quality. Whether that is the OP issue I don't know. He mentioned that all cars look bad so he might be commenting about overall graphics quality of rF2. In that case you won't make it look like PC2. Simply not possible with rF2.
I think this is a case of setting expectations and getting the most out of what rF2 has to offer graphics wise. PC2, wich is your benchmark, uses an engine wich biggest selling point are the graphics, to put it straight. PC2 is pretty well known for great lighting, how the materials interact and how cockpits are rendered. It's a AAA engine developed with crazy budgets compared to the rF2 inhouse engine that is slowly catching up right now. In addition to this you will have quite a bit of variation due to different 1st and 3rd party content being at different stages of development. The Group C mod hasn't been updated since several years and it doesn't feature all the new graphics features that rF2 offers. If you use new official content like the Ferraris and max the graphics and play a bit with faster time multipliers and changing weather it can actually blow your mind at times. If you don't want to invest too much right now you can also use the Enduracers mod wich has pretty good quality and all the features like whipers, PBR materials and stuff like that. That said, it will never reach the full Michael Bay level of graphics that you get in PC2, and it doesn't need to. I think visuals looking dull is perfectly fine when the conditions are like that, with overcast settings and midday sun angles. But that's also the beauty of rF2. At one corner the game can look a bit boring and the next corner you see a bit of sun breaking through the clouds and reflecting on the surface. And in rain conditions rF2 actually looks quite a bit better than PC2. Try Le Mans at around 8 or 9 pm with 60 or 70 percent wetness and it will look completely different to what you posted. These are some very old screenshots with the same mod and the free Le mans version. There is nothing cartoonish and graphics have actually advanced quite a bit from there:
Mid day sunny conditions can look a bit ....weird in rF2. I tend to drive morning or evening which looks better but also much more natural to me. You can almost visually tell the time of day. Tracks like LeMans just look off in the bright midday sun to me. Sebring is the closest to natural looking daytime conditions so maybe there's some track/colour balance/sun position stuff at play.