Assetto Corsa Respectful Comparison

Peterchen,

have you ever went with a racing sport car in a track? Seriously. First of all, you are totally immature. Cheer because a game does not meet expectation (although still in beta, just like when rfactor 2 sucked a lot in the beginning) very childish. It is in your interest hope that they can improve so you can have more choice in the market and more competition which would force ISI to improve their product.

That said, rf taught something very bad, which is that a car to be realistic must be hard to drive. That's not real life!!!! Excluding some open wheeler which require the precise technique and are less forgiving. You can do a lot of stuff specially with a car like the one in the video, before even reach a situation where you lose control. In fact, in sportive driving lessons they usually does not take months and months to teach you anything but rather a weekend and worst scenarios a week. I saw inexperience drivers learning how to slide in less than 4 laps, now according to you (most of you) to be realistic you must need a least a whole week of practice or else it does not resemble reality.

 

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lol the endurance car are designed to run fof 24h, in rf2 each round may be the last
in rf2 this cars are a soap, this is simulation? NO
rf2 is only a hardcore game, for me simulation is another

 

what makes me laugh is that even Hollywood actors took seat in 24h races in the past, some with good result. According to these hardcore games, that's not real because they should not have the skill necessary. Everything was too easy.

 

Spent a bunch of time with it, various cars, changing setups, etc. There's a lot to like but at the end of the day you can't "dance" with the car, which is what Esteve is really on about. What's strange is that the cars drift so well but you can't dance with them. For those who don't know, the term refers to the balancing act of trying to keep the front and rear slip angles relatively the same at all times. That's what you see Nicolas Costa doing in those F Abarth videos. It's what makes driving a car at the limit so much fun, but a great many track day drivers have never actually experienced it even though they think they know what race driving is about. You have to be near the limit to dance. There's a reason that Nic Costa's laps look like that while almost every other F Abarth onboard I've watched looks more like AC: he's a championship winning driver and most of the others are students.

It's the same with the Skip Barber videos. You can find plenty of students driving the car well under the limit and say OMG, why are the sim cars so oversteery. Then watch someone running near a lap record, or one of the instructors. It looks like a different car but it isn't.

I will not suggest, however, that Kunos has intentionally dumbed AC down. They've pushed back strenuously against that assertion and say their data supports what's in the sim, and I believe them. I'm sure the ISI guys would say the same, just as iRacing does. Everyone has data and everyone thinks what they're doing is more or less correct. The charges that devs are intentionally dumbing down their sims are IMO offensive if they've said otherwise, and Kunos has. So I give them credit for trying, and I believe that they believe it's right, but my real life experience of both racing and road cars at the limit tells me it isn't.

I wish it were, because there's a lot of other stuff to like. A lot. And I'll race any sim that lets me dance and rewards me for doing it well. I don't care who's name is on it.

 

Honestly....One of the best posts ive read since being on this forum for 2 or 3 years now. Especially the first 2 paragraphs...

It's sad because most people don't understand this, so they think things on/near the limit are much more easy/straightforward/simple than they really are in real life. Sadly, they are the majority, and unfortunately their incorrect/in-accurate opinion and influence is much more powerful and "loud" than the fewer people who truly understand what you are on about in your first 2 paragraphs.

 

AC seems to be having a fantastic debut, some users are saying it feels fantastic some say awful

I think most opinions we're reading can only be first impressions, none of us have any idea how long key features will take to be added etc,

I've clocked 20hrs since Fridays release ( what 20hrs !!!! .... Steam stats hey ! ), I'm impressed but to a certain degree still sitting on the fence, I think one has to really spend some time with a certain sim car to get to be able to push it to its limits & be able to make a balanced judgement .

I hope AC does good, it should help expand & promote interest in sim racing which is good for rf2 & iracing & ultimately us too !

 

You have pretty much described perfectly what I have trouble putting into words XD

That's what is missing for me so far. That ability to "dance" with the car.
I gave myself 10 laps with the Abarth at Vallelunga, and I got a 1:34.9 done on a scrappy lap, still learning the track. The key part that has been pointed out by Esteve is what I found too. Turn the wheel, mash the throttle, turn it more. Which usually turns out either you run off track, or you get the amount of understeer right and hit the rumble strips and get a good exit. And when I was trying to push harder, it just came to more lock and trying to get not too much understeer. There was no chance to try and slightly square a slow corner off and get on the throttle sooner, or be able to steer through the exit with the throttle like is shown in the real vid.

Also I know some people will not find the difference with "dancing" and forced drifting IMO. That BMW above does look real nice drifting, but it is not the same as stepping over the limits while cornering hard, which is where it is lacking. Break traction with the throttle at a slower speed than the car could really go around the corner, and control the slide. Not the same as coming in a 10 kph too fast for you/the tyres to handle, try to slow down, lift the weight too much off the rear for the speed you are going, and then the rear is mostly lost and you are off track.
The Lotus shows that so well. It was bloody impossible to carry a slight slide through the last corner at Monza onto the straight. In GPL I can do it, in rF2 I can do it, just a slight slide under power, right when you've got everything nailed. The rear end would step out with the Lotus, but as soon as it had done that, it would sorta slow and regrip again, like it wasn't able to get any drive while slipping. It wouldnt let me "dance" in that zone. And yes, aids were all off before anyone asks.

Still driving it on and off though, and still the M3 E30 is my fave hahahahaha XD

 

Thanks Spinelli.

BTW, for anyone annoyed by the pogo bouncing on the race cars, I found that at least with the F Abarth if you reduce the wheel rates to their minimums both front and rear that it significantly reduces it. Nothing else I tried had any real effect but that did. I do find it quite odd that we're changing wheel rates directly in setup. They really should be derived from the other settings in concert with the car's designs. Wheel rate is a consequence of everything else, in other words, and not something you directly change. It's strange.

Having said what I did about them believing in their data, I would just point to this bouncing as an example of something that's undeniably wrong in spite of their data, and it should give anyone pause who wants to "just trust them." I don't think you have to be going especially fast to see it, so anyone with AC can just go in and try to run over the curbs the way Costa does here at Imola:

In particular look at how he takes the final chicane at the top of the hill, around the 1:25 mark. He's all the way up to the inner edge of the curbing and it barely upsets the car at all. In AC if you even go across the outer edge of those curbs with the default wheel rates you'll be bouncing like mad. And even with the minimum wheel rates it gets quite a bit more upset than in Costa's video.

Of course someone will scream, "but it's a Beta!" And yes, it is, but they have the data and telemetry, right?

Things aren't so simple.

 

Matt is totally correct about people doing track days and thinking they are on the limit but very far from it. It trips me out at track days with a bone stock car with a good set of street tires running all over highly modified sports cars just to watch them walk away on the next straight. With the minimal wave by zones they have at most track days you get stuck behind these guys for the whole session. You sometimes wonder why these guys even bothered coming to the track.

 

@Minibull: Yep, I hear ya. I WANT to like it very badly, because of all the goodness I see in other areas. But where the rubber always meets the road for me, so to speak, is in how do you get the lap time? Is it by dancing, by keeping the car balanced more consistently and more often than the next guy? Or is it by doing something weird, that you never see in real cars, and that you just know shouldn't be fast, like this:

I finally got to about a 29.2 myself while chasing that time (the video is a 28.760), trying to see if driving the car properly without all that mid-corner understeer would be quicker. But really even my 29.2 was after I gave in and employed some of the techniques used in the video.

And then there's the at-the-moment WR video of the same combo:

It isn't quite so bad in terms of understeer, but look at what goes on around the 1:20 mark. That's in a lap that's almost 2 full seconds quicker than my PB.

I have never seen, either in replay or video or any other context, someone going quicker than me in rF2 or GSC where something like that occurs, or where the car is being driven in such an obviously unbalanced state. Not even once.

 

That last corner and what is now Ascari is like watching one of those old GPL replays where they turn in like 50m before they get to the actual corner, and then just understeer to the correct line

But I agree that the Lotus seems the oddest car of all, it's also VERY difficult to maintain a proper slide (as you can see how aleksi exits parabolica) in that while that should be one of the easiest cars to do that with seeing how theyre supposed to run of old bias ply tires

 

The thing is they don't have the training or the seat time, so they don't understand. They think they're going quickly and they're probably having fun. They know they aren't going as quickly as you but what they don't understand is what it's LIKE to go as quickly as you.

I'm not trying to be condescending. They're having fun and that's fine. If they could be you for a lap then they probably wouldn't have as much fun after. I think I already linked it into some other thread a month ago so I won't paste it in-line here, but this is the same thing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xi2YRj6gqBA

That was the reason that GT/Nissan Academy drivers got banned from the British GT Championship. If you actually sit and watch that video he's really working the car a lot of the time. Odds are if you could see the onboards of the guys he's smoking, it looks a lot more, what's the word, "stable." Not because of car setup, but just because they simply aren't on it.

 

What in the world is going on at 1:20? That looks horrible.

I think AC nailed it because the physics offer that feeling of controllable and grip, however, anyone who really analyses what is happening with the cars' physics/handling dynamics, rather than just going by the good feeling of grip and controllability, will realise there are many weird/arcady/simcady flaws in AC.

No sim is perfect, I can handle certain things that are overly tricky due to not having a God-given perfect physics engine and also due to our equipment and severe lack of feel relative to real life, I can live with all that and try to get used to it and live with it, what I can't live with however is overly forgiving/simplistic/simcadiness, that I cannot live with.

I want AC to be so good this is why I am kind of pissed off, it puts into context just how good RFactor 2 is from a pure physics dynamics point of view. Sadly LOTS of people dont seem to see how good RF2 is and think it is like driving on ice and AC is the holy grail perfect sim of all time. Someone needs to make some youtube videos explaining what esteve and matt have been describing.

 

Is that Elomaa? I didn't think that was his Youtube alias. He's probably reading this thread, and if so he'd probably be the first to admit it's messed up, because he can dance.

 

I think it is alltho I also vaguely remember another YT name, but I'm 99% sure cus of the Corvette C5 video on the c hannel.

 

Yep, exactly. And in contrast, when I've seen laps from Morand, Huttu or someone like that, they are extremely fast but the car is smooth and balanced and in control. Which is what is usually said about real racing, especially in bike racing, the guys up front look like they are going slow, while the backmarkers look like they are flying and pushing so super hard, but are actually going much slower overall.
It's not always the case though in some areas, (Ayrton Senna, Mark Marquez) but for the most part it holds true.

I've just tried the same, Lotus with straight default setup, and I got to a 1:30.256. It certainly feels like you could easily go faster if you could somehow control the understeer and oversteer better with the throttle.

 

AC and pCARS got to do something about those huge hands.
Lotus 49 both AC and pCARS 'elmet it is still too bulbous as well.
They give you Historic track and car and modern big arsed gloves and big 'elmets. hehehe


On the tracks compare Historics Spa and Monza from the 3 titles, ( cambers, radius, elevations ) ... anyone else seeing huge variation because I am.
pCARS Spa looks more like GPL layout then not.
rF2 looks nothing like any of them but when you look at old utube it most resembles it I think.

They can't all be right.

 

I agree with you guys, being hard does not make it realistic.

 

I'm happy to know I'm not the only one tested AC with these impressions, in some moments I was worried and thought I was crazy to not to feel as many others (in other forums) are feeling in AC.

I think we can be happy about ISI is doing, and... yes, AC will be a great "sim" i will play It for sure if they achieve a nice online and great game modes, but for now... I thought they had more features developed, but seems like they have almost nothing now, just wait and see how evolve!