Automobilista 2 announced, using project cars 2 engine

Gave the newest version a shot today and it still doesn't click. Sadly, wich is a shame with the content selection upon the horizon and especialy the classic tracks and cars incomming. I think alot of that content might be recycled in one form or another, but if it's good content then why not use it. On a positive note, the UI is clean and functional, the sound is good and visuals are for the biggest part on a decent level. Now to the not so good stuff:

Tried the Stockcar and the F Vintage today, because I have reasonable comparison with the car in AMS 1 and from the driving perspective it feels very bland and boring up to a point where I could take the hands off the wheel heading into the breaking zone for Crowthorne at classic Kyalami while breaking and shifting down in the F Vintage. You can say what you want but that's certainly not right. I get it, it's all WIP but with the release so close it might have been good to atleast have the basics aka the driving and FFB at a reasonable level and for someone who has spend quite a bit of time in PC2 in an online league, I still don't get around to stumble at similarities on a regular base, when it comes to handling issues and FFB. And the bad FFB with zero tire feel is the most prominent of those issues and the long list of updates for FFB related stuff alone with basicly allmost zero gain shows that this is indeed a big issue. The floatiness of the cars isn't as severe as in Project Boat, but it isn't as tight as in AMS1 either. People complaining about fuzzy edges, bad AA and running shadows might find a new home in AMS2 aswell. Haven't checked the wet weather racing and AI yet, but the driving doesn't motivate to spend more time in the sim. Sorry :(

All this opens the big question for me, what this sim offers that I don't have in AMS1, with lot's of nice features removed and zero ways to enhance the experience with stuff like mods. Nice graphics and weather are good and it might be a nice sim for people who didn't play AMS1 due to the lack of VR support, but for me as a screen user this is a big no-go atm. Might report back, once 1.0 hits the hardrive.
 
memoNo1 said:
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It's a pretty damn awesome title now. I am super stoked I picked up AMS 2 on early access.
The only couple of additional things I want have already been confirmed from the developers - a decent version of the Nurburgring (confirmed as DLC with multiple layouts like the other tracks in the game - eg: Hockenheim and Silverstone) and some good Group C cars. I have just found developers quotes on the Reiza support forum, confirming Group C cars are coming to the game, likely ported from Project Cars 2 and they will be FREE.
So the Nordschleife will be paid DLC, but Group C cars and others are coming and the Group C ones are being thrown in as a bonus.
...I've actually completely uninstalled Project Cars 2 - I've actually done it twice now, once about 3 months ago, then I went back to re-look at it after AMS 2 got to version 1.0 and I couldn't believe how bad the FFB is - I'm actually shocked I put up with it. And Assetto Corsa got uninstalled a while ago now too - sorry, I tried to like you, but we just never got on.
...now it's rF 2, with AMS 2 as my back up sim, that's admittedly a little more accessible and there's still a few niggles, but considering where it's come from since Early access and the development road-map - I highly recommend any other players thinking about it, to give it a good look. It's definitely not "Project Cars 2 with additional content" - anyone who understands the nature of developing a game using an existing game engine should understand that and I can tell from my driving experiences, they are two very different games to play.
...it also made me purchase the Reiza pack for rFactor 2, as I tried some of it in AMS 2 first :)
I've uploaded a couple of on board videos to Youtube - this is a recent one as an example of where this game is at now (for online play).
I do appreciate there is some really sloppy driving in the this video, but my excuses are I hadn't driven the car before and the person who set up the lobby forced default setups, which I personally hate. The car is a racing version of an Ultima GTR - with pretty much GT3 levels of performance.
 
Deformable car mesh! Yes, Reiza is implementing it for AMS2. Only been waiting forever to have this feature widely available in a sim again for ages.

Currently available only on the GT4 Ginetta and many of the panels detach rather than deform because, presumably, they are plastic. However, the hood deforms and does so in at least 2 stages (mild frontal hit and major frontal hit). Next few updates will flesh out these features for the other cars.

Does not seem to consume fps when switching to the deformed mesh like rF1, though that may be because I'm running from an SSD these days.
 
Emery said:
Deformable car mesh! Yes, Reiza is implementing it for AMS2. Only been waiting forever to have this feature widely available in a sim again for ages.
Currently available only on the GT4 Ginetta...
Does not seem to consume fps when switching to the deformed mesh like rF1, though that may be because I'm running from an SSD these days.
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..and the StockCar Corolla (https://forum.reizastudios.com/thre...pdate-released-now-updated-to-v1-0-2-7.12627/) - although I can't say I actually drive either in game, but it's coming to all the cars over a period of time.

"Speaking of exploring the resources of the Madness engine, we have now begun the work on implementing its full damage system to all cars, with scratch & dirt maps along with deformable mesh and a bigger set of detachable parts to all cars in the game - currently only the Ginettas and more recently the Stock Cars from the 2020 are using all of these resources, but by the next update we´re hoping most if not all cars in the game will feature some proper wear & tear looks as per below:"
source: https://forum.reizastudios.com/threads/automobilista-2-august-2020-development-update.12760/

SSD's effect read and write times and will not effect your FPS, unless you are using exceeding available GPU memory, in which case your GPU will need to transfer textures on the fly while the game is in use. Exceeding GPU memory is really not recommended, regardless of if you're using an SSD or not. The madness engine has pretty average hardware requirements, so it's not particularly taxing on your GPU, assuming it's something at least of average level from the last couple of years.
 
<squee!>
Lotus 23 & Austin Mini coming next week, before month's end. Coupled with deformable panels, I'm highly delighted and the only real question will be whether the tires behave as convincing vintage bias-ply or modern radials.

Oh, and there's a retro M3, too, if you're into that...
 
Emery said:
<squee!>
Lotus 23 & Austin Mini coming next week, before month's end. Coupled with deformable panels, I'm highly delighted and the only real question will be whether the tires behave as convincing vintage bias-ply or modern radials.
Oh, and there's a retro M3, too, if you're into that...
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Yeah I'd forgotten about that car pack and it does look good. Not really my usual thing, but good for fun when you want to drive something different.
Personally I'm looking forward to a certain track from next month and the Group C / GT 1 car pack in November.

AMS2_MILESTONES_2020-2021a.jpg
 
memoNo1 said:
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They are quite fun for touring cars, but I'd be much more interested in driving (Japanese) Super GT / DTM cars.

On some tracks the Super GT cars are doing very similar lap times to Japanese Super Formula open wheel cars, which is pretty impressive and they're probably the only two "touring car" race series that I really enjoy watching on TV.
...if hypothetically Australia ever decided to adopt the new unified Super GT / DTM specs (they could still build Fords and GM cars to that spec too), then we could possibly see a much larger scale global touring car racing series - as I think that's where the Super GT / DTM standardised rules are going.
That would be pretty impressive as the talent pool you could draw on is suddenly a lot bigger than any of those series on their own, so in theory the competition should go up a notch and wild card entries in each series would probably become a lot more interesting.
 
Allways interesting to see how much grip there is with that huge amount of rain and being on slick tires. But as with the excessive bouncing of the cars, there seem to be quite a few people who think that it is fine. To each their own.
 
So I've driven the AMS2 Nordschleife for a couple of hours now, using almost all cars which AMS2 is offering. The graphics and sounds might be a tad better than rF2, but the immersion, the sense of speed and especially the FFB are on a totally different level in rF2.

I really hope the guys at Reiza will overcome the limitations given by the engine at some point in the future. However they are trying to achieve this ;)
 
Hoshi said:
So I've driven the AMS2 Nordschleife for a couple of hours now, using almost all cars which AMS2 is offering. The graphics and sounds might be a tad better than rF2, but the immersion, the sense of speed and especially the FFB are on a totally different level in rF2.

I really hope the guys at Reiza will overcome the limitations given by the engine at some point in the future. However they are trying to achieve this ;)
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I find both versions have basically a very high level of the real Track. I like the graphic look of RF2 more in this respect, because I think it is more realistic without judging the technical quality. But on this point, I can see the giant leap RF2 has made in graphics in recent years. For AMS speaks again the sound which makes the immersion in this point at AMS better. I find the feeling of speed better with RF2. So until then, for me it will basically be on the same level as the one or other point for the other sim. As far as the driving experience is concerned, however, RF2 is actually a class higher for me, as I simply don't like AMS anywhere near as much as RF2. Also the FFB, which ultimately conveys much of the driving experience, is worlds better in RF2 for me.
 
With triple 4k, I can have rain in AMS2 with 29 AI and stay above 60 fps (can't do Storm or Thunderstorm, though). Rain not useable at night, though.

In rF2, I have rain with no more than 5 AI and stay above 60 fps despite being 90+ fps with 5 AI when it's not raining (can manage 42 AI at 60+ fps without rain). Rain at night is understandably not useable.
 
wmann said:
I find both versions have basically a very high level of the real Track. I like the graphic look of RF2 more in this respect, because I think it is more realistic without judging the technical quality. But on this point, I can see the giant leap RF2 has made in graphics in recent years. For AMS speaks again the sound which makes the immersion in this point at AMS better. I find the feeling of speed better with RF2. So until then, for me it will basically be on the same level as the one or other point for the other sim. As far as the driving experience is concerned, however, RF2 is actually a class higher for me, as I simply don't like AMS anywhere near as much as RF2. Also the FFB, which ultimately conveys much of the driving experience, is worlds better in RF2 for me.
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I agree - RF2 has a much better sense of speed. Still, AMS2 does not sim to be as much of a simulator as RF2 - it's just fun to play with, so many mistakes are forgiven. N-ring is beautiful, especially with fog.
 
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R.Noctua said:
I agree - RF2 has a much better sense of speed. Still, AMS2 does not sim to be as much of a simulator as RF2 - it's just fun to play with, so many mistakes are forgiven. N-ring is beautiful, especially with fog.
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I agree with both. It's a "horses for courses" kind of thing for me.
I don't consider AMS 2 to be as good as RF2 in regards to physics and FFB, but where it does shine for me is its easily accessible.
It's quick and easy to fire up, very easy to use online, easy to create your own lobbies and while it might not match RF 2 in many respects, it's fun in its own right and in my opinion a good racing game.
Too many people get concerned within gaming genres about which titles are better than which etc, where in my opinion - most games need to judged on their own merits. Either you like them or you don't.
Game X does not have to better than game Y to make it a good game and worth putting time into and different features appeal to different people for various reasons.
I've mentioned many times that for some strange reason I could just never click with Assetto Corsa. Lots of people love it and say it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. They're not wrong - it is great for them. For me it doesn't offer me anything that really appealed.

And I've said it before - but there's no harm in having a few different games in your collection - even just for the sake of having some variety.
...to each their own.
 
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