*******C.A.R.S - Community Assisted Race Sim*********

It's amazing how many people think they are game development experts.

SMS were part of Simbin during the era of GT Legends; GTR; GTR 2; Race 07. When they parted company, SMS developed two Need For Speed and one Test Drive racing game, according to (arcade) specifications laid down by EA Games and Atari respectively.

pCARS is SMS developing a racing game with an extraordinary amount of community input from "sim racers." Some of us have faith in this revolutionary title, now in its "beta" phase, where tracks/cars/careers etc. put together during the "pre-alpha" and "alpha" phases are bug-fixed and refined.
 
In that video the rain looks OK, but not brilliant. There's no immersion at all - it's just a few spots on the visor - nothing like actual rain or effects of spray (artificial or otherwise). While it might not have been as graphically impressive, GP4 did it far better 13 years ago.

The physics in that F1 video are appalling. It looks like it's being controlled on a keyboard (hence the lack of throttle application) and then suddenly the player hits a mega-turbo-awesome-grip-o-thon button. I've never seen a geared car accelerate that fast in the dry, even in the most arcadey of arcade F1 games.
 
I've just played it for the first time in about a month. I've fired up Assteto Corsa as well to compare.

On my hardware (i5 4690, 8GB ram, GTX 690 3X1080p screens and T500 RS wheel) I have all the effects on apart from grass and heat haze. All other settings on high, except car detail on Ultra and motion blur off. All wheel settings on default, all assists off.

I get between 25 and 45 FPS.

I tested Watkins Glen, Monza and Imola. No other cars on track.

Assetto Corsa I'm pretty much maxed out on all settings, except mirrors on normal, cube faces 3. Default wheel settings and all assists are off.

I get between 33-40 FPS

I tested Imola and Monza.

I'd say AC edges it in the visuals, just.

The actual physics of the cars are similar (only tested the BMW Z4 GT3) but it's the FFB in AC that's the difference for me. The FFB in AC allows you to feel the bumps, the rumble strips and kerbs. You can feel the difference in grip between tarmac, the rumble strips, grasscrete and the grass.

PCARS just needs to dial up the default FFB to give more feel and detail and it would be very good.

Now I know there are settings I can change, but my point is I shouldn't have to. The FFB should be more or less there by default.

Both games need some decent leaps in optimisation before release though.

Although it could be down to SLI/driver issues of my GTX 690.
 
I really don't understand all the negativity. Have I missed something?

I think this game is shaping up nicely. Please show me show me a sim that looks half as good as this and I'll be prepared to get it!
 
DAIR said:
I really don't understand all the negativity. Have I missed something?

I think this game is shaping up nicely. Please show me show me a sim that looks half as good as this and I'll be prepared to get it!
Click to expand...

Assetto Corsa looks as good while you are actually playing it.

I'm not negative about it.

I'm giving an honest opinion.

PCARS is nearly there I think. But as I said, I think it will be more popular on consoles.

A guy from SMS claimed 80,000 people were involved in the game, which actually meant that 80,000 tool packs had been sold. So most of the PC community that wanted the game have already had it for two years. So I think PC sales will be a lot lower than they normally are for cross platform releases.
 
barmyllama said:
Now I know there are settings I can change, but my point is I shouldn't have to. The FFB should be more or less there by default.
Click to expand...

If you are testing using your own purchased tier account, the whole point of you having had access to frequent builds for 3 years is to change every conceivable setting in the game (gfx; wheel setup including tweak files in the forum; weather; setups including "wrong" ones etc.) and give constructive feedback to SMS in the appropriate threads.

Issues have been logged from the active community input and the priority of getting the fixes done, is in the hands of the experienced dev team, if they feel an aspect needs more "man hours." Most of these are happening now, as they should, in the "beta" phase.

The three major wheel brands (Fanatec, Logitech, Thrustmaster) have very different ways of giving FFB effects, so the values needed in the tweaker files are very different. Before we even talk about different sim-racers preferring different strengths of FFB.

Sounds like you need to download the correct latest generation tweak file(s) from the forums and then refine it to your own spec.
 
UTmaniac said:
It's amazing how many people think they are game development experts.

SMS were part of Simbin during the era of GT Legends; GTR; GTR 2; Race 07. When they parted company, SMS developed two Need For Speed and one Test Drive racing game, according to (arcade) specifications laid down by EA Games and Atari respectively.

pCARS is SMS developing a racing game with an extraordinary amount of community input from "sim racers." Some of us have faith in this revolutionary title, now in its "beta" phase, where tracks/cars/careers etc. put together during the "pre-alpha" and "alpha" phases are bug-fixed and refined.
Click to expand...
lol! You think they wrote the engine that runs those games.... haha, that was done by the guys that wrote rFactor (ISI).
 
DAIR said:
I really don't understand all the negativity. Have I missed something?

I think this game is shaping up nicely. Please show me show me a sim that looks half as good as this and I'll be prepared to get it!
Click to expand...

1) It's not a sim.

2) And if you do want a sim the visuals won't matter. At all.

Simulation: Aims to be as real as you can get while appealing to a moderately broad market (NASCAR 2003, GTP mod for NR2003, Grand Prix Legends, iRacing).

Car racing game: Tries to look convincing while not limiting fun factor (GT series, Forza, Grand Prix series without all of the mods turned off).

Assetto Corsa is somewhere in the middle of the two, and makes a good job of it.
 
Last edited:
UTmaniac said:
If you are testing using your own purchased tier account, the whole point of you having had access to frequent builds for 3 years is to change every conceivable setting in the game (gfx; wheel setup including tweak files in the forum; weather; setups including "wrong" ones etc.) and give constructive feedback to SMS in the appropriate threads.

Issues have been logged from the active community input and the priority of getting the fixes done, is in the hands of the experienced dev team, if they feel an aspect needs more "man hours." Most of these are happening now, as they should, in the "beta" phase.

The three major wheel brands (Fanatec, Logitech, Thrustmaster) have very different ways of giving FFB effects, so the values needed in the tweaker files are very different. Before we even talk about different sim-racers preferring different strengths of FFB.
Sounds like you need to download the correct latest generation tweak file(s) from the forums and then refine it to your own spec.
Click to expand...

I am using my own account.

But I don't tweak the default setting for two reasons.

1: I like to be able to compare one build to another directly, so leaving all the settings on default allows me to do this.

2: No point tweaking stuff you don't understand or know what it does or is for.

Most of my small contribution to the forum and the development of the game has been bug reporting and real life track data (photos)
 
this_is_gav said:
It's not as pretty, nor as accessible. Real racing drivers race it though, so you can go up against a host of drivers from former F1 drivers to current NASCAR racers. It's as real as you'll get for the foreseeable future.
Click to expand...

Well since you put it like that I may give it a go (when I finally get a PC.... Unless I can play this on an old laptop).

I'm still excited about PC though. Hopefully the hype surrounding it is worth it.
 
this_is_gav said:
1) It's not a sim.

2) And if you do want a sim the visuals won't matter. At all.

Simulation: Aims to be as real as you can get while appealing to a moderately broad market (NASCAR 2003, GTP mod for NR2003, Grand Prix Legends, iRacing).

Car racing game: Tries to look convincing while not limiting fun factor (GT series, Forza, Grand Prix series without all of the mods turned off).

Assetto Corsa is somewhere in the middle of the two, and makes a good job of it.
Click to expand...

Community Assisted Racing Simulator. You can forgive people for being misled.
 
DAIR said:
I really don't understand all the negativity. Have I missed something?

I think this game is shaping up nicely. Please show me show me a sim that looks half as good as this and I'll be prepared to get it!
Click to expand...

Have you actually played it ? If not go and read my previous posts about how deceptive all the footage is, in motion the graphics are nothing special at all.

AC looks and drives better. I even find modern iracing more pleasing to the eye as its clean and smooth in motion... the complete opposite to pcars which is poor in motion.

Sim racers generally want clean and smooth visuals which run well, pcars does none of those things.

It's basically GT5/Forza clone but with more focus on race cars. It will probably do quite well in terms of sales but it's going to have to have a complete overhaul from its current state for me to take it even remotely seriously as a proper sim.

In before "but *insert real life driver* said its soooo realistic' - marketing, marketing, marketing

UTmaniac said:
pCARS is SMS developing a racing game with an extraordinary amount of community input from "sim racers."
Click to expand...

so they took tons of input from sim racers and have somehow ended up with a physics engine and ffb which hardly any sim racers rate... brilliant.
 
Last edited:
Jaynos said:
Have you actually played it ? If not go and read my previous posts about how deceptive all the footage is, in motion the graphics are nothing special at all.

AC looks and drives better. I even find modern iracing more pleasing to the eye as its clean and smooth in motion... the complete opposite to pcars which is poor in motion.

Sim racers generally want clean and smooth visuals which run well, pcars does none of those things.

It's basically GT5/Forza clone but with more focus on race cars. It will probably do quite well in terms of sales but it's going to have to have a complete overhaul from its current state for me to take it even remotely seriously as a proper sim.



so they took tons of input from sim racers and have somehow ended up with a physics engine and ffb which hardly any sim racers rate... brilliant.
Click to expand...


In that case please forgive my ignorance. I come from the realm of the console players. And In our eyes this looks great. Alas, time will tell.

Until that time I've decided to give iracing a try!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom