Convince me to buy a PC for AC

[Hodgelike]

Honestly, I am happy with the purchase as for now I am not wanting the best of everything in a PC. Just wan to play AC & providing graphics are par with Xbox One I am happy. It is also more the case I can use it with my current wheel setup.

Received an email advising that PC is built up. I have not looked in depth but hoping the cockpit view will have the option of removing the drivers arms & steering wheel... just showing the rev counter etc.

 

[Roostaboosta]

Honestly, I am happy with the purchase as for now I am not wanting the best of everything in a PC. Just wan to play AC & providing graphics are par with Xbox One I am happy. It is also more the case I can use it with my current wheel setup.

Received an email advising that PC is built up. I have not looked in depth but hoping the cockpit view will have the option of removing the drivers arms & steering wheel... just showing the rev counter etc.

My advice would be that when you receive your PC read up as much as you can with regards to GFX and in game settings as it makes a huge difference. I know that to my cost! Plenty of info out there, it will take a while to get it set up to its maximum potential but worth the effort. And yes, you can get rid of drivers arms etc in in game menu.

 

[BrandonW77]

I have not looked in depth but hoping the cockpit view will have the option of removing the drivers arms & steering wheel... just showing the rev counter etc.

It does, and you have full adjustability of your seating position (up, down, left, right, pitch forward, pitch backward).

 

[Hodgelike]

Really, this is good news!

 

[BrandonW77]

Really, this is good news!

Be prepared to spend some time getting each car dialed in. FOV (field of view) is very important if you want to get the most immersion from the sim. What you're used to in Forza is likely not a "proper" FOV (meaning, you see too much of the car's interior), you want to set it so it's as close as possible to what you'd see out of a real car. And trust me, once you get it dialed in and get adjusted to the narrower view (it may take a few hours or even a few days of driving to get used to it) it's a game changer and can make you feel like you're actually in a car and not just watching a car on a tv screen. You'll be able to "feel" exactly where each corner of the car is, be able to attack corners with more precision, and saving an oversteer moment will feel more natural.

Here are some good resources for you. And @Cote Dazur is our resident FOV expert so he can maybe help with any questions you may have. Of course it's all a matter of preference, some people can't get used to the narrower FOV and don't like it, and there's nothing saying they can't use whatever FOV they want. But for those who have experienced its benefits, we can promise it's worth the effort to adjust and adapt. You won't be able to see to the sides as well, but there is a mod/app that will act like a radar and show you cars around you, which can be found HERE



http://www.nogripracing.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1160743

http://www.projectimmersion.com/fov/index.php

And here's an example of how it looks (on my rig) when you get it dialed in.

 

[Hodgelike]

Some great info there cheers! I will use just the 42" tv & have my wheel & seat set at such height so the tv can sort of replicate the windscreen.

 

[RReed43]

I have an X360 and a PS3. I upgraded my sim hardware with the CSW v2, CSP v2 and CSS SQ to mount on my Playseat which I equipped with tactile drivers. I drove in GT6, Forza 4 and F1.

When XOne came out none of my sim hardware was compatible. Sony introduced the PS4 but no guarantee that any of my hardware was going to be compatible. So far PS$ has no real sim and no view of whether anything on the PS4 will support my hardware.

I didn't like the future of my sim racing hardware to be controlled by console manufacturers who had little or no interest in supporting sim hardware unless significant licensing fees were paid by the manufacturers.

It is also obvious that the shear processing power of high end PC's and GPU's far outstrip the consoles and the gap will grow as the upgrade cycles for consoles is measured in 5-7 year periods while the PC/GPU capabilities are being upgraded continuously. The consoles when introduced are equivalent to mid range PC's tuned for games and graphics.

Given these conditions I made the decision to build a gaming PC and move to PC based sim racing. I asked which sim was best to start with given my interest in single driver sim racing. The answer I received was Assetto Corsa.

I started up in December and have never regretted the change. The simulation of driving is simply much better than GT6 which I always preferred to Forza 4 and F1.

In addition SimVibe control added an order of magnitude improvement to the tactile experience. 3rd party apps also allow one to customize in a way that was impossible on a console. Fanaleds adds incredible flexibility to what my CSW v2 can produce, if I can just figure out to how to actually program it to do what I want.

The cost of the added capability is a lot of tinker time as I figure out how to actually make the apps work on my system.

I understand the complaints about the "lack of completion" in regard to Career mode and Special Events. They are sort of "thrown together". The career mode has plenty of challenge for me and I'm about 60% and the going is slow as the racing is demanding and time consuming. I accept the challenge as I own the Platinum Trophy in both GT5 and GT6.

My build is:
i7 4820 3.7 GHz with 16 GB of Ram
eVGA 780c
500 GB SSD
28" 4K LCD monitor at 1ms with 60fps
CSW v2,CSP v2, CSS SQ on a Playseat with 2 Aura Bass Shakers at 75 watts driven independenttly by SimVibe.

It runs AC on high graphics settings at 60fps at the full 3840 X 2160 and produces a beautiful racing experience. Consoles are years away from delivering this level of resolution as they struggle to produce 1080p at 60fps.

In net I couldn't be happier having moved to PC based sim racing and never expect to buy a console again.

 

[mister dog]

^ Hear hear

 

[Linzheng]

I upgraded my 2600k, 7970 to 4790k, asus z97 deluxe and 2 x Gigabyte G1 GTX970 SLI in the hope of maxing everything on 7680x1440. I was wrong, I had to dial down a few options in reflection and post processing fileter to achieve 70 FPS with 24 AI.
IMO, AC still has a lot work to do in terms of graphic optimization. Even everything maxed out with sweetfx and Nvidia Inspector tweak(8x SGSS), still can't get rid of the ugly shadow. I literally spend more than 15 hours messing with all possible video setting trying to get to a point I'm happy with.
Compared to other games, it's just asking for too much while not giving same result.

 

[Lewis_Hamilton_]

4K = 8,294,400 pixels
Your resolution = 11,059,200 pixels

You're asking your 970's to render somewhat higher than 4K in pixel count, even the R295x2 and new Titan X would be brought to their knees. There is no consumer card currently in existence that could run that resolution, at ultra settings at minimum 60fps. Maybe if you went with 2 or 3 Titan X's in SLI, but I didn't spend as much money on my first car and first year's of insurance (which is astronomical for young drivers in the UK), as what that set up would cost.

 

[Linzheng]

4K = 8,294,400 pixels
Your resolution = 11,059,200 pixels

You're asking your 970's to render somewhat higher than 4K in pixel count, even the R295x2 and new Titan X would be brought to their knees. There is no consumer card currently in existence that could run that resolution, at ultra settings at minimum 60fps. Maybe if you went with 2 or 3 Titan X's in SLI, but I didn't spend as much money on my first car and first year's of insurance (which is astronomical for young drivers in the UK), as what that set up would cost.

I knew that's higher resolution than 4k, and I did do quite a lot research including linus tech tips and guru3D benchmarks before upgrading.
I was not expecting to run games like BF4, Far cry 3 at max setting at all. As a matter of fact, I can only run those games with mid to low settings no AA to maintain 60 fps.
But, everything maxed out, I'm getting 300 or 400 fps in iRacing, 60fps(with patch) in NFS rival vs 15-30 fps in AC. And to be honest, I would not call the graphics amazing at all in AC compared to the other 2 while racing.
Not to mention all the bugs reported on AC forum you get in triple monitor and/or SLI/crossfire setup.
As for FFB, there's not much I can say about grip racing since I don't have much real world experience. Drift handing with CSW v2 in AC is far from realistic compared to LFS, I have few years real world experience with 3 cars.
Like the graphic setting, I spent I guess around 3-5 hours researching and tweaking every single option on the wheel, wheel driver and in game setting. Just can't get it feel right. Too much ffb, you gonna hurt yourself, dial down ffb, you have to throw the wheel for every transition otherwise the car spins. I remember I might have spent about 10-30 mins in iRacing and LFS and never touched those settings again.

 

[NLxAROSA]

iRacing, NFS Rivals, etc. are all last/previous/old gen titles, I'd expect them to run better on recent hardware. AC (and also Project CARS when it comes out) are current-gen titles, and as such a lot more demanding on hardware. And the GTX970 has the 3.5GB + 0.5GB architecture, that could be a major bottleneck when scaling up this far.

 

[Linzheng]

I undertand that I'm comparing last gen titles to AC. The problem is the current gen AC does not look any better than last gen NFS while demanding more hardware, IMO. I'm downloading pCARS now, and will report back my experience.
Not sure about you guys, no matter what settings I use, I just can't get rid of the ugly shadow and jaggie white line in shadow and car body when in bird eye view.

 

[BrandonW77]

I undertand that I'm comparing last gen titles to AC. The problem is the current gen AC does not look any better than last gen NFS while demanding more hardware, IMO. I'm downloading pCARS now, and will report back my experience.
Not sure about you guys, no matter what settings I use, I just can't get rid of the ugly shadow and jaggie white line in shadow and car body when in bird eye view.

I have one GTX970 and run three 32" 720p monitors, with all settings on maximum and FPS unlimited I get around 100fps even with a full grid of cars, and I've never noticed any ugly shadows or jaggie lines. I've never played NFS or LFS but IMO AC looks significantly better than iRacing (which looks like a cartoon IMO) and better than any other sim I've tried. I have tried GT-R/Race-07 and AC beats those hands down, not even in the same ballpark. But then again, I grew up playing Colecovision and the original Nintendo so I don't expect any video game/sim to look exactly perfect like real life and accept that some things aren't going to be quite perfect. I'm also not trying to make it play at a resolution beyond what it's capable of. With two GTX970's I'm sure you could rock a solid 100+ FPS if you wanted to. Or you could push the game beyond its limits and be unsatisfied with it.

 

[fatkrakr]

I'm getting 300 or 400 fps in iRacing, 60fps(with patch) in NFS rival vs 15-30 fps in AC. And to be honest, I would not call the graphics amazing at all in AC compared to the other 2 while racing.

This right here was when I quit taking any of your posts serious.

 

[Roostaboosta]

The one for me was " I'm downloading PCars right now". Hmmmm.

 

[BrandonW77]

The one for me was " I'm downloading PCars right now". Hmmmm.

I wondered about that one too.

 

[mister dog]

The one for me was " I'm downloading PCars right now". Hmmmm.

 

[Johnnypenso]

I undertand that I'm comparing last gen titles to AC. The problem is the current gen AC does not look any better than last gen NFS while demanding more hardware, IMO. I'm downloading pCARS now, and will report back my experience.
Not sure about you guys, no matter what settings I use, I just can't get rid of the ugly shadow and jaggie white line in shadow and car body when in bird eye view.

I'd suggest going over to the PCars forum as well. Make a post there that you just downloaded PCars and give your impressions.

 

[JerseyDriverSS]

While it is possible to be downloading it now as we all know there is that free internet version out there. It's definetly not the best build to be taking impressions from @Linzheng. Also if your getting that many frames in iracing, and only getting 15-30 in AC then something is wrong, or you've just crawled out from under a bridge somewhere. I'm guessing it's the latter.

 

[fatkrakr]

A new motherboard would require a fresh install of windows, just saying.

 

[Cote Dazur]

Some great info there cheers! I will use just the 42" tv & have my wheel & seat set at such height so the tv can sort of replicate the windscreen.View attachment 333942

Nice rig, seems like it is home made, I wish I had your talent, mine is home made but does not look as good.
One thing I did lately is manage for my (32 inch tv) screen to be right behind my wheel, I can touch it with my fingers with my hands holding the wheel, best thing I ever did for helping immersion.

 

[Linzheng]

This right here was when I quit taking any of your posts serious.

Here you go, iracing was multi-player,fps: 387.3 and AC was practice with no AI and no SGSS, fps: 33.9

A new motherboard would require a fresh install of windows, just saying.

There is a software called Paragon adaptive restore will help you make your system bootable with new motherboard

 

[Linzheng]

While it is possible to be downloading it now as we all know there is that free internet version out there. It's definetly not the best build to be taking impressions from @Linzheng. Also if your getting that many frames in iracing, and only getting 15-30 in AC then something is wrong, or you've just crawled out from under a bridge somewhere. I'm guessing it's the latter.

Looks like it's not the latter:




I'm here to just to state facts and personal experience.

 

[JerseyDriverSS]

Looks like it's not the latter:




I'm here to just to state facts and personal experience.

nm just read your original post. the sysytem should run ac with ease.

 

[Linzheng]

As i said, then something is wrong. Also the FOV is AC, how can you drive like that?

Yes, and that something is on the AC side most likely.
That fov is just for bird eye view, so that I can see the whole car and see the actual visual effects when tweaking.

 

[Linzheng]

nm just read your original post. the sysytem should run ac with ease.

Like I said, if you google 'Assetto Cosrsa sli triple monitor', you'll see I'm not the only one experiencing this.
I suspect they haven't done enough work on SLI/crossfire support.

 

[BrandonW77]

Yes, and that something is on the AC side most likely.

It's something in your settings. When I was messing with iRacing I'd get around 300fps with "ultra" settings and no cars on the grid. When I'd go to AC (with "ultra" settings) I'd be getting over 100fps using the same PC and with a full grid. So you must have created some kind of conflict in your settings somewhere because if your system is as you say it is you should be able to get all the FPS you want out of AC.

FYI, unless you have some super monitor, anything much over 120fps isn't necessary as your monitor won't be able to display anything higher. Try turning Vsync on and see what happens.

 

[Linzheng]

It's something in your settings. When I was messing with iRacing I'd get around 300fps with "ultra" settings and no cars on the grid. When I'd go to AC (with "ultra" settings) I'd be getting over 100fps using the same PC and with a full grid. So you must have created some kind of conflict in your settings somewhere because if your system is as you say it is you should be able to get all the FPS you want out of AC.

FYI, unless you have some super monitor, anything much over 120fps isn't necessary as your monitor won't be able to display anything higher. Try turning Vsync on and see what happens.

I did try every single setting in AC(options like reflection set to low gives me much lower fps compared to ultra) and most settings in Nvidia inspector, I also went through almost every single thread related AC video settings on gtplanet, AC forum, steam and race department.

My monitors are 60hz. Through my research, all ppl say vsync gives you input lag which is vital when drifting.

 

[BrandonW77]

Is it possible to only run it through one video card instead of SLI? Those of us with only one card don't have any problems, and it wouldn't surprise me if AC doesn't play well with SLI setups just yet.

I run vsync, it's very much smoother than any other non-vsync settings I've tried. If there's any input lag I can't notice it at all and I doubt it would cause you any problems. I could notice input lag with vsync on in iRacing but not in AC, at least nothing perceivable. But then, I'm just a racer and not a drifter.