New Project CARS 2 Gameplay Videos Show Off Rallycross and Track Driving

Looks great but I'm definitely not preordering again because of the obvious burn at launch with the first one.
 
Looks great but I'm definitely not preordering again because of the obvious burn at launch with the first one.
Even if you gotta see it to believe it, there are a few beta testers on here, that can vouch for the improvements. Not including ian Bell, The American or The Owl.

I give PC1 credit. SMS/WMD had to start at some point. These guys' name are in the line with PC2. This includes Ben Collins, Patrick Long, Nick Hamilton. Everyone that contributed to this game. Plus, they've been transparent enough to admit what was bad, say what is addressed moving forward and "saying" upfront the game will release with the least bugs as possible.
It's like a new Lexus. Quality machine, but it ain't perfect. It also gets updates in its lifespan.
 
In the top left of the screen it displays the raciing position and than it says the class he is driving and another position.
Does this mean Pcars2 will have multiclass races?

Or is this already a well known fact and am I just a bit late (as usual)?
 
Not trying to sound like a 🤬, but the AI in pCars 1 are a couple seconds off pace at 100%. If they are cornering faster you probably aren't cornering fast enough.
It is highly dependant on the car class some they are awful and some they are ridiculously quick.

I can't remember what the career race was called now but I was using the BMW 2002 Stanceworks and the A.I were just outbraking anything I could do, had a ton more grip, I had to drop the difficulty below 50% to even keep up it was insane.

I only use default setups though so perhaps those are just really bad/slow? Even then it still can feel wrong when the pace is fine because the speed isn't consistent over the lap. They will be terrible in some corners and way too fast in others, maybe it's the fact they aren't affected by tyre/brake heat either, it just doesn't feel like you are racing fair which is my problem.

I have no delusions I should be able to beat max A.I when I'm not competition winner speed but some close fair racing would be good and the toned down aggressiveness should at least fix them driving across grass and cutting corners to overtake.

I'm hopeful if Assetto Corsa can turn it's A.I around then so can PCars 2 because that game is a joy to race now and I can set the A.I between 95-100% and have some great racing even when I'm not winning.

I agree with the last sentence.
Happens to me and that's when I fault the physics of individual cars at specific tracks.
At Donington, I'm much faster at the front half of the circuit. When making the climb back up and through to the back straight, the AI handle a bit better(when they're not off the circuit coming back in from the grass).
I can pretty much beat the AI in the McLaren 12C GT3 at any track that thing handles amazingly well. Yet, the R8 LMS GT3 doesn't stick to the track like the 12C GT3.

True, the AI has massive amounts of grip, but the whole set up is different. This can be seen with the RS500. The suspension moves about(dives, squats, rolls), but the AI RS500, isn't animated in its movements.

The AI Escorts are quick versus me using one. I get run down and passed on the long right hander at Road America. Again, I believe the handling is addressed and as such with AI behavior, it will be a much better experience. Won't be perfect, but it'll improve as SMS continue to develop it.
That blind double right up the hill on Donnington (Coppice) is exactly what I'm talking about they are just impossibly quick through there and go through full throttle but then they are terrible on the chicane at the end of that straight.

I never assume it's the game at fault I normally think damn I must suck, so I exit and go and check leaderboard times and practice, which is why I'm 200hrs in and only completed seasons 2 last week. Most of the time though my lap times are pretty solid so it's hard to think it's just me being ****.
 
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It is highly dependant on the car class some they are awful and some they are ridiculously quick.

I can't remember what the career race was called now but I was using the BMW 2002 Stanceworks and the A.I were just outbraking anything I could do, had a ton more grip, I had to drop the difficulty below 50% to even keep up it was insane.

I only use default setups though so perhaps those are just really bad/slow? Even then it still can feel wrong when the pace is fine because the speed isn't consistent over the lap. They will be terrible in some corners and way too fast in others, maybe it's the fact they aren't affected by tyre/brake heat either, it just doesn't feel like you are racing fair which is my problem.

I have no delusions I should be able to beat max A.I when I'm not competition winner speed but some close fair racing would be good and the toned down aggressiveness should at least fix them driving across grass and cutting corners to overtake.

I'm hopeful if Assetto Corsa can turn it's A.I around then so can PCars 2 because that game is a joy to race now and I can set the A.I between 95-100% and have some great racing even when I'm not winning.

That blind double right up the hill on Donnington (Coppice) is exactly what I'm talking about they are just impossibly quick through there and go through full throttle but then they are terrible on the chicane at the end of that straight.

I never assume it's the game at fault I normally think damn I must suck, so I exit and go and check leaderboard times and practice, which is why I'm 200hrs in and only completed seasons 2 last week. Most of the time though my lap times are pretty solid so it's hard to think it's just me being ****.
Default setups are pretty bad. They can cost you 2-3 seconds at the minimum on most car/track combos. It's definitely worth learning how to setup the cars if you plan on putting a lot of time into pCars 2. I'm more than happy to answer any setup questions you might have.
 
Default setups are pretty bad. They can cost you 2-3 seconds at the minimum on most car/track combos. It's definitely worth learning how to setup the cars if you plan on putting a lot of time into pCars 2. I'm more than happy to answer any setup questions you might have.
Interesting, where do you start? I can feel what is wrong with a car and where I'm losing time but no idea what to adjust. Normally I'll just use someone else's tune if I'm getting serious but I quite like the idea of driving road cars in factory trim to compare driving characteristics.
 
Interesting, where do you start? I can feel what is wrong with a car and where I'm losing time but no idea what to adjust. Normally I'll just use someone else's tune if I'm getting serious but I quite like the idea of driving road cars in factory trim to compare driving characteristics.
I think with the new setup sharing feature (which is in pCARS2, if I'm not mistaken) you may not have to learn anything :)
 
Interesting, where do you start? I can feel what is wrong with a car and where I'm losing time but no idea what to adjust. Normally I'll just use someone else's tune if I'm getting serious but I quite like the idea of driving road cars in factory trim to compare driving characteristics.
I'd say there's one simple thing you can do with the default tunes to increase general laptimes without knowing anything about tuning and that's to adjust the final gear ratio/drive per car, per track, as oftentimes you won't be hitting the right gear through a certain corner, or not get into highest gear when needed, and therefore be too slow.

You can tweak and see the results in just a few corners really; I tend to have the final drive in one place that's ideal for most tracks, then turn it up or down a notch for others. It's one of the first things I look into when tuning a new car.
 
Interesting, where do you start? I can feel what is wrong with a car and where I'm losing time but no idea what to adjust. Normally I'll just use someone else's tune if I'm getting serious but I quite like the idea of driving road cars in factory trim to compare driving characteristics.
Downforce, springs, and ride height are the first things I change and have the biggest impact on handling.

Downforce - More front downforce equals more grip and the same at the rear. How much downforce is dependent on the track. If it's a track with relatively short straights and a lot of turns then you want the most downforce you can get, such as Laguna Seca. Tracks with long straights such as Monza you want as little downforce as possible so you can increase your top speed.

Springs - You want to run the softest springs possible while still having good responsiveness and not bottoming out excessively. Softer front springs will increase front grip thus moving the car balance towards oversteer. Softer rear springs will increase grip at the rear and create understeer. Vice versa for stiffer springs. It's very important to have a car that is responsive. If it's too softly sprung it will be lazy in turn in and when changing directions. Essentially you'll have to 'wait' for the car to catch up to your driving inputs if there isn't enough stiffness. Tracks with low speed corners or tracks that are traction limited will need softer springs than tracks with high speed turns that require fast direction changes.

Ride Height - The first thing is the ride height you set in the settings is only a static number. The ride height as you go around the track is known as dynamic ride height, this is what you base changes on. Set it as low as possible without bottoming out. The lower the ride height the lower the center of gravity. The lower the CoG the less weight will be transferred and in basic terms you will have more grip everywhere. If you are scraping the ground as you drive over rises in the track or small bumps that's ok. If you you are scrapping the ground everywhere you will lose a lot of time as you are basically dragging an anchor. If you bottom out in the middle of a turn you will either lose all front grip if the front bottoms out or lose all rear grip if the rear bottoms out. Either way it's very bad and you need to raise the ride height. Lowering either end of the car will increase grip at that end. GT and Touring cars can usually run their front ride height at minimum without any issues. Personally I run the rear as low as possible without bottoming out on these cars. Downforce dependant race cars such as prototypes and open wheel cars are extremely sensitive to ride height. They will need a much bigger split between the front and rear ride heights due to their underbody aerodynamic properties. Deciding on this split is usually trial and error since we don't have access to the right info about the cars. Springs and downforce have a large impact on ride height as well. More downforce will lower the ride height the faster the car goes, bumpstops help here. Stiff springs will increase your dynamic ride height as well. Vice versa for soft springs. This is less important in GT and Touring cars, but critically important in prototypes and open wheel cars.

Anti-Roll Bars - Very similar to springs but they are only active when the car is is roll. They have no effect on straight line braking and straight line acceleration. Use these as a fine tuning tool for overall car balance once you have springs you are happy with. Softer front increases grip at the front. Softer rear increases grip at the rear. Vice versa for stiff. Anti-Roll Bars have a large impact on overall responsiveness. Stiffer is more responsive just like springs.

Camber - Camber does not work in pCars 1 as it should. It has been fixed for pCars 2. In pCars 1 I run 0.1 front and rear no matter what, it works. In pCars 2 you'll adjust camber based on tire temperatures for the most part. You want to have about a 10 degrees Fahrenheit difference from the inside edge to the outside edge of the tire. More negative camber will make the inside edge hotter while less negative and getting into positive camber will make the outside edge hotter. Positive camber is only used on ovals on the inside wheels. Camber is all about maximizing the tire contact patch as it rolls. It has the biggest impact mid corner when the car is experiencing maximum cornering force thus maximum roll. More negative will increase grip on that end up to a point. Again reference the tire temperatures as a guide. RWD cars use more front camber than rear because the rear is 'rolling back' per day towards the inside of the car as you apply the throttle. This means it is at a smaller roll angle and doesn't need as much camber.

Toe - Negative toe at the front will increase responsiveness. You'll never run positive front toe. I run in the -0.2 to -0.4 range mostly. Positive toe at the rear increase stability. I always run 0.0 rear toe as it increases understeer pretty drastically in pCars 1.

Tire Pressure - Every tire has a pressure and temperature window that it works the best in. Some windows are smaller than others. For GT3 this is around 1.80-2.00. Lowering tire pressure will add grip to that tire. It will also increase the temperature. Raising the pressure will have less grip and lower temperature. Within the working window you won't have a huge difference in grip between the pressure range. It's more about keeping the tire at the right temperature by addjusting the pressures.

Brake Balance - Moving it forward will make the front brakes do more of the braking. This is good for big braking zones where you have a lot of weight moving forward. A rearward bias does just the opposite. It's very rare that you can have your brake balance optimized for every braking zone on a given circuit. If you trail brake then brake balance will have an impact on this. A balance forward will cause understeer on entry when trail braking as more of your front grip will be used for braking instead of cornering. Vice versa for the rear. More on this next.

Differential

Acceleration
- Higher numbers will allow you to use more of the available torque coming out of corners. Lower numbers will act like a open diff and all your torque will be spinning your inside wheel and you'll be much slower around a lap. Higher numbers are better, 30-40 on GT3, for acceleration but you will need to be more gradual with the throttle so you don't spin the outside rear.
Deceleration - Higher numbers will create more understeer when your braking and cornering. This is particularly important when trail braking as you can dial in the amount of rotation you want on entry. If your struggling with oversteer while braking, go here first and increase the number instead of changing your perfect brake balance. 5% up or down is a big change.
Preload - This affects neutral throttle parts of the turn or if you lift in the middle of a turn. This is after you are off the brakes and nearing the apex. Higher numbers increase understeer.

Bump Stops
- A high bump stop will prevent cars from bottoming out without having to use stiffer springs, this is good. You don't want to constantly ride the bump stops though. If you hit them hard in the middle of a turn it's like having your spring rate increase exponentially. You will either have big understeer or big oversteer. On high downforce cars they also will keep you from bottoming out along straights as the downforce increases pushing the car down and lowering the ride height.

Dampers - These are last for a reason. They are by far the most misunderstood thing in vehicle dynamics. I won't explain them in detail. It will take all day. Here is a basic chart for low speed damper tuning. http://www.ozebiz.com.au/racetech/theory/shocktune1.html

This is all basic stuff. If you have questions about trouble shooting certain issues don't be afraid to ask. Road cars also use the same physics and principals, they're just slower and move around more.
 
Downforce, springs, and ride height are the first things I change and have the biggest impact on handling.

Downforce - More front downforce equals more grip and the same at the rear. How much downforce is dependent on the track. If it's a track with relatively short straights and a lot of turns then you want the most downforce you can get, such as Laguna Seca. Tracks with long straights such as Monza you want as little downforce as possible so you can increase your top speed.

Springs - You want to run the softest springs possible while still having good responsiveness and not bottoming out excessively. Softer front springs will increase front grip thus moving the car balance towards oversteer. Softer rear springs will increase grip at the rear and create understeer. Vice versa for stiffer springs. It's very important to have a car that is responsive. If it's too softly sprung it will be lazy in turn in and when changing directions. Essentially you'll have to 'wait' for the car to catch up to your driving inputs if there isn't enough stiffness. Tracks with low speed corners or tracks that are traction limited will need softer springs than tracks with high speed turns that require fast direction changes.

Ride Height - The first thing is the ride height you set in the settings is only a static number. The ride height as you go around the track is known as dynamic ride height, this is what you base changes on. Set it as low as possible without bottoming out. The lower the ride height the lower the center of gravity. The lower the CoG the less weight will be transferred and in basic terms you will have more grip everywhere. If you are scraping the ground as you drive over rises in the track or small bumps that's ok. If you you are scrapping the ground everywhere you will lose a lot of time as you are basically dragging an anchor. If you bottom out in the middle of a turn you will either lose all front grip if the front bottoms out or lose all rear grip if the rear bottoms out. Either way it's very bad and you need to raise the ride height. Lowering either end of the car will increase grip at that end. GT and Touring cars can usually run their front ride height at minimum without any issues. Personally I run the rear as low as possible without bottoming out on these cars. Downforce dependant race cars such as prototypes and open wheel cars are extremely sensitive to ride height. They will need a much bigger split between the front and rear ride heights due to their underbody aerodynamic properties. Deciding on this split is usually trial and error since we don't have access to the right info about the cars. Springs and downforce have a large impact on ride height as well. More downforce will lower the ride height the faster the car goes, bumpstops help here. Stiff springs will increase your dynamic ride height as well. Vice versa for soft springs. This is less important in GT and Touring cars, but critically important in prototypes and open wheel cars.

Anti-Roll Bars - Very similar to springs but they are only active when the car is is roll. They have no effect on straight line braking and straight line acceleration. Use these as a fine tuning tool for overall car balance once you have springs you are happy with. Softer front increases grip at the front. Softer rear increases grip at the rear. Vice versa for stiff. Anti-Roll Bars have a large impact on overall responsiveness. Stiffer is more responsive just like springs.

Camber - Camber does not work in pCars 1 as it should. It has been fixed for pCars 2. In pCars 1 I run 0.1 front and rear no matter what, it works. In pCars 2 you'll adjust camber based on tire temperatures for the most part. You want to have about a 10 degrees Fahrenheit difference from the inside edge to the outside edge of the tire. More negative camber will make the inside edge hotter while less negative and getting into positive camber will make the outside edge hotter. Positive camber is only used on ovals on the inside wheels. Camber is all about maximizing the tire contact patch as it rolls. It has the biggest impact mid corner when the car is experiencing maximum cornering force thus maximum roll. More negative will increase grip on that end up to a point. Again reference the tire temperatures as a guide. RWD cars use more front camber than rear because the rear is 'rolling back' per day towards the inside of the car as you apply the throttle. This means it is at a smaller roll angle and doesn't need as much camber.

Toe - Negative toe at the front will increase responsiveness. You'll never run positive front toe. I run in the -0.2 to -0.4 range mostly. Positive toe at the rear increase stability. I always run 0.0 rear toe as it increases understeer pretty drastically in pCars 1.

Tire Pressure - Every tire has a pressure and temperature window that it works the best in. Some windows are smaller than others. For GT3 this is around 1.80-2.00. Lowering tire pressure will add grip to that tire. It will also increase the temperature. Raising the pressure will have less grip and lower temperature. Within the working window you won't have a huge difference in grip between the pressure range. It's more about keeping the tire at the right temperature by addjusting the pressures.

Brake Balance - Moving it forward will make the front brakes do more of the braking. This is good for big braking zones where you have a lot of weight moving forward. A rearward bias does just the opposite. It's very rare that you can have your brake balance optimized for every braking zone on a given circuit. If you trail brake then brake balance will have an impact on this. A balance forward will cause understeer on entry when trail braking as more of your front grip will be used for braking instead of cornering. Vice versa for the rear. More on this next.

Differential

Acceleration
- Higher numbers will allow you to use more of the available torque coming out of corners. Lower numbers will act like a open diff and all your torque will be spinning your inside wheel and you'll be much slower around a lap. Higher numbers are better, 30-40 on GT3, for acceleration but you will need to be more gradual with the throttle so you don't spin the outside rear.
Deceleration - Higher numbers will create more understeer when your braking and cornering. This is particularly important when trail braking as you can dial in the amount of rotation you want on entry. If your struggling with oversteer while braking, go here first and increase the number instead of changing your perfect brake balance. 5% up or down is a big change.
Preload - This affects neutral throttle parts of the turn or if you lift in the middle of a turn. This is after you are off the brakes and nearing the apex. Higher numbers increase understeer.

Bump Stops
- A high bump stop will prevent cars from bottoming out without having to use stiffer springs, this is good. You don't want to constantly ride the bump stops though. If you hit them hard in the middle of a turn it's like having your spring rate increase exponentially. You will either have big understeer or big oversteer. On high downforce cars they also will keep you from bottoming out along straights as the downforce increases pushing the car down and lowering the ride height.

Dampers - These are last for a reason. They are by far the most misunderstood thing in vehicle dynamics. I won't explain them in detail. It will take all day. Here is a basic chart for low speed damper tuning. http://www.ozebiz.com.au/racetech/theory/shocktune1.html

This is all basic stuff. If you have questions about trouble shooting certain issues don't be afraid to ask. Road cars also use the same physics and principals, they're just slower and move around more.
Thanks for the detailed explanations, when you are tuning a car what are you looking for to decide if something is actually better? I'm assuming some of it is subjective, for example I hate cars where the backend breaks out when trail braking, the Porsche 918 Spyder in AC for example I really dislike and compared to the McLaren P1 I'm 20s slower on Nordschleife when the best times on RSR leaderboards are half that difference.

I'd probably dial that out in every car I could but would that be the best idea or are some cars faster left alone and you just have to learn to drift them?

Dialing in gears, I know you don't want to be shifting mid corner if possible and just hitting the limiter on the fastest straight but I don't know how to balance them when changing individually?
 
I guess this should be taken to a new thread. But tbh any tuning thread on any sim forum will be a place for information research.
 
Thanks for the detailed explanations, when you are tuning a car what are you looking for to decide if something is actually better? I'm assuming some of it is subjective, for example I hate cars where the backend breaks out when trail braking, the Porsche 918 Spyder in AC for example I really dislike and compared to the McLaren P1 I'm 20s slower on Nordschleife when the best times on RSR leaderboards are half that difference.

I'd probably dial that out in every car I could but would that be the best idea or are some cars faster left alone and you just have to learn to drift them?

Dialing in gears, I know you don't want to be shifting mid corner if possible and just hitting the limiter on the fastest straight but I don't know how to balance them when changing individually?
When making changes it's about lap time and driver confidence. If you can't push the car to its limit because you don't trust it then you will always lose time no matter how good the setup is. Good tire wear will come naturally with a well balanced setup. As far as rear stability on entry I would start at the deceleration on the diff then go to brake bias. Softening the rear slow rebound will help too. If you can't adjust the diff or dampers go for a softer rear roll bar.

Gears are a car by car basis. It's all about keeping the rpm in the power band. Mostly trial and error.

I would also try to verify what you read on forum sites. There is just as much misleading info as there is helpful info.
 
So far all I did was move the preload diff up 5 notches and it already feels incredibly safer. I'm driving the Oreca LMP2 at La Sarthe. Only other settings changed from stock are Brake Balance at 55 and Brake Pressure at 85%. Traction control off, but when on (for slow corners sometimes or when tires start to go) it's at 5%. It goes to 15 so I only adjust it in increments of 5. Think of it like a super car has Comfort - Sport - Race
 
So far all I did was move the preload diff up 5 notches and it already feels incredibly safer. I'm driving the Oreca LMP2 at La Sarthe. Only other settings changed from stock are Brake Balance at 55 and Brake Pressure at 85%. Traction control off, but when on (for slow corners sometimes or when tires start to go) it's at 5%. It goes to 15 so I only adjust it in increments of 5. Think of it like a super car has Comfort - Sport - Race
What was the preload before you changed it?
 
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