I just installed patch 1 for PC and spent about 30 mins testing out various stock and modified cars in my garage.
So far, I'm giving this patch two thumbs up! My observations thus far...
1- One of the first things I noticed in the initial release is that weight transfer seemed to be off. As you cornered, weight did not appear to shift at very realistic speeds. It was noticeable if you simply tooled along at 35 mph and jerked the wheel around while simultaneously applying WOT or full braking.
In real life, this would cause a riot of body roll, pitch and dive. In the initial release, it was as if magic a dampening field was acting on the car. Weight transfer seemed very slow and unnatural. Perhaps this was related to the 'Input Lag' issue.
Patch 1 improves this pretty dramatically. Weight transfer feels much more realistic and natural now. Still not 100% IMO, but a very usable and welcome improvement. Since there is nothing in the release notes that refers to this, I am assuming this is a side benefit of the input lag fix.
2- 'Input lag'. I had very little of this on my PC and felt steering response was generally acceptable. Even if the car didn't shift weight naturally, the nose was going where I pointed it, so I wasn't too bothered.
Boy, if only I knew what I was missing.
Much sharper steering across the board now. Excellent. Should have been like this at the initial release.
3- I felt the tire models were slightly off in the initial release. In particular, all the tires seemed to recover from slides too quickly. The stock street cars felt a little too grippy. I also felt the semi-slicks (which are supposed to model street-legal r-compound tires) were generally way too forgiving of mistakes and ham-fisted moves.
I noticed that this too has improved, somewhat. Believe it or not, I was happy to see my bone stock E46 M3 understeer more when you get into a turn too hot and on the brakes, because that is what they do!
I need more seat time to really evaluate this, as there is nothing in the release notes that says they changed anything here. Maybe it's all in my head.
4- On certain tuned cars I had a problem with high-speed oscillation. In particular, I have an FD RX-7 tuned to PI-1130 that was very hard to control past 100mph. Happy to report this problem is pretty much gone.
5- My frame rates improved slightly and I no longer get excessive stuttering while my GPU swaps textures. Woot. I SHOULDN'T get that with a 1 Gig GTX 460 in the first place.
So far, the patch has turned my "pretty good" game to an "excellent" game. 👍
Now if they will turn their attention to the collision physics and the AI's tendency to ram you for no reason... LAN support would be nice too, as I have three PCs in the house that can run this game.
EDIT: And fix the #$%^&* problem with disappearing liveries! I just noticed the Martini Porsche livery that took me almost 2 hours to complete is GONE. My GT2 is just gray now
M
