PCARS first impressions!

  • Thread starter mister dog
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LogiForce
The sense of speed is indeed accurate. Or better said the distances and speeds driven are accurate, so you see the world pass by at the right rate.

It's just that the sense of distance can differ per FOV setting. Personally I prefer to use 56 degrees in cockpit view. Which basically turns my 32" tv into half a windshield. It's much easier for me to get the braking points right that way, due to the sense of distance for me feeling more accurate to real life. Thus you can also utilize that timing sense of years of car driving.
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Yeah im 58 degrees and im on a 51" screen it's just im 55" away from the screen due to the cockpit, Ideally i'd want to be much closer with a higher FOV, Wish i had done more research on which cockpit to buy.
 
UkHardcore23
Yeah im 58 degrees and im on a 51" screen it's just im 55" away from the screen due to the cockpit, Ideally i'd want to be much closer with a higher FOV, Wish i had done more research on which cockpit to buy.
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Same situation here. The TV is on a TV cabinet and my rSeat is in front of it.
 
So I realized the hard way restarts count in the driver profile. First, it said I did 4 races in LMP because of that damn obligatory first race they require you to do. I did restart that 4 times because I kept crashing first corner. After that I started immediately in career mode, Clio Cup. Well, first round in Donington Park I restarted a whole bunch of times in both races. Race 1 because I was changing controller settings and race 2 because one time an AI punted me way off course 1st corner and bunch of other times my car would crash into barrier at pit in. Well, my driver profile says I entered in 44 touring races. That was after I finished round 1 in career. I am seriously thinking of deleting and starting all over again. Haha
 
UkHardcore23
Yeah im 58 degrees and im on a 51" screen it's just im 55" away from the screen due to the cockpit, Ideally i'd want to be much closer with a higher FOV, Wish i had done more research on which cockpit to buy.
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But I think unless we have a VR thing like Oculus or Morpheus, decreasing the FOV makes it a lot more difficult to play. You wouldn't be able to see your mirrors without using the look around buttons. You just see a lot less overall and can't get that spatial awareness. I used that calculator to calculate the field of view I should use, and got 39 degrees for my 32" TV. I thought the result was comical. It was so ridiculously far forward. It's probably an accurate representation of 1:1 to real life, but for playing the game I thought it was ridiculous.
 
Some first impressions versus GT6 after about five hours playing on PS4 using Thrustmaster T500RS and a 65" Samsung.

The Good
Engine sounds generally very good, no more tire screeching.
Graphics very good, much easier to see detail.
Driving feels a lot more realistic, car feels more controllable at the limit.
Nice not having to save up to buy cars.
Love being able to change liveries on cars (GT6 would count these as different vehicles).
T500RS Calibration works and doesn't get reset by the game.

The Definitely Needs Some Work
HUD Graphics belongs on a PS-One. GT6 wins hands down here.
Replays look awful, blurring, hiccuping and ghosting all the time.
No photo mode in replays. Photo mode in races and free-run but doesn't work if using the wheel.
Support for wheel, particularly T500RS is spotty and feels like a hack.
Time trial mode is seriously limited. Ghost car looks really bad and can't be turned on/off. Where are the lap times saved.
Ran the Clio event at Brands Hatch but no time got recorded? In fact everything I did basically disappeared after I exited and there is no option to save anything.
Online racing is a waste of time without matching cars and private lobbies. Basically a whole bunch of people driving supercars they couldn't control off the corners.
Online qualifying I had no idea how I was doing until session was over. Where's the leaderboard?
T500RS wheel bug causes wheel to lock up after exiting a race.

So overall it seems that the underlying graphics/physics/sound engine is vastly improved over GT6 but in most other areas we've taken a huge step backwards from all of the other improvements PD has made since GT5. It's a shame because the problems are not technically difficult to fix but until they are GT6 is still going to be a much better all round experience in spite of it's limitations.
 
Strop
Some first impressions versus GT6 after about five hours playing on PS4 using Thrustmaster T500RS and a 65" Samsung.

The Good
Engine sounds generally very good, no more tire screeching.
Graphics very good, much easier to see detail.
Driving feels a lot more realistic, car feels more controllable at the limit.
Nice not having to save up to buy cars.
Love being able to change liveries on cars (GT6 would count these as different vehicles).
T500RS Calibration works and doesn't get reset by the game.

The Definitely Needs Some Work
HUD Graphics belongs on a PS-One. GT6 wins hands down here.
Replays look awful, blurring, hiccuping and ghosting all the time.
No photo mode in replays. Photo mode in races and free-run but doesn't work if using the wheel.
Support for wheel, particularly T500RS is spotty and feels like a hack.
Time trial mode is seriously limited. Ghost car looks really bad and can't be turned on/off. Where are the lap times saved.
Ran the Clio event at Brands Hatch but no time got recorded? In fact everything I did basically disappeared after I exited and there is no option to save anything.
Online racing is a waste of time without matching cars and private lobbies. Basically a whole bunch of people driving supercars they couldn't control off the corners.
Online qualifying I had no idea how I was doing until session was over. Where's the leaderboard?
T500RS wheel bug causes wheel to lock up after exiting a race.

So overall it seems that the underlying graphics/physics/sound engine is vastly improved over GT6 but in most other areas we've taken a huge step backwards from all of the other improvements PD has made since GT5. It's a shame because the problems are not technically difficult to fix but until they are GT6 is still going to be a much better all round experience in spite of it's limitations.
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Of course your opinion matters... to you or anyone else looking for the same "type" of game. GT/Forza was not the bar SMS was trying to reach, other than they would like those kind of sales. They are going after a different virtual racing enthusiasts than many of the less serious console racers. Project CARS isn't for everyone, no game is.
"...GT6 is still going to be a much better all round experience in spite of it's limitations." - Heaven forbid that GT is the better experience, I couldn't stand that game for a competitive "racing" standpoint :crazy:. But, my opinion is not anymore accurate than yours. GT and pCARS are like comparing apples and oranges.
 
FuzzyFassbender
Of course your opinion matters... to you or anyone else looking for the same "type" of game. GT/Forza was not the bar SMS was trying to reach, other than they would like those kind of sales. They are going after a different virtual racing enthusiasts than many of the less serious console racers. Project CARS isn't for everyone, no game is.
"...GT6 is still going to be a much better all round experience in spite of it's limitations." - Heaven forbid that GT is the better experience, I couldn't stand that game for a competitive "racing" standpoint :crazy:. But, my opinion is not anymore accurate than yours. GT and pCARS are like comparing apples and oranges.
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Absolutely, for a realistic 'driving and racing' experience, pCARS beats GT6 hands down purely on that basis alone. I can actually have a competitive race with AI and come out feeling like I've had a workout. Hugely enjoyable, a feeling that I never had while playing and GT game for all those years. Making this sort of experience accessible to the console market and not just limiting it to PC was a great move. The more I play it, the more I'm enjoying it.
 
m3lover1
Probably not the right place to ask, but I'll do it anyways and see haha. Having a bit of trouble at Silverstone, International layout I believe, 3rd round of Clio Cup Champ. My left front tires always overheat, and my right rear tire always never heats up enough. I've messed with pressures so much that my head is about to explode lol. Anyone know approximately where I should set my pressures to?
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Getting back to this. I just had a little whirl around the Nurburgring Nordschleife with the Renault Clio Cup in Free Practice mode. Which means cold tyres to start with.

My only changes were...

- 1.9 bar all-around
- Brake Bias: 50/50

I had a blast and no hot tyres. The tyre temperatures didn't report any over inflation of the tyres either.
At first the car wanted to come around a little under heavy braking with cold tyres, but as the rears heated up and stuck a bit better it all clicked and became predictable.
Honestly, I think the Clio is just fine apart from the gamepad minded setup. I too wish multiple default setup profiles would be in the game, but unfortunately that feature didn't make it. It was coined together with setup sharing via Steam/PSN/XBL. I hope SMS can still fit that in after they fixed all the critical issues.

Also for your general information about any car and tyre temperatures.
You want to have at most 5 degrees celcius between inner and outer parts of the tyre. So there shouldn't be more than 5 degrees difference between the sections. If you go over that 5 degree difference you're running with either too much tyre pressure or too much camber.
 
My 3rd Impression:

This game just gets better and better, don't be afraid of the per car FFB, just do a bit of testing with the spindle settings and you can transform the feel of your wheel.

This has become the most sublime driving experience since spending many (very enjoyable) hours testing & hot lapping in the Formula rookie.

If you have a PC you can use 3rd party software to data log and compare and analyse your laps

analysis-jpg.366940


Or even output live telemetry to a 2nd screen :)

close-up-damage-jpg.366934


This really is the game I have been waiting for since I first played Geoff Crammond's F1GP :D
 
LogiForce
Getting back to this. I just had a little whirl around the Nurburgring Nordschleife with the Renault Clio Cup in Free Practice mode. Which means cold tyres to start with.

My only changes were...

- 1.9 bar all-around
- Brake Bias: 50/50

I had a blast and no hot tyres. The tyre temperatures didn't report any over inflation of the tyres either.
At first the car wanted to come around a little under heavy braking with cold tyres, but as the rears heated up and stuck a bit better it all clicked and became predictable.
Honestly, I think the Clio is just fine apart from the gamepad minded setup. I too wish multiple default setup profiles would be in the game, but unfortunately that feature didn't make it. It was coined together with setup sharing via Steam/PSN/XBL. I hope SMS can still fit that in after they fixed all the critical issues.

Also for your general information about any car and tyre temperatures.
You want to have at most 5 degrees celcius between inner and outer parts of the tyre. So there shouldn't be more than 5 degrees difference between the sections. If you go over that 5 degree difference you're running with either too much tyre pressure or too much camber.
Click to expand...

Thank you for the continued help. Will try that later today at Oulton Park when I get home!
 
mister dog
I'll check if there's already a thread on the official forums about this, if not i'll report it.

Regarding FFB clipping, you can check it yourself when you cycle through the HUD. Upper left corner; if the line goes flat at the top, that's when your wheel is clipping. You'll eventually figure out what feeling it gives and be better able to distinguish clipping when it occurs:

sxg00n.png
Click to expand...


What should the FFB graph look like when you're understeering? oversteering? At the limit?

Why didn't they just create different profiles and setups for different wheels and gamepads? I hate that I have to tinker with all this stuff.
 
MowTin
Why didn't they just create different profiles and setups for different wheels and gamepads? I hate that I have to tinker with all this stuff.
Click to expand...

Well for one, how the FFB feels is a very subjective thing, so what you suggest is certainly impossible.

I just think of it from an actual race driver's perspective. How often does she turn up to the race track and simply jump in the car and it all be perfect?

I have found though, that despite the number of settings seeming to be completely overwhelming, if you just bite the bullet and do a little bit of testing you can transform the FFB into something truly magical.

It is my birthday today & I have had quite a few ciders at this point, but in the next couple of days I'll try to post the methodology I have used to tune the FFB and transformed my old DF Pro into something that gives me loads of information. I need to have the game running to reference the exact setting names.

In the meantime

Just try tweaking the Spindle settings in the car setup - you can transform everything from there.

The information on the spindle settings in this link has been the most useful for me. Read that and then do a bit of testing in free practice. http://forum.projectcarsgame.com/showthread.php?23124-FFB-Tuning-(my-thoughts-)
 
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Baleb26
Absolutely, for a realistic 'driving and racing' experience, pCARS beats GT6 hands down purely on that basis alone. I can actually have a competitive race with AI and come out feeling like I've had a workout. Hugely enjoyable, a feeling that I never had while playing and GT game for all those years. Making this sort of experience accessible to the console market and not just limiting it to PC was a great move. The more I play it, the more I'm enjoying it.
Click to expand...

I agree that from a pure driving perspective PCars wins easily but there is nothing about PC based racing sims that is exclusive to any of my requests. I want my wheel to work properly, I want my replays to look good and be something I'd be proud to post online and I don't want to spend hours perfecting my time trials only to have my lap times and my replay discarded without comment. PD/GT could learn a lot from SMS but SMS could also take a few notes about how to run online and time trials properly. And sorry but I'd rather my onscreen gauges look more like something out of a 993 Turbo than a Chevy Malibu :-)
 
mr_serious
My 3rd Impression:

This game just gets better and better, don't be afraid of the per car FFB, just do a bit of testing with the spindle settings and you can transform the feel of your wheel.

This has become the most sublime driving experience since spending many (very enjoyable) hours testing & hot lapping in the Formula rookie.

If you have a PC you can use 3rd party software to data log and compare and analyse your laps

analysis-jpg.366940


Or even output live telemetry to a 2nd screen :)

close-up-damage-jpg.366934


This really is the game I have been waiting for since I first played Geoff Crammond's F1GP :D
Click to expand...
I'm very impressed by Tom Shane's pCARS Profiler, a "lot" of work has gone into this. Works greats, and nice to be able to view all this on a secondary screen while racing - even though analyzing and driving should be outlawed, its not safe :D
 
FuzzyFassbender
I'm very impressed by Tom Shane's pCARS Profiler, a "lot" of work has gone into this. Works greats, and nice to be able to view all this on a secondary screen while racing - even though analyzing and driving should be outlawed, its not safe :D
Click to expand...

I honestly can't praise it enough! I was a software engineer (the kind with an actual Soft. Eng. degree) and his interface is fantastic. No manual, only discoverabilty from on screen elements and it is 🤬 easy to understand and use. I am just waiting for pay day & I'll be donating.

As a side effect it has got me closer & closer to realistic settings than ever. Once I had my live view sorted out, calibrated & saved. I could turn off the HUD.

Tonight I just did 50 laps at Brands in one of the Ruf's, but using the big screen to race. This means I have to turn my head 90º to see the telemetry screen. It didn't take long until I was relying on the cockpit gauges for the important info & only glancing to my left if I thought there was a problem. It is just at the edge of my peripheral vision, just enough for me to tell if one of the gauges goes critical.

The game, this app....I am speechless. I'm 48, but feel like I am 18 again gaming wise.

[edit] Also, it is almost 3am. I am drunk and tired. I have driven 50 laps of Brands GP since around 10:30. I just came here to check what was going on before heading to bed and all I really want to do is turn the game back on even though I know I can't drive for toffee and I have the telemetry to prove it! :)
 
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Strop
I agree that from a pure driving perspective PCars wins easily but there is nothing about PC based racing sims that is exclusive to any of my requests. I want my wheel to work properly, I want my replays to look good and be something I'd be proud to post online and I don't want to spend hours perfecting my time trials only to have my lap times and my replay discarded without comment. PD/GT could learn a lot from SMS but SMS could also take a few notes about how to run online and time trials properly. And sorry but I'd rather my onscreen gauges look more like something out of a 993 Turbo than a Chevy Malibu :-)
Click to expand...
I hope they sort the replays out first ahead of the other issues but can't see that happening. I love replays so this very important to me and was pretty disappointed initially when I saw what state these were in. The driving however outweighs this I feel and as I don't spend time online, this isn't a deal breaker. Gauges etc all look fine to me but again, each to their own. Looking forward to future patches to see how things develop and improve.
 
Another impression...adrenaline rush. Won't repeat the story, I posted in the career thread of what happened, but long story short:

Oulton Park, Race 2, Clio Cup. Pole, had lead by good margin for 4 laps, rained came on 4th lap. Got stuck in pitlane with wheel nut problem changing to inters. Came out 10th, went up to 6th, with teammate 4-5 secs ahead in 5th. 3 laps to go engineer said my tires are toast and to pit in. Passed teammate out of last corner on last lap to get 5th by .2 secs Woohoo!!!!
 
I just did some free practice with my new T300, and it's pretty glorious. Did some laps with the Formula A on Spa, no assists. Very enjoyable to drive. Very easy to be consistent. Though my new set up isn't quite right at the moment. The T300 sticks out a good 3 inches more than the G27, so I'll have to make some adjustments to my rig before I will be able to get comfortable. And I also don't have a way of securing the T300 pedals, so I have to reposition them every couple of minutes. My rig was really designed around the G27.
 
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mr_serious
This really is the game I have been waiting for since I first played Geoff Crammond's F1GP :D
Click to expand...

Wow i just bought it now ....after reading your comment i guess i'll not be disappointed at all then ( That was a proper Game, i still remember when i was playing it with my old Amiga 2000 :lol: ).

Can't wait to test this game out, on my brand new PC :cheers:
 
yabiggoose
Want a realistic racing experience?

Race a real car, no game will ever be close.

Already got rid of my copy.
Click to expand...

Why did you even buy a copy when this would've been quite obvious for you in the first place?

The fact is that sim racing, even with the most expensive gear, is still cheaper than racing in real life.

- Buy a car
- Maintenance
- Fuel
- Parts
- Event Fees
- Personel
- Wear of vehicle
- Hotel & Food
- Track Entrance

And so on... http://www.turnfast.com/tech_intro/intro_costs
 
Game is properly addictive, a playing session can just consist of going out on track and tuning the settings in one practice session. That was how i spent the last 2 hours i had playtime until the kids woke up from their siesta. can't wait for this evening when everyone's in bed and i can qualify :)

I've heard people complain about the handling of the slower road cars like the Focus or the Megane, but i'm sure they are quite realistic in how you have to put in a lot of wheel lock in order to take a corner, and when you accelerate and try to unsettle the car, the spring and diff settings try to prevent it and pull the car straight each time. Just make sure to lower the FFB settings as they are prone to make your wheel clip.
 

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