Physics thread

[dyr_gl]

Am I drunk or high negative camber levels finally help sustanained long lateral efforts?

 

[ozwheels]

Am I drunk or high negative camber levels finally help sustanained long lateral efforts?

Your drunk I tried it.

 

[Awong124]

Why oh why oh why does apex curbing cause instant spins or instant oversteer followed by hitting a wall in some cars? If you haven't noticed this you can drive the Z4 GT3 on your favorite track and you'll find some apex curbing that when you run over it the car instantly becomes unstable. It's not a bouncy type of unstable where the car may be bottoming out. It like the car is literally having the front end pulled towards the apex like a Bat Man grappling hook. I have no idea why this is happening, so any insight or comments will be appreciated. I have never seen a GT car avoid smooth curbing because it will spin the car, especially on the apex. The Bentley GT3 is probably the best example of how you'd expect a race car to handle apex curbing. It just soaks them up unless you try to run over a sausage curbing. The Z4 is the polar opposite. I don't think it's down to tuning, but I suppose it could be.

Please help!!

I think it's because kerbing is inherently a more slippery surface than the tarmac. So if you're on power when going over a kerb with the inner drive wheel, the inner drive wheel will slip relative to the outer drive wheel, causing the car to rotate towards the inside of the corner. You can probably decrease the tendency of this behavior by increasing the differential settings.

 

[ozwheels]

I think it's because kerbing is inherently a more slippery surface than the tarmac. So if you're on power when going over a kerb with the inner drive wheel, the inner drive wheel will slip relative to the outer drive wheel, causing the car to rotate towards the inside of the corner. You can probably decrease the tendency of this behavior by increasing the differential settings.

I hear what your saying, but my question then is why are only some cars affected by it? Cars with more torque and less rear grip don't have that problem. Also it pulls your car in as soon as your front wheel touches the curb. I'm fairly confident the problem comes from the front more than the rear the more I see it happening.

 

[dyr_gl]

Your drunk I tried it.

Absolutely, I was.

It was probably down to testing on a track with no straights so the parachute effect wasn´t all that big.

 

[TexasTyme214]

Your drunk I tried it.

Speaking of that, camber fix went in today. Will be in patch 7. (http://forum.projectcarsgame.com/sh...S-DISCUSSION&p=1178906&viewfull=1#post1178906)

 

[Simfan David]

I hear what your saying, but my question then is why are only some cars affected by it? Cars with more torque and less rear grip don't have that problem. Also it pulls your car in as soon as your front wheel touches the curb. I'm fairly confident the problem comes from the front more than the rear the more I see it happening.

I totally agree with this. The z4 is terrible about this. Its bad on apex and exit. If i touch curbing on exit and not adjust steering. it wips me around.

 

[BrodieBoi94]

I recently picked up a PS4, and naturally I had to consider which racing title would compliment my acquisition.

I decided between Project Cars, Drive Club, and The Crew. Ultimately I decided to go for simulation as my ultimatum.

I began my career with the Renault Clio Cup Car. I notice that it is EXTREMELY tail happy in stock form. I have practiced for hours and Eden achieved 1st place or podium finishes with it, but I still lose control of it often.

I question, does anyone know if this is a outlying characteristic of the real world counterpart?

My reason being, that I tested out a somewhat similar car, the Audi A1 Quattro butit was much more composed, or easier to manage at high speed.

 

[Awong124]

I recently picked up a PS4, and naturally I had to consider which racing title would compliment my acquisition.

I decided between Project Cars, Drive Club, and The Crew. Ultimately I decided to go for simulation as my ultimatum.

I began my career with the Renault Clio Cup Car. I notice that it is EXTREMELY tail happy in stock form. I have practiced for hours and Eden achieved 1st place or podium finishes with it, but I still lose control of it often.

I question, does anyone know if this is a outlying characteristic of the real world counterpart?

My reason being, that I tested out a somewhat similar car, the Audi A1 Quattro butit was much more composed, or easier to manage at high speed.

I read someone say that in those FWD race cars, they set them up to be that way on purpose so they don't understeer. I personally found the default settings way too extreme. I don't remember what my settings are exactly, but start with changing brake balance to about 60% front and that should help a lot. I remember on default it's like 45% front. Then if that's not enough, stiffen the front springs/damping/sway bar, soften the rear springs/damping/sway bar, tighten up the diff, etc.

 

[NLxAROSA]

Like said, the Clio Cup car is setup like that on purpose. It's lift-off oversteer galore. Instead of tuning it out I would suggest to adapt to the car, it's extremely fun once you get the hang of it. Just make sure you brake in a straight line or keep a bit of throttle on. The throttle is key to modulating the lift-off oversteer.

 

[PaullyS]

And always, in every car, drop the tyre pressures quite a bit.

 

[Awong124]

And always, in every car, drop the tyre pressures quite a bit.

That might help handling, but might make the tires overheat too quickly.

 

[Johnnypenso]

Like said, the Clio Cup car is setup like that on purpose. It's lift-off oversteer galore. Instead of tuning it out I would suggest to adapt to the car, it's extremely fun once you get the hang of it. Just make sure you brake in a straight line or keep a bit of throttle on. The throttle is key to modulating the lift-off oversteer.

Great advice and it's also good general advice for driving almost any car. I think quite often some of us, me included, try to make every car sorta feel like the best balanced front engine rear wheel drive car ever, rather than adapting our driving style to what the car gives us.

 

[NLxAROSA]

For me, a good tune is one that stays close to the original, yet doesn't punish you straight away when you make a little mistake. Not the best for hot laps, but for racing consistency is key. That said, I hardly tune these days. Less spare time and more complex sims are not a great combo in that regard.

 

[twitcher]

I've come to the conclusion that the curbs in this game are garbage. I don't know if it was intentional to "add difficulty", or if it's an oversight, but no car handles over curbs the way any car handles over curbs in pCARS.

The sausage curbs at tracks like Monza and Snetterton are prime examples. How high you bounce off of them is completely out of proportion to how hard you hit them. They also have the effect of hooking the inside rear wheel, cause the car to rotate violently.

Once the car is airborn, it hangs in the air like it is weightless. Also, clipping inside curbs does not tend to aid cornering (by shifting weight outboard) the way it should.


Flat inside curbs are garbage as well. There is zero chance that barely clipping an inside curb, off throttle, in a GT3 car, would send the car into a spin...but that's normal in PCARS. If you touch the throttle with one wheel on the curb, even with a fully locked diff, you instantly get put into a spin.

And then their's exit curbs. You know, those giant red & white surfaces that we regularly see race cars accelerating on, at full throttle, under full load...with zero consequence. Not in PCARS. Touch an exit curb while under throttle or lateral load, and you're done for.

Rouen Les Essart is a stunning track, ruined by rediculous curbs. I'm ok with the curbs being there, as that's how it was in '68....but the behavior of a car against the curbs is beyond stupid. 4-5 in high curbs don't suck you inwards...they should bounce you off. Also, putting 2 wheels on a curb at pedestrian speeds should not cause a spin. I rubbed up against a curb the about a month ago doing 80ish km/h, and barely felt anything. Certainly nothing close to rotating.


Worst of all, no matter what track, car, tires, setup, etc I use, 95% of the time when I crash, it's the exact same bloody crash. Touch either an inside or outside curb, then get the "silent oversteer" (ie no tire squeal, no increase in rpm, just a silent ice machine in front of the rear tires), and then you end up in the "uncontrollable slide", ie the standard pCARS crash. It a rather gradual loss of rear grip, a slow rotation of the car which puts in about 90' to the track, and you spear off into a wall and T-bone the wall at a nearly perfect 90 degrees. During the slide, the car goes completely numb. The front end has no response at all, either from steering or brakes. The rear has no feel, dipping the clutch does nothing. The car doesn't bounce off the wall, rather just comes to a dead hault facing the wall, requiring one to reverse away from the wall. In 3 months of playing pCARS, I don't think I've ever, ever hit a wall with the back end first. Like I said, 95% of my crashes are carbon copies of one another....and 3/4 of those crashes happen at under 120km/h.

I really don't know about this game anymore. Like all the others, it has amazing potential, just poor execution. I'm sorry, but for as good as the physics are supposed to be, the behaviour over curbs, the behaviour during loss of traction, and the general sloppy feeling of front ends (I feel like I understear everywhere I go, and I think the replays confirm that), I can't give these physics a thumbs up.

Sure there's lots of options and lots of data that gets thrown at you, but the overall feel is not what I would call "good".

 

[ozwheels]

I've come to the conclusion that the curbs in this game are garbage. I don't know if it was intentional to "add difficulty", or if it's an oversight, but no car handles over curbs the way any car handles over curbs in pCARS.

The sausage curbs at tracks like Monza and Snetterton are prime examples. How high you bounce off of them is completely out of proportion to how hard you hit them. They also have the effect of hooking the inside rear wheel, cause the car to rotate violently.

Once the car is airborn, it hangs in the air like it is weightless. Also, clipping inside curbs does not tend to aid cornering (by shifting weight outboard) the way it should.


Flat inside curbs are garbage as well. There is zero chance that barely clipping an inside curb, off throttle, in a GT3 car, would send the car into a spin...but that's normal in PCARS. If you touch the throttle with one wheel on the curb, even with a fully locked diff, you instantly get put into a spin.

And then their's exit curbs. You know, those giant red & white surfaces that we regularly see race cars accelerating on, at full throttle, under full load...with zero consequence. Not in PCARS. Touch an exit curb while under throttle or lateral load, and you're done for.

Rouen Les Essart is a stunning track, ruined by rediculous curbs. I'm ok with the curbs being there, as that's how it was in '68....but the behavior of a car against the curbs is beyond stupid. 4-5 in high curbs don't suck you inwards...they should bounce you off. Also, putting 2 wheels on a curb at pedestrian speeds should not cause a spin. I rubbed up against a curb the about a month ago doing 80ish km/h, and barely felt anything. Certainly nothing close to rotating.


Worst of all, no matter what track, car, tires, setup, etc I use, 95% of the time when I crash, it's the exact same bloody crash. Touch either an inside or outside curb, then get the "silent oversteer" (ie no tire squeal, no increase in rpm, just a silent ice machine in front of the rear tires), and then you end up in the "uncontrollable slide", ie the standard pCARS crash. It a rather gradual loss of rear grip, a slow rotation of the car which puts in about 90' to the track, and you spear off into a wall and T-bone the wall at a nearly perfect 90 degrees. During the slide, the car goes completely numb. The front end has no response at all, either from steering or brakes. The rear has no feel, dipping the clutch does nothing. The car doesn't bounce off the wall, rather just comes to a dead hault facing the wall, requiring one to reverse away from the wall. In 3 months of playing pCARS, I don't think I've ever, ever hit a wall with the back end first. Like I said, 95% of my crashes are carbon copies of one another....and 3/4 of those crashes happen at under 120km/h.

I really don't know about this game anymore. Like all the others, it has amazing potential, just poor execution. I'm sorry, but for as good as the physics are supposed to be, the behaviour over curbs, the behaviour during loss of traction, and the general sloppy feeling of front ends (I feel like I understear everywhere I go, and I think the replays confirm that), I can't give these physics a thumbs up.

Sure there's lots of options and lots of data that gets thrown at you, but the overall feel is not what I would call "good".

I agree 100% about curbing in this game. They are awful and deadly. I've posted in this thread about it before but nothing came of it.

Also it seems like they have moon gravity modeled or something. The last corner in the downhill section at Bathurst is a great example (the hairpin). If you get the slightest amount of air you will hit one of the 3 walls every single time. You lose all control no matter what.

 

[dyr_gl]

It depends a lot on the car. I used to think curbs at Road America were deadly after driving the Formula C there... until one day I gave the track a go on the Zonda R.

As someone who comes from Codemasters F1 games, I have to say I enjoy having curbs you have to watch out for.

 

[ozwheels]

It depends a lot on the car. I used to think curbs at Road America were deadly after driving the Formula C there... until one day I gave the track a go on the Zonda R.

As someone who comes from Codemasters F1 games, I have to say I enjoy having curbs you have to watch out for.

In any GT car you shouldn't ever have to avoid curbing unless they are sausage curbs. Look at DTM cars in real life. They are essentially prototypes with GT bodywork and they abuse curbing on every track.

 

[ScottPuss20]

I've come to the conclusion that the curbs in this game are garbage. I don't know if it was intentional to "add difficulty", or if it's an oversight, but no car handles over curbs the way any car handles over curbs in pCARS.

The sausage curbs at tracks like Monza and Snetterton are prime examples. How high you bounce off of them is completely out of proportion to how hard you hit them. They also have the effect of hooking the inside rear wheel, cause the car to rotate violently.

Once the car is airborn, it hangs in the air like it is weightless. Also, clipping inside curbs does not tend to aid cornering (by shifting weight outboard) the way it should.


Flat inside curbs are garbage as well. There is zero chance that barely clipping an inside curb, off throttle, in a GT3 car, would send the car into a spin...but that's normal in PCARS. If you touch the throttle with one wheel on the curb, even with a fully locked diff, you instantly get put into a spin.

And then their's exit curbs. You know, those giant red & white surfaces that we regularly see race cars accelerating on, at full throttle, under full load...with zero consequence. Not in PCARS. Touch an exit curb while under throttle or lateral load, and you're done for.

Rouen Les Essart is a stunning track, ruined by rediculous curbs. I'm ok with the curbs being there, as that's how it was in '68....but the behavior of a car against the curbs is beyond stupid. 4-5 in high curbs don't suck you inwards...they should bounce you off. Also, putting 2 wheels on a curb at pedestrian speeds should not cause a spin. I rubbed up against a curb the about a month ago doing 80ish km/h, and barely felt anything. Certainly nothing close to rotating.


Worst of all, no matter what track, car, tires, setup, etc I use, 95% of the time when I crash, it's the exact same bloody crash. Touch either an inside or outside curb, then get the "silent oversteer" (ie no tire squeal, no increase in rpm, just a silent ice machine in front of the rear tires), and then you end up in the "uncontrollable slide", ie the standard pCARS crash. It a rather gradual loss of rear grip, a slow rotation of the car which puts in about 90' to the track, and you spear off into a wall and T-bone the wall at a nearly perfect 90 degrees. During the slide, the car goes completely numb. The front end has no response at all, either from steering or brakes. The rear has no feel, dipping the clutch does nothing. The car doesn't bounce off the wall, rather just comes to a dead hault facing the wall, requiring one to reverse away from the wall. In 3 months of playing pCARS, I don't think I've ever, ever hit a wall with the back end first. Like I said, 95% of my crashes are carbon copies of one another....and 3/4 of those crashes happen at under 120km/h.

I really don't know about this game anymore. Like all the others, it has amazing potential, just poor execution. I'm sorry, but for as good as the physics are supposed to be, the behaviour over curbs, the behaviour during loss of traction, and the general sloppy feeling of front ends (I feel like I understear everywhere I go, and I think the replays confirm that), I can't give these physics a thumbs up.

Sure there's lots of options and lots of data that gets thrown at you, but the overall feel is not what I would call "good".

I have similar issues. And on several occasions I've lost races because of it.

 

[dyr_gl]

In any GT car you shouldn't ever have to avoid curbing unless they are sausage curbs. Look at DTM cars in real life. They are essentially prototypes with GT bodywork and they abuse curbing on every track.

Well, that´s exactly what I get with the Zonda mate, that´s why I mention it. Watch 6:38 - 7:40, not even sausage curbs make it sweat.



Isn´t that OK? It even looks a bit too easy to abuse them if you ask me.

 

[ozwheels]

Well, that´s exactly what I get with the Zonda mate, that´s why I mention it. Watch 6:38 - 7:40, not even sausage curbs make it sweat.



Isn´t that OK? It even looks a bit too easy to abuse them if you ask me.

Maybe the road cars/super cars are modeled with very soft and forgiving chassis? Most of my problems have been with GT3 and Prototypes. It's odd some cars behave dramatically different from others when they are in the same class of car.

 

[ScottPuss20]

One issue with this game is weight transfer - your car can unload completely if you go through a corner just that little bit too tightly. It's near impossible to catch the slide which is really frustrating when you're having a decent race. I feel as though that aspect of the game is causing the most grief for me and it would be great if SMS revised the algorithm for it.

 

[TexasTyme214]

One issue with this game is weight transfer - your car can unload completely if you go through a corner just that little bit too tightly. It's near impossible to catch the slide which is really frustrating when you're having a decent race. I feel as though that aspect of the game is causing the most grief for me and it would be great if SMS revised the algorithm for it.

I remember Ben Collins constantly saying that this needed to be possible in cars, that turn-in had never been strong enough a large range of cars. Personally, I think the looseness of the rear is new for 7.0; thus, it must be a tire thing rather than the basic part of the physics.

 

[Mike_grpA]

I hear what your saying, but my question then is why are only some cars affected by it? Cars with more torque and less rear grip don't have that problem. Also it pulls your car in as soon as your front wheel touches the curb. I'm fairly confident the problem comes from the front more than the rear the more I see it happening.

I noticed this same thing, but mostly with open wheelers, or anything that's stiffly sprung. Karts are the worst for it. It's not just kerbs either, it seems any time you drop a wheel off track, the kerb/grass/whatever sucks the front end into it. With Karts I thought maybe that's decent because the wheels are so small that they might just dig in to the grass or whatever, but it happens with GT3 cars and prototypes too.

Kerbs seem to bounce you off them like a pinball machine most of the time, even when your trajectory and speed should mean you drive over them, but then sometimes the kerbs do the opposite, and your inside front will kind of get glued to it, pulling the car and rotating it hard to the inside. As I said, the grass will also do this, but the amount the car gets bogged down in grass is stupidly unrealistic. I've ran wide through the tight left at the end of the chase at Bathurst, running out onto the grass at over 250kph in a supercar, and had the car almost instantly slow to a bloody walking pace.

I've come to the conclusion that the curbs in this game are garbage. I don't know if it was intentional to "add difficulty", or if it's an oversight, but no car handles over curbs the way any car handles over curbs in pCARS.

The sausage curbs at tracks like Monza and Snetterton are prime examples. How high you bounce off of them is completely out of proportion to how hard you hit them. They also have the effect of hooking the inside rear wheel, cause the car to rotate violently.

Once the car is airborn, it hangs in the air like it is weightless. Also, clipping inside curbs does not tend to aid cornering (by shifting weight outboard) the way it should.


Flat inside curbs are garbage as well. There is zero chance that barely clipping an inside curb, off throttle, in a GT3 car, would send the car into a spin...but that's normal in PCARS. If you touch the throttle with one wheel on the curb, even with a fully locked diff, you instantly get put into a spin.

And then their's exit curbs. You know, those giant red & white surfaces that we regularly see race cars accelerating on, at full throttle, under full load...with zero consequence. Not in PCARS. Touch an exit curb while under throttle or lateral load, and you're done for.

Rouen Les Essart is a stunning track, ruined by rediculous curbs. I'm ok with the curbs being there, as that's how it was in '68....but the behavior of a car against the curbs is beyond stupid. 4-5 in high curbs don't suck you inwards...they should bounce you off. Also, putting 2 wheels on a curb at pedestrian speeds should not cause a spin. I rubbed up against a curb the about a month ago doing 80ish km/h, and barely felt anything. Certainly nothing close to rotating.


Worst of all, no matter what track, car, tires, setup, etc I use, 95% of the time when I crash, it's the exact same bloody crash. Touch either an inside or outside curb, then get the "silent oversteer" (ie no tire squeal, no increase in rpm, just a silent ice machine in front of the rear tires), and then you end up in the "uncontrollable slide", ie the standard pCARS crash. It a rather gradual loss of rear grip, a slow rotation of the car which puts in about 90' to the track, and you spear off into a wall and T-bone the wall at a nearly perfect 90 degrees. During the slide, the car goes completely numb. The front end has no response at all, either from steering or brakes. The rear has no feel, dipping the clutch does nothing. The car doesn't bounce off the wall, rather just comes to a dead hault facing the wall, requiring one to reverse away from the wall. In 3 months of playing pCARS, I don't think I've ever, ever hit a wall with the back end first. Like I said, 95% of my crashes are carbon copies of one another....and 3/4 of those crashes happen at under 120km/h.

I really don't know about this game anymore. Like all the others, it has amazing potential, just poor execution. I'm sorry, but for as good as the physics are supposed to be, the behaviour over curbs, the behaviour during loss of traction, and the general sloppy feeling of front ends (I feel like I understear everywhere I go, and I think the replays confirm that), I can't give these physics a thumbs up.

Sure there's lots of options and lots of data that gets thrown at you, but the overall feel is not what I would call "good".

I mostly agree with this. I think the physics are really good, but there seems to be a few things that are off. Some might be bugs or oversights like the camber issues, and some are design decisions, like the superglue grass. The physics of crashes and airborne cars is so wrong it's not even funny (well ok it was for a while).

 

[twitcher]

Just want to say sorry for my rant I'd had a few pops, and was racing online when a curb caught me out and ruined my race....triggered my rage!! Feel silly now.

I do stand by what I said about the curbs, and I agree with what everyone else has said about general off track experiences, whether it's curbs, rumble strips, grass, etc. I also agree that the airborne physics are quite messed up.

All that said, it's not all terrible. I still like the game, they did a lot of things well, but it certainly needs polishing.

 

[Mike_grpA]

Just want to say sorry for my rant I'd had a few pops, and was racing online when a curb caught me out and ruined my race....triggered my rage!! Feel silly now.

I do stand by what I said about the curbs, and I agree with what everyone else has said about general off track experiences, whether it's curbs, rumble strips, grass, etc. I also agree that the airborne physics are quite messed up.

All that said, it's not all terrible. I still like the game, they did a lot of things well, but it certainly needs polishing.

Unfortunately I think the amount of changes needed to really make the game shine, and bring out the best in the physics engine, are too much for SMS to achieve with Pcars1. Some of the issues are fundamental flaws in the game's design that would be too hard to change in patches, so I'd expect no change to, for example, the silly crash physics, in Pcars1.

Although that begs the question: If SMS has made so many mistakes with this one, how much can they be trusted to not repeat these mistakes in their next game. It's been mentioned so many times that a lot of Pcars' issues were present in the NFS: Shift games, so are SMS capable of identifying and rectifying the obvious issues in their games? Or will they continue this hear no evil see no evil approach, where they ignore or flat out argue against any criticism of their game?

Edit: By the time Pcars 2 is being released, there will no doubt be another two Forza games out on X1, Plus consoles will have AC, and possibly Dirt Rally, and PS4 will have a GT game, so if they can't sort the game out from day one, I find it unlikely it'll sell well. Surely with so many good racing titles to choose from, people won't rush out to pre order or buy at day one, like they did with Pcars 1. I'll wait to see what the community has to say before I buy it, and I get the feeling I won't be the only one employing this strategy.

 

[Earth]

I've come to the conclusion that the curbs in this game are garbage. I don't know if it was intentional to "add difficulty", or if it's an oversight, but no car handles over curbs the way any car handles over curbs in pCARS.

The sausage curbs at tracks like Monza and Snetterton are prime examples. How high you bounce off of them is completely out of proportion to how hard you hit them. They also have the effect of hooking the inside rear wheel, cause the car to rotate violently.

Once the car is airborn, it hangs in the air like it is weightless. Also, clipping inside curbs does not tend to aid cornering (by shifting weight outboard) the way it should.


Flat inside curbs are garbage as well. There is zero chance that barely clipping an inside curb, off throttle, in a GT3 car, would send the car into a spin...but that's normal in PCARS. If you touch the throttle with one wheel on the curb, even with a fully locked diff, you instantly get put into a spin.

And then their's exit curbs. You know, those giant red & white surfaces that we regularly see race cars accelerating on, at full throttle, under full load...with zero consequence. Not in PCARS. Touch an exit curb while under throttle or lateral load, and you're done for.

Rouen Les Essart is a stunning track, ruined by rediculous curbs. I'm ok with the curbs being there, as that's how it was in '68....but the behavior of a car against the curbs is beyond stupid. 4-5 in high curbs don't suck you inwards...they should bounce you off. Also, putting 2 wheels on a curb at pedestrian speeds should not cause a spin. I rubbed up against a curb the about a month ago doing 80ish km/h, and barely felt anything. Certainly nothing close to rotating.


Worst of all, no matter what track, car, tires, setup, etc I use, 95% of the time when I crash, it's the exact same bloody crash. Touch either an inside or outside curb, then get the "silent oversteer" (ie no tire squeal, no increase in rpm, just a silent ice machine in front of the rear tires), and then you end up in the "uncontrollable slide", ie the standard pCARS crash. It a rather gradual loss of rear grip, a slow rotation of the car which puts in about 90' to the track, and you spear off into a wall and T-bone the wall at a nearly perfect 90 degrees. During the slide, the car goes completely numb. The front end has no response at all, either from steering or brakes. The rear has no feel, dipping the clutch does nothing. The car doesn't bounce off the wall, rather just comes to a dead hault facing the wall, requiring one to reverse away from the wall. In 3 months of playing pCARS, I don't think I've ever, ever hit a wall with the back end first. Like I said, 95% of my crashes are carbon copies of one another....and 3/4 of those crashes happen at under 120km/h.

I really don't know about this game anymore. Like all the others, it has amazing potential, just poor execution. I'm sorry, but for as good as the physics are supposed to be, the behaviour over curbs, the behaviour during loss of traction, and the general sloppy feeling of front ends (I feel like I understear everywhere I go, and I think the replays confirm that), I can't give these physics a thumbs up.

Sure there's lots of options and lots of data that gets thrown at you, but the overall feel is not what I would call "good".

You really hit the nail on the head. I experienced everything you did EXACTLY the same way.

The physics have significant bugs that completely mar the game. Online races are usually about who crashes the least. And Im talking about single car crashes. Not because the game is too real and difficult, but because finishing a race is about surviving the minefield of physics bugs in the game more then it is mastering control of your car and the racing line.

One of the biggest complaints I have is the replication of corner entry, mid corner, and corner exit oversteer/understeer. PCARS physics are only slightly better then the standard physics of GT5 Prologue in this regard. The way a car feels when it enters and exits a corner should be predictable once you've spent time with a particular car/track/setup combo. I feel this is something Gran Turismo's physics replicated very well. Any transition of oversteer/understeer from corner entry, mid corner, to corner exit was predictable and the transition from one to the next was smooth.

In contrast PCARS will violently shift from understeer to wicked oversteer to brutal understeer in abrupt succession through any corner of any speed. This results in the front end of the car pivoting back and forth in an extremely unrealistic manner ala GT5 Prologue standard physics.

If the physics do not offer predictable corner entry, mid corner, and corner exit understeer/oversteer then driving becomes an unrealistic nightmare. I've lost track of the amount of times the car violently snapped without any warning. Braking 10m too late into a corner would result in running slightly wide in most games. Here its almost always a long lazy spin that ends up with you facing a guardrail or the wrong way.

Dont even attempt trail braking in this game unless you wanna die. Ive made some setup changes that helped here, but theres no excuse for the default setups to mean instant death of you try to trail brake.

Nobody likes chicanes because they're boring ways to slow tracks down. However one good thing about chicanes is that because their speed is so low it allows the driver to really attack them. But for some odd reason in PCARS you have to baby the cars through the chicanes and be careful around the curbs. GTR2 handled low speed physics better then any sim I ever raced. It understood that no matter the car or setup your going to have brutal understeer in a 40mph chicane or hairpin. Yet the physics in PCARS somehow manages to make chicanes feel like a delicate balancing act when in reality all drivers attack them aggressively because the mechanical grip as such low speeds is so high.

Attack the curbs too much and you spin. Touch the rumble strip on the chicane at the wrong angle and you spin. @twitcher mentioned the ridiculous bug where once your car gets unrealistically airborne from rumble strip contact it stays airborne like its weightless until you've spun.

Whats worse is that these are high performance racing machines built from high performance road cars. Theres absolutely no way they should be this easy to spin, especially at low speed.

Which brings me to the next issue. Once the cars break loose in this game its almost always impossible to save the car. If you pivot more then x amount of degrees (its not alot) the car just slides until it stops or hits something. Like the torque steer in this game, or the lack of it. No traction control and controlling torque is more difficult to do in Gran Turismo but at the same time more rewarding and realistic because it feels more natural and predictable.

When torque steer makes an appearance in PCARS its almost always wtihout warning and your instantly spin with no chance to catch the car. I havent been able to save a single spin by counter steering because if you have to turn it that much you're already a goner.

What I think we have here is another example of a simulator being more difficult then real life due to buggy physics. Overall is it closer to reality then Gran Turismo? Yes, but at the same time it has major bugs which make it extremely frustrating unless you put in the time to learn how to avoid them with setup changes or driving technique which is extremely annoying.

Could I practice more and become accustomed to the issues and learn how to avoid them? Perhaps. But I dont think its worth it. It would be like playing basketball with a rim that is 20% smaller then the official regulation size with an oblong ball. Why do it? Why put yourself through the nightmare? Its a real shame to because the game has loads of options and looked to be a real fun time.

 

[Scaff]

You really hit the nail on the head. I experienced everything you did EXACTLY the same way.

The physics have significant bugs that completely mar the game. Online races are usually about who crashes the least. And Im talking about single car crashes. Not because the game is too real and difficult, but because finishing a race is about surviving the minefield of physics bugs in the game more then it is mastering control of your car and the racing line.

One of the biggest complaints I have is the replication of corner entry, mid corner, and corner exit oversteer/understeer. PCARS physics are only slightly better then the standard physics of GT5 Prologue in this regard. The way a car feels when it enters and exits a corner should be predictable once you've spent time with a particular car/track/setup combo. I feel this is something Gran Turismo's physics replicated very well. Any transition of oversteer/understeer from corner entry, mid corner, to corner exit was predictable and the transition from one to the next was smooth.

In contrast PCARS will violently shift from understeer to wicked oversteer to brutal understeer in abrupt succession through any corner of any speed. This results in the front end of the car pivoting back and forth in an extremely unrealistic manner ala GT5 Prologue standard physics.

If the physics do not offer predictable corner entry, mid corner, and corner exit understeer/oversteer then driving becomes an unrealistic nightmare. I've lost track of the amount of times the car violently snapped without any warning. Braking 10m too late into a corner would result in running slightly wide in most games. Here its almost always a long lazy spin that ends up with you facing a guardrail or the wrong way.

Dont even attempt trail braking in this game unless you wanna die. Ive made some setup changes that helped here, but theres no excuse for the default setups to mean instant death of you try to trail brake.

Nobody likes chicanes because they're boring ways to slow tracks down. However one good thing about chicanes is that because their speed is so low it allows the driver to really attack them. But for some odd reason in PCARS you have to baby the cars through the chicanes and be careful around the curbs. GTR2 handled low speed physics better then any sim I ever raced. It understood that no matter the car or setup your going to have brutal understeer in a 40mph chicane or hairpin. Yet the physics in PCARS somehow manages to make chicanes feel like a delicate balancing act when in reality all drivers attack them aggressively because the mechanical grip as such low speeds is so high.

Attack the curbs too much and you spin. Touch the rumble strip on the chicane at the wrong angle and you spin. @twitcher mentioned the ridiculous bug where once your car gets unrealistically airborne from rumble strip contact it stays airborne like its weightless until you've spun.

Whats worse is that these are high performance racing machines built from high performance road cars. Theres absolutely no way they should be this easy to spin, especially at low speed.

Which brings me to the next issue. Once the cars break loose in this game its almost always impossible to save the car. If you pivot more then x amount of degrees (its not alot) the car just slides until it stops or hits something. Like the torque steer in this game, or the lack of it. No traction control and controlling torque is more difficult to do in Gran Turismo but at the same time more rewarding and realistic because it feels more natural and predictable.

When torque steer makes an appearance in PCARS its almost always wtihout warning and your instantly spin with no chance to catch the car. I havent been able to save a single spin by counter steering because if you have to turn it that much you're already a goner.

What I think we have here is another example of a simulator being more difficult then real life due to buggy physics. Overall is it closer to reality then Gran Turismo? Yes, but at the same time it has major bugs which make it extremely frustrating unless you put in the time to learn how to avoid them with setup changes or driving technique which is extremely annoying.

Could I practice more and become accustomed to the issues and learn how to avoid them? Perhaps. But I dont think its worth it. It would be like playing basketball with a rim that is 20% smaller then the official regulation size with an oblong ball. Why do it? Why put yourself through the nightmare? Its a real shame to because the game has loads of options and looked to be a real fun time.

Are you using a controller or a wheel? As I share these frustrations in regard to a gamepad, but with a wheel it's a totally different beast.

I don't find it to be physics issues, rather input for gamepad being utterly appalling.

 

[bleeder]

Are you using a controller or a wheel? As I share these frustrations in regard to a gamepad, but with a wheel it's a totally different beast.

I don't find it to be physics issues, rather input for gamepad being utterly appalling.

The part about not being able to control a slide and the snap oversteer thing which sends the nose left and right and then makes you crash is right though. Never really had a problem with curbs with my wheel, but I've seen AI cars fly into the air over some, which is a bug, but generally I can navigate over curbs just fine. Apart from Rouen. Those kill.

 

[Earth]

Are you using a controller or a wheel? As I share these frustrations in regard to a gamepad, but with a wheel it's a totally different beast.

I don't find it to be physics issues, rather input for gamepad being utterly appalling.

I use a wheel

I've uploaded a video of some of my recent crashes to show what I am talking about. Maybe Im crazy or just an awful driver. I hope I am because I really want to like this game. I have dozens of examples saved on the HDD that are just like what I posted in this video.

Crash #1 in video - Example of the curb bug. The right side of the car goes airborne like it is weightless and doesnt come back down until I've spun out. All this despite the fact I was not going very hard

Crash #2 - Curb of death sends me crashing with no warning or chance to recover. Whats frustrating about this is how I've gone over the same curb many times before the same way without a single issue but it randomly spins me here. This is what I mean when I say the physics are simply not predictable enough.

Crash #3 - Instant snap oversteer with no warning and no chance to recover

Crash #4 - I enter the corner 10m too late. I know I've made a mistake so I try to easy it in so hopefully I just go wide. Unfortunately the car gets into one of its unstoppable oversteer slides and you guessed it, it all ends with me facing the wall.