Physics thread

[Animera]

It's really hard to know what's happening in the video's without knowing how you've set up the car.
All of those seem to me that you've gone in just too hot, or you're running very low rear downforce.

Something I had to learn very quickly with PCARS was that all the 'go faster' techniques I had learned in GT didn't work in PCARS. Whether that's realistic or not I don't know, as I have no real life racing experience.

Like any racing game, once you learn it's particular 'quirks', these things happen way less and become predictable.

When I started playing PCARS I was also spinning and struggling to catch the car when mishaps happened, but now I can throw cars around, induce and catch slides, while knowing what the car is doing.

 

[Saidur_Ali]

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.

Looks like driver error to me. All four look predictable and saveable. It looks to me you are putting in too much steering input and haven't got a good read on what the cars doing so reacting too late to oversteer situations and exacerbating through your application of throttle, braking and steering. What might help you is reduce front downforce and lower brake pressure in setup but it would be better to understand why the car is out of control and react better. Maybe something in steering wheel settings could help improve feeling?

Personally I've always found pCARS really easy to drive and to understand what is happening with default FFB on G27. You can attack the kerbs a lot and get away with it. Here is a lap in a GT3 car with stock setup on Monza track:

 

[Speedster911]

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.

That's pretty much spot on. I have given the game many tries, experimenting with a WHOLE variety of controller settings after checking several forums... but the game's physics are wrong once your car goes into a spin - it's as if there's a giant hand pressing down hard on the car that doesn't let you recover... as you and the other fella pointed out, the front end just goes numb and cars do not react going over curbs the way they should.

I haven't played the game since and very desperate to sell it off!

IMO, Forza 5 and 6 have a much more direct and predictable feel. You definitely feel connected to the tarmac and weight transfer is done well, as is off/on throttle response, including car behavior over curbs.

 

[Wolfe]

The physics engine definitely gets sketchy sometimes when you go up on two wheels or become airborne, so I avoid tall bumps like those at Monza. Just today I pulled a stoppie in the Ruf CTR over Quiddelbacher Höhe on the Nordschleife, which probably shouldn't have happened the way it did.

Wicked snap oversteer sounds like what I encountered when locking the brakes in some cars. I wasn't satisfied with how well I could modulate the brakes without ABS on the DS4, so I opted for ABS. I was pleased to find that it prevents that sudden bite yet doesn't completely eliminate braking oversteer (like entering the first corner of Ruapuna ass first in the CTR, for example ). Trail braking is also possible.

What I've found with oversteer recovery is that cars lose too much speed from skidding sideways, which contributes to curve you toward the inside wall without enough velocity to recover. Adjusting the steering ratio has helped me when I need more or less steering lock to catch oversteer or tame a tendency to overcorrect.

I can empathize about the rough edges to this game, like the occasionally unpredictable curbs, or especially the way cars stick to each other and quit steering when they collide. The game does itself no favors with its default controller/FFB settings, default setups, and unhelpful menus to sort it all out. But overall I'm impressed to count it as a proper sim, with its own imperfections like any other. The fundamental dynamics of understeer and oversteer aren't quite right, but to me it's in the ballpark. Somewhere between Enthusia and Forza, with more gritty details than EPR.

 

[Scaff]

I would agree that the physics can get interesting when up on two wheels (the AI in particular)...





...however in regard to riding curbs and not being able to catch oversteer I still believe this is more of an input issue than a physics issue.

A couple of old videos to illustrate what I mean. The first is from a five lap hotlap challenge I did with a few friends a while ago, set the quickest clean lap (by PCars standards - I wouldn't call them clean) with no aids used at all and with cold tyre on 'real' wear.



Lots of curbs ridden and attacked heavily with no more issues than I would expect.

Now catching slides is arguably less accurate, but race tyres are snappy so that does need to be taken into account, however its still possible.

 

[Wolfe]

I would agree that the physics can get interesting when up on two wheels (the AI in particular)...

...however in regard to riding curbs and not being able to catch oversteer I still believe this is more of an input issue than a physics issue.

Curbs are seldom a problem for me, but I have had instances of a curb kicking me sideways without warning, and not because I spun up a driven wheel or made any sudden moves with steering. One time I was in the Audi R8 GT3 at Spa, and a flat curb suddenly snagged and spun me 90 degrees in a split second. It seemed like a glancing collision with the curb, like how those Formula Rookies collide with the track surface once they get up on two wheels.

As for catching oversteer, some racecars just don't offer enough steering lock for wide slides, even with the tightest steering ratio, as I found last night while experimenting with the E30 M3. By contrast, the Radbul MX-5 proves the physics engine will let you catch and hold very high angles with enough steering lock (as the ultimate test for my latest DS4 settings, I found I can just about drift that thing). Roadcars like the 1M or CTR are driftable with a controller, more easily than I had expected.

 

[Earth]

Well I have to come back here and eat crow, sort of

I gave the game one last chance and took the advice to boost the rear downforce with a R18 @ Lemans. I also raised the ride height, and got rid of all the camber and toe looking to produce a neutral handling car.

Im now able to correct oversteer. The transition from oversteer to understeer and vice versa feels far less abrupt and much more predictable. I can feel the edge and when I cross it and crash it feels like I simply went over the edge instead of a bug or glitch doing me in. In other words crashes now actually feel like human error on my part. Its easy for me to look back and identify what I did wrong.

So I got to experience the most satisfying and realistic physics in my experience with sims at Lemans. It was alot of fun.

I still feel the issues I've experienced earlier are in effect bugs but you can get around them with a better setup

 

[Wolfe]

@Earth -- I'm glad you were able to sort it out. The PCARS Setup Database is a good resource to keep handy; it has provided me with new "default" setups for several cars that needed a total overhaul. I know how to tweak a car when it needs a little of this or that, but I'm not inclined to spend the time deconstructing some of these messes SMS left us with. The database has helped me a lot.

For the Ruf CTR, Jussi's OEM-spec setup plus my own tweak to the tire pressures was enough to pretty much completely tame the car and allow it to handle more believably. Accurate factory values, what a concept! What's notable is that the author, Jussi Karjalainen, has apparently been recruited by SMS as a Handling QA Lead for PCARS2. That gives me some hope for the sequel with respect to car setups. 👍

 

[Speedster911]

Curbs are seldom a problem for me, but I have had instances of a curb kicking me sideways without warning, and not because I spun up a driven wheel or made any sudden moves with steering. One time I was in the Audi R8 GT3 at Spa, and a flat curb suddenly snagged and spun me 90 degrees in a split second. It seemed like a glancing collision with the curb, like how those Formula Rookies collide with the track surface once they get up on two wheels.

As for catching oversteer, some racecars just don't offer enough steering lock for wide slides, even with the tightest steering ratio, as I found last night while experimenting with the E30 M3. By contrast, the Radbul MX-5 proves the physics engine will let you catch and hold very high angles with enough steering lock (as the ultimate test for my latest DS4 settings, I found I can just about drift that thing). Roadcars like the 1M or CTR are driftable with a controller, more easily than I had expected.

I can't drift to save my life in PCARS! Even though in the Forza games on sim steering, it's easy to learn and get accustomed to. Looks like I'll follow through with the link you provided in your next post and experiment with car setups... if I ever get around to reinstalling CARS that is!

 

[Wolfe]

I can't drift to save my life in PCARS! Even though in the Forza games on sim steering, it's easy to learn and get accustomed to. Looks like I'll follow through with the link you provided in your next post and experiment with car setups... if I ever get around to reinstalling CARS that is!

I've been driving the 1M with its default setup. I know every person who shares their controller settings says, "zomg this fixed everything!" but I'll share mine if you want to try them. I've also saved this as a reference for what exactly the settings do (as best as I could figure out):

Spoiler: My Controller Settings

Input Mode: 3
Assists: ABS ON

Steering Sensitivity:   25
Throttle Sensitivity:   45
Brake Sensitivity:      45

These sensitivities control analog linearity.
0-49 is slower near the center/low end and faster at the end of the axis.
51-100 is faster near the center/low end and slower at the end of the axis.

Speed Sensitivity:      50
Filtering Sensitivity:  50

Speed Sensitivity controls the maximum steering lock based on your velocity.
Higher = less steering lock at high speeds.

Filtering Sensitivity controls the maximum rate (speed) of steering.
0 is fastest, 100 is slowest.

Advanced:                  ON
Soft Steering Dampening:   ON
Visual Filtering:         OFF
Opposite Lock Help:       OFF

Soft Steering Dampening helps soften sudden inputs, like a flick of the analog stick.

Visual Filtering affects the cockpit wheel/driver animation, making it smoother and more "realistic". When turned off, it reflects your actual steering position in real time, like in telemetry.

Opposite Lock Help boosts countersteer input to catch oversteer more quickly, but it does not prevent you from overcorrecting.

The last changes I made were to bump up the steering sensitivity from 0 to 25 and reduce speed sensitivity from 65 to 50, then turn off opposite lock help and increase filtering sensitivity from 30 to 50.

Adding linearity to the steering axis allowed more precise control of larger steering inputs, which meant I could loosen the speed sensitivity limit and access more countersteer, which allowed me to turn off opposite lock help and slow down the steering rate, making everything smoother.

 

[Speedster911]

I've been driving the 1M with its default setup. I know every person who shares their controller settings says, "zomg this fixed everything!" but I'll share mine if you want to try them. I've also saved this as a reference for what exactly the settings do (as best as I could figure out):

Spoiler: My Controller Settings

Input Mode: 3
Assists: ABS ON

Steering Sensitivity:   25
Throttle Sensitivity:   45
Brake Sensitivity:      45

These sensitivities control analog linearity.
0-49 is slower near the center/low end and faster at the end of the axis.
51-100 is faster near the center/low end and slower at the end of the axis.

Speed Sensitivity:      50
Filtering Sensitivity:  50

Speed Sensitivity controls the maximum steering lock based on your velocity.
Higher = less steering lock at high speeds.

Filtering Sensitivity controls the maximum rate (speed) of steering.
0 is fastest, 100 is slowest.

Advanced:                  ON
Soft Steering Dampening:   ON
Visual Filtering:         OFF
Opposite Lock Help:       OFF

Soft Steering Dampening helps soften sudden inputs, like a flick of the analog stick.

Visual Filtering affects the cockpit wheel/driver animation, making it smoother and more "realistic". When turned off, it reflects your actual steering position in real time, like in telemetry.

Opposite Lock Help boosts countersteer input to catch oversteer more quickly, but it does not prevent you from overcorrecting.

The last changes I made were to bump up the steering sensitivity from 0 to 25 and reduce speed sensitivity from 65 to 50, then turn off opposite lock help and increase filtering sensitivity from 30 to 50.

Adding linearity to the steering axis allowed more precise control of larger steering inputs, which meant I could loosen the speed sensitivity limit and access more countersteer, which allowed me to turn off opposite lock help and slow down the steering rate, making everything smoother.

This helps.. appreciate the input! 👍

Next objective: muster up the motivation to reinstall CARS

 

[Matej]

How would you compare PCARS to Enthusia Professional Racing? Every time I look at one of PCARS replays, cars act strangely when they're supposed to oversteer.

 

[Wolfe]

@Matej -- Refer to this post for an early impression and direct answer to your question, and this post after I spent more time with the game.

Oversteer is a weakness in PCARS1, but the manner in which you can initiate it and control it -- or fail to recover -- is better than what you get out of most other sims, in my opinion (physics-wise, independent of the somewhat crude analog stick steering). For me, the inaccuracy is not so much of a hindrance to enjoying the game compared to other sims.

I can't perceive the car's mass or center of gravity like you can in Enthusia, and it all feels somewhat "artificial" like a Forza game (or any ISImotor-derived game, which PCARS basically is) when compared to Enthusia or Live for Speed. However, in broad strokes, cars mostly react the way I expect them to. You can steer well-balanced RWD cars with the throttle, and FWDs can kick sideways when provoked or on cold tires. The few AWD cars behave very strangely, though; they're impossibly easy to manhandle around a circuit thanks to the odd flypaper-like behavior at high slip angles.

It will be interesting to see how much PCARS2 can improve upon this, and just a bit ago I found an excerpt of an interview that explains a bit of the work SMS has done to address oversteer simulation.

 

[Matej]

Thank you @Wolfe for thoroughly answering this, it explains everything. 👍

 

[Wolfe]

On the same subject but regarding PCARS2, here's something from the Q&A going on now:

@IanBell What is the most exciting new thing (to you) that you can tell us without rustling too many feathers with the marketing guys?

Livetrack 3.0 and all that we do with it is pretty epic but I'm probably more excited about the new tyre model and drivetrain/diff features that give us much more controllable handling over the edge. I love me some realistically catchable oversteer; being able to hold the rear out with throttle and steering input and we have that pretty much nailed now, even on a pad.

In addition to controllability, perhaps you could compare PCARS2 to the tendency in PCARS1 for cars to lose too much speed while scrubbing the tires at high slip angles, as in a drift?

For example, in what should be a fun and relatively low-grip car like the Toyota GT86, it couldn't hold a drift without dropping out of it for a lack of speed. Even cars that should have more than enough power to push on through a drift, like the BMW 1M Coupe, would still bog down and fall back to grip before long.

If I could chain-drift an entire lap of a circuit with the correct technique and line in PCARS2, without "faking" oversteer control like Forza does (connecting back to your comment yesterday about insisting on proper simulation handling even with a gamepad), it would go along way to bringing the physics to life for me. 👍

That is how it now operates and I agree it was an issue before.

With PCARS1 as a starting point, if oversteer is more controllable -- especially snap oversteer, which is welcome but harsh as it is now -- and scrubs speed more accurately to allow for full-length drifts, I see no reason to believe PCARS2 will be anything less than very satisfying to drive. I say that with the tempered expectation that it won't definitively steal the #1 crown in handling dynamics...but it should be a lot of fun.

 

[Ian Bell]

On the same subject but regarding PCARS2, here's something from the Q&A going on now:





With PCARS1 as a starting point, if oversteer is more controllable -- especially snap oversteer, which is welcome but harsh as it is now -- and scrubs speed more accurately to allow for full-length drifts, I see no reason to believe PCARS2 will be anything less than very satisfying to drive. I say that with the tempered expectation that it won't definitively steal the #1 crown in handling dynamics...but it should be a lot of fun.

It will.

 

[Wolfe]

It will.

It will be a lot of fun, or it will be #1 as well?

No disrespect intended; after twelve years of sims with roadcar handling dynamics that have never quite measured up to Enthusia Professional Racing or Live for Speed by my estimation, it has been too long since a new sim raised the bar. It's fortunate that you're in a position to avoid getting slaughtered by the press for the game being "too hard" like EPR, and your team works at light speed compared to the humble LFS team.

 

[super_gt]

after twelve years of sims with roadcar handling dynamics that have never quite measured up to Enthusia Professional Racing or Live for Speed by my estimation,

And Live For Speed will most likely get new tyre physics this year which will make it even better.

Hello @IanBell
Another problem with Project CARS 1 is that the cars have too much grip on the grass,here is an example:

I bought the game three days ago and since then I am driving BMW 1M Coupe at the Nordschleife.

Flugplatz
I went wide in that corner,the left front end rear tires were entirely in the grass(the right tires were on the asphalt) and the car did not move at all(remained completely stable)

Here is the real world(skip ahead to 2:00)

Will it be corrected in Project CARS 2?

 

[Rotorist]

I am on the trial of the Pagani version on steam which is free and recently got the full game (not the dlc) but during the trial, I can see that snap oversteer and a tendency of sudden movement of the cars in the Pagani version seem to be the plaque that make the game tough to get into it and invest time and effort to learn the cars and the physics better. Any suggestions from the more experienced fellows of GTP forum?

 

[Speedster911]

And Live For Speed will most likely get new tyre physics this year which will make it even better.

Hello @IanBell
Another problem with Project CARS 1 is that the cars have too much grip on the grass,here is an example:

Will it be corrected in Project CARS 2?

I've actually seen a vid of some Euro guy on YT running a comparison between AC and CARS; he pointed out as well how the cars remain stable stepping into grass or getting one of the tires off-track.