Project C.A.R.S

[flipswitch]

That's why you should have gone all digital, would have saved you money in the long run whenever you decide to jump ship.

[t0mby]

Oooh Lestat, what have we 'ere then?

Project CARS_20150507221415.jpg

Tracks 01.jpg

Tracks 02.jpg

[t0mby]

Tracks 03.jpg

Tracks 04.jpg

[t0mby]

That's why you should have gone all digital, would have saved you money in the long run whenever you decide to jump ship.

Can't buy second hand digital games. Silly boy.

[pilonv1]

Holy fuck I suck at this. Starting to get better but I really need to sort out the controller settings

[lestat]

pCARS64_2015_05_07_21_24_17_093.jpg

Above are the settings on I settled on, with weather effects in 20 car races it holds 60fps 95% of the time, the 5% is there are some tracks are worse than others and if the FOV has all the cars in view the framerate can drop to 50s. Game can really smash the GPU, with the above settings I get round 60-80% gpu util, tracks like the azure coast have dips that aren't gpu/cpu related so some other bottleneck, issue there. Races with 35 cars crushes the framerate no matter what you use for GPU settings, seems like some other weird bottle neck.

Overall I find the visuals a little disappointing, the wet races look good with a lot of spay and effects but daytime races look so flat and sterile, the game lacks GI to give the environment depth and make it look less gamey. You get shimmering in the shadows in the distance, a lot of track side doesn't look all that great. Game still feels a bit rough.

The physics model is better than the shift games but I can still feel the origins of the shift series in there, the braking for instance, in shift the brake line indicators and AI braking could be ignored for quite a bit then you could hit the brakes and funny enough you could slow the car in time, same thing can be done here. The tyre physics are grip grip grip grip, no grip out of control, there is still that floaty feeling in there. It plays well on the pad and controls much better than shift games did but the racing feels boring probably due to the brain dead AI, won a few races just not feeling it.

No tubby on Bathurst = Fail.

[lestat]

A few quick pics with the above settings.

pCARS64_2015_05_07_21_49_32_555.jpg

pCARS64_2015_05_07_21_50_30_434.jpg

[t0mby]

Brake line. Stick to Forza.

In Shift if you changed the car setups (there were a few sim sites that had some amazing configs) the cars handling improved drastically. I went through and painstakingly changed many settings and I expect this game will be the same. You're in the deep end here lestat, this ain't no console only "sim light" game that we've been used to over the years, it's designed for fine tuning to cater for peoples takes. Give it time and there will be some great settings out there. Also, doesn't help using a pad. I tried Bathurst, 5 laps in a Ford Sierra and I could'nt even finish 2 laps with all assists off, manual and full damage. The game is designed for a wheel. True Story.

[Click to see hidden content]

Sounds like this game is the new Grand Prix Legends. When that came out there wasn't a PC on earth that could run it at high everything and took awhile before any could.

[t0mby]

Nabbed this from Gaf for ya lestat, dunno if it interests you or not.

Backed up this one since 3 years ago. Especially last 6 months performance doubled for AMD graphics card users (like me). Also I am using these as starting parameters.

-novr -skipcrowds -pthreads 4

novr disables vr detection.
skipcrowds , well .. skips crowds
pthreads physics threads default is 2, you can 1,2,4 . Max is 4.

There also these which I never tried.

Launch 32bit -x86
DirectX 9 -dx9
Frame rate limiter -fpscap 60

[lestat]

Brake line. Stick to Forza.

In Shift if you changed the car setups (there were a few sim sites that had some amazing configs) the cars handling improved drastically. I went through and painstakingly changed many settings and I expect this game will be the same. You're in the deep end here lestat, this ain't no console only "sim light" game that we've been used to over the years, it's designed for fine tuning to cater for peoples takes. Give it time and there will be some great settings out there. Also, doesn't help using a pad. I tried Bathurst, 5 laps in a Ford Sierra and I could'nt even finish 2 laps with all assists off, manual and full damage. The game is designed for a wheel. True Story.

[Click to see hidden content]

Sounds like this game is the new Grand Prix Legends. When that came out there wasn't a PC on earth that could run it at high everything and took awhile before any could.

Brake line serves no purpose in this game because the stopping distances are very lenient, unlike forza where if you push your braking distance you're easily off the track. I just feel the tyre physics modelling here are still behind games like Forza. There is certainly fun to be had here if you want to tweak, visually the game is pushing hardware more than it should possibly due to the rendering setup, this looks like a traditional forward renderer which suffers a lot as soon as you add more lights/shaders due to overdraw(Crysis 1). The foliage here also is a weak point, it looks terrible, comparing Bathurst on Forza5, there is significant difference in road side grass and tree detail, PCars looks so flat because of it, Forzas baked version of the track looks so much better.

[t0mby]

Lol@comparing foilage. Why the hell are you focusing on the fauna when you're racing? Are you driving that slow? Was the tyre physics modelling in Forza 1 very good? I can't remember. How much money do you think is invested in Forza for each sequel do you think? How much was invested in PCars? Have you played many other simulation racers on PC at all such as Assetto Corsa? DTM Experience? Game Stock Car Extreme? iRacing? rFactor2? Grand Prix Legends?

[lestat]

I've played a lot of those games over the years t0mby, other people on gaf are bringing up the same disconnected feeling, people with FFB wheels are complaining there is practically no feedback and the controller is the same, very little feedback.

I'm not complaining I can't win or it's too hard, actually I'm finding the game pretty easy to win(AI is stupid and you can brake late), it just feels vague/disconnected and I have to purely work of visual cues.

Interesting that you bring up money, because yes forza 1 to 5, the physics modeling have improved dramatically and huge sums of money have been invested to get to where we are today, PCars still has this low budget feel to it, maybe my expectations of them being able to compete with the big boys with far larger budgets was unrealistic, but RRP is the same so maybe those expectations aren't so far off. I feel sorry for console buyers, I'm hearing things are a lot worse for them

They have a base to work off here, but it remains to be seen if people will continue to throw money at them, this feels thrown out like driveclub was(had the same delay issues like driveclub too), first impressions and all that.

[t0mby]

The FFB issue is a weird one, I read the same at Gaf last night and this is something that doesn't sound like was an issue during the hundreds of betas that have been pumped out since 2012. I certainly never had any issue on the couple I tried. I'm playing the PS4 version atm but I have only been playing the Kart Championship so haven't had too many complaints yet. Only other race I've tried is the 12.8 mile race along the California Coast in an Escort RS1600 and that's hard as nails with no assists/braking line etc. Just finished my first Championship and got an offer for the GT350 class so will be giving that a go shortly.

*edit*
Just saw this, not sure how big of a part this plays but....

Are you guys giving the tires enough time to warm up? Or waiting for the track to rubber up?

I find that the FFB really firms up once everything is up to temperature.

Also, the fuel load has a huge impact on wheel weight for me in this game. More than any other racing game I've played.

[Burnzoire]

fauna

*flora

[t0mby]

Stupid auto correct.

[Kangawallaby]

Ok im fully converting to the dark side. Will this sytstem run this at max or near max 1080p 60fps. http://cdn.msy.com.au/SYSTEMS/bee/system/pax2.pdf

[t0mby]

Recommended Specs.

CPU – 3.5 GHz Intel Core i7 3700, 4.0 GHz AMD FX-8350
GRAPHICS – nVidia GT600 series, AMD Radeon HD7000 series
MEMORY – 8Gb RAM, 2Gb VRAM

That PC you listed exceeds those so it should run it easily. Even my old GTX460 card from 2010 ran the Beta fine with a dozen cars on the track.

[t0mby]

Try these pad settings. Just tried them for the BMW M1 and worked awesome.

Steering deadzone 6
Steering sensitivity 10
Throttle deadzone 20
Throttle sensitivity 50
Brake deadzone 10
Brake sensitivity 30
Speed sensitivity 70
Controller filtering 30
Controller input mode 2
Advanced on
steering dampening on
Visual wheel filtering off
opposite lock help off

[flipswitch]

Pad referring to controller? Perhaps my biggest gripe playing on the DS4, feels like it was meant to be played with a wheel. I'll give them a go.

[t0mby]

As with all proper racing sims it is meant to be played with a wheel but with limited options available for the PS4 we have to make do for now. Apparently SMS will have an announcement coming soon regarding Logitech wheel support for the PS4 but I am not holding my breath.

*Edit*
Found these ones too, will try them in the morning when I get home from work.

My Recommended Settings
Steering dead zone: 0
Steering Sensitivity: 30

Throttle dead zone: 0
Throttle Sensitivity: 50

Brake dead zone: 0
Brake Sensitivity: 30

Clutch dead zone: 0
Clutch Sensitivity: 45

Speed Sensitivity: 75
Controller Filtering: 50

Force Feedback: 100
Advanced: Off
Explanation Of Settings
This section is what each of the settings relating to the controller do, or at least my understanding from playing around trying to find the best set up.

The dead zones control how big an area that your controller won't register any input for, the higher the number the more you will have to move the joystick or trigger before the game registers your action. I personally haven't noticed a huge difference between 0 and 100, but if you have an older controller which is a bit more worn you may want to increase these if your springs are holding the trigger or joystick out all the way anymore.

Sensitivities are all in the name, how sensitive the game will be to your actions, except for speed sensitivity which has been horribly named.

Controller filtering sensitivity is a filter on the input coming from your controller, so a higher value means will result in a smoother experience because the minute tiny adjustments get averaged out to become smooth. A lower value means that there is no filtering so the game uses your raw input, any little change in your controller the game will register.

Speed sensitivity is similar to the controller filtering sensitivity and does a similar thing although filters the speed of your movements to make them smoother. So if you do make a tiny adjustment with a flick of the controller it won't register the whole flick just the average of the movement, which basically allows you to make those tiny adjustments on straights without wobbling side to side overcorrecting.

Force feedback controls the vibration of your controller I personally haven't noticed it making any differences between 5-100, with 0 turning off vibration all together.

Controller input mode just cycles through some appalling default configurations.
Requirements for Pro Handling
I'm still working this section out 100%, but currently these are the settings which are default when you pick the pro handling option and I can't see any other settings that would affect the pro rating for handling.

When you first start Project CARS you should be given a dialogue box to choose which type of handling you wanted, all this initial choice did was set some of the many options available. If after making that decision you want to change to pro handling or you want to try and get the "I am the 5%" achievement (currently untested) then these are the settings that should let you do that.

GAMEPLAY - Authenticity settings
Steering assistance: No
Braking assistance: No
Driving assists allowed: All
Anti-lock brakes: No
Stability control: No
Traction control: No

Damage: Full damage
Mechanical failures: Yes
Tire wear: Real
Fuel usage: Real
Auto start engine: Yes

Flags & penalties: On

GAMEPLAY - Onscreen guides and display settings
HUD Level: Full (Mirror Off)
Guiding line: No
Turn Indicator: No
Track map: On
Cycle lap info: Off

CONTROLS - Control scheme
Gearing - Manual

[flipswitch]

So you've been using the DS4 all the time?

[t0mby]

So you've been using the DS4 all the time?

Yes, as I said when you asked about my backlog, my G27 is in a box in Qld waiting for me.

[unfnknblvbl]

I've just given this a blast on PC - got a 50% off voucher for being a backer.

This is better than Forza in every way, except for the car & track variety. I can see I'll have to invest in a proper playseat now that I'm on my own...

[t0mby]

I've just given this a blast on PC - got a 50% off voucher for being a backer.

This is better than Forza in every way, except for the car & track variety.

Track variety? There's 24 different tracks not counting the variations. Make sure you try Azura Coast and California Highway.

Also, as a backer, not sure which level tier it is but if you link your PayPal to your WMD account you should start reaping the rewards next month.

[pilonv1]

Absolutely loving this now using some controller settings similar to the ones tomby posted. Can get near 60fps at 1440p with my 970 with FXAA on high and most things on ultra. There's some performance drop at the start of races or when some weather hits but nothing major and is back to near 60 again. I've only raced 4-5 tracks though so there might be some more demanding ones later.