Detailed Car Physics -                               08-07-2014, 04:21

 

 

 

"Hello guys; 

I wrote a little comment about the physics and the wheel feel after 2 years of playing and I guess the main topic is this one and I want the message to be seen. So here it goes; some comments and a little experiment with Pcars:



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As an active professional kart driver and a keen simulatior fan, I have been a fan of the lotus 98T since my childhood and I have been testing it since I joined to wmd in 2012. This is going to be my first comment as I waited for a very long time to gather significant amount of experience with the game and the car and also to see the changes to the car. I believe now its my turn to comment a little =).

Before getting into the details, I can say that it improved a lot since spring 2012. But there are some stuff to mention... And the first one is kind of big..

I have been playing GTR2 since its release and kind of quit after getting pcars as I felt (and still feeling) as a part of the project because of the very sincere attire of the DEVs. I am using the legendary sidewinder ff and tried it with many sims. I tried other wheels as well (many), and I can easly say ms sidewinder is still the best in my opinion and according to my real life + sim experiences. Last night I tried something on 2 of my close friends. They drive pretty well in real world in my opinion and they have quite good street racing experience (You just can not stop those guys from doing those random races with random drivers. I told them many times but they just don't listen. I never race on streets.). So this was the deal; I had to find the ideal cars for them to test in GTR2 and PCars . The track was SPA and cars were 575GTC, Bac Mono and Lotus 98T. I wanted to know in which game they felt the most comfortable when they sit in front of the wheel in the first 6 to 8 mins only. The results were kind of interesting. I picked Pcars first for them to play.

For the rest of the text below, both of my friends gave the exact same reactions and did the same things. 

They were like my father, at first, playing with very low revs but it was something they were doing without knowing, like figuring out where the limits of the traction was. In Pcars, they were not able to catch the back of the car. But in GTR2 , they were able to (I also picked some more tail-happy cars as well but can't remember the models in both games). It was just like I predicted. It was a sad moment for me but I decided not to give up and sat down with my friends to fiddle with the wheel settings. 

At first, with the settings we adjusted, the wheel got a little bit lighter and the car was little less responsive. Then it got better, but still not that good like in GTR2. 

I am aware of the difference and I am also sad about the people who are really hitting Pcars wall to wall when comparing it to Assetto Corsa. The thing is, I uninstalled Assetto Corsa in 10 mins last week after install and don't know why. But I just did not uninstall Pcars =)... (I was a game editor, reviewer on tv and it was broadcasted live as well so I am pretty into gaming as you can expect.) 

CONCLUSION:

YES, I still feel disconnected to the car in Pcars... I want to have this game in perfect condition, perfect settings and adjustments when its off in fall 2014 but right now its just not right... I am crazy about driving, Its one of my biggest passions, and I drive at the limits. I own all the records in Istanbul (kart records) and have awards etc and I want this game to be my darling, my sweetheart when I come home tired and sit down to play. I played with many cars in Pcars, Lotus is my fav again, but I just wanted to see if that disconnection is still there.. Yes, its there. I tried it with many wheels hoping that the tech is 15 years ahead of my sidewinder ff and hoping that the game actually was really that responsive, but its not. 

I think the problem is at the point when you are trying to catch the backside in an oversteer. I just can not determine where to stop when turning the wheel to catch it. I can not pinpoint "this is the spot". When I am in an oversteer, to confirm that i am in control during an emergency (assuming I have enough road in front of me), fiddling with the throttle still should show some (we are talking of course below 0.150 sec reactions) "Hey man! I am here, you can save me!!!" kind of feeling. But it does not. Of course I saved the car from amazing situations in Pcars but they were because of my over-normal-real-life reactions and predictions. Sorry but there is NO place for predictions when it comes to the road feeling in my opinion. I believe It also has something to do with the throttle. Imagine you are pressing the throttle in a linear graph from 0 to 100. The graph should have characteristic curves even when the sensitivity is set to 0. I am not talking about effects of the turbo. In overall, the feeling type, the mechanics of the feeling (like how x86 and x64 works) is different, and reactions is like memorized (kind of you get used to after getting in the car in real world) and you adapt yourself to the physics of the game, not the real world.

I am very tired and I have to stop here but I would love to discuss this further if any of you have any questions. 

Best
D

Edit: Just popped into my mind: when in the oversteer, fiddling with the throttle should give more "Hey I am about to slide more, but I also have some traction, but you will lose "this much" traction if you push the throttle "this much". I need this information when driving the car.

Edit 2: Always used the default setup. Switched to nvidia surround and using 105 fov.

Edit 3: I know it will never be like the 100% real feeling, but if its kind of pushing me to go back to play GTR2 just because of this and nothing more, I would be very, very sad because of the 2 years I spent playing this beauty."

 

Last edited by rainmaker; 08-05-2014 at 03:52.