Racing games (PC)

[Equoowe]

I really want to see how drifting turns out in Project CARS. I can't find any videos on youtube at the moment of people drifting. I know it generally take a little while to get the tuning right and learning the ropes of the game. But it would help make my decision of buying the game now, or later if I know how good the game is for drifters.

Drifting and oversteer feeling in most sims is horrible, Live for Speed is still king, FFB is just so much faster, more accurate and doesn't give you fake effects like many other games do, like the feeling of understeer which is so bad in the drifting mods for Assetto Corsa or Rfactor.

I hope Dirt Rally step up and make the FFB on the level needed for a good rally sim but we are yet to see if that will happen, just have to wait in see and with it only being in early access a lot could change.

[Bigbazz]

Drifting and oversteer feeling in most sims is horrible, Live for Speed is still king, FFB is just so much faster, more accurate and doesn't give you fake effects like many other games do, like the feeling of understeer which is so bad in the drifting mods for Assetto Corsa or Rfactor.

I hope Dirt Rally step up and make the FFB on the level needed for a good rally sim but we are yet to see if that will happen, just have to wait in see and with it only being in early access a lot could change.

Why not just drift the AC BMW's with the drift modifications? Since those are made by professionals with real world data and handle accurately, while the user made drift mods are made by dudes in their houses with some Wikipedia and whatever fudging is required to make the cars drift. LFS is so old, when I fire it up after playing some of the newer stuff (Rfactor 2 or Assetto Corsa especially) it's night and day for me.

As for Dirt Rally, FFB is terrible at the moment but the devs made a post about it, basically saying that the FFB had not even really been worked on at all since Dirt 3 and that it was their next priority. It shows though, the physics are not too bad and the game really is something special... But the FFB is something you have to learn to live with at the moment, it's not good at all.

[Equoowe]

Why not just drift the AC BMW's with the drift modifications? Since those are made by professionals with real world data and handle accurately, while the user made drift mods are made by dudes in their houses with some Wikipedia and whatever fudging is required to make the cars drift. LFS is so old, when I fire it up after playing some of the newer stuff (Rfactor 2 or Assetto Corsa especially) it's night and day for me.

The BMW's in AC still aren't great, it's an issue with the game itself, I should have said it's even worse in mods because it's still an issue with the AC cars.

LFS is old but it's still king when it comes to FFB and with drifting the difference is huge between AC and LFS, when the FFB isn't accurate it's very noticeable and makes it very hard to drift like I would in real life and be consistent.

[Bigbazz]

The BMW's in AC still aren't great, it's an issue with the game itself, I should have said it's even worse in mods because it's still an issue with the AC cars.

LFS is old but it's still king when it comes to FFB and with drifting the difference is huge between AC and LFS, when the FFB isn't accurate it's very noticeable and makes it very hard to drift like I would in real life and be consistent.

I think we're gonna have to agree to disagree on that one!

[Twoddle]

Did a little digging about Dirt Rally, it seems they are going more towards a realistic Rally game for once, stating that they want their game to stand the test of time and not be throwaway like previous titles. That is great and all but I personally thought Dirt 2/3 were amazing games, in typical Codemasters fashion they were abandoned by the developer shortly after release but the fanbase stayed quite strong.

Wasn't Dirt mass boycotted because of the controversial copy protection which permanently messed up some CD ROM drives reportedly?

I bought Dirt 1 but when Dirt 2.. 3.. 4 came out shortly afterwards overpriced and with dirty copy protection methods I couldn't be arsed with it, they just wanted more money too fast.

Trackmania gives me the best bang for my buck as do the old driving games like Richard Burns Rally which you can still find in some stores at bargain bucket prices. And to be honest, looking at the videos posted above not much has improved IMO.

[Bigbazz]

Wasn't Dirt mass boycotted because of the controversial copy protection which permanently messed up some CD ROM drives reportedly?

I bought Dirt 1 but when Dirt 2.. 3.. 4 came out shortly afterwards overpriced and with dirty copy protection methods I couldn't be arsed with it, they just wanted more money too fast.

Trackmania gives me the best bang for my buck as do the old driving games like Richard Burns Rally which you can still find in some stores at bargain bucket prices. And to be honest, looking at the videos posted above not much has improved IMO.

Dirt 2 came out in 2009 and was an all-round offroad racing game with an X-games theme to it, featuring Rally Cross/X-games and US Rally drivers, it ran on GFWL which we all know is a piece of shit but the game itself was an excellent racer, I have no idea about CD-DRM as I bought it on steam. Dirt 3 came out in 2011 and had dropped the general off-road theme and was focussed on Rally, Rally Cross, Hill Climb and a new feature Gymkhana.. Honestly I thought Dirt 3 was awesome, it again ran on GFWL initially but now runs on Steamworks.

Dirt Rally is the new game (as in 2 weeks new)... It's basically Dirt 4 but they wanted to emphasise the fact that it's a game focussing purely on Rally. It's not really like the previous two games, firstly because it's an early-access community development project (I think probably because they are short on cash) and more importantly because it's much more of a hardcore authentic rally game. It has real rally stages and much more simulation style driving physics, similar to Richard Burns Rally in that respect.

I collect racing games so I have pretty much everything out there. Network Q Rally, Rally Trophy and Richard Burns Rally are classics that proudly sit in my collection. Dirt Rally is the real deal though, it's the best rally game Codemasters have ever released.

[Nhiosis]

Project cars is a physics mess right now, would not recommend

assetto corsa is hands down the most realistic game out there

[Attackrabbit]

I'm keeping my eye on Dirt Rally and it's certainly looking good If Codemasters hadn't fucked up Grid 2 and to a lesser extent Grid Autosport I would've already bought it. Will probably give in pretty soon though

[Bigbazz]

I'm keeping my eye on Dirt Rally and it's certainly looking good If Codemasters hadn't fucked up Grid 2 and to a lesser extent Grid Autosport I would've already bought it. Will probably give in pretty soon though

What I've read from Codemasters employees (a little digging goes a long way) is that the company was in the shits, the leadership at the top was failing the guys below. Their CEO is no longer there and suddenly they are releasing a Rally simulator for the first time ever (or trying to, it's not 100% there yet).. I know that the company was struggling and losing a lot of money and I think this has actually given them an opportunity for a dedicated team to build something meaningful.

They talked about how they were fed up of developing "throwaway" games, and I think GRID 2 absolutely fell into that catagory. I was massively surprised by Dirt Rally, but be warned when I say that the game is tough, it's really tough... You need some driving skills if you want to succeed and I would not recommend it to someone not well versed in racing games... Also wouldn't recommend it to those not used to early-access titles, hold out if you want the full production finished product.

[Rukh]

Just a quick note-- if Forza / Gran Turismo are too stiff and simulatory for you, avoid project cars completely.

[melodramocracy]

Just a quick note-- if Forza / Gran Turismo are too stiff and simulatory for you, avoid project cars completely.

This is kind of funny, since most hardcore sim guys say to stay away from PCars due to it being too arcade-ish

[Bigbazz]

Project Cars is definitely not "arcadish" compared to Forza/GT, but "simulation" hardcore guys tend to call almost anything that isn't their favourite title an arcade game. If you asked me is PC as realistic as Assetto Corsa, no it isn't. But if you go into that game thinking it's an arcade style racer you're going to shit your pants.

I've been playing PC set to "Pro" difficulty and the experience is often quite frustrating because some of the cars if anything are overly punishing and not very predictable.. It's quite common to be driving around a corner and make a small correction and the car spits you off the track out of nowhere, the game doesn't always communicate very well when this kinda stuff is gonna happen, where as some of the other simulation titles tend to do so really well, making them much more predictable.

The quality of the cars is really not consistent, some cars are really fantastic while others are questionable and description swings both ways (too forgiving, too fast, too punishing, too unpredictable). But if we're comparing this to Forza and GT, I'd probably say Project Cars is more on the simulation side than those titles, or at least does a general better job. Though I can't speak for Forza 5 as I've not played it, definitely when comparing to FM4, GT5/GT6.

[Rukh]

This is kind of funny, since most hardcore sim guys say to stay away from PCars due to it being too arcade-ish

That's just them e-peening on the internet. Unfortunately the race community is really terrible.

[Master Guns]

I'm a fan of The Crew on PC.

[Equoowe]

I think we're gonna have to agree to disagree on that one!

So you drift in real life and don't think LFS is better then AC?

[Bigbazz]

So you drift in real life and don't think LFS is better then AC?

Properly? No I don't, I don't really even like the sport. I've a bit of track day experience, raced karts as a kid/teen and I've owned some fast cars but never cared for drifting. Can I do it though? I can hold a powerslide no bother in a RWD car, but as I've said It's not really my thing to be "drifting" as a sport.

But that's a thing, a driving simulator can't just do one thing and be bad at other things.. A proper driving simulator needs to do it all, otherwise there has to be a flaw. I find that the "edge of grip" in LFS is not very realistic, it's typical of that oldschool simulation. The main point of reasoning about AC is that the wheel feel is more realistic, rather than being more efficient for a specific job. The thing about tyres is that they will always attempt to follow the line of least resistance, so when you're doing a powerslide/drift the car will do most of the counter-steering correction for you and the main job is to balance the car on the throttle, AC doesn't assist you in any additional manner here, it merely works as predicted.

About drifting, in AC I can drift those BMW's all night long with a fair amount of ease, I think there was an acheivement to reach some ridiculous drift combination that took somewhere along the lines of 40mins+ where you had to keep a combination going, on my attempt I ran out of fuel and never tried it again. The difference is that I could do it in LFS too, but that the general physics and the general feel of the game are dated, it feels like all those old sims from a time past like GTR2 and Rfactor, and those feel old and lacking in precision and fidelty and their tyre models were based on flawed theory (Pacejka), something that has been abandoned by all the leading modern sims.

It's hard to really explain thoughts on gameplay of an absolute relic of a game, but compared to todays games I think of LFS as a good driving simulator and a really good drifting simulator. AC on the other hand is a really good drifting simulator by extension of just being a really good driving simulator, they have taken things forward by a number of steps with this sim in terms of dynamic tyre modeling (especially for that on the edge, 99/100% tyre capability behaviour) and general vehicle dynamics. But I'm not really a physicist, engineer or game developer so for me to try to explain it to you is folly when I don't fully understand it myself, other than getting into a car and thrashing it about.

Obviously like I said, I'm perfectly happy to agree to disagree on this point, because there is no point in getting into petty arguments over driving sims, they go nowhere.

Drifting and oversteer feeling in most sims is horrible, Live for Speed is still king, FFB is just so much faster, more accurate and doesn't give you fake effects like many other games do, like the feeling of understeer which is so bad in the drifting mods for Assetto Corsa or Rfactor.

Just to use an example here, that feeling of super lightness in the steering wheel during understeer you get, that there is one of the flaws of the old tyre modeling and is not a realistic representation of what understeer feels like in the real world, the wheel doesn't just unload like that in such an extreme way.