Project CARS 2 Initial thoughts (1 Viewer)

[Laiders]

Managed to get 1.5 hours in yesterday of single player. Very impressed with the physics, cars are a joy to drive now. The 330 P4 is great, love the way it moves about and feels very believable. Up there with the AC version in terms of enjoyment to drive.

The Escort at Dirtfish was a blast, it lets you balance and turn the car so nicely, beautifully setup round the hairpins without using the handbrake.

The gear shifting was very noticeable on the 330, you can't just slam it through the gears and have to learn to drive the car. Personally I'm very pleased with that, it's meant to be a simulation of reality, in reality gear shifts certainly aren't seamless and require quite a bit of technique and practice.

Graphically an improvement over PC1, with the default settings it chose on my DK2 the 330 at Donington wasn't quite as pretty as AC. The weather effects and lighting are both absolutely stunning but also feel quite authentic and believable.

 

[SlowBloke]

Well got up at stupid o'clock seeing DL completed.

Menus / VR / Navigation / Performance... major upgrade - really great job - navigating around in the rift is so good compared to the competition.

Sound - very nice - especially in the rift !

Physics - honestly I struggle describing to differentiate (or knowing wtf Im talking about ) between that and FFB so Ill just comment on FFB...

Using all defaults on Raw (immersive is awful on the CSW and immersive is nice on some cars and not others)

I got a quite dampened feeling on my CSW v2.5 - as if I had Dri turned to the negative - gopher described it as numb - I would agree to part of that description - dampened / numb / like there is something inbetween the road and the wheel that loses clarity.

Some cars dont feel connected to the road. Some are way too light FFB (ie Formula C was epicly good in PC1 but I was disappointed here).

The heaviness through the wheel on braking is too much for me - on full brake it feels the same as complete clipping and then there is no additional information coming at all until I release the brake. Is there a way I can reduce that drastically ? i like the effect if lightly braking so if I was able to reduce the strength of this it would help a lot.

I then downloaded Jack Spades file and am currently using stan/mid. Now the Porsche GT3 felt better remiscent of AC.

Final test DaytonRoad / LMP900 Bentley - well that sure as sh*t put a smile on my face - very very very nice - I cant say enough about this combo. FFB felt best Ive tried so far. Will need to revisit the GTE cars with the Jack Spade files and also try all the files...

AI - about 6 5 lap races in with various cars - sure they can be a little brain dead at times but I would say for the most part workable for me - although Im sure it could use a fair bit of TLC its not Armageddon like some people seem to feel imo.

I see what some reviewers say about the inconsistency between various cars FFB - some really are poles apart in terms of quality - so hopefully that is something that they just decided to work on after release because they ran out of time?

I do feel getting dialed in will be important here - if there are any recommendations for FFB for CSW v2.5 settings in game / Fanatec and which Jack Spade files to use Im all ears - it would be greatly appreciated.

*** Edit after 2nd play through
Jack Spades files helps a ton again to get the feel Im after - it sits kind of between old Project Cars and Assetto Corsa to me now - of course only a few cars and tracks so far but getting much happier now - also adding the Volume FFB to a dial works nicely to get each car where I want it.

The dampening is now gone with every car Ive tried - promising stuff

***** Last Edit - Im now officially won over.....
Finding some real gems now to the point where if that is all I drive its significantly better than the best I had in PCars 1 (and I LOVED some combos in PC1)

I tried a small amended version of jack spade file here and set FFB as per his recommendation:
http://www.assettocorsa.net/forum/index.php?threads/project-cars-2.42706/page-280#post-925086

Ferrari GTE 488 / Bathurst (which is much more doable in Pcars 2 - the dip is finally no longer a crap shoot whether you will do a 180) - seriously nice - I cannot recall anything Ive ever driven feeling as good as this on my CSW v2.5 including the best of AC.

The new tracks are just so good - Algarve, Daytona Road & Long Beach are all gems..

Sure we got issues and hopefully they will get worked out but even as is when its right - its the top of my pile now...

 

[Feanor]

So, I've put a couple of hours into PCars2...
The handling is a huge improvement over the first game and I really love it. The rear is so much better to control and bumps are so much better to handle. Still have to adjust myself to some changes like the breaking.
FFB was no issue for me. Standart settings were good and a few tweaks improved it even more. Never been a fan of heavy FFB so the tendency to be quite low is no problem for me.
I really like the many new features. The rolling starts, drivable pitlane, mulitclasses, multiple setups...
The highlight for me clearly is live-track. It is amazing well it shows the differences in track condition. It's very easy to adjust your driving to the amount of water on the track.
Even features like rallycross and snow, which I wasn't very exited about, turned out to be alot of fun.
All in all for me PCars2 is the new genre reference and a fantastic singleplayer game.

As for multiplayer...
...can't be bothered.
I'm done gambling for working servers after PCars 1...

PCars: great, when it works

 

[SharkyOB]

Multiplayer patch today seems to have helped. Definitely worth persevering!

 

[w0rthy]

Amazing

 

[Havocc]

After going VR i can't play on my monitor anymore, feels like i'm playing on my mobile phone even if it's 27"

 

[Feynman]

Finally went online this evening. Managed a win in my second race,Gt3 at Catalunya.
However, on the cooldown lap under computer control I was demoted to 2nd on lap 8 of the 7 lap race.
The "winners" fastest lap was 2 seconds slower, I don't think I saw the person in the top 10....oh dear.

 

[Gopher04]

Ok for me I've started with a blank canvas, using a m8's copy round his house, and after pretty much most of the evening, I'm staring to like it more, really starting to tune in the FFB now, so from the game settings, Jack Spade, and coming up with a setting on the CSW 2.5, it's all starting to fit, it's not perfect but it's nearly there. I seem to appreciate the graphics abit more now, but what is it and modern games coming with a shite load of jaggies? I've managed to get them to a reasonable level now, so I'm fairly happy there.
Also I'm starting to understand the tyre model better, and I'm really starting to like it alot..
So I've tested a fair amount of the car's and tracks, Longbeach was always going to be a favourite for me, but glad to see Sugo back on the map again as well, and of course having Daytona as well is a biggie, and the best fun I've have had tonight is throwing the Formula Renault around Longbeach, what a blast, really like this car, anyways will be joining you guys back on track again in the very near future, and I will be a very gentle and calm Rodent from now on actually I don't have much choice, so see people I know soon and meeting the new ones...

 

[Jonno]

Well now my anoying issues have all but gone i can honestly say im enjoying this game now i was a tad quick to react and for that i apologise...im loving this atm only anoying thing is peer to peer never wants to work but apart from that i have the ffb set to someting comfy for me and it drives and handles really well im actually looking forward to upcoming events..

 

[Born2BSlow]

The more I play, the more I love it.

If Ben Collins whispers seductively in my ear about Senna any more though, that's getting annoying.

I'm noticing the buggy bits less as I notice more I like. I took the F50 down the main straight at Fuji with Jack Spades mid no extra road noise files and the wheel nearly rattled my teeth out. I'm going to try the low files because reducing volume doesn't help. Back at RAW with added volume to preserve my teeth for now.

 

[m4nu]

Ok for me I've started with a blank canvas, using a m8's copy round his house, and after pretty much most of the evening, I'm staring to like it more, really starting to tune in the FFB now, so from the game settings, Jack Spade, and coming up with a setting on the CSW 2.5, it's all starting to fit, it's not perfect but it's nearly there. I seem to appreciate the graphics abit more now, but what is it and modern games coming with a shite load of jaggies? I've managed to get them to a reasonable level now, so I'm fairly happy there.
Also I'm starting to understand the tyre model better, and I'm really starting to like it alot..
So I've tested a fair amount of the car's and tracks, Longbeach was always going to be a favourite for me, but glad to see Sugo back on the map again as well, and of course having Daytona as well is a biggie, and the best fun I've have had tonight is throwing the Formula Renault around Longbeach, what a blast, really like this car, anyways will be joining you guys back on track again in the very near future, and I will be a very gentle and calm Rodent from now on actually I don't have much choice, so see people I know soon and meeting the new ones...

Who are you? And what did you do with gopher???

 

[FuBii]

Not sure if anyone's had this issue, but when saving a setup as an online session finishes... the game just freezes, constantly stuck in an endless loop of trying to save & not being able to select or even talk in the chat box.. Kinda annoying when you qualify first by over 3s...
Also noticed that the car settings in the race don't always match with what you've saved during practise or qualy...

 

[SlowBloke]

Wish the setups would just be saved as simple text / xml files or so - I found them in the Project Cars 2 folder but unreadable :/

 

[Gopher04]

Who are you? And what did you do with gopher???

You are a cruel cruel man Manu..

Love to know what fps people are getting as well, on my specs lets say around Longbeach on average hitting around 65fps, I know it's a hungry track, but it's a good test, have most on high settings, and AA & AF running all the way to the top,, also I've turned of PP as it seems to make the jaggies less visible for some reason.

 

[Cluck]

@Gopher04 - re. 'AA all the way to the top', does that include the downsampling setting? If so, that's equivalent to pCARS1's DS9X setting and, put another way, your GPU is rendering a 5760 x 3240 image (given that you're on a 1920x1080 monitor).

 

[Gopher04]

AF 16x
Post AA smaa ultra
SS ultra
I found PC1 more effective for jaggies, plus I could always use inspector as well alongside, PC2 isn't so effective cleaning up the jaggies, and inspector doesn't seem to help neither..
What the highest fps eater in PC2?

 

[Invincible]

AF 16x
Post AA smaa ultra
SS ultra
I found PC1 more effective for jaggies, plus I could always use inspector as well alongside, PC2 isn't so effective cleaning up the jaggies, and inspector doesn't seem to help neither..
What the highest fps eater in PC2?

EnvMap and reflections. And maybe the grass.

 

[Gopher04]

Cheers Invincible..
Keep on getting silly size patches today, I've have had 4 come up at 0 bytes and one just now for 886kb..

 

[Invincible]

Cheers Invincible..
Keep on getting silly size patches today, I've have had 4 come up at 0 bytes and one just now for 886kb..

Steam Workshop stuff. Don't what is up with that either... I have this for a couple of other games too.

 

[FuBii]

A few bugs cropped up in tonight's race, in lobby two anyway...
pitstops not fully repairing cars, causing smashed windscreens to stay smashed, broken lights remained broken, pit exit line penalty's were handed out when drivers were not even on the lines.
Pitstops themselves were not working fully for a lot of people regarding tyres,
pit lane entry, lots of people given drive through penalties for no reason. Think @steveg200 had about 6 drive throughs in the space of 25 minutes.