C.A.R.S. - New PC community funded game available

[Richie200sx]

I'm playing on Xbox One which has a lot of controller issues. Steering not resetting and making you crash into a wall, as you have no control, isn't fun. The settings that people are putting on the forums are making it even worse when I try them. I don't wish to spend hours trying to get the settings refined enough to actually play it. I bought a racing game, not a game development game. Really not happy

Ah fair enough. I'm playing it on the PS4 and a few bugs have cropped up, but to be expected I suppose.

[Cluck]

I'm playing on Xbox One which has a lot of controller issues. Steering not resetting and making you crash into a wall, as you have no control, isn't fun. The settings that people are putting on the forums are making it even worse when I try them. I don't wish to spend hours trying to get the settings refined enough to actually play it. I bought a racing game, not a game development game. Really not happy

Mike, see my post a few posts up from yours. The controller bug has finally been replicated in-house by the devs (none of their systems picked it up before release, not at Bandai Namco, Microsoft or the external QA house) and they've got a fix currently going through testing before it can be released by Microsoft. Nobody, not least the devs, are happy that this bug crept in so sit by for the patch to get released.

It's also frustrating because none of us on WMD could have access to XBOX or PS builds to help test. It 'might' have been picked up with a wider test base, but with all the other places testing it, it is odd that nobody experienced it before Microsoft signed it off as OK.

As others have said elsewhere, underneath those controller bugs, there's a bloody brilliant game waiting for you. Stick with it if you can .

[Cluck]

I've been given permission to post this outside of WMD. The topic of the XBOX controller problem cropped up again in one of the review threads, as it was highlighted as one of the few 'cons' in a pros v cons at the end of a review. One of the key devs replied with the following (this is not edited in any way from his post)

Unfortunately there is some truth in the XB1 "unplayable" posts - whether it is patches not installing properly (or at all), or gamepad firmware issues, some people are definitely having major pad sensitivity issues. It's a bit of a nightmare as it's largely out of our control. Plus of course there is the "steering lock" issue which is quite apparent with some cars (although we have fixed this so "just" need to wait for the patch to be tested and approved to put that one to bed)

In short, as soon as Microsoft clear the patch for release, you should have it and it should bring back some control for you. By all means, if you're still not happy then take the game back. That would be a shame, as I said before, as it is a cracking game. I'm not saying that due to my own vested interest (let's face it, one or two extra or lost sales here or there are not going to make a big difference in the scheme of things to me personally) but because I have never played a game almost every day for over 3½ years and still get a big kick out of it. Yes, it was in development during that time, but even now I cannot see me getting bored for a long while especially with the content coming to the game in the future .

[piman2k]

It's great that you guys are trying so hard to fix it, but it's already put me off buying it especially at almost £50. When it comes way down I'll look into it but it's now too much of a gamble. I agree that 'these thing happen' but it's not really acceptable IMO for the flaws to be so fundamental and widespread.

[Paul C]

I bought it for PS4 yesterday (been away since launched) and had some problems initially, first it kept giving me an error code when trying to load the game and then it just sat saying 'joining multiplayer session' and wouldn't go into lobbies but for some reason it sorted itself out and all ok now.

Have to say I really like it so far, I do feel that it's a little too strict on being able to throw the cars round though, I was in a Pagani round Oulton Park and if I went round a corner at more than 40-50 it would just understeer off which I'm pretty sure wouldn't happen in a hypercar.

[fullmetalgasket]

Which Pagani? Are more to the point, which tires?
Not knowing how much experience you have with the better end sims (P-CARS isn't quite up there but it's close enough for this post to apply) I don't want to sound too much like teaching granny to suck eggs - But it's not uncommon when coming from the likes of GT, Forza etc for people to have issues with cornering for no obvious reason.
The problem being simply that due to the lack of G forces people come in too hot and on/over the limit of tire grip. As most/many Supercars are naturally understeery (Fez 458 & Mc MC4-12 are some of the only main examples I can think of that aren't - due to computermabobs and wizardry being used to make them drivable) you'll simply slide off into a tree if going to fast.
Brake a little earlier and get some weight shift on the go and you should find the car much faster, especially on the exits which is where it counts

Also after travelling at warp factor 5 in a sim slow corners tend to feel REALLY slow, several corners at Oulton really are 40-50MPH in a road car on road tires - they just feel faster when you're doing a trackday. Aside from Asseto Corsa as it feels so alive, I can't really think of a sim that really imparts low-speed seat of pants driving that gets that close to real life so it's not really CARS' fault


For myself I had a pleasant surprise when I fired the game up on the weekend and tried the Career mode (first time in ages as I got annoyed by the woman wittering away at me everytime I loaded it during the dev period, thanks to constant updates ).
I've decided to run with driving aids set to 'real life' which means traction control is now a simple RLTC option where I can define how much slip I want and near-enough squirt and go.
I dislike doing this but it's great as a work around for the not-so-great FF. As I don't have to try and catch utterly barmy drifts which no proper feel in the wheel anymore.
The AI behave like racers, occasionally blind, sometimes over aggressive, but generaly good at making room once they get within a few inches of your car - unless you scare them properly when they'll leave you plenty of room.
Graphics are ace (We already knew that) as is sound and I'm getting very good FPS despite a slightly old hat GFX card so I'm actually quite enjoying it.
Apart from the karts that is

[Paul C]

It was the Huayra, drove the Atom around Monaco and it was awful.

I have to say I F'in love the game even if there are some problems, I'd give it a solid 9/10 and it's only gonna get better with content and updates, the thing that makes it better than other drivers out there is the tracks, having tracks like Monaco, Oulton Park, Spa, etc separate it from the other which have the same old Silverstone, The Ring, Laguna Seca, etc




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[fullmetalgasket]

This is why I love GPL - NO other sim can ever hope to come close to the number of tracks available for it. Even when you include all the really bad and rushed ports stolen directly from it

I'll have a go in Hayuaaraurhraaaaa and see what it's like, 40-50 MPH sounds about right to me for a real car in the hairpins still, or at least the 2nd one as the 1st is banked
And I remain convinced that Atoms are actually horrible to drive as it's so rare to find a well driven one on trackdays. I've passed supercharged ones when I had my 150Bhp Westfield, and A N other (didn't see what flavour) in the 180 - at Oulton as it happens - plus there was a very slow one at Cadwell earlier this year.
7 type cars - even the really shonky looking kits are really rarely driven so slowly so I personally think Atoms are just hard to drive fast/on edge, or maybe FBT's theory that they're all bought by bikers who are too old to bike is true
One way or the other perhaps CARS is just really good at simulating this?

[fullmetalgasket]

OK, It is a bit understeary off throttle/brakes. To make make it more responsive simply drop the pre-load on the diff and reduce the viscous lock to about 20-25% Combine that by allowing more slip from the traction control and you'll find it points where you want it too much better
Remember brakes are as important as the throttle and steering wheel on the limit, this is something that GT etc really don't seem to put across.
Was having rather a lot of fun in it trying that - sounds awesome!

[Paul C]

To be fair for a console sim I think it's great, yeah there are prob better ones for the PC but I console game so it's perfect for me, I haven't played with all the car setups so only judging it from the defaults.

I think I'm going to get a Thrustmaster T100 cos it's only £90-100 for a force feedback which isn't bad as I can't justify spending £300+ for a Fanatec or T300/500


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[_Jamie_]

Tim, In regards to the FF its all adjustable and IIRC the standard settings are a little low.


Im enjoying it even with all the bugs and glitches on the XBO. Ill pick up a proper wheel at some point for it though

[fullmetalgasket]

Yeah, Cluck tells me people have it running nicely. I just haven't achieved it yet so have to go back to GPL/AC to get my fix for now

Edit: took this earlier - looks pretty shonky but I guess it'll have to do

[Cluck]

The FFB is different to most sims because absolutely none of it is canned, it is all driven directly from the tyres and suspension model. That means that when it is tuned to your wheel 100%, it is the best FFB out there bar none. Getting it tuned, well, that's a complete mystery to me, I don't understand a single word some of the guys have said about it .

In other news, AMD are supposed to be releasing a driver tomorrow that will hopefully restore some of the performance. All I am going to say here is do not believe everything you read on the internet and that AMD are playing a VERY dangerous game at the moment. If tomorrow's driver doesn't fix things then it's going to get very ugly, very fast.


Anyhoo, as for the Ariel Atom, that car is bagfulls of fun. If my internet wasn't so crap I'd upload a video of some laps at Bathurst. But since it would take all night to upload them, I'll just say that the Atom V8 is one of my favourite roadcars in the game.

Glad some of you guys are enjoying it. There are problems, we're all aware of that on both the official and the development forum. As I've mentioned before, none of us members got sight of the console versions, we were only ever involved in the PC side of it.

If you get a chance, find a decent racing league to join. I'm in with The Gentlemen's Club (TGC for short) and we ran a 70-minute race (time accelerated to simulate 24-hours) at Nordschleife last night, in GT3 and GT4 cars. Superb amounts of fun, before the race chatting, the race itself and then the post-race chat. Wednesday will be another 60-minute race, this time at Imola .

[sideways14a]

Its not just amd cards but kepler ones as well, the 780 slower than a 960???

[Cluck]

Somebody on the WMD forum that I chat to regularly on Steamchat has a 780Ti and it is not a lot slower than my 980 - we've run identical settings and he's within 10% of the performance of my card (MSI 980GTX). That said, this was about 3 months ago. It is possible that NVidia have released a driver that, like AMD, has unintentionally caused a problem with the previous gen boards.

SMS have released an official statement regarding a lot of the lies (yes, lies) that have been spread in the last 10 days (although predominantly) in the last 2-3 days. Worth pointing out at this stage that this solely relates to the PC version. The consoles are fine because, well, they run on AMD hardware .

For the past few days, erroneous information posted on Reddit and other websites has spread misinformation with regards to Project CARS’ performance on systems using AMD GPUs.

To correct the wrongful assumptions regarding Project CARS’ performance on AMD GPUs, the MADNESS engine and the degree of involvement from our third-party technical partners, Slightly Mad Studios feel compelled to point out the following facts:

• Project CARS is not a GameWorks product. We have a good working relationship with NVIDIA, as we do with AMD, but we have our own render technology which covers everything we need.

• NVIDIA are not "sponsors" of the project. The company has not received, and would not expect, financial assistance from third party hardware companies.

• The MADNESS engine runs PhysX at only 50Hz and not at 600Hz as mentioned in several articles

• The MADNESS engine uses PhysX for collision detection and dynamic objects, which is a small part of the overall physics systems

• The MADNESS engine does not use PhysX for the SETA tyre model or for the chassis constraint solver (our two most expensive physics sub-systems)

• The MADNESS engine does not use PhysX for the AI systems or for raycasting, we use a bespoke optimised solution for those

• The physics systems run completely independently of the rendering and main game threads and utilises 2 cores at 600Hz

• The physics threading does not interact with the rendering, it is a push system sending updated positional information to the render bridge at 600Hz

• Any performance difference with PhysX would not be reflected with differences in comparing rendering frame rates. There is no interaction between PhysX and the rendering

• Overall, PhysX uses less than 10% of all physics thread CPU on PC. It is a very small part of the physics system so would not make a visual difference if run on the CPU or GPU

• Direct involvement with both NVIDIA and AMD has been fruitful in assisting with the game performance at various stages of development. Both AMD and nVidia have had access to working builds of the game throughout development, and they have both tested builds and reported their results and offered suggestions for performance improvements.

• Testing of the game with different driver versions has produced a variety of performance results on both nVidia and AMD hardware. This is entirely to be expected as driver changes cannot always be tested on every game and every card, and this is the reason why both companies produce game-specific driver profiles, to ensure that they can get the best out of the game.

• Project CARS does not use NVIDIA specific particle technology - the system we use is a modified version of the same technology we used on the Need for Speed : Shift and Shift Unleashed games, and was entirely developed in-house. The reason the performance drops when there are a lot of particles on screen is simply because processing a large number of particles is very expensive.

• In game there are a number of company logos used, e.g. on billboards around tracks. These are simply there as recognition for the work done by those companies in helping to promote Project CARS at a range of events. The companies include :
- NVIDIA
- Panasonic
- Oculus Rift

EDIT : Nice screenshot FMG

[Paul C]

I've just got a 500 second speed penalty on Spa for a slight track cut, WTF!!!!

This is why I don't PC game, so much f&cking around with drivers and hardware specs for slightly better visuals


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[sideways14a]

You gotta be joking.
Kepler's performance has utterly tanked across the board, the 780ti has went from about 5-10% faster than the 290x to just a smidgen quicker than the bloody 280x (in The latest Witcher 3 benchmarks). Thats Nvidia for you though, new cards come out and they stop developing the drivers for the old ones to make the new ones look much faster.

Anyway, has this new driver appeared from AMD - or is there even one? Wouldnt be surprised if there was nothing the driver could do in the first place.

[Cluck]

A leaked driver from AMD has been tested and it's 20%+ faster than the current driver. Even the December 2014 driver is faster than the current one by some margin. Still not up to the performance of the Windows 10 driver, but it's a step in the right direction. But AMD have done nothing wrong of course .

[Pete C]

I would like to thank the creators of this game for persuading me to finally dust off my Xbox One and... go back to playing Forza 5

[Paul C]

Lmao, two words showed lack of gaming knowledge there mate, Xbox and Forza hah


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