Whoah. Mind blown.
After the recent chat about grid presets I just tried loading up an old preset of mine, one I've not done in ages: a GT3 race against 19 other AI GT3 cars at Spa, all different vehicles, a combo of Kunos cars and one-LoD mods, at midday. It's a combo I used to run effortlessly in VR on my current hardware before the CSP, and it was always a smooth and dependable race.
Just now it was a bloody slideshow.
I then did something quite radical for me: I disabled the CSP and Sol and ran the same race again. It was smooth as silk. And not only that but it looked fantastic. I'd forgotten how good vanilla AC used to look before Sol. Everything looked a lot 'cleaner' somehow, and sharper.
I've been under the impression (and I think it's a common misconception) that, with various CPU and GPU optimisations that the CSP adds, AC runs just as well with Sol and the CSP as it did in vanilla state. That's certainly not the case for me based on tonight's experience. I don't think I've noticed my drop in performance over the past 18 months or so because it's been stealthy and incremental, getting imperceptibly worse and worse with every new update. And it kind of explains why I've gone from being a big-grid AI racer to almost exclusively being a hot-lapper, without really realising I was doing it.
I haven't even had a lot of CSP effects active, yet without me even realising it was slowly, surely, and surreptitiously affecting my experience.
I need to seriously reevaluate my settings now and cut out as much of the bloatware as I can, and I may well come to the conclusion that I don't really need all the bells and whistles that the CSP can add. The core experience should be the most important thing and I think I've lost sight of that over the past year or so.
Dusk and dawn are nice but I don't really enjoy driving at night as it looks pretty crappy in VR, so I'm sure I'll be more than happy sticking to daylight. The new smoke and particle effects are lovely, but they're just eye candy. Do I notice trees swaying in the breeze as I'm driving around? Probably not. Will I miss raindrops on the windscreen? I actively avoid them anyway, so no. Will I miss 3D grass in its current form? Absolutely not. I already prefer it without.
I think I've got a little caught up in the excitement of seeing amazing technical achievements, of witnessing things that I didn't think AC was possible of doing, and in the process I've maybe lost sight of THE most important thing: the thrill of the race against a pack of opponents and a smooth, immersive experience.
Lots to ponder over the coming days, and plenty of testing ahead. Hopefully I'll reach some sort of compromise with just a few key CSP features still able to be active, but I think ditching Sol and Weather FX might well be the first thing to try.
But just take my word for it. At 1080p with my desired graphic settings, the Spa benchmark averages about 23-25fps, but 40-42fps when CSP is enabled. If I drop the resolution to 720p (I know, I know... it's a 2011 laptop though - I'm already pushing her hard), I can get 50-60fps on most Kunos tracks, and rarely under 40fps on heavier mod tracks like LA Canyons. I've seen upwards of 70fps on low detailed tracks converted from other games like GPL and rFactor. The lower resolution also helps my potato from getting CPU spikes from time to time. It's a compromise for sure, but I'm learning to live with it. But anyway, here are a few screenshots showing my CSP settings. Anything not shown is default, and you can see which modules are disabled on the left.
I'd look to your settings - something, shader with grass etc. doesn't bog my system down with 20+ cars.
