Project CARS 3: General Discussion Thread - Out August 28th, 2020 on XB1/PS4/PC

  • Thread starter jake2013guy
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Don't know if its been highlighted yet but you can choose from every Formula E team. With each driver number and tag as well.
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Scaff
Comparison across the whole series, with a Formula Rookie at Oulton Park in the rain.
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It's crazy how good PC1 looks compared to the other two. I know they had to cut some CPU/GPU cycles left and right to make room for the physics AND keep a somewhat decent frame rate on consoles, but dang....

But even on PC the differences are there. PC1 really has these clean graphics and PC2 is always a bit blurry and more coarse in that sense. I think that's a result of that dynamic seasonal thing that applied to the trees and brushes etc. And like I said a couple of pages back: night lighting is not it's forté so to speak. ;) Which is worsened by the harsh lighting from the headlights.

In the end it's a design decision though, FM7/FH4 went with a static lighting model and physics-based rendering which means awesome pictures, but no day/night cycle and prerendered shadows.


MagpieRacer
PC3 feel disconnected compared to Forza.
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On PC it felt really sluggish and disconnected until I turned off VSYNC.
 
NLxAROSA
It's crazy how good PC1 looks compared to the other two. I know they had to cut some CPU/GPU cycles left and right to make room for the physics AND keep a somewhat decent frame rate on consoles, but dang....

But even on PC the differences are there. PC1 really has these clean graphics and PC2 is always a bit blurry and more coarse in that sense. I think that's a result of that dynamic seasonal thing that applied to the trees and brushes etc. And like I said a couple of pages back: night lighting is not it's forté so to speak. ;) Which is worsened by the harsh lighting from the headlights.

In the end it's a design decision though, FM7/FH4 went with a static lighting model and physics-based rendering which means awesome pictures, but no day/night cycle and prerendered shadows.




On PC it felt really sluggish and disconnected until I turned off VSYNC.
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Xbox. Not possible to do that. And its more about the feel of the driving than anything graphical.

I have found an option to disable the 2! Type of shakes. Hud shake and camera shake. Turning the camera shake to low or off actually kills some of the motion blur thankfully as the camera moves around less so less blur is generated. Much more pleasant.

Also, thanks to @Scaff for mentioning the PA music while racing, I thought I could hear something, almost sounds like a broken car while driving but now I know its that I can't unhear it.
 
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Zeitoss
If they keep this trend, PC4 on next gen consoles will be on par with first Pole Position.

Good job SMS, well done!
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Well I think you're getting ahead of yourself there with PC4 lol... the way they sequel fast and furious movies we could be in for stink loads of fast n furious games... I can barely contain my excitement froth!
 
AlexWilmot
Seeing this and the Corvette comparison... I think I should get PC1
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NLxAROSA
It's crazy how good PC1 looks compared to the other two. I know they had to cut some CPU/GPU cycles left and right to make room for the physics AND keep a somewhat decent frame rate on consoles, but dang.....
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In a nutshell.

PC: Looks and sounds best
PC2: Live Track has the biggest impact
PC3: Most accessible, doesn't look, sound or drive as well as PC or PC3

MagpieRacer
Also, thanks to @Scaff for mentioning the PA music while racing, I thought I could hear something, almost sounds like a broken car while driving but now I know its that I can't unhear it.
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It insanely annoying, I even had to check the replay and race music was at zero and then drove around slowly to double-check what it was.
 
Hey all,

I wanted to share some thoughts about the game. To start off with I've been playing racing games since the mid-90s with Gran Turismo 1 and have dabbled in both PC and console games. I have used a wheel for PC sims sparingly, so how games play with that accessory has never been a significant focus of mine. I do have a pretty substantial background in aviation operating multi-engine Boeing aircraft (flight engineer) & aeronautical engineering and have trained on extremely high-end flight simulators for work and software like FSX/P3D and X-Plane in my personal time. This matters a lot as I approach sims with the mindset that was developed over my career, which is they are simply a tool to be used to understand potential behavior and traits but are never going to be a 1:1 representation of reality. Typically professional simulators do well within the envelope of aircraft performance but get fuzzy on the edge case scenarios like aerial refueling or degraded aircraft performance. In my experience, consumer sims have the same issues. And that's OK! The moment you start translating complex physical interactions with a dynamic environment through a gamepad, a wheel, or a joystick you must understand that real-world replication is essentially difficult to replicate in all regimes of performance. We play these games to get close to the experience. I more or less work to understand how it feels to play versus true performance from real world to two little thumbsticks. I think flight sims tend to get closer to the real thing than racing games -- the relationship between car and a hard surface is very difficult to translate. It's so dynamic.

Anyhow, I've played about several hours of PC3 on the XBX. The complaints I have are game performance isn't amazing. Screen tearing is persistent in both Framerate and Resolution modes. Better in Framerate mode, but not by a significant degree. During hot laps, the game performs better, but that's to be expected with less load on the system to manage. Visually, the game is not a looker, so that and the performance issues don't add up. I recall PC2 on the XBX being a better visual show and performer.

As to how the game handles via gamepad, I'm referencing my time using the Corvette C8 and the Ferrari 458 speciale (that may not be the super correct name for it) using zero assists or ABS On/Traction Low. I find the game communicates the car's behavior to the player in very clear ways. It's easy to understand the relationship of power to oversteer/understeer and how to correct either condition. If there are back end assists working that's OK to me, as the feel is good and communicative. When handling a car well, I know how I'm managing that and when the car crashes or I commit to a mistake, I understand why and can correct that. I don't mind the helping hand because we're translating a facsimile of real-world performance to a gamepad thus some elements of the input/output behavior have to be tweaked to make the controls palatable. I find that the cars work in ways I expect i.e. if I drive on the grass I expect the car to be pulled towards the wheel in the grass, and the game does that. I can balance the car's weight easily with a combination of on-throttle and brake input. Slides are easy to catch, as they're intuitive to understand why they occur, how to cause them, and how to correct. Overall, it's a fun and engaging experience on the gamepad, and one I find rewarding as the vehicles feel pretty lively but in a way that is expected and intuitive. Someone earlier in the thread stated that Forza's driving model is very understeer-y and that is exactly how I feel. To me that doesn't translate as accurate or very fun (two very different things in my mind btw -- you can have both or one or the other depending on the intent of the product).

I think what's important to know is that high performance vehicles such as powerful cars or airplanes are genuinely easier to control than one would imagine. The difficulty is controlling them well in a repeatable, consistent fashion. Difficulty does not equal realism in most cases.

Overall, I think PC3 is a fun game that drives exceedingly well for gamepad users. It's rewarding, intuitive, and most importantly very fun tossing cars around or shaving tenths off a lap. I would say it's more engaging than a Forza 7 and a lot more lively than a GT Sport, which I felt was very muted. For the wheel users, I don't know how that translates for you.

Other complaints I have: the AI isn't great. Overly aggressive and a bit simple. Career mode is no frills but better than PC2 -- PC3 is genuinely a better game in that aspect. The UI is fine. Functional and a bit more dolled up than PC2. I like it better than Forza 7, which was dreadfully slow, obtuse, and difficult to do normal things like setting up custom events with the constant loading and bizarre menu layouts. Anyhow, I hope someone finds this interesting and informative. Thanks.
 
stuffguy
Hey all,

I wanted to share some thoughts about the game. To start off with I've been playing racing games since the mid-90s with Gran Turismo 1 and have dabbled in both PC and console games. I have used a wheel for PC sims sparingly, so how games play with that accessory has never been a significant focus of mine. I do have a pretty substantial background in aviation operating multi-engine Boeing aircraft (flight engineer) & aeronautical engineering and have trained on extremely high-end flight simulators for work and software like FSX/P3D and X-Plane in my personal time. This matters a lot as I approach sims with the mindset that was developed over my career, which is they are simply a tool to be used to understand potential behavior and traits but are never going to be a 1:1 representation of reality. Typically professional simulators do well within the envelope of aircraft performance but get fuzzy on the edge case scenarios like aerial refueling or degraded aircraft performance. In my experience, consumer sims have the same issues. And that's OK! The moment you start translating complex physical interactions with a dynamic environment through a gamepad, a wheel, or a joystick you must understand that real-world replication is essentially difficult to replicate in all regimes of performance. We play these games to get close to the experience. I more or less work to understand how it feels to play versus true performance from real world to two little thumbsticks. I think flight sims tend to get closer to the real thing than racing games -- the relationship between car and a hard surface is very difficult to translate. It's so dynamic.

Anyhow, I've played about several hours of PC3 on the XBX. The complaints I have are game performance isn't amazing. Screen tearing is persistent in both Framerate and Resolution modes. Better in Framerate mode, but not by a significant degree. During hot laps, the game performs better, but that's to be expected with less load on the system to manage. Visually, the game is not a looker, so that and the performance issues don't add up. I recall PC2 on the XBX being a better visual show and performer.

As to how the game handles via gamepad, I'm referencing my time using the Corvette C8 and the Ferrari 458 speciale (that may not be the super correct name for it) using zero assists or ABS On/Traction Low. I find the game communicates the car's behavior to the player in very clear ways. It's easy to understand the relationship of power to oversteer/understeer and how to correct either condition. If there are back end assists working that's OK to me, as the feel is good and communicative. When handling a car well, I know how I'm managing that and when the car crashes or I commit to a mistake, I understand why and can correct that. I don't mind the helping hand because we're translating a facsimile of real-world performance to a gamepad thus some elements of the input/output behavior have to be tweaked to make the controls palatable. I find that the cars work in ways I expect i.e. if I drive on the grass I expect the car to be pulled towards the wheel in the grass, and the game does that. I can balance the car's weight easily with a combination of on-throttle and brake input. Slides are easy to catch, as they're intuitive to understand why they occur, how to cause them, and how to correct. Overall, it's a fun and engaging experience on the gamepad, and one I find rewarding as the vehicles feel pretty lively but in a way that is expected and intuitive. Someone earlier in the thread stated that Forza's driving model is very understeer-y and that is exactly how I feel. To me that doesn't translate as accurate or very fun (two very different things in my mind btw -- you can have both or one or the other depending on the intent of the product).

I think what's important to know is that high performance vehicles such as powerful cars or airplanes are genuinely easier to control than one would imagine. The difficulty is controlling them well in a repeatable, consistent fashion. Difficulty does not equal realism in most cases.

Overall, I think PC3 is a fun game that drives exceedingly well for gamepad users. It's rewarding, intuitive, and most importantly very fun tossing cars around or shaving tenths off a lap. I would say it's more engaging than a Forza 7 and a lot more lively than a GT Sport, which I felt was very muted. For the wheel users, I don't know how that translates for you.

Other complaints I have: the AI isn't great. Overly aggressive and a bit simple. Career mode is no frills but better than PC2 -- PC3 is genuinely a better game in that aspect. The UI is fine. Functional and a bit more dolled up than PC2. I like it better than Forza 7, which was dreadfully slow, obtuse, and difficult to do normal things like setting up custom events with the constant loading and bizarre menu layouts. Anyhow, I hope someone finds this interesting and informative. Thanks.
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Really interesting. And its nice to see someone come at it with a bit of knowledge that doesn't say 'this isn't exactly what the car would do in real life, so it's a terrible game'.

I could never put my finger on what was wrong with GT Sport, but muted is an excellent description!
 
Benny44
Really interesting. And its nice to see someone come at it with a bit of knowledge that doesn't say 'this isn't exactly what the car would do in real life, so it's a terrible game'.

I could never put my finger on what was wrong with GT Sport, but muted is an excellent description!
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Thank you! Yea I'm overall pretty positive on GT sport, as it does do a lot of what PC3 does, but what bothered me is how deadened the sensation of handling a vehicle felt. We're talking about high performance vehicles operating close to or at the edge of performance. There should be some drama, as these situations influenced by so many external factors like road surface, wind, temperature, etc. That's one thing I would love to see in racing sims -- the influence of wind as a factor. I would imagine that would be difficult to communicate to a player though without a visual HUD element or a competent force feedback wheel.
 
Spending more time with it today, I guess it wasn't a complete waste of money buying it for the Xbox S. While I gave up on the career early on due to the performance and graphics suffering under certain race conditions. Custom races with the hood cam are playable enough on many tracks even with large grids, plenty of screen tearing but I'm finally enjoying the game. I still say wait for sale though.
 
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stuffguy
Hey all,

I wanted to share some thoughts about the game. To start off with I've been playing racing games since the mid-90s with Gran Turismo 1 and have dabbled in both PC and console games. I have used a wheel for PC sims sparingly, so how games play with that accessory has never been a significant focus of mine. I do have a pretty substantial background in aviation operating multi-engine Boeing aircraft (flight engineer) & aeronautical engineering and have trained on extremely high-end flight simulators for work and software like FSX/P3D and X-Plane in my personal time. This matters a lot as I approach sims with the mindset that was developed over my career, which is they are simply a tool to be used to understand potential behavior and traits but are never going to be a 1:1 representation of reality. Typically professional simulators do well within the envelope of aircraft performance but get fuzzy on the edge case scenarios like aerial refueling or degraded aircraft performance. In my experience, consumer sims have the same issues. And that's OK! The moment you start translating complex physical interactions with a dynamic environment through a gamepad, a wheel, or a joystick you must understand that real-world replication is essentially difficult to replicate in all regimes of performance. We play these games to get close to the experience. I more or less work to understand how it feels to play versus true performance from real world to two little thumbsticks. I think flight sims tend to get closer to the real thing than racing games -- the relationship between car and a hard surface is very difficult to translate. It's so dynamic.

Anyhow, I've played about several hours of PC3 on the XBX. The complaints I have are game performance isn't amazing. Screen tearing is persistent in both Framerate and Resolution modes. Better in Framerate mode, but not by a significant degree. During hot laps, the game performs better, but that's to be expected with less load on the system to manage. Visually, the game is not a looker, so that and the performance issues don't add up. I recall PC2 on the XBX being a better visual show and performer.

As to how the game handles via gamepad, I'm referencing my time using the Corvette C8 and the Ferrari 458 speciale (that may not be the super correct name for it) using zero assists or ABS On/Traction Low. I find the game communicates the car's behavior to the player in very clear ways. It's easy to understand the relationship of power to oversteer/understeer and how to correct either condition. If there are back end assists working that's OK to me, as the feel is good and communicative. When handling a car well, I know how I'm managing that and when the car crashes or I commit to a mistake, I understand why and can correct that. I don't mind the helping hand because we're translating a facsimile of real-world performance to a gamepad thus some elements of the input/output behavior have to be tweaked to make the controls palatable. I find that the cars work in ways I expect i.e. if I drive on the grass I expect the car to be pulled towards the wheel in the grass, and the game does that. I can balance the car's weight easily with a combination of on-throttle and brake input. Slides are easy to catch, as they're intuitive to understand why they occur, how to cause them, and how to correct. Overall, it's a fun and engaging experience on the gamepad, and one I find rewarding as the vehicles feel pretty lively but in a way that is expected and intuitive. Someone earlier in the thread stated that Forza's driving model is very understeer-y and that is exactly how I feel. To me that doesn't translate as accurate or very fun (two very different things in my mind btw -- you can have both or one or the other depending on the intent of the product).

I think what's important to know is that high performance vehicles such as powerful cars or airplanes are genuinely easier to control than one would imagine. The difficulty is controlling them well in a repeatable, consistent fashion. Difficulty does not equal realism in most cases.

Overall, I think PC3 is a fun game that drives exceedingly well for gamepad users. It's rewarding, intuitive, and most importantly very fun tossing cars around or shaving tenths off a lap. I would say it's more engaging than a Forza 7 and a lot more lively than a GT Sport, which I felt was very muted. For the wheel users, I don't know how that translates for you.

Other complaints I have: the AI isn't great. Overly aggressive and a bit simple. Career mode is no frills but better than PC2 -- PC3 is genuinely a better game in that aspect. The UI is fine. Functional and a bit more dolled up than PC2. I like it better than Forza 7, which was dreadfully slow, obtuse, and difficult to do normal things like setting up custom events with the constant loading and bizarre menu layouts. Anyhow, I hope someone finds this interesting and informative. Thanks.
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Thanks for this. I have a question about the career mode since that is strictly the reason I played PC1 and PC2. The previous titles made each stop feel like a real race weekend with the option to practice and qualify. Is qualifying still present in PC3? Also while not perfect, I enjoyed how the AI could be turned up to be aggressive and also quick in PC2. Can the aggressiveness and difficulty of the AI still be adjusted and if so are they a true challenge?

Thanks,
 
stuffguy
That's one thing I would love to see in racing sims -- the influence of wind as a factor.
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Hi there, you know that FM6 tried that and introduced a drafting system that you could actually feel? I don't know how accurate it really was, but you really could feel the wind lifting and moving your car, specially in the ovals and the Mulsanne straight. Too bad FM7 dropped that.
 
Choppa'
Thanks for this. I have a question about the career mode since that is strictly the reason I played PC1 and PC2. The previous titles made each stop feel like a real race weekend with the option to practice and qualify. Is qualifying still present in PC3? Also while not perfect, I enjoyed how the AI could be turned up to be aggressive and also quick in PC2. Can the aggressiveness and difficulty of the AI still be adjusted and if so are they a true challenge?

Thanks,
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Yeah there is separate controls for difficulty and aggression. I've been on second hardest difficulty and 3rd highest aggression, the aggression is good but I'll need to go up to to top level for difficulty as I'm beating them by 3 or 4 seconds comfortably at the moment.

For reference I usually play F1 2019/2020 around 81.
 
Choppa'
Thanks for this. I have a question about the career mode since that is strictly the reason I played PC1 and PC2. The previous titles made each stop feel like a real race weekend with the option to practice and qualify. Is qualifying still present in PC3? Also while not perfect, I enjoyed how the AI could be turned up to be aggressive and also quick in PC2. Can the aggressiveness and difficulty of the AI still be adjusted and if so are they a true challenge?

Thanks,
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No qualifying and I believe the AI can definitely be adjusted in those two manners. I have't done so myself. The career mode is very similar to Driveclub, if you ever played that. PC3 is most assuredly not about that motorsport angle any more, and I understand the frustration people have. SMS and Bandai/Namco really should've called this entry something else. It's a poor move for consumers and the series.

Nacho Libre
Hi there, you know that FM6 tried that and introduced a drafting system that you could actually feel? I don't know how accurate it really was, but you really could feel the wind lifting and moving your car, specially in the ovals and the Mulsanne straight. Too bad FM7 dropped that.
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I did yea! Drafting is pretty interesting, although I suspect that the implementation of that feature varies as developers can likely code it to be a very simple trigger like being within a certain distance of a car thus enabling a slight power boost or something extremely physics-laden like a wind flow simulation.
 
MagpieRacer
Yeah there is separate controls for difficulty and aggression. I've been on second hardest difficulty and 3rd highest aggression, the aggression is good but I'll need to go up to to top level for difficulty as I'm beating them by 3 or 4 seconds comfortably at the moment.

For reference I usually play F1 2019/2020 around 81.
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Please let me (us) know how they do on the hardest difficulty setting. Depending on how comfortable I was with the car (never quite found a controller setup I loved like in GT Sport), I would usually run around 80 or so in PC2. If PC3 has better gamepad controls along with challenging AI, I am going to purchase it.
 
One element I do love about the game, which is getting unfair criticism, is the brake, apex, and accelerate icons in lieu of a traditional racing line. That was something I genuinely loved about GT Sport and am glad to see SMS implement the idea as well. Although I feel it's still not perfect, as the icons seem fixed per corner and track despite the player vehicle. Ideally, the implementation would be dynamic based on vehicle performance and adjust to show best case driving line into and out of a turn. As it currently is, it's a helpful aid in providing directional guidance for a player new to a track to understand critical points in the driving line. But it's just that -- directional, so there is room for someone to experiment with racing lines and find a more suitable one for the car they're playing with. I think that's not too bad of a flaw as long as the player understands what the predetermined SMS-placed icons are representing and useful for.
 
stuffguy
One element I do love about the game, which is getting unfair criticism, is the brake, apex, and accelerate icons in lieu of a traditional racing line. That was something I genuinely loved about GT Sport and am glad to see SMS implement the idea as well. Although I feel it's still not perfect, as the icons seem fixed per corner and track despite the player vehicle. Ideally, the implementation would be dynamic based on vehicle performance and adjust to show best case driving line into and out of a turn. As it currently is, it's a helpful aid in providing directional guidance for a player new to a track to understand critical points in the driving line. But it's just that -- directional, so there is room for someone to experiment with racing lines and find a more suitable one for the car they're playing with. I think that's not too bad of a flaw as long as the player understands what the predetermined SMS-placed icons are representing and useful for.
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That was one of the first things i turned off i don't need no icons telling me how to drive. :sly:
 

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