• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Project CARS (crowdsourcing) racing sim by Slightly Mad Studios (fully funded 3.75M)

MaLDo

Member
So what's your point here? You compare direct feed screenshots to rendered captures? Then tell it SEEMS this or SEEMS that and still have the guts to position yourself like some kind of white knight that stands in front of the PR info to make real truth prevail? A member of the SMS Render Staff comes and explains in detail what they have been doing and you can only label that as PR info? Really?

You know what? I think you don't have any kind of respect for the labor of the people that create videogames. I do, and that's why I find so baffling that you dare to say such nonsense and then try to come as something you clearly are not. You have only created some controversy based on flawed proofs, and even though you knew they were flawed, you still did your show to prove... what?

Like someone said, it's no wonder not many high profile devs visit public forums.


Sorry man but you're really wrong here. I appreciate the information from SMSRenderTeam more than anybody. In fact, you'll find similar debates in WMD forums. If I ever replied, you can assume that's simply because the explanation was not enough. At no time have I disrespected anybody or in these forums or the other one. In fact, I will talk with Martin using WMD because their feelings about this don't match my intentions. Gamersyde put direct feed footage from console version and I felt it could be time to make direct comparisons. DF was too fast, I was too fast. Carry on.
 

danowat

Banned
Anyone know when Season Pass pricing info and content details will be revealed?

No more information than the "leak" in early March

Car Pack "racing icons"
Extension "Audi Ruapuna Speedway"
Car Pack "new for old"
Extension "Red Bull Ignition"
Car Pack "Aston Martin"
Extension "Lotus Classic"
Car Pack "Renault Sport"
Extension "Toyota & Mitsubishi Macau"
Extension "Ford Oval Racing"
Additional benefits include:

Submit a discount compared with the separate purchase prices
A week's early access so that you can be a nose ahead of your competition forever.
50 exclusive car coats, allow you to bring your team affiliation to express and make a good impression on the track at the same time.
 

Mascot

Member
No more information than the "leak" in early March

Car Pack "racing icons"
Extension "Audi Ruapuna Speedway"
Car Pack "new for old"
Extension "Red Bull Ignition"
Car Pack "Aston Martin"
Extension "Lotus Classic"
Car Pack "Renault Sport"
Extension "Toyota & Mitsubishi Macau"
Extension "Ford Oval Racing"
Additional benefits include:

Submit a discount compared with the separate purchase prices
A week's early access so that you can be a nose ahead of your competition forever.
50 exclusive car coats, allow you to bring your team affiliation to express and make a good impression on the track at the same time.

Ah, thanks. I guess these 'extensions' are career events based around those cars (like the three preorder events)?
 

MaLDo

Member
After contact with a SMS dev in WMD I want to note again than my comparisons were done using gamersyde footage (direct feed videos). This source material has compression and more important, is from a build that doesn't correspond with the version that will be available in PS4 in a few days.

They have improved graphics since then, and added new effects absent in gamersyde footage.

I apology if it caused negative effect on someone about the game but those comparisons never had the goal of take for granted the quality of the game in the final version with day one patches applied that will differ from current available footage.
 

hurricanepilot

Neo Member
With all due respect to Maldo, comparing screenshots of various PC quality settings and the PS4 under similar conditions can produce results that aren't necessarily true even if they appear to be visually.

Is it "infinitely more relevant" in the sense that uninformed individuals can enter the thread, look at the screenshot comparison, and come away with a conclusion that may not be true? Of course, but the rendering team's technical explanation can help one understand why the images in Maldo's comparison appear the way they do.

To say that an explanation more accessible to the layperson is more valuable by virtue of its accessibility is a flawed conclusion. Many technical systems are involved in creating the (moving) image produced; distilling those aspects into a static image comparison as Maldo has done causes nuance to be lost.

In Maldo's AF comparison, he highlighted what he believed to be an AF setting of 2x. The rendering team explained the various separate levels of AF applied in producing the PS4's image.

If I or anyone else is interested in comparison pictures for reasons of making a decision about which to throw my money at, the technical explanations are irrelevant. It looks like it looks, the why of it is informative but, IMO, unimportant.

Knowing that AF on the road is a multi-layer process that works at different qualities per layer doesn't change the fact that the PS4 image in Maldo's comparison image looks like the PC at AFx2.
 

Mascot

Member
If I or anyone else is interested in comparison pictures for reasons of making a decision about which to throw my money at, the technical explanations are irrelevant. It looks like it looks, the why of it is informative but, IMO, unimportant.

Knowing that AF on the road is a multi-layer process that works at different qualities per layer doesn't change the fact that the PS4 image in Maldo's comparison image looks like the PC at AFx2.

See the post a couple above yours. The analysis was flawed.
 

hesido

Member
Can anyone confirm if the ghosting seen in every video (30fps, 60fps, youtube, gamersyde) is due to bad encoding settings or bad capture, if not, whether the issue is resolved in the latest builds??

The ghosting I mention can be clear in any part where the car is moving, and it's always there. You can see two examples in my post in another thread:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=162236215&postcount=382

Btw, although the gifs are slowed down, it's always noticable in normal speed 60fps videos OR 30fps videos on youtube or Gamersyde.
 

carl32

Banned
Can anyone confirm if the ghosting seen in every video (30fps, 60fps, youtube, gamersyde) is due to bad encoding settings or bad capture, if not, whether the issue is resolved in the latest builds??

The ghosting I mention can be clear in any part where the car is moving, and it's always there. You can see two examples in my post in another thread:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=162236215&postcount=382

Btw, although the gifs are slowed down, it's always noticable in normal speed 60fps videos OR 30fps videos on youtube or Gamersyde.
According to some people on GT Planet who have played it at Game stores today (UK) say the ghosting is visible when playing and i think ( iv'e only quickly read it) it appears to be a PS4 issue.
 

hesido

Member
According to some people on GT Planet who have played it at Game stores today (UK) say the ghosting is visible when playing and i think ( iv'e only quickly read it) it appears to be a PS4 issue.

That's a real shame. I hope they patch this out. It's a deal breaker for me. (Then again, not being able to use my wheels on Ps4 because of that force feedback license issues is one of the biggest deterrents for me to get into this gen's racing.)
 
That's a real shame. I hope they patch this out. It's a deal breaker for me. (Then again, not being able to use my wheels on Ps4 because of that force feedback license issues is one of the biggest deterrents for me to get into this gen's racing.)

Can someone expand upon this what happened? Who is suing who?

Im getting this for xbox anyways. I am going to use a controller, and I am concerned about reports that its not up to par for controller use.
 
After having a random crawl through the pCARS installation folder, I came across a file that defines the automatic settings that are applied to the PC version based on the graphics card you have installed. However there is a list of presets for both the consoles in this same file as well. I'm guessing these are options more for PC users wanting to roughly mimic what the consoles run more so than a representation of what the console versions will actually look like, but it's fun to compare anyway.

The entire file is pasted here: http://pastebin.com/zPrKupiz. The higher the number on each parameter the better the setting.

Consoles basically run to a medium-lowish settings equivalent and the only difference between the PS4 and XB1 presets is that strangely enough the XB1 has heat haze effects enabled, whereas the PS4 doesn't. But as I said, it's not likely to be an accurate representation of the final release.
 

_machine

Member
Consoles basically run to a medium-lowish settings equivalent and the only difference between the PS4 and XB1 presets is that strangely enough the XB1 has heat haze effects enabled, whereas the PS4 doesn't. But as I said, it's not likely to be an accurate representation of the final release.
Quickly looking through it seems like some settings are overriden later on too, for example there is no AA setting, but it's already been confirmed that game has 4xEQAA on PS4 so it's obviously not driven from the XML and I think the same applies to the car detail. The render team can obviously correct me if I'm wrong, but I wouldn't take all of that at face value.

EDIT: see below, most of that is not used and is hard-coded as expected.
 

_machine

Member
I saw some Youtube videos of Xbox one footage, and they kept saying the use of the controller needs to be tightened up "a lot" it seemed like a mess.
I believe it's more of a preferrence issue, as I've found the "controller mode 2" more to my taste than the default settings and in any case the game has extremely good variety of settings so if the default controls don't fit you then you should be able to tweak it to your tastes. There's also plenty of examples of drivers doing well with an XBO pad, this video and the comments are pretty notable: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpW4VuXr3-A
I can't take much credit for smooth driving. Of course as any other game it requires practice but honestly I find the developers implemented an amazing gamepad input system. In combination with realistic physics and a complete adjustable car setup (including steering ratio which helps in getting smoothness), Project CARS provides an incredible experience even with a gamepad!

That said, I'm not sure if the default settings are the right ones for majority of players, though I feel they are pretty good and pCARS doesn't really smoothen the wheel animations like Forza or GT does which makes it a bit more jarring looking at times.

EDIT: hit quote instead of edit...
 

SMSRenderTeam

Neo Member
After having a random crawl through the pCARS installation folder, I came across a file that defines the automatic settings that are applied to the PC version based on the graphics card you have installed. However there is a list of presets for both the consoles in this same file as well. I'm guessing these are options more for PC users wanting to roughly mimic what the consoles run more so than a representation of what the console versions will actually look like, but it's fun to compare anyway.

The entire file is pasted here: http://pastebin.com/zPrKupiz. The higher the number on each parameter the better the setting.

Consoles basically run to a medium-lowish settings equivalent and the only difference between the PS4 and XB1 presets is that strangely enough the XB1 has heat haze effects enabled, whereas the PS4 doesn't. But as I said, it's not likely to be an accurate representation of the final release.

Around half of those values in that file aren't actually used on console. The consoles use hard-coded settings mostly around medium, with some as I've mentioned before between medium-high and most of these can be changed in the main menu options.

The actual values that are read on console are highlighted in bold below -

<textureFilter value="1" />
<textureResolution value="2" />
<carDetail value="1" />
<trackDetail value="1" />
<shadowDetail value="2" />
<motionBlurLevel value="1" />
<effectsDetailLevel value="0" />
<emapDetailLevel value="1" />
<mirrorEnabled value="0" />
<reflectionEmapDetailLevel value="1" />
<antialiasingSetting value="0" />
<antialiasingMode value="0" />
<FXAASetting value="0" />
<SMAASetting value="0" />
<maxFrameLatency value="2" />
<DetailedGrassEnabled value="1" />
<LensFlareEnabled value="1" />
<BloomEnabled value="1" />
<HeatHazeEnabled value="0" />
<ExteriorLensFlareSetting value="1" />
<InteriorLensFlareSetting value="1" />
<GlobalSpecularIrradianceEnabled value="1" />
<RainDropsSetting value="1" />
<ScreenDirtSetting value="1" />
<CrepuscularRaysSetting value="1" />
<LampostLightsSetting value="1" />
<StreachedHeadlightsSetting value="0" />
<VignetteSetting value="0" />
<ParticleLevel value="1" />
<ParticleDensity value="1" />



The actual purpose of this the is to populate the game profile on the first run.
So for example on PC when you run the first game for the first it will detect what card you have and choose one of the presets in that file from "very low" to "very high".
 

hesido

Member
Can someone expand upon this what happened? Who is suing who?

Im getting this for xbox anyways. I am going to use a controller, and I am concerned about reports that its not up to par for controller use.

My understanding is, licensing of Immersion tech (and its drivers) was platform specific and not product specific. So to use a product on a different platform, money has to be spent either by the game dev to implement it per title, or the hardware company could pay royalties for their product lines, an unknown sum. Logitech is out of wheel business and won't be paying any extra money for it. There are no current products with the feature set of a Logitech GT wheel, you'll just have to spend as much as your PS4 for a wheel with proper force feedback and not just a vibrating wheel.

I for one would gladly money transfer 15 usd dollars to Immersion's bank accounts.

Seriously, devs could sell the license as a dlc to off-load that fee to the end user. Better than shelling out 300 usd for a new wheel.
 

_machine

Member
Seriously, devs could sell the license as a dlc to off-load that fee to the end user. Better than shelling out 300 usd for a new wheel.
From my understanding, this is not something that the developers would be permitted to do or most likely even able to when it comes to FFB. I would love to see it resolved, especially as I'm really thinking of getting that G27 to replace my 360 pad for pCARS, but it's a very, very complex situation and developers (most likely) have very little pull over the matter. And it really should be mentioned that due to FFB the situation isn't quite what it is for fighting sticks for example.

For SMSRenderTeam, can you talk a bit more about the pros and cons of Environment Mapping (for reflections) and how it compares or is different from example UE4's Reflection Environment system (which is a static capture complemented by realtime SSR)? It's a bit off-topic, but even though I'm no programmer it's always interesting to hear about the different techniques used in games. Also what has been the most interesting or fun thing to work on during the project from a development perspective?
 

le-seb

Member
Seriously, devs could sell the license as a dlc to off-load that fee to the end user. Better than shelling out 300 usd for a new wheel.
Game developers don't make drivers for the wheels they support in their games, though.
What you're asking for is Logitech's responsibility.
 

Lettuce

Member
Hmmm so its called Project Cars but it only has 65 cars on release, i know this isnt a tiny number number but when you compare it to the likes of Forza or GT series its a bit poor and not a Nissan in sight...colour me disappointed!!
 

gossi

Member
Hmmm so its called Project Cars but it only has 65 cars on release, i know this isnt a tiny number number but when you compare it to the likes of Forza or GT series its a bit poor and not a Nissan in sight...colour me disappointed!!

You're mixing a fairly small budget game from an upstart with AAA games from biggest devs.
 
I believe it's more of a preferrence issue, as I've found the "controller mode 2" more to my taste than the default settings and in any case the game has extremely good variety of settings so if the default controls don't fit you then you should be able to tweak it to your tastes. There's also plenty of examples of drivers doing well with an XBO pad, this video and the comments are pretty notable: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpW4VuXr3-A


That said, I'm not sure if the default settings are the right ones for majority of players, though I feel they are pretty good and pCARS doesn't really smoothen the wheel animations like Forza or GT does which makes it a bit more jarring looking at times.

EDIT: hit quote instead of edit...

What are the differences in the different controller modes? Is it all pressure sensitivity or is it button remapping?
 

Lettuce

Member
You're mixing a fairly small budget game from an upstart with AAA games from biggest devs.

Hmmm £40 doesnt come across as a small budget game price. They still decided to call it Project Cars so i would have thought it would have more major manufactures included

More importantly he's mixing up two completely different kind of games.

Errrr how so?, there all driving games that lie more on the simulation side than arcade!
 
My understanding is, licensing of Immersion tech (and its drivers) was platform specific and not product specific. So to use a product on a different platform, money has to be spent either by the game dev to implement it per title, or the hardware company could pay royalties for their product lines, an unknown sum. Logitech is out of wheel business and won't be paying any extra money for it. There are no current products with the feature set of a Logitech GT wheel, you'll just have to spend as much as your PS4 for a wheel with proper force feedback and not just a vibrating wheel.

I for one would gladly money transfer 15 usd dollars to Immersion's bank accounts.

Seriously, devs could sell the license as a dlc to off-load that fee to the end user. Better than shelling out 300 usd for a new wheel.

Wow thank you, I had no idea.
 

EagleEyes

Member
It's sold the same price as a big budget game, you know?
Exactly. I'm tired of people coming up with excuses for the lack of cars in this game. They both cost the same amount of money so why should the consumer care if one is funded by a big company and the other isn't?
 

_machine

Member
What are the differences in the different controller modes? Is it all pressure sensitivity or is it button remapping?
I haven't followed the development of the input that well so I can't say for sure, but as far as I know it's a bit more than just different sensitivity and deadzone settings as you can still adjust those, so I would think it has something to do with different algorithms of sensitivity, input prediction (maybe), situational settings (grip affecting control or something), but I really don't know the details, only that they all certainly feel different and you can still adjust them to your liking in detail. These modes do not control remapping though, you can adjust that separetly or pick from a few premade mappings (I prefer the default button mappings). If I had time I'd dredge into the details of the input development thread, but a strict deadline coming up for me so I have no time to even try the game right now.

Exactly. I'm tired of people coming up with excuses for the lack of cars in this game. They both cost the same amount of money so why should the consumer care if one is funded by a big company and the other isn't?
It's not as an excuse as it's the reason. It's simply impossible to for a small developer to compete with developers with 10x the budgets, but at the same time the games can offer things that the competitors can't. The physics of each car are much, much more detailed than anything you'd get from a game with hunderds of cars, the attention to detail is pretty great. It would be unreasonable to expect everything to be equal even when the price is the same. In the case of pCARS though, the selection is still wider than some "huge budget AAA" games like DriveClub at launch or the Crew and let's not forget that it has much more tracks than Forza or GT.
 

Megasoum

Banned
Exactly. I'm tired of people coming up with excuses for the lack of cars in this game. They both cost the same amount of money so why should the consumer care if one is funded by a big company and the other isn't?

Even ignoring the whole budget aspect, like I just said, you can't compare pCARS to Forza/GT... They are two completely different type of games.

As far as a motorsport/racing simulator, pCARS' car list is great... Not perfect by any means but it's great.
 

SMSRenderTeam

Neo Member
Can anyone confirm if the ghosting seen in every video (30fps, 60fps, youtube, gamersyde) is due to bad encoding settings or bad capture, if not, whether the issue is resolved in the latest builds??

The ghosting I mention can be clear in any part where the car is moving, and it's always there. You can see two examples in my post in another thread:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=162236215&postcount=382

Btw, although the gifs are slowed down, it's always noticable in normal speed 60fps videos OR 30fps videos on youtube or Gamersyde.

Pretty sure this is just Motion-Blur, because the vehicles are excluded from that system and don't get the 'ghosting'. I just looked at one of the VVV videos and you can see the 'ghost' (as you call it) offset is proportional to the vehicle speed when pausing the video at various points. In motion this translates to variable "length" blur depending on how fast you are travelling, which is pretty standard for a post style MB system like the one used on Project Cars. In the case of that GIF - looking sideways the blur system would be producing very large offsets for each frame and the result looks like one I'd expect from this sort of MB shader.
 

le-seb

Member
Even ignoring the whole budget aspect, like I just said, you can't compare pCARS to Forza/GT... They are two completely different type of games.
Oh, really?

I thought GT, Forza and Project CARS were all car sims featuring real cars and real tracks.
How can we not compare them?

Even if the way racing is implemented in the console titles isn't your cup of tea, this certainly doesn't make them so different that they can't be compared.
 

danowat

Banned
Pretty sure this is just Motion-Blur, because the vehicles are excluded from that system and don't get the 'ghosting'. I just looked at one of the VVV videos and you can see the 'ghost' (as you call it) offset is proportional to the vehicle speed when pausing the video at various points. In motion this translates to variable "length" blur depending on how fast you are travelling, which is pretty standard for a post style MB system like the one used on Project Cars. In the case of that GIF - looking sideways the blur system would be producing very large offsets for each frame and the result looks like one I'd expect from this sort of MB shader.

So it's the same for all platforms?
 

gossi

Member
Regarding budget, I'm talking development budget. Not your budget of buying the game. Project CARS will sell significantly less than Grand Tursmo. Basically this is a crowd funded game development. The budget is much smaller, the company is much smaller, the support is much smaller. It's not an excuse, it's a reason.
 

Ashhong

Member
Even ignoring the whole budget aspect, like I just said, you can't compare pCARS to Forza/GT... They are two completely different type of games.

As far as a motorsport/racing simulator, pCARS' car list is great... Not perfect by any means but it's great.

You keep saying this but how are they different games?
 

Helznicht

Member
Exactly. I'm tired of people coming up with excuses for the lack of cars in this game. They both cost the same amount of money so why should the consumer care if one is funded by a big company and the other isn't?

I paid $60 for the last Forza I bought on launch day. I paid $38 for my PCars pre-order. And PCars list price on PC is $10 cheaper than the console versions. Don't blame the developers for Sony and MS wanting their share. Plus first party titles usually have a leg up on content vs 3rd party just for this reason. Anyone want to compare the car and track list vs other 3rd party racing titles? Yeah... didn't think so.
 

hesido

Member
Pretty sure this is just Motion-Blur, because the vehicles are excluded from that system and don't get the 'ghosting'. I just looked at one of the VVV videos and you can see the 'ghost' (as you call it) offset is proportional to the vehicle speed when pausing the video at various points. In motion this translates to variable "length" blur depending on how fast you are travelling, which is pretty standard for a post style MB system like the one used on Project Cars. In the case of that GIF - looking sideways the blur system would be producing very large offsets for each frame and the result looks like one I'd expect from this sort of MB shader.

Thanks for the insight. Here's a bigger gif, this shows ghosting across the frame, including the cars.
9wPO2Og.gif

There's even ghosting on the driver's hands, I'll make gif of it too and edit it here.

If it is indeed caused by motion blur, which seems to produce only one sample, hopefully it can be turned off, right? (Also, it's even present in the rear view mirrors, you can see that in car in the rear view mirror. This seems like a whole-screen effect)
 
Top Bottom