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

Exactly :P Try racing with other cars and the framerate goes to hell. Running it on a HD6870 with everything maxed at 1440x900.

Thought #1: the LODs aren't sorted out yet so multi-car events heavily impact performance
Thought #2: pCARS (and lots of other games) often don't run as well on AMD hardware
 
Thought #1: the LODs aren't sorted out yet so multi-car events heavily impact performance
Thought #2: pCARS (and lots of other games) often don't run as well on AMD hardware
I typically ran in DX9 with some settings turned down to get decent performance, and in a window (might not have been completely necessary) on an e8400 and 5850. As far as I know performance has not even really been a priority for the development team yet, but as with most alpha/beta games I would be surprised if the final version has a huge performance gain over what is currently there.
 
Why the hell not, add to the list even though we're above 1000$ already. I'm a Junior - payed 10 Euros for now but plan to put aside 5 euros each month and upgrade to Team member this March. But yeah, for now, another 10$. Could we get to 2000? :O Edit: Name on the forums is bakalhau.


FPS go to hell with cars on track indeed - same thing happens in Shift 2... I'm kind of fearful they won't bother optimizing this particular aspect.
 
Almost bakalhau, Total: 6x Junior member + 36 team member = 965€, so still relevant and added ;)


With more cars on track you will always get a performance hit, because more needs to be drawn (+mem/AI). Right now only a few cars have their LODs done, so if you pick one without, you will see a massive performance drop, because all cars are drawn with the highest details.

,
 
Build Release Notes

Build 117 (19/12/11)
Added 'ULTRA' shadow detail level (DX11 only) that increases both precision and resolution
Added Player vs. Guest Live Delta page and increased the frequency of the delta update
Added an attack parameter to the compression settings to allow additional volume control boost

Build 118 (20/12/11)
Fixed a DX9 performance issue with mipmap generation that boosts performance 1-2%
Fixed problem with lap info panel displaying default 1:34.567 times in certain screen resolutions
Adjusted the volume levels of turbo, transmission, backfires, and many other sound effects

Build 119 (21/12/11)
Adjusted more volumes
New Bathurst export

Build 120 (22/12/11)
Numerous Bathurst updates

Build 121 (23/12/11)
Ariel Atom updates
Ariel Atom Mugen added
Belgian Forest track updates
California Raceway updates
Grass grip reduced

 
I'm stepping away from pCARS until February so this will be my last performance update until then.

iNMJu56Gttx4C.png

Methodology here
 
New build (124) available for all members.

Doug has been playing around with the physics over the Holidays and I'm really looking forward to see, or better feel whats changed and if it is the right direction or not.

Cars with new set of physics (+ recommended steeringwheel degrees) are:
LM2011 (600 deg)
TC2011 (600 deg)
Formula B (360 deg)
Gumpert (700 deg)
Caterham (700 deg)





Build Release Noteshttp://forum.wmdportal.com/showthread.php?646-Build-Release-Notes


Build 124 (6/1/12, Junior Member+)
Client Version increments for all affected by recent physics changes for cars requiring leaderboard reset
CDeferredRenderingHelper - only set the specular irradiance map if it is enabled
Ambient only shader fixes
Shader fix for missing brake/light flares (DX9 and DX11)
New camera config for Bathurst
New physics per the Ben Collins thread

Build 123 (5/1/12, Senior Manager)
Various bug fixes

Build 122 (4/1/12, Senior Manager)
First round of new physics (5 cars). See ben collins feedback thread for detials
Mugen: all LODs done, Alpha2 now. V8: LOD/selection set setup WIP
PhysX 2.8.4 PC DLLs
Added missing DLL required by some PhysX installs
 
Just joined as a Junior, will probably upgrade down the road. User = Poly
Added your name to the list, if/when change, just let me know ;)


Ooh sounds awesome. I look forward to seeing feedback if anyone has a chance to try it. I might have time after today.

I only had time to try the AUDI LMP1 at Imola (see video below) and I do like the way this seems to be going. I felt more in control of the directional changes (front of the car) and the car feels a little more responsive to throttle input (steering with). But I have not had the change to try out the other cars, but feedback on forum seems to be positive.


Asano LM11 TDX at Bologna (pre-alpha build 124)




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Just joined as a Team Member, looking forward to a new rig in May to actually play it :)
Total: 7x Junior member + 37 team member ==== 995€


Added and we almost have reached the goal Blizzard set out, so if you miss your name or you updated your membership, let me know.
 
Registered as a Team Member... WMD name is ScaryG.

The steering is pretty laggy for me (didn't test yesterday's build yet though), hope they can sort that out soon :(
 
Registered as a Team Member... WMD name is ScaryG.

The steering is pretty laggy for me (didn't test yesterday's build yet though), hope they can sort that out soon :(
What framerate are you getting? It used to be more laggy with lower framerates. I forget the button to turn on the stat display (that shows throttle forces or whatever), but if you do that you can get a feel for how long of a delay there is between pressing the throttle/brake, and seeing meters react. And if there is still lag with the recent build, by all means report the details on the forum so they're aware of it. As far as I know there was an ongoing project to rework the input in regard to lag.

*edit* Presumably because of the amount, Paypal declined my card (despite the fact that I've paid twice before and it's under the credit limit). I'll have to mess with it later and call support I guess, bah.
 
What framerate are you getting? It used to be more laggy with lower framerates. I forget the button to turn on the stat display (that shows throttle forces or whatever), but if you do that you can get a feel for how long of a delay there is between pressing the throttle/brake, and seeing meters react. And if there is still lag with the recent build, by all means report the details on the forum so they're aware of it. As far as I know there was an ongoing project to rework the input in regard to lag.

I'm playing triple-screen at 6048x1200 so my framerates are not the greatest. With DX9, I get an average of 35fps or so with everything up to high. The only settings that seem to make any difference to my framerate are anti-aliasing and motion blur; if I turn them both to off I get about 50fps average. DX11 seems very similar, with the framerate only differing by 2 FPS or so.

Control definitely feels better at higher framerates, but to be honest this build feels better in general than the only other build I've tried (116 I think). They don't mention anything in the release notes about it that I can see so maybe it's just my tweaked control settings or something making it feel better. Either way it doesn't really seem to be an issue for me anymore so yay I guess :)
 
manager1lrqc1.png


I will have to remember to ask people about their preferences on the ad board, driver, livery, etc. stuff I presumably get added to the game as perks.
 
Question for Blizzard: are you actually enjoying Project CARS?

I've given up on it and moved on to rFactor 2 because I don't think SMS is likely to turn pCARS into the kind of sim I want to play.
 
Question for Blizzard: are you actually enjoying Project CARS?

I've given up on it and moved on to rFactor 2 because I don't think SMS is likely to turn pCARS into the kind of sim I want to play.
I think it's neat and I like the idea of the community involvement. And I like the graphics.

It may turn out to be horrible and rFactor 2 may turn out to be much better, so I'm holding off on judgment for now. I never played sim racers, basically, and I don't even have a FFB wheel, so I can't really judge CARS in that regard. I don't want it turned into an arcade racer or anything, however.

If you don't mind me asking, what sort of feature list would define a sim you would want to play? More pure realism focused, or more mod support, etc.?
 
Question for Blizzard: are you actually enjoying Project CARS?

I've given up on it and moved on to rFactor 2 because I don't think SMS is likely to turn pCARS into the kind of sim I want to play.

That's actually a good question. I never was into Sim Racers either. Played SimBin's GTR a few times but didn't like it as much as Gran Turismo for example. So I'm quite curious if I will like it, but nonetheless I wanted to support this project for the financing model idea essentially :)
 
I have to say that I was more excited about pCARS when it was first announced than I am now. I think SMS lied to us all, saying that the community would create the game, decide what to do with the game.

We decide on content and minor things, we give some feedback on things, and have input and a voice when it comes to tone things in one way or the other. That said, they have their plan, they have a business model set and they have a "what can be done and what can't be done" and they won't change that. The business model they have planned sucks for the consumer and no matter how you tell them, they won't change it. Yeah, they will do this or that, but ultimately, it will be based on feeding on the more enthusiast gamers, which I hate. Then, about realism, destruction parts, etc, they are adamant about it too. Just look at what polls they've made so far and you'll understand what I mean.

That said, I enjoy the game and I hope the final game turns out great.
 
Added Globehopper to the list and it indeed means we past the 1000% mark.

Total: 7x Junior member + 38 team member ==== 1020€


manager1lrqc1.png


I will have to remember to ask people about their preferences on the ad board, driver, livery, etc. stuff I presumably get added to the game as perks.
Great idea and nice to see you keep up with it, so KUDOS from me to Blizzard !! What kind of additional in-game "perks" do come with the upgrade, or do you just get a bigger vote in things?



And I'm not to worried about the direction, clear to me the people that made GTR/GTL are still part of the team and the love for racing/cars old/new is very present in their posts, so have no doubt it will turn into something I will really like.
 
So how does this work? I've already joined the project as a "team member" some time ago, can I join your group as well? or do you specifically need to recruit a certain number of members for it to count?
 
I have to say that I was more excited about pCARS when it was first announced than I am now. I think SMS lied to us all, saying that the community would create the game, decide what to do with the game.

We decide on content and minor things, we give some feedback on things, and have input and a voice when it comes to tone things in one way or the other. That said, they have their plan, they have a business model set and they have a "what can be done and what can't be done" and they won't change that. The business model they have planned sucks for the consumer and no matter how you tell them, they won't change it. Yeah, they will do this or that, but ultimately, it will be based on feeding on the more enthusiast gamers, which I hate. Then, about realism, destruction parts, etc, they are adamant about it too. Just look at what polls they've made so far and you'll understand what I mean.

That said, I enjoy the game and I hope the final game turns out great.
That's weird, I thought I actually saw the opposite from some people. In regard to polls, they seem to be doing the most popular tracks people are requesting, and I thought someone in this very thread was disappointed with that because they feel those very same tracks are overplayed?

Also, I got a quick response from Ian Bell when I PMed him yesterday, and I had gotten replies before from physics dev team member(s). Doug on the physics team replied specifically to the kart physics thread recently. (I think the physics dev team stuff was before I upgraded the account, too.)

I feel that you can't please everyone and TOO much community control will cause something to be disjointed. I'm actually glad if there's some direction at the top and they use community input as guidelines. But again, we'll see how it turns out in the end.

In regard to their business model, please let me know what details you know about this (or link me to the forum stuff etc.) since as far as I'm aware, that has still not been decided, and F2P + microtransactions is only an option. It may be the most likely option though.

Great idea and nice to see you keep up with it, so KUDOS from me to Blizzard !! What kind of additional in-game "perks" do come with the upgrade, or do you just get a bigger vote in things?
So how does this work? I've already joined the project as a "team member" some time ago, can I join your group as well? or do you specifically need to recruit a certain number of members for it to count?
As far as I know I just get the stuff in this perks list:
http://i.minus.com/irBceoniiqoeK.jpg

I don't think anyone should have to join a group. In theory we should end up with an NeoGAF-specific ad board, driver, and livery at minimum.

I dunno if there is actually a numeric vote benefit to higher-level memberships in polls, or if there's just a chance someone takes your forum posts more seriously. I haven't looked into it.
 
I never played sim racers, basically, and I don't even have a FFB wheel...

If you don't mind me asking, what sort of feature list would define a sim you would want to play? More pure realism focused, or more mod support, etc.?

Regarding your first sentence: how is that even possible?! You've spent over $1300 on this project but you haven't spent $150 on a decent steering wheel? I don't get it.

And regarding the second: I want something that's more of a sim and less of a game. I don't need career progression or fancy menus. Instead, I want something that accurately simulates the feeling of tuning and racing a real car. In a word, I want a sim that's exacting.

ex·act·ing – adjective – making great demands on one's skill, attention, or other resources

Project CARS has proven itself (IMO) to be rather flattering to the player and I get the impression that it will continue to go down that route. At the end of the day, SMS needs to make money from this project and I can't see a hardcore racing sim of this scale (52+ people on the dev team) turning a profit, even when stretched across multiple platforms.
 
This game really needs to implement multiplayer, even if it's just a rush P2P thing for now.

With a game that's so focused on community it's weird they're not. I find myself not really motivated to download the weekly build because I just want to hop on with the F1-GAF guys and race with them, but I can't :( If the choice is play this solo, or race with them in another game, the other game wins.

It seems like MP is still a fair way off as well, which is disappointing.
 
How is that? Could you elaborate your though further please?

My personal perspective is that the vehicles in pCARS are far too easy to control. Wheelspin is hardly a problem and it's rather difficult to lock a tire while braking. Even with the driving aids fully disabled, I think it feels like they're still activated. Community feedback seems to be pushing this game in the direction of GT/FM and farther away from something like netKar Pro.

Regardless of how realistic some of us might want pCARS to be, it needs to be a financial success so there's great pressure on SMS to deliver something that will appeal to the mainstream market. That's just smart business. And given that very few WMD members are urging them towards the NKP end of the spectrum, pCARS is unlikely to be as realistic as it otherwise could be.
 
Yup, Monaco in the F1 2011 league this Saturday!

I have no interest in Rfactor or whatever other game you might be talking about. I want MP in this, not another release I have to pay for.
 
Speaking of wheels, I'm not sure one would really work for my desk. But if I do pick up one, what's a good entry level FFB wheel that should work for most any game? I'd like decent but not top end since as mentioned, I don't race much.
 
Logitech GT is cheap as chips and pretty great. Most of F1-GAF uses it.

I have no complaints. Only cost me £70 and you can probably find it cheaper if you really hunt.

Works with PS3 but not 360, if that's a deciding factor.
 
Speaking of wheels, I'm not sure one would really work for my desk. But if I do pick up one, what's a good entry level FFB wheel that should work for most any game? I'd like decent but not top end since as mentioned, I don't race much.

The Driving Force GT sounds perfect for your needs and you can usually find them for around $120.

Logitech
Amazon
 
That's weird, I thought I actually saw the opposite from some people. In regard to polls, they seem to be doing the most popular tracks people are requesting, and I thought someone in this very thread was disappointed with that because they feel those very same tracks are overplayed?

Also, I got a quick response from Ian Bell when I PMed him yesterday, and I had gotten replies before from physics dev team member(s). Doug on the physics team replied specifically to the kart physics thread recently. (I think the physics dev team stuff was before I upgraded the account, too.)

I feel that you can't please everyone and TOO much community control will cause something to be disjointed. I'm actually glad if there's some direction at the top and they use community input as guidelines. But again, we'll see how it turns out in the end.

In regard to their business model, please let me know what details you know about this (or link me to the forum stuff etc.) since as far as I'm aware, that has still not been decided, and F2P + microtransactions is only an option. It may be the most likely option though.
I never said they don't pay attention to the community. I said they have a route that can go a little to the right and a little to the left, and that's what the community decides, but the road goes the same way no matter what. That's why people are asking for realistic damage model and they say it's a no-no. People say they don't care about licenses if that means poor damage model and they are like no-no. People say they should come to an agreement with car manufacters to get better damage model and they don't even try. They have a plan, and damage model is not in the plan.

The same can be said about the business model: they havee a model, they want to do F2P model that feeds on the most enthusiast players. Meaning that you have to pay a lot to get all the content. It's their plan. Maybe they don't have the fine details, but they don't pay attention to what other people are saying.

And about polls, I know we're deciding circuits, and that's what I meant: just circuits? What about we decide on what UI proposals we like best? What about we decide if we want damage model this or that way? If we want rally in or rally out? If we want licenses or we don't? No, we just get asked what content we like better.

Of course it's not all bad. There's a lot of feedback coming back and forth, but I see it a bit like some people are acting as play testers, giving feedback and the devs do their work to fix things. After all, the community is not really deciding much, just fine tuning.

I expected something different. I expected that they would try to do whatever the community decided it was fine to do. I said to myself: "Great, with no pubs around we can shoot for the moon", but SMS are acting like pubs themselves saying us: "We can't do that, we won't do that".

So, my whole problem is with the WMD thing, which I thought would be different. The game itself is shaping up quite nicely so far.
 
I'm also in:

Big Takeover - Team Member

I'm impressed so far. Visually it's just spectacular, isn't it? I need to get my wheel fully dialed in before drawing too many conclusions about the handling model.
 
I'm also in:

Big Takeover - Team Member

I'm impressed so far. Visually it's just spectacular, isn't it? I need to get my wheel fully dialed in before drawing too many conclusions about the handling model.
We reached the needed members to reach the 1000€ mark, so it does not really matter anymore, but will keep updating the list, you never know if we need to push something on the WMD forum ;)


I also love driving on unfinished tracks, forces you to pick different reference points (braking points) then the ones you were used to.
 
I've still never driven anything but Imola and Watkins Glen.

And it's crazy to think that NeoGAF members have now invested $2737 in Project CARS!
 
A word of caution for people on WMD: you can seemingly be kicked out of the project for not being perfectly in agreement with SMS.

:(
 
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