AC - hard to get started

[Conza]

If you have a G27 like me, and a decent computer (GTX660+ like they say), you might've considered getting AC.

Be prepared for potential hours of set up, I had no idea.

I played another PC game with my G27, so drivers ready (otherwise you'll need to get those probably), download game (4GB), and finally get in it.

The G27 with 900 degrees doesn't correspond to the in-game wheel, so 90 degrees does a full 360 in the car, so you have to adjust a .cfg file to fix that.

Once that's fixed, then the wheel will start vibrating, when travelling in a straight line, if you practice with the Abarth 500 Esse esse as I did, further more, traction control came in whenever I manually changed gears, but when the automatic took over, it was smooth. There was also no indication when the ABS was kicking in, apart from a small light that would come on.

I'm in for my $30AUD now, so I'm going to persist just to get my money's worth, if that's even possible at this point, thankfully its at a stage now where it has a few more than a handful of cars and some ok tracks, and they do keep updating it for free.

As a proud GT fan boy, I will gladly move the G27's USB from the PC and back to the PS3 for now, there's no amazing experience had by me out of the box, or even slightly tweaked, that's for sure.

 

[JvM]

Yes it can be slighlty unlcear to know what is needed to get a solid starting point, for a new pc gamer.

The wheel thing sounds off. Cause for me G27 corresponds the ingame perfectly. Any .cfg editing shouldn't be needed. Do you have it set to 900deg in the profiler? (in windows)

For ffb I'd say set the 'extra' effects (kerb, road, slip) all to 0 and start from there. Stock setting seems to be way over the top for some reason.

 

[Supermoney47]

I agree it can be a bit overwhelming in the beginning. The official AC support forum is very very helpful, sign up if you already haven't.

 

[Airetam]

You must have been unlucky, because I haven't had any of the problems mentioned in your OP.
I did, however, do some research on ffb settings with the g27, and set it up accordingly before starting.

 

[Encyclopedia]

I didn't think it was hard to get started at all to be honest. I just checked some recommended settings and 10 minutes later I was driving.

Check your profiler to correct your steering degrees by the way.

 

[Coxis]

What you are currently perceiving as tedious and complicated you will learn to love and appreciate. When you fire up GT5 you may be happy since everything is configured and ready to play, but let's assume for a second that your brake pedal goes bad. Well, your only option is to change the pot, buy new pedals or a new wheel altogether and can't race until you do that. On a PC, you can temporarily assign the clutch as brake pedal. Heck, you can even assign the steering axis to brake or gas.

Sure, on a PS3 you don't need to go through the "hassle" of downloading drivers, but once you do on PC, you'll find a plethora of adjustable wheel values and customization you'd never find on a console.

Finally, let's say you decide to buy a nice shifter. On your PS3, no other shifter will work unless it's the one that comes with your wheel and if your wheel doesn't natively come with one, you can't use it. On a PC it will, but again, you have to manually configure each gear and if you want to go especially crazy, there are people making H-pattern shifters and hand brakes out of old flight simulator joysticks, some even with force feedback of their own. Oh, and there's no .cfg file on Gran Turismo, so you can't adjust the many things you can on a PC sim.

So yeah, I can understand how you feel if you've never had to configure axes and buttons on a PC sim but later on you'll be so thankful for the flexibility of racing on a PC compared to a console you won't want to go back and these are only a couple of examples. The possibilities are endless.

I never had any trouble with degrees of rotation in the sim, though. If you have the Logi drivers and have the wheel set up at 900 degrees there, you shouldn't have any problems provided you calibrate the wheel in-game, make sure to turn the steering wheel fully from lock to lock.

 

[Conza]

Ok that first paragraph, GT6 for starters, but if a pedal breaks, being able to re-assign it, not that big of a plus point to me.

And that would be fine, if the default options worked perfectly out of the box, but they don't, my steering as it turns out is locked at 135 degrees in both directions right now, more time to fix that.

Well on GT6 I'll hand it to you, the shifter is almost pointless without the clutch, but I don't use the shifter much anyway - that could change with this game, potentially. While GT6* has no .cfg file, I don't need one to get the game to work with my wheels I've used initially, then once I've started, the FFB options are simple, but effective.

I'm actually a very experienced PC gamer, as a serious gamer I've been playing PC for nearly 15 years, and my dream would be for GT to be released on the PC as a PC Sim - alternatively, for one like this to gain enough cars and tracks, but most importantly proper feel of driving, never mind how it looks or sounds, I just care about the feeling, to trump the console sims for good.

I think since so many people have asked me to check my drivers, and while I might feel like an idiot doing it, it could be below 900 degrees *checks* Opened up Logitech Gaming Software, prompted to plug in G27 and does, in Logitech Profiler, Device > Game Controllers > Properties > Settings and finally I get this screen. And low and behold, by default, the Degrees of Rotation was set to 200?? I'm going to fire AC up now and see what happens, but before I do that, I'll need to restore that .cfg file I changed so that we're at square one.

 

[JvM]

There you go. (with the rotation ) But one more thing, disable the centering spring (atleast). I think AC wont override it so you'll have a static spring in the wheel all the time (very bad).

Here are my settings, you can try these and go from there.

 

[Conza]

Thanks JVM, I'll give it a shot

 

[PinaKillada]

Ok that first paragraph, GT6 for starters, but if a pedal breaks, being able to re-assign it, not that big of a plus point to me.

And that would be fine, if the default options worked perfectly out of the box, but they don't, my steering as it turns out is locked at 135 degrees in both directions right now, more time to fix that.

Well on GT6 I'll hand it to you, the shifter is almost pointless without the clutch, but I don't use the shifter much anyway - that could change with this game, potentially. While GT6* has no .cfg file, I don't need one to get the game to work with my wheels I've used initially, then once I've started, the FFB options are simple, but effective.

I'm actually a very experienced PC gamer, as a serious gamer I've been playing PC for nearly 15 years, and my dream would be for GT to be released on the PC as a PC Sim - alternatively, for one like this to gain enough cars and tracks, but most importantly proper feel of driving, never mind how it looks or sounds, I just care about the feeling, to trump the console sims for good.

I think since so many people have asked me to check my drivers, and while I might feel like an idiot doing it, it could be below 900 degrees *checks* Opened up Logitech Gaming Software, prompted to plug in G27 and does, in Logitech Profiler, Device > Game Controllers > Properties > Settings and finally I get this screen. And low and behold, by default, the Degrees of Rotation was set to 200?? I'm going to fire AC up now and see what happens, but before I do that, I'll need to restore that .cfg file I changed so that we're at square one.

You mean arcade if gt was on pc it wouldn't be anywhere near the same level as an actual sim racer

 

[Conza]

And if I had wings, I could only fly 10 miles.

We don't know because it hasn't happened yet, as the best console racer, if it came to PC there would likely be more options for users, and I think it'd really take the game to the current players.

And whatchu talk'n bout arcade boy?

 

[Silver-Sylph]

Sorry but when you actually compare PC sims like Assetto Corsa, iRacing, Game Stock Car 2013 to GT6, its makes GT6 look laughable. That and GT6's FFB is downright sad and bland with what it relays and that could be related to the wheel im using but still its pretty lackluster.

 

[Coxis]

Oh, great to hear it was a problem of driver misconfiguration rather than a more serious problem, they can happen and they're a pain to fix sometimes.

Not to put you down or anyone who enjoys console racers but I agree with the guys, GT has nothing on PC Sims out there. It's just a world away.

 

[Conza]

I agree in theory, the potential is there, I'm just not seeing it in practice.

The game should just out of the box work, and then be configurable, it feels so wrong from the get go, many niggling little issues, and I know, it's in beta, but I'm not convinced the issues will be fixed when they reach version 1.0.

GT6 is limited by a PS3, and thats stretched to the extreme because its an 8 year old console, based on an engine that's atleast 3-4 years old, maybe more, when GT7 comes along we'll see how much better the physics and controls are of the PC sims compared to that (assuming anyone buys GT7).

From a driving simulator's perspective, they really aren't worlds apart - today.

 

[Silver-Sylph]

Well after youve played PC sims for awhile you come to terms that the first 10-20min of your game is going to be binding your controls and getting the steering feel just right. That kinda relates to all PC games and its one of the few disadvantages PC games have and that is its not always just pick up and play and it can be rather frustrating to get it to work right but when you do it beats everything out there.

GT6 for me wasnt necessarily a bad game it was just extremely dissapointing. Everything felt exactly the same. Im honestly amazed that Polyphony has managed to survive this long by just copy and pasting their games for so long.

 

[chromatic9]

While I'm very pro PC sims, I can see the dangers of others trying it. More so now these sims are appearing on Steam.

I was thinking today how very similar Assetto is still to netkar or even LFS in how things are done and layout despite a fresh look in some parts. There's tons of potential though and ways to satisfy old and new.

 

[PinaKillada]

I agree in theory, the potential is there, I'm just not seeing it in practice.

The game should just out of the box work, and then be configurable, it feels so wrong from the get go, many niggling little issues, and I know, it's in beta, but I'm not convinced the issues will be fixed when they reach version 1.0.

GT6 is limited by a PS3, and thats stretched to the extreme because its an 8 year old console, based on an engine that's atleast 3-4 years old, maybe more, when GT7 comes along we'll see how much better the physics and controls are of the PC sims compared to that (assuming anyone buys GT7).

From a driving simulator's perspective, they really aren't worlds apart - today.

What do you mean? Today? we are comparing ac and gt as it currently stands. And about plug and play maybe you haven't delved into pc Sims before, but just like your pc nothing is just plug and play because ac doesn't know what your setup is, what wheel, what accessories, what hardware unlike gt6 where pd knows everyone has a ps3 and one of a few possible wheel much easier to have it plug and play.

 

[Coxis]

While I'm very pro PC sims, I can see the dangers of others trying it. More so now these sims are appearing on Steam.

I was thinking today how very similar Assetto is still to netkar or even LFS in how things are done and layout despite a fresh look in some parts. There's tons of potential though and ways to satisfy old and new.

I agree, for some reason it reminds me a lot of LFS as well. It isn't necessarily a bad thing though, LFS was an amazing sim back in its day. To this day it still has many features that other big name sims don't.

 

[sherpa25]

There you go. (with the rotation ) But one more thing, disable the centering spring (atleast). I think AC wont override it so you'll have a static spring in the wheel all the time (very bad).

Here are my settings, you can try these and go from there.

@JvM, some clarifications:
What was your basis for having quite a high a filter value, clipping app? If so, was it consistent in most car/track combos?
Why do you have centering checked, but 0 degrees? Wouldn't it be just the same as unchecked?

 

[JvM]

Hi @sherpa25, filtering doesn't affect the overall forces, so not about clipping as such. It just 'smoothens' the signal a little bit. So some of the harsher clunks and such stay away from the wheel. And no I don't think its prefect for me for all cars, neither is the gain, so I'm hoping for car-specific ffb gain+filter setting in the future. 👍

And yeah, centering unchecked should be just the same.. some old habit I guess.