Face to Face: Automobilista 2 vs Others

Hi everyone,

I'm Roberto, writing from Italy. I'm 42 years old and have been passionate about video games since I was a kid. Fun fact: for one of my birthdays, I got F1 '97 as a gift, but since I didn't have a PC with a Voodoo graphics card, I couldn't play it. I kept it in a drawer until I started working in the summer at 15. With my first earnings, I finally managed to upgrade my PC and dive into the game.

But enough about that-let's get to the point!

Let’s open up a discussion comparing Automobilista 2 with other popular racing simulators. As someone suggested in the other thread: hype train for 1.6!

How does AMS2 stack up against titles like iRacing, Assetto Corsa, RaceRoom, ACC, Rennsport, Rfactor, Le mans ultimate, Project cars, GTR or any others you’ve tried?

For me, AMS2 truly shines with its variety of content, dynamic weather system, and its enormous potential to become one of the leading sims. That said, there’s still room for improvement—particularly in areas like the physics engine and force feedback (FFB), which I hope will be addressed in future 1.6 updates.

On the other hand, I really appreciate the consistent updates and community-driven focus of RaceRoom, the laser-scanned tracks and realism of ACC, and the endless possibilities offered by Assetto Corsa’s modding scene. Rennsport, despite its lackluster VR performance, offers some of the most stunning visuals I’ve ever seen in a simulator.

To kick things off, I’ve created a special video comparing my two favorite sims: RaceRoom and AMS2. Feel free to check it out—let’s start from there! I’d love to see your videos, images, or any insights you’d like to share to compare your own favorite titles.

Do you think we can manage to have an objective conversation about this—even here on Reiza’s forum? I hope so! And yes, I know KWStudio’s forum is pretty quiet these days, so let’s start by giving Reiza a point in their favor for having such an active community here.

What’s your take? What do you think AMS2 does better than its competitors, and where do you think it still needs work? Let’s share our thoughts and have a constructive discussion!

 

Not sure how you want to have an objective discussion by asking for people's opinion tbf. I doubt people want to discuss something like that now with all the Hype Train and announcement threads going on. I recommend to wait for V1.6. and then make a video based on that, because very soon your video will be outdated info.

But here's my quick opinion: What I like most about AMS2, besides the track selection and quality ofc, is the natural feeling of SETA. Letting slip curves/plateaus and things like that aside, the way you can break traction and regain it by just letting off the throttle feels so natural to me, almost organic the way you can hear and also feel the tyres. The drivability of cars is absolutely realistic, there's plenty of onboards IRL that prove that. What happens beyond the limit of grip is another question, other sims are more unforgiving which is just as wrong. The AMS2 approach is less wrong imho. Losing your car for no reason because your tyres seem to become hard plastic mid-corner is some serious nonsense.

 

I’m just saying that Raceroom feels to grey. I know we Swedes like dark colours, but it’s too grey

 

I like the idea of Raceroom but unfortunately it does not start if my wheel is plugged in... I have no idea why (apart from that I am on Linux). Since we're discussing Raceroom here, if anyone has managed to get it working on Linux with a Fanatec CSL DD I would appreciate help and then I can provide my opinion!

 

In my opinion a great opening post, thanks for that!

So I'm coming at this from a slightly different perspective, having played 1.6 for the last couple months (in varying states of completion)

Physics: AMS2 1.5.6. is, to be honest, a fun experience, but it really doesn't force you to take it seriously. You can approach most corners with a "whatever" attitude and chuck it in almost at will. It will bite at some point, but that point is after taking significant abuse. It's more of a "drive it with half an eye open to make sure it doesn't totally go wrong" simulator, to be a bit polemic.

Some cars that are a little more challenging are challenging because of the wrong reasons, e.g. the Sauber C9, which at high speeds starts to slide uncontrollably upon minor steering input.

What AMS2 does do better, in my opinion, than every other simulator, is the amount of freedom it gives you in your approach to driving. You can brake deep into the corners and accelerate late, you can throw the rear into the corners and turn the car this way, you can turn on the throttle - different driving styles are being rewarded here and the car does feel constantly alive. This is what kept me playing throughout my many hours.

All other simulators (except for RFactor2/LMU, which I have only played briefly, but which does not fall into the same category) are far more "by the numbers", they give you a defined limit and you will have a hard time to actually "push" it due to your driving approach.

AC at some point just lets you understeer out of corners. On-throttle play is barely possible because the rear is so planted. At higher speeds, you can a little more with brake and steering speed, but that is a little counter-intuitive. Low speed understeer is kind of a joy killer here, too. To me, you can have good laps here, but the horrible AI and annoyingly restrictive low speed behaviour are serious caveats.

ACC is similar in the regard of being planted at low speeds, but also adds very stiff cars to that which are not really lively anywhere - but instead really prone to high speed oversteer that you can somehow prevent by pressing the brake really hard before a corner. To me, it's counter-intuitive to drive cars here.

R3E since its physics updates is, to me, the better version of AC. It doesn't suffer from as much low speed understeer and also doesn't feel like the accelerator is canned to make it easier for you. On the flip side, this leads to very easy to get on throttle oversteer that is far too hard to save, again limiting the amount of play you have in the car. Lift-off oversteer mainly seems to exist in front wheel drive cars, the others you just get helpful turn-in when you lift throttle. In general, the cars seem suspiciously stable on corner entry.

However, they do allow you to push a little, and with the recent changes you can at least save some slides (by far not enough though, especially in cars like Group 5). It's very easy to feel at home in R3E, especially because it also doesn't come with annoying caveats like AC's and ACC's ridiculous kerb behaviour.

rFactor, LMU and iRacing I've played too little to judge, someone else would have to chime in. From onboards, iRacing seems to be the most "guitar hero" of them all, allowing zero individuality in the driving style, whereas LMU and rFactor have the good traits of AMS2, but also less of the bad in that slides are actually punished by the game. However, both games seem to be heavily balanced towards mid corner oversteer, which I'm not sure is accurate.

Then there is AMS2 1.6. This fixes you not having to take the cars seriously, because bigger slides do become a problem, especially on corner entry and mid-corner, which to my knowledge are indeed the most difficult parts of driving racecars (pressing the throttle is not difficult usually, except if you have zero idea what you're doing or you're driving in the rain).

However, it comes with the caveat that, still, there is a tendency towards corner exit neutral steer that becomes even more apparent in the rain. In real cars, neutral steer seems to be hard to get and even harder to hold consistently; corner exit understeer (like AC) being more prevalent. AMS2 1.6 doesn't do the best job of replicating that, again with some very unfortunate side effects in the rain with some cars. It's made a little more apparent by the fact that, as soon as the rear tyres slip, the diff sends more power to the outside tyre and gives you even more helpful steering in the right direction.

That being said, with 1.6 most driving dynamics you see in real life, even on throttle understeer, are represented in AMS2 while still retaining a choice in approach for the player like in 1.5.6. Braking and corner entry behaviour is in my opinion really convincing, even if at times a tad too punishing for rear slides under braking.

The main thing where AMS2 still needs work is rear tyre behaviour under acceleration, but it's toned down to what it was in 1.5.6 and now does not actually annoy me while driving (except some cars in the rain); it's just apparent when comparing to real life onboards.

In these comparisons, games like AC, ACC and R3E usually look better on corner exits, but they get there by cheating and giving you too much grip (AC, ACC) or punish you too harshly for powersliding (R3E).

 

When I used R3E, ReShade was a must to bring life to it. Haven't used it since they updated the shaders so can't comment on current appearance.

 

Agreed.

That being said, my summary, considering that I haven't put my hands on 1.6 yet:
- AMS2 has great content/immersion
- Physics is off. Cars are still floaty in 1.5. Going sideways is still too forgiving.
- AI is tolerable, but still have majors issues.
---- Strategies in long races are still nonsense. They still pit with 3 laps to go for fuel and tyres, in cars that don't change tyres while refueling.
---- Try to race F1 in Monaco... blue flags don't work, the race makes no sense. When P1 manages to push the backmarker to the wall and pass, it will disappear ahead of the rest and so on.
---- Try to race hypercars at Daytona. The AI will just push you off and kill you in T1 and International horseshoe.
- Online stuff is not very good. But then, there's iRacing for that and it's very difficult to beat.
- Conclusion: If the physics and AI behavior are improved, single player/offline sprint races will be fun. If the AI strategies are also fixed, single player/offline endurance races will be great. If we can swap with the AI, more/longer offline endurance races will be possible. I don't except AMS2 to be great online.

 

I think that you could've been a bit more objective. And as others have already mentioned: It's not a battle. It's good to have the opportunity to go back and forth between different sims.

Referring to the quote of your post:
Tracks are also being updated in AMS 2 - but in AMS 2 the old version stays in the game.

It seems that you increased reverb in R3E and increased tire scrub in AMS2.
Very important:
You can play AMS 2 with earphones and enable "headphone mix" to get a binaural-like experience. It really sounds great! But also with a 5.1 system you hear the engine from where it is in the car you are driving. Same is true for tire sounds.

Graphically, it looks like you're running AMS 2 on medium or high settings. Or it is because of the cutout of the entire screen. It doesn't look like that at my end.

To answer your initial question:
I love both of them.
I play R3E when I want to drive Group 5 (enjoying the raw/brutal sounds) or WTCR or when I want to simulate a NLS race. Most of the time I play AMS 2, though, because I like the way the track gets rubbered in and how you can play with the weather settings. Beyond that, AMS 2 runs buttersmoothly on my system.

To answer the second question:
I would love to see further performance optimisations in R3E as well as improvements to the experience of spatial sound. In AMS 2 I'd really love to see a functioning flag system. There are no yellow flags if there is an incident in the following sector. Ah: And it would be nice to have more official liveries and driver names in AMS 2 like there is in R3E, ACC or LMU. That's really nice to have. All other things are not so important to me at the moment. (I should add that I've got beta access to AMS 2, so I'm already able to see the improvments of V1.6. Otherwise I would have written down another few things.)

Edit - I totally forgot: Every racing sim should have an opponent selection system/screen like R3E has. It's absolutely fanstastic to add the cars with the liveries you like and to sort out cars you don't want to see on track (like the very old Ford Mustang GT3 for example ;-) ).

 

I tried R3E during the weekend, for the first time in 5 years. It seems like they fixed their FFB which was totally broken on some cars when I tried it last back in 2019, when it was dozens of sliders that were super confusing. Now the FFB setup is much simpler and intuitive. They also seem to have improved a lot on the multiplayer front, with scheduled races.

Areas where I think R3E have advantages over AMS2:

• Low price barrier to entry, some content is free
• Low system requirements, ensures a reliably stable framerate in VR
• Simple setup and config
• Lots of European classes not featured in other sims (and Volvo license!)
• Lots of European tracks not featured in other sims (Bilster Berg, Sachsenring, Knutstorp…)
• Realistic-looking livery design (although AMS2 has improved recently)
• Good netcode and car-to-car collision physics (could also be because most players are from Europe and running on servers in Europe)
• Feature-packed multiplayer ecosystem, in some ways even better than iRacing

Areas where I think R3E falls short compared to AMS2:

• Something is wrong with the throttle input curve: There is hardly any response when throttle is halfway depressed, and calibration doesn't help (if I had pedal software that gave me a custom throttle response curve, I could probably compensate for the issue there). I think Niels Heusinkveld made a video about this once, regarding throttle response curves in various sim racing titles?
• The cars seem so similar to drive. The handling model seems like it's made for GT cars, so for example lightweight open-wheelers feel like grippier GTs and don't require much of a different driving style other than some racing line adjustments. In AMS2, GTs and open-wheelers have a difference in weight transfer which you have to be mindful of, and I think AC and iRacing also has a greater difference between how different cars are to drive than in R3E.
• The driving style lacks nuance: Brake on the limit of grip, then once you've decided on a turn-in point you are pretty much committed to it, and if you apply too much throttle the tires will spin and you'll lose speed. Every corner is like that, in every car. In AMS2, some cars are like this, while others like the RX cars are much more tolerant to different ways of taking a corner. Also, I can't crack the code of trail-braking in R3E, it seems to have no effect? Maybe it's a default setup thing.
• I feel like I have to rely mostly on visual cues and audio cues (tire skid noise) to determine the limit of grip. There were plenty of situations where I would lose grip/speed without feeling any difference in the FFB.
• I couldn't find any lock-to-horizon camera setting, so the pitch motion applied to my rig is amplified in the camera motion instead of negated.
• VR user interface is too close for my old eyes (AMS2 is better, but could also be farther away IMO). It's easier to read the R3E user interface if I shut one of my eyes, to lessen the effect of the vergence-accomodation conflict.

After having tried R3E for a weekend and switching back to AMS2, I could really feel what people claim when they say AMS2 is too slidey, even on v1.6 physics. R3E does not feel slidey at all, there is hardly any slip angle, you either have grip or you don't, like driving on ultra low profile tires. It takes me a few laps to adjust to the AMS2 FFB feel, where the steering goes light at maximum grip and you feel the tire walls flexing with the FFB giving small hints in each direction. It's a very different driving experience.

I think the Porsche Cup and Brands Hatch is in almost every modern racing sim, it could be a fun exercise to try this combo across all sims and compare them once AMS2 v1.6 / AC EVO drops!

 

The default cam (stable horizon combined with bobbing cockpit) does not help and largely contributes to the floaty feeling IMHO. Switching to the "legacy camera" settings really helps in that regard and improve immersion. I'm using "legacy camera" (combined with driving the v1.6 beta) since forever and I'm never thinking that any car feels floaty.

 

RaceRoom is a great sim, but the major drawback for me is the lack of proper triple screen support. They still haven’t implemented this, and perhaps it isn’t possible.

 

I used the triple screen without any problems years ago but for a couple of years I've been scrolling through the vr and I'll never go back. Have you ever tried?

 

Yes. I need to set at least a combined resolution of 7680 on my desktop. For me that is the same as using Nvidia Surround. I just want to keep my 3 screens as it is. 2560x1440. Like I have in AMS2. Or can you set the info in the startup settings (steam) in RRE? I believe that was the way to do it.

 

AMS2: best graphics
R3E: best controller support
ETS2: best game to relax after a long day of work