New Sim - Advice Needed

Hi all,

So I moved away from online racing quite a few years ago, AC & PC2 were my last sims / games which I enjoyed playing immensely on my old Fanatec CSR wheel and CSR Elite Pedals.

I have now decided to get back into it and after much research have ordered the Moza R9, the Moza GS Wheel and the Next Level Racing F-GT cockpit.

I plan to use my CSR Elite Pedals and my Fanatec Clubsport Shifter and am currently waiting for delivery of the wheel base and rim.

I have done some research on different sims and it would seem that AMS2 is most suited to what I am looking for in a sim racer. I spend most of my time tweaking setups and running time trials trying to compete on the LBs, I also want a good MP option against similar, sensible drivers (ie not Forza kids)

I plan to use my Oculus Rift while racing and have seen many reviews praising AMS2 / VR performance etc.

I looked at iRacing which in my eyes doesnt look as immersive as AMS2, sure its got the competitive side which looks great but my main priority is the experience of accurate physics rather than sweating in a tournament - the money side of it also puts me off.

So I am just after some validation for AMS 2 or other advice on things which i might not have thought about.

Ready to splash out on the AMS 2 + Season Passes package on Steam following overwhelming positive advice

 

You just described the way that I spend much of my racing sim time. You and I seem to enjoy the same sort of racing sim activities.

I own all the major racing sims. I also use an Oculus Rift S.

If I could only keep one of my racing sims, for exactly the uses that you describe, it would definitely be Automobilista 2.

Go for it. You won't regret the choice.

 

Thanks Oubaas, sure is a positive start

 

First of all, welcome to the forums! It's always good to see new faces around.

Personally speaking, I think it's great you are having a closer look at AMS2!

If Automobilista 2 is the right sim for you depends on what you want out of it. While I am an offline player myself and can't really comment on the proper multiplayer experience of the sim, time trials are there and I have to admit I found myself so trapped in the "just one more lap, I know I can go even faster!"-cycle once or twice before. That being said, most of my time is actually spent trying out the (many!) various vehicles in solo practice, find good track/car combos and then do some single races. Well that, and developing virtual dashboard designs for the SIM Dashboard app (not sure if you've heard of it, but I greatly recommend checking it out if you have an android device!), which probably takes most of my sim racing time these days.

One thing that AMS2 really nails, especially compared to most other contemporary racing sims, is offering a wide variety of content that is fun and engaging. For instance, AMS2 has formula cars covering several generations from the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and 2000s up to today - and all of them are an absolute blast! Do note that not all of them are licensed, though - but even the 'generic' models are created with such detail, and they're a blast to drive.

And if that isn't enough, there's a good deal of modern and historic touring cars (various Brazilian series, 90s Group A cars, etc), historic and modern Prototypes as well as GTs (late 90s GT1 cars, or more modern GT3, GT4 and GTE cars just to mention a few). If all you want is GT3 and a bit of GT4, then Assetto Corsa Competizione could also be a valid option for you. ACC does have the official Blancpain GT3 license and as such simulates the rules in the series in more detail.

As for AMS2, did I mention some of the more unusual stuff, such as the Brazilian racing trucks? Oh my goodness, those are SO. MUCH. FUN! You'd never think throwing a ~4.5 ton vehicle around a racetrack could be this thrilling, but it is!

The tracks featured in AMS2 are also quite interesting - especially the South American content, which is typically not as well known as say, Spa, Monza or the Nürburgring (which are, of course, also in the sim, including the Nordschleife!). There are many Brazilian tracks, with a few Argentinian racetracks mixed in - and even (a very enjoyable!) one in Ecuador.

As for the physics, AMS2 underwent some serious changes in the past. The good thing is that now is probably the best time to get into the sim if you are looking for a stable experience as most of the major changes to the underlying vehicle and tire dynamics are done for now. I won't lie, not everything is perfect - yet - but you can consider AMS2 a long-term project that is only going to get better and better. That being said, it is already pretty damn good right now, especially tire physics and FFB. There is still the odd outlier here and there, but those are very few right now, and the devs are well aware of them so they'll also be fixed and perfected ASAP.

What else... Well, you mentioned VR, and while I have only been able to try it in VR using an old smartphone (that unfortunately seems to have issues with its gyro), I gotta admit the experience is quite something! And I don't say that lightly, as I am actually not a huge fan of VR, especially due to wearing glasses. But yeah, VR performance is surprisingly good, particularly when compared to other sims such as Assetto Corsa Competizione.

Seeing how you have experience with PC2 you already have an idea what to expect in terms of dynamic weather. Although I'd say that this has been refined a lot more in AMS2 compared to PC2 - like a great many other things! Both share the Madness Engine and the basic UI structure, but IMHO that's where the similarities end. AMS2 is, in a lot of ways, what Project Cars 2 could have been. (I've been a backer for the original PCars and am quite familiar with both sims, btw.)

Oh, and value for money? No other racing sim currently beats AMS2, hands down. Even without the additional DLC (which I recommend as well) the amount and variety of content is simply amazing.
Of course there is also rFactor 2, which has seen some major improvements in recent times, but despite there being a lot of free mods available, a lot of the content (even the vanilla stuff) is horribly outdated, and you have to pay for most content that's high-quality and up to date, no matter if it is official or third-party content. Plus, based on my experience, the performance is nowhere near as good as AMS2 (not to mention most of the graphics).


This is merely my personal opinion, but AMS2 has other sims beat in most aspects right now. Online might not be perfect yet - I see quite a few complaints about disconnects and other issues - but the developers are aware of the issues and are going to focus more on those in the future. No ETA yet, though.

What actually surprises myself to this day is the fact that AMS2 has pretty much not just become my go-to sim these days, but more or less ruined other sims for me. The way the cars feel, the force feedback... Despite some shortcomings (audio, for one thing, is an area that is still lacking compared to other sims!) I wouldn't trade it for any other sim. And I don't say that lightly as in the past I would usually stick to the racing sims that supported modding*.

Truth be told, I would normally suggest to try the AMS2 demo on Steam... However, the content in the demo is probably the most boring in all of AMS2. Not to mention I have no idea if it is actually up to date - in case it hasn't been updated since its original release, the demo would only serve to give you a wrong impression that has very little in common with AMS2 as it is today. Just a bit of a heads-up.

Ultimately I think it's worth giving it a shot. Especially if you are open to the idea that the Madness Engine can, in fact, deliver a highly realistic and enjoyable racing experience. (Unfortunately not everyone believes this possible, and some choose to slam AMS2 solely based on the choice of engine.)

Hopefully we'll see you stick around as a member of this family in the future! This is a great place to be, IMHO, and these are exciting times for us sim racers!

*AMS2 doesn't officially support modding, but there are car mods available. However, those will always need to be updated with every update of the sim. And the installation process isn't exactly copy & paste yet.

 

Thank you very much XTRMNTR2K - much appreciate the time and effort you have put into this superb reply, you should be on commission

I also was one of the original backers for PCars back in the day, I also remember buying some virtual dashboards for my iPad at the time, maybe it was your good self??

 

My pleasure! I'm glad you found my reply useful. A lot of those things are of course subjective, but I still tried to be as informational and objective as possible.

If there's anything else you want to know, don't hesitate to ask! Either myself or one of the many much more knowledgeable community members will gladly help as best as we can.

Haha, that would've been great, but no. So far I've only been making these designs for SIM Dashboard, and they're all available for free as well. Right now, the ultimate goal is to have one for each car in AMS2... but I still have some way to go. I'm currently at 99 uploaded designs, most of which were made specifically with AMS2 in mind, but some of those are multi-page dashboards, and each of the pages is a separate design... So I'm not quite at 100 cars yet.

 

Awesome! I spend about 20+ years trying to enjoy FA18s in DCS world which is a combat flight sim world. But I turned in all my flight gear as I discovered today's technology for sim racing. Been sort of dabbling around with rFactor and NASCAR 21 ignition.... then I discovered this AMS 2 from a Steam review where AMS 2 was recommended in a rFactor review. So I started looking at AMS2 and it sort of blew me out of the water. I have a lot to learn. And as soon as I can I'm investing in a Fanatec or Moza system.
My passion is Indy cars or NASCAR. I also enjoy F1 and I am impressed with the quality of the action here. Might not be endorsed and true liveries but that's not as important as action and other concepts which seem to be implemented here.
Like I said I have much to learn, and I enjoy racing a favorite car in a favorite circuit as opposed to the virtual fighter jets I was seated in.
Just wanted to say Hi.
I've been here for about a day so far.
Look forward to the future and I eagerly await a said to be Indy release of some sort. But besides all that, the work so far by "Reiza Studios"?.... has been my front runner so far. Pretty awesome work. I'm running this puppy in 4K Ultra maxed out and I keep breaking nose cones and loosing wheels.
Leaking coolant and burning up turbos. Love the heat blaze and feel. Right now I'm only using a xbox pad for PC. Please tell me that a higher end race system will make quite a difference.

 

Very interesting. I am new too. Been here for around a day.
I love AMS 2. I'm a lot like you as far as what I want from a sim, but I have much to learn. Like... when trying to do just one more lap, as you put it, is it normal for the car to be sliding a tad in control as I advance around a large Oval track turn or any fast turn for that matter? Meaning... in the real world a F1 doesn't just stick to the track right? It's breaking loose a tad isn't it? Cause in reality I don't know racing as I've never driven a race car in real life. But I'll take that Black Gen 3 F1 that has "Fanatec" on the side and run it on an oval. I'm eagerly awaiting a said to be released Indy gig.
Hope it happens.
So when I talk about "Much to learn" referring to myself, I need to understand car set up and some reality here since this sim seems to be similar from what I am told and seem to experience when test driving it. Can you point me in any direction where I can learn little things as such, books, or vids or forum link here?
My interests are Indy, NASCAR and F1
But not necessarily in that order. But I dig INDY and I sure hope Reiza puts us on the brickyard!



*AMS2 doesn't officially support modding, but there are car mods available. However, those will always need to be updated with every update of the sim. And the installation process isn't exactly copy & paste yet.[/QUOTE]

 

Welcome Marc! Happy to see another new member joining us!

Ah yes, the joys of flight simming! Flight sims were actually my first love, way before I really got into racing games (aside from the occasional "Screamer / Bleifuss" or "Need for Speed"). Played the hell out of DID's T.F.X. and Total Air War when I was a kid, as well as Jane's Advanced Tactical Fighters Gold. Not as much Falcon 4.0, though I still have the HUGE manual that came with it! Years later I spent a lot of time in the old IL-2 series as well as Rise of Flight. Those were the days, haha! But as time went on I could spend less and less time on learning new planes and simulations, and their complexity grew, so my love for flight sims slowly faded out. The last piece of gear for flight simming I got was the infamous Logitech G940 Flight System. In fact, I still have it - and it works, aside from issues with the rotary switches, as well as the surface of the stick's and throttle's plastic having gone soft and sticky over time. I can't recount how many times I tried "fixing" the issue by giving it a good scrub and applying talcum powder; last time I even resorted to using sandpaper, haha.

While I am far from being an expert on either of the series, I think there aren't too many options if you're looking for a good Indycar or NASCAR experience right now, sadly. In my humble opinion the last really good NASCAR sim was Nascar Racing 2003 and it's hard to believe how many years ago that was.

Having 90s and early 2000s CART vehicles in AMS2 is a great IMO, and I hope that we'll see a licensed 2022 car in the not-to-distant future! Plus, when Racin' USA Part 3 is properly released, there will still be one more Racin' USA DLC and I really hope we'll see some NASCAR action (or notNASCAR, if lacking a license). Maybe a combination of historic and modern cars? That'd be great.

And I agree, the Formula content in AMS2 is spectacular. Hopefully their AI will see further improvements soon, though, as my most recent formula experiences with them weren't that good; although that is probably largely dependent on the track as well.

Oh yes, few things can beat running AMS2 in 4K! Earlier this year I was 'forced' to upgrade to a 4K screen because my old HDTV died, but it wasn't until a few weeks ago that I could get my hands on a new video card that actually enabled me to play the sim in native resolution! Truth be told, sometimes I can lose myself just marveling at the trees in the background on tracks like Brands Hatch GP. There's so much detail everywhere, some of which I feel you can only truly appreciate in 4K.

Oh yes, once you get your hands on a half-decent wheel and pedal set you'll be in for a treat! Even at the lower end of wheels, the force feedback is great, and wheel and pedals (and a shifter!) just give you so much more control (not to mention immersion). In fact, I have been using a Logitech G25 for god knows how many years, and while it surely doesn't hold a candle to all those fancy direct drive wheels and professional-grade pedals and shifters, I still easily consider it "good enough", and all that for a fraction of the price of a typical modern sim racing rig. So yeah, getting a wheel/pedal/shifter set is going to make a huge difference compared to a gamepad. As a matter of fact, gamepad support isn't even that good in AMS2 right now. (There are some really good gamepad drivers in the community, though; as for myself, I only use it to try out some non-physics related stuff whenever I can't bothered to set up my wheel at the desk so I struggle with some of the cars when using it.)

This is using a gamepad, right? Assuming that the tires are up to temperatures and you are using the correct type of tire, this should not happen. That being said, @Tarmac Terrorist just found out something interesting with regards to the behavior you described. Please have a look at this post for more information:
Automobilista 2 V1.4.1.0 Released - Now Updated to V1.4.1.3

Simply put, there is a chance that a game update causes the game to save a wrong or outdated (non-existent?) tire as default, and you have to change it manually once in order to fix the issue.

Other than that, using a gamepad might also have something to do with; maybe when you are flicking the analog stick very quickly to one side - quicker than a driver would be able to turn the wheel- this results in a sudden loss of traction? Then again, I would expect understeer in this case, not losing traction at the rear... Mhh....

Unfortunately I don't have a guide handy at the moment, sorry. But! if you search the web for something like "sim racing car setup guide" you're bound to find something useful. Or just any decent book or guide that covers real life setup adjustments will do as well, as the same rules apply here as well.
There are also many knowledgeable members in this community, so if you have specific questions, they will be able to help you out and explain things down to the finest detail. Me? I mostly do this stuff by intuition, as I tend to forget a lot of the specifics over time.

By the way, I almost forgot ask - as a veteran flight simmer, I'm sure you are familiar with TrackIR, right? Have you used it in AMS2 yet? I think it's great for situational awareness and immersion. Even if you're on a really big screen.

 

Well I have tonight took the plunge and dropped £103 on the game with the 2020-22 season pass.

All I need now is my Moza R9 and GS rim to be delivered on Saturday hopefully and then I will see you on track, or at least on the TT leaderboard

 

Yes I do have TrackIR 5 and I did notice how it had an option to check. I'm using one 32" Gigabyte curved monitor set at 3840 X 2160 with everything maxed out.
Thanks for the link and heads up on my speed issue. I also did wonder too if it was a physical pad thumb stick thing causing over steering and loss of energy or displaced energy from the line etc. Most likely a combination of all thee above.
Yeah I want an Indy car but I got a little confused too at some videos where guys are in AMS 2 racing Indy and more realistic liveries so those must be some custom modifications. Often mods as such lack certain realistic programming that a real team that produces such will come up with.
Regardless I think AMS 2 is very worthy and I'll take what I can get. I'd love to race on the Brickyard! Vintage Indy like Tom Sneva, Rick Mears, Uncer Jr. Foyt...etc...
So.... I just basically recently heard about this AMS 2 and I see a video too on youtube from a sharp guy who does well showing an AMS 2 advertised modern Indy car but then they yanked it at the last minuet after getting everyone's attention. Hopefully it will surface to a reality like the other cars here presented.
Thanx to all you guys for communication and chit chat.
AA+

 

Well...thank you all so much for the information. That link provided showed where the gentleman had switched tires and he even mentioned that by switching and even simply switching back did the trick. So I did. And then sure enough it's my thumb stick costing me precious time causing the pack to advance in a second or two. So I kept restarting a simple race and finally when I could keep my car straight , Gen 3 Black F1, "Fanatec" ... straight and excel , I stayed right on their tails! I need to lose the thumb steer!
Man I need a wheel and a pedal system!
Wow. Once again the Forum underground strikes again!

 

That's fantastic! Just keep in mind you need to start AMS2 in "Steam VR Mode" in order for TrackIR to work. That's a bit of a weirdness carried over from Project CARS 2.

Happy to hear you figured it out. And yes, I noticed that high-downforce cars, formula cars in particular, suffer from this strange twitchy sort of oversteer behavior when using a gamepad in AMS2. For heavier vehicles with softer suspension this doesn't seem to that much of an issue. Not sure what options there are for gamepads off the top of my head, but you may be able to further adjust your AMS2 control settings to reduce this issue to some degree.

With that being said, I gotta admit that nothing beats driving this sim with a wheel. I'm keeping my fingers crossed you'll be able to get a nice one ASAP!

Ah yes, those are skin packs created by modders in the community. There's a load of fantastic skinpacks as well as individual vehicle skins available at racedepartment:
Automobilista 2

Additionally, there are AI and driver name files that either adjust the individual skills (i.e. speed, stamina, dry vs. wet ability, etc.) of the drivers in a given series and/or their names as well.
This file, for instance, replaces all AI driver names and nationalities in AMS2 with real drivers that correspond to the series:
NAMeS: Real Drivers for AMS2

This one adds AI drivers for the F-USA Gen 3:
jusk's CART 2000 Custom AI

And it goes well with this livery set!
CART-2000 Liveries F-USA Gen3 + Oval-Versions

That was a case of (un)fortunate timing, I guess. If all goes well we might unexpectedly end up getting another licensed series in the sim, though.

Sadly this also meant Reiza had to postpone the official release of the Racin' USA Part 3 DLC even further, and that is on top of it being lighter on content than the first two parts. So IMHO they did the only thing that could turn a defeat into victory, which is offering the tracks of the DLC to everyone - for free - until it is ready for release. And while I personally would be more interested in a NASCAR-themed DLC there's no question about me getting it ASAP - the level of quality of all their content is just great, and I am happy to enjoy Reiza however I can.

 

I m playing exclusivly on VR with AMS2.
The 3D rendering and the feeling to be on the track is much more realistic than flat displays. The dark Side is the speed feeling could be less but today when I try back flat displays I ve the impression that my view is obstructed. When you have headlights coming in your back you Can feel the car behind you.

However not Everyone can manage the motion sickness even the Brain can be train on it.

I was on a occulus rift before and Switched to an HP G2 a few months ago. If you plan to Play often VR , honestly is it a no brainer. Huge quality bump. On High détailled cockpit is almost a 10/10 on cluster reading.
The down Side is the rig setup to Drive the G2 compare to the RIFT. I have a 1080ti and a i5-12600k and I can manage a very acceptable image quality ( Much beter than the rift anywayy) if we exclude some overcast and rain wheater condition that seems an overall issue anyway.

I choosed the G2 instead of the valve index because of the Price. The Biggest advantage of the valve is the controller that are more précise which I don t care on sim driving.

AMS2 is on my humble opinion the most optimised VR racing game for now. ( ACC is a disaster on performance and AC is well below on terms of image quality)

 

Thank you much for the links. I've seen a couple of videos where guys were racing with these liveries and it got my attention. I tried to start Steam in either one of two VR modes and my iTracker5 doesn't seem to register or work so far. But I am able to keep up with traffic as long as I don't screw it up with my thumb on the darn pad and I must have my AI set low cause I can pass em on the outside and I won one little single race at Fontana. It was a bit easy so I have much ground to cover. I adjusted the steering to about 20 so I could turn sharper.
I need to get better at not bumping into cars and to be more precision in a sense. I also am impressed with the sim's built in screen shot replay review mode. So I will wait a tad to see what the USA version 3 will contain. I will most likely join that website for a year and download those Indy liveries I see. Those were pretty awesome. Yeah I too like NASCAR. Be nice to see it with this sim's quality. Daytona?! That's only one thing man, F1's or Indy don't drive on it from what I've read. To dangerous for indy but I'm not positive about F1s.
But really now what else in the world would they make for a Daytona International speedway?!
And they did advertise Indy so perhaps we'll see both, and I am certain that website will still enhance their labor of love. So sooner or later I'll have to download those files and learn how to place them in the proper areas. Seems like only cool things will be happening with this platform.
My PC is 7 years old now and I'm running a i7 6700 4Ghz dual core liquid cooled CPU with a RTX 2080 TI and 32 gig of RAM. The game specs call for a i7 7000K and I compared the two in reading up on it and good things were said about my 6700. In 7 years this is the first game next to iracing that wanted something higher, and I don't do iracing cause, 1. I'm not ready. 2. it requires time that I need to really focus on my drumming as I am a drummer. But my race sim will be still fun and never say never but I must acquire skills and equipment first.
So I maxed everything out in settings and it seems perfect.
Yeah... not sure what's happening with that iTracker 5. It's set up and I launch the game in Steam VR mode but I cannot in the game find a setting for it and when I play the sim it's not functioning.

 

Depending where you live you might not find much activity in multiplayer, that's probably the only big downside to this sim. I have to get my online fix in iRacing. For offline racing I boot up AMS2.

 

Right. That makes all the sense in the world. My thoughts exactly. iracing requires serious dedication and the proper skill level to not bump people out of the way. It's much like a real circuit or in fact is a bit of a real virtual circuit. And I wouldn't want to rack up to many hits and be disqualified or lose my rookie license. So I'll gain skills on AMS2 and then go from there. I'd have to be ready.
Man I just took some screen shots here with AMS2 just from a simple race with F Gen 3 cars at Daytona and discovered how I can manipulate screen shots and make it blur if I want zoom in and I have this one shot where my car is photographed in 3840 X 2160 through the grandstand fencing. The fencing is speed shuttered but my car is crystal clear focused, and it looks almost real. Best darn screen shots I've ever messed with.
Yeah, I want a Fanatec or a Moza set up, just on my desk along with that USA pack 3.
Eventually I'll need to download those cool more realistic cart car additions.
Yeah.. it's off line and I need to beef up the AI as I progress. Perhaps when the time is right I can then advance to iracing and the goal realistically would be to just cross the finish line to become recognized as a driver. There's pros there. So if you can eventually graduate to a higher end license and finish races without being a problem for everyone, that would be an accomplishment for me as I am a rookie.

 

You need to use the SteamVR option (I think that's the middle one?). Oh, and I forgot to mention one (kind of) important thing... TrackIR only works for helmet view, so you may have to cycle between camera views until the game registers your head movement. Sorry about that, I totally forgot to mention that little detail.

Nice! And, personally speaking, I think it is great you can lower the AI strength enough to win races. There were times when I was utterly frustrated because certain car/track combos had so incredibly overpowered AI that I couldn't even beat them at the lowest setting. If memories serves right, the Nordschleife was one such case, though I don't remember which cars I used back then.

Either way, AI calibration seems to be a lot better now, even though it's still far from perfect. On road courses you'll often notice how the AI slows down in unusual places, and then proceeds to rocket away after going through a tight chicane or hairpin bend.

Well, we actually only had the road course until very recently, and if memory serves right that was released with Racin' USA Part 1, including GTEs and the Cadillac DPi prototypes.

If you look at my signature you'll see I am using the same CPU. I've also had mine for 7 years, and while it used to run at 4.5 and 4.4 GHz (air cooled) I recently reduced the overclock to 4.3 for better stability and slightly less heat/voltage strain, along with having to run slightly lower RAM frequencies and slower timings after swapping my 2x8 GB modules for 2x16 GB ones (3000 instead of 3200 MHz due to my old motherboard but who cares. ).

In my opinion the i7 6700K is a rock solid CPU that can still hold its own in most scenarios even today, as so far I have found very few games that push it to its limits.

As I said before, try cycling through all the cameras next time you run the game. At least one of them (helmet cam) should pick up your TrackIR movement. The others currently don't work with TrackIR (same as looking around in VR, I think?).

Yup, AMS2 is a beautiful sim! Though as a real life photographer I wish the bokeh would actually look like real bokeh; it's still too close to Gaussian blur rather than shaped bokeh caused by aperture blades, IMHO.

Out of curiosity, does it have to be one of those two manufacturers? Granted, I don't know how Logitech's wheel build quality is these days (sadly, most other peripherals by them have gone downhill and I vowed to avoid them in the future), but something like the Logitech G923 (Wheel and Pedals) + H-Shifter bundle could also offer a good option while not being insanely expensive. Sure, it's not a direct drive wheel but even so should offer great control and really decent FFB, and I think you could get the whole bundle for ~400 bucks (maybe less). The steering wheel has a lot of buttons, one rotary switch (I think?) and also RPM LEDs (which I had to mod onto my G25 with the Symprojects GT face plate and really don't want to miss anymore!). And while the H-Shifter of the newer wheels can no longer easily be switched to a sequential mode, there are mods out there that can enable such a feature along with easy switching:
https://www.customsimshop.com/product-page/sequential-shifter-and-or-handbrake-mod

Here is a video of the mod in action, and even though my G25 already has a sequential option I would be tempted to buy this kit if I had the money to spare, because I frequently get accidental upshifts or double-upshifts with my unmodded unit.

You actually don't need to sign up for a membership, as you can use the site as a free member. Although, of course, they can certainly use the support.

As for the .rar and .7z files, those are archives like .zip files. In order to open them you need a software, such as 7zip, which can handle most compressed archive file types:
7-Zip

In order to properly install the skinpacks and AI files, this is what you have to do:

1. Navigate to the AMS2 directory. You can to so easily by right-clicking the game in Steam, then selecting Manage -> Browse local files.
2. Open each individual archive file you downloaded and check their folder structure; what you need to do is make sure the folder structure matches the one in your Automobilista 2 folder. As an example, if the download file has a folder called "UserData" you need to extract that right into the main folder of Automobilista 2. You'll then be asked to overwrite some files (maybe not the first time, but probably afterwards), which you respond to with "Yes" or "Yes to all".
3. Livery packs should have a folder called "Vehicles". Extract that into your AMS2 main folder, and when asked if you want to overwrite files, confirm.
4. If a livery pack comes with AI files / driver names, there will be both UserData and Vehicles folders, which you also unpack to your main AMS2 directory. Overwrite files when prompted.

I hope that makes sense!

 

Well I downloaded the Cart add on's for Gen 3 and 2. Found my Budwiser car. Some of the cars will drive through us all at the start but once we get on the track then it's crunch time I guess.
I have it set to full damage so I can practice not touching other cars in a sense if that makes sense.
I ordered a set of Fanatec Club Sport V3 pedals. I think I'll buy it piece by piece.
It kind of hurt cause I spend some money on the PC to upgrade a Monitor and a larger C drive then my wife and I dropped about $3150.00 to have some ducting repaired in our attic along with a big fiberglass insulation job up in the attic. Now our AC runs nicer.
So it kind of hurt a bit....but I wanted to land one of these incase they get hard to come by.
Man that photo picture mode in AMS2 is a bit impressive. One can really take some cool snaps of different positions and areas on the track or what not.
I also downloaded the 1998?... is it... The F1 series and vintage F1s Schumacher n Co.
Wondering what else they have as I keep searching .....
So you pretty much run in VR mode eh? That seems cool, I want to eventually try it. Back about 7 years ago I bought my RTX 2080 TI and it didn't have VR on it then as VR was being introduced as I remember.
My PC is 7 years old but I can still max out settings. But some time down the road I'll probably upgrade to something like a i8 or i9 with a 3080 , I'm told Nvidia is coming out with a 4000. ?