Physics discussion thread

I can tell you on a motion rig, you can definitely feel the longitudinal load shift under braking. The nose of every car in AMS2 dips like they should IRL regardless of how stiffly sprung the cars are. That being said, I understand most simracer don't have a motion rig setup. They mostly use their wheels to detect this effect.

The problem is; folks used to other sims use the wrong terminology aka "broken physics" aka "floaty" aka "doesn't rotate properly". Vs just saying there is a "lack of FFB" under braking and they can't feel the front tires. They blame the physics engine which is incorrect and honestly absurd. When they could just say, the feedback from the FFB is lacking under braking and trailbraking. It doesn't provide the exagerrated front weight transfer feel they get in other sims, so they don't know what the front tires are doing under braking and turn in. See how simple and easy to understand that is?

That being said, maybe Reiza could tie in the front suspension getting loaded like Assetto Corsa which might need a rewrite of the FFB on the Madness Engine. Personally I find the exaggerated feel of wheel getting much heavier under braking unrealistic, but again this is simracing and I don't think there is any harm in trying to provide this FFB effect to fellow simracers. I would rather see AMS2 get a great reputation in the Sim Racer community.

 

I noticed this became a thing recently, clearly noticable with the GrA 190E, using the stock custom FFB (damping and smoothing zeroed).

 

Honestly, I don't think any sim will ever be a perfect replication of real life. I think if people spent less time worrying about "XYZ is better than QRS" and more time racing, they would still be developing the same skills that transfer between racing sims. Even AMS2 in its "worst" iterations of physics (and I don't like to call it that) is still developing those same important skills in terms of identifying weight transfer, overloading tyres, slip angle, trail braking, etc. And likewise if someone started off in AC or RF2 (both of which I've gone off of, for various reasons), then they're still going to develop those same skills that will then transfer to other sims. Er, this is a long way of saying I agree with you. Personally I think people can do what they want, I just dislike "My game is better than your game" "Why" "Because I don't like it"

 

I was baffled about the "floaty" term for so long until I finally realised (after playing R3E and ACC a bit more) that what they ACTUALLY mean is "it oversteers more than I'm used to". Those other racing sims understeer like mad (as does AC) which is a direct contrast to AMS2 where coupled with the realistic throttle model, it's easy to lose the rear end when you apply too much power - just like you would in real life.

 

funny thing is that it doesn’t feel like ”it understeers like mad” when those other sims are your main and you are learned to rely on things like trail braking deep to keep the front loaded and rear light enough to make the corner effectively. The same way ams2 doesn’t feel floaty / oversteery if ams2 is your main sim and whenever others try it and complain about the oversteery / floaty nature (especially if applying those things you rely in other sims to same degree), many ams2 players are like wtf are u smoking (and often get highly defensive)

 

Yea honestly, my personal experience, trailbraking in AC and iRacing seems to be a bit exaggerated compared to IRL. In real life, it's really easy to overload the front tires under hard braking when you enter a corner with too much braking and steering angle. When you do that; most cars tend to "plow" into the corner aka understeer. My experience is, you need a feather touch of braking (on powerbrake assisted cars) as you start to turn, so as not to overload the fronts because it is so easy to do. Trailbraking tends to be an exercise in feathering the brakes as you start to turn.
It was why the early version V1.6 felt so unrealistic to me, when you would lose the rear under aggressive trailbraking vs losing the fronts. Again, this is something you learn over time if you have real world experience. Something Gamer Muscles and his bandwagoners don't have.

 

I've been driving a Ford Focus 2014 hatchback for a few years. Even though it's not in this game- that would be cool- it also reminds me of how often the devs for other sims pay off actual drivers for their games to promote to them...LOL. It feels like a nice compliment that Reiza to spends their money where it matters and always make a promising update. I feel like adding that the Focus can really romp on the breaks. I tested this only one time and it freaking hurt. I only traveled 10ft from 20mph and it literally felt like a car accident.
Now back to the main point(front) the car can easily peel out at the front with only about 160hp to begin with, which makes it pretty easy to relate with this sim regardless. Good communication with fairly tight suspension and light weight of 2400lbs, really makes the car feel sporty with all things considered. These small details are important to remember, because I've mentioned before the significance of balance. I can see for real, that Ford gets it and I believe AMS2 gets it most of the time.
The formula is simple: for fast movements, you want tight springs, but fairly soft damping. For large sweeping movements, it's just the opposites. Soft springs and moderate damping can be combined with stiff ARB so you get good longitudinal grip. This will help with launch, but serves no purpose for braking, since all 4 tires are applied and always have been. Cornering grip is where it gets interesting- soft setups will actually help until it bottoms out. When at higher speeds, it gets worse, due to air flow getting under the car since it leans so much. This will add to the effect of pushing the car upwards, but without changing it's MASS. I go into detail here, because I feel this conversation will go on forever and want to cover all the bases. I do base everything on fact here so no worries. To me, it seems that aero is just a tad under influenced when it comes to height and rake of a car. As the mechanical grip however, is far superior and matches everything I've driven irl without question. I've driven many sims- almost all of them, but always seem to be satisfied with an "official racer" blowing up the web with their one comment of realism. I don't think we need to worry. We don't want everyone here since that would include kids that can't drive and hackers galore lol. I'm pretty happy.

 

Today i decided to drive the DTM 190 AMG EVO II first time in a year and i'm glad i did.

The car feels super good and you can really anticipate weight transfer in Laguna Seca's corkscrew.
I had to compare it to the Assetto Corsa's variant and they felt for my surprise very very similar - Is it a good or bad thing?
For me, definitely a positive one.

In my subjective view, only the rear grip and slideyness remains somewhat weaker point of AMS2.
In Assetto Corsa the rear grip is more on/off and tad more punishing compared to AMS2 and it makes the former just a tiny bit more rewarding to drive.
The difference isn't huge and i believe it could be just matter of physics tuning.

AMS2 has definitely much more detailed ffb and tyre model and the front behaviour has felt amazing some months now.
Even the throttle model is much more intuitive and realistic, but i just feel that the rear slide is just tiny bit too gradual and way too easy to manipulate.
It feels somewhat like driving on a gravel instead of tarmac.

Why do i care and comment about this at all?
Simply because AMS2 is far superior game compared to AC and the physics tweaks have improved the game so much over the years.

 

I'm generally OK with the handling in AMS2, I've got a lot of hours in over the years and my driving style has adapted to it.

The two things that do still bug me though are...... The default setups being a bit understeery which is annoying but not a disaster. I do think people would get a better first impression if the default setups were looked at.

and ....

....Acceleration out of slow corners for powerful cars without traction control. The backend still comes round far too easily. For example I was just having a go with the GT1 2005 Aston Martin at Spa. Rolling start turn 1. Even in second gear and barely touching the throttle it wants to spin and that's with throttle sensitivity at 10% and my throttle spring isn't that light. I get that the tyres might be cold and these cars would be challenging in real life but this particular behaviour seems overdone and seems to have been around to various degrees for a long time. It shouldn't be that difficult to get a powerful car without TC out of a slow corner. I'm fine in things like the M1 Procar running fully manual with clutch but the older high power cars just don't feel right to me on low speed corner exit its like someone put ice just on those corners.

Maybe I just need to "get good" but I've got over 700hours in so I could be a lost cause in this type of car.

 

The comments in the prior two posts are measured and precise. I agree with both. This issue has been improved dramatically for most of the series in recent updates, but still needs one last push to bring it to maximum realism in my opinion. It is especially relevant when on a green track, or at lower temps, or at extreme higher temps where the complex mixture of tire grip degradation curves and track grip levels can intersect to create a situation that should be difficult for the pilot, and the cars should be skittish if pushed too hard, but not regularly result in uncontrollable spins from loss of rear grip at minimal throttle inputs coming out of corners or loss of rear grip when gently trail braking into corners. These last two scenarios happen a bit too readily still, but are not universal, so it not about something baked into the Madness Engine or any other conspiracy theories we hear too much about.

I am confident the massive improvements we have seen recently address the core issues underneath all this...just a bit of tweaking remains. That is no small task given the range of tracks and temperatures that are possible in the game and the huge variety of race series and tires that all require calibration to hit the sweet spot. It is about 1,000 times easier to do it in the old AMS or AC where the parameters are comparatively extremely limited, so I try to be patient

 

I feel exacly what you describe. The exit corner throttle. But unfortunally, i think i heard renato say they won’t have big physic improvement after 1.7

 

He made the same claim after 1.6
Joking aside, if Reiza wants to get the Career mode out, that includes a lot of tuning the AI performance, and any major changes to the physics would then be counterproductive.

 

With corner exit lack of grip another thing to bear in mind is throttle calibration.

I'm not sure how wide of an issue it is but if I just push my throttle quickly to the limit on in game calibration and release it even though it registers on the screen correctly it doesn't work correctly in car.

It took me ages to notice this as I run in VR without a HUD. It was only when I was doing some testing that I realised even though I had calibrated the throttle the full throw wasn't being used in the car which makes the throttle travel to full acceleration shorter than it should be. I'd guess I still had about 15-20% throttle travel to go when the in game HUD would show 100%

After some googling it seems for throttle calibration to register correctly consistently you have to depress it slowly, hold it for a second at the bump stop and then release it. I did not know this and I'm sure other people didn't as well. Although it doesn't fix the underlying issue we've been discussing it makes a significant difference to how manageable it is.

The pedal calibration screen really should have a note on it about this.

 

I've stated this before, AC's traction loss is like an ON/OFF switch which is a bit unrealistic. Not bad for an engine that old but loss of tire grip in real life tends to be more progressive.

 

I think it really got better with all the tires and pyhsics update for the last 12 months, the curve between grip and no grip got much steeper and can't be abused as much as before. But overall I agree that it still could be a bit sharper and more aggressive to nail the realism.