Assetto Corsa Competizione | Season 14 Round 3 | GT3 Sprint @ Valencia

[davejm]

I always struggle with the first sector at Brands Hatch, particularly turn 1 and 4.  And turn 3 (Graham Hill bend?) seems easy yet I don't seem to get it right a lot of the time and end up killing my lap before it gets going.  Like Oulton Park, it's tough to get right.

[SharkyOB]

Turn 1 at Brands is such a classic example of a corner where people tend to brake too late and try to carry too much speed. It's actually a lot better to brake earlier and take a fairly early apex, that way you can get back on the throttle earlier (you need to be fairly gentle with it though) which stabilises the rear end as you go down the hill. 

 

Brands is such a technical circuit, every corner is a unique challenge so it takes quite a lot of practice to do consistent laps.

[Thor]

Yeah, I was never all that keen on Brands Hatch when it first came up, but after getting used to the track I loved it, still do. Had some great races there with you guys.

[milko]

1 hour ago, SharkyOB said:

Turn 1 at Brands is such a classic example of a corner where people tend to brake too late and try to carry too much speed.

 

I've definitely done that, but far more often so far it's been slowing and turning too early and giving myself no line for exit. Something about the bouncing around on top of the hill and all the different trackside paraphernalia, I struggle with my cues. It'll come, I've not had much time on it yet. Also finding (that Aris vid was timely) that I have to be on the safe setup with a few tweaks to liven things up slightly, the aggressive Honda one is deadly on this track. Maybe I'll revisit that when I feel a bit more stable.

[Meers]

Anyone remember this?

 

 

[davejm]

I've created a separate thread for the multi-class endurance on the 22nd April.  This way I can share the info elsewhere and link directly to that thread, and I have a dedicated sign up form so that we can limit the number of responses.  I don't expect to fill the server, but just in-case...

 

 

[davejm]

[milko]

@Pockets on xbox or PC? I don't think we can mix, though I may be wrong.

 

 

Gaaaaahhhhh frustrating practice today. I can get into the 1.25s, just not all in the same lap. Apart from one where I narrowly broke a track limit. Then by trying to chase my line I spent about 30 laps getting no better and maybe slightly worse ffs. Can't quite find the setup I want either, I go from a bit understeery to way too twitchy without finding the sweet spot. I can tell the setup I'm happiest with is going to lose frightening amounts of time in the fast right-handers after the big straight. Wah wah, woe is me.

 

Usually when this happens I can get at least the lines right next session, so here's hoping.

[Meers]

12 hours ago, Pockets said:

Does anyone play this in the day time in the week?

 

Unfortunately not, with my family and work commitments.

 

8 hours ago, milko said:

Gaaaaahhhhh frustrating practice today. I can get into the 1.25s, just not all in the same lap. Apart from one where I narrowly broke a track limit. Then by trying to chase my line I spent about 30 laps getting no better and maybe slightly worse ffs. Can't quite find the setup I want either, I go from a bit understeery to way too twitchy without finding the sweet spot. I can tell the setup I'm happiest with is going to lose frightening amounts of time in the fast right-handers after the big straight. Wah wah, woe is me.

 

You know, there comes a moment with time trialing when you just have to go

 

"fuck this shit"

 

I have given up tring to become adept at time trialing. It isn't for me, way too frustrating. Of course I'm trying to go as fast as I can, but I'm more focused on getting my setup to feel stable, hitting consistent lap times all around and minimising mistakes.

[milko]

@Pockets I think we had some console players but the majority of this thread is the PC crew. It's usually included in Steam sales if you want to wait for the next one of those to tip you over the edge. I can sometimes jump on in the daytime for an hour but most of the time I have to be a bit of a night owl with it.

 

Being shit for a while is definitely part of the process with this game, you can learn a lot just by lapping an empty circuit for ages and watching a few explanatory videos. For some reason in this game there's so much happening that I find this interesting and compelling where in any others that would seem like utter tedium to me. Racing the AI can then be useful to give you some experience of being close to other cars without risking spoiling another real player's race. And then just joining in with us - in my experience everyone's very forgiving and helpful! 

[milko]

Oh, these GT3 cars are in some ways easier than the slower ones, they have incredible traction control systems, and the aero is so good at giving them grip at high speed. That took me a little time getting used to. When Boozy started the time trials in Forza Motorsport in the little Mazda I could barely keep the thing on the road for a single corner, albeit that's partly due to the ridiculous steering settings that I never managed to figure out on that game. 

[milko]

@Pockets I've uh, never tried the SP campaign sorry! Haha. I know there's a career mode but I just assumed it was a set of races. I've learned by following a few youtube videos of people doing this game and real life. Plus help from the fellas in this thread. If you do get it I'll cheerfully post a set of 'watch this' links from my collection.

[Meers]

24 minutes ago, Pockets said:

I’ve been going round the Nurburgring on my own in a BMW in AC so I think I’ve got the right attitude for it. I’m just not sure I’ll be able to handle the faster cars, I usually prefer slower cars or rally things. In FH4 I never go above B class. 
 

Maybe I just need practice. I’m hovering over the buy button on a wheel. I know I’ll have some fun with it but arrrgh, I dunno. 

 

ACC uses real-life physics calculation on a level that most of us haven't seen before. But that doesn't mean it's inaccessible by being very hard to play. On the contrary - just because it's so well simulated means it feels more 2nd nature than any other racing title I've ever played. So it feels less like a game and more like real driving. You just feel what the car's (going to be) doing. Arguably, a wheel is pretty much essential for these kind of games.

[milko]

1 hour ago, Pockets said:

I’ve bought a fancy wheel now so will have to put the time in to justify that.

 

I have the same wheel, it's a whole new world when playing games like this compared with a controller!

[davejm]

Practice timings...

 

[SneakyNinja]

Silly question, but are sprint races 20 or 25 mins long? I can't for the life of me remember, and now the online folder has gone I can't find the thread!

[davejm]

25 mins.  If you click on the 'assetto corsa' tag on the topic page it will show all the threads that are associated

[SweatyTravolta]

1 minute ago, Pockets said:

I found a Steam key. I'm in! 

 

Now you just need to contact @davejm, get an invite to the server and just set your own practice times at your own pace. It's a good way to learn and you can compare how fast or slow you are when the tables get posted.

 

[davejm]

I used the dashcam when using my pancake monitor.  Personally, when the monitor is behind my physical wheel I don't want to see another set of hands and wheel in the way   So the dashcam felt like it was a better reflection of the monitor being a 'window to the world'.  I use VR now though!

[Meers]

51 minutes ago, Pockets said:

 

I'll wait until I'm sure I can stay on track.

 

Is there an accepted 'best' camera to use?

 

Get in an join us from the get go mate. The sooner, the faster you'll learn. Just develop a tic for looking at the mirrors, map and ahead/behind timings every 5 seconds and you're golden.

 

No 'best' camera as such, as long as you're not as silly as @Lorfarius and use an external cam.  ( at Lorf)

[davejm]

40 minutes ago, Pockets said:

 

That makes sense but I think seeing the other set of hands in fancy racing gloves gives me false confidence that someone more competent is in charge.

 

Yep that's perfectly valid.  If you watch the aliens on Youtube you'll see a mixture of both.

[milko]

The only thing I use the track map for in ACC is to see if there's any other cars nearby when I'm rejoining from the pits or an unscheduled diversion into the surrounding fields.  There's no prospect of using it for checking what's coming up in my opinion, maybe it's more useful for this outside VR though! You have to learn the track properly. I usually do a few laps with the racing line indicator on first, because I can't stop myself going too fast without it. Start learning where the braking points are roughly and you can soon switch it off, it only took me 5 laps on Brands Hatch for example as it's a short layout. After another 10 or so I might feel like I've got enough of a handle on where things are to start looking at how to go faster, and then I'll usually check a track guide on youtube to learn some better approaches to tricky parts. I'm probably up to about 100 laps on top of that and just starting to feel like I have a reasonable lock on actually knowing how to drive it at something like a fast enough speed to be mid-pack in our races and this is likely to be my peak for at least the immediate future. It's not a very easy circuit despite being so short.

[davejm]

12 minutes ago, Pockets said:

I'm trying to get a fairly uniform camera across various driving games but I think maybe the no wheel thing is better, or will be once I have one myself. I've switched to dash and it seems fine so might try that for a while, it's nice and central with the steering column.

 

I'm happy to join the group just to practice and see times etc but I'll be a while off racing I suspect. I have the game on Xbox and PC (not as much difference as I thought there might be) so will switch between. 

 

I don't really know how online gaming stuff works on PC - I don't think I've played a game online on a PC since about 2004. I'm sure it's simple enough though.

 

 

It's pretty basic in ACC.  If you click the 'Multiplayer' option then 'Server List' you'll be presented with a list of public races which you can join.  To join the races you'll need to increase your SA (safety rating) and have a certain amount of track medals for that track.  Check out the 'Driver' > 'Ratings' section for a description of each if the ratings.  You can earn those ratings in single player modes.  Track medals are earned just lapping (as you complete clean laps) and the safety rating accrues as you race online or offline.

 

We also have a dedicated server; which you can find by searching for 'rllmuk' in the server browser.  There are no SA or track medal requirements for our server; it's configured to accept connections based on Steam ID and a password so if/when you feel ready to join let me know and I'll give you the details.  We race on Thursdays, but otherwise the server is configured on a looping practice session throughout the week.  Even if you don't want to race you're welcome to join the server at any time and join in our practice sessions.

 

When I started with ACC I just started doing laps of one circuit (Nurburging I seem to recall) until I could keep it on track.  Although the cars are all GT3 or GT4 (our league races are GT3) it's generally a good idea to have a dabble with each to see which one 'feels' nice to you, then stick at it for a while.  I tried them all and narrowed them down to the Aston Martin and Ferrari, before ultimately settling on the Ferrari.

 

When we're racing (and for some practice sessions) we use the rllmuk Discord channel for chatting.  We have a dedicated ACC voice channel on there.

[milko]

Unless @Pockets got the DLC, it's GT3 or nothing for him for now. Probably for the best at the start, most of the online help is aimed at those. I'll get that YouTube list I promised!

 

But yeah get on Discord with us and join our server - we can arrange some practice sessions I'm sure! I had a particularly useful one where @SharkyOB hopped onboard my car while I drove and he was able to see some of my mistakes and help me cure them, I know a few others have benefited from similar help.

[f. grimes]

[milko]

How to learn to do ACC the milko way, for some reason.

 

You might want to find a better role model but I might be useful as I only started the 'sim racer' journey in the past few months so I'm hopefully relevant. Before that I'd just dabbled, using a controller.

 

Read this guide which the developers made for newcomers: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xo52PFjuMrvILXtC-5R_9yS_9lGox6PS6JzA19Qjvz0/

It will help you configure controls and learn how some of the game modes work, and so on. In the game realism settings, Traction Control is a good thing and realistic and you need it on (in setups you can adjust how much of it, but you'll be staying high for a long time), Stability Control is a thing to leave Off. I think you'll want to have manual gears too, might as well do that right from the start.

1. Pick a car and track to practice on. Nurburgring is a reasonable choice, why not. Set it to 'optimum' conditions so there's a kind of racing line on the tarmac of rubber, it's useful for cues and also grips well (but does make off-line areas more slippery). I don't think I'm the best to advise on car, I didn't find the typical 'most people start here' cars easy to drive and people online don't often seem to get on with the ones I choose! Try a bunch out and see how you get on. The Porsche GT3 is universally acknowledged to be the hardest to drive. A lot of people start with Aston, McLaren, Mercedes, Ferrari I think.
2. Load the safe setup preset. 
3. Go out on the track with the racing line indicator on, and do some slow laps to learn the circuit. While you're doing this you could keep an eye on your tyre pressures, because you'll be wanting to get those into the range of 27-28 PSI - failing to do this makes the car harder to control. It's no big deal yet, but it will be soon! As the tyres warm up, the pressures rise.
4. You don't want to end up reliant on that racing line indicator, it's not always the fastest way and soon will actually hinder your learning the track. So once you've mentally noted the corners where you need to brake hard and any other key areas, switch it off. Keep doing laps, and learn the cues for braking and turning (e.g. you will often find a 100m board is where to start braking hard for a slow corner). 
5. Keep doing laps! Check those tyre pressures, three laps after coming out from the pits they should be coming up to operating temperature, so if that's not looking like it'll be in the 27-28 range, go adjust it. You can teleport to the garage from the pause menu, and then go into the edit setup and have a look. The 'psi hot' info will tell you what pressure they reached, but bear in mind if you did any big slides or spins that'll have affected this value.
6. By now you're hopefully reasonably comfortable about driving around this circuit, can do several laps without losing control, and you're starting to get an idea of where you can push it and where you have to be careful. Maybe it's study time! Or maybe it's time to start over again on another track, whatever you fancy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZRrvafEUCA - Aris (one of the developers) has a LOT of videos, some of which are very very long. Luckily he's charismatic enough to listen to and obviously knows a lot. Here he's talking about starting with the default safe setup and tuning it to go a little faster, it's a really good way to learn what some of the setup options actually do.

"Zermatt" is one of several people making track guides, I find his work best for me usually. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLt-FnzcKuhC30is2eal22y-0BB64XdJRq - early on I found it very useful to see where I wanted to brake hard, where I could push on a bit, etc.

This Jardier guy is a popular Youtuber who has some good tips: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyYcW1OUDqw

Driver61 started as a real-world set of advice, videos and coaching but have noticed that sims are now accurate enough for them to work in so they do that too. You can get good info from both kinds of their videos, it all applies well. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtbLA0YM6EpwUQhFUyPQU9Q

 

 

I'll have to see if I can blag some lunchtime play sometime, it's been ages since I felt quiet enough with work to do it.

 

EDIT - I want to add a bit! You may start to look down the rabbit hole of tweaking setups. There is no rush at all to do this! The safe setup, with tyre pressures adjusted to come up to the right values for the track temperature, is all you need for quite some time. It's way better to focus on a stable car that you can then work on racing lines and other things than mess around trying to find some magical setup tweaks that make you go faster. So long as you do have the stable starting point, the vast majority of time is gained through technique. 

[SneakyNinja]

Yep, what he said  

 

That's pretty much the route I took. I only bought my gaming PC last year and hadn't raced online for decades.

 

Now, because of this lot, I've got a bunch of expensive Fanatec gear and an unhealthy obsession with lap times and driving technique.

 

[milko]

On 29/03/2021 at 22:39, milko said:

Usually when this happens I can get at least the lines right next session, so here's hoping.

 

Reader, hopes were dashed. I logged in, equalled my previous best time on the first timed lap before my tyres were even warmed up, thought "wahey, here we go!" and then proceeded to be shite for about 40 laps. Arrrrrrgh! I finally recovered after all that, one setup tweak and some stern internal monologuing later I managed finally to get into the high 1.25s. I've still left at least half a second out there somewhere by screwing up the easy bit of otherwise fast laps, it's mighty frustrating!

[davejm]

Morning guys.  We're back in league action this week, with a round of sprint racing at Brands Hatch!

 

 

 

Quite nervous about tonight  I've played 30 minutes of ACC in the last 2 weeks (enough to set that time) but don't let that table topping lap time fool you; I'm all over the place around Brands and I expect my race pace to be pretty bad this time.  I already have race pace and consistency issues which I'm trying to address, but Brands tends to show me up more than other tracks.  Looking forward to getting back on track though!

[Meers]

14 hours ago, milko said:

How to learn to do ACC the milko way, for some reason.

 

You might want to find a better role model but I might be useful as I only started the 'sim racer' journey in the past few months so I'm hopefully relevant. Before that I'd just dabbled, using a controller.

 

Read this guide which the developers made for newcomers: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xo52PFjuMrvILXtC-5R_9yS_9lGox6PS6JzA19Qjvz0/ [snip]

 

This post should be framed for all to see. Thanks for that Docs link, I have not seen that before I don't think. Especially the hardware setting bit is really helpful!

 

Apparently ACC uses ~5.5GB of VRAM (GPU). I have 4GB on my 1050 mobile, which explains the recent stuttering. So it's not just the CPU that's bottlenecking my system. Thankfully I can add some extra (and faster) RAM to alleviate some of the stress on the GPU and CPU. Apparently a dual strip of 4GB RAM is better than 1 strip of 8GB (which I have now). It's all explained in one of the links there. I'm learning more about this stuff every day.