RWD‘s physics on Gravel (+ some thoughts about stages/FFB/performance like a short review)

[Schub69]

There are a lot of discussions about the physics. Here are my 2cent to this stuff:
For me, especially the old Group B RWD cars are the ones, were the physics grows up to its best!! Until now, 80% of my 50hours driving time experience in WRC 23, I go alone with the Group B Lancia 037. Couldn’t get enough from driving it cause of the brilliant RWD physics while going on the gravel stages!!

But you have to get deep into the gravel physics, never mind which car you want to drive. They are brilliant!!
I am sure most people who said that the gravel physic’s are wheird, ugly, arcady and so on, (and you could find a lot of them!!) aren’t going deep enough to them or aren’t be able to get so deep as needed, for sure not deep enough to feel the fine details, for excample it’s brilliant weight transfers and the overall feel of loosing grip especially at the limits. For me these (gravel physics) are the greatest physics I have ever experienced in my over 20years of doing Rallye sims, and I play every title that comes out for pc, at least for a few ours, others far over 500ours (like RBR and Dirt Rally and DR 2.0)!!

All the gravel stages, Kenya, Portugal, Pacifico, Oceania, Greece, Finnland, Mexico, Sardegna, Estonia and Chile are soooo different in every kind and aspect, all of these have an absolute different feel, different Grip level, different lay out!!b And they are all a massive challenge to drive in their own specific way, especially with stage degradation!! At least if you want to be so fast there, that you come close to their real limit of each stage/car combination you choose. And for me they are also the most realistic ones I have driven so far. But it is a shame that we have to miss the super special stages😢… On the other Hand it is unbelievable how many individual kilometers we could go there👍👍👍!!

Also the FFB on gravel is the best experience that I have had in any Ralley title so far!! To have this fine experience you also have to go deep here to set all the possible settings to your needs and likes!! It takes me over 2 ours, but after that, the FFB is pure perfect with all the fine informations for imersion and all informations you need to have to be fast👍👌…

On the other side the Tarmac situation: The tarmac physics are not the best ones, way to grippy, especially on really slow corner outs, while coming out with a lot of torc, there is a kind of rail feeling and so on… on tarmac there is also the known Handbreak problem, I think this is a problem alone on tarmac, I didn’t have a problem while coming out slow corners with heavy torc or the harsh grip after going through hairpins with handbreak usage on gravel, at least with the faster RWD cars on gravel stages and gravel corners.

The stage design of a few tarmac stages for excample Croatia are soo boring, the stages there are so wide with thousands of same curves, everywhere the same grip level and the same tarmac structure, absolute smooth tarmac as black ice, no bumps or things like that. Sooo boring…

On the other side of tarmac experiences there are Monte with its changing surface cause snow and ice comes in and makes it so thrilling and Mediterranean with its nice layout, some ultra narrow sections through villages, and ultra fast light curvy sections to go through with one leg 7feet under the ground cause of the everywhere laughing absyss!! Overall challenging and frightening harsh corners and curves, some dangerous bumps and suddenly upcoming super hairpins - I will never forget my first attempt in Poggiola with an Group B Monster🙌👍👌!!

KI is very broken, but carrier isn’t the most important thing for me. To be honest, never testet carrier after I am now round 50hours in the game…
For me the Car Builder is an also garbage feature, but for everyone who likes such kind of stuff it is fine, clearly…

!!!! - Don’t want to waste time for the graphics part, everyone have her/his own taste. For me I like the graphics, not perfect but nice. But there is one really important Setting to have an overall way better looking sim:
!!!!! Go to Brightness and lower the brightness from vanilla 50% to 25% !!!!!
The whole graphics improves sooo much, especially the colours looks far more natural! The absolut overblown brightness (for example in Mexico) during day stages isn’t gone but it is far better with 25%!!
Night stages first time looks and feels like driving really through the night by 25% brightness! And they are still bright enough to see all!!
The ugly spectators, the gras, the bushes, the trees, all track side objects and the roads itself, everything looks far more natural and also way nicer with these 25% brightness setting. Try it , you will never go back to 50% - !!!!

The actual performance is also a big problem for a lot of user cause of the stutters, but only one per stage for me, when I drove it second time I mostly don’t have any one. On Monte the game crashed a few times, that is a no go for any game!!! But after the week one patch the stutters are nearly gone for me. To be true I had an game crash in Monte also after the patch which isn’t acceptable!! On the other side it runs fine (it improves more after the patch!)! With an very old PC with an vintage I7 7700k (which is two generations under the minimum specs!) in combination with an new and really great RTX 4080 I have round 80FPS most settings on ultra on 3440*1440. After the patch I have at least on during the day stages stable 100fps with that configuration with my 100hz monitor 👍👌!!
If there are still performance problems for you, set off mirrors (you don’t need them in Ralley) and set the reflections to the lowest(you wouldn’t see an difference while driving) and for sure, you will have at least round 20fps more with only by changing these two settings.

The tuning menu is the finest one in a Rallye game too. I know how the most stuff works, but to show how every aspect works on the picture beside is an really nice feature!!! And the affects of the tuning is amazing, soooo much to fiddle with, it could take for each stage/car combination hours to prepare the car for the greatest performance… For sure I didn’t do that for every stage/car combo, but it is fine that I could do that👍👌!! And I love to do Time Trial in WRC 23 and for that it is so important to have the best workstation we could find in an Rallye Simulation 🥸!!

For sure WRC 23 has still a few other downs like the missing save function for Replays (important to me!!), the breakling lights bug on replays, they didn’t work while watching the replays and that’s also important to me, cause I want to learn by watching my own replays to find better breaking points!
But there is still hope that these functions and bugs improved by the next coming patches! Clearly most important is to see another performance boost patch, that also let’s the sim be absolute stutter free!!! Let us hope…

Overall: I am really in love with WRC 23 and I am sure I will play it over 1000ours👍👌😍- most time with the outstanding physics of the fast classic RWDs!!!
And for sure most time on the brilliant gravel stages with Lancia‘s outstanding Group B RWD 037er and some other Classics like the Renault 5 RWD, the Stratos and the oldy but goldy Opels…
Please try it yourself! It is amazing!! All reviews are going from hate to glory…. You have to test it on your own… Go here to buy by Steam you could test it for two ours, if it isn’t yours you get your money back. But couldn’t imagine that this would be the case…

These are my 2 Cent to an Rallye Sim, I have ever waited for. Now Codis, thanks for this wonderful sim but please try to patch the few things that aren’t fine to the good side especially work to do anything against any stutter, and we have for sure the best Rallye Sim we have ever seen on the market for us…

And now I have to hurry up, back to rig, back to wheel, I am so addicted to fight through the gravel in WRC 23🙌🥰😍!!

(sorry for my ugly English - I am from Germany…)

Which RWD cars you prefer? Do you like the gravel the most, too? What do you think about the RWD’s physics on gravel?

[Calvin W]

Thanks dude!!
Let me try the RWD, haven't drive any of RWD yet because Codis have done a great in the way they bringing those return of classic cars, I am fascinated in FWD of WRC Car 97-2011.
I see another pal here driving AWD IRL quite appreciate the AWD's physics here.
I drive FWD IRL, I think Codis have never failed us =)

[Nandez]

Tnx for your honest review. I'm still waiting for those patches that hopefully will fix all reported bugs, that is the main reason of my refund. But I'm sure that once all those bugs will be ironed out, this is the next step from DR2

[Schub69]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Calvin W:

Thanks dude!!
Let me try the RWD, haven't drive any of RWD yet because Codis have done a great in the way they bringing those return of classic cars, I am fascinated in FWD of WRC Car 97-2011.
I see another pal here driving AWD IRL quite appreciate the AWD's physics here.
I drive FWD IRL, I think Codis have never failed us =)

The difference in the physics of all three groups are so fine, accurate and detailed, all of them needs to be driven👍!
And you are in the really small group of people who has a knowledge from the Rallye FWDs in real life, so it’s fine to hear they matched the physics👌!

[Schub69]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Nandez:

Tnx for your honest review. I'm still waiting for those patches that hopefully will fix all reported bugs, that is the main reason of my refund. But I'm sure that once all those bugs will be ironed out, this is the next step from DR2

I think you could give it a new chance, the big patch last week 1.2(called 1.3!??) did an great job on performance, at least for my system…
And I am sure a few upcoming patches will go on, on that so important point to eliminate any stutter!

[ZeroAffex]

Your english is so beautiful, well done! Loved the read and totally agree with you on just about everything you've touched on here. As for the physics aspect, RWD, FWD, 4WD, all of it feels great to drive. I think some of the confusion at launch was with people using low hp cars (juniors, H1/H2) and expecting them to be immediately loose because that's how the older games simulated gravel regardless of vehicle type. The new tire models are so much improved that we actually have a stronger variation in grip levels with new tires compared to worn tires. In DR 2.0, I could put soft tires on a Lancia Delta S4 and drive them no problem for 20-30 miles. Now, if I throw a pair of softs on, I'll be lucky to get 10 miles and that's driving VERY conservatively.

The grip fall off is so much more dynamic. Once you wear your treads down on a monster like a Group B, good luck! In hindsight, what Codies should of done is made short rallies have accelerated tire wear so people can experience this easier. It wasn't until I started doing Medium/Long rallies that I realized how much the tire models have been reworked. This is the first ever Dirt game I've ever actually took tire strategies seriously. And this is just the tires.

Gravel stages are so much more challenging and dynamic now too, physics aside. Other day, I blew a tire hitting a sharp rock laid in the middle of the road in Greece. I was so impressed that I wasn't even upset that I lost 3 minutes as I limped the car home. lol. I love the new hazards like rocks getting kicked up onto the roads or the ditches/potholes that run along the sides of them.

The feeling of gravel is so much better too and I do think it takes a RWD car to appreciate it. The amount of grip and type of surfaces change numerous times per stage whereas the old games, it was basically just 1 maybe 2 surfaces types you'd encounter. You can't just keep the accelerator pegged to the floor like the old games either. You have to feather the throttle quite a bit or you'll most likely loose control or worse, eat up your tires. Like I mentioned, the new tire model totally punishes you for being too aggressive on the throttle now. Al in all, am just really impressed and totally share the same sentiments as you.

Thanks for the wonderful post! I can easily write you a book on everything you wrote about. Loved reading it and think your english is really good too like I said! Take care my friend and happy driving! (^_^)_//

[stburr91]

After several paragraphs of going on about how advanced the gravel physics are......

Try to spin the tires in any car.....no seriously, just try to spin the tires.

Any car over 200 hp should be able to spin the tires on gravel indefinitely, but you can't do it in this game.

There's nothing "wrong" with liking bad gravel physics, but don't write paragraphs about it saying how amazing the physics are in the game.

[ZeroAffex]

Diposting pertama kali oleh stburr91:

After several paragraphs of going on about how advanced the gravel physics are......

Try to spin the tires in any car.....no seriously, just try to spin the tires.

Any car over 200 hp should be able to spin the tires on gravel indefinitely, but you can't do it in this game.

There's nothing "wrong" with liking bad gravel physics, but don't write paragraphs about it saying how amazing the physics are in the game.

Weird.. I can spin the tires on gravel? I have zero assist enabled (inclding abs/tc/ect.), hardcore damage on and use wheel+pedals. Just tested this and I can do doughnuts for days in a RWD H2 Ford Escort and keep the tires spinning no problem in 1st gear. Not sure if that's what you mean or not?

edit: said H1, meant H2.

[Omence072]

RWD on gravel has been the most fun for me. I have all assists off and I can easily spin the tires to the point of grip loss.

[stburr91]

Diposting pertama kali oleh ZeroAffex:

Diposting pertama kali oleh stburr91:

After several paragraphs of going on about how advanced the gravel physics are......

Try to spin the tires in any car.....no seriously, just try to spin the tires.

Any car over 200 hp should be able to spin the tires on gravel indefinitely, but you can't do it in this game.

There's nothing "wrong" with liking bad gravel physics, but don't write paragraphs about it saying how amazing the physics are in the game.

Weird.. I can spin the tires on gravel? I have zero assist enabled (inclding abs/tc/ect.), hardcore damage on and use wheel+pedals. Just tested this and I can do doughnuts for days in a RWD H2 Ford Escort and keep the tires spinning no problem in 1st gear. Not sure if that's what you mean or not?

edit: said H1, meant H2.

It's not just me pointing out that you can't spin the tires, and maintain a "drift" through the sweeping corners. It's very noticeable in the AWD cars. The most powerful AWD cars can spin their tires, but only briefly.

Go play BeamNG, spin the tires on gravel, then try the same thing in this game. I guarantee you will see a big difference between the two games. Spoiler, BeamNG simulates the breaking of tire traction much more accurately.

[Schub69]

Diposting pertama kali oleh stburr91:

Diposting pertama kali oleh ZeroAffex:

Weird.. I can spin the tires on gravel? I have zero assist enabled (inclding abs/tc/ect.), hardcore damage on and use wheel+pedals. Just tested this and I can do doughnuts for days in a RWD H2 Ford Escort and keep the tires spinning no problem in 1st gear. Not sure if that's what you mean or not?

edit: said H1, meant H2.

It's not just me pointing out that you can't spin the tires, and maintain a "drift" through the sweeping corners. It's very noticeable in the AWD cars. The most powerful AWD cars can spin their tires, but only briefly.

Go play BeamNG, spin the tires on gravel, then try the same thing in this game. I guarantee you will see a big difference between the two games. Spoiler, BeamNG simulates the breaking of tire traction much more accurately.

Sorry, but I can’t get it, as I said, mostly go with the RWDs but there was not one car so far which is unable to spin the wheels on gravel !??

Are you really sure you set traction control to off?

Otherwise I often read you are unable to drift through a combination of curves on gravel in WRC 23 - I could…
For that kind of driving style in WRC 23 you had to go deep in ,Rallye driving school‘ for sure (and it isn’t enough to finish the one which is included in WRC 23🤪) but physics wise you could… (You shouldn’t do that often for the reason of tire wear…, but that’s another topic…)

[Schub69]

Diposting pertama kali oleh ZeroAffex:

Your english is so beautiful, well done! Loved the read :BRSLove: and totally agree with you on just about everything you've touched on here. As for the physics aspect, RWD, FWD, 4WD, all of it feels great to drive. I think some of the confusion at launch was with people using low hp cars (juniors, H1/H2) and expecting them to be immediately loose because that's how the older games simulated gravel regardless of vehicle type. The new tire models are so much improved that we actually have a stronger variation in grip levels with new tires compared to worn tires. In DR 2.0, I could put soft tires on a Lancia Delta S4 and drive them no problem for 20-30 miles. Now, if I throw a pair of softs on, I'll be lucky to get 10 miles and that's driving VERY conservatively.

The grip fall off is so much more dynamic. Once you wear your treads down on a monster like a Group B, good luck! In hindsight, what Codies should of done is made short rallies have accelerated tire wear so people can experience this easier. It wasn't until I started doing Medium/Long rallies that I realized how much the tire models have been reworked. This is the first ever Dirt game I've ever actually took tire strategies seriously. And this is just the tires.

Gravel stages are so much more challenging and dynamic now too, physics aside. Other day, I blew a tire hitting a sharp rock laid in the middle of the road in Greece. I was so impressed that I wasn't even upset that I lost 3 minutes as I limped the car home. lol. I love the new hazards like rocks getting kicked up onto the roads or the ditches/potholes that run along the sides of them.

The feeling of gravel is so much better too and I do think it takes a RWD car to appreciate it. The amount of grip and type of surfaces change numerous times per stage whereas the old games, it was basically just 1 maybe 2 surfaces types you'd encounter. You can't just keep the accelerator pegged to the floor like the old games either. You have to feather the throttle quite a bit or you'll most likely loose control or worse, eat up your tires. Like I mentioned, the new tire model totally punishes you for being too aggressive on the throttle now. Al in all, am just really impressed and totally share the same sentiments as you.

Thanks for the wonderful post! I can easily write you a book on everything you wrote about. Loved reading it and think your english is really good too like I said! :KentWinning:Take care my friend and happy driving! (^_^)_//

Thank you for your kind words and explaining the detailed model of tyre wear in WRC 23👍!!
There are so many aspects in the physics that makes me addicted to this sim👍👌🙌🥰!! For another example is the influence of the incline and decline to the whole driving experience for excample in Locations like Sardegna, Portugal or Chile.
It is an complete ,other story‘ to go fast uphill than downhill. The whole weight transfer changed, first time the breaking distances feels right, first time the acceleration feels right, even undulating terrain has an unbelievable great influence to your driving style if you want to be really fast…

[Schub69]

The different grip Levels in all the Locations are great (and also the changes in between) and it is very important to adapt your driving style to each sort of gravel, but on top it is awesome to feel the different types of gravel also in the FFB👍👌!!

Two ours ago I did three stages directly behind each other, first one in Chile, second in Sardegna and third one in Estonia. Every gravel type has it’s own specific feel in the FFB (and of course in every other detail of the physics while driving them).

And for sure, it is very important - not only for this ,experiment’ - to figure out the perfect settings from the FFB to your like, which could take a lot of time!

[Head_on_a_Stick]

Diposting pertama kali oleh stburr91:

BeamNG simulates the breaking of tire traction much more accurately.

No idea about BeamNG but WRC doesn't bother modelling the actual wheel/ground interaction. It's not a simulator, it's a game with simulation aspects.

[GamepadPro]

RWD cars oversteer too much.

[Schub69]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Head_on_a_Stick:

Diposting pertama kali oleh stburr91:

BeamNG simulates the breaking of tire traction much more accurately.

No idea about BeamNG but WRC doesn't bother modelling the actual wheel/ground interaction. It's not a simulator, it's a game with simulation aspects.

Most said RBR is an Simulator, is a fine, or the best simulation, but try with an real modern Rallye car (an old one will show you the same result but it will clearly slide and drift earlier than an modern one) at a slow speed round 30-40km/h, to turn the wheel fast but slightly, left or right, be sure there is absolute no slip, no drift, it sticks to the road also while turning a bit at an far higher speed than 30km/h!!
In RBR there isn’t any kind of realistic behavior when you go slow. For sure RBR grows the faster you go, but on low speeds the physics from RBR are far away from reality!! And that’s not the only thing RBR doesn’t make perfect…

Every sim has it’s pros and cons. And for the overall imersion, and that is the point of a good simulation, at least for me, WRC 23 did an absolute amazing job, and to say it again, WRC 23 is for me cause it’s nearly perfect imersion while driving, the best Rallye sim out there, at least on gravel 👍👌!!

And please do not get me wrong, I am not an RBR hater, I used that sim for far over 500h and had a lot of fun with it…