So frustrated with difficulty

[LazerShoes]

This is more of a rant than anything, but man I suck so bad at this game. Every car, every track it feels like I can barely control the car. If I accellerate too fast, I spin out. Take a corner slightly too fast, spin out. Brake wrong, spin out. I didn't feel this catastrophically bad with Pcars 1, although I've never been good at sim racing.

I've turned off the assists and racing line, as I didn't like the controls doing their thing to try to correct my crappy driving, and as a VR player I wanted total immersion so no huds or braking line.

But what makes me want to uninstall the game and sell my wheel on eBay is how casually the AI outruns me. I have the AI set to an absolutely pitiful skill level 20, with aggression set to 10 and they just have this speed that I can barely match. Even if I floor it on a straight they will just speed right past me.

The AI cars have perfect traction and never seem to make a mistake, while I can barely, just barely hold onto the car. And if I try really hard, I can maybe win a race at skill level 20. Which, yes, I know is sad.

In online races, at best I've gotten to a mid pack finish, but usually I'm in last place or even worse, getting lapped. It's really demoralizing and I just don't understand how anyone could be so fast and not instantly lose control and crash.

I know sim racing tends to favor specialization in certain types of cars. But what always ends up happening is I try GTE or Indycar, or any class really, fail hard, get frustrated, and switch to another random car. Or I get sick of one track and try something else. So I keep changing the variables of track and car and never really learn anything it seems.

I've looked into tuning, but it seems extremely complicated with so many variables I don't understand.

Is there some critical setting I have messed up to make it so extremely difficult to control every car, or do I just plain suck? Are there any kind of general racing lessons I can do?

[Proff_Chaos]

Keep in mind that the GT3 and Indy cars (most modern race cars) have these assists activated irl, so if your trying to drive aggressively without assists on and your not that seasoned at racing, then ya, your probably going to get frustrated. Thats a lot of power to harness.....I myself would stay with one car and track and start slow and keep going faster.

Other things you can do is try to brake while the car is still in the straights (before entering corner) and slowly depress the throttle when coming out of the corners.

*Would almost have to see what you're doing during the course in order to fully see and understand what's going on while your driving in order to give you any tips and recommendations though...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFqHjR7wkuQ

[Proff_Chaos]

This is Aristotelis (awesome dude and programmer/driver) from Assetto Corsa doing a great informative vid for sim noobs and veterans.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kj9Y_qdxoZA

[BrianEmb]

Do some time triallling and have a ghost that is a bit faster than you and keep doing that as it helps learning tracks and braking points.

[⎛⎝sàtán⎠⎞]

gte/gt3 and indy are some funny classes with lots of spinouts if you dont break/speed correctly, a good advise for you. Try Touring car and go for the mercedes, opel or reno megane (all witch have front wheel drive) that way you wont oversteer but understeer witch is easier to control. and then do some practise with one of the 3 cars named above so that you actually learn it.

About straight line speed, remember its all about the cornor, apex and exit speed. if you come out of a cornor with only 100Km/h while the AI leaves with 110Km/H they are bound to overtake you on a straight simply because of that speed diffrence. so go watch a video on Racing line and apex's that way you might get a better understanding about how it works :)

Hope this helps alittle :)

[Frogster 🐸]

Learn to drive.

[EmuRock PC2]

VR user here too

Coming from titles as Gran Turismo and Forza personally
PC2 is a much harder game
but when you improve lap time`s in PC2
its also more revarding

for online racing i suggest learning a GT3 car well as its the easiest cars to find online games for


When i started racing with no assist it felt horrible,
but the experience improved when i found car setups

Make sure you chouse the stable preset setup for the GT3 cars ,
try to flip between setup presets in any car you like

My favourite GT3 car is Porsche GT3 R but the loose preset(default) is horrible compared to using the stable IMO
loose make the Porsce GT3 R flip over so much faster than stable
the reason i like Porsche GT3 R is that its a fast car but also have good force feedback
which tell me when the car is about to slip

i joined a online race yesterday where you could only chouse the GT3 Ferrari
i couldnt feel the FFB much in this car and i went off the track frequently through the whole race even i know the track wery well
so pick a car you feel have the best handling for youre tastes
and stick with it for a good while
before you experiment with other cars

try to do online racing often
find a track you like the most of the ones that is popular online and learn it well
also load a ghost in time trial that has slightly better times than you
and see what the ghost does better than you
you will learn a lot from this
when you have improved then keep add ghosts that is slightly better

wheen you feel you cant improve more on the track you picked as no 1
its time to pick track no 2

you can also copy the car setups from the ghosts you are using in time trial
dont expect miracles from others peoples presets though
i copied the Porsche GT3 world record holder on Red Bull Ring GP time trial
but went back to the stable preset as i prefer it more

brake sensivity and brake pressure settings is something you should look into


im not an expert in this game, pretty fresh to SimRacing actually
but im gradually getting better as i keep practicing
and i have learned much from hints and tips

consistent driving is the most important IMO and will help you improve naturally over time
consistent driving makes it fun even when you loose
at least for me



heres a youtube link to some great racing driving lessons : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZlOkt1oU2k

this guy give racing driving lessons that works well for SimRacing
highly reccomended :)

[BR|sCip]

and how i know which setup is good for a car that i choose ?

[Mahjik]

Originally posted by >5Cip<:

and how i know which setup is good for a car that i choose ?

Setups for the most part, are driver dependent. Just because someone logs a fast time with a specific setup doesn't mean you can achieve the same time (nor drive it a well).

Use the in-game Setup Engineer to adjust your setup. As you use it, you'll get to see and understand what types of changes to make based on your own driving style.

[Ribalder]

well as far as settings, reset them to default, pick like a easy to drive car like a GT3, a track, and go from there. change things a little at a time.
are you using a wheel or a controller? thats an important thing for us to know.
but big dead zones and low number sensitivitys are generally a good idea if youre having trouble with control and spins.
for me, using a controller, I was about to refund till I discovered 'Controller Damping' in the configuration for controller.
In PC1 it was called 'controller filtering sensitivity'.
theres wheel setups out there, you should be able to get around w/out spins an probs just tweaking configs in options/controls.
save that race engineer in-depth fine tuning for later at a track with a car you can already do well with, but want to get a lil faster.

[EmuRock PC2]

Originally posted by >5Cip<:

and how i know which setup is good for a car that i choose ?

i would start by trying the stable preset as loose it set as the default preset
use the preset you like the most between these two
and make some personal changes from there if you feel the need

using others presets is not something i have liked so far
because there is so many variations with users using different wheels, pedals etc
+ the software for our wheels and pedals (even if we use the same models) could have different settings too
and then there are driving styles and taste on top of that

i had a harde time hadling the Porsche GT3 R for example until i switched to the stable preset

to me the two presets do exactly as they say
Loose makes the car feel loose
and Stable makes the car feel more stable

[Jon K.]

To make you feel better I have the same issues. I am not as fast and struggle to keep up and control the car. Time trials etc I am 10 secs off the pace and 5 secs racing. The strange thing is I have actually raced and rallied real cars over the years and won!!! How do you think I feel?

[ASR@Feynman]

As you have discovered John, no Sim will ever be like driving a real car.....it’s a game like any other but with quite a bit of detail relating to real world cars and setups that some knowledge does make a difference.
But a 12 year old running a standard setup may well beat many serious sim racers with their favourite setup.

In Pcars 2 it does take a while to get used to the handling, more than I found in Pcars1 .

So stick with it :)

[Lucky]

I have an issue online(besides all the ramers) whenever another car passes me my car starts driving like crap, it goes from being a pretty good car to driving like it's on a greasy track and stays that way until I pit. Is this a bug or some kind of cheat? How do I fix this??

[ASR@Feynman]

There was an issue with the grip levels changing from practice to qualifying and the race.. I found the track had less grip in the race despite the fact that the conditions were the same...Happened at Donnington in the BMW TC .

[cpcdem]

Originally posted by Lucky:

I have an issue online(besides all the ramers) whenever another car passes me my car starts driving like crap, it goes from being a pretty good car to driving like it's on a greasy track and stays that way until I pit. Is this a bug or some kind of cheat? How do I fix this??

If you're in a medium/high downforce car, when a car passes you and stays in front of you you will have instability due to its dirty air, and this is a common "problem", but it should be fine again when there's no car directly in front of you.

Haven't heard of such a problem happening mid race and staying throughout. There do exist problems that happen at the beginning of the race though, and usually have to do with car assists randomly resetting on race start, steering ratio becoming randomly weird etc. But not in mid race.