Comparison lap: Forza 7 vs Project Cars 2 vs Assetto Corsa vs Real Life - Huracan GT3 @ Silverstone

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Hi all, I hope you are enjoying FM7 as much as I am, never been a better time to be a racing gamer imo.

How does Forza 7 compare to the main competition and to real life on track? That is a question I wanted to answer yesterday with a comparison video between the current 3 leading games and some real life footage. I chose the Lamborghini Huracan GT3 for the comparison at Silverstone. I could run consistent 2:04 laps in each game and found some footage of a real Huracan GT3 running at 2:04 pace (Pro-Am pace in the real Blancpain GT3 Championship, good luck to those who can match the pole sitting 1:59 pace!)

All the footage was captured from the PC versions of the games. Yes Forza 7 does run well on PC now! Project CARS 2 and Assetto Corsa videos are both from Oculus Rift VR.

Comparison lap: Forza 7 vs Project Cars 2 vs Assetto Corsa vs Real Life - Huracan GT3 @ Silverstone here is the video of the results:

Forza 7 vs lap Huracan GT3

Uncanny Valley

All 3 games are incredibly close in both look, feel and sound to the real world footage, there is no doubt these are all close recreations of the Huracan GT3 car and accurate Silverstone tracks. What the video can’t show you is the subtle differences between the games, here are my thoughts after running the games back to back for these laps yesterday.

Forza 7 - actually the most difficult to set a good and consistent lap time in. The lack of tarmac feel (corner and kerb feel are fine) makes it more difficult to hustle the car and a smooth hand is required on the wheel, much improved over any previous FM game all the same. Flat tarmac feel aside the car looks and feels right, Silverstone feels a little narrow compared to the other games (in real life the width of the Silverstone track robs a lot of the sensation of speed). Forza’s greatest strength is that it absolutely looks the fastest of the games, it really does convey moving at 100mph+ well.

Project CARS 2 - looks superb in VR and the Hurcan has a real weight and aggression in the feel of the car on track. Silverstone looks as wide as it is in real life. The world scale in VR is perfect it feels like sitting in the real car. Getting the wheel set to give a good balance between feedback and weight remains a challenge in pcars2. The pcars2 sound is also more aggressive than Forza. Where pcars2 lags behind Forza 7 is in the feeling of speed. No matter the speed pcars2 cars feel pedestrian. Jumping between the 2 games I had to adjust my driving significantly, I was entering corners far too quickly at first because the car felt much slower. Once I’d adjusted I could lap in the same 2:04 times, but I still needed to watch the speed more closely. Tyre squeal sounds are essential to achieving a decent lap in PCARS2.

Assetto Corsa - Assetto Corsa has the most intuitive steering feel and higher grip levels. This game was the easiest to get in and drive fast with consistent laps. It can’t match the look and feel of pcars2 or the sense of speed of Forza and the sound is also somewhere between the 2. (The audio file on the Assetto video is slightly out of synch as it was recorded in VR but I left it in as an example of how the game sounds.)

Laptimes need a mention too. The Blancpain GT3 Championship Silverstone pole time set in a Huracan GT3 in 2016 was 1.59. According to the leaderboards on Assetto Corsa gets close to these times (some alien driver, not me!), Project CARS2 and FM7 current top times are in the 2:02 region but as newer games maybe others will go quicker. For me Assetto Corsa feels like it has more grip.

So which is best? Well I struggle to make that choice, to me they are all different and all superb in their own way. Forza 7 is the best ‘game’ and has the best impression of speed of the 3, Project CARS 2 the best ‘race weekend simulator’ with real weather & time. Assetto Corsa has great steering feel and superb almost human AI. I can’t split them and I hope the video shows just how close a recreation of the real world they all are. The best time ever to be a racing gamer? I think so.

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Thanks for the comparison, I’ll try Forza 7 against Pcars. I’m really enjoying Forza 7, there’s something about it that makes it feel better than previous versions, you seem to have to work harder which makes it more real. This really is a good time to be a racing gamer.

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PC2 looks amazing, much more detailed and closer to the real track than Forza (which of course suffers from 100.000 tyre stacks around the course). Guess I will have to try it someday.

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Agree guys, Forza 7 has better feedback than any previous FM.

PC2 does look superb and yes I’m surprised the tyre stacks remained after FM6, I thought the T10 team acknowledged they were not the most elegant or effective solution to corner cutting?

I notice the thread has been moved from Forza 7 discussion to the basement and general Xbox gaming, in a thread with PC video! I can only wonder why, I suppose because I dared to mention the competition.

Clearly the FM7 discussion area is only for ranting and arguing threads these days. I’d heard stories of excessive moderation here lately, seems they may be true.

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I think You make a fair summary and have certainly picked up on the strengths or otherwise of each title. But I have issues. I too have played all three. PC2 got traded in after a week, I found it to be a huge dissapointment on every single level. This is an FM forum so I won’t go into detail. AC looks like something off a PlayStation 1 at times but feels sublime with a wheel. Which leaves FM7. Hmmmm. It SHOULD tick all the boxes but simply doesn’t for me. Yes it looks gorgeous but kinda too much if that makes sense. It’s too polished to the point of being unnatural. It seems to have an identity crisis in that it’s basically an arcade racer but looks too good to be that and promises more than it delivers.,The feeling of actual driving is pretty much non-existent on a wheel if the truth be told, I’ve tried every tweak known to mankind but it’s no good, it’s plain wrong… My biggest gripe however is the sound. Again, found myself trying to be convinced it was OK, but it isn’t. If you play AC you get a real sense of brutishness and snarl. FM7 just sounds flatulent at times. I hate to say it but my FM7 is joining PC2 on the trade-in shelf - I’m going to focus on AC as for me it’s the only one on XBone at least that NEARLY delivers everything. I feel like I’m going for a drive in AC. In FM7 there’s just not that level of engagement.

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if your wanting to feel the sense of speed in PC2 then go into camera settings turn field of view speed sensitivity on and put your cockpit view between 90/100 field of view.

when i hit the straights on pc2 i felt exactly the same as you doing 160 felt like 80 but after enable speed sensitivity and playing with the fov its a completely different game its actually scary to drive the p1 gtr in cockpit everything is just a blur and your at the next corner within seconds!. i like forza but imo pc2 and assestto corsa are the most realistic racing sims out there hands down.

Forza horzion is hella fun though! prefer the horzions to forza motorsport.