How Realistic is F122? (According to an F1 Engineer)
Interesting video:
Forum Discussion
48 Replies
- @Ultrasonic_77 I'm pretty sure it has to do with brake-by-wire, 50% brake pressure doesnt have to mean 50% braking but could be 60%
Not saying what i just said is the anwser, but that's what i've heard about braking not being accurate on the graphs we see on TV - @Horseponyhybrid Braking was always shown as on/off way before there was the BBW thing.)
After driving F1 cars in actual simulators I can say the F1 cars int he game, (especially wheel support) are horrible in the feeling and feedback. F1 2020 is closer to real life 2022 cars than F1 22.
I know people might use medium traction but imo those guys cannot take part in this discussion as real life has no TC as well. the traction is completely different and you can feel this straight away as in an F1 car you could go flat in 2nd gear while ingame here its not possible. Also higher gears the traction of an F1 car is one of the easiest in any race car out there. Why they decided to make it so unrealistic, i dunno. (again, 2020 had fairly realistic handling) Same with the reaction of the car. Yes, this generation produces understeer but the amount of understeer IRL is significantly less. the car still turns in straight away unlike F1 22.
Also the gear sync is completely wrong in F1 22.
But the biggest difference compared to an Arcade or simcade game and an actual sim is the feedback. Yes, its no secret that wheels in F1 games havent been supported well at all for pretty much ever and the game is made for a controller (yes, 22 being first game where controller isnt the better device, and pretty much equal to wheel)
Still, the support for a wheel should be MUCH MUCH better in this game as practially you get zero indication what the car is doing in the device via FFB.
- @Wollcott Before people ask: the most realistic F1 car in a game is the W13 in iracing as it was designed and programmed by mercedes engineers themselves. (and yea the FFB in iRacing isnt that great as well, pretty poor actually. But it is still miles clear of F1 22 - and that is insane to think as iRacing is from 2008 and F1 22 basically 2015)
@Wollcott wrote:After driving F1 cars in actual simulators I can say the F1 cars int he game, (especially wheel support) are horrible in the feeling and feedback. F1 2020 is closer to real life 2022 cars than F1 22.
I know people might use medium traction but imo those guys cannot take part in this discussion as real life has no TC as well. the traction is completely different and you can feel this straight away as in an F1 car you could go flat in 2nd gear while ingame here its not possible. Also higher gears the traction of an F1 car is one of the easiest in any race car out there. Why they decided to make it so unrealistic, i dunno. (again, 2020 had fairly realistic handling) Same with the reaction of the car. Yes, this generation produces understeer but the amount of understeer IRL is significantly less. the car still turns in straight away unlike F1 22.
Also the gear sync is completely wrong in F1 22.
But the biggest difference compared to an Arcade or simcade game and an actual sim is the feedback. Yes, its no secret that wheels in F1 games havent been supported well at all for pretty much ever and the game is made for a controller (yes, 22 being first game where controller isnt the better device, and pretty much equal to wheel)
Still, the support for a wheel should be MUCH MUCH better in this game as practially you get zero indication what the car is doing in the device via FFB.
Regarding 2nd gear, you are absolutely right about that. Watching many onboards just proves it to be so. F1 cars always had huge traction.
- @Blackbird90
Yea and after watdching the video i think theres one massive flaw in their comparison. And that is the traction part.
The outcome is somewhat very misleading and they compared wrong things to each other.
Alex lap was done under normal F1 22 shifting (perhaps slightly lower than you would go) but still higher than IRL and Russells lap. So essentially they are comparing Alex in third gear on the apex and throttle out of the corner to Russell whos in 2nd gear at that time and does no shortshifting, while Alex is arleady in fourth when Russell just upshifts to third.
That makes a comparison impossible as traction is obviously different in every gear. Alex should instead have done his lap in the same gears (or as close as possible) as Russell. Because then the outcome would have been completely different as George is flat in 2nd gear and Alex wouldve had to be much more cautious while putting power down.
I also asked 2 other experienced Sim pros about this and they say the same thing. Alex and the other guy probably forgot that dimension when making this video so i dont want to blame them but definitely that comparison does not give true results. - @Wollcott Make a good point. I didn’t take into account which gear Alex was in.
- @ScarDuck14 yea tbf i was still suprised that it was fairly close but then it shouldnt have been a suprise as alex basically gives himself more traction via the higher gears. Unfortunately they did not consider this beforehand, would have been interesting to the the actual difference but im sure T1 already would have been big difference in traction.
still a good video tho. some things are definitely very similar. for me personally i hate this high gear shifting in the F1 game. feels so unnatural and wrong. and its also a vicious circle as the game has no good traction you go on and use even higher gears than previously. really hope that gets reverted in the future although i have no clue if i will ever open this game again ;( @Wollcott did you get to drive a sim in a factory or in the team's entourage? This is off topic, but if that's the case I'd love to hear more about it and I'm most definitely not alone in that! Though there are a bunch of users who casually play the game, there's a good number of legit petrol heads here that will always perk their ears up to hear such stories 👌
However if you got into a sim in an exhibition, museum or the sort, please bear in mind that those sims are tuned for the general public. I'm referring to sims like those in the Ferrari museums or in the various exhibitions the teams promote around the world.
It is still a great experience, but the sims are tuned down with TC, lower FFB strength etc.
Regarding going flat on 2nd gear, I'll properly attach a telemetry screenshot when I get back to my desktop but you'll notice how their throttle application is not so binary. And race start incidents are there to demonstrate that it is not as simple as go full throttle from 2nd onwards. Healthy dose of upshifting or throttle modulation.
To those not entirely sure what this is about, think of the engine speed (RPM) as the source of power of the car, not the throttle. The throttle is a valve that allows you to increase or decrease the engine speed at different rates - so 50% throttle will increase engine RPM at a certain rate from idle to 12.000 or whatever, while going full throttle will do so much faster. It is not instantaneous though. You can be at full throttle in lower gears no problem, as long as you upshift earlier (shortshifting) when the wheels get close to breaking traction as the power increases as a result of higher engine speeds.
That said, the game has a lot to improve to get to a more realistic state. David Greco himself has mentioned many aspects he wasn't content about in F1 22 and even shared a long list of handling features and updates he'd like to work on, so that (not being in a good state) is not a secret.
Same goes for the FFB.
Comparing it to iRacing as a game "released In 2008" is misleading too. iRacing gets huge updates from time to time and the last one was pushed just a few months ago. Literally everything from AI to crash models to FFB gets reworked in these big updates. If you were to play the game in an earlier state it would not feel the same.
And I imagine you know this already, but for those reading iRacing's W13 was not designed and programmed by Mercedes. They did a great collab, with constant feedback from the team and even a Discord server just for Mercedes engineers and iRacing devs to hang out and discuss progress with the car.
It was still made by the iRacing guys over data provided by Mercedes.
You can take a peek at how it happened on the iRacing Downshift podcast with James Vowles, episode 40. Yes, that Vowles that has just jumped ships and is now the boss at Williams haha! In the show he speaks at length on how the car was developed, what sort of data they disclosed for the iRacing team, what the iRacing devs got right and what they got wrong. Keyword here being "they", as in iRacing devs - Mercedes didn't code or program anything, just gave feedback on how it was shaping up and tested it in a simracing rig with Anthony Davidson and Mercedes eSports drivers Jarno and I think Moreno.
