When you list all of these improvements across the sims, it actually makes me feel a little more encouraged about where our hobby is heading. I’ve found myself getting frustrated this year by the lack of momentum with a lot of the titles I race, but when you actually look back on the year and highlight all the positive developments - exactly as you’ve done here - there’s been a lot of really great stuff happen. Add to that, the work of third party platforms like LFM and other communities that help to bring out the best in the more ageing sims, and there’s still a lot to be excited about 😃
Well said Chris. I think things are heading slowly but surely in the right direction for our beloved hobby. I only recently started getting into it seriously (mostly because of you and your amazing vids and commentary) but most of my xmas wishes this year are pc/rig upgrades😂. Thankyou guys so much for everything you do the the sim community. Have a great Christmas 🎄 🎉 Much love 🇦🇺
AMS2 is awesome IMO - I gifted a few of my friends it and were having a laigh - The fact you can setup private lobbies with the new improved Ai makes it my #1
This is probably the greatest feature in AMS2. me and my mates cant compete in public lobbies in iracing because we are in differen irating, and private lobbies are money. ACC can do it to some extent but we are only 3-4 people and having open servers means some random is gonna spoil it for us. but AMS 2 is perfect in this regard.
After the recent 1.5 patch for AMS2 I noticed such an improvement that I finally found the motivation to purchase the Season Pass to get all the content that I was missing before!
I'm actually playing AMS2 quite a lot and I am happy for those patches but I can't still say that the physics is flawless. There is still that weird oversteery rotation on throttle in some cars that makes me feel the physics isn't completely fixed yet. Formula Ultimate also has a weird shaking in high speed corners that looks weird at least to me.
Ben, i fully agree with you although in a different order. 1. rFactor2 is, even now MSG is in heavy weather, improved new systems that extend its lifetime (new ranking, LFM integration etc) work great! Little to no content :-( 2. AMS2 : Great new content and superb support. 3. iRacing. Great content, although constantly postponing the rain update nerves me down. Big disappointment this year is RaceRoom: Still nothing on a DX update and almost no extra content. Are they working on something big in 2024? ACC as well, but knowing all the efforts are in AC2 makes me happy.
I'd agree with your Raceroom sentiment - most if not all other racing titles have moved forward throughout the year and RR has mainly just stood still. There's a tyre update coming this month, and they claim they're working on graphical improvements (or at least intent to) but I haven't heard of any actual plan / roadmap for 2024. ACC will be moving for a bit before long with GT2 class and Nordschleife announced - there's not much more it can really do being a class-specific / orientated title.
Could be wrong but I dont think Raceroom has the resources to move along at the same pace. It rarely ever gets coverage online, they have the DTM links which already led to sim racers jump to the real thing but overall its not a very popular sim anymore, I can’t imagine where they’d get their income from on a consistent basis
i've only done raceroom and ams2 lately so i can't comment other than to say the recent ams2 update was phenomenal. it now gives me exactly what i've always wanted from a sim, something i've never been able to say before about any sim i've tried. congrats on the 10k subscribers. i remember when you first started and i bet you never imagined you would reach such dizzy heights. well deserved though as you always produce genuinely high quality videos - as does chris rogers
My biggest complaint w/ RF2 is how hard it is to get a single player game going. Every time I load it up I get many different problems w/ the UI, it accepting the settings changes I put in, no FFB, and the general not user friendliness & lack of intuitive UI. When I have gotten everything working right it gave the best FFB I've ever felt. What I love about AMS2 & why I use it the most is the huge variety of cars & tracks that are all great, Ui interface, it very reliably works & overall ease of use. What I think needs to be improved the most in AMS2 is the FFB is really dull on my T300 wheel and much less powerful than other sims even at 100%.
I would echo everything you've said above about both RF2 and AMS2. I have a CSL DD/Elite V2 setup and I find the RF2 experience so frustrating, I barely run it without quitting in fury due to controls not working at all or mis-calibrated, which never happens in AMS2.
I have got to agree with your top 3. I really need to play both AMS2 and rFactor2 more than I do. iRacing just pulls me in all the time as it is so accessible.
considering the massive amounts of money iRacing is bringing in each year, the should be number 1 in the list each year. they figured out the formula, which was a friendly UI and online racing... everything else is lagging
@@dgibbs5069 just to make sure, when using the custom preset you are using custom ffb files, right? I remember thinking it was the only one that let you customize the strength, lmao
@@supercomedys honestly I'm very new to ask this serious simracing stuff. Built my first pc this year and everything lol. How do i even get custom ffb files? Excuse my noobness lol
@@dgibbs5069 You can download them off of, for example, Race Department, like a mod, and put it in an appropriate folder in the game files. The custom preset in the game options loads up said custom file. However, I've heard that the Default+ preset is currently more than good enough, so if you don't want to experiment with others' setups, you can just use that.
Subscribed. You and your great content sure deserve our support. Just a note on AMS2: hope that anyone watching this comparison sees La Broca's newest video on the addition of Le Mans to AMS2. Since it was released on the last day of 2023 I can't fault Ben for omitting it. But since it was released in 2023 I suppose it just adds to the 'most improved' aspect of this video. Given the current sale price on Steam for (I think) $9.99 until Jan 04, it is also the best deal anywhere (here looking at you, iRacing - your Steam sale's price of $4.99 doesn't mention a monthly membership and having to pay for everything else on top of that - sheez).
Great content as usual & I agree AMS2 has been very active in 2023, all positive too. One question though: I've driven all the sims except iRacing & I'd like to know which one is generally considered to have the most accurate physics; I ask this because I hear a lot about AMS2 not being perfect but improving, you stated it yourself in this video... what is the standard against which this is being measured? I guess RF2 as it has a reputation for fidelity but maybe it's another sim? :)
its all subjective in the end, you will find people swearing iracing/ac/acc/rf2/ams1/ams2 is the best and most "real"... just play them all and make up your own mind, they are all great (except iracing imo due to price)
The "standard" depends on what people have driven the most (IMO). It's very few of us who have had the privilege of driving the same cars IRL as we drive in sim, and even then, people place importance on different things. Just look at real life GT3 drivers where you have a camp claiming ACC is the most accurate, with others saying iRacing feels better to them. For me personally it's about how much the cars feel like... cars. Through the physics and FFB. Previously AMS2 had this very floaty feeling where it felt like you weren't actually driving on tyres that were connected to the road, while now cars finally feel connected. In my personal opinion, iRacing sets the highest standard for how braking should feel, while rF2 sets a high bar for how weight transfer and road/kerb vibrations feel. AMS2, as of 1.5.3, delivers an exceptional all-round package, where I don't think there's one particular thing it does best (handling wise), but it does everything well. Anyway, that's just my own thoughts ;)
I'd like to add that EA WRC was absolutely terribly buggy when it released, but since then it's quickly turned into my favorite game as things have been getting much better! It's a bit sad everyone gave up on it so fast, but I can understand.
They've had issues with the store since July, and those issues have apparently been fixed earlier this month. Which is a shame, I wonder how their content would have fared if they didn't have those issues.
Love this kind of content! Very nice to here your thoughts. Myself is focusing fully on iRacing as a sim, and F1 23 for fun, but this for sure makes me wanna try ams2! For curiosity, what sim is your preferred one over all? Let's say if you just wanna go for hotlaps for the feels
I recently upgraded and got a Playseat Challenge seat and got a bigger screen from a friend and when i started playing AMS on that Setup i immediately fell in love with it and also my racecraft improved thanks to these upgrades. Also give Racing Life a chance, it gives you a goal to achieve and try out different cars and tracks
I started simracing 6 months ago and changed from assetto corsa to ASM2 with race craft online for a nice tracked online career. It is a lot of fun, even in rookie class. It adds adaptive bots if you are less than 4 players. You get a graph of your progress, and pp plays really faire because of automatically career penalty if u crash, hit other, or go off track.
for me i only have rFactor 2 and AMS2 so id rate them like that although i dont feel much difference in terms AMS 2 physics still have issues with force feed back and i dont like their UI looks very dull and boring i prefer rFactor 2 dont know why they didnt copy Project cars 2 one was very interesting so rFactor 2 takes the crown
i am ok for AMS2 first, it was a wonderfull job this year for this game. but, i put Rfactor 2 before iracing. the most waiting feature of Rfactor is here.. iracing have some good stuff, but no rain, no news tire model, no re laser scan for old track like spa.
RaceRoom deserves a mention but iRacing is still my goto. I'm trying to get back into racing, been hitting Mugello Circuit int he Ferrari 296 alot to get used to the new physics as well as the new circuit added t othe service.
I agree with AMS2... I tired VR for the first time last week and omg i was and still blown away. I did not know a game could llok so good in VR and so well optimized. AMS2 IMO is also the best looking right now. It is still a little bit slidy but a ton of fun. Just need a career and decent ranking system
We have two Quest 2 VR headsets in the house and it truly adds a whole new dimension to an already realistic sim. I can't recommend it enough. Instead of forking out hundreds of dollars for iRacing, that money would be far better spent on a VR headset. Once you try racing in VR there's no going back. And I have a 4 metre wide screen I sit in front of (fed through a projector in the basement). I haven't tried VR in any sim other than AMS2 although I believe that ACC supports it.
Hard to deny the fact that Assetto Corsa practically recieves daily content updates and graphics/physics/AI/UI updates every couple of months through CSP/Pure/SoL, etc.
AMS2 has improved the most overall but its been a frustrating ride and I still just don't jell with the way it drives. For me the most improved sim that I want to play each night its rFactor2 with its excellent ranking system. Followed very closely by Asseto Corsa joining up with LFM and the incredible modding scene that has done what Kunos refuses to do.
i'd give the "prize" to original assetto corsa, having LFM add it to their supported game list is a huge upgrade to competitive racing on the sim, and is basically the only reason i play AC
P1 is Assetto Corsa by very far So many improvements for almost no money and content second to none Why not play it. No like for this video sorry with all due respect
@@sargentodapaz Why? More people race, cruise, drift, AC online than all the others combined (apart from iRacing) every month. There are incredibly smart people developing amazing mods to keep it cutting edge. 8 to 10k every day drive AC as Steam shows. 2k to 4k drive ACC. Other sims are not even on the radar. eg, rF2 = 500 to 800. Check the numbers. It will never die for diehards for whom that sim has s=served well fopr so long for little money even if you buy quality premium mods. AC2 better be better than AC1 or it will die.
@@paulvelasco9267 "AC2 better be better than AC1 or it will die" and that's going to be a BIG problem moving forward for the AC Dev's Prising everyone away from AC1 is not going to be an easy task as AC2 will have to be optimised and running better with regards to Physics and tire model than whats gone before, I am not sure if they can pull it off it's going to be a tough ask.
Where has AC improved in 2023? I haven't seen anything new besides some mods. AC is a very good game, no question. Because of mods it's life seems to be endless. But esp. physics/tiremodels feel very dated. I like to test mods/cars/tracks in it, but I will never get the good feeling in my wheel other sims can provide.
Definitely RFactor 2 takes the Cake. From a basically dead sim with the best physics engine, to an amazing online competitive option and actual viable iRacing competitor.... that still has the best physics and handling dynamics