Project CARS Now Runs Great on Surface Pro 2!

A while back I did a video of Project CARS running on the Surface Pro 2, and it ran, but only barely, on on the least detailed track in the game. I always felt like I could get the game to run better... just wasn't in the mood to install such a large program on my tablet again... until now. :)

My first video this time around was on California Highway, at 1080p with 6 cars on the track, and it ran pretty good!I recorded this video with my iPhone.



Still, I wasn't fully satisfied. The frame rate seemed a little low, and from outside the car, the framerate dropped significantly. As I was making the above video, I remembered that running the game in 720p when I had my 560Ti greatly improved the performance, so why wouldn't that work now? Sadly, on the Surface Pro 2, it's not as simple as just dropping the resolution in game. The Surface tablets put a black border around the game when you do that. I looked online for a bit, and the best solution I found was to set the desktop resolution to 720p, and then launch the game at 720p. It's a bit of annoyance, but if you wanna play Project CARS on your tablet, it's worth it. You can also install beta drivers for the Intel HD card directly from Intel, but I didn't want to bother with that. Below is my first video on the Surface Pro 2 at 720p, with rain and lightning, running great. This video was also recorded with my iPhone 5S.



After this, I got ambitious. I asked myself, what if I plugged my Logitech G27 into the Surface Pro 2, and ran a full grid of cars? Would it work? A rather impractical question, as the whole point of the Surface Pro 2 is being mobile, something the G27 is not... but I still had to know. Setting things up so that you could see my G27 setup, and the Surface Pro 2 screen together wasn't easy, but I did it! The picture quality is terrible, and if you want to see whats going on in the race, you pretty much have to view in full screen, but for demonstration purposes, this video works pretty well. There were 43 cars on the track during this video, and the Surface Pro 2 handled it fantastically. No input lag, no FPS spikes, just a smooth, clean drive.


I was sad the game didn't run well enough to use FRAPS to record it... but wait, maybe it does? For my final Surface Pro 2 video, I decided to try recording a race with FRAPS, just to see how well it worked. The framerate does drop with FRAPS, but it's still manageable. For this race, the grid is full of 38 cars. The AI was turned to 25%, and the player's AI car was placed in the back of the pack, to overtake as many as possible. Again, the game runs awesome!



This will be my last video on the Surface Pro 2 for promotion of the game running on this platform... at least until the official release of the game. You may see more Surface Pro 2 video's of Project CARS popping up here and there though, as I'm traveling. I'll be in Miami for a week during Christmas break, so one or two might pop up then as well.

Hope you enjoyed this article as much as I did making it! I bought my Surface Pro 2 used from Amazon, you can find a link to it on the left, as well as a link to the G27 which I also bought there.

Automation Game - Your Automotive Engineering Simulator! - My Two Year Journey With The Development of This Game

I've been wanting to make a post about Automation for some time now. I'm not on the development team. Other than suggestions and my "Supercharged" funding of the game, I haven't really contributed much to it. This is simply the story of the journey I've had the privilege and opportunity to ride along with during the development of this rare gem of a game.

This is an innovative indy game that I discovered about 2 years ago, around Build 162, and immediately bought into! The game is still under under massive development, but is already offering supporters a huge amount of content to play with.

The game is being developed with what is essentially two betas. One, a closed beta that select supporters are occasionally invited into (for better or worse, I'm not a part of this group) and the open beta, which releases the most polished content updates to anyone who has pre-purchased the game.

Open beta updates, (other than major bug fixes) are slow, but consistent, and usually pretty significant. When I first supported the game, we only had a rough engine builder available to us. We could build I4 engines (which is available in the free demo) and V8's. The talk of the forums at the time was the impending turbo update. After what seemed like forever, it was finally released! And I made my first Automation YouTube video:



Four months after the release of the turbo's the initial body designer tool was made available. This was our first opportunity to flesh out a body for the engines we had so lovingly designed! This was when I created what went on to be my most popular Automation video yet, Building the Kard K-400.



This is when I started my fictional car company on the Automation forums, Kard Motor Works (or KMW). The company can be found at the link below:
http://automationgame.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=3257

I went on to design many more cars in the next few months, and published 4 more on YouTube, as well as some more engine designs. Then, approximately nine months from the release of build 1106, build 1323 was released. At this point, I cleared out my build thread, archived my old cars, and developed a new naming system for my model range. I was also able to go on to recreate one of my favorite cars ever, the BMW E30 325is! This car was recreated as accurately as possible with the tools available, and my skill at the time. I could do a better job now... and maybe sometime I will, but I'm still proud of this one. :)



I continued on to make many more cars, lots of them based on BMW design, and lots where I tried to develop my own design flair. About 4 months later, an update was released that added car design scenarios into the game, and I immediately started playing through all of them, and adding YouTube video's as I finished them. Also, the mid engined car platform became available! At first, it was a bit buggy, but after stabilization I was able to create some pretty neat mid engined vehicles, the pinnacle of which can be found below:



So, as you can see, it's been quite the journey! Build 162 was released in January, 2013, and now, as we are about to head into January 2015, the game has reached build 1418. Progress is moving along nicely. The business simulation module will be in place relatively soon, and for the next major update to the game, it will be released on Steam Early Access! This is one of the few early access games that I have no doubt will be finished. Though to be perfectly honest, I've already gotten my moneys worth out of it. Don't wait for it to be released on Steam when you can play it now though! The game is for sale on the official website, found below, and all pre-Steam supporters will get a Steam key after it's released there.

So check it out! There is no other game on the market that even remotely comes close to Automation. The last time a game like this was successfully created was in 1994 by Sierra, and was called Detroit. Although the game looks and feels ancient, I played it many times up until I discovered Automation. So glad to have found a worthy successor as the car company simulator!

http://www.automationgame.com/

Project CARS Build 859 - E30 M3 at California Highway with Actual Logitech G27 in Picture

I did a video similar to this for BeamNG.Drive, and is was pretty popular, so I decided to do the same thing for Project CARS. Not only do you have the standard driving view, but you can see me manipulating the wheel in real time on the second view. I recorded the second view with my iPhone 5S.



This video is a first attempt for me, picture-in-picture-in-picture! Not only do you have the standard driving view in the corner, but you can also see me manipulating the wheel in real time on the second view.

Project CARS Build 858 - Controlling Cars w/ Keyboard & Keyboard and Mouse

Someone on the Steam forums asked if this game had the ability to use the mouse for steering. I assumed so, but I didn't really know until now.

The answer is a resounding yes, the cars in the game can be controlled with the mouse! Though it's not easy, especially for me, I haven't tried to steer a car with a mouse since Need for Speed 3: Hot Pursuit in 1998. It took me about 10 practice laps to get around the track without spinning out. I used the Renault Clio RS Cup car because it's one of the easiest cars in the game, I highly doubt I could have achieved three clean laps with a Lotus 49.

Still though, if you're one of the few who still to play racing games with your mouse, then it is possible with this game. The only assists enabled are the ones that would be on the real-life counterpart of this car, plus auto-clutch, with manual shifting.



After making the keyboard/mouse video, I decided to make a video using just the keyboard for control. First, I must say, this is an utterly miserable way to play the game. You can get an XBox 360 controller w/ wireless PC receiver for $30-$60 brand new. While I recommend a good wheel (starting with the Logitech DFP) the X360 controller is the next best thing for the petrolhead on a budget. Personally, I am absolutely against using only the keyboard in this game... but there are some who insist on it, and, as someone who hasn't used the keyboard for steering in 10 years (Nascar Racing, 1994) I have proven that it is possible in Project CARS. The only assists I use are what would come on the real-life counterpart of this car, and auto-clutch with manual shifting.

Granted, it took me a few laps to get it right... and I highly doubt I could have done it with any of the RWD cars in the game, but as you can see, it clearly is possible. For those of you who are die-hard keyboard steering enthusiasts, I'm sure you would be better at it.

For the rest of you... at least use the mouse for steering, but for goodness sake, if you can't afford a real force feedback wheel, such as the DFP, or G27, the wired X360 controller costs less than half of what my mouse did.