Why is ACC so DIFFICULT? 5 Assetto Corsa Competizione tips I found out the hard way...

Assetto Corsa Competizione is a great sim for GT racing but if you're used to other sims, the learning curve can be immensely steep. Around 6 months ago I dove deep into ACC and I've found it particularly difficult to adapt. It has made me question everything I know about simulation to be honest. Here are some potentially controversial reasons why I think ACC is so difficult.

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[coastallab]

Another set of tips i can give:
1) Do NOT back-out on T1 in online races, you'll see people doing that to "avoid" the carnage, those people will never be able to handle a T1 scenario, every T1 really teaches you the awareness required to battle in a clean way

2) Don't use faster people setups, that's a bad habit, especially when coming from F1 games, don't buy them either, use the aggressive one instead, the best setup is the one that makes you comfortable pushing the car

3) Do not grind the SA offline, that seems the "better" solution, but i promise you, it's not, people online do extremely dumb things that you need to counter, like mentioned in the video

4) Learn how to racing close to other drivers, try to mimic their braking when behind, try to copy their lines, etc... those things help you understand how to be respectful and fast on track

5) Last but not least, incidents and bad stuff happen in real life too, there is no point on insulting someone who is still trying to get a grip at the game, shit happens, move on to the next race and try to understand what you could have done to avoid the accident, even if it wasn't your fault, sometimes, for example, backing out from a move can save you from reckless drivers

6) I almost forgot, for practice before a race, don't use the hotlap, use the practice instead, hotlap mode doesn't account for tyre or fuel consumption, resets the tyre temperatures at every lap, and it's generally bad for the muscle memory, and for managing the temps

[JohnnyEMatos]

At this point not being last in ACC makes me feel like a world champion

[gasixteenb]

I'll share a trick to save tire pressures. Go to the pit strategy screen and use the option for the pitstop below. Pit strategy 1 save current psi. Pit strategy 2 save other variation and so on. Can save 50 variations right there. I also save wet options for both wet compound and dry slicks in damp or greasy conditions.

[danfry]

I find a great way to start making a setup is to take any track and car combination in practise. First thing, choose the Aggressive preset and immediately save that setup - ensuring to use the track & ambient temperatures in the save name for reference.

Go out and do 5 valid laps. Return to garage and tweak your tyre pressures. Look at the "Hot PSI" levels for each wheel and increase or decrease the PSI, so that if you were to do another 5 laps you'd be hitting 27.8. So if after your initial 5 laps your front-left tyre was (Hot PSI) 28.3 then you would need to reduce the PSI on that tyre by 5 clicks (or 0.5 as each click is 0.1). Do this for all four tyres. Then save the setup - overwriting your previous save. Note: The game only shows previous saves for this exact track & car combination - so things will stay fairly tidy in this save/load screen.

Go out again and do another 5 valid laps, go back to the garage and check your "hot PSI" again and see if you are hitting that 27.8. You will be close, but you'll find you may need a couple of clicks here and there on each wheel to perfect your tyre temps. Save again over the previous save - and you'll now have good tyre pressures for that car, on that track in those temperatures.

This will give you are good basis to then start playing with the rake of the car (front and rear ride heights in the "Aero" section) and the rear wing height (also in the "Aero" section). If the current track has a lot of straights, get the wing down low to give you good top-end speed, but enough wing to give you decent down-force in corners.

Golden Tip: Also, look at "Toe" and "Camber" settings on the "Tyres" section and try to reduce these to their minimums for each wheel - I always find that this gives me much more control turning in and I'm able to be more rough with the car without spinning out so much.

Top Tip: Brake early and smoothly into corners, and accelerate early - before/on apex. Good luck!

[Zeitrafferfilm]

It's one of the most motivating video about ACC I 've seen yet. Most of the time when I see ACC videos I feel like I cannot drive at all (in my early phase maybe 10 seconds slower than the guy in the video) and I feel also too dumb to understand how I should change the car's setup. After more than one hundred of hours in ACC I've learned so much about driving, but still have only a little idea of setups. Mostly I take the default safe setup and just make changes on TC, ABS and maybe brake bias, and of course tyre pressure. Sometimes I do the same with the default aggressive, but often I go back to the safe one, since I feel myself more comfortable with that one.

By the way: tyre pressure optimum values have changed completely in update 1.9 and now should be between about 26.0 and 27.0 psi for GT3.

Thank you for the video and many thanks to all the guys here, telling us their own experience and giving tips on how to learn to master that beast.

[rtdude]

I found a great deal of improvement in my driving and lap times after I began forcing myself to practice WITHOUT the AI. It drove me crazy at first because of my ADHD, but eventually I grew to enjoy getting lost in racing the delta. Another thing that seems to be helping is the actual processes of making a setup. You really get to know the car well through that. What it likes, what it doesn't, how it responds to different changes, that kind of stuff. It surprised me how much that helped. or maybe it was just the improvements to the setup...lol🤷‍♂

[terenceramroop]

If you want to master setups in acc you need to start with the safe setup and slowly change each value so that they are the same as the aggressive setup. By doing this you will gain an impressive understanding of what each setting does to the car.

[AidanMillward]

“That throttle can’t just be hammered to 100%”

Laughs in McLaren.

[Accurize]

The hearing the tires volume tip is a great one!! I just went through the Advanced Vehicle Dynamic Operations course at Ohio Peace Officers Training Academy, they were big on listening to the tires on the track to determine if they were near high speed limits or making the much different scrubbing sound for understeer.

Not sure how we are suppose to hear tires over sirens in a pursuit, but it was a good learning aid during the course.

[XavierGoncalves]

For me, I tried setting up cars but unless I did something extreme, I'm not consistent enough to notice and feel a difference, if memory serves me right the difference between the aggressive setup and the safe was within the margin of error. Right now I just adjust tire pressures and fuel load.
Edit: as an outsider, the community is too focused on setting up a car, which is simply not even remotely enjoyable for me
Edit2: a service like vrs would be immensely helpful for everyone, I can't praise vrs enough for helping me improve in iracing, being able to directly compare inputs and lines with the best is awesome

[tomjxn]

Just found this video. Starting out on ACC after ages on other console based racing sims. Reasonable driver but kept looking at super fast laps from the top esports pros and I am a good 4-5 seconds off. Am crap with setups and what you’ve said in this video massively resonates and super helpful.

[darwinLee]

People want a Simulator! . But not willing to do the Work to Compete in a Simulator lol
I love that you need to Learn Setups.
FFB, Tire Models.
This is what you signed up for.
Do the Work !

[LaurenceDusoswa]

Clarification about setups: The 3 second example refers to the Porsche at Spa where one setup was undriveable and the other was driveable. Please don't read into that too much, but it was 100% setup that helped me to understand the car better. I had similar experiences at other long tracks. If you half the length of the track, that time saving also gets halved, on average.

Ultimately, practice is the best thing you can do. I specifically mention at the start of the video that I’m not focusing on practice or braking because they’re a given in any sim, not just ACC. I hope that explains it a bit better. Sorry for the confusion.

[unfortunately_fortunate]

simracing is like anything else, if you're honest with yourself *you will improve even though it will be frustrating, * something I would have included in the video is to not get too sucked into the importance of setups sure a paid setup may be faster on paper but if you are uncomfortable driving that setup you're going to be slower no matter what, combine that with not analyzing where you know you are losing time or not wanting to try something new through that particularly painful corner because you can barely make it through as it is will only make the game less fun.

if you can get into a groove where you do a couple laps, watch a replay and then go slowly around the track figuring out the line of least resistance you'll do alright in any sim.
as for taking setups too seriously I always like to use the F1 games as an example, they are also setup heavy games & that competitive drive will easily lead you to hate the game because you just dont understand what settings make the cars faster or slower and you'll obsess about trying to find the ultimate setup to go faster when in reality, if all that effort wasted was spent on refining your technique and track knowledge you'd of actually made bigger lap time gains even on a slower setup but, tuning cars in any game/sim requires you to have at least a fundamental understanding of your own driving style and preferences, me personally I like a very grippy and rotation happy car on corner entry but I *need* the car to be stable mid-corner and on exit or else I may as well just be an AI, if you can understand your driving style not only will you be better in ACC you will be smashing personal bests across all sims and as you better understand setup options your quali and race setups will also see a massive improvement!

honesty with yourself will get you far not just in sim racing but in all facets of life.

[Manc]

Yeah, its a learning curve, but worth it.. Forget tuning for now & i found 3 main things for any beginner.
- FFB settings (including the 1.8 changes - this helped control the car, stopped sudden spins & helped to regain control easier after a wobble)
- Tyre AND Air pressures (& how to adjust after a few laps, the air temp is what you look at to adjust, include the air temp number in your savefile name)
- Tracks limits & braking references (THE most helpful of all videos i watched, proper circuit walks or track guides with info about 'track limits' & 'brake reference' zones)
Tyres/air takes a few days to learn, then the tracks take several hours/days each !! but you will then be able to drive any car around more consistently & laptimes will improve.. ONLY after learning tracks & temps you can then feel what tuning the car needs as you have removed many driver errors by learning the basics 1st.

[EndureRacing]

I love ACC, I think it's fun trying to find a good setup but most of the time I just run the aggressive setup with a couple suspension and ride height changes. It's usually good enough for me to compete for top 5 in my lobbies, even the comp servers.

[TugboatTony]

Thanks for the tips and maybe I need to do a good practice session to work on a setup on my own. I didn't know that ACC was that setup heavy. I Figured out the tire pressure watching your streams. You have gotten me so hooked on ACC that haven't played Dirt Rally in 2 months. Thanks Spud! Think Flea is getting mad at me...

[nmlracing]

ACC FFB is miles better than AC! Lol. Crazy how I can feel that way but others feel the opposite.

[UnboxRacing]

I like your point on audio settings re: Tyre volume. Engine noise is one matter, but we have Rev gauges. Tires are another matter and the audio feedback is gonna be quick in addition to feel. Subbed 🙏

[h.k.]

A good video and i agree with the most things. One point i think diffrent are track guides or hot lap videos. You must see them in slow motion. You will see that they break a bit furthe or later and have different cornering speed.