Project CARS compares 2012 to 2014 in side-by-side gameplay trailer

Project CARS has undergone some big changes over the past couple of years. The high-fidelity racing sim from Need for Speed: Shift developer Slightly Mad Studios looked " gorgeous " from the moment it came off the line, but as the new side-by-side comparison trailer shows, it's come a long way since.

The July 2012 state of Project CARS looks good. In fact, I'd probably have said it looks very good, if I'd seen it entirely on its own and without a virtually identical video from earlier this week playing right beside it. But running next to gameplay from August 2014, it looks almost primitive, doesn't it?

The game was running at "ultra" graphics settings for the video, powered by a 4.4GHZ Intel Core i7-4790K, 16GB of RAM and an EVGA GeForce GTX 780 SC ACX with 3GB of DDR5. I don't know what comes after "gorgeous," but whatever it is, this is it.

Project CARS is expected to be ready for release in 2015.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.