Complex GT5 Bug Causes Problems for Online Racers
Reports have been surfacing the past few weeks of a glitch that dramatically affects online play in Gran Turismo 5.
The glitch manifests as a marked increase in player lag, profound changes to the simulation physics and a significant change in lap times – even increasing the lap times with reference to an external stopwatch. Though some GT5 players have noticed a similar but less extensive effect before, the issue seems to have become more prevalent, perhaps even ubiquitous, since the most recent update and many online leagues including GTPlanet’s own Weekly Race Series (WRS) have been significantly affected by it.
Our forums have brimmed with members seeking to better understand this bug, and have provided evidence for situations that can prompt the glitch to occur. GTPlanet staff and WRS members have also been testing and gathering further evidence to help players avoid encountering it.
The bug itself affects only online racing, with free practice seemingly unaffected, and seems centred around simultaneous information loads – the more information is being processed by the console or network at once, the more marked the effect of the bug. This includes USB peripherals like headsets and driving wheels, the number of players in a lobby and whether the player is in traffic or running in clean air. GTPlanet’s own tests revealed the following results:
- Free practice with 14 drivers using whatever peripherals they chose:
Consistent lap times and physics; Game clock consistent with external stopwatch. (See Video) - Racing with 13 drivers using whatever peripherals they chose:
Significant changes in driving physics and speeds; Significant player lag; Game clock up to 10% slower than external stopwatch; Traffic dependant. (See Video) - Racing with 13 drivers with headsets and mics turned off or disabled:
Marked changes in driving physics and speeds; Marked player lag; Game clock up to 5% slower than external stopwatch; Traffic dependant. (See Video) - Racing with 13 drivers with headsets/mics off and wheels unplugged – gamepad only:
Consistent lap times and physics; Game clock consistent with external stopwatch. - Racing with 12 drivers using whatever peripherals they chose:
Consistent lap times and physics; Game clock consistent with external stopwatch.
The GTPlanet staff test involved a run at Daytona of multiple laps in identical cars to remove driver skill and performance as far as is possible from the equation.
Users in our forums have also collected some valuable data which indicates this issue has actually existed for quite some time. The following chart was compiled by “MGR” after reviewing replays from an online race held back in June of 2011, and clearly illustrates the correlation between the number of participants and the clock’s inaccuracy.
“Filip_Ovik” has also shared a video that demonstrates the issue, which begins at the exact start of a lap around the Nurburgring Nordschleife in an online race. If you compare the YouTube player’s time stamp with the lap timer shown in the game, you’ll quickly notice the discrepancy. By the end of the lap, there’s a difference of 33.489 seconds.
At this time, without a patch for the issue, GTPlanet recommends players wishing to race online limit lobbies to 12 participants or fewer – though more participants are possible if no players use headsets or force feedback wheels. Please note that this will not fix whatever normal lag issues you may experience (although minimising participants will always help this), only prevent instances of this glitch occurring.
It is unclear if Polyphony Digital are currently aware of this bug. Though many players will be looking for a fix in GT5 version 2.03, to be released this week, this is unlikely considering the length of time it has apparently affected the game. Hopefully, by increasing awareness and encouraging further study and discussion, our community can help resolve this issue that is affecting so many of GT5‘s most dedicated players.
For further discussion and analysis, see this topic in our forums. As always, your own contributions and test results are welcome and may be helpful to anyone tasked with resolving the problem.
Thanks to nealcropper and MGR for the initial tip and all GTP members who have subsequently provided evidence and assistance.
GT5 Photomode image by SMfan.
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Newest comments are displayed first.
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January 20th, 2012 at 10:43 am - #Dazmeister22
This happened to me last night when in a room with 12 friends. Only 11 of us were racing. I couldn’t understand why I was so slow when I had been fastest in the free run. We were at Nurburgring GP/F and my race laptimes were a full 5 or 6 seconds slower than I had managed in Free Run, with the same car, tyres and setup. I saved the replay and watched it back this morning and timed my laps with a stop watch. As I suspected my laptimes were 5 seconds quicker on the stopwatch than the game timer suggested.
Another strange thing happened too, the leader was around 3 seconds ahead of the guy in 2nd, they both pitted on the same lap for tyres. The leader went into the pit first, then the screen kind of jumps and the guy in 2nd appeared ahead of him.(he did not go into the pit too quickly and get the penalty thing, in case you were wondering) After the tyre change the guy who was previously in 2nd left the pit in 1st and had a full 5 second lead on the previous leader going into the first corner.
This is the kind of thing that will put people off racing online or even playing the game at all. It will definitely have an impact on any racing leagues too.
PD please sort this out ASAP, it’s far more important than adding enormous oval tracks and Nissan Leaf as DLC
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January 19th, 2012 at 2:45 pm - #DA__dogg
Yep this is a league killer. Hopefully PD fixes this thing.
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January 18th, 2012 at 12:20 pm - #JPGallardo
My game crashed and lost everything.
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January 17th, 2012 at 4:02 pm - #Pit Crew
Me,my race crew(UNTOUCHBLES RC), and a large number of racin cronies have been goin through this and another glitch(Rolling Start Blackscreen) at daytona for a yr now with no fix in sight. i dont understand y this hasnt been addressed b4 but if PD didnt know bout this b4 then plz fix it as soon as possible. Daytona Rolling Blackscreen glitch manifests more when room/lobby gets “hot” or bout 4 races, and when a driver leaves PIT area b4 race starts and stays on track aftr final 321 countdown to begin race. this usually reults in an extended black screen longer than usual and brings drivers in 1 at a time usually resulting in many drivers being a few laps down when they do finally spawn. The many of us that know this will stay in the PITS till race starts and usually have no problem, but rookie daytona racers who dont know or dont care will pick a car jump on track and start drivin despite warnins not to do so resulting in them being rejected from lobby. PLZ fix this as soon as possible, even if u gotta shutdown online server for a day just do something.
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January 16th, 2012 at 11:03 pm - #Hofstee
Test different race quality settings.
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January 16th, 2012 at 10:30 pm - #PIGBOY
maintenence on now….hope update is soon
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January 16th, 2012 at 6:22 pm - #racingchamp30
It started after update 2.02 and sometimes when the online race loads up, the track map is up there like my game went frozen. Hopefully the new update will fix the bugs and issues.
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January 16th, 2012 at 6:11 pm - #seamus573
The most ridiculous thing for me about this game is the online lobby/menu system. If for any small reason you try to use any online functionality and the game doesn’t have the ideal circumstances it just craps out completely requiring a restart. You just try and quit the game and it gets the whole PS3 into a state so it itself has to restart.
PD need to look at the functionality of the online menus that and make them much more fail safe. Its inevitable that people are going to have network problems, so when this happens there should always be a way for the game to stop trying to use network resource and just return to the menu. I am getting sick and tired of the game just sitting there with the cursor flashing on any of the online lobby menus once it has one little problem.
I work in software development and to see this kind of poorly designed menu system just drives me insane, especially on a product like this. I don’t mind sacrificing a little DLC for a game that actually works. I can’t believe how far this game has come and there are still problems like this occurring…
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January 17th, 2012 at 4:06 pm - #Pit Crew
Right on the money seamus its to the point im afraid im gonna really damage my PS3. i never had to restart this much since my PS home days basically y i dont go back there.
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January 16th, 2012 at 5:57 pm - #TokoTurismo
To be honest, I never ever once had enconuterd any of these bugs or problems. Am I lucky? :)
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January 16th, 2012 at 5:04 pm - #Rynogtr23
THE SOLUTION,HOW ABOUT YOU TRY RACING WITH BOOST OFF, DUHHHHHH. I mean who races with boost on anyway? How come i have never encountered this problem? maybe because i race in rooms where everything is turned off.
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January 16th, 2012 at 6:01 pm - #Sphinx
“Famine
Boost was not on for our test. The table is a separate test from June last year by a member named “MGR”, as Jordan notes in the text before it.”
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January 16th, 2012 at 4:31 pm - #Tvensky
my problem is online lobby freeze, 50 % time I try to find a room I freeze and have to restart my ps3…
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January 16th, 2012 at 3:18 pm - #BoBaN
What about bug where players use handbrake, brake and throttle in turns to be faster on corners??? I met this kind of cheaters. They could delay brake much more than people who drove in normal way.
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January 16th, 2012 at 11:04 pm - #Hofstee
That’s not a bug. A car will slow down significant faster if you can have it catch the gear in manual. That’s why heel-toe shifting exists if you’re using a stickshift.
As for the handbrake part, I have no idea why that would/wouldn’t help unless they’re drifting around a corner.
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January 17th, 2012 at 4:11 pm - #Pit Crew
using the hanbrake to slow car and position it for a corner is a pretty good and tru technique if u use controller but wouldnt consider it a cheat. a quick tap of HB will set u up for a sharp corner pretty well but like i said dont think u need if using steering wheel peripheral.
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January 16th, 2012 at 2:49 pm - #Mohamu
I hope this is the begining of the end for GT5. I loved this game, but because of the huge number of bugs and glitches i decided to sell it asap. I understand GT fanatics, and i respect their faith in this game, but i really hope this time everybody will ask a question from himself: is ths the game they want to pay more and more for PD? After every update or dlc the game becomes worse and worse, and PD earns more and more money. The main online bugs are up from the first time i played, and i get sick when i read comments: “yeah, now i can change wheels on my standard car!” what a shame.. But PD hear them, and they know what the main mass of GT5 gamers need.. So don’t cry about the bugs till you give any cents to PD to make unusable feautres. Sorry if it sounds trolling, but i hope Gtplanet is not just about comments what are fanaticly positive about Kaz, PD, or Sony.
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January 16th, 2012 at 2:59 pm - #I-Runner
I agree ..
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January 16th, 2012 at 4:34 pm - #Tvensky
I dont know any game in this (or other) world with no Bugs… it is immposible.. lol even real world have bugs..
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January 16th, 2012 at 5:59 pm - #TokoTurismo
@Tvensky I agree with you on that 100%
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January 16th, 2012 at 7:36 pm - #HKSBro92
You sold the game because it has bugs and glitches?? If that’s how feel then I think you should quit gaming and find a new hobby.
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January 16th, 2012 at 8:17 pm - #TokoTurismo
I also agree with HKSBro92. I think gaming has gone waaaaay to much into your head all together Mohamu. Sorry buy, you should try to write a story or something that isn’t with games. Like me…
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January 17th, 2012 at 2:58 am - #Mohamu
I knew you guys will totally not understand what I am talking about. Not a wonder.. I wish a great time with playing GT5 for all of you;) This is not my business what you’re spending your money, and with what kind of game are you playing with..
ps: the number and the seriousness of the bugs/glitches are the main problem, and that PD will never patch them. But as I said, it is up to everybody what they are playin’ with.. I had enough of PSN’s connection stability problems, so I’ve tried xbox live what was not perfect, but miles more better than PSN. Also Forza was a joke, so now I’m playing again with PC sims, and since I do it, I have much more pleasure in racing and much less negative experiences. If you want to play on PSN with a PD game, don’t cry about bugs,or connection problems. Best wishes for all remaining GT5 fans!
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January 18th, 2012 at 2:24 pm - #Nerso
I agreed!!!
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January 16th, 2012 at 1:58 pm - #paulieGTR
Great article and very much appreciated to all the guys that helped post, gather and analyse all the info’s… tyvm.
It would be a great and welcome addition if for say, when you kick a race off and the countdown atarts – “the room is locked and no-one can enter not even to watch the race”.
‘Cos i notice a lot of track stuttering when ppl join room during races.I know this has been said before… Pls let us “Fix Host” in our lounges – this will let us take the load off other frien’s/folk with less bandwidth.
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January 16th, 2012 at 1:45 pm - #kalakanto
‘because after 3sec countdown on start’
Should said before countdown, sorry.
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January 16th, 2012 at 1:42 pm - #kalakanto
Very impressive investigation. Hopefully PD finds how to fix this and takes care of this soon! Don’t know could it be something to do with these founded bugs but since launch of gt5 it have been impossible to race with more than 8 people on Nurb24 with weather/time because after 3sec countdown on start there very often shows black screen which tilts whole game. Shame because it is my favourite track.
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January 16th, 2012 at 12:20 pm - #I-Runner
The solution … remove the 3D from online races …
Now the hardware of the PS3 has to manage data that the 90% of the GT5 players don’t use ..
IMHO !-
January 16th, 2012 at 1:08 pm - #Leadpaint
The solution? Don’t race online. If you do, don’t use an external stopwatch to time the race. I never saw that one in the GT manual.
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January 16th, 2012 at 11:11 am - #Jump_Ace
Wow, anyone else hoping GT6 will be a bug-free title? Now the GT2 % complete bug doesn’t seem so bad :p
Sure hope PD is aware of the issue and remedies it.
Jerome
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January 16th, 2012 at 1:16 pm - #kogunenjou
Honestly, bug-free games are becoming more and more a pipedream as games continue to evolve. There is so much data being processed at any given time, it’s practically impossible to account for all potential errors. Thankfully, internet access allows game devs to fix common issues, which was impossible in previous generations.
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January 16th, 2012 at 9:50 am - #Raitziger
Maybe GT5 can not skip frames correctly and slowdown in FPS due high computational load causes also real slowdown of laptimes?
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Yesterday my game crashed (frozen again) and after leaving the game with ps3 button the ps3 started up again with lots of bleeps .
The game disc cannot be found anymore in xmb after trying everyting to restore sony told that my 15 month old ps3 slim had a broken disc lens .
Out of warranty sony is not gonna do a thing so guys watch out with online gt5 playing .
PD i want to thank you guys for NOT fixing the servers so that people loose there PS3 system .
Sony i want to thank you guys for NOT doing anything and let a customer with a 15 month old PS3 put that PS3 out with the rest of his rubbish !!