Biggest Speed Killers

[GTP_CargoRatt]

I have a database of millions of points of data to support my conclusion, so yes it is a fact. If you have some different facts please provide them.

You may consider it as fact in your little world, but that's just not reality. This topic will be continued to be debated until there is some definitive test that proves one way or the other, whether you want to believe it or not. Stating something as fact just based off some game stats is just silly in my opinion. There are just too many variables and unknowns.

 

[YoungGTPlayer]

TCS. But not only the aids, but also stupid AI on my way too.

 

[eran0004]

Actually it is a proven fact. Here's the proof. Despite the overwhelming use of the DS3 in TT's with around 75% of users, 900 degree wheels absolutely dominate every single leaderboard in terms of occupying the top 100-200 spots.
Take this example. The Corvette prototype TT brought out many of the big guns like eventual winner, GT legend Dholland. Participation was broad with 78,000 entries and the track long and challenging. The results?

Top 23 all with wheels
Best DS3 was 24th 4.5 seconds off the pace.
The 10th best DS3 in the world was 90th, 7.5 seconds off pace.
Most importantly I think, only when you get to about 9.5 to 10 seconds off the pace do you see a regular smattering of DS3 users.
Only 29% of the top 1000 are DS3 stick users, in spite of being 60% of overall entrants.

Yes a DS3 did squeeze out a win or two in TT's and some good finishes and on some tracks the DS3 had a better showing, but when you take the millions of data points the answer is abundantly clear. Wheels dominate, end of story.

I do think wheels have the potential to be faster simply because you can make more accurate inputs with it and you get more accurate feedback from it.

But I also think it's a case of fast players preferring a wheel over the DS3, and that players with a wheel maybe spends more time playing the game and thus gets better at it. So although the average difference may be 1-4 seconds (depending on track) the difference once you've controlled against skill level may be lower than that.

Basically what we have is a correlation, but we don't know what's causing it. I'm guessing that a part of it is because wheels are better, part of it because wheels make players better and part of it because better players prefer wheels.

 

[MatskiMonk]

Statistical probability is not fact.

 

[MonGnoM]

flat floors slow you extremely down.

 

[pete2783]

I do think wheels have the potential to be faster simply because you can make more accurate inputs with it and you get more accurate feedback from it.

As a non wheel user, I've always thought/hoped that this might be the case.

I find, especially now I'm in my 30's, that my dexterity is fading in my thumbs. It's sometimes frustrating when I feel that I can't accurately 'place' the car on the track or anticipate the effect of steering inputs/weight-transfer when using the DS3 - everything is a bit 'jabby'.

One area I find particularly tricky is balancing winding-off the steering and coming back on the power when exiting a corner. This is something with 'real' driving I'm quite sensitive to but my ability with the DS3 is not good enough to translate this into GT6.

If I push myself, I can usually get into the top 1000, sometimes top 500 in a TT. This drops to around top 2000 in academy events or when the competition starts to get serious.

In my experience, practice is the best way to improve your times. No magic fix.

 

[Johnnypenso]

I do think wheels have the potential to be faster simply because you can make more accurate inputs with it and you get more accurate feedback from it.

But I also think it's a case of fast players preferring a wheel over the DS3, and that players with a wheel maybe spends more time playing the game and thus gets better at it. So although the average difference may be 1-4 seconds (depending on track) the difference once you've controlled against skill level may be lower than that.

Basically what we have is a correlation, but we don't know what's causing it. I'm guessing that a part of it is because wheels are better, part of it because wheels make players better and part of it because better players prefer wheels.

It's certainly a combination of better players preferring wheels and the wheel just being faster. If one thinks about it logically, to take the position that the two are equal one would essentially be saying that all the additional information you get while driving a wheel from the FFB is irrelevant, and the additional accuracy and precision of the throttle/brake/steering input is also irrelevant, and the ability to throttle and brake simultaneously in a precise manner is also irrelevant to lap times.

It is possible to build enough muscle memory to put in very fast laps in a DS3, it's been done before and it'll be done again. An individual player can have similar results with both devices but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the millions of pieces of data that tell us that the average wheel user is faster than the average DS3 user and IMO that's indisputable. The only real dispute is how much of that is due to the more accurate inputs and additional feedback a wheel provides and how much is because the better players use wheels more often.

 

[TonyLomas]

The majority of the fasted times on the leader boards are from a wheel. But to me that just implies that the fastest drivers use a wheel and like Johnny said that's probably because they've invested more time and money into playing the game. No wheel, control or special bucket seat is going to make me as fast as them.
In terms of improving my personal times the absolute #1 is practice. Personally, I found that using a wheel immediately made me quicker than my previous personal bests with a controller and I've been playing since GT1. However, I'm not super quick and I haven't got golds on everything. I assume you are asking about a wheel because you're either considering buying one or just deciding if the times are not achievable without one.

Regarding aids, I think most of the points are already covered in other peoples posts. The only other advice I can give is using manual gears rather than automatic. No one seems to have asked if you use them and I found they also make a massive difference. Although not immediately, you have to practice and get used to them and the best gears for certain corners.

Which brings me back to point one - Practice.

 

[Stresswreck]

Hopefully the only aids needed are Band-Aids for the callouses from practise. 👍


(I just got a wheel and now I can feel understeer its like a new driving "sense")

 

[ZedMan1996]

In the real world, flat floors improve top speed and cprnering ability, increasing downforce efrect while decreasing drag thus increasing top speed, but for some weird reason in GT6 its only faster and cornering, and slower in top speed, which literally does not simulate real life by at most 70%. But hey, I still use them, coz I'm a cornering kind of guy.

 

[kolio]

Actually it is a proven fact. Here's the proof. Despite the overwhelming use of the DS3 in TT's with around 75% of users, 900 degree wheels absolutely dominate every single leaderboard in terms of occupying the top 100-200 spots.
Take this example. The Corvette prototype TT brought out many of the big guns like eventual winner, GT legend Dholland. Participation was broad with 78,000 entries and the track long and challenging. The results?

Top 23 all with wheels
Best DS3 was 24th 4.5 seconds off the pace.
The 10th best DS3 in the world was 90th, 7.5 seconds off pace.
Most importantly I think, only when you get to about 9.5 to 10 seconds off the pace do you see a regular smattering of DS3 users.
Only 29% of the top 1000 are DS3 stick users, in spite of being 60% of overall entrants.

Yes a DS3 did squeeze out a win or two in TT's and some good finishes and on some tracks the DS3 had a better showing, but when you take the millions of data points the answer is abundantly clear. Wheels dominate, end of story.

Actually, no, it is not fact nor is it the end of the story. All you have done here is come to some conclusion/opinion based on the data available. First of all, not everybody that plays the game takes part in the Seasonal TT's, wheel users or not. Second, you also have no way of knowing if those DS3 users put in a solid, 100% effort. There are just too many variables that can come into play here for your "proof" to be taken as fact in regards to which is faster. There has been no definitive tests, that I know of anyways, to prove one way or the other. In order for this to be stated as fact one way or the other, there would have to be some official testing to be done. Until then, it is just a matter of opinion based on some results and the debate as to which is faster will no doubt go on forever.

I have give you credit for pulling, plugging, and crunching all those numbers. However, I have to go with Cargo when it comes down to it. There has never been a full on test of whether or not a contoller can actually keep up. Like I said, I believe it can be situational. I mean, the fact that a wheel can turn further than a controller (at speed) may be a benefit and proven to be faster as in my example. However, not all examples will be the same. I call fiction.

 

[Johnnypenso]

I have give you credit for pulling, plugging, and crunching all those numbers. However, I have to go with Cargo when it comes down to it. There has never been a full on test of whether or not a contoller can actually keep up. Like I said, I believe it can be situational. I mean, the fact that a wheel can turn further than a controller (at speed) may be a benefit and proven to be faster as in my example. However, not all examples will be the same. I call fiction.

I've already acknowledged that it's possible for an individual user to generate similar laptimes with both devices so that's a moot point. You're making the same mistake as cargo in focusing on the micro and not the macro. There are literally millions of points of data pointing to wheels being faster on average, than the DS3. Some of it is because more serious gamers have wheels but the numbers are so skewed in favour of wheels that literally almost every serious gamer would have to have a wheel for it to turn out to be so. There are so few exceptions that this is pretty much impossible. Some of it is because the wheel is just faster, on average, for most users.

As I said before, to assert that on average a wheel is as fast as a DS3, you are essentially saying that all the feedback from the wheel is irrelevant. All the additional precision and accuracy of the throttle, brake and steering input is irrelevant. The ability to easily brake and trail throttle simultaneously is irrelevant. Is that really what you believe?

 

[Ridox2JZGTE]

I am not so sure about the brake pedal, if ABS is disabled Many wheel user struggled when ABS set at zero, one the reason they stuck with ABS 1 - quicker, easier and more consistent. Steering and throttle, wheel do have big advantage. When ABS 1 used, I think wheel and stick are about the same when it comes to braking.

 

[WarriusZero]

Staying away from the controller vs wheel debate (but really, using a wheel is soooooo much more fun anyway!), I'm surprised no one has mentioned the driving line yet (or did I miss it?), especially the distracting braking zones. The game wants you to brake too early too much.

And I'm surprised it took that long before someone mentioned manual gears...

 

[Stotty]

Wheel is faster than DS3. Full stop.

@matej2547 @Ed_Night @Sutuki are all VERY fast with a DS3 (capable of top 10 TT rank), @Doodle was super quick before he moved to a wheel (I think he had a #1 TT ranking in GT5), and Dan Holland (one of the top 2 or 3 fastest drivers in the World) was quick enough with a DS3 to qualify D1S in WRS when his wheel broke.

But even those that are quick with the DS3 are quicker again with a wheel.

There may be the odd combo where the advantage is minimal, but the harder the car is to drive (more powerful/less grip), the bigger the advantage.

 

[useauget]

I'm glad you mentioned manual warrius,i find that manual is much faster that auto,i think it has a lot to do with braking as in downshifting with gears

 

[Ed_Night]

It's hard to say that wheel is faster than ds3, it always depents on the car/track combination.
I know for sure that there are minimum 7 #1 finishes of ds3 players at seasonal events. But we also had some TT's without any ds3 users in the top100.
I know @Sutuki and @GT_Rajman can do equal times with ds3 and wheel. Just give them a stock car around 550pp and let them drive all tracks. They will drive equal times on some tracks (Autumn Ring) and on other tracks (High Speed Ring) they will be 2 seconds faster with the wheel. So at the end their average time with the wheel will be faster than with ds3.

But at least you always have to check the specific event to say if the ds3 can keep up with the wheel or not. It has been proved several times in seasonal events and the WRS that it is possible.

 

[SniperRed3]

From personal experience I've gotten better since I started using a wheel, I've started to modulate inputs alot more.
If the controller was as good as the wheel it'd be used more in the top 100.

 

[kolio]

There may be the odd combo where the advantage is minimal (if any advantage), but the harder the car is to drive (more powerful/less grip), the bigger the advantage.

This is exactly my point of being situational.
@Johnnypenso

For example, if you drive a Redbull at Route X, there is no way a wheel can be considered faster. It may require a talented thumb on a DS3, but it is possible to beat a wheel time. Especially if you are on a PS2 wheel (which simulates a DS3 [as the wheel acts like a joystick] in that case).

 

[Johnnypenso]

This is exactly my point of being situational.
@Johnnypenso

For example, if you drive a Redbull at Route X, there is no way a wheel can be considered faster. It may require a talented thumb on a DS3, but it is possible to beat a wheel time. Especially if you are on a PS2 wheel (which simulates a DS3 [as the wheel acts like a joystick] in that case).

I don't drive the Redbulls because I'm afraid of ruining my wheels. Why would the DS3 be faster at Route X? Is there something about Route X in particular because the wheel is preferred on the Redbulls for a road course?

 

[Sa7een]

I went from using aids in GT3-5, and it would do ok, but was never fast. I barely could manage silver or even bronze on license tests, and time trials were out of the question. Then I started to teach myself to manual shift on controller and slowly started turning off aids- drifting helped me get used to that.

Enter in GT6. I've golded nearly every license test, golded every single Goodwood without TCS, ASM, SRF (although I'm not sure it was an option,) and ABS 1. I don't play as much as I used to, but I come a few seconds above silver in time trials on the first lap, aids off (except SRF, if it allows it,) which is good enough for me. I noticed, although this is not fact, that not only do cars accelerate faster (watching ghost replays on Goodwood, the car without TCS on would reach the first turn faster compared to when it had TCS on,) but also corner faster, for the simple reason you turned off the thing that is designed to make you safer by being slower.

I think a big thing with DS3 is button bindings. Through GT3 and 4, X and square would be throttle and brake; either full on acceleration or full on braking. Then once I got Burnout Paradise, which forced you to do R2 and L2, I started to get used to that way. In the process, I discovered that you can control throttle and brake much easier with triggers instead of buttons, so I mapped throttle and brake for GT5 to R2 and L2, and shifting to X (up) and square (down.) I feel it has helped dramatically with driving, for you can imitate foot pedals, which have precision, and most games these days follow the trigger setup for driving.

People even assign Left Stick for throttle and brake, which although I've tried and is very hard to get used to, can be even better than the triggers, for you have even more precision.

If you think about it, most racecars are not allowed to, or do not, have aids in them (even power steering- good thing wheel users have that.) So even if you do not end up going faster without aids, you can still feel like you are driving a real racecar. And would wouldn't want to do that?

Edit:

I also turned my steering sensitivity up to 6 I believe, which I'm not sure does anything to help (or does anything to controllers,) but it feels like it works.

If you do manual shift, try to ignore the red suggested gear number when going to brake for a corner- it often gives you a gear too low, slowing you down too much, unless you are braking as late as possible.

Also, who still uses the driving line? Seriously?

 

[Garage13]

I'm asking these questions in the hopes of getting more Gold prizes than I currently do. Any advice is appreciated.

#1 - What driver aids slow the car down the most?
#2 - How much does using a dualshock controller slow a person down?

well for me NOT using driver assist SLOW me down.by as much as 2-4 seconds. On GT5 was worse. The oddest thing I can say is yes it is possible to have very little difference between a non assisted tune and a tune relying on the assists. I have a RX-7 GT300 race car I won my friend's team Super GT GT300 Championship with. The car was originally tuned with the assists on with a devastating 3k drag tuned transmission and an equal Road course suspension tune. Towards the end of the season I wanted to see how the car would react without any assists and to my surprise it handles just like with the driver assists. I think it's due to the fact that the front and rear downforce keeps your car gripping while a street car with just rear aero has much less stability. The point of my post is that you can use the assists to make you faster or not use them and go just as fast if not faster it all requires time, patience and tuning

 

[Polsixe]

You may consider it as fact in your little world, but that's just not reality. This topic will be continued to be debated until there is some definitive test that proves one way or the other, whether you want to believe it or not. Stating something as fact just based off some game stats is just silly in my opinion. There are just too many variables and unknowns.

There's never any certaintude as what you seem to expect, and then otherwise dismiss sufficient evidence to the contrary. Statistical analysis is a proven mathematical science and used everyday in medicine, engineering, industry, military and politics. It is reasonable to expect it holds in video gamery.

Stats show wheels are faster than DS3, Q.E.D.

 

[PJTierney]

I don't understand why ABS is even adjustable, like a car either has it or it doesn't.

It should just be an on-off switch in the game instead of 0-10. My opinion.

Because Polyphony Digital logic.

It is adjustable if you want to cause the car to oversteer or underseteer upon breaking, and it can be used to cure a car with originally oversteery or understeery breaks, I find break tuning one of the most important features outside of suspension.

That may be the case but the vast majority of people I see and race against simply have it set to "1".
It makes sense for a DS3 user as the trigger deadzones are all over the place but even at "1" there's no locking up (+ the stability gain it provides).

 

[ZedMan1996]

That may be the case but the vast majority of people I see and race against simply have it set to "1".
It makes sense for a DS3 user as the trigger deadzones are all over the place but even at "1" there's no locking up (+ the stability gain it provides).

I was talking about brake balance, not ABS levels.

 

[kolio]

I don't drive the Redbulls because I'm afraid of ruining my wheels. Why would the DS3 be faster at Route X? Is there something about Route X in particular because the wheel is preferred on the Redbulls for a road course?

I am not saying the DS3 would be faster. What I am saying is, that is a track in which a wheel user would not have to turn his wheels further than what a controller could do. If you test out my Nascar example you will see what I mean by that. Well, actually any FR car with understeer. Go drive a car like that at Motegi Spedway with both wheel and controller and compare times. Make sure the car has to slow down in order to make the turn.

Then go drive a car in which you don't have to slow down in when using the controller. Then use the wheel and see how the times will be the same. If you beat your DS3 time, then you need more DS3 practice.

 

[NixxxoN]

All aids except ABS at 1 and SRF slow you down.

 

[ALB123]

I fully agree with @WarriusZero - driving with the Driving Line turned on is a major speed killer. It can be extremely useful in helping you learn the track's turns and I suppose it gives you an approximation of where the braking zones are, but once you have the slightest amount of comfort driving a particular track, turn that Driving Line off! First of all, it does not always give you the fastest possible driving line around a course. It may be totally fine in some sections and then it's off in others. If you keep driving with the Driving Line turned on you are going to develop some extremely bad habits...habits that may be very difficult to break in the future when you do finally turn the Driving Line off. As for the braking indicator part of the Driving Line, well, I'm sure you've discovered that the game is severely conservative with its red braking indicator. Again, the more you repeat these poor recommendations for when you should apply your brakes, you're just developing muscle memory and subliminal connections that are going to be difficult to break in the future.

I was lucky. When I started playing Gran Turismo (6 was my first version) I turned off all aids except ABS=1 and the Driving Line. So, I didn't develop dependencies on ASM, SRF or TC. I was hooked, however, on using the Driving Line. It wasn't until I came into GTPlanet regularly to post and ask for suggestions on how to improve, much like what you're doing with this post. Everybody told me to turn that Driving Line off and after a couple of days, or weeks if I didn't play often, I would notice my lap times actually improving. They were right! And I've never looked back...👍

 

[BPaumen]

Thanks guys. I had no idea I'd spark such debate!

I've taken the following insights from this thread:

#1 Turn off the TCS, you wuss.
#2 Be a man and buy a wheel.
#3 I probably suck no matter what.

 

[gambleboyen]

It is adjustable if you want to cause the car to oversteer or underseteer upon breaking, and it can be used to cure a car with originally oversteery or understeery breaks, I find break tuning one of the most important features outside of suspension.

I usuallt prefer my cars to have an oversteerry breaking style, because then I can rotate tawards the apek of the turn while braking in for it, however, it does make it a bit unstable, but I'm used to it now.

Sure fior the avarage user its meaninless, but for fine-tuners and pin-point racers, its essential.

But do any real life cars have adjustable ABS?