1 small hope

[DevilGTx]

That's a good idea. Like I said before, the car comes as it sits in the garage with the transmission that was last installed. Each gearbox could be tuned individually.

EventHorizon...
East Coast Lawnmowers?
landscaper?
me, too.
In fact, I just made a cool sticker for our mowing truck.
It looks like the NASCAR logo, but says GRASCAR instead.

I like shifting...I wouldn't play it any other way.

 

[Rapidone]

<response>
RapidOne :
I have also had similar experiences with my S-10. The 5-speed in my truck is much quicker than my friend's automatic.
However, I don't see too many people racing Passats. Or S-10s.
Since the introduction of any of the LT1 powered Chevys (Vette and Camaro) in the mid 90's, Car and Driver found it impossible to beat the auto with the 6-speed in those cars.
I have seen many 6-speed C5 Corvette's lose to autos in drag racing.
Same for Camaros. Recently, at the local strip, I have seen 2 Pontiac Trans-Ams (LS1), both Ram-Air, both street-legal with valid plates, both appearing normal on the outside, with street tires on stock wheels.
6-speed = 12.56s @ 108
4spd AT = 11.75s @ 113
yes, again, they are 100% street-legal.
These cars are tuned nearly identically, since the 2 drivers are buddies.
Event Horizon (love that movie, btw) :
The game is meant to played with a manual. In PROFESSIONAL (world-class) racing you will not find a single car with a true automatic gearbox. Not one.
The fact that you do not want to make "all those shifts" for 10 laps means that I will beat you every time in YOUR car simply by shifting it myself.
But this is a video game, not real life.
Nowadays, automatic transmissions are good enough to shift faster than a human in nearly every car when pushed to maximum potential. And the torque convertor setup lasts 2-3 times longer than an average clutch and bearings especially when driven hard.

That's very interesting.

I can concieve of sittuations where the power of a cars engine is greater than the grip available, where a smooth auto shift will be an advantage over a harsh manual shift, and where the loss of accelaration due to using 4 speed compared to a 6 speed will be irrelavent due to the limmited tyre grip available.

This will tend to be the case with very powerfull cars, but will be less true for low power cars, where all the power of the engine can be applied to the road without wheel spin.

I guess I'll conceed that an auto can be faster than a manuall, but as a general statement should we conclude that manual or auto is faster?

Perhaps the question is irrelavent and we need to consider individual casses.

EDIT:

I know that professional racing has everyone using manual.

This isn't exactly true all of the time. The Formula one Grand Prix cars use a semi auto box, which allow a change from 6th gear to 2nd with the press off a button. The clutch is only used for the start of the race and pit stops.

 

[Event]

That's very interesting.

I can concieve of sittuations where the power of a cars engine is greater than the grip available, where a smooth auto shift will be an advantage over a harsh manual shift, and where the loss of accelaration due to using 4 speed compared to a 6 speed will be irrelavent due to the limmited tyre grip available.

This will tend to be the case with very powerfull cars, but will be less true for low power cars, where all the power of the engine can be applied to the road without wheel spin.

I guess I'll conceed that an auto can be faster than a manuall, but as a general statement should we conclude that manual or auto is faster?

Perhaps the question is irrelavent and we need to consider individual casses.

It all depends on the car, the quality of the gearbox, and tire grip. There are also other factors. Most cars generally have the manual gearbox giving slightly better acceleration numbers, though. Very few production cars have faster manual acceleration than auto.

This isn't exactly true all of the time. The Formula one Grand Prix cars use a semi auto box, which allow a change from 6th gear to 2nd with the press off a button. The clutch is only used for the start of the race and pit stops.

Well, that supports my point of pressing R2 or L2 to hold off on shifts in GT4.

 

[Civicbus]

It all depends on the car, the quality of the gearbox, and tire grip. There are also other factors. Most cars generally have the manual gearbox giving slightly better acceleration numbers, though. Very few production cars have faster manual acceleration than auto.



Well, that supports my point of pressing R2 or L2 to hold off on shifts in GT4.

I say as a general statement we can conclude that manuals are faster. Taking into account that all the factors of a car are conistant and that it's a perfect world where everything is constant and there are no variables. ie: time loss between shifts but obviously there will be some exclusions with the newer auto trannys from the bigger companies

 

[DevilGTx]

Rapidone...I believe for 2004 the F1 gearboxes are now fully sequential. The automatic downshifts have been done away with in accordance with new rules.
Still, that didn't make them slower as they intended.
F1 gearboxes are semi-automatic with automated clutch and shifting.
Scu.Fer. indicates that their F1 gearbox shifts in less than 1/10th of a second.
Last week during the F1 broadcast, Steve Matchett said that it was now down to 1/50th.
Pretty quick...for an automatic.

 

[Rapidone]

Also, you can't get an autmatic Viper or Ford GT. If you have to choose the tranny when you purchase the cars, can you get an Auto for the car that only comes in manual?

In real life you'll always find someone to mod a car from auto to manual or visa versa, but it's going to cost cash.

I'd like to see a choice of tranny type when buying a car or accepting a prize car in GT4, with the ability to buy a mod to change it later at a cost.

For the few cars that have only manual or only auto as default, they should still be modable, but at a higher cost than that of a car that has both options on purchace.

 

[Civicbus]

In real life you'll always find someone to mod a car from auto to manual or visa versa, but it's going to cost cash.

I'd like to see a choice of tranny type when buying a car or accepting a prize car in GT4, with the ability to buy a mod to change it later at a cost.

For the few cars that have only manual or only auto as default, they should still be modable, but at a higher cost than that of a car that has both options on purchace.

That'd be a cool idea but, depending on the situation, it wouldn't work too well in 2 player if your buddy doesn't drive standard and doesn't have his own PS2/GT4. I always drive standard so if all my cars were standard my buddy wouldn't be able to use my cars when we play 2 player.

 

[Rapidone]

Plus, what about winning cars? How would that work? and also, what if you share your game with your brother or sister, or firend or something and you drive manual, but they drive automatic? That wouldn't be fun, especially for them...

Get separate save game cards, or buy two of each car, one auto and one manual. Although if you did that, a 1000 car garage may be too small, lol.

 

[TriplePlay]

I'd like to see a choice of tranny type when buying a car or accepting a prize car in GT4, with the ability to buy a mod to change it later at a cost.

I would too, but some people have brothers and *cough* sisters. I say to them, BUY ANOTHER DAMN MEMORY CARD!!!!! That solves the problem. Then they can all suck by driving autos around. hahaha

 

[PhatFat]

I would too, but some people have brothers and *cough* sisters. I say to them, BUY ANOTHER DAMN MEMORY CARD!!!!! That solves the problem. Then they can all suck by driving autos around. hahaha

Yeah its much eaiser to buy a memory card then to change the settings in the options menu. Oh wait.....

 

[TriplePlay]

Yeah, but what if you want your own game, finish it all by yourself. Unless you have another memory card, you can't have two game saves on the same card at once.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Most Americans (including myself) drive auto transmission cars and when confronted with manual gears in a video game would freak out and not have a clue. I grew up driving auto trans cars, in fact I never drove and manual trans until very recently in real life. When I first started playing GT3 I started with an auto transmission, as I did for any racing/car video game. However after almost one complete play through I learned to drive with the maunal trans (and tune the car too boot), I've never gone back to auto trans since then, 2 years ago. In fact I'm looking to buy a new car in real life and will be buying a manual trans car.

Having a manual gearbox in America is like having an extra security device, lol. You should get a manual, you'll feel like you're more in control of the car.

Anyway, even if Automatic is the default, what's to stop us from changing to Manual. I seem to recall in GT2 that if you selected Manual transmission in Simulation mode, the game would remember that you had the car set on Manual and so it will stay manual for every race until you change it back. Who knows, maybe PD will include an option to set Manual as the default for all cars ...

 

[PhatFat]

Having a manual gearbox in America is like having an extra security device, lol. You should get a manual, you'll feel like you're more in control of the car.

Anyway, even if Automatic is the default, what's to stop us from changing to Manual. I seem to recall in GT2 that if you selected Manual transmission in Simulation mode, the game would remember that you had the car set on Manual and so it will stay manual for every race until you change it back. Who knows, maybe PD will include an option to set Manual as the default for all cars ...

This feature is already avalible!!!! Just go to the options menu.

 

[98cobra]

Having a manual gearbox in America is like having an extra security device, lol. You should get a manual, you'll feel like you're more in control of the car.

Anyway, even if Automatic is the default, what's to stop us from changing to Manual. I seem to recall in GT2 that if you selected Manual transmission in Simulation mode, the game would remember that you had the car set on Manual and so it will stay manual for every race until you change it back. Who knows, maybe PD will include an option to set Manual as the default for all cars ...

Your right about that with the manuals in America are somewhat rare.