Desperate to improve my driving skills

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alfredchiwai

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amigo8833
I hope this post is not duplicate with another one. But, many gt fans must want to know, especially newbies like me. I'm at level 22, but, embarrassingly, my skill not(you know what I mean). My ASM is on, ABS on, other option off. I never succeeded to drive a high power car without ASM. It spinned, or swayed sideways. I've heard many guidance like:
1. Don't go in full throttle when cornering, or starting the car.
-but how much throttle should use? I use one-fourth or half throttle. When I used fewer throttle, I always wondered if it is slower.
2. Brake fully only when running on the straight
3. .....
Well, is there any more advice? Even I do all these, sometimes the car still sway or spin. Pls help me, all gt experienced 'all off' drivers.
In addition, is there any concrete way to improve my skills, like step by step approach or any good video to imitate? Many thanks!
 
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There is no single right amount of throttle or brake. It depends on the situation. How you enter the corner, at what speed, are you steering, is the car yawing, what tires do you have, what drivetrain, where is the engine, whats the track surface, how is the corner banked, how is the brake balance and so on.

You have to find the feel for each car and its limits and use the controls to guide the car throught the corner so that it suits the cars tendencies. Dont force anything on the car. Learn how the car reacts to input. Driving is all about anticipation and knowing whats going to happen before it happens. Thats the key to being good. Im not saying I am, thats just the theory behind it.

Give an example of a specific car and the situation when it spinned. That would help be more specific.
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5rpFXdWtK4 - Watch this.

If you have the GT Apex magazine there is a lot of good info in there on driving technique that will help. Practice makes perfect and importantly don't try to over drive the car or yourself. Check the setups section for setuops as they can make a car much easier to drive.
 
Props to you for wanting to learn! The game is a LOT more satisfying once you learn to exploit individual handling characteristics of certain cars.

For a starter, I would suggest running something like 20 laps with aids ON, on a circuit you're familiar with in a moderately powered, well balanced rwd car. Something like an rx7 would be a good choice, and sport medium or soft tyres. That should have enough grip to get you round the track quickly when you get it right and give you enough feedback to let you know when you're getting it wrong.

Now you've got 20 laps in, you should be able to register CONSISTENT times for that particular car on that particular circuit. If one lap you do, say, 1:30 then next lap its 1:40 then its 1:37 you're all over the place and suggests you haven't worked out how to put down consistent times. There is little substitute for this except hard work and practice. Once you can do perhaps 5 consecutive laps and the times are all within 1 second of each other, you'll have a baseline speed to work from.

Smoothness is absolutely key. Hopefully your using a wheel and if so, it should NEVER be necessary to have your hands at anything other than the "10 minutes to 2" or "quarter past 3" position. If your having to pass the wheel through your hands you:

A) will find it very hard to find how to get it straight again after a turn and

B) it will be a tell tale indication that if you feel yourself yanking it left and right you're trying to take too much speed thru the corner.

Another tip with regard to throttle control is that you shouldnt be starting to apply maximum power until you're ABSOLUTELY SURE you won't need to take it off again. "Feathering" the gas through certain corners is fine to help balance the car properly though this is a more advanced technique which can be worked on later.

Anyway, now you can post consistent laps with the aids on, you can start to take them off gradually. TC is a good example, say you have it set on 5 usually, don't go straight to 0 or whatever. Set it to 4 and go do another 10 laps, then 3 and another 10 laps and so on. You should see that your times start to drop, little by little. In the case of TC this is because it prevents you from putting down too much power too early and spinning the car as a result. Once you've learned for yourself how to apply the power progressively you'll realise that you can actually go faster with the aid OFF. Whereas you can FEEL what the car is doing and act accordingly, the TC is just an algorithm that detects wheels slipping and cuts power, usually preventing optimum performance.

Hope some of this helps, I'm sure others can add more but I'm writing this on a phone and is as much as I can manage for now!
 
This is quite a challenging game and it is hard to get used to the cars and how they work. On many occasions, I have felt like you, unsure of the car I am driving.

In terms of assists, it is advisable to keep them on when you are trying to overcome the learning curve of car control. What I like to do is individually turn off assists when I have more confidence and every time an assist is off, lap times improve dramatically.
 
ABS on real car is on! On race not. In the BMW driving school they learn you to press the brake very strong because the ABS balance the braking
 
Are you using a wheel or controller?

A controller is easier at first, but the level of skill you can achieve hits a ceiling quick.

A steering wheel is more difficult at first, but with time, your skill will surpass anything you could possibly do with a controller because there's much more precision in steering, braking and throttling.

I would recommend turning all aids off immediately and learning to get used to them off. Leave Traction Control at something like 4 and ABS at 1. Everything else off.

I'd suggest using a driving line at first and mastering some of the more technical tracks in the game (pretty much the less straights there are, the more technical I would consider it, Japanese tracks are typically more technical).

Obviously practice, practice, practice. Work your way up on technical tracks with the driving line, start with a 200HP car, then a 300HP, and so on until you reach the hypercars.

Soft racing tires work wonders too.

Do the licenses, believe it or not, they are extremely helpful. Read the description and tips they provide BEFORE attempting them. Try not to settle for bronze when possible and keep at them until you can get silver or better.
 
Kru83, thanks for your advice. I am using G27.

Replying to the other GT friends here, specifically, I was driving Corvette ZR with good tuning from this site for competing GT All stars and only got Broze overall (Blushing). I was using ASM on, ABS 1, Traction off and the aid above ASM off(I don't know what the Enlgish name is because my edition is Chinese). After my Bob won "Like the Wind", I drive Minolta Toyota with the same driving aids for All Stars. The result is disappointing - 7th (My face redder) - though I raced one time only. I know I have to get the feeling or "temper" of the car. Having said that, it is a car of much better spec.

I'll try all of your adivce - little by little. Of course, I'll choose which better suits me first. Very nice guidance from you all and I guess it's very helpful to many novices in this forum.
 
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Practice with your fast car on the high speed ring or just keep going round the nurburgring(sorry if thats wrong spelling) that track has everything

worked for me try it :)

jujamun
 
alfredchiwai
Thanks for your advice. I am using G27.

Replying to other GT friends, specifically, I was driving Corvette ZR with good tuning from this site for competing GT All stars and only got Broze overall (Blushing). I was using ASM off, ABS 1, Traction off. After my Bob won the "Like the Wind", I drive Minolta Toyota with the same options for All Stars. The result is disappointing - 5th (My face redder). I raced one time only. I know I have to get the feeling or "temper" of the car. Having said that, it is a car of much better spec.

I'll try all of your adivce - little by little. Of course, I'll choose which better suits me first. Very nice guidance from you all and I guess it's very helpful to many novices in this forum.
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try having a bit of traction on maybe 1 or 2
 
First learn the track in some easy to drive low to medium powered car. Drive the licence tests and pay attention to the instructions. Don't touch the setups before you are familiar with the car and the track or you will end up confusing yourself. The ultimate goal is consistency.

In GT4 i took off the TC when i was good enough to notice how it slowed me down. Before that i had it usually set to some low value like 1 or 2. I guess the same could be aplied to the ASM.
 
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The amount of throttle you use is different for every vehicle, upgrade and tuning setup. It's just a case of learning how the car handles. Listen to the tyre screeching on the corners and try to feel how much of it your car can take before it starts to slip.

At a very basic level, if you wanna use more throttle with less skidding, buy and use the tyres with the most grip the event will allow.
 
Search on here for a thread called "racing school", it was links to Skip Barber instructional videos on YouTube. They're kinda old but still relevant and very good!
 
Try the link in my sig. It was written for an old driving sim called Grand Prix Legends but most of its points are still relevant to driving sims today.
 
Practice, practice, practice.

Do you have any other consoles? It helps to play other games with challenging driving models. For example, on the PS3 try something like F1CE or F1 2010. Xbox 360 look to Race Pro or the Forza games. Turn off all assists and learn to feather the triggers. Don't be a button masher with the gas or brake.
 
Add me: GT-Motion

I will take you into a lobby and see what your doing wrong and hopefully help you do it right.
 
coreyvf
Because we all love cars, we all love racing, and we all love GT5.... we're one big happy family.
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That is so true! I am also willing to help. add my PSN if you want to take it away some day :) I can give you tips.

cheers!
 
Turn off all aids apart from ABS take a track like top gear then drift in a circle, once you can keep the rear end on fire keep it burning and go into a figure eight with it still cooking... I learnt to drive on LFS in the car park and that helped.
If you can't control a front wheeled drive, take game back to shop with balaclava on and say I want my money back or the ferret gets it.
 
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Ziggy Jinx
Turn off all aids apart from ABS take a track like top gear then drift in a circle, once you can keep the rear end on fire keep it burning and go into a figure eight with it still cooking
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POWER!!!!!!


But on a more serious note, it just takes practice. I bought a driving wheel about a week ago now and I was terrible with it at the start, now I am decent. It is time consuming but when I bought the wheel i was level 18, I am Redoing all of the previous stages to help me get better. Practice Practice Practice :D
 
First: Practice learning the dynamic behavior of the different drivetrains of a car. You will want to use driving aids to feel comfortable at first, but then start taking them off to get used to controlling the car without aids.
A good place to start is FF, then FR, MR, RR, then F-4, M-4, R-4.
Good FF car to use: Honda Civic Type R (EK)
Good FR car to use: Mazda RX-7 Type RZ (or Spirit R Type A)
Good MR car to use: Honda NSX
Good RR car: any RUF
F-4: Subaru WRX or Mitsubishi Lancer
M4: Lamborghini
R4: RUF CTR2

Next, try to practice driving lines.
Start with the driving line ON. Follow the driving line at first, then to do everything differently than the driving line. (braking, corner line, etc.) Then, turn the driving line off and do a few laps on your own to find your own driving line. Every 5 consistent laps, try to modify something in your line to see if it gains you time.

A good car to practice racing lines with is the Lexus IS200 GT-1 Race Car.
It has mid-power with good grip and will not like to break loose.
It just sticks to the track and will allow you to focus your energy on the lines.
Good tracks to practice on are Trial Mountain and Deep Forest (without cutting the grass/concrete)
These tracks are mid-speed, have good flow, and have many types of corners to test your line-making ability.

Next, try driving faster cars on a good line and try to start pushing the cars. Be careful because if the car nears its limit, it will spin out with little warning.
 
Definately turn off all the driving aids, except set ABS to 1, for the road cars that have it in real life too. With other aids you're only fooling yourself, nobody else.. And you have a wheel too, so no excuse for the unrealistic driving aids.
Do all the licences, you'll learn some stuff there if you didn't knew them already..
Also, the old advices, slow in-fast out, don't brake hard if your wheel isn't straighten out, and most of all.. just practice..
 

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