Dynamic ride height

  • Thread starter MattieM
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MattieM

MattieM

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MattieM
I was watching a replay of the Brands Hatch challenge with the Lotus T97 and i noticed the body of the car getting lower to the ground as the speed increased. I wasn't sure about it as the circuit isn't exactly flat so i took the Lotus to the special stage route x circuit to take a better look:





It's cool to see that PD actually incorporated this in the game, but leaves me with more questions:

Is it just a optical feature or is this also included in their vehicle dynamics model? The second picture shows more camber angle, so this would mean one would have to set its static camber lower in order to get the right amount of camber when travelling at high speeds... I know the camber settings are flawed so it probably hasn't got influence.

I also tested it on the Sauber C9:



When changing the downforce the dynamic ride height does change.

I also tested it on the Ferrari F430 scuderia, there is no noticable change in ride height at high speeds. So it seems to apply only for cars with high downforce. I didn't do any further testing but i thought this is interesting to share.

P.S. The lotus T97 is awesome :lol:
 
Hmm... Very interest about ride height change depend on speed and downforce; however, I didn't remember when I test on some cars back to old GT5 day.
 
I remember reading somewhere about people wondering if cars would lower at faster speeds. I guess this confirms that.
 
Could you do this test with the Veyron? I knew I wasn't tripping when at full speed the Veyron looked a lot lower than standing still.
 
I also noticed a significant difference in how the 97T and the C9 handle at high and low speed. Low speed, no grip. High speed? Understeer, more than you'd expect.

sparkytooth
The Veyron indeed lowers itself at 375KMH plus.
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Also, there's that. Like the real car, at about 375kph the Veyron will go into "angry 1.5mln € hypercar mode", retracting the wing and squatting down.
 
Yeah downforce has a real effect on ride height. You can easily check this by saving a lap and opening it in Data Logger.

The Veyron lowers itself twice. First when the rear wing pops up at 220 km/h (due to the extra downforce). Second when the rear wing retracts and it goes into top speed mode at 370 km/h. When you brake from top speed you can see the rear ride height raising due to losing all the downforce. The front ride height lowers due to weight transfer, then when you come to a stop it jumps back up (just like the 'judder' you get in real life after braking).

The only car that doesn't lower due to extra downforce are the Red Bull Fan Cars (2010, 2011 and 2014). It has active suspension so it maintains the same ride height all the time (if you go into car settings you'll see that the ride height adjustment is greyed out).
 
I was noticing this on GT5 - At max downforce on standard suspension the X1 would start scraping the ground around 225-250 MPH, and it'd get difficult to go any faster… I'd imagine it applied to all cars, and continued to GT6...
 
NABeast
This dates back to at least GT3. I remember building hybrids going 300mph+ with more than F1 car downforce,and you could see the tires come through the fenders at high speeds. Car pushing on the ground with downforce.
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Yep, it's been in several GT's now. You don't even need a hybrid car, there are a number of fast cars with high downforce that showed this effect. Not only with the wheels clipping through the body work, but also the sparks showing up at certain speeds and growing in intensity the faster you go.

It wasn't always perfect though, as enough speed, soft suspension and downforce at the rear created the wheelie glitch.
 
Lewis_Hamilton_
Yep, it's been in several GT's now. You don't even need a hybrid car, there are a number of fast cars with high downforce that showed this effect. Not only with the wheels clipping through the body work, but also the sparks showing up at certain speeds and growing in intensity the faster you go.

It wasn't always perfect though, as enough speed, soft suspension and downforce at the rear created the wheelie glitch.
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It's cool that GTs physics engine emulates this feature. But now it seems they can't get the camber physics back in. This is a reason I use higher ride height and stiffer spring rates on cars with a lot of downforce,to keep from bottoming out at higher speeds.
 
Some other sims have the feature of adjustable bump stop (or changeable layers) in the suspension setting. At least in a PC based F1 game I had played long time ago. The bump stop generates a stiffer support than spring, but still softer than rock hard bottoming out.

By properly setting, the car gets additional support by the bump stop briefly -- at the end of the longest straight-- where the highest speed (the most downforce) and the hardest braking almost use up the ride height.

Helped by the bump stop, the spring rate can be set more suited for most portion of the track, instead of overly stiff -- only for providing the support at those brief moments but too bumpy for other parts. And it provides more freedom in ride height setting.

GT has no such feature. Well, it's OK for most of the car collection, but on those race cars with highest performance, it's good to have this.
 
This does date back to the older games. I remember pushing the Toyota GT One to the limit and it was so low sparks were coming off the ground.
 
NABeast
It's cool that GTs physics engine emulates this feature. But now it seems they can't get the camber physics back in. ....
Click to expand...

Did you read this thread? https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/threads/camber-theory.294762/page-9

The camber issue has been well discussed, at least for the latest updates. I'm not saying there's a solid proof now, but I'm not the only one who feel the camber is working, to a degree, if not perfect.

Just feel free to try it for yourself. On race cars with stiff spring rate, I think mild setting would be beneficial, say 0.2 to 0.4 etc.

:)
 
LS Chiou
Did you read this thread? https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/threads/camber-theory.294762/page-9

The camber issue has been well discussed, at least for the latest updates. I'm not saying there's a solid proof now, but I'm not the only one who feel the camber is working, to a degree, if not perfect.

Just feel free to try it for yourself. On race cars with stiff spring rate, I think mild setting would be beneficial, say 0.2 to 0.4 etc.

:)
Click to expand...
So that 0.4 degrees totally makes it realistic when most racecars run like 3 up front
 
Seen this since the old GT's. I guess it's the down force pushing the car to the ground. The only car I've noticed it really lowers itself mechanically is the Veyron.
 
I noticed this in GT5 Prologue first when driving the F2007. At high speed the back will be so low, that there will be practically no suspension travel.
 
LeGeNd-1
Yeah downforce has a real effect on ride height. You can easily check this by saving a lap and opening it in Data Logger.
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I haven't tried the data logger, i didn't know you could check ride heights in it. This feature (checking ride heights) wasn't in the previous GT's was it? I'll check it out, interesting to put some numbers in here.
 
Actually the veyron irl takes all those steps(lowering wing and ride height) and some other aero features while parked, and if you touch the brakes while the top-speed mode is activated the wing comes back up and the whole procedure gets cancelled.
 
Once I tried lowering my Veyron all the way on the fully customizable suspension, and at high speed it will start bottoming out and skidding on the floor becoming pretty much uncontrollable.
 
That's a bug only on Veyron. The program is probably confused between the OE automatically adjustable ride height mechanism and the modified suspension, or mixed them in a bad way.

On other cars, set the ride height too low would also be problemetic at certain situations when it's really bottomed out.
 
MattieM
I haven't tried the data logger, i didn't know you could check ride heights in it. This feature (checking ride heights) wasn't in the previous GT's was it? I'll check it out, interesting to put some numbers in here.
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Yup it's a new feature along with wheel rotation speed that wasn't in GT5. You can mix and match the sets of info displayed thru settings 👍
 
LS Chiou
That's a bug only on Veyron. The program is probably confused between the OE automatically adjustable ride height mechanism and the modified suspension, or mixed them in a bad way.

On other cars, set the ride height too low would also be problemetic at certain situations when it's really bottomed out.
Click to expand...

That was the way some time ago, in earilier stage of the game.

I try again and now it reacts to modded suspension reasonablly. So it seemed PD made some revisions to it in who-know-which-update. This car recieves very less notice.
 
YOu can see that with the RedBull X2014 Standart car, as soon as you hit 340kmh, the bottom of the car touches the ground, and sparks start flying.
 

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