Gradual or cold turkey?

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fjcatherine
Is it better to gradually turn down the driving aids or just turn everything off (cold turkey) and just get use to it?

I'm currently driving with driving aids on and want to get better. I've been driving since January and getting better by slowly turning down the aids and practice, practice, practice and practice some more :-) or is it even worth learning to drive with the aids off?


How did you guys do it?
 
It is really worth driving without the aids. It is much more fun and allows you to do much more with the car. I started the game with a cold turkey, because i thought that it would be better to just learn it from the ground up to start with then to have to learn the same thing twice. But since we can't rewind the time you can't do that. I will suggest that you try a cold turkey and instead of driving races, do time trails in practice mode on Suzuka.
 
I just turned 'em all off recently (except TCS at 1 or 2 since I'm usin DS3).. so I can force myself to get better. You don't realize how much the driving line hurts you until you don't have it. Get used to driving without it again and you will be much better off :D
 
You don't realize how much the driving line hurts you until you don't have it. Get used to driving without it again and you will be much better off :D
yeah totally! get that one off! I drove with it for way too long (i know in above post that i said that i didn't use driving aids, but well.. this one i did.) because i thought that it wouldn't hurt my time since i could just break later then what the line suggested, but when you start to learn how to drive without it you are much quicker, it is much more fun to look at the signs in the side of the road and count down. "200... 150.. 100. 50 coming up... BREAK!" much more precise as well. And using the driving line will really hurt you when you get online where it is nearly never allowed. That was why i turned it off, and now i am much quicker.
 
The driving line is most definitely not the fastest way around the track. Once I got rid of it I started looking for other markers to know when to brake and have since become much quicker.

When you first turn off the driving line, you can use the shift indicator as a crutch until you learn. At the end of high speed straights it will blink for you to downshift very close to where you need to start braking. It will never be exact but it will at least warn you when you're about to approach a braking zone and you are carrying too much speed. Occasionally it tells you to downshift when you don't have to (on Nurburgring for example). You'll have to learn when to ignore it and eventually you'll start ignoring it completely.

TCS on cars under 500pp pretty much does nothing except slow your lap times. You can turn it off and just make sure you modulate the throttle a little smoother coming out of turns.

ABS on 1 is typical for most racers. No one runs ABS on 0 unless they are looking for a real challenge.
 
I was fortunate enough to start with GT and GT2, both of which don't have driving aids equipped as standard. When I started both GT3 and GT4 I didn't know driving aids were on as a default setting. In both cases, I started off in different cars (PT Cruiser in GT3, Infiniti G20 in GT4) and I was like "man the physics in this game suck!"

But then I figured out driving aids (just TCS and ASM) are on in these games. Once I figured it out, I shut them off and got used to the "new" way these cars were handling.

So I guess the cold turkey answer is best in my opinion. But if GT5 is your first Gran Turismo experience, maybe it's best to shut them off piece by piece so you can see what they actually do.
 
I have ABS on 1 for every thing, TCS off for everything except cars that go beyond 500hp. I go 3 for Race cars like Group C's.. if it's got racing tires, TCS is at 1.
 
ABS:1 is pretty much a must. As for the rest? Turn 'em off. WAY off :D
 
ABS:1 is pretty much a must. As for the rest? Turn 'em off. WAY off :D

ABS can also be turned off, if you also turn off or turn down Brake Balancer settings. In most cases with passenger cars, ABS ON will be faster than ABS OFF, but some of us like the feel of driving with ABS off.

From what I understand, ABS OFF is faster with some full racing cars, though I haven't much experience with this yet.
 
May as well just turn them off and see how you like it. What's the worst that could happen? You might crash a fake car into a fake wall. If it's less fun, turn them back up a bit until it gets fun again.
 
ABS can also be turned off, if you also turn off or turn down Brake Balancer settings. In most cases with passenger cars, ABS ON will be faster than ABS OFF, but some of us like the feel of driving with ABS off.

From what I understand, ABS OFF is faster with some full racing cars, though I haven't much experience with this yet.

I'll play more with this... I'm on a pad though and despite never ever having raced Forza with ABS on I'm struggling to manage without it in GT5. I'm not proud of myself... :(
 
I went cold turkey except for the auto transmission. I did a bunch of tune tests for a while, then jumped online running in low PP / stock car rooms to really get the feel of driving without assists. The combination of the two got me going, and now I've switched to a manual transmission to get a little more control of the high HP cars.
 
I started all on, now only use abs and tcs on low. and i drive manual now and i use DS3
 
I've honestly read dozens of topics about turning off the aids, but I must say, I've never once done it. I guess I've just always gotten used to them being there and doing so much of the work for me.

Maybe I can try it some time and actually turn them all off and see if it really "much more fun" without them on.
 
If you are using a controller, turning off the aids will not make the game more enjoyable. If using a wheel, go cold turkey.
 
If you are using a controller, turning off the aids will not make the game more enjoyable. If using a wheel, go cold turkey.

Turning off aids always made the game more enjoyable when I used a controller in the past. Has something changed?
 
Everything off. All at once. No fear.











....that's what she said.
 
Better off taking everything off at once. Cold turkey.. :lol: I've never heard that expression before!
 
You've never heard "cold turkey" before? It's pretty common where I'm from.
 
Turn off everything. At least for practice.

SRF babysits you... turns up the grip when you lose traction.

ASM merely slows you down.


Driving with either of the two creates a marked difference in handling response... so you have to re-learn each car after you turn them off.

---

For fun and hotlapping, I tend to turn TCS and ABS completely off. (adjust the brake force controls downward until you get a setting that doesn't lock up right away) And you can go further. To get a "feel" for driving, you can turn off the instruments, too. This forces you to actually pay attention to how fast you're going into each corner, instead of relying on the instruments and the gear indicator. You actually start to go faster once you do this.

It also makes it easier to drive the electrics, hybrids and CVT-equipped cars in the game, as you start to recognize corner-entry speed by eye instead of relying on the digital readouts.
 
Aids are for learning the basics. You gotta ween yourself from them lol
 
I just got done going "Cold Turkey" and I must say, it is much more enjoyable to drive. Albeit I'm having to learn how to actually race a car. I feel a tad more accomplished.
 
I did it gradually, in GT4 I never even realised that the aids were on, when I discovered them and tried the cars with them turned off I found with practice I had much more control over the car and could drive faster.

It is probably worth turning them down gradually, but it depends on the car. Many cars are really easy to drive without the aids, others are very difficult.

Lamborghini Murcielago LP640 - This is a good training car of a very oversteering (tank slapper) type car, you will need to use throttle under braking and taking your foot off the throttle needs to be done extremely smoothly, countersteering will be your best friend when you lift the throttle, and for 90% of the time you will always have atleast a small ammount of throttle applied to keep it stable.

Driving that car without aids is really difficult, if you can learn to drive that then every other car in the game will be easy. The strange thing about the lambo is that if you can learn to drive it, you will run very fast laptimes because of how easy it is to avoid understeer.

Personally I hate the car, it is insane. ha.


Skid Force Recovery - This gives you more grip and will make you faster, turning it off though in my opinion will improve your racing enjoyment after you adjust.

ABS - This does make you faster, turning ABS off is not the most realistic simulation of how non ABS brakes should act but some people like it, you will need to change the brake balance settings away from the 5/5 default. Personally I recommend leaving this on.

Traction Control - In most cars it slows you down, turn it off.

Stability (steering help) - This can make you faster by essencially doing the precise steering adjustements for you, similar to what Shift 2 seems to have built in. It can help some cars but if you can drive the car decent without it then turn it off.

Active stability ( ABS based braking stability ) - The system that applies the brakes to help keep you stable, this thing will slow you down a LOT, this is the biggest speed killer in the game, never use this on any car.
 
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Just turn em off. It won't take you long to get the feel of it.
 
Like the others said, however you do it, you need to get to the point where you drive with them off. You'll go faster and drive more consistently.

It can take a while to learn the tracks and braking points, so the driving line will probably be the last thing you turn off.

I still use ABS when it's permitted. Some of my friends require everyone to turn it off in our races. And I always have it off when racing NASCAR.
 
Try golding the licences, that's how you'll learn how faster you are without the aids.
After golding all licences I stopped using aids.
Before: TCS: 3 (normal cars) 6 (high-powered cars); ASM: On; ABS: 10 SRF: Off (never used it);
After golding all licences: TCS 0; ASM: Off; ABS: 1/0 (depending on the car); SRF: Off.
 
I was fortunate enough to start with GT and GT2, both of which don't have driving aids equipped as standard. When I started both GT3 and GT4 I didn't know driving aids were on as a default setting. In both cases, I started off in different cars (PT Cruiser in GT3, Infiniti G20 in GT4) and I was like "man the physics in this game suck!"

But then I figured out driving aids (just TCS and ASM) are on in these games. Once I figured it out, I shut them off and got used to the "new" way these cars were handling.

So I guess the cold turkey answer is best in my opinion. But if GT5 is your first Gran Turismo experience, maybe it's best to shut them off piece by piece so you can see what they actually do.

GT and GT2 were my school too and yeah, cold turkey except abs=1 here...
 
Like the others said, however you do it, you need to get to the point where you drive with them off. You'll go faster and drive more consistently.

It can take a while to learn the tracks and braking points, so the driving line will probably be the last thing you turn off.

I still use ABS when it's permitted. Some of my friends require everyone to turn it off in our races. And I always have it off when racing NASCAR.

Unless you are completely new to racing games you should turn off the driving line as soon as you get a general idea of which turn comes next on a given track, that's its only value. Otherwise you'll just get wrong lines and wrong braking and accelerating points to become habit and it will take somebody consistently spanking you, or else teaching you, online to unlearn some of them.

Just make sure you slow down early enough and your own natural line will begin to appear, and you'll notice where you can push harder.

Guess I'm in the cold turkey camp anyway.
 
Just turn them all off except for ABS and controller steering sensitivity if you want to include that. I use ABS 1 and controller steering sensitivity on 7 (5 on Red Bull X2010 and Ferrari F1s).
 
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