Gran Turismo 6 AI discussion

[GranTurismoFive]

Looks like the AI is a poor as the last game.

Have just seen the one hour gameplay footage from the sim racing guys. Such a let down.

 

[MrWednesday]

And I also suspect the AI uses the driving line and not their cars capability when determining breaking points and that needs to change as the driving lines are wrong, its a generic line throughout the track for any car... Over emphasizing elevation change and closing turns.

You say that like they're not trying to make the driving line be the correct line on the course, and like it would be easy to improve the computed line. I don't think either is true.

 

[lazywolfe]

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[ECGadget]

Good post, and I get what you're saying. Knowing the challenges and having perspective is good, it gives an appreciation for what most video game companies accomplish nowadays. But even if someone doesn't know the challenges, they can still have expectations and criticisms because of how other PC /console racing games have handled AI. PD, as professionals, have to live up to the standards set by the competition. Especially because we know they have the potential to do things really well.

The same argument extends to graphics. Programming 3D graphics is a challenge too. I've read some 3D game design books (recent ones and ones from as far back as '98) and it's amazing how some of the really advanced techniques work when you get to see actual code and formulas, etc. But casual gamers, unaware of those challenges, still have some ground in saying "well, that game has great graphics, why doesn't this one?" and that is a fair criticism, even if there's a temptation to say "yeah, but it's hard to do!"

Have my like good sir! And yes, there is definately a challenge to compete with PC Simulators, but then again the CPU power and RAM are quite different, are they not? 👍

Go Go PS4?

 

[Lawndart]

You say that like they're not trying to make the driving line be the correct line on the course, and like it would be easy to improve the computed line. I don't think either is true.

I agree, it wouldn't be trivial at all. The line is drawn computationally to follow the most direct path through a course. And it is wrong and every other sim does it.

The preferred line at Laguna seca, the racing line, is not at all the same in any game.

If the/a game modeled two lines (like real world, there is also a passing line) that the AI could switch to vs simply trying to recover the main line things might get more interesting.

But my suggestion was to not change anything but penalize contact (forcing us to not abuse the AI cars and kill the chase the rabbit crap) to buy time for pd to determine a better system than AI on rail/s...

They did have persistent damage as per an early GT screenshot so this night have been their answer along these lines but it just didn't make it into the release or day one patch.

 

[Killer2142GT4]

Does GTR2 simulate weather/time, stars, detailed aerodynamics, wind, humidity, air pressure, temperature, detailed suspension and tire physics? Did it also boast Adaptive Tessellation and Morphological Anti-Aliasing? Seeing as its a 2006 PC sim, it didn't have much in the physics department, and it barely makes it into the HD games era. I'm sure GT6 also has a higher draw distance, and many other new features that the CPU has to account for. Also, once you pull all of that CPU heavy stuff in, which is possible thanks to the CELL, its probably a lot harder to get decent AI out of the CELL considering the architecture it provides and the other things using the CPU up.

i dont know about wind, humidty, air pressure or stars, but it does have much better suspension,tyre, aerodynamics and collision physics. much better than GT5.

Also, it has 40+ AI drivers on track at the same time.

Much better engine sound, far better AI and real racing weekends with qualifying and flying starts in two rows.

 

[lalaurentide]

The AI probably use the same computing that goes on for the suggested gear, which is in real time and works for any line you take. If they could make the AI less conservative, it is so frustrating to see them slow down when there's a gap on each side of an opponent.

 

[trustjab]

The PC is a better tool than the PS3. Im sure you could get 40 cars on track, but they wouldnt look like premiums. There wouldnt be the beautiful surrroundings. 2d trees, popups, screen tear, fram rate drop; you name it. Compromising has to be made that hopefully the ps4 alleviates. As for bad AI, who knows for sure why theyre slow. Level difficulty could solve that, but what would it cost in time development? Theres reasons behind everything, we just dont know. But the AI looks improved, not fast but not as bad.

 

[HKS racer]

The PC is a better tool than the PS3. Im sure you could get 40 cars on track, but they wouldnt look like premiums. There wouldnt be the beautiful surrroundings. 2d trees, popups, screen tear, fram rate drop;you name it.

Maybe 7 years ago.

Compromising has to be made that hopefully the ps4 alleviates.

I've heard the same things about PS3 before PS3 came out.

As for bad AI, who knows for sure why theyre slow. Level difficulty could solve that, but what would it cost in time development?.

I remember old PSX and PS2 games with decent competitive AI.

 

[Spagetti69]

They have had a whole generation to sort this out. Kaz said he felt he needed a bit longer on GT5 to realise it's potential. 3 years after that and it seems the AI are the same.

Don't own the game myself so the benefit of the doubt should go to PD. History shows me otherwise though.

 

[CoolColJ]

GTR2 AI is really bad on chicanes and quite a few tracks, and when you watch them drive they act weird

This is a typical GT style race on Tsukuba, and that's how the AI should act on Pro level

 

[trustjab]

Maybe 7 years ago.
I've heard the same things about PS3 before PS3 came out.
I remember old PSX and PS2 games with decent competitive AI.

7 years ago the PS3 was pretty new, no racing game had 16+ cars on the system at that time. To this day I have yet to see a racer with the huge grids on PS3.

You heard wrong. The PS3 lacks things the PS2 could achieve, Kaz says it himself. The PS4 is likened to a higher end computer in terms of memory and such. Things the PS3 clearly lacks.

I too remember ps2 games with decent AI. Previous GT's had decent AI. Whats your point? You reply to prove something? Everyone knows the PS3 cant handle things to Kaz's liking, but thats not an excuse for the slow AI racers. So what is?

 

[HKS racer]

7 years ago the PS3 was pretty new, no racing game had 16+ cars on the system at that time. To this day I have yet to see a racer with the huge grids on PS3.

I was talking about PC, since 40 cars on track belong to GTR2.

The PS3 lacks things the PS2 could achieve, Kaz says it himself.

Link.

I too remember ps2 games with decent AI. Previous GT's had decent AI. Whats your point? You reply to prove something? Everyone knows the PS3 cant handle things to Kaz's liking, but thats not an excuse for the slow AI racers. So what is?

You are contraddicting yourself with this statement.

but what would it cost in time development? Theres reasons behind everything, we just dont know. But the AI looks improved, not fast but not as bad.

 

[trustjab]

I was talking about PC, since 40 cars on track belong to GTR2.

Link.

You are contraddicting yourself with this statement.

And Im talking about GT6 which is on the ps3, not a computer. No matter its age.

You can find the link yourself, its on these forums. I dont have computer access to search right now.

How am I contradicting myself when I asked what the cost of it would be? Development takes time, time is used on this and other things involved in the game. Staff allocated to certain areas probably work on separate details of the game but they all have to meet at a certain time and deadline for the finished product. Dont see how anyone could know what the details or inner workings of PD are or how they program things like the behavior of the AI incorporated into the package that is the final game. Hence the question. Unless you know what keeps the AI 'slow' you cant just say its an easy fix without being a part of their team.

 

[jlb]

One thing I noticed is the a little racing sim on psn store called v8 superstars has way better ai than gt5 and I got to thinking so dose absolute super cars it sad that the biggest racing sim ever can't have something that all these little company's can

 

[brianwong]

PS4 is actually not equivalent of a high end computer. Try low-mid range. It's two netbook CPUs put together, with 8GB of RAM with the balls overclocked out of it (and also high latencies, since GDDR5 is basically DDR3) and a slightly overclocked Radeon HD7850.

 

[Imari]

7 years ago the PS3 was pretty new, no racing game had 16+ cars on the system at that time. To this day I have yet to see a racer with the huge grids on PS3.

You heard wrong. The PS3 lacks things the PS2 could achieve, Kaz says it himself. The PS4 is likened to a higher end computer in terms of memory and such. Things the PS3 clearly lacks.

I too remember ps2 games with decent AI. Previous GT's had decent AI. Whats your point? You reply to prove something? Everyone knows the PS3 cant handle things to Kaz's liking, but thats not an excuse for the slow AI racers. So what is?

F1 CE was basically a launch game for PS3. It came out I think a month after launch?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formula_One_Championship_Edition

It had 22 cars on track, and still looks pretty good I think. I don't remember the AI being awful, but I don't remember it being special either. I should probably fire it up again and have another go, I do remember it being brutally hard.

But there's an example of an early PS3 game with a large grid.

Ferrari Challenge: Trofeo Pirelli was about a year after PS3 launch with 16 cars.

The Codies F1 games have had 22-24 cars as appropriate for the season, with weather and such.

I'm not sure there's been any PS3 games with a grid over 24, but I could be forgetting something.

Previous GT's had decent AI.

GT has never had decent AI. Name one GT game with good AI. They were barely acceptable at the time they were made, but no one describes them as "good".

 

[trustjab]

I said "decent", not good. I had fun racing in GT4. The harder races being the faster cars like the group c/lmp's weren't that bad if you didn't run overpowered bentleys. The Formula GT races were fun too.

 

[GranTurismoFive]

If they were "decent" back then then PD has definitely lost it's way.

All the AI is good for is going around the track. Nothing more than obstacles

 

[trustjab]

In GT5 that was the case. I've yet to try GT6. I know I won't be running anything more than sports hard tires on any street car with less than 500hp. I really dont limit myself to enjoying GT offline, so online is my main concern.

 

[sems4arsenal]

Re the AI, They have been daft and slow most of the time, but during arcade mode I had a race at the ring with a HSV and the Arta NSX tailed me the whole entire lap (I was really pushing it) I was amazed this thing could keep up with me.

Note I set the AI to aggresive.

 

[badAZbuddha]

7 years ago the PS3 was pretty new, no racing game had 16+ cars on the system at that time. To this day I have yet to see a racer with the huge grids on PS3.

You heard wrong. The PS3 lacks things the PS2 could achieve, Kaz says it himself. The PS4 is likened to a higher end computer in terms of memory and such. Things the PS3 clearly lacks.

I too remember ps2 games with decent AI. Previous GT's had decent AI. Whats your point? You reply to prove something? Everyone knows the PS3 cant handle things to Kaz's liking, but thats not an excuse for the slow AI racers. So what is?

I say this to my self: the ps3 is not gran turismo friendly. But since the ps4 will be similar to the ps2, they will do more things they couldn't do on the ps3

 

[aronh17]

Human errors arise from a couple of factors:

Poor physical control - you're unable to make precisely the movement you want to make.
Poor decision making - you misread the situation, or simply make an incorrect decision in the heat of the moment.

Perhaps there's more, but I'd say most errors are broadly one of those two.

I see no reason why both of those can't be simulated by a machine.

For the first, just a like a human the computer knows what input it wants to do. The input then has an "error" range, depending on how "skilled" the computer is. Maybe a poor AI only gets a steering angle correct within +/- ten degrees, and takes a second to notice and have another go at correcting it (with the same chance for error). Maybe a good AI is +/- one degree, with a 0.2 second chance to notice and correct. Ditto braking, acceleration, and any other input.

For the second, a computer can evaluate multiple options. A perfect computer will always select the "best" one. Again, a random chance can be assigned to select the second option, or the third, and so on. Good AI picks optimal choices more often. Bad AI picks optimal choices less often.

Of course, it's always still just a script. But I see no reason that the script can't be made complicated and variable enough that it's indistinguishable from a real driver. I can't think of any characteristic that humans have in terms of the way they drive that couldn't be replicated by a suitably complex machine.

I imagine you could make a kind of Turing test for driving AI. Drive with a bunch of people and pick which are humans and which are AI. I can't think of any AI currently that would pass such a test consistently, but there are few that might get close on short timescales. Time will only improve those.

I will say I agree GT needs some AI tuning; along with plenty of options no matter what mode you're playing on. I'd even like some of that advanced AI setup as filler spots for racing online just to have a full grid. We all have to do career mode at some point, so I do agree that it needs to be heavily looked at. Especially coming from PD, a company that worked with an offline only game until the 5th one came out. I still think its due to the number of cars and tracks; but who knows. There has to be some challenge there, I can't see PD skipping on something that big. They have obviously looked into it, same with new sounds (albeit not coming just yet). I think the PS4 and GT7 will be the new age for Gran Turismo.

 

[Imari]

I will say I agree GT needs some AI tuning; along with plenty of options no matter what mode you're playing on. I'd even like some of that advanced AI setup as filler spots for racing online just to have a full grid. We all have to do career mode at some point, so I do agree that it needs to be heavily looked at. Especially coming from PD, a company that worked with an offline only game until the 5th one came out. I still think its due to the number of cars and tracks; but who knows. There has to be some challenge there, I can't see PD skipping on something that big. They have obviously looked into it, same with new sounds (albeit not coming just yet). I think the PS4 and GT7 will be the new age for Gran Turismo.

Cars and tracks are issues, but can be worked around.

If you're designing an AI to work in a kind of perceptual way instead of scripting it per corner, it becomes much easier to deal with many tracks. We see AI on PC games with mods cope relatively well with user-made tracks that they're obviously not specifically tuned for, so it can be done.

Cars can have greatly simplified physics if necessary. All that's required is that they appear to handle correctly from the outside, so simple taking power/weight/drivetrain into account probably gets you a lot of the way there, and greatly simplifies the parameters the AI has to consider.

Not that all this stuff isn't still hard, but it's not necessarily as hard as you might think.

 

[diegorborges]

I've played GT6 for around 5 hours last night and I think the AI was definitely improved. They try to defend their line, they even pushed me off the track 3 times during races... They passed me without hesitation half a dozen of times.

What people want is to put the maximum PP possible in a car, then go to the Sunday Cup, crash everyone and obliterate the racers and then complain to the hell that the AI is bad.

And there's more, I found them progressive according to the races in the career. National A opponents are harder than National B and so on.


It's still not perfect but we had a great improvement here. Just pay attention.

 

[mister dog]

Codemasters can do it, other developers can do it so hardware restrictions are just a lame excuse...

 

[Imari]

I've played GT6 for around 5 hours last night and I think the AI was definitely improved. They try to defend their line, they even pushed me off the track 3 times during races... They passed me without hesitation half a dozen of times.

What people want is to put the maximum PP possible in a car, then go to the Sunday Cup, crash everyone and obliterate the racers and then complain to the hell that the AI is bad.

And there's more, I found them progressive according to the races in the career. National A opponents are harder than National B and so on.


It's still not perfect but we had a great improvement here. Just pay attention.

Are they fast enough to keep up with you when you're in a car that's at max PP for the event? That's been really the main criticism of them from GT5. They way they move is not great but not awful, the main problem is that they're just dog slow.

 

[diegorborges]

Are they fast enough to keep up with you when you're in a car that's at max PP for the event? That's been really the main criticism of them from GT5. They way they move is not great but not awful, the main problem is that they're just dog slow.

I agree that they could be faster, but I think this gets more noticeable in slower car events in GT6?

I still need to check the upper tiers.

 

[Mulan]

well if they do great ai people would struggle to earn cash...suddenly buying ingame cash will be attractive. But then people would complain too

 

[Imari]

well if they do great ai people would struggle to earn cash...suddenly buying ingame cash will be attractive. But then people would complain too

Not at all. Great AI is one that challenges you, not one that smashes you into the ground. It's entirely possible to have great AI with close racing and still come first in every race and get your winnings.

It probably requires you not starting right at the back with the lead car having a 30 second head start, but that's been retarded since day one.