GT and the understeer tradition

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RC45
1 question for all the "these cars suck they are unrealistic they understeer like mofos" people.

...

Slow down and the understeering goes away... ;) Now isnt that interesting :lol:
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I was going to post something similar. Not least because the bulk of the cars in the game are road cars, the bulk of which will have been set up to understeer (which is generally considered safer). Even Ferarris will understeer a lot of the time - last time I was in Monaco / Monte Carlo / Cote D'Azure, I sat in a rather expensive bar (about 20 Euro a drink) and watched loads of fat tourists understeer their rented 599s and 430s through every corner of the bit of the GP circuit I could see.

When I've done driving days, I've always been surprised how hard it is to get a car to oversteer on a circuit. I always though it was just a case of going into a corner too fast in a RWD car (as it was in my Capri), but the cars would always just go straight on. Even on skid-pans, the tendancy is to under, not oversteer.
 
No there are driving techniques to get away front understeer IRL that don't work in the game. In GT5, you can flick a car into a fast corner but even before the apex it's literally smoking the front tyres. Try it on Laguna Seca.
 
Anes
No there are driving techniques to get away front understeer IRL that don't work in the game. In GT5, you can flick a car into a fast corner but even before the apex it's literally smoking the front tyres. Try it on Laguna Seca.
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I just push the pedal down on the Shelby Cobra Chrome Line. It spins those tires and drifts like a beast! That is the only kind of understeer i like. Mid-drift understeer :lol:

I have tried using techniques from IRL to get away from understeer in FWD cars and they seem to work.
I normally lessen the brake a tad aand try to slightly flick the car and get the tail end out a bit. It normally works, but on the civic Type R i can't figure it out :( I can do it on the Civic SiR, though :crazy:
 
Anes
Well yeah that will happen with a FWD car of course...

My main driver is a f430 Scuderia on sport soft tyres. It's hugely noticeable on Rome and the 'ring.

I urge anyone reading to test it out. Car is fully modified.
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There is your problem, car is fully modified.

Did you spend some days fine-tuning the setup, recording alot off replays of best laps at the same track, to compare your input data? To find out what understeer is causing?
You do know that buying fully customisable suspension does more in default mode then just placing it on. Lowing ride height and adjusting camber a bit just for the looks won't help you either.
If you buy fully cust. suspension you'd want to research on the track what will work and what not... Because you buy it in the first place to make the car handle better! It doesn't do it by itself you know...

Alot of things can be the understeer you feel. Maybe rear is to low, maybe to much antiroll... Test, read, inform, train, test again...
 
IME, flicks work perfectly in GT5 if you have the right car, on the right tyres with the right set up.

A little counter steer followed by a big lift unsettles the rear, then back on the gas sharply to get the rear sliding, followed by easing the throttle back until car holds the angle. I was never really been able to manage drifts with the wheel in GT5P, but it's relatively easy in GT5.. still lots of spins though :lol:
 
Anes
No there are driving techniques to get away front understeer IRL that don't work in the game. In GT5, you can flick a car into a fast corner but even before the apex it's literally smoking the front tyres. Try it on Laguna Seca.
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Well, my front tyres start to go red on most of my tuned cars when i exit the corner, together with my rear one on the same side. With no smoke, but alot of testing and changing camber a bit here and dampers there is needed.
You want it to transition to the red on the limits without smoke when you just went through the corner, then you have a basic good suspension setup!
 
There will always be cars that will give you better rotation than others. Most so called undesteering issues can be narrow down to the driver simply did not trail the brake properly or enough into the turn; that is if the car is set up to provide rotation. This doesn’t always translate to better lap times. Also if you are setting the car up without taking tire temperature into consideration, you are simply not optimizing your available traction of the tires.

The problem lies in the constant struggle in the search of the best set up base on "feel" vs. "data". This is evident in pretty much every single F1 race, where the engineers are struggled to set up the car to yield the most compliant and/or the fastest lap times, but at the same time often need to compromise so the driver have the feel that he wants.
 
Stotty
Absolutely spot on 👍

Clearly the game has been set up like this to make it accessible to the ordinary gamer... but you can fix this relatively easily...

Put fully adjustable suspension on the car, reduce the rear toe to +0.05, add -0.05 front toe, set the camber to something like -1.8f -1.2r you'll have a good starting point. After that, you can play with these setting and the ARBs (anti roll bars)... soften the front or stiffen then rear to reduce understeer.

In addition, make sure you're not trying to push the front end too hard going in to the corners... or the car will understeer as in real life.

EDIT...

RC45... spot on too... Slow your entry speed and you will not understeer 👍
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I like your suggestions...the only thing is most people learning to tune wont ''feel'' what the car is doing..there's four main points to fix under steer wich are -front toe ,-front camber,to much rear traction ,two much rear downforce.
i like to get a little more aggresive with the numbers then back off acording to the lap times..
 
RC45
1 question for all the "these cars suck they are unrealistic they understeer like mofos" people.

How many times have you:

a) driven a family sedan on family car tyres fast on the neighbourhood streets? I mean really fast? 100km/h/60mph around the 90 degree corners fast?

b) driven the same family sedan on family car tyres fast at a race track?

c) driven a moderately fast sports sedan/sports car on STREET sedan tyres fast on the neighbourhood streets? I mean really fast? 100km/h/60mph around the 90 degree corners fast?

d) driven a moderately fast sports sedan/sports car on STREET sedan tyres fast on a race track?

e) driven a high performance street sports car on street performance tyres fast on the neighbourhood streets? I mean really fast? 100km/h/60mph around the 90 degree corners fast?

f) driven a high performance street sports car on street performance tyres fast on a race track?

and finally

g) driven a high performance street sports car on barely street legal super sticky track orientated tyres fast on the neighbourhood streets? I mean really fast? 100km/h/60mph around the 90 degree corners fast?

h) driven a high performance street sports car on barely street legal super sticky track orientated tyres fast on a race track?

??

In only 1 scenario above does the vehicle NOT understeer. Care to guess which one it is? Scenario h). In all other cases the car when pushed hard will undertseer to some degree.

Folks, the only way a NON-race car will NOT understeer is if you drive the damn thing slowly or you have sticky tyres on it on a RACE track.

No grip means no grip - doesnt matter how you arrive at the situtation it is still no grip. You people are ALL entering corners in game at speeds MUCH faster tahn you would in the real life situation and blaming accurate game engine behaviour on "bad physics" - no the "physics" is good, you are just providing the "input speed" to the algorithm being used that gives you a result you dont like - you may not like the result, "understeer", but it is accurate.

Slow down and the understeering goes away... ;) Now isnt that interesting :lol:
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You said it all.

GT5 physics are really really amazing.
 
I was just trying to give a starting point as a base line for most cars.

If I'm tuning myself I usually neutralise everything, get a feel for the cars natural balance, then work from there. Most cars don't need stupidly big values for toe & camber... It's very rare that I'll end up with camber settings above 2.5f for example.
 
SHIRAKAWA Akira
I find worrying that the default suspension set-up is wrong or has been tweaked to increase drivability for the general public, though. After discovering the wheel alignment issue, I often wondered if cars in GT5 handle like they are supposed to do. By the way, I even tried asking Yamauchi about this issue via Twitter a while back. Not expecting an answer, though :)
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I just checked it out with some different suspensions installed and sure enough the toe and camber is the same on all of them according to what is displayed on screen. The springs, dampers and roll bars are all a bit stiffer with each step up in suspension but the balance, camber and toe seems to be the same.
 
Nope not having this problem. Try setting up your suspension correctly and slowing down for corners. This isnt Forza 3 yah know.
 
My 2 cents worth.

First I can't agree that the understeer is even close to the levels shown in GT5, which had serious low speed physics issues. I've over two decades of experience in the motor industry, which includes a decade in training (driver, product launch and vehicle dynamics included in that) and have to say that GT5 does a damn good job of the physics in regard to the under/over steer balance and transition.

My second point is one regarding the fitment of uprated suspension and using the values from that as the 'normal' values for a car. If any of the past games are an indicator, then thats a totally miss-leading thing to do. The previous titles all had separate values held for stock cars and then the various levels of upgrade. That applied to suspension and transmission settings in the past games.

If GT5 is the same (and it would seem likely) then looking at FC suspension values are no more accurate for the 'stock' settings that asking your car what they are.


Rekarp
Nope not having this problem. Try setting up your suspension correctly and slowing down for corners. This isnt Forza 3 yah know.
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Not needed, not accurate and likely to get you an infraction if you contine (as will happen to anyone that responds to this flame bait).

FM3 does a damn fine job and while I would give GT5 the edge it could still learn a bit from FM3. How to simulate the feedback from tyre scrub whould be one example.



Scaff
 
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Scaff
My 2 cents worth.

First I can't agree that the understeer is even close to the levels shown in GT5, which had serious low speed physics issues. I've over two decades of experience in the motor industry, which includes a decade in training (driver, product launch and vehicle dynamics included in that) and have to say that GT5 does a damn good job of the physics in regard to the under/over steer balance and transition.

My second point is one regarding the fitment of uprated suspension and using the values from that as the 'normal' values for a car. If any of the past games are an indicator, then thats a totally miss-leading thing to do. The previous titles all had separate values held for stock cars and then the various levels of upgrade. That applied to suspension and transmission settings in the past games.

If GT5 is the same (and it would seem likely) then looking at FC suspension values are no more accurate for the 'stock' settings that asking your car what they are.



Scaff
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Agreed on the physics side Scaff, a massive step forward from GT5P 👍

Regarding the settings on FC suspension... I've never specifically checked myself (obviously not possible in prologue), but are you saying that a car on standard suspension handles differently if you put FC suspension on and change nothing?
 
The understeer is quite accurate. I doubt you can do the first corner in Tsukuba at 65mph with your 'stage 1 medium' tires. Especially with the fwd understeer, it's actually quite accurate. It's just annoying when I play with friends saying the game has huge amounts of understeer and then I explain to them why (tires, suspension, speed, corner entry, rwd fwd awd, etc)
 
2of9
The understeer is quite accurate. I doubt you can do the first corner in Tsukuba at 65mph with your 'stage 1 medium' tires. Especially with the fwd understeer, it's actually quite accurate. It's just annoying when I play with friends saying the game has huge amounts of understeer and then I explain to them why (tires, suspension, speed, corner entry, rwd fwd awd, etc)
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Some people just don't realize how fast they are actually going in game.
 
If your car is acting wrong, it is setup wrong.
Go and sort it out.
like people said, toe at the rear should be 0.1 at most. usually accompanied by -0.1 at front which is what I do sometimes.
Find your own setup style and roll with it.
Mindlessly sticking with stock is silly , especially when its under steering like mad.

setup doesnt meen wack a 20.000 turbo on it and do stage 1 2 and 3 engine and all that mindless car wrecking...
it means buy the suspension and change the settings :)

sorry just annoys me when people say a certain car is good then they go on to say it is fully modified..
what your saying then is your car is good, the car you said was lost when you spent so much on it.

/rant
 
Trail braking is just something you must not do with regular tires. Brake before turning the wheel, otherwise you slide straight off the track. That's also the first thing they teach you at safe-driving school. NEVER brake while turning.
 
Slightly off topic but I think that it has some bearing on this topic.


Watch (listen) and learn. There is some information about toe in and toe out in this video as some other good info about racing.

 
InSight
Trail braking is just something you must not do with regular tires. Brake before turning the wheel, otherwise you slide straight off the track. That's also the first thing they teach you at safe-driving school. NEVER brake while turning.
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I am not even mad.......👍

Good luck with your "Safe Driving" technique.
 
I have to say, I've not noticed any severe understeer with most cars, but I am perplexed by the suspension upgrades. They almost always ruin the feel for me, and it takes a while to get it back (stupid spring / damper rate balance). I do tend to dial in a smidgen of negative camber (< 0.5°), but I missed the toe settings (I still haven't bought a fully-customisable kit...)

I drive with a G25 normally, and almost always without ABS (you have to adjust the default 5/5 brake balance to something more driveable on tarmac, e.g. 5/3 etc.) and the lack of ABS makes corner entries a bit hairy with most cars, largely because I do trail brake. "Flicking" does seem to work most of the time, depending on the tyres and the car itself, and I love the feel of transitioning from understeer to oversteer, and back again (my S15 does this, thanks to the apparently equal tyre sizes front and rear).

I had a go with the pad, and it is harder to get fine control of weight transfer, which can lead to a somewhat polar understeer / oversteer regime with all aids off.
 
For me GT5 feels very balanced... now GT3, well I referred to it as the "understeer simulator" it was horrible. So bad I never bought GT4. I think the problem in GT3 was the TCS, ABS and ASM crap you couldn't turn off, only down.

The problem with GT5 is you can't control the brake balance in the settings screen, you can only do it if configure your steering wheel by remapping the buttons and those brake settings are causing understeer. Plus all the cars come with the TCS at 5, which I immediately turn off.

Also the truth is most real cars understeer as a safety factor, they only oversteer when you apply way too much throttle combined with a sharp turning angle. Take my real life Dodge truck for example, in theory it should oversteer like mad: heavy V8 engine in front, light pickup bed over the drive wheel, plus plenty of torque... but no it plows badly into turns, however on exit its very easy to get the tail to kick out. The cars in GT5 seem to follow this pretty accurately.
 
My 2 cents- turn up the FFB as much or more that you think you need. I can't understand why most people would turn their FFB down to almost nothing. While it makes you faster because it requires less effort to turn or correct the car, it also gives you less feedback regarding the front tire tracking.
 
JMII
Take my real life Dodge truck for example, in theory it should oversteer like mad: heavy V8 engine in front, light pickup bed over the drive wheel, plus plenty of torque... but no it plows badly into turns, however on exit its very easy to get the tail to kick out. The cars in GT5 seem to follow this pretty accurately.
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Just remember the following:

When braking or accellerating in a straight line:
The heavier end of the car has more grip.
The lighter end of the car has less grip.

When cornering at a constant speed (neither accelerating nor braking):
The heavier end of the car has less grip.
The lighter end of the car has more grip.

So what happens when you combine acceleration, braking and cornering? Suddenly these conflicting forces start duking it out, which is why poorly balanced vehicles like your truck can be plowing once second and then all of a sudden transition into snap oversteer. It also explains why 50/50 weight distribution helps contribute to predictable at-the-limit behavior.
 
I whack on Fully Customisable suspension straight away, then just do some basic tuning to it and I've never had a problem, the only car that I have ever had to spend some time on (which Im doing now) is the Mazda Furai, I'm determined to dial out that oversteer! But yeh, all my other cars, Ferrari 458, the Elise (is amazin!) erm, the Lexus Concept, Chevi Camaro and so on, anything FF, anything FR, MR is fine ... All I seem to have a problem with is AWD cars, such as the veyron, they just seem to not want to corner, the ZZ-II is a bit easier if you work with it but it still does understeer a bit, I have to dial that out with the torque centre computer thing and it's ok-ish ...

If you stop and read the help inside the tuning menus you'll be able to dial out that understeer easily though!

What I would like to see are more advanced tuning options as I'd like to have things like ballast that you could move forward and backwards in the car, really, a couple of options from F1 2010 would be good
 
oppositelock
Suddenly these conflicting forces start duking it out, which is why poorly balanced vehicles like your truck can be plowing once second and then all of a sudden transition into snap oversteer. It also explains why 50/50 weight distribution helps contribute to predictable at-the-limit behavior.
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Very true. Good info.
 
Understeer feels fine to me, like everyone has said its most likely setup issues or the cars handling attributes.

The lancia Delta rally car is still giving me issues on gravel but I think I need to treat it with more respect than I have been! She's a beast!
 
I noticed for certain cars, i.e.Gallardo and C63, I had massive understeer on exit even with racing tires and not being close to fully tuned hp wise, usually keep all my cars to bolt ons only. Even creating extreme setting on toe out, front chamber, down force, lower front ride height, front front shocks and springs, couldn't get rid of it. Even my Civic R had better comer exit than these 2 cars.

Then removed I customizable LSD and the car became much more loose on the exit with proper throttle control, so you might want to try that out.

P.S. IMO in real life, most productions cars are designed to under since the 'average' driver could manage understeer better then oversteer.
 

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