GT5 tuning/simulation issues; unrealistic?

[giantyak]

A number of times people have said such things as:
"the more you tune a car the more flawed the physics in the game become"
I thought this would be a good place to discuss realism issues with the 'simulation' before putting something in the GT6 forum for suggestions 💡

-Roll centers of cars not modeled into the physics engine?
As a consequence tunes that don't correlate to reality are more successful then 'default' tunes. This should note be the case.

-Arbitrary numbers.
Example: ride height - you are given an arbitrary range in mm instead of being given the actual ride height of the car.
Anti roll bars fit into this issue in that you get a range of 1-7. In some ways this is ok because people don't want to spend too much time on tunes, so having settings is fine, however, in my experience 1-7 is not enough. If i change front or back anti roll bars by more then 1 'setting' away from each other the tune goes bad. (This is for 'neutral' tunes where ride height is equal front to back)

'GT5, the real driving simulator'
In its current state i'd like tuning in GT5 to Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit (1998) tuning where you move sliders left and right for "stiffer"/"softer", "higher"/"lower" etc for tuning. This is disappointing because a lot of time can be spent tuning in GT5 and this is made worse by not knowing some basic factual information, such as, what the car's actual ride height is (according to GT5), and not having enough control over anti roll bars, and not seeing expected results from changes made in the setup/tune.
It is time wasting trying to guess what changes might be suitable for tuning because you don't have some of this simple information such as ride height.

In many ways it would be better if tuning in GT5 was just done with sliders because you could then spend more time driving and less time tuning.

There are many issues that could be improved upon, such as:
-impact of ballast on cars is too extreme (unless i'm adding the weight to the roof?)
-changing the roll centers (ride height Front:Back) of the car so that they are far away from each other (up/down) doesn't cause the car to become unstable. The experience here is "thy have moved the rear ride height down the car shalt now have +9 resistance to body roll; you have raised the front ride height thy shalt now have +15 steering response"
-Some light cars, such as the Caterham Seven Fireblade appear to be 'penalised' for being light, whereas, the Suzuki GSX-R/4 Concept '01 is great.

what would people like fixed in GT6?

 

[MrGrado]

Who says roll centers of cars aren't modeled into the physics engine?

Not sure how anyone is going to be able to zone in on a good set up any quicker if they display ride height any differently. As it is "real ride height" of a car is an arbitrary measurement anyway.

If you want to spend less time tuning and more time driving, then look for ready made tunes here on the forums. I don't think anybody here wants GT6 to be like some arcade racer from 14 years ago.

If things are different in GT6 then fine, if they aren't then fine also.

 

[giantyak]

If roll centers were modeled into the physics engine then cars with tunes that increase the vertical distance between the roll centers would be unstable and crash/spin off frequently. The "emergency lane change test" catches this issue in real life. Cars are designed to be safe. Manufactures didn't design cars with bad roll center balance just so we could come and fix every single one of them in GT5. Roll centers aren't something that should be fiddled with as a first port of call, especially when we don't even know what they are.

Your right though, 'real ride height' is an arbitrary measurement because it doesn't tell you what the roll center heights are, but it is still relevant and useful because then you get some idea of how much you can safely lower a car without running into trouble.

I think that GT5 *is* like some arcade racer from 14 years ago Yes, i can use the tunes that other people have made (and i know those people know what they are doing), but i look at those tunes and the ride heights are unrealistic. It doesn't mean the tunes won't work in GT5, but what it does mean is that the GT5 physics engine is wrong and GT5 can not claim to be "the real driving simulator".

GT6 should be better then an arcade racer from 14 years ago. This is what i'm saying.

 

[MrGrado]

I've made a car unstable by changing roll centers.

Not everybody agrees on ride height effects, so saying the game is flawed just because of what only some people do with ride height is a bit unfair.

I think some people decide that GT5 is unrealistic but their only experience is with other inferior racing games.

Meanwhile GT5 engineers do extensive testing with real cars etc to make sure that their physics model is the best there is and as accurate as it can be.

If the physics is inside out or backwards or something else drastically wrong for some reason, there are only 2 possibilities:

1. PD knows how to model suspension correctly but they make it wrong just to **** the racing fans.

2. PD got it all wrong badly by accident but they have not noticed it yet.

If neither of those possibilities are probable then it is probable that the physics is reasonably accurate.

 

[Highlandor]

What is "flawed" is subjective, those who are experienced and knowledgable about setups in reallife are going to view things differently than those who haven't a clue of real life setups and just work with what's in the game.

We've had 2 years of argueing and fighting over what 'works', 'how' 'what' works', what's 'right' and 'wrong' etc etc etc and there's still no agreement.

Combine that with the 2 recent updates, which has made things even worse, and the fact that PD has changed what 'works' so many times in the first 2 years since release - GOOD LUCK with WWIII.

It's pretty simple what is needed in GT6 - what is real life, but a watered down version.

i.e. what happens in real life to the ride height, happens in GT6, same with toe, dampers etc etc etc. PD get this right FIRST TIME and don't change this or the physics.

Not micro detail like individual wheel settings. If PD can screw up so badly in GT5, it's hard enough working what they done with the current setup variables, - same thing happening with each wheel being individually tuned...pffft, that's 4 times as much work.

This is a video game, not a PC sim, keep it simple, get it right first time (for once PD), then build from there..

 

[praiano63]

PD shut down the major problem of the ride height, first offline and now online too. There is no more reaction of the car setting it with differents ride height.
Springs continue to react ,let's say strangely, but at least we don't have to look to a car with the rear down on the road just to let it more agressive ( oversteer) This is a good point.
I think that if they did not correct this problem it's because it must be more complicated than pressing a single button. Everything or something must be interconnected with the rest and they don't want to rebuild all the GT5 physics now.
This is what i think about this. For me it's OK, the game we have stay better few by few and we can expect the next level having fun.

The only problem i see is when i read the boss saying:
"Every Gran Turismo version is actually very different and made from scratch; we really go back to the drawing board for a lot of things. GT5 isn’t necessarily a continuation of GT4, and the next game won’t necessarily be a continuation of GT5."
There is a lot of good things to use from one game to the other and some bad things to not do anymore. Experience must be in the first place when you talk about "building from scratch" everytime. I'm still a GT4 fan and i think that improving this version would be 100% better than the actual GT5.
In my humble opinion.
><(((((°>°°°°°°°

 

[giantyak]

Well said guys

 

[GTP_CargoRatt]

My biggest complaint in this area is the inability to set camber and toe separately for each wheel, left and right. If they fixed that, I would be most happy as it would really help correctly setup my cars for oval racing.

 

[giantyak]

My biggest complaint in this area is the inability to set camber and toe separately for each wheel, left and right. If they fixed that, I would be most happy as it would really help correctly setup my cars for oval racing.

I agree with that. For speed bowls this is kind of a must. I have also found with Grand valley for 1 car on one of my setups the r) rear was constantly colder then the other 3 tyres so it would have been nice to have a separate setting there. (I'm very fond of that setting as it is so i don't want to change it otherwise)

 

[FCWC]

Agree with Praiano that they would have to rewrite everything and that is never going to happen. Let us just pray that GT6 is slow in coming so that they may take their time to make it an actually simulator and not an arcade game.

As far as suspension goes.
Would love real world tuning. Took me awhile to change my natural habits to game habits.
So first we would need a parts store with at least different
parts of the same type IF not from different manufacturers (hey PD - there is some advertising $ to be made there!) Example - Sway bars. I use Whilteline 3 way adjustable rear 20/22/24 MM and a 20 mm front. I use 8 way adjustable shocks (over springs) I know how much my car is lowered from stock. Camber and toe in degree's.
I can tune my TQ curve and my HP curve.
Here is the funny - my car in real life has less than half the HP as it does in this game but is faster in real life. Go figure that out.
Even tires - let us BUY different tire brands (ADVERTIZING $$$ to be made)

Alas it is just an arcade game.
People running auto's with a stick are faster than MT with a wheel ...


There are other things like engine failure and
tracks made to size - compared to the cars. But all those are non tuning issues.