Improving my driving skill

  • Thread starter bAtesy
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I haven't played a Gran Turismo game for about a year and quite frankly, I suck. I wasn't that good in the first place but I am terrible now. I feel I'm too used to GT4 and GT3 where it tells you what gear to be in at each turn. Anyway, I passed my B and A license last night and bought a Cyborg and ran that round Sunday Cup a few times, bought the mandatory GTO-TT, raced some more and tuned it fully. Now it is a bitch to handle, I can barely make any turns correctly. I only managed to JUST win the Clubman Cup. Any ideas how I can improve my driving technique? Thanks.
 
You can take advantage of some foibles in GT1.

Unlike later games, understeering just means you need to add more steering input. While that does slow you down relative to taking the given corner ideally, it does give a reliable error-recovery technique.

Anyway, to improve your times, redoing the license tests (trying for gold), and/or doing the Normal Car Series seem to help a lot. An advantage of the Normal Car Series is that you can't fiddle with the setting, so you know any improvements must be due to a change in driving.

The Hard-Tuned Series also has nice 5 lap races, and you can adjust the challenge by the car you pick. I found the 180SX'94 Type X a good benchmark for me in that series.

Another way to improve is do the Grand Valley 300 a few times, concentrating on finding places on the track to improve your lap times. Perhaps see if you can win it with a non-racemod or two?

Or, perhaps redo the XXvsYY series several times, with increasingly less dominating cars, so that you encourage yourself to improve your technique and reduce your mistakes. Are you at the stage where it's easy to win those series using the prize [R]Chaser LM, for instance? (Some tuning will probably be needed, to eliminate bizarre handling).
 
The Mitsubishi GTO is not mandatory...I've won the Clubman Cup in much lesser cars (even front-wheel drives). The problem is you've gone from one of the simplest cars in the game to one of the most complex. There are a bunch of cars in between to experiment with. I remember I started in a '88 Nissan Silvia Q's for awhile, then at some point I jumped in a Camaro. And I could barely drive the thing! ...till I switched my dual-shock controller around as written below. After that my game improved dramatically. I eventually went from a Camaro to the Subaru SVX...to a Civic...Supra, finally a Viper...

Anyways, Gt is a game of skill (as you're finding out). It's not an arcade racer in which you can just jump in and start being a demon--it takes actual work :scared:

May I offer you this piece of advice? What helped me early on was to

1. Go in the options screen

2. change the configuration of your dual-shock (assuming you have a dual-shock) so that gas and brakes are now on your right analog stick. This way you can get variable amounts of gas/brakes. ]

Right now I bet you're using X and [] right? This is akin to being in a real car and flooring the gas every time you push the accelerator, then stomping on the brakes full-force every time you need to stop.

Other than this, I also advise you do the license tests for awhile till you can at least get silvers semi-reliably. Also, drive around the tracks in Time Trial mode (arcade section). Keep driving around each track till you get to know it. Knowledge of the tracks (where to brake, where to apex, where to accelerate etc) is extremely important--way more important than horsepower. Make it a game against yourself and keep driving on an empty course till your lap times begin to fall.

HTH
 
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I think I will change my controls like you've said Parnelli Bone. Seems the most logical as all I do is floor it round corners and hope I come round the other side with the right amount of speed.
 
I think I will change my controls like you've said Parnelli Bone. Seems the most logical as all I do is floor it round corners and hope I come round the other side with the right amount of speed.

Yes! I believe you go to the starting screen to get to options (where it says Arcade, Simulation, etc). :)

GT3 and GT4 have variable buttons (which I find don't work as well as the sticks)...GT1 and 2 do not.

Also, GT1 is the only GT in which you can enter a race and it actually tells you how much power each Ai car is running (look under the screen that says "Starting Line-Up"). this way you have some clue as to how much power of your own to bring to the plate. 💡
 
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Cheer up, bAtesy. Take it from a guy who is a Gran Turismo veteran as well as a person who beat GT1... GT1 really isn't all that hard. GT1 somewhat honors an aggressive, yet controled driving style. You must improve your driving skills in two ways: license tests and Arcade time trials.

As I was telling someone else, my biggest fear in GT1 used to be racing rear-wheel drive cars. Gas it too early, and you spin out. You need to practice as much as you can. Go into Arcade Mode and practice racing a variety of cars. You can get the best control of your cars with 4WD cars. These machines are heavier than most other cars, but the amount of control is amazing. Think about the Audis that race in the Speed Touring Car series. They can launch off the line impressively and handle very well. FWD cars are usually inexpensive and have amazing traction. Trouble is, you can't drive them very hard as say... a Viper or a Camaro. Learn the limits of FWD cars and try to race them as best as possible. RWD cars are what the purest sports cars. I usually think sports car or race cars with RWD. By having power at the rear wheels, you're able to accelerate better. However, you need to be careful not to accelerate too hard exiting corners. You have to truly practice your skills to be at your best. Compete in a few Spot Races. If you have a very decent car to use in Spot Races, you should win easily. The Special Event races usually require moderately or highly-tuned machines, so avoid these races until you've done your absolute best racing these machines.

Another suggestion is to practice finding the best racing line for each track. Make sure you are able to drive the car as best as you can to take advantage of the racing line. A game series that does a great job showing you the racing line for whatever car you have is the Forza Motorsport series. Whether you were in a Civic or a GT-One, the racing line is available for you to follow. Though FM came much later than GT1, you have to simply practice racing a variety of cars on a variety of tracks. Practice. Tune. Succeed. Remember these words, and you'll be a GT1 champion like I am.
 
I played the Forza demo on the Sexbox360 and the racing line on it is very good. My GF was like "Why is it doing that?" and I was like, "That's the racing line, the fastest possible route around the track".

I'm getting through the game abit better now with just extreme perseverance.

P.S - This Orange ad at the bottom is really annoying, it keeps taking me to the bottom of the page when I'm scrolling down.
 
I played the Forza demo on the Sexbox360 and the racing line on it is very good. My GF was like "Why is it doing that?" and I was like, "That's the racing line, the fastest possible route around the track".

I'm getting through the game abit better now with just extreme perseverance.

P.S - This Orange ad at the bottom is really annoying, it keeps taking me to the bottom of the page when I'm scrolling down.

Very cool. You'll eventually get GT...the physics are a bit weird compared to later games, but the main thing is each car is just a bit different from the others. You can eventually get to "know" each car and once you know how it responds, you'll find your game getting more and more predictable to some extent.

The "orange ad" you're referring to is probly one of the ads this site uses to pay for its bandwidth; to get rid of it you have to pay a bit of money and become a premium member :sly:
 
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