MT vs AT - how much faster?
- Thread starter MSkovmose
- 113 comments
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- 1,648
- UK
Manual all the way for me, any racing game be it cars or bikes has always been MT. Also I use X for accel,Square for brake and triggers for up and down gears, I sometimes have numbness issues with some of my fingers so triggers for accel and brake doesnt work for me. 👍
- 4,188
- United States
- rising_glass1
I am the same way, if I exert too much energy pressing the buttons and doing repetitive motion, my hands/thumbs get numb or sometimes get a cramp and then I have to take calcium supplements.
- 1,648
- UK
@Chris30 I have,what I believe to be Cubital Tunnel Syndrome. This is when the Ulnar nerve,which runs under the elbow from the side of your neck and ends in your fingers, becomes inflammed. Keeping my arms bent makes it hurt, if I sleep with my arms bent it wakes me up, I wear compression sleeves on each arm when I go to work which helps. You get the picture,if I was a dog i`d probably be put down. 
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- 4,188
- United States
- rising_glass1
That's bad, I hope you're doing okay. I know that's gotta be a scary feeling. Hope you recover well.@Chris30 I have,what I believe to be Cubital Tunnel Syndrome. This is when the Ulnar nerve,which runs under the elbow from the side of your neck and ends in your fingers, becomes inflammed. Keeping my arms bent makes it hurt, if I sleep with my arms bent it wakes me up, I wear compression sleeves on each arm when I got to work which helps. You get the picture,if I was a dog i`d probably be put down.
- 1,648
- UK
- 4,188
- United States
- rising_glass1
I've never heard of that type of syndrome, I'll have to do more research about it later. Take good care of yourself and don't overdo it on the Playstation like I'm doing.Cheers mate.It comes and goes, if i whack my elbows at work or whatever it sets it off.
- 1,648
- UK
Arms not constantly bent is fine,its when I do a longish gaming session and forget to change position I suffer.Normal day to day stuff is fine but I know my limits.It is what it is,there are people with worse off conditions than mine so im pretty lucky in the grand scheme of things. 👍
- 4,188
- United States
- rising_glass1
Yeah, my thumbs ache when I press the buttons so many times plus holding that controller in long periods makes it hard for me to stand the pain so I had to curb my time on the Playstation a month ago. I take Excederin to help with the pain to. See the thing with MT is you have to be quick at pressing the gear shift buttons, it is not a simple process and takes lots of time to learn. Yeah, we have to be grateful and lucky that we are not in other people's shoes. Some have had way worse injuries than us.
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- 229
- New York City
- challah_rajni
Since GT6, my controller setup had been
- Dpad steering,
- square for brake,
- right trigger for throttle,
- left shoulder for downshifts
- triangle for upshifts.
The way I held the controller and did throttle inputs made me feel that I'd need an extra hand to reach the corresponding shoulder button for upshifts.
A wrist injury from my wheel setup (of all things) made me switch back to controller. My Dpads turning into mush and my wrist acting up again made me switch to analog steering.
Time trials and the need for trail braking made me switch to using the left trigger.
The best setup for long sessions with the least pain for me is now
- left analog stick for steering
- triggers for brakes and throttle
- square and triangle for downshifts and upshifts
I, my nostalgia and tender wrist are all honestly grateful that GT7s pad config support is great. I wish all the PC sims would copy PD's homework here.
- 229
- New York City
- challah_rajni
Funny as it is, you're absolutely right! It took a wrist injury to get me away from the dpad steering - that's how much I loved driving with it.So it needed an injury to finally get you from weird to normal button settings?
Just kidding. Great that the settings are so customizable to fit for nearly everyone.
That love went all the way back to the Sega Saturn / PS1 era.
To go kinda back to topic, I switched to MT in Gran Turismo 3. Before that, I was a staunch AT driver and afraid of the complexity of managing more than 4 gears (Sega racing games). The final S License in GT3 showed me that I could run faster and smoother laps by using higher gears to eliminate wheelspin.
There was the extra complexity, yes, but it was totally worth it gaining more control over the car. Golding that license and then going back to beat the demo driver gave me the training time I needed to fully transition to MT.
- 1,648
- UK
Showing my age now, the first game I used MT was Revs by Geoff Crammond on my Commodore C64.That was back in the mid 80`s.There plenty youtube vids showing the gameplay,looks pretty basic now but back in the day it was a groundbreaking racing game,considering all we had was at that time was Outrun, the dire Pole Position and a load of other poor driving games.
You had 6 tracks,these were loaded via a cassette tape,2 tracks at a time so if you wanted to change the tracks you had to reload the game again.If you`ve never played games loaded by cassette you will never know the pain of seeing the message`syntax error`halfway through loading a game and having to rewind and start again.
You had 6 tracks,these were loaded via a cassette tape,2 tracks at a time so if you wanted to change the tracks you had to reload the game again.If you`ve never played games loaded by cassette you will never know the pain of seeing the message`syntax error`halfway through loading a game and having to rewind and start again.
- 1,213
- Australia
That syntax error sounds almost like a similsr experience to save file corruption in modern times 😂. Ive had corrupted saves from developers not fixing thier game by launch and its definetly a mood killerShowing my age now, the first game I used MT was Revs by Geoff Crammond on my Commodore C64.That was back in the mid 80`s.There plenty youtube vids showing the gameplay,looks pretty basic now but back in the day it was a groundbreaking racing game,considering all we had was at that time was Outrun, the dire Pole Position and a load of other poor driving games.
You had 6 tracks,these were loaded via a cassette tape,2 tracks at a time so if you wanted to change the tracks you had to reload the game again.If you`ve never played games loaded by cassette you will never know the pain of seeing the message`syntax error`halfway through loading a game and having to rewind and start again.
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- 1,648
- UK
Some of the games on cassette were huge, for the time,waiting for the game to load and after waiting 5 mins or more getting this message made you want to launch the machine.Even more annoying when loading next levels and having to start again due to an error was torture.
Thing us we didnt know any better then, the Master System was new and games for that were quite pricey at the time,around £20.00 - £25.00,whereas C64 games were around £10.00 with budget releases around £2 or £3.00.A no brainer if you didnt have massive disposable income.
Sorry for the off topic ramble,nice to reminisce sometimes. 🫱
