Poll: Do you shift by ear or eye?

  • Thread starter Thread starter zedextreme8177
  • 82 comments
  • 4,862 views

How do you shift?

  • Ears/Using the force, Luke...

    Votes: 171 75.0%

  • Staring at the tachometer/redline light

    Votes: 39 17.1%

  • Magic, I use Auto :sly:

    Votes: 18 7.9%
  • Total voters
    228
zedextreme8177

zedextreme8177

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Maldives
Maldives
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zedextreme8177
In-game, I usually rely on the engine sound to know when I shift ;)

The only times I look at the tachometer are:
- When there are so many cars around you that, you can't hear your own engine :dunce:
- When switching to the roof cam, and the resulting wind noise drowns the engine.
- When driving a car for the first time, it takes a few seconds to get used to listening to the engine to know when to shift.

So how do you shift? :D
 
I would usually shift by ear but as you say with the poor sound setup by PD with wind noise and other cars, made worse a few patches ago, makes that next to impossible a lot of the time so I have to use the light.
 
I shift by ear.

Sometimes though, I use the HUD to watch where to shift properly, but mostly only in a new car that i've never used before.
 
Ear. You can tell a good lap from a bad one on sound alone.
 
I use both. I also use the speed of the car to know when to shift up & down.
 
I use the ear too.
 
Ear ;)

I occasionally use the red light if I'm surrounded by other cars
 
I use ear also, except at the beginning of races when surrounded by other cars. I've messed up many a start by fluffing changes at the beginning of races.
 
Magic, but when I do try to use manual, eye.
 
By taste, definitely.
 
A combination of sound and instinct.
 
I shift by ear, but I quite often play on mute, so my eye is coming in more and more now, quite often when you change by ear the engine just keeps revving, and you get that awful moment when your listening for the sweet spot and the engine hits the limiter, and your rivals raw past in a higher gear....
 
I must be doing it wrong. I shift by hand...
 
Would be nice to have a Red telltale needle and everytime you redline the engine you take the edge off it... maybe even get a Hydraulic failure (When the Con Rod punched through the cylinder block and knocks a hose off type of Hydraulic failure).

It is better to keep your eyes on the road ahead, Apex, Exit... not glancing down to see if you are in the power band.
 
Recently tried to scratch my right ear whilst holding my DS3 with both hands, due to a combination of poor hand eye coordination and a rather persistent itch I instantly upshifted twice by mistake.
 
I race with a a clear screen most, if not all, the time, I hate all the on-screen distractions and clutter. I rely solely on ear, I really know all the cars I drive and can almost time gear changes if the sound goes out. With a wheel, you get more resistance (depending on FFB level) if you are lower in the powerband, hinting to shift down, not to mention understeer.
 
Generally speaking, I use the sound. However, sometimes it is necessary to use the tach.
 
I shift by ear, but it takes me a few minutes, not seconds to get used to a "new" car. Even if I have driven the car before, it can still take a while if I haven't played in a while or haven't driven the car very recently.

zedextreme8177

- When driving a car for the first time, it takes a few seconds to get used to listening to the engine to know when to shift.
Click to expand...

McSoap
I shift by ear.

Sometimes though, I use the HUD to watch where to shift properly, but mostly only in a new car that i've never used before.
Click to expand...
 
By ear usually - especially if you like shifting way before redline on corner exits, floor it while using the torque curve. But as many others have said, now that other cars drown out your engine, sometimes you have to look at the gauge, which is annoying.
 
I think I'm a weird case -I use both- eye for upshifting, since normally I don't know the sound, even if I've driven it 100 times :indiff:
But I use the ear for down shifting, -strangely I know the exact point where to down shift even after some seconds of driving it. :confused:
 
When I've only just started using a car, I look at the redline light and listen to the sound so I know when to shift. I also look at the cars Power/Torque graph to find out the optimum shift point, then listen and learn what the engine sounds like at that point.

Since the update to fix the non-existant (for me at least) problem with opponent cars drowing out engine sounds, they now do drown out the engine sound. I keep missing my shift points because of this now, which has cost me in a few close races.
 
Mostly by ear, but both. Look at tach when I think its ready to shift, memorize the sound, and shift by ear then on.
 
NFSCARBON1
When I've only just started using a car, I look at the redline light and listen to the sound so I know when to shift. I also look at the cars Power/Torque graph to find out the optimum shift point, then listen and learn what the engine sounds like at that point.

Since the update to fix the non-existant (for me at least) problem with opponent cars drowing out engine sounds, they now do drown out the engine sound. I keep missing my shift points because of this now, which has cost me in a few close races.
Click to expand...

I think there may have been a translation problem with that "bugfix" in that the problem they percieved was actually that our engines were drowning out the opponents'. Which is sometimes an issue when they are close behind or alongside you. But the fix didn't fix that at all for me, instead it drowns out your own engine now when you are close behind one of them. Annoying and immersion-killing. And you still can't hear them when they are alongside or behind you. I never had a problem with not hearing them in front of me before the fix either.

Although I've never heard my car's sound disappear completely, it does get really quiet sometimes. Seems to depend on how loud the other car's exhaust is, as certain cars cause it often and others rarely do.



I tend to shift with whatever works. The sound is by far the #1 indicator, but sometimes I'll use the light if it's turned on, sometimes I'll use the tach, and sometimes I'll use my driver's hand(the hand is unreliable in the low gears for upshifts, and largely meaningless for downshifts but may give you a clue to something you aren't noticing). It depends on the gear, corner or car that I'm in, as well as how well I know each. Of course I'm always monitoring the noise above all and noting where anything else happens in relation to it. I more just use those other indicators to help learn.
 
Both. It's quite bothersome when the sound of my car is completely drowned out by another car. I shake my head in disappointment with PD at this. Get it together PD haha!
 
Both for me, but feel as well - sometimes if the rear of the car steps out I will short-shift to keep everything nice and tidy on corner exit.
 
Eye first, to find when I should be shifting, then ear after hearing the note.
 
Both because it's kinda hard for me to shift with ear.
 
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