question for real life rally or track driver

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glum

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( No, I can't find anything in the forums exactly on this)
I would like to know whether the relation of braking and turning in GT is accurate.
On any sharp corner in the game I usually brake and then fade the braking as one turns onto what feels like the right line.
But the wheel grip, and ability to turn continues even when brake is applied further into a turn. Most often in fact it increases the rate of turn .. or makes that possible.

In looking for another PS2 driving game I have hired several and been struck by the non GT like character of turning under brake. The common difference is that applying brake to even a small degree causes loss of steering. It is so striking that clearly one of the two styles must be innacurate.
One can imitate this cornering/braking effect to a degree in GT by using economy tyres ( the lowest GT grip) and heading into a corner at high speed. Braking then tends to produce loss of grip ( I presume ) and consequent loss of steering.

Which suggests either >>
1. the grip level in GT is much higher than reality … or the GT physics have been tweaked to allow sustained grip and better control under braking.
2. The NON GT games have for some reason altered their physics and grip levels. Or just did not get it right.

I t seems odd that something so obvious, and which alters so much the driving style required, could have been got wrong by any game producer … let alone by those who are said to be track drivers.

A particular example is the "WRC Evolved" game. They have made what seems to be a good effort at the physics of driving and vehicle movement. Indeed, apart from the braking loss of grip, it is similar to GT ( and has some very nice world scenery )
The cars are rally vehicles, but they vary their tyres according to the road and seem to have otherwise reasonable grip. Being modern cars they presumably have ABS as well, … Yet brake and ….. sliiiiiiide ..

I have searched the net for real life driving instruction and have found only indications that braking and easing into a corner should not produce complete steering loss.

So I would like a direct answer from a real life race driver, >> which is the more accurate when driving with tyres reasonably matched to the road surface?
To be able to brake and turn at the same time, at least in most circumstances, … or to lose grip and steering at the slightest brake once in a turn?

Cheers all.
 
I may not be a race car driver, but I know that if you lock your brakes going into a corner, then no matter how much or how little you are steering, you're gonna go straight. From my own life experience so far, I've had to heavily brake well into a corner a few times at past highway speeds, and I never had a problem with losing traction to the front wheels to get me turning. However, due to this braking, you're transferring the weight of the car to the front and the side opposite to the corner (e.g. Left corner will have weight mostly on front/right of the car under braking) which will make the car less stable. I also think that steering input is very important. If your transition is smooth, it should be less of a problem than if you abruptly steer in either direction. Once again, I'm no race car driver, just a guy who likes to try out stuff. A driving enthusiast let's say...
 
As luftrofl said, you're not likely to find many real racecar drivers around here... :indiff:

The technique you're describing is called "trail braking," and is used by many drivers. It's a real-life thing, but so is locking your brakes, as T13R said...and if you lock your brakes, you won't be turning very much... :lol:

Either these "other games" are simulating brake locking, or they're not doing things right.
Conversely, GT4 may be incorrect in allowing too much braking and weight transfer to occur before the front tires are overloaded... :indiff:
 
almost every car in GT4 has ABS... which will keep it pointed much more the way you want... on cars without abs however, you should generally have no steering-if the fronts lock up, however, on some cars, the back brakes lock up first - so that slides out... it's something that depends heavily on the car, speed (higher is more likely to oversteer) and any hills, dips, or wether the front-rear tires have equal grip, if your car may wear one set out faster.... I'd say GT4 does pretty well.... but thats just from what I've seen on deserted back roads and such things...

If you wanna know what a specific car will do - without doing it on a road - try doing it in snow or ice or dirt-grass.... this should tell you, but remember that weight won't transfer nearly as much... so it'll be less extreme
 
glum
( No, I can't find anything in the forums exactly on this)
I would like to know whether the relation of braking and turning in GT is accurate.
On any sharp corner in the game I usually brake and then fade the braking as one turns onto what feels like the right line.
But the wheel grip, and ability to turn continues even when brake is applied further into a turn. Most often in fact it increases the rate of turn .. or makes that possible.

In looking for another PS2 driving game I have hired several and been struck by the non GT like character of turning under brake. The common difference is that applying brake to even a small degree causes loss of steering. It is so striking that clearly one of the two styles must be innacurate.
One can imitate this cornering/braking effect to a degree in GT by using economy tyres ( the lowest GT grip) and heading into a corner at high speed. Braking then tends to produce loss of grip ( I presume ) and consequent loss of steering.

Which suggests either >>
1. the grip level in GT is much higher than reality … or the GT physics have been tweaked to allow sustained grip and better control under braking.
2. The NON GT games have for some reason altered their physics and grip levels. Or just did not get it right.

I t seems odd that something so obvious, and which alters so much the driving style required, could have been got wrong by any game producer … let alone by those who are said to be track drivers.

A particular example is the "WRC Evolved" game. They have made what seems to be a good effort at the physics of driving and vehicle movement. Indeed, apart from the braking loss of grip, it is similar to GT ( and has some very nice world scenery )
The cars are rally vehicles, but they vary their tyres according to the road and seem to have otherwise reasonable grip. Being modern cars they presumably have ABS as well, … Yet brake and ….. sliiiiiiide ..

I have searched the net for real life driving instruction and have found only indications that braking and easing into a corner should not produce complete steering loss.

So I would like a direct answer from a real life race driver, >> which is the more accurate when driving with tyres reasonably matched to the road surface?
To be able to brake and turn at the same time, at least in most circumstances, … or to lose grip and steering at the slightest brake once in a turn?

Cheers all.
Click to expand...

I have played both of the games and while not a rally driver or race car driver do have a lot of experience in vehicle testing and training in the real world.

You raise a number of very, very good points here, but first, as has alraedy been said by many other, the effect you are describing is called trail braking and is a real world driving technique. In essence it involves overlapping the braking and constant throttle period when entering a corner. Its principal benefit is to ensure that sudden weight transfer is kept to a minimum as you slow down and turn-in. As wolfe said, weight transfer is critical here.

Now the tyres you have fitted to a car in GT4 are a very important factor here, on most cars anything better than N2 or N3 tyres are offering more grip than road legal tyres would. Additionally in GT4 all cars are fitted with ABS (as has already been said), which almost total removes the ability to lock-up the tyres when nraking in a straight line. Braking hard and deep into a corner will allow you to lock the tyres slightly befire the ABS kicks back in, it is quite a realistic recreation of the ability to brake and steer that modern ABS systems offer.

Unfortunatly it is not possiable to turn off the ABS in GT4, however testing has shown that running with ASM (both under and oversteer) set to zero does seem to minimise its operation, but the difference is slight.

In regard to WRC evolved, I could not agree that its physics model is close to GT4's; it is far better than the previous WRC games.

While modern WRC cars have to have ABS fitted, they do not have to have it working, the following is from the FIA technical regulations relating to WRC cars & ABS.

wrcabs5pu.jpg


I would imagine that the vast majority of teams would run the cars without the ABS connected, particularly on gravel stages, as it would just be cutting in all the time and even on tarmac may make it more difficult to get the car to lose traction when you need it to.

Overall I would say that GT4 is acurate in that the manner in which it shows ABS to work, but I also think we should have the option to turn ABS off. WRC evolved is a nice game, but I don't personally believe its in the class as the likes of GT4, Enthusia and Richard Burns Rally (now thats the rally sim you want).

Regards

Scaff
 
you could buy a brake balance controller and set it to 24 (I think higher is turned off more), but whichever way turns the abs almost off, and take all stability aids off... then you've got as close as you'll get
 
LeadSlead#2
you could buy a brake balance controller and set it to 24 (I think higher is turned off more), but whichever way turns the abs almost off, and take all stability aids off... then you've got as close as you'll get
Click to expand...

Sorry but I have tested all possiable methods of turning off the ABS in GT4. It is not possiable to turn it off.

The BBC controller sets the level of brake force and as such will be a determining factor in when the ABS kicks in, but it does not turn it off. BTW Higher = more brake force = ABS kicks in sooner.

Setting the BBC to 1 would minimise the point at which it kicks in, but would also increase youre stopping distance and throw out the brake bias.

You can see the details and results of all the tests carried out by myself and others in the GT4 & Brakes thread (link in my sig), direct links to all the GT4 brake tests are in the first post.

Regards

Scaff
 
My copy of GT4 must be radically different than everybody else's. That's the only way I can explain it.

The original poster is complaining about how he can turn in under braking.

My complaint, since day one of playing GT4, is that you cannot turn in under braking because the front end will not bite and the car just plows. In all the license tests, in all the bought or prize cars I've driven (anything FWD plus the TVR Cerbera 6 in particular), everything, you need to finish braking almost completely before you think about turning in.

And I'm even using the DFP so I have some semblance of subtlety in the control inputs. I drive an FWD car on cheap sport all-weather tires every day IRL, so I know how to trail brake and coax the car through a corner.

But I repeat, either the nerves in my feet are broken, or my copy of GT4 is.
 
Duke
My copy of GT4 must be radically different than everybody else's. That's the only way I can explain it.

The original poster is complaining about how he can turn in under braking.

My complaint, since day one of playing GT4, is that you cannot turn in under braking because the front end will not bite and the car just plows. In all the license tests, in all the bought or prize cars I've driven (anything FWD plus the TVR Cerbera 6 in particular), everything, you need to finish braking almost completely before you think about turning in.

And I'm even using the DFP so I have some semblance of subtlety in the control inputs. I drive an FWD car on cheap sport all-weather tires every day IRL, so I know how to trail brake and coax the car through a corner.

But I repeat, either the nerves in my feet are broken, or my copy of GT4 is.
Click to expand...


Wierd, might be time to get some new feet Duke. LOL

I have to say that I can get almost all the cars I have driven in GT4 allow me to trail brake (both with the DFP and DS2 - DFP is a damn sight easier), its easier with the stickier rubber, as with the N spec tyres you do need to be very aware of what the work load of the front tyres is.

In fact earlier today I was playing around with the Clio 2.0 16V stock and in various states of tune, and was experimenting with how much trail braking you could get away with, and left footbraking around sweepers (but thats another area).

Regards

Scaff
 
Thanks everybody for a great response. That’s what I needed.
In theory I could have used the family car to know for certain what happened when braking at high speed into a corner ! … but I lack the courage and experience for that sort of real life test. Mistakes could be fatal.

Regarding the complaint by "Duke" about his GT4 copy not allowing this ' trail braking.' I suppose the on screen brake level indicator showed the appropriate low level? If not , there may be electro-mechanical fault in the input. ie. = always full on brake?? Seems very odd .

A thought on other games …….
Yes, there seems to be a fair consensus everywhere that Richard Burns or Enthusia are the best other driving simulations. I should add too, that WRC evolved, while its generalized motion appeared to follows inertial physics etc., did not produce a good sense of contact with the surface. With GT4 you can almost feel the wheels scrabbling for purchase as you go around the grand canyon track. The wheel/ground interaction is more … the best word might be "detailed" . You can alter, with brakes accelerator or steering wheel, what happens during the time of … er … 'scrabbling'. WRC is 'looser' … more vague.

I am not currently able to hire the R. Burns or Enthusia to try. It will be interesting to see if they have the other thing I need.
What has always struck me about GT4 is the the realism of the surroundings. It is not just in having accurate detail , but in the accurate way they have usually captured light and shadow in the right balance, and toned the colour of distant objects and backdrop.
It is a fairly artistic sort of thing, which probably doesn't matter to most users, but means a lot to me. Thundering down the mulsanne straight I can feel exactly like I am on a road not far from where I live. .. the light across the road , the trees and the tone of sky … I can feel I am THERE … And so on.

Maybe there is NO other game yet which offers the best of both worlds in such a way? I shall keep looking.

Thanks again all.

Glum.
 
luftrofl
Most real life race drivers don't play GT :)
Click to expand...

Some retired rally driver was standing in for a stage and went straight from that to qualifying for lemans. The only experience he had on the track was driving gt4 on the plane over.
 
xcsti
Some retired rally driver was standing in for a stage and went straight from that to qualifying for lemans. The only experience he had on the track was driving gt4 on the plane over.
Click to expand...
hahaha thats funny, how did he do? i
 
I said MOST, and I'm sure even less actually go to online forums to discuss it.

But that is a common practice with racers who need to learn a track they have never been to. They find a game that depicts the track and play it.
 
@Duke: My complaint, since day one, has been that GT4 is understeer-happy no matter what kind of cornering technique you use. Is that close enough? :lol: (I won't go very far into this, or else Scaff and I will turn this into another debate thread. :scared: :lol: )

@glum: I whole-heartedly recommend that you give Enthusia a try. GTP has a forum dedicated to it in the PS2 section -- you should go look at some of the threads there. :)
 
Years and years ago a guy named Paul Frere wrote a book about driving race cars.

This was in a time well before anyone even thought of brake trailing, or trail braking as they now call it. In his book he talked about the difficulty of getting any car to happily "turn in" to a corner under maximum possible friction conditions.

In the old days, drivers would use what would be a very strange technique, which sometimes you can see used today by drivers in typical daily driving. That strange technique was, in order to turn into a left hand bend, the driver would do a slight swerve to the right then back left just before entry. This would get the car to begin to rotate on its vertical axis, which is the whole trick to entry. Then the driver would have to concentrate on maintaining this induced (vertical axis) rotation as he completed his entry and approached the apex. After that point he would concentrate on causing the rotation to gently cease as he exited the bend and entered the next straight.

Keep in mind that it was an absolute to brake only in a straight line, releasing the brakes completely before beginning turn in.

Frere used a wonderful analogy to explain what a car must do in order for it to cease traveling in a straight line and begin to go, and then continue to go, around any corner, when maximum friction and lateral force are desired. He used the example of a old style air/oil car lift, and explained that, with the car sitting still on the lift, if you try to rotate the car, you have to use quite a bit of force to get the car to begin to rotate. Once it is rotating, you only need some fraction of the rotating force to get it to continue to rotate at a constant rate.

It is a fact of physics that when you are driving, you have friction to help you go fast. But, there is only so much friction, and it has to be shared between braking, accelerating and cornering. If you wish to corner at the maximum velocity possible, you cannot use any of the available friction for braking or acceleration. If you are using all the friction properly for cornering and you apply either the brakes or the throttle, you will immediately notice that the car will begin to increase the radius of the arc it is in (go off line). So a basic rule is never use the brakes while cornering, unless you know (really) how to trail brake on corner entry, and almost no one does. Many think they do, but most don't.

Until you learn almost 100% of everything about real trail braking, don't do it. You will find yourself in almost constant trouble during corner entry. Rather, concentrate on a specific point where you fully release the brakes on every corner entry, doing so either just before turn in or well before turn in if you're learning. Pay attention to gaining the correct entry radius, gently picking up the throttle just before the apex, and the applying more throttle while maintaining the ideal (not sliding off because of too much exuberance) line off the turn so you can accelerate down the road to the next entry.

If you have your copy of the little book that comes with GT4, get it out and read the part written by (someone) from one of the better magazines, who happens to be an experienced driver, where the explanation for proper driving technique is analogized by the idea of two strings, each attached to the six o'clock position of the steering wheel, and then one string attached tautly to the gas pedal and one tautly to the brake pedal. This would provide a control where you could never depress either gas or brake pedal fully unless the wheel was straight up and down. If the wheel was turned to some maximum angle, both strings would be pulling up on the pedals so that neither could be depressed. As the wheel was then turned to less of an angle, either pedal could be depressed somewhat more and more. This is a great explanation of the relationship that should exist always between brake, throttle, and steering, while driving properly. And driving properly is going to be the fastest way around at least 98% of the time and will probably produce the best race times 100% of the time.

Ask yourself where you get into the most trouble, and the answer will almost always be, corner entry. It can be the most bewildering thing when you don't start with the basics. Forget trying to be fast, be smooth everywhere, especially on entry. Hold that perfect entry line always. Until you start driving correctly, you'll have trouble figuring out what you're doing wrong, and until you know what you're doing wrong, you'll never figure out what to change in order to do it right.

Aryton Senna and Jackie Stewart (and Al Unser Jr.) declared absolutely that they NEVER trail braked. Stewart once even asked how many Grands Prix that Bob Bondurant (the "inventor" of trail braking) won, and of course the answer was, none.

Who is anybody to argue with those guys??

Anyway, best of luck with your driving.

Tazio
 
Duke
My copy of GT4 must be radically different than everybody else's. That's the only way I can explain it.

The original poster is complaining about how he can turn in under braking.

My complaint, since day one of playing GT4, is that you cannot turn in under braking because the front end will not bite and the car just plows. In all the license tests, in all the bought or prize cars I've driven (anything FWD plus the TVR Cerbera 6 in particular), everything, you need to finish braking almost completely before you think about turning in.

And I'm even using the DFP so I have some semblance of subtlety in the control inputs. I drive an FWD car on cheap sport all-weather tires every day IRL, so I know how to trail brake and coax the car through a corner.

But I repeat, either the nerves in my feet are broken, or my copy of GT4 is.
Click to expand...

My copy must be the same as Duke's.
No ABS in my game.
 
Ok being generally able to turn in under braking is more accurate.

BUT ... every answer must fall somewhere between absolute and generalized. The absolute answer is too narrow and is only useful to a real tuner on that track, on that day, at that temp, etc ... and the generalized answer may be just as useless because every situation is specific and it may not correctly represent ANY real situation.

I find a little of everything in GT4 from plowers to balanced on a razor edge cars. As already stated the Clio responds especially well to trail braking. And as also already stated in Tazio's excellent response, overdriving a car and trying to bail out of trouble with the brakes is not trail breaking. I find the black R92CP is especially prone to plowing so I run one notch softer tires on the front than the rear and it now feels wonderfully balanced and the tire wear is also nearly perfectly balance too (run out of gas before tires). So it is not inconsistent for Duke to say that his copy of GT4 is not like Scaff's, I'm sure they are both 100% correct in the specifics of what they are reporting.

Personally I think GT4 represents the pinnacle of road racing sims, rally I don't know the first thing about. But I also feel that GT4 is in a lot of way a caricature of auto racing because as already pointed out, not many real race car drivers are going to be buying it or care anything about it. The game has to be produced for the market and so most likely couldn't get away representing real hard core auto racing. A good case in point is the person "Master_Yoda" who made the comment about the wet track. In real auto racing wet tracks (in general) when in the state that Tskuba appears to be in DO have remarkable grip but who would know that but someone who has actually logged lots of races in the wet. So the developers actually did something IMO better than has ever been done before and in that case took a ding for it?

Driving fast on the street is not road racing, doing DE's and track days is not road racing, AutoX is not road racing. Nothing in my life would have prepared me for how much grip a fully prepared race car on RR slicks has. Nothing would have prepared me for how quickly an Atlantic can shed speed. The older I get the more I find out that I don't REALLY know as much as I thought. But everyone has to do the best they can with the data that they have at the time.

FWIW my background is in SCCA (national license) GT2, GT3, GT4, FF, and FA classes.

Mike
 
Hey Mike,

You make quite a lot of very important points there. I'm a little jealous hearing that you've been able to do some SCCA racing. I spent my asphalt racing days on motorcycles since I was not quite up to being as broke as I could have been. I did once drive a USAC sprint car and then a late model stocker. Way back when, I was an AMA dirt-track racer, which was probably my most serious attempt to be a star, and I about went bankrupt.

My asphalt "home" track was Road Atlanta, back in the days before they "fixed" the track and put the kink in the back straight just before the bridge. Bob Tullius once asked me how us motorcycle guys could hold it on through what used to be the "dip" just before coming up to the bridge. The suspension would bottom out on both ends through that thing, and you're were leaning left looking for whatever stripe was appropriate for brakes on. It's been years, but I still remember the aiming point for turn 11 exit as the bridge approached. It was the inside concrete wall that held up the inside-the-track side of the bridge. If you used it for aiming, the bike would just slide out enough to attain the good line through turn 11 and get you set up for turn 12.

However did I make myself do it? Who knows?

Anyway, regarding the trail-braking thing, there is one corner of one on the tracks in GT4 which I consider to be something of a classic example of the use of trail braking, and that's at Mid-Field Raceway, and the corner is the slightly off camber, decreasing radius, downhill left-hander, just following the second underpass. Actually it's maybe turn four, if you don't consider the esses as turns.

That is at least one specific turn where I do release the brakes while turning in. Otherwise, with my DFP pedals, it's a bit hard to feel the brakes in a way that would allow reasonably correct trail braking. So I just use the brakes off before turn in, roll-roll-roll with neutral throttle, and when I'm sure I have acquired the correct radius to collect the apex, pick it up and look for the exit line, and gas it as hard as I dare.

As strange as it may sound, I prefer to use only my right foot for both gas and brake with the DFP. I think it is nothing but anatomically confusing to try to drive left foot brake and right foot gas. The F1 guys may do it, but I don't think many others do, and I always felt like it was harder to figure out how to do it, and to know why I was doing what I was doing, when I was doing it. (Huh?)

Boy, you so right about the difference between any other kind of driving and actual racing being impossible to comprehend by those who are unburdened by actual experience doing it. I think Wilbur Wright said that you can't learn what it's like to fly by watching the birds.

Ain't it so?

Tazio
 
All I can add to this is that after months of playing GT4, I tried playing games like PGR2 and Forza and found myself smacking walls every time until I figured out I was locking the brakes. So, my copy of GT4 certainly has an amazing ABS system built into it. And like one other person mentioned, when you equip economy tires on your car you actually race how a real car might.

I would approximate that most real cars would handle somewhere inbetween GT4 levels and other games I mentioned - that is - the effectiveness of trail braking would depend on the car but wouldn't likely be on either extreme.
 
@Mike: You said you consider GT4 to be the pinnacle of road racing sims, and I can't help but ask: what other sims have you tried? Enthusia (PS2)? Forza (X-BOX)? Live for Speed (PC)? GTR/GTLegends (PC)?

You certainly have the real-world experience, but I'm curious as to whether you think GT4 is the most realistic thing out there, or the most realistic thing you've had a chance to play...
 
From my own experience in GT4, if I brake and turn in to a corner, the car will understeer. Whether I leave teh BBC to 3/3 or 3/24. So it seems like GT4 just don't simulate trail braking very well.
 
I am no race driver but I do track days on a regular basis and have driven different cars at the track (Civic, S2000, Beetle, Smart roadster, Clubman and the bullish elfin streamliner http://www.elfin.com.au/flash/streamliner.aspx) and in my opinion the one thing you are missing from GT4 is chassis/suspension feedback. You need a pneumatic setup for this so it is probably out of the reach of most people (15K+ last time I checked).

And that is where the problem lies. You can see the car's nose diving but you can't feel it. Because you can't feel it you tend to continue your turning motion and it is only when the ABS engages that you realize you messed up the corner. IRL you can feel the motion of the car running away from the apex and you can attempt to correct it.

Also, each car's chassis behaves differently so IRL you have to take the same turn in a different manner depending on the car. GT4 with its lack of (sensory) chassis feedback doesn't let you appreciate that. The only way to work it out is to do many laps and watch your replays (for each car).

Chassis feedback (or lack of) causes most people to think that all cars can/should take a given turn at the same speed. This is absolutely not the case IRL. Even within competition classes (say F1) drivers have to learn what parts of the circuit the other cars are better than theirs at. You loose a couple of tenths here but you make them up there. Lapt times may be similar but driving technique is unique for each car.
 
i know a few and one of em plays richard burns rally. i havent asked him what he thought of rallying in gt4... i can already guess what he is gonna say though. :P


the camber isnt dynamic in gt4, is it? i know the suspension can rise and fall, but i've never seen a car tripod in gt4. and its pretty easy to get on 3 wheels with an evo 8 if you are cornering with hi g's..
 
I love racing which is why I bought a PS2 and GT4. I am also an amateur driver. I race Spec Racer Fords in the SCCA (and the prior evolution the Sports Renault, same chassis and most SRF’s are converted Renaults), but I do mostly vintage racing in a 1952 Jaguar C-type and 1963 Shelby 289 Cobra (a real one not a continuation or “titled as a 63” car) and I’d like to think I’m a good driver. The following is what I think, I don’t intend to say anyone in this thread is wrong, especially because I haven’t seen anything I disagree with. Feel free to comment or disagree with me.

As far as the physics of GT4 are concerned, they seem good to me although I am certainly not an expert. I haven’t played other racing sim’s and I am not a professional driver. And I know nothing about rally driving so I won’t even go there.

As far as the main discussion on this thread is concerned the technique of Trail Braking, which I learned at Bondurant and from the Mid-Ohio School but related to you in my not instructor method, is based on the weight transfer of the car under braking.

When you hit the brakes the weight of the car shifts forward (Brake Dive) and the nose of the car drops, compressing the front springs, and putting weight on the front tires (or tyres if you will). The weight on the front tires should increase the contact patch (the area of the tire actually touching the racing surface) allowing for more grip. More grip should allow for better steering. The front tires are being pressed against the racing surface allowing them to be effective at a higher speed, similar to aerodynamic down force). The cars at Bondurant have a suspension setup intended for teaching this technique, not for racing, they push/under steer terribly forcing the student to trail the brakes fairly deep into the corner, for instructional purposes, to be driven quickly. As my instructor explained, with a better setup the brakes wouldn’t be trailed as much. Bondurant was using Mustangs which are heavy and have soft suspensions to begin with, a purpose built car or formula car would have a much stiffer suspension with less weight shift and would benefit from only a little trail braking. Braking will also lighten the rear end of the car helping it to rotate into the turn. Trail Braking helps to keep the nose of the car planted as you enter the turn as releasing the brakes will shift weight off the nose.

“But then why does my car push when I’m hard on the brakes”? When this has happened to me, both in real life and in GT4, I have braked too late for the corner and no amount of trail braking or leaving my foot buried in the brakes will help me turn the car until it slows down. I would also speculate that having the wheel turned as far as people, myself included, tend to in this situation that the ability of the front wheels to begin a turn are diminished.

One thing I do notice lacking in GT4 is the ability to leave the track backwards. I have caused high speed spins but excessive braking while turning should un-weight the rear of the car to the point where the rear tires lose grip and the car should come around. Having done this in real cars, it just doesn’t seem to happen in the game.

Mr. Slow has an excellent point about feel and tactile response from a car which no game (certainly any console game) can duplicate. The seat of the car is what tells me what the car is doing well before I can see the results in many cases. A hydraulic setup (like a commercial flight simulator) can help, but even that won’t give you the effects of G-force loading. That said, this game cost us $50-$60 US, I think its excellent and how much can we really expect for that kind of money. As far as the implementation of individual cars, I really don’t know. The initial license tests really teach you how to drive in the programmed environment, especially if this is your first game in the series.

As far as real drivers playing the game, if you get enough seat time the game probably won’t help you, especially if your car isn’t included. But, someone mentioned a driver playing before arriving at Le Mans for the first time. If you have never been to a track it will help teach you the track, knowing what is coming up next is important and anything you can learn before getting there helps because track time at a given event is very limited.
 
Mr.Slow
I am no race driver but I do track days on a regular basis and have driven different cars at the track (Civic, S2000, Beetle, Smart roadster, Clubman and the bullish elfin streamliner http://www.elfin.com.au/flash/streamliner.aspx) and in my opinion the one thing you are missing from GT4 is chassis/suspension feedback. You need a pneumatic setup for this so it is probably out of the reach of most people (15K+ last time I checked).

And that is where the problem lies. You can see the car's nose diving but you can't feel it. Because you can't feel it you tend to continue your turning motion and it is only when the ABS engages that you realize you messed up the corner. IRL you can feel the motion of the car running away from the apex and you can attempt to correct it.
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I totally agree with you. 👍 In previous similar discussions I have described GT4 driving model as "Cold". You can see what's going on but don't feel it enough, but you kinda know it's good. Does this make sense? :indiff: I think you notice it most when driving a Rally in GT4. But some of this chassis/suspension feel you can get with good force feedback wheel. Games like Grand Prix Legends, Richard Burns Rally and Enthusia have great force feedback were you feel the weightshift of the car and that really makes a different. Maybe the force feedback reveals some weakness in the physics? If it ain't there you can't get program the force feedback to simulate it??

Anyways it's a a very interesting discussion we have here 👍
 
Sort of... same as most of the physics discussions we've previously had... of which there are... tons. :lol:

My only addition: I've always thought the understeer a bit too much in GT4 till I went on my own trackday, after which I realized that there wasn't enough of it on some occasions. I came away from that trackday with a better appreciation of GT4's attention to detail and realistic depiction of road racing (not to be confused with street racing). I drove on track exactly as I drive on GT4... set-up early, brake in a straight line, trail brake slightly after the major braking is done if it's needed to set up the car (lack of absolute ABS means merely romping on the brakes will cause you to plow straight into the corner), wind the steering up and unwind slowly while easing into the throttle.

I've found realistic high-speed understeer, FF oversteer and FR understeer(yes, Virginia, it can happen), fishtailing and break-away in most cases. It's great to drive a lot of different cars back-to-back like I do in my testing articles, because it allows you to get a "feel" for the nuances of each car model... to see the differences that are there that aren't apparent at first. After learning to interpret the differences between cars, I double check my findings with magazine and internet reviews and they do seem to hold up. One conundrum for me was the 2005-2006 Mitsubishi Eclipse GT, which seemed too snappy and tail-happy in the game, while this trait wasn't touched on in most reviews... until I found one where the reviewers actually drove it in anger, and complained of... you guessed it... oversteer.

Drive on tracks like the Nurb or El Cap... practicing on these rougher surfaces helps you learn how to interpret and interpolate car movement from visual and audio cues such as screen shake, lean and tire squeal (very useful cue that... PD set tire squeal to start a little bit early to make up for the lack of Seat-Of-the-Pants sensation).

Additionally, in line with Slow's comments on feedback, with a DF controller, I found the increased bump-steer and kickback on tracks like the Nurb more informative, and the ability to feather the throttle and brakes effectively helps... a lot. With a good wheel, the car will sometimes try to wrestle the wheel out of your hands over bumps or in turns... pretty amazing in terms of feedback, but not having experienced the competition, I don't know how it stacks up.

Other problems, like lack of dynamic camber and tripod-ing or three-wheeling add an element of unreality or artificiality to the handling dynamic (which won't allow low speed maneuvers dependent on these traits), but it's good enough, otherwise. In comparison to other games... I haven't driven any of the other current sims, but I think Scaff has mentioned EPR makes high speed drifiting too easy. Apparently GTR is the only one that's patently better in all areas, but since my gaming computer burned down, I guess I won't know for a long while.
 

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