The Ultimate Guide - GT Mode tips & tuning examples incl. 'the gear trick'

  • Thread starter TeaKanji
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Ireland
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Hello everyone, I wanted to share something I spent the last month or so working on. Last week I published an hour-long YouTube guide for Gran Turismo 2, detailing various tips and tricks for GT Mode and giving a basic overview of tuning parts and techniques.

I made this guide because there's a lot of valuable info that has been scattered or lost. Many of you may know about Gran Turismo By Numbers, a forum from the early-00's and beyond where many GT2 players gathered to share tuning info and such. Unfortunately the forums have been offline for years and the only way to access them is through the Wayback Machine. Since there's still a decent number of people revisiting this game, I wanted to make a YouTube resource using this info to make it accessible once again.

Also, as far as I'm aware, this is the first time the 'gear trick' has been demonstrated on YouTube in Gran Turismo 2. If you want to skip ahead, check out the Advanced Tuning section.



I hope some of you find it interesting, enjoy!
 
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Amazing guide. Thank you so much for the gear trick as well, I remember reading bits and pieces about something like it in the past. Seeing it in action with video proof to go almost felt like unlocking a memory! :D
 
Amazing guide. Thank you so much for the gear trick as well, I remember reading bits and pieces about something like it in the past. Seeing it in action with video proof to go almost felt like unlocking a memory! :D
Glad you found it useful! Yeah, it was the same for me back when I played around GT4-GT5 era, saw a lot of people talking about the trick but never fully understood it until recently.

You can do the trick the same way in GT3. There's only one video I could find that showed 'extremely long gears' using the trick with Auto Setup at max setting. Very low quality, 240p recorded on a handheld camcorder, truly a relic.
 
I can't believe I missed this thread. Very nice work there, it's always great to see this game getting the love it deserves and being treated as more than just a piece of nostalgia people revisit and then say "I can't believe I found this realistic years ago :lol:". It's still a legit fun game in 2022 and I don't see that changing anytime soon.
 
This is fantastic. I just happened to get back into GT2 since I got my Steam Deck and I'm reliving my old memories from my first go-round. Having found this guide is really helping me enjoy my experience much more. Thank you so much for an absolute ton of good tips!
Any chance you could provide your transcript? I've watched it twice through taking notes lol.
 
This is fantastic. I just happened to get back into GT2 since I got my Steam Deck and I'm reliving my old memories from my first go-round. Having found this guide is really helping me enjoy my experience much more. Thank you so much for an absolute ton of good tips!
Any chance you could provide your transcript? I've watched it twice through taking notes lol.
Thank you, glad I could help! Unfortunately I don't have much of a transcript; this was my first big video project and I recorded the clips first, then wrote the captions directly in DaVinci Resolve afterwards to fit what was going on. I was a lot more organized for my Gran Turismo 3 guide and documented everything before I started recording and producing the video.

I might write a handbook for GT2 some day though; I'll post it here when I do. There are a few things I missed or overlooked when making the video (that pinned comment is getting a little big), so having an up-to-date doc might be a good idea.
 
Thank you, glad I could help! Unfortunately I don't have much of a transcript; this was my first big video project and I recorded the clips first, then wrote the captions directly in DaVinci Resolve afterwards to fit what was going on. I was a lot more organized for my Gran Turismo 3 guide and documented everything before I started recording and producing the video.

I might write a handbook for GT2 some day though; I'll post it here when I do. There are a few things I missed or overlooked when making the video (that pinned comment is getting a little big), so having an up-to-date doc might be a good idea.
all good no worries, again thank you very much for this!
 
Any chance you could share a screenshot of your preferred Suspension, LSD, and Transmission config for EVO's?
Sure thing. This is for the Evo V RS, no power upgrades (293hp), super soft racing tyres and all other upgrades except ASM and TCS:

springs: 2.0 / 10.0
ride height: 100 / 100
dampers (B + R) 1 / 1
camber: 2.2 / 1.2
toe: -0.20 / 0.20
stabilisers: 3 / 7

brakes: 16 / 12

gears: final gear to 4.000, then auto setup to 1, then final gear to 2.500, then individual gears to 4.631, 3.204, 2.245, 1.620, 1.176

downforce: 0.52 / 0.85

LSD: 1 / 1, 1 / 1, 1 / 1

So, a few things to note: from my testing, 4WD suspension doesn't behave anything like it does in later GT games. Stiff rear springs seem to induce oversteer, while it's the opposite in later games. I can hardly tell any difference between damper values with this car; 1 / 1 seems to give pretty responsive steering. It seems really difficult to screw up the Evo's suspension, mainly because most of the settings seem to barely affect the car's handling.

Doing the ride height trick for extra acceleration is optional. Personally, I feel like the extra turning ability from low ride height outweighs the benefits of the trick. Up to you, I guess.

But yeah, this is a very strange car to tune. I kept driving the same corner over and over, changing the settings each time, and the differences were always minimal. I suspect there's something funky going on behind the scenes with 4WD suspension (and, by extension, FF's as well). The super soft tyres might have something to do with it as well.
 
Thanks much. I forgot I haven't done the racing modification to my EVO, cause I don't like the livery but that setup helped. It helped much more with the STi Rally Car since it has aero.
 
After a while I got used to your settings you posted above and used them for my AWD cars. I had so much fun playing GT2 again in large parts thanks to your guide.

Much appreciated!
 
Looking back nearly two years later, my explanation of gear setup and the 'gear trick' in this Ultimate Guide was very convoluted and seemed to confuse a lot of people. Truthfully, I was still in the process of understanding it myself, and it wasn't really until I made the GT4 guide that I had a proper grasp of how the Auto slider operates.

If anyone coming across this thread is looking for more clarity on gear setup, I recently made a video (with voiceover) explaining all of the important details. I primarily use footage of GT4 as examples, but everything works the exact same way in GT2. Hopefully it clears things up.



I also made an "Advanced Tuning Guide" doc last year that goes into much more detail into suspension tuning, alongside how frame rate affects the game's physics. GT2 plays completely differently depending on the frame rate (especially when comparing PAL 25 FPS vs. NTSC 30 FPS), as physics are tied to frame rate and a car's suspension can easily break on low-FPS when it's set too stiff. It can also be used to your advantage if you set the car up a specific way, though.

 
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