Official GT5 discussion thread

[tha_con]

The real life vs game lap times silly.

Real life factors that can greatly effect laptime but are not considered in game:
Condition of brakes
Rotors, pads and fluid used
Tire model
Tire pressure (huge)
Ambient temp and track temp
Road surface
Wind

Enjoy the racing games for what they are, fun racing games. Digging deeper will just have you finding more holes.

GT5's driving model provides great chassis feedback which let's you push a car to it's game designed limitations. That is what makes the gameplay fun.

Except GT5 does account for brakes, road surface, wind, tempurature, and a number of other factors, and has since GT4...

Honestly, the biggest "factor" in lap times is nothing of what you mentioned, and everything to do with the human condition. In a video game you have no fear of serious injury, so you can push cars beyond their limits and take risks that you otherwise wouldn't in real life. When a professional driver gets behind the wheel of a video game ala GT5, they are racing as they would in "real life" because they are conditioned to do so.



Edit: Also I don't understand how you can spout off something like "tire model" on a whim when it's extremely clear that GT5 does have a tire model, as evidenced by the wide selection of tires that very by grip rating...I mean, did you just write that post out of your butt? It's so full of conjecture...I get the impression many times that you either haven't followed GT5 much, or you just don't know much about sim racers / or racing in general.

 

[Scott_Arm]

...
Edit: Also I don't understand how you can spout off something like "tire model" on a whim when it's extremely clear that GT5 does have a tire model, as evidenced by the wide selection of tires that very by grip rating...I mean, did you just write that post out of your butt? It's so full of conjecture...I get the impression many times that you either haven't followed GT5 much, or you just don't know much about sim racers / or racing in general.

The response to this is going to be awesome. Unless he's on vacation, in which case he won't respond at all.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Here's a funny freak occurrence

 

[tha_con]

The response to this is going to be awesome. Unless he's on vacation, in which case he won't respond at all.

Well, the statements he makes just seem to lead me to believe that. I mean, it's pretty clear that the majority of the things he brought up are in fact in the game. So, the only deduction I can make is that he hasn't explored the game enough, or that he doesn't know what some of these things are. Maybe he does some professional driving / racing in real life, which would mean he just hasn't explored the game much. Or, he's played the game a lot, and he doesn't understand these things are present, or what they mean.

Still stands that a lot of the things he mentioned are in fact modeled in the game. I also remember PD talking about their new tire model for GT5. Basically, they didn't have the resources to model the actual deformation, but it is still done, though it is strictly numbers (basically there is no visual representation).

Edit: That video is amazing, hahaha. What are the odds of that happening?! I wonder if the car simply slowed because of the AI thinking it was colliding with the player and trying to let him pass, or if the weight had an impact on the cars performance?

 

[patsu]

Edit: That video is amazing, hahaha. What are the odds of that happening?! I wonder if the car simply slowed because of the AI thinking it was colliding with the player and trying to let him pass, or if the weight had an impact on the cars performance?

We talked about crash messing up races before. How do they handle it online ? I don't know if they use weight in the general sense (sounds unlikely). Cars don't generally gain weight in a race. They may lose weight via the damage system though.


From what I read, the 2 games use different approaches. People love GT5 + wheel because a GT5 player can turn wheel assist off, gaining direct control of the car; the physics systems, including damages ("brakes, road surface, wind, temperature", blah), will have to "key" off his direct actions dynamically. The focus is on the player's driving.

You can't turn wheel assist in F3 off. The player goes through a layer of micro-physics systems to drive the cars. So it tends to be a more "indirect" experience when using wheel.

 

[Cornsnake]

I never cared much for rally in GT games, but I just drove on the Eiger Nordwand K Trail in the Sebastien Loeb challenge, damn that track is awesome. Especially that down hill section.

That special event is good for some fast XP and credits too. It's very easy to get gold, and if you do you'll bring in a nice 303.000 credits, and 3 cars.... well 3 Citroën's at least.

 

[tha_con]

We talked about crash messing up races before. How do they handle it online ? I don't know if they use weight in the general sense (sounds unlikely). Cars don't generally gain weight in a race. They may lose weight via the damage system though.


From what I read, the 2 games use different approaches. People love GT5 + wheel because a GT5 player can turn wheel assist off, gaining direct control of the car; the physics systems, including damages ("brakes, road surface, wind, temperature", blah), will have to "key" off his direct actions dynamically. The focus is on the player's driving.

You can't turn wheel assist in F3 off. The player goes through a layer of micro-physics systems to drive the cars. So it tends to be a more "indirect" experience when using wheel.

When I say weight, I mean the weight of the second car on top of the other, meaning the bottom car didn't have the power to literally pull all the weight

I've never encountered any crazy crashes like that online, at least not thus far. Though, the people I generally race with tend to be pretty courteous and avoid slamming into one another, and we all know how to make a good pass or adjust our lines to jockey for position.

 

[patsu]

When I say weight, I mean the weight of the second car on top of the other, meaning the bottom car didn't have the power to literally pull all the weight

Yeah, that's what I meant. I don't know if the programmer expect a car to balance on top like that. ^_^ The logic may not handle this edge case, and hence doesn't bother to look (or add any weight) on the car top. It's just my guess.

 

[tha_con]

Yeah, that's what I meant. I don't know if the programmer expect a car to balance on top like that. ^_^ The logic may not handle this edge case, and hence doesn't bother to look (or add any weight) on the car top. It's just my guess.

I don't know, I mean the engine is largely physics driven, and the cars respond differently to different weights, i.e. when you reduce the weight of a car, its behavior changes, so it is possible that these changes are made in real time using the numerical data from each car?

The only other solution I can think of is that the AI simply thought that the car "on top" was simply rubbing (like you would when you're taking an inside line and battling for position) and slowed down as a result to avoid losing control (only, since the car was on top, it nearly stopped entirely).

Who knows, honestly we'll probably never find out, so we can only guess, lol. Either way, the video is hilariously awesome.

 

[patsu]

I saw it in GAF. The post commented that GT5 supports co-op, and showed the video as proof. It did put a smile on my face.

 

[joker454]

Just got the game, where can you disable 1080p mode? I can see the setting in the menu but it won't let me change it. Does it have to be disabled totally on the xmb? Don't really want to do that in case I play a blu-ray on in, but I can't seem to find where else to change the setting

 

[Arwin]

Just got the game, where can you disable 1080p mode? I can see the setting in the menu but it won't let me change it. Does it have to be disabled totally on the xmb? Don't really want to do that in case I play a blu-ray on in, but I can't seem to find where else to change the setting

Very early on in the GT HD demo, you could change this from the game. But subsequent versions have disabled this option for some reason. So yes, if you really want to force 720p, you have to disable 1080p in the XMB unfortunately. Apparently the differences between the two in terms of framerate aren't big at all though (according to DF) and Quaz51 recommends 1080p as the best setting. So you may be fine with leaving it at 1080p.

 

[joker454]

Very early on in the GT HD demo, you could change this from the game. But subsequent versions have disabled this option for some reason. So yes, if you really want to force 720p, you have to disable 1080p in the XMB unfortunately. Apparently the differences between the two in terms of framerate aren't big at all though (according to DF) and Quaz51 recommends 1080p as the best setting. So you may be fine with leaving it at 1080p.

Hmm, well to my eye 720p fixes a bunch of stuff, notably the bad a2c checkerboarding on trees, texture blur from qaa, lots of screen tearing, aliasing on thin power lines, etc, so I guess I'll just set it manually to 720p in xmb for now.

The game is pretty good though. I sat down to play it "just for a bit", and four hours later I'm at level 9. This GT seems easier than past ones which I recall being more punishing. This one isn't bad, and I already have a whole bunch of cars. One question though. When you don't have a qualifying car for a given event, is there anyway to easily see what qualifying cars can be bought? Right now as far as I see it the only way is to look at the qualifying cars list for the event, remember as many as you can, then back out to the new/user car area and try to find the ones you remembered. Seems kinda clunky doing it that way, I presume there is an easier way?

 

[tha_con]

Hmm, well to my eye 720p fixes a bunch of stuff, notably the bad a2c checkerboarding on trees, texture blur from qaa, lots of screen tearing, aliasing on thin power lines, etc, so I guess I'll just set it manually to 720p in xmb for now.

The game is pretty good though. I sat down to play it "just for a bit", and four hours later I'm at level 9. This GT seems easier than past ones which I recall being more punishing. This one isn't bad, and I already have a whole bunch of cars. One question though. When you don't have a qualifying car for a given event, is there anyway to easily see what qualifying cars can be bought? Right now as far as I see it the only way is to look at the qualifying cars list for the event, remember as many as you can, then back out to the new/user car area and try to find the ones you remembered. Seems kinda clunky doing it that way, I presume there is an easier way?

I'd be willing to bet it feels easier because you probably have skid recovery force turned on, and TCS around 5 (I believe those are the default settings).

Also, you're correct that there is no direct buy for events, however, they are almost always very general in their qualifications. i.e. "Lupo Race" obviously requires a Lupo, and "Classic Muscle Car" requires and American car before 1970, etc. For the most part, you can guess what you need w/out even looking at the lists.

I would recommend doing the Special Events as they'll give you a lot of cars you can use for your races. The same can be said for the license tests.

The good news is, once you've purchased all those cars, you can use them all over again in B-Spec races and win even more cars. So, if you've got some cars from A-Spec that you won races with, go over to B-Spec and use them again, get a few more cars. It really helps to speed up the progression of the game, rather, you get to avoid spending your money on economy cars, instead you can use it to buy the big boys and tune 'em.

 

[Phil]

Except GT5 does account for brakes, road surface, wind, tempurature, and a number of other factors, and has since GT4...

Honestly, the biggest "factor" in lap times is nothing of what you mentioned, and everything to do with the human condition. In a video game you have no fear of serious injury, so you can push cars beyond their limits and take risks that you otherwise wouldn't in real life. When a professional driver gets behind the wheel of a video game ala GT5, they are racing as they would in "real life" because they are conditioned to do so.



Edit: Also I don't understand how you can spout off something like "tire model" on a whim when it's extremely clear that GT5 does have a tire model, as evidenced by the wide selection of tires that very by grip rating...I mean, did you just write that post out of your butt? It's so full of conjecture...I get the impression many times that you either haven't followed GT5 much, or you just don't know much about sim racers / or racing in general.

I'll bite...

While I agree that human confidence is probably one of the larger reasons for not getting a fair comparison between real and in-game laptimes - factors as pointed out by RobertR1 such as tyre grip, pressure, ambient temp, wind etc are not to be underestimated. If you've ever been regularly to the track, these factors alone should see you have very different times on different days. Tyre make/type, condition and pressure is a huge factor alone. While GT might offer some choices on tyre types (Comfort/Sports/Race) it only offers some default grip values depending on the type and compound (Hard/Int/Soft). In real-life however, you will already have variations simply comparing two semi-slick tyres of different brands (i.e. Toyo R888 vs Yokohama A048). How could a game even remotely account for these factors, let alone across 200 or even a thousand cars? Does it need to? No of course not, as these factors alone are small, but when you add them up to other factors such as wind, varying track temperatures, climate changes (engine in-take temperatures) among others, these things do add up eventually.

...and these factors do vary from car to car too. Some cars that are easier to drive give you a lot of confidence regardless how well it's setup. Other cars... well, every factor speaks volumes.

 

[-tkf-]

I'll bite...

While I agree that human confidence is probably one of the larger reasons for not getting a fair comparison between real and in-game laptimes - factors as pointed out by RobertR1 such as tyre grip, pressure, ambient temp, wind etc are not to be underestimated. If you've ever been regularly to the track, these factors alone should see you have very different times on different days. Tyre make/type, condition and pressure is a huge factor alone. While GT might offer some choices on tyre types (Comfort/Sports/Race) it only offers some default grip values depending on the type and compound (Hard/Int/Soft). In real-life however, you will already have variations simply comparing two semi-slick tyres of different brands (i.e. Toyo R888 vs Yokohama A048). How could a game even remotely account for these factors, let alone across 200 or even a thousand cars? Does it need to? No of course not, as these factors alone are small, but when you add them up to other factors such as wind, varying track temperatures, climate changes (engine in-take temperatures) among others, these things do add up eventually.

...and these factors do vary from car to car too. Some cars that are easier to drive give you a lot of confidence regardless how well it's setup. Other cars... well, every factor speaks volumes.

How huge are the differences we are talking about? Minutes or a few seconds.

 

[Phil]

How huge are the differences we are talking about? Minutes or a few seconds.

Obviously seconds of a given lap. But seconds are a lot when you're on the track. On the Nordschleife, it's obviously more, not only because of the length of the track but also due to the extremity of the narrow and rather dangerous track it is.

The point however is that there's no fixed scenario. In some cars, the difference might be pretty non-existant while in more challenging cars, the factors may result in a lot larger difference. I'd say on a track like the Nordschleife - confidence and sanity level outweighs pretty much any other mechanical factor - on relatively very safe tracks like Nürdburgring and others, it may come down more to mechanical factors.

 

[Arwin]

The game is pretty good though. I sat down to play it "just for a bit", and four hours later I'm at level 9. This GT seems easier than past ones which I recall being more punishing. This one isn't bad, and I already have a whole bunch of cars. One question though. When you don't have a qualifying car for a given event, is there anyway to easily see what qualifying cars can be bought? Right now as far as I see it the only way is to look at the qualifying cars list for the event, remember as many as you can, then back out to the new/user car area and try to find the ones you remembered. Seems kinda clunky doing it that way, I presume there is an easier way?

I usually look at the requirements first. Sometimes that only says Japanese, or Japanese from the 70s for instance. Then I know what to look for in a general sense. However, I usually also study the list of 'typical cars' to determine what car is likely to be my worst enemy, and either hunt down a car with similar specs, or pimp a different one up to what I expect to be at least competitive specs.

I agree that this is one of the most accessible versions of A-spec in a GT game so far. I opened up Extreme with barely an A-spec race played, just by doing loads of Special Events (which not only give you cars, but there is a LOT of money and XP in there).

@phil: The Nurburgring is one of the least safe tracks in the world. It's not that the germans haven't done everything they can, but it is very easy to make a mistake and damage your car. But in all other respects you are right. The last time I was on the Ring I drove a 1.2l car (very light though) and as I know the Ring by heart I dared to push it fairly close to the limit when there wasn't any traffic around me, pretty near to what would be a good run for me in a similar car in the game.

But the track is scary as hell with lots of blind corners and huge elevation changes. The physical pressure / g-forces even in that 1.2l car were pretty amazing already - going from downhill to uphill at high speed literally takes your breath away even at a mere 100-120km/h.

But the Ring in GT5 is very, very realistic (the one in Forza 3 isn't bad either), and it's been a huge help for me learning the track in the game before going there in real life. And when driving there with all assists off and realistic settings including no skid recovery as mentioned and such, it's very hardcore and you can't go much faster than in real life in most cars anyway (but still way faster than normal people would dare to - there is a nice Top Gear episode on that which uses GT3 or GT4 to illustrate the differences).

 

[RobertR1]

I'll bite...

While I agree that human confidence is probably one of the larger reasons for not getting a fair comparison between real and in-game laptimes - factors as pointed out by RobertR1 such as tyre grip, pressure, ambient temp, wind etc are not to be underestimated. If you've ever been regularly to the track, these factors alone should see you have very different times on different days. Tyre make/type, condition and pressure is a huge factor alone. While GT might offer some choices on tyre types (Comfort/Sports/Race) it only offers some default grip values depending on the type and compound (Hard/Int/Soft). In real-life however, you will already have variations simply comparing two semi-slick tyres of different brands (i.e. Toyo R888 vs Yokohama A048). How could a game even remotely account for these factors, let alone across 200 or even a thousand cars? Does it need to? No of course not, as these factors alone are small, but when you add them up to other factors such as wind, varying track temperatures, climate changes (engine in-take temperatures) among others, these things do add up eventually.

...and these factors do vary from car to car too. Some cars that are easier to drive give you a lot of confidence regardless how well it's setup. Other cars... well, every factor speaks volumes.

Thanks Phil!

btw have you ran the R888's? I've used the T1-R's as a track tire a few times and preferred them over other high performance street tires. They're quite good but very pressure sensitive. Nice feedback though and on a couple of wet days they worked beautifully. If the feeling on the 888's is similar but with more grip, I'd be willing to give them a shot. I see a R1R also on their site. A hybrid between T1-R's and 888's it'd seem.

 

[-tkf-]

Obviously seconds of a given lap. But seconds are a lot when you're on the track. On the Nordschleife, it's obviously more, not only because of the length of the track but also due to the extremity of the narrow and rather dangerous track it is.

The point however is that there's no fixed scenario. In some cars, the difference might be pretty non-existant while in more challenging cars, the factors may result in a lot larger difference. I'd say on a track like the Nordschleife - confidence and sanity level outweighs pretty much any other mechanical factor - on relatively very safe tracks like Nürdburgring and others, it may come down more to mechanical factors.

The point was, at least that was my understanding that GT5 does take alot "real life factors" into the game. But of course it´s from a way more static point of view and way less detailed, but the factors are still ingame.