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SirViver
Oct 22, 2008
Still 5 seconds off of what is possible, but I'm proud of my unassisted 1:43.806 regardless :colbert:. Rivals mode is the best thing.

Now I just hope I'll receive my CSR and RennSport Wheel Stand before my vacation starts. Fanatec hasn't acknowledged my payment yet, and the wheel was listed as out of stock when I ordered :ohdear: :emo:

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SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

AwwJeah posted:

So I take it that in order to roll with the big dogs (:clint:) you're pretty much going to have to go with a manual transmission in this game? I turned off every handicap but kept automatic and even on my cleanest laps I still wasn't able to beat my best time where I used manual (and that lap was DIRTY. Like I hit a wall. Yeah I hit a wall on my best time so what)

Man the last turn in the demo is absolutely killing me with the Zonda. I swear I lose a good 2-5 seconds on that turn alone. I have yet to take it absolutely perfect.
Yes, manual is kind of a must, though it doesn't really have anything to do with the increased shift times when using auto IMO. It's more about being able to control how much torque is available at a given point, and to avoid shifting when unnecessary. Auto can catch you out with stupid shifts at the worst of times and doesn't exactly help you get into a good rhythm. Manual isn't all that difficult to deal with anyway; after a bit of practice it will become second nature and you'll wonder why you ever bothered with auto in the first place. Once you get used to the car and how it sounds you'll also be able to shift at about the right point by engine pitch alone, keeping your eyes on the track rather than the RPM gauge. Btw, are you using bonnet/cockpit view or follow cam? I'd really advise against using the latter, as it removes an important part of feedback, which is already very limited in a simulated environment to begin with. I think having a fixed camera of some sort is a must, as it shows you what the car body does in relation to your steering input - kind of a replacement for feeling the g-forces with your butt. Without that, any steering and throttle corrections will come far too late most of the time.

As for the last turn, I tend to stay on the outside for most of it and only start pulling inwards at about the point where the (second?) red billboard appears, applying throttle slowly to ideally exit in a barely noticeable drift. Basically what you want to do is to choose your line through the corner in such a way that you can apply a significant amount of throttle as early as possible. While that is technically not the fastest way through the corner*, it ensures the highest exit speed that you will carry through the whole straight following it. Note that you really should make an effort to run multiple good laps after each other, because the exit speed advantage has a bigger effect on the following lap, not the current one.

That said I've only just got a 1:43.0x, which is still more than 4 seconds off what is possible. Still have a lot to learn myself :)

* If you were to take the "ideal" line though the corner, you'd be at the corner exit quicker, but you'd have to nurse the throttle a lot longer to avoid smashing into the outside barrier at turn exit.

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008
Wohoo, set myself a 1:40.000 rival just to get a reference on where I'm losing most time, and after about 40-ish laps I've improved my Zonda PB from 1:43.0x to 1:41.828 :c00lbert:

Though fastest dirty lap (screwup in turn one :mad:) has been a 1:40.9x. I had a few close ones, but the hardest thing by far for me is to just ignore the green split times and the rival ghost car. If I notice I'm getting in a good laptime or just see that I'm unusually close to the ghost I get all nervous and start turning on my brain again - actively thinking about the driving is obviously the worst thing you can do if you want a good lap :(. Guess that's also part of the reason a non-"cheating" dirty lap can get so fast, because once it's flagged you just go 'screw it' and can drive without giving a gently caress.

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

Falken posted:

Attention!

Anyone who wants into the SA Eurogruppen club please give me your gamertag. I think there's alot of plebs trying to get in.
I'd definitely like to take a shot at this! GT is AndroidXP

Though I don't have gold yet and FM4 will arrive earliest coming Monday, depending on how long shipment from the UK takes. Hope there'll still be a free spot once I can finally send the request :)

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008
Hell yes, my CSR wheel just got delivered to work :D

Can't wait till I get home to hook this mofo up. This weekend the rest of 2011 won't be very productive for me I fear.

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008
Just set up my CSR + G25 pedals and well... I'm kinda disappointed :(. If I would have had a chance to try it with Forza before, I probably wouldn't have spent 400€ on it (considering I already have a G25).

Though I can't necessarily say that the wheel is at fault here, I may have just expected too much from FM4's simulation. Guess it's my own fault for assuming force feedback quality at least somewhat close to current PC sims like for example LFS, nKP or iRacing. Currently it just feels... off. Like a bunch of cobbled together effects rather than proper steering rack forces. Oversteer, and I guess also understeer, feels rather unnatural past a certain point as the wheel suddenly loses all resistance and that's just kinda BS pseudo-realism. At the steering center there seems to be a tiny deadzone that I don't think is attributable to the wheel, which makes small corrections awkward.

Are there any more detailed FF options in the full version of FM4? Maybe turning off some of the "effects" would improve things. Tried messing with the CSR's built-in settings, but with some of them it's hard to tell what exactly they affect. Do any of you CSR owners have any suggestions regarding those? Car setups probably (hopefully) affect some of the FF too, so I definitely won't cast final judgement until I can try the full version.

That said, it is a lot easier to hit correct steering angles than with the controller (big surprise), so some of the "how is that possible" corners have definitely become a lot more consistently manageable, just from not understeering by turning the stick 1mm too far. I'll definitely give it a few more days to get settled in (currently 2 seconds off controller pace at best) and will also try the CSR on the PC, so I have some baseline comparison between it and the G25, which should clear up whether it's the wheel or FM4 that is bugging me (90% sure it's the latter).

Can't say anything bad about the CSR's build quality so far, though from a design point of view the buttons seem a bit too far from the wheel rim (or the wheel diameter is too large?), as you can't really reach any of them without at least partially taking your hand off the wheel. The shiny plastic and lightness (which is of course deliberate, to reduce wheel inertia) also makes it look/feel "cheaper" than for example the G25/27 and I imagine the fully covered Porsche wheel. Also the XBox wireless transmitter (or some other component that only turns on in XBox mode) emits a high pitched noise which is kinda bleh, though you don't really notice it respectively it's easy to ignore during gaming when your speakers aren't completely silent.

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

Ether Frenzy posted:

Fanatec's recommended Forza 4 settings are these:
...
Thanks a lot, these settings seem to improve things somewhat, and as long as I don't get the car horribly out of shape I can actually suspend my disbelief well enough not to be bothered by it anymore :). Feels good getting rid of that buyer's remorse that threatened to ruin my weekend. If anyone's interested, I'm now using following settings:

SEN: 720
 FF: 70
Sho: 10
ABS: 99
Dri: 3
Lin: 0
Dea: 0
Spr: 0
Dpr: 0

After getting over yesterday's disappointment and getting more used to the way Forza does things I managed to regain my speed and actually got a new PB! Now sittin' on rank 840 with a Zonda time of 1:41.106 :coal:

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

WienerDog posted:

2) How can you avoid drafting then? If a car is ~one second faster then yours, what's a guy to do? if I slow, the gap will increase so I won't get penalized, but his car is faster then mine. If I let up he's gunna dust me, and if I could be faster then him, well, there wouldn't be this issue.
Does it actually matter? As far as I understand the dirty indicator only affects you if you want to hotlap for the leaderboards or rivals mode, and in neither should you have AI cars around (that race you). If drafting didn't invalidate the lap you could gain an unfair advantage - for laptime comparison - by having someone else (or coaxing the AI into) letting you draft them on straights that would offset an otherwise crippling downforce or power penalty for example. That said, I don't have the full version yet, do you actually get bonus points for "clean" laps?

SirViver fucked around with this message at 20:20 on Oct 15, 2011

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008
Wow, I've now for the first time actually fired up F3 since I got the CSR and the fact that Forza by default has a tiny steering deadzone configured - even for wheels - gives me hope that that's exactly the issue I'm experiencing in the F4 demo currently. Removing that and taking my 627 hp/ton Datsun 510 around a few laps on the ring has been an absolute blast. Cars in general seem to feel much more alive and a lot of the cars tuned for general oversteer necessary for the controller are extremely twitchy now. Guess I'll get a few more hours out of F3 after all.

Speaking of which, are there any non-DLC cars to get for the F4 profile import? I'm already lvl 50 so that base is covered. Just wondering if there's anything I can invest my leftover 3.5 million in.

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

Day Man posted:

:siren:
Wheel users: I've seen multiple people ask about adjusting wheels in game. If you go into My Profile:Options:Controller you can press x for advanced options. This will let you adjust all sorts of wheel settings.
Too bad it's not available in the demo :sigh:

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

GreatGreen posted:

I know it works in the demo, but can you participate in Rivals Mode without Xbox Live Gold? I don't have a Gold live subscription so I'm wondering how much I'd be shut out of. I could access everything but online racing, right?
Just googled around a bit and found this:

http://www.xbox360achievements.org/forum/showpost.php?p=4583299&postcount=2 posted:

Can I play in Rivals Mode without a Gold LIVE Account?
Yes, but only within Career Mode. In Community Mode you need a Gold account to play Rivals.
Can anyone explain the difference between rivals career and community mode?

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

Brace posted:

Manual shifting is so difficult, is there any way to get used to it or a tutorial or anything?
Practice is the only thing that will really help here, especially if you don't have a driver's license or only drive autos IRL :)

Upshifting really shouldn't be too difficult to figure out; for most cars once the tachometer hits the red zone, shift up. After a while you may even be able to do this from the engine note alone, though don't get too hung up on that at first - it will come from alone anyway. If you hear the revlimiter engaging, you were too late. Nothing really more about it.

Downshifting can be a bit trickier. Generally you'll want to complete all downshifting during the braking phase of a corner, so that you then can navigate the corner entry without upsetting the car needlessly and can accelerate from the corner apex without having to find the right gear first.

Finding the right gear for a corner and how to downshift during braking is something that you'll only learn from practice and general experience with the car and track. Generally speaking, the correct gear to accelerate out of a corner is the lowest gear that is still useful. If you start accelerating and you are already at the redline or don't get more than about one second of acceleration out of the gear you're in, it was too low, so use the next higher one. Which gear to actually use for each corner is something that you'll memorize as you learn the track. Note that if you use the racing line it might be a good idea to turn that off, as it will prevent or at least greatly hinder you from properly learning the track in the first place. Once you know a track you don't need to somehow magically determine the required gear, you'll actually know from memorization that the upcoming corner has to be taken in for example 3rd gear. I don't think the Nordschleife is a good track for that, especially if you can barely complete a whole lap - it is very difficult to learn and drive. I'd actually recommend finding a short and easy track, something that you can quickly memorize so you can work on your lines and shifting without wondering what the next corner might be. As you gain experience with a car and its gearing, you'll be able to better judge which speed corresponds to which gear, making it easier to learn new tracks as you'll have a feel for roughly what gear you need for a corner without actually having driven it before.

As for the downshifting itself, once you know which gear the corner needs to be taken in, it becomes more of a rhythm thing than anything else. As you start braking, or slightly after, you simply downshift at a certain rate until you're in the right gear. That rate depends on the car, but basically just space the downshifts so that you finish the last shift shortly before you start turning into the corner. Don't downshift too fast, though, or you might damage the engine/gearbox by overrevving and could also end up locking the driven wheels due to the engine braking in addition to your normal braking being too much for the tires to handle.

After you get to know a track intimately, you won't even think about which gear you need to be in for a certain corner. It will just so happen that you'll always approach corner X at for example 5th gear but need 3rd gear for it, so what you'll actually memorize is that you need two downshifts for that corner. In the end driving on a track will just be replaying different motions out of your muscle memory rather than actively thinking about anything, really.

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

Ghetto Blaster posted:

DiabloStarCraft posted:

What advantage would manual clutch give you anyway? Just an extra button to hold when shifting gears right? Seems like it'd be worth it if it offered any significant advantage?
It makes you faster, especially in a straight line.
To clarify, it makes you faster because Forza introduces artificial shift delays to "auto" and "manual w/o clutch" shifting, meant to reward players who use the most difficult shifting mode. The main reason you *should* want to use it is in my opinion simply flair and immersion :)

In reality you wouldn't have a choice between shifting modes in the first place, and most performance/racing oriented auto (lol) or sequential gearboxes would actually give you faster shift times than you could ever hope to achieve with the classic stick shift anyway.

SirViver fucked around with this message at 12:46 on Oct 17, 2011

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

dreesemonkey posted:

Also, loving gently caress let me turn the ghosts off in rival mode. It's very distracting. Split time would do just fine, thanks.
I agree, the ghost can be very annoying. It is very useful for analyzing where you lose or gain time, but for actually beating the time it's just a distraction. If it always stayed transparent it'd be more tolerable, but having an opaque car faffing around in front of you can be disastrous for hotlapping.

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008
Speaking of assists, are there any news regarding the apparent non-linear mapping of steering input when using wheels? Over-correcting slides because Forza thinks it needs to help me with increased steering sensitivity on counter-steering is getting quite old.

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

ihop posted:

Hey that's me at the beginning of the video doing pirouettes on my grill!

Since a few people have asked for tuning advice and nobody is throwing any out there, I'll volunteer my completely amateur setup that seems to make for semi-competitive cars, especially if they're mid-rear layout. I have no educational foundation to base this on, it's just been trial and error so it may be total garbage, but it's worked ok for me.

For camber, I've generally kept the rear wheels pretty flat, usually around -2 or -3 degrees, and the fronts a bit more tilted, -8 to -10. This might be opposite of what I should be setting it at (more camber in rear, less in front) I'll try swapping them tonight and see how it feels.

Toe in, I give the rears somewhere around 5-8 degrees of toe in, and the fronts 0-2 degrees of toe out. The toe in on the rear seems to help with oversteer when powering out of a corner, but too much will drain acceleration. Toe out in front will give quicker turn in (I think) but will also make it twitchier at high speed (I think).

Caster, I don't know what this is, I usually leave it alone. Sometimes I move it up or down .1 degree just to feel like a really meticulous tuner.

Suspension, I usually stiffen all settings up a bit, and try to set the fronts a little stiffer than the rears on all settings (rebound/bump and the main setting)

Differential I experiment from 60 - 75% even though I have no clue what effect it has until I find something that 'feels about right'. I don't mess with this until after I've tuned the suspension settings and driven a few laps.

Anyway just make sure and save your tuning setup before you mess with it, especially if it's a prize car, then you can always revert back to the original setup.
Whoa there, might wanna tune down on that camber a bit ;)

Usually you'd want something between -0.5° and -1.5°, depending on the car and setup. The point of camber is to keep the tyre surface flat on the road during cornering, due to the tyre "leaning over" if you exert lateral/sideways force on it. How much that happens depends mostly on the tyre width, sidewall height, air pressure, car weight, and, well, the amount of lateral force itself (which is higher on cars with downforce or slicks). While that all might sound somewhat complicated, it's actually easy to figure out how much camber is optimal, thanks to telemetry. Just open the telemetry screen that shows the live tyre camber. While driving in a straight line, both should be slightly negative. Now find some corners and drive through them at race pace (probably easier doing this on a replay rather than live on track). During a right turn the left front and rear camber should be close to 0°, and vice versa for a left turn.

Camber is usually the easiest way to influence car balance - more "optimal/negative" camber at the front compared to the rear will make the car turn in better at the risk of oversteer, whereas more "optimal/negative" camber at the rear will stabilize the car by making it understeery. For RWD cars you'll generally want to have a car that tends to understeer, which can be compensated for by throttle/power oversteer.

If the values stay firmly in the negative (which I'm pretty sure they will at -8°) then you're actually only using the insides of your tires, making them overheat, wear down faster and offer less grip overall. Besides that, the more you tilt the tires, the less grip you have available on acceleration and braking in a straight line, so it's all a balancing act.

Similarly, toe-in should probably be somewhere between 0° and at most 1°, whereas on toe-out (if you want it at all) you should probably not go higher than 0.2°. Anything more will either make the car very unstable (toe-out) or massively scrub the tires at all times (toe-in) wearing down the tires and reducing top speed. You never want toe-out on the rear tires, btw.

Caster is a part of the steering geometry that makes the front tires lean into the turn as you steer, so it basically affects camber dynamically in an overall good way; during turning, the outer wheel leans more into the corner, whereas the inner wheel straightens up. When using a high caster value you can reduce the front camber a bit as the caster effect compensates for it during turning, which frees up more grip for braking in a straight line. Usually it's put at around 5-ish degrees, but that's more of a "what feels/works best" kinda trial and error thing.

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008
Just upgraded to Gold, please send an SAEG invite to AndroidXP :)

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

YarPirate posted:

Is there any way to find out what the AI in career mode is racing at in terms of difficulty, even though you can't change it? I'd love to find my optimal enjoyment / difficulty boundary for event mode.
Why not just repeat an event you like on various difficulty settings and find out that way? There are only four levels to choose from, and by starting at medium you can rule out at least one right off the bat. Ultimately you'll probably end up switching between two levels anyway (unless you're that good... or bad), depending on how well you know a certain car and/or track.

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

YarPirate posted:

I was curious as to whether the AI cars were on some sort of middle-ground between the difficulties that were listed
According to this they do, in fact, have "more than 20 different AI difficulty levels" internally. In theory World Tour mode can be better adjusted to your skill level, though honestly, unless you're regularly beating hard AI you're probably not going to put in consistent enough lap times for a 1/20th difficulty adjustment to make any kind of appreciable difference v:shobon:v

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

hreple posted:

angryrant
If you're really that bothered by it, you can sort of emulate a button clutch by adjusting the clutch pedal's deadzone to result in a really short pedal travel (it's not like slipping the clutch is something you actually want to happen during racing). Though downshifting while braking is more tricky to do unless you're used to heel-toeing, I admit.

However I don't really think the advantage is that big - the gearbox and clutch upgrades should make a much larger difference (not having them still slows down shifting artificially, even when you're using a wheel and are actually physically going through the shifting motions). That's just something you'll have to accept as the "game" part of Forza. Shifts can't be done clutchless by revmatching. ABS is significantly less efficient than threshold breaking. TCS is noticeably slower than modulating the loud pedal (except for those ludicrous cars that are barely controllable without it). Those are all gameplay decisions, not a simulation of real life.

You gotta see the positive side, with a wheel and pedals you have tons more control about throttle, brake and especially steering. That alone should make up for it, besides the enjoyment you get out of actually driving a car as it's meant to be driven. :)

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

Jarf posted:

Those ports are for xbox live I believe. All I know is that some people are dropping from lobbies very frequently.
Yeah, trying to play online seems to be impossible for me at the moment. I'm lucky I can even use Rivals, and even there I sometimes have to beat my rival multiple times, because the connection crapped out during the upload.

Ports are already forwarded on my router and the connection test reports full connectivity (whereas it showed strict NAT before opening the ports). The only thing I can think of trying now is using a wired connection instead of the wireless, though I don't really think that's the issue :(

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

GhostDog posted:

Edit: Hahaha, if I log into my router and deactivate and reactive the port rules, the Xbox shows an open NAT. But only for the first test, I can immediately restart the test and suddenly I'm moderate. gently caress this poo poo.
One thing I had to do on my router/modem was to make sure the XBox has a fixed IP assigned. Not sure why that would affect anything, but maybe it helps in your case, too.

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

ihop posted:

I would add to that:

Adjust the brake balance to a 60-70% front bias.

Since most of your car's weight is going to shift over the front wheels when braking, this gives better stopping power and helps keep the rear wheels from locking up before the fronts.

Tanz-Kommandant posted:

Your logic is there but it is flawed when applied to a car with a correct suspension setup. Brake pressure should never be over 55 at the front.
I just wanted to add to that, ihop, please be aware that in Forza you're adjusting the relative brake pressure distribution, not the absolute brake pressure applied at each end of the car. The front has actually a much more efficient/stronger brake setup than the rear - if both ends get equal brake pressure the front is still going to do much more braking.

If any "normal" car, real or in Forza, ever had a true 50/50 distribution of absolute brake pressure it would lock up the rear every. single. time. In truth the real brake effort on regular production cars is split up about 75/25 to 80/20, depending on the weight distribution. Only race cars with rear/mid engine and/or downforce can really afford to have the brake bias shifted further to the rear - even then 60/40 is probably the most rearwards brake bias you'd ever see.

Also, the suspension setup only has minimal influence on this. Ignoring the tiny shift of the center of gravity caused by the car body leaning front/back/left/right, the only thing spring stiffness and dampers (and anti-roll bars) affect is how quickly and where the weight/load is transferred, not how much.


E: To clarify the above statement, where the load goes only really applies to cornering, not braking, as you generally do not setup the car with different spring/damper strengths on the left and right side of the car.

For example, during a right turn, most of the load goes to the left side of the car. The total amount of weight transferred to the left side will be about the same, no matter whether you put in solid steel blocks or sponges as springs, but how much of that load goes to the left front or left rear tyre depends on the stiffness of the front relative to the rear (which is determined by the spring frequency and anti-roll bars). The reason having more relative front ARB than rear causes understeer is that the front starts to resist the rolling of the car body earlier/more than the rear, so basically because the rear does not "help" in resisting the roll, the front has to resist both the roll of the front and rear weight of the car, shifting the overall load distribution to the front. This in turn causes the front tyre to be overloaded*, offering less grip overall and making the car understeer.

* Tyres are load sensitive, meaning that while increasing the load on the tyre also increases the absolute grip the tyre produces, this does not happen in a linear 1:1 fashion. If you double the load, you do not also double the grip, but let's say only increase it by 90% instead. This is also the reason that the same car with more weight will not corner as well as if it had less weight, even though the absolute amount of grip produced by the tyres is higher on the heavier car - the additional grip can simply not make up for the additional mass+inertia / amount of work required to make the car turn. This is also why you want downforce, as it increases the tyre load, and therefore grip, without increasing the car's mass, allowing you to actually use that extra grip for cornering better than squandering it heaving the additional mass around.

SirViver fucked around with this message at 13:54 on Oct 29, 2011

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008
Oh Datsun 510, let's see how you fare on the Nordschleife...
7:47? Not bad :smug:

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

Brace posted:

What do you guys see as crucial race upgrades aside from Brakes(when available((because they're not on the GTR for some reason)) and Clutch/Springs?
Depends a lot on the car and also on the track you're tuning for. Generally I try to get the upgrades that unlock setup options, which means Race Suspension, Anti-Roll Bars and at least Sport Transmission if possible (not only for shift times; adjust final drive for the top speed of the track - if the car can go faster than the track allows you just wasted acceleration potential). The next best tyre compound is also in most cases a good idea, with maybe the exception of the Race one, as it adds too much PI more often than not. Brakes is the first thing I'd sacrifice if it comes down to it, tbh. In most cars the stock brakes are able to lock up the wheels, so more "efficient" brakes won't help you stop faster, as the tyres are the limiting factor in that case.

Whether to concentrate on power or handling depends on the car. Sports cars mostly already have a balanced package, in which case adding only more power would just make driving fast excessively difficult, whereas normal street cars are most of the time underpowered and in desperate need of more oomph before better handling would start showing benefits. The track is also a deciding factor here; obviously fast tracks favour power/top speed whereas short/slow/twisty tracks gain more from lighter, better handling cars. A simple test drive will tell you more than any amount of theorycrafting here, though. If you struggle keeping the car straight and fly off every other corner then obviously more power is not the way to go.

Though one piece of advice, it's also important to have some knowledge about suspension tuning before applying the suspension and ARB upgrades, as the default setup values aren't necessarily good and can easily make a previously nicely handling car drive like rear end. A car setup tool/spreadsheet can help, but doesn't guarantee a better-than-stock drivable car either. Better keep the car stock and predictable than unlocking options you don't know what to do with anyway.

:words:

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

Shogunner posted:

Uh, sometimes it is yea. I can't shift with clutch if I'm using a controller since I can't brake competently with my left middle finger.
Just FYI, you can change the controller layout so the clutch is not on the left shoulder, but on the X-button instead. That way you can press both clutch and up-/downshift with your thumb at the same time, which is how pretty much everyone else does it AFAIK.

e:f,b

SirViver fucked around with this message at 22:11 on Nov 3, 2011

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

Pitch posted:

It does. If you look at the dyno chart in the upgrade shop, engines with large turbochargers or variable valve timing have noticeable bends in the 4k-6k rpm area where that feature hits and the torque curve suddenly begins climbing faster.
Yes, but that's a bit of a simplified model. Don't know about the other technologies, but for turbos the boost pressure should fall off every time you lift off the throttle, for example during a shift (unless the car is equipped with anti-lag). Right now the boost effect is purely RPM bound, so if you always stay above the boost-kick-in RPM the engine acts as if it were a N/A engine with more power.

I guess it's accurate enough for most purposes, though, and properly modelling the boost would've probably required not so trivial changes to the engine simulation.


\/\/\/ Whoops :downs:

SirViver fucked around with this message at 02:08 on Nov 4, 2011

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

Cowwan posted:

M. Rossi is becoming the bane of my existence; he is my Gary Oak. When I come out of the that last corner before the straight he is a speck in my rear-view mirror, but by the time I get to the first corner of the new lap he has flagged my lap-time and gotten in front of me, only to stand on the brakes like a retard right on the goddamn apex. Then during the rest of the lap I get my massive lead back only to repeat the entire process again. I can take having to fight the AI for a position, but this is downright aggravating.
Sounds like your car has great handling but little horsepower, and while it may be equal in PI to whatever M. Rossi is driving, sometimes all that extra grip just can't make up for the raw power and hence top-speed. I'd try removing some of the weight reduction and tyre compound upgrades and invest the freed up PI in power instead.

For some cars - mostly for very light ones - you might just not be able to make it competitive on fast tracks at all, and choosing a heavier but more powerful car can make dealing with certain races a lot easier, even though it has worse handling on paper. Also keep in mind that it's generally more difficult to profit from better handling compared to power. Handling you have to capitalize on in the corners which you need to navigate very well to truly gain from, and it's even worse if you're stuck behind other cars, because just being able to take a corner faster doesn't help you if there's a fat 1.7 ton car blocking your path. Using a power advantage on the other hand is simple; driving in a straight line and passing other cars while doing so doesn't exactly take much skill and after you've done so, just make sure to brake early enough for the corner and sail through it at a comfortable pace - it's not like the guy stuck behind you has much chance of passing unless you gently caress up.

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008
Anyone else find the World Tour AI can be ridiculously difficult sometimes? Maybe my tune was just way out of whack, but I remember one race in particular where for the life of me I wasn't able to beat M. Rossi on Silverstone in his F430 - the same car I drove - and I'm talking rewinds just to take the corners near perfectly. The only way I finally managed to get him was by abusing the glue sand as a brake and ramming him off the track. Regular "professional" AI from the event list doesn't even come close to driving this fast.

Also there seems to be a distinct, World Tour AI-exclusive behaviour that I can only describe as anti-rubberbanding, which may as well be the cause for this unnatural pace. Cars that are in front of you fight tooth and nail to keep their position, but as soon as you pass them they give up. Completely. Like, three laps to catch up a 40m lead and finally pass, and half a lap later you're 100m ahead. It's also very noticeable on the minimap, where the cars in front of you are close together but overall miles away from those you passed right at the race start. Then, as soon as you pass one of these cars they slow down and eventually rejoin the backmarkers after a while, or at least stay at roughly the same lead they had on the field when you passed. Doesn't even matter which particular AI drivers are involved; have two cars in front of you on the first corner, those will fight, but rewind and leave five cars in the lead and those will be the difficult nuts to crack. Pass everyone before T1 and you can pretty much sail to victory at a comfortable pace. Not on every race, but sometimes winning legitimately seems nigh impossible, and I don't think I'm such a slow driver either.

I wish racing games would put more effort into believable AI in general. I know it's difficult, but if it weren't for rivals mode and online (goon) races Forza wouldn't be nearly as fun. Without a gold account you'd be even more screwed, as you can't even set up custom AI races, which is a big WTF on a completely different level by itself.

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008
For all you CSR wheel owners out there, I just found a link to the new 706 beta firmware (DL link, source), in case you don't want to hassle Fanatec support for it. I've flashed mine and it works perfectly so far; the XBox wireless noise is gone and presets save properly as well!

Now all that's left is waiting for Turn10 to pull their thumbs out of their butts and finally release a patch that fixes the 900° steering.

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008
Jesus, where do you all get these ridiculous amounts of XP from? Most of mine (and cash too, actually) come from Rivals mode, as the single player payouts are downright pitiful.

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

einTier posted:

Actually, I didn't have much problems with the Mercedes SUVs. I ran that race so many times (good payouts even for a very careful tiptoe around the ring) that I started to get a feel for the personalities of the drivers.
That's funny, I completed my rather slow 9:18 nearly two weeks ago and couldn't recall there being Mercedes' or BMWs on the track if you didn't mention them just now, but I sure as hell didn't forget these chucklefucks in their goddamn Lotuses ruining more laps than I care to remember. They were always the ones passing at the most inopportune times, or outright sideswiping me while I was clearly alongside them for quite a while. They even backended me a few times when I was stuck in traffic and couldn't possibly have moved any faster - and no, that was not in a braking zone, it was on the long uphill straight at around near the Angstkurve, where the AI seemed to be literally making GBS threads its virtual pants.

Getting a fast time on trackday events, or a clean lap at all for that matter, seems to be very much down to luck in general, but doubly so on the Ring. Most "normal" tracks have rather clear defined corners and are much wider to begin with, so the AI is generally rather predictable on where it's going to be most of the time. On the Ring, however, there are so many flowing bends that the AI basically ends up swiping left-right constantly, or just stays in the middle not giving a flying gently caress at all. All you can do is hope that you'll catch the AI at just the right moment where it's either inside or outside of the turn and that you carry enough speed that you can pass before it runs into you. Being caught behind a car then passing it can be a very risky situation, because even the S class can't accelerate quick enough to get away in a safe manner.

I just wish the trackday AI would behave a bit more like drivers on actual trackdays, i.e. using their mirrors and actively, predictably sticking to a side when a clearly faster car approaches. It's still a lot of fun, though. What helped a lot in the end was using a souped-up Datsun 510 instead of a Viper, simply by virtue of being a smaller car with better visibility.

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

jadebullet posted:

So... gotta ask. Any news on what the new car pack is going to bring?
I think this car is a pretty safe bet, don't you agree?

E: Comes with new bowling mode that only counts points if no wheels touched the ground as the pins go flying.

SirViver
Oct 22, 2008
Ugh, so, an update came out, fixing the 900° steering. Sorta. The cars are incredibly twitchy now even in 900° steering, but once the rear comes around you can barely catch it. If you're very lucky and have mastered the arm flailing™ technique you may be able to prevent a spin. Sometimes.

Also Turn10 apparently doesn't know what linear steering is; this is me turning my wheel left in 90° increments and the telemetry response:

(Sorry for the lovely quality, it was a hackjob. Much like this patch.)

This basically demonstrates that the sensitivity around the center is exaggerated (why?) whereas the last 180° or so give you superfine control where you least need it. The weird dynamic linearity before the patch seems to have masked this, but now it's very apparent. Steering and the driving dynamics in general felt quite nice before, except for the "assisted" counter-steering, but now it's all kinda out of whack :(

I guess I'll mess around with the CSR's linearity reduction now to counter this, but the curves used by Forza and the CSR firmware are quite different, so perfectly matching it seems impossible.

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SirViver
Oct 22, 2008

Falken posted:

10 Linearity seems to help.

I spun out on turns 2 4 5 and 6 with my steering at 900 deg, set it to 700 and it seems saveable now.
Yes, it does help a bit. I'd like to use more to make it work better, but the linearity curve applied by the CSR isn't very good. If you use any higher values it's completely unusable; instead of a nice smooth reduction spread evenly across the whole steering range it's all focused at the center.

TannhauserGate posted:

It makes sense on the controller? I guess they just aren't giving the wheel its own treatment.
Not really - you'd actually need the opposite - and they are giving the wheel its own treatment (now). The controller is only usable with sim steering at all because the game dynamically reduces the steering sensitivity a lot as you go faster. The actual steering inputs required to get a car around a corner at speed are tiny compared to the car's full steering range. Also, if you start losing control, the sensitivity reduction is removed immediately, so you can counter-steer effectively with the same amount of input that would only make a gentle turn otherwise.

These "assists" (which Turn10 refuses to call them) were applied to the wheel also before the patch, but have now been removed for wheel controllers. But now the apparently generally inverted steering sensitivity can be noticed.

SirViver fucked around with this message at 21:52 on Dec 2, 2011

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