GT4 Dampers

sucahyo · Dec 29, 2005

Original Thread Title - Damper 10 is Softer than 1?

GT2 incremental damper test video

Summary, two option:
- Damper 10 is stiffer than 1, because hacked value is irrelevant it can give wrong result. Based from experience and feeling 10 is stiffer. Car jumps on 10 damper because the damper is way too stiff. Damper effect on tire visual is inconsistent and misleading in all GT. Visual in GT2 is wrong showing 40 (stiff) damper as slow pendulum motion.

- Damper 1 is stiffer than 10, because hacked value is relevant, will still be correct, extreme high damper is soft. Car jumps on 10 damper because the damper is too soft. Soft damper shown as wilder tire movement in all GT. Visual in GT2 is correct showing 40 (soft) damper as slow pendulum motion. Car rejump is reduced when using 1 damper, not 10.
real life experience on motorcycle, it vibrate, keep bouncing, loose grip and unstable on uneven road with busted shock. With normal shock it will never vibrate.

Other consideration:
Sukerkin: Damper tuning is complex, increasing damper do not always result in more grip, after certain point it loose.
Team666: damper 10 reduce GT4 highspeed nodding more than 1.

My recent caterham finding, Deep Forest, free run:
Stock with FC suspension:
Spring rate - 5.0/5.0
Ride height - 90/90
Camber - 0.0/0.0
Toe - 0/0
Stabilizer - 1/1
Balast : 0/+50

d-high = damper 10/10 10/10
d-low = damper 1/1 1/1

I drive with d-high first. Since I am not so good in driving, I drive trough the grass often. When the car passing the side rumble strip to go back to the road the car become very lively. It bounce around few time before it stop.
On replay, same with Scaff, I don't notice much movement from suspension.

Next is d-low. This time I notice that the car bounce a lot less on the road, . On replay I see some suspension movement.

Curious with less bouncing using d-low, I try again with d-high. And I notice that in grass d-high would bouncing less, where in tarmac d-high would bouncing more, .
On replay I notice that the front wheel is vibrating when driving through grass. If only the front left wheel touching the grass, only the front left wheel that vibrate. Not only on the grass, on some part of the tarmac the wheel also vibrate momentarily.

Seeing this vibration, I drive again with d-low. On replay, this time I notice that in grass the wheel is also vibrate, but not as much as d-high. And on the grass the wheel vibrate only momentarily because it imediately jump around in grass. The wheel never vibrate in tarmac, it just show slow damper movement which is not exist in d-high.

My explanation for different opinion:

If you feel your car become more understeer when using 1/10 1/10 damper, you have to believe that 1 is stiffer if you believe Neil W. Roberts is credible (someone that his theory frequently used by Sukerkin, link thanks to Boundary Layer). Unless you avoid using max or min in your tuning, which according to Sukerkin can create different impression.
If you see the car on 40 damper reacting as soft damper, you have to believe that 1 is stiffer.
If you see my video as weird, or you can't believe your eyes on extreme damper value or thinking PD is not smart enough to display damper visual correctly or thinking that outside normal range the damper do something strange, you have to believe that 1 is softer.
As always, if you can make your MR car understeer using your current tuning, you can continue doing so, you don't have to use 1/10 1/10 damper or 7/1 stabilizer (meaning damper 1 is stiffest) , but, what a shame. Using that tuning, MR car would become very understeer and spin will become very easy to handle.

*old content*
So, anyone curious enough to test this on GT4?
1 is softer than 10 in GT1
10 is softer than 1 in GT2
Or, if you can't use 255 damper, how your experience tells you?

sukerkin · Dec 30, 2005

Hi S

I don't have access to memory reading devices for the PS2 so I can only give my impressions gained from quite a bit of spannering experience in the GT genre.

I've always worked from the premise that higher numbers for Dampers (both Bound and Rebound) means higher resistance.

I've actually done some blind testing on this too by throwing away all that I know about suspension tuning and just going on pure observation (it was tucked away in another thread on tuning and is a lengthy example of me dialing in an Aston Martin Vantage at the High Speed Ring).

The result of many hours of track time has been to confirm to me that my initial conception seems correct i.e. a higher number in the tuning interface for Dampers means that that damper will resist compression or expansion more, thus slowing the rate at which the suspension will take a 'set' going into or coming out of a corner.

Scaff · Dec 30, 2005

sukerkin
Hi S

I don't have access to memory reading devices for the PS2 so I can only give my impressions gained from quite a bit of spannering experience in the GT genre.

I've always worked from the premise that higher numbers for Dampers (both Bound and Rebound) means higher resistance.

I've actually done some blind testing on this too by throwing away all that I know about suspension tuning and just going on pure observation (it was tucked away in another thread on tuning and is a lengthy example of me dialing in an Aston Martin Vantage at the High Speed Ring).

The result of many hours of track time has been to confirm to me that my initial conception seems correct i.e. a higher number in the tuning interface for Dampers means that that damper will resist compression or expansion more, thus slowing the rate at which the suspension will take a 'set' going into or coming out of a corner.

I would agree 100% with sukerkin, in GT4 damper settings (for both single settings and bound and rebound settings) are stiffer the higher the number.

As a results higher values will (as sukerkin says) offer more resistance, resulting in a slowing of suspension movement, the actual ammount of movement that occurs will be principally dictated by the spring rates.

My GT4 suspension and brake tuning guide (link in my sig) goes into this in a lot more detail that is specific to GT4.

Regards

Scaff

VIPFREAK · Dec 30, 2005

Scaff
I would agree 100% with sukerkin, in GT4 damper settings (for both single settings and bound and rebound settings) are stiffer the higher the number.

Yeah, I was actually using the 1 -10 and 10-1 to assist me in trying to flip a leMans car at LeSarthe II.

No luck with any of it though. :indiff:

sucahyo · Dec 31, 2005

Thank you all

.

Without using hybrid, showing picture or video of the damper effect will be difficult, but we can feel the difference when driving it. Things that I notice when using normal way to find which value is softer is:
when we use hardest spring rate with minimum downforce
hard damper will make the car more stable
soft damper will make the car bouncing all around

I test this on Skyline R33, where on GT1 you should use higher damper, on GT2 you should use lower damper.

So, if in GT4 damper 1 is softer than 10, then when using hardest spring rate damper 10 will be more stable than 1, in other word, you can only use 20/20 spring rate with 10/10 10/10 damper to make the car more driveable.
Is this true?

And can we really flip the car in GT4?

VIPFREAK · Dec 31, 2005

sucahyo
And can we really flip the car in GT4?

Without cheat codes, I might add.

Mt. Lynx · Dec 31, 2005

sucahyo
Thank you all .

Without using hybrid, showing picture or video of the damper effect will be difficult, but we can feel the difference when driving it. Things that I notice when using normal way to find which value is softer is:
when we use hardest spring rate with minimum downforce
hard damper will make the car more stable
soft damper will make the car bouncing all around

I test this on Skyline R33, where on GT1 you should use higher damper, on GT2 you should use lower damper.

So, if in GT4 damper 1 is softer than 10, then when using hardest spring rate damper 10 will be more stable than 1, in other word, you can only use 20/20 spring rate with 10/10 10/10 damper to make the car more driveable.
Is this true?

And can we really flip the car in GT4?

No and no. a 20/20 10/10/10/10 would make the car very jumpy and shaky to the point of " WTF" . For a normal FR racecar, like the C5R, my settings usually look like this (depending on track, but lets say a smooth track): 10.5/10.0 4/3/8/6 and this is fairly smooth. But you must also account for rideheight, and with the softer settings I use, too low would mean bottoming out very often, and all the time in high speed, due to downforce. So my rideheight for a smooth track would be 70/75 for the C5R.

And you cannot flip cars in GT4. You can do a wheelie though, but not turn over.

Scaff · Dec 31, 2005

Team666 is quite right, you seem to have not got a 100% handle on what dampers actually do.

The following (taken from my GT4 tuning guide) might help.

scaff
Dampers (or Shock Absorbers as they are sometimes known) perform an often misunderstood role within the suspension system. They do not support weight or control how much the car moves under weight transfer as the springs do, but they do work directly with the spring. Without dampers when a spring encountered a bump it would not simply expand and then return to it normal state in a single movement, but rather would continue to expand and contract as the energy from the bump was dissipated.

Dampers control how quickly the suspension reacts to load being applied (bound) and how quickly it reacts to loads being removed (rebound). The stiffer a damper is set, the more it slows down the movement on its corner and speeds up the load transfer to the contact patch. A softer setting does the opposite; it allows the suspension to move faster and spreads the changes in load to the contact patch over a longer period of time.

.................

The track surface will also play a major role in damper settings, as the bumpier a track is the softer the dampers would normally be set. These softer settings ensuring the suspension can react quickly enough to the surface changes and keep the contact patch in contact with the road.

Damper are also at their most effective when during weight transfer (as they are going into bound or rebound) and as such will have a much greater role to play during corner entry and exit.

You might also want to have a look at the BESTuners thread, as most of the cars here are tuned for Deep Forest, which is quite a bumpy track, also any Nurburgring settings should illustrate what damper settings for bumpy track.

Regards

Scaff

VIPFREAK · Dec 31, 2005

Team666
And you cannot flip cars in GT4. You can do a wheelie though, but not turn over.

Bugger... maybe in GT5? :dopey:

VeilsideR33sub · Jan 1, 2006

Small Addition along the lines of Team666s post ;
The Drive Wheels of the vehicle ( usually the rear ) need application of the Power ( sometimes quite large ) .
High Damper settings ( c.10 ) , especially in the bound domain , tend to restrict this a bit . Focus on getting a reasonable stiffness (+ it from stock ) in the drive wheels , coupled with a damper bound loosening of the tie (- it a notch or so ) .
This will ensure that your power is delivered , via the axles to the wheels as they travel to fill the domain .

Non-Case in point the Racing NSXs in GT1 were so uptight in the damper department that they had chronic inborn 'jitter' that made it's upper power band bang violently around . not completely fast and very painfull to listen to from in-view .

Scaff · Jan 1, 2006

VeilsideR33sub
Small Addition along the lines of Team666s post ;
The Drive Wheels of the vehicle ( usually the rear ) need application of the Power ( sometimes quite large ) .
High Damper settings ( c.10 ) , especially in the bound domain , tend to restrict this a bit . Focus on getting a reasonable stiffness (+ it from stock ) in the drive wheels , coupled with a damper bound loosening of the tie (- it a notch or so ) .
This will ensure that your power is delivered , via the axles to the wheels as they travel to fill the domain .

Non-Case in point the Racing NSXs in GT1 were so uptight in the damper department that they had chronic inborn 'jitter' that made it's upper power band bang violently around . not completely fast and very painfull to listen to from in-view .

While I would agree that driven wheels do need attention with regard to damper settings, I would rarely myself go higher that the default settings.

Stick race suspension on most cars in GT4 (certainly all the ones I've tested) and the bound and rebound default values are set to 8 (both front and back). Personally I find this (given the max is 10) to be far, far to stiff; particularly for the more bumpy tracks such as Deep Forest or the 'ring.

In my opinion damper settings are not a principal tool of controlling axle tramp (caused by sudden application of the throttle), but rather a tool for ensuring that the contact patch remains in contact with the road as much as possiable. As such I use throttle control as the main means of getting the power down, with the suspension helping out. I find that spending to much time focusing on how the suspension copes with WOT can throw out how the car should be set up for the track itself.

What also should be considered is the weight of the car itself, as this will in part determine how much weight is moving around. The lighter the car the softer the dampers generally need to be set. The Caterham Fireblade is a good example of this, it rarely needs dampers set any stiffer that 2 or 3, doing so just transfers the load straight through to the chassis as the suspension just can't react quickly enough.

The final point is however that damper settings are one of the most personal of all settings, as they have a big impact on how the car 'feels', and different people like different things when it comes to 'feel'.

Regards

Scaff

sucahyo · Jan 2, 2006

Team666
No and no. a 20/20 10/10/10/10 would make the car very jumpy and shaky to the point of " WTF" .

So, GT4 have damper 10 softer than 1 then.

Scaff
Team666 is quite right, you seem to have not got a 100% handle on what dampers actually do.

Well, I only conclude it from my testing. And I think damper control how fast the car weight transfer will, with spring rate and ride height control how much it will.

0/0/0/0 0/0/0/0 (in memory) damper on GT1 or 255/255/255/255 255/255/255/255 (in memory) damper on GT2 will make the car bouncing endlessly even when in full stop condition, using hardest normal spring rate will make the handling go wild
When using hardest spring rate, the car handle the best using medium damper on GT1 (yes, I feel the 10 damper jittery) and using 1 damper on GT2. So if we can stabilize GT4 car with 1 damper, then GT4 is more like GT2 than GT1. This makes damper 10 is softer than 1 in GT4
As spring rate increase traction, in GT2, using 1 damper and hard spring rate will make the car more grippier/snappy/sharp/responsive than using 10 damper and low spring rate which is more driftier/loose/dull/slow response (which is perfect for drifting)
I use spring rate and damper combination to induce oversteer and understeer in any car.

I agree that using soft damper the wheel will follows the road more quickly, but I don't agree of using soft damper on bumpier road. I will use harder (1 on GT2). Or its because you think 1 is softer? If thats the case then I agree. Using 1 is more appropriate on bumpier road than 10 (this also means 1 is harder damper than 10).

Anyone know real life physics? which is more preferable for fast car in bumpy road, soft damper or hard damper? IMO, hard.

Koni shocks tech
The red area indicates that portion unique to the KONI Special, while the yellow area is specific to the Sport shock only. When a car accelerates, brakes or rolls, typical damper speeds are in the (A) area. Damper speeds caused by road surface irregularities (bumps, railroad tracks, etc.) are in the (B) area.
KONI Special (red or black). The KONI Special dampers are designed to offer the best compromise between road handling and comfort. If only a Special damper is listed, its adjustmentforces are designed for all driving requirements.
KONI Sport (yellow). The KONI Sport dampers are designed for aggressive driving or cars with suspension upgrades while continuing to offer comfort. If a KONI Sport is listed as an alternative to the KONI Special, choose Sport for aggressive handling characteristics.

Team666
And you cannot flip cars in GT4. You can do a wheelie though, but not turn over.

I see, same limit then, in GT2 even when both inner wheel is lifted, the car will not flip too:

The image also show that left and right wheel goes independently but making the same angle (I mentioned this because I remember someone saying that left and right wheel goes at the same movement not independent in GT4, and it shows that it doesn't in GT2)

Scaff · Jan 2, 2006

sucahyo
So, GT4 have damper 10 softer than 1 then.

No, GT4 dampers are softer at a lower value and harder at a higher value. Sorry but this one is not open for debate, driving the cars quite clearly shows the differences between the range of damper settings. 1 = Softest / 10 = Hardest.

sucahyo
Well, I only conclude it from my testing. And I think damper control how fast the car weight transfer will, with spring rate and ride height control how much it will.

I agree that using soft damper the wheel will follows the road more quickly, but I don't agree of using soft damper on bumpier road.

Um, if you agree that a softer damper setting will allow the suspension to track the road quicker than a harder damper, then why disagree with using a softer damper on a bumpier road?

sucahyo
I will use harder (1 on GT2). Or its because you think 1 is softer? If thats the case then I agree. Using 1 is more appropriate on bumpier road than 10 (this also means 1 is harder damper than 10).

No it does not, 1 is softer than 10 in GT4, and softer is better for a bumpier track. However go to soft and you will also get problems as the car starts to occilate on the springs. Caused by the dampers inability to control the springs.

sucahyo
As spring rate increase traction, in GT2, using 1 damper and hard spring rate will make the car more grippier/snappy/sharp/responsive than using 10 damper and low spring rate which is more driftier/loose/dull/slow response (which is perfect for drifting)

Again (as far as GT4 is concerned) this is not correct, softer spring settings will result in more grip at a particular end of a car. This is true for GT4 and the real world, softer spring = more grip, up to a certain point, go too soft and you distort the contact patch and start to lose grip again.

This is covered in a lot of detail in my GT4 suspension tuning guide and Greyout's sticky thread on spring rates and weight transfer. Have a read of either of these as it should help sort it out.

sucahyo
Anyone know real life physics? which is more preferable for fast car in bumpy road, soft damper or hard damper? IMO, hard.

Yes I do know the real life physics, and as Team666 and I have already explained softer settings (lower values in GT4) are required for bumpier surfaces, the following is taken from Going Faster, the training manual for the Skip Barber racing school, which quite clearly confirms this.

Skip Barber
Expect that the shock settings for bumpy racetracks will have to be softer in order to allow the suspension to move fast enough to keep the tyres in contact with the track surface.

Hope this helps to clear it up, but with regard to GT4 damper settings I would recomend that you have a look at my GT suspension tuning guide, as it covers this in good detail.

Regards

Scaff

sukerkin · Jan 3, 2006

I have complete concurrence with Scaff on this matter - whilst I might not have the same real world experience he does to back up his words, I can say that I have been offered a job tuning a racing driver friends car purely on my technical knowledge that I've taught myself over five years or so of GT (with the attendant research and mathematics)

.

One side note, Sucahyo, I don't know if you're aware of it or not, but in GT2 there is a 'feature' (that the programmers put in) that if you drop springs, ride height and dampers to their lowest values, the game gives the car a 'perfect' set-up. It certainly applied to dampers if not the other values and it was the only way you could get the Elise GT car to behave properly (or at least the only way that I ever found :embarrassed:

).

I'm wondering if the fact that you're working with GT2 means that some of your observations are being distorted by this?

sucahyo · Jan 3, 2006

Scaff
No, GT4 dampers are softer at a lower value and harder at a higher value. Sorry but this one is not open for debate, driving the cars quite clearly shows the differences between the range of damper settings. 1 = Softest / 10 = Hardest.

That's what I thought before testing 255 damper.
I can only tell the difference between 1 damper and 255 damper clearly (from car bouncing, not speed) when using 0.1 spring rate. Using normal 2.0 sping rate I hardly tell the difference. Using 20.0 spring rate I can't tell the difference. You can mistakes it easily with normal setting.

Scaff
Um, if you agree that a softer damper setting will allow the suspension to track the road quicker than a harder damper, then why disagree with using a softer damper on a bumpier road?

Sorry, I was thinking about high speed, hard spring, frequent bump (GT2 spesific). If the bump not frequent enough (GT4) soft is better. But I still think 10 is softer because of Team666 says that 10 will give you "WTF" handling.

Scaff
No it does not, 1 is softer than 10 in GT4, and softer is better for a bumpier track. However go to soft and you will also get problems as the car starts to occilate on the springs. Caused by the dampers inability to control the springs.

If you can see car occilation, then you can see what happens when the car landing. Try filming the car landing using soft vs hard damper, use 2.0 spring rate, max ride height, and same speed.

Scaff
Again (as far as GT4 is concerned) this is not correct, softer spring settings will result in more grip at a particular end of a car. This is true for GT4 and the real world, softer spring = more grip, up to a certain point, go too soft and you distort the contact patch and start to lose grip again.

Nice information, so, if we assume 2.0 spring rate is too soft and 20.0 is too hard then using 10.0 will be the optimum grip.
But, without testing, you shouldn't assume that 2.0 is grippier than 20.0 or 20.0 is gripper than 2.0. In GT2 10.0 is grippier (faster straight and cornering) than 2.0, 20.0 is grippier than 2.0, I never test 20.0 vs 10.0.
And in corner, less body roll (hard spring rate) give better grip.

Scaff
This is covered in a lot of detail in my GT4 suspension tuning guide and Greyout's sticky thread on spring rates and weight transfer. Have a read of either of these as it should help sort it out.

Many spring and damper tuning guide in this thread is more focusing on what they do to oversteer and understeer. They don't explain what's happen when you use all hard/soft spring or all hard/soft damper. And I don't agree that spring don't have effect on weight transfer.

Scaff
Yes I do know the real life physics, and as Team666 and I have already explained softer settings (lower values in GT4) are required for bumpier surfaces, the following is taken from Going Faster, the training manual for the Skip Barber racing school, which quite clearly confirms this.

Yes, my mistakes, different bump need different treatment.

Scaff
Hope this helps to clear it up, but with regard to GT4 damper settings I would recomend that you have a look at my GT suspension tuning guide, as it covers this in good detail.

Yes, I already did. Good guide. But there things that I don't agree, but that's normal.

sukerkin
I have complete concurrence with Scaff on this matter - whilst I might not have the same real world experience he does to back up his words, I can say that I have been offered a job tuning a racing driver friends car purely on my technical knowledge that I've taught myself over five years or so of GT (with the attendant research and mathematics) .

That's a good thing 👍

.

sukerkin
One side note, Sucahyo, I don't know if you're aware of it or not, but in GT2 there is a 'feature' (that the programmers put in) that if you drop springs, ride height and dampers to their lowest values, the game gives the car a 'perfect' set-up. It certainly applied to dampers if not the other values and it was the only way you could get the Elise GT car to behave properly (or at least the only way that I ever found ).

I see, I don't know about that, all I know is using 10 damper and 2 spring rate handles very differently from 1 damper 8 spring rate, I don't know which is closer to real life. Since elise have tendency to spin, using first setting will make the spin happen more slowly (and easier to counter) than the second setting.
What you mean by perfect? there are car bottoming in GT2 where the effect could be less wheel traction on body bottoming side (i am not sure)

sukerkin
I'm wondering if the fact that you're working with GT2 means that some of your observations are being distorted by this?

Maybe, but, since I don't work in automotive area, even though its nice to know what the real life physics does, I prefer reverse engineer GT physics for my tuning.

sukerkin · Jan 3, 2006

A point on how watching car oscillation can throw out your observations, is that an under-damped car can sometimes give you the same symptoms as an over-damped car.

This is because an over-damped car will not have had it's suspension return to 'zero' before encountering the next input whilst an under-damped one will overshoot 'zero' before encountering the next input.

It's because of circumstances like that that racing suspension tuning is still something of an intuitive 'art' rather than a science :eek:

.

The best rule of thumb is still to put ball-park damper values on the car and test drive it. The ball-park damper figures are determined by experience of how car weight affects this requirement (heavier cars need stiffer dampers to quell the higher inputs but rarely more than 6 Bound or higher than 9 Rebound).

A good way to think of how the dampers work is to envisage that the Bound value controls how the unsprung mass moves (the wheels essentially) whilst the Rebound determines how the sprung mass (the body of the car) moves. You therefore dial in the Bound for responsiveness and (in RL) comfort and Rebound to influence Over or Understeer behaviour in cornering transitions.

EDIT: What I meant by 'perfect' set-up in the previous post is that the game code took the input of 'slammed' suspension settings as a trigger for it to actually apply the perfect suspenion settings for that car i.e. ignore the players tuning input and use what would work best (a sort of in-game cheat-code). I don't know if it works on all cars I just know that on the Elise and the Esprit the effects were remarkable. I'm sure a search of the web would pull up some details on this, even if it was quite a while ago in game playing terms

.

Mt. Lynx · Jan 3, 2006

sucahyo
That's what I thought before testing 255 damper.
I can only tell the difference between 1 damper and 255 damper clearly (from car bouncing, not speed) when using 0.1 spring rate. Using normal 2.0 sping rate I hardly tell the difference. Using 20.0 spring rate I can't tell the difference. You can mistakes it easily with normal setting.

Sorry, I was thinking about high speed, hard spring, frequent bump (GT2 spesific). If the bump not frequent enough (GT4) soft is better. But I still think 10 is softer because of Team666 says that 10 will give you "WTF" handling.

"WTF" as in really jumpy and twitchy, ie hard!

It seems you are basing you facts on GT2, and I´m not sure they are comparable. I think the suspension physics is far more advanced in GT4 than in GT2, but thats just a guess, sinca I haven´t played GT2. But considering PD remade the physics all together for GT4, thats an educated guess.

I can prove to you that 1 is soft and 10 is hard. do this:
Use the car and setups posted :
Minolta Toyota 88C-V

Tyres F/R:
R3/R1

NOS: 70

Suspension F/R:
Springs - 4.0/4.0
Rideheight - 105/55
Damper Bound - 10/1
Damper Rebound - 10/1
Camber - 1.0/0.5
Stabilisers - 1/2

Gearing:
1 - 3.930
2 - 2.410
3 - 1.675
4 - 1.320
5 - 1.008
6 - 0.800
Final - 2.515
Auto - 25
Set final to max first, then max auto, adjust final to 2.215, and the rest as stated above.

Downforce F/R:
62/88

LSD: 60/60/15

Now, once you have tried these settings, do this:
change springrates to 20.0/20.0 and drive again.
Return springs to what they were before, and make dampers 10 all around. Drive again.

Conclusion:
20 is very hard springs, and are not advicable for any car, unless you want to jump it and not scratch the undercarriege. You feel and see how erratic the car is,
and most of all how badly it shakes?
Same for dampers. The harder damping in the rear of the car, makes it jittery and you wont be able to pull the same speed as with softer settings in the rear.

sucahyo · Jan 3, 2006

Team666
"WTF" as in really jumpy and twitchy, ie hard!

It seems you are basing you facts on GT2, and I´m not sure they are comparable. I think the suspension physics is far more advanced in GT4 than in GT2, but thats just a guess, sinca I haven´t played GT2. But considering PD remade the physics all together for GT4, thats an educated guess.

Hard in GT2 is 1, and "WTF" as in really jumpy and twitchy only happens when we use 10 and above, which is soft. So, if you say 10 give you jumpy then I say 10 is soft. Soft setting makes GT2 car jumpy, not hard.
I am aware that GT4 and GT2 can be different , and like Kazunori says, GT1, 2 & 3 is first generation, GT4 and beyond is second. That's why I am curious for the result. Next GT physics should be the same with GT4.

Team666
Conclusion:
20 is very hard springs, and are not advicable for any car, unless you want to jump it and not scratch the undercarriege. You feel and see how erratic the car is,
and most of all how badly it shakes?
Same for dampers. The harder damping in the rear of the car, makes it jittery and you wont be able to pull the same speed as with softer settings in the rear.

I still don't understand. I thought jittery happens when the wheel goes up and down too fast because the damper is too soft (10) to prevent it.
If you set it hard (1) it will become less jittery because damper will brake the wheel up and down movement.
In GT1 you feels jittery/loss speed when using 10 damper (hard) but I think it's a bug, because I never feel it when using 1 damper (hard) in GT2. Using 1 in GT1 (soft) and using 10 in GT2 (soft) with hard spring will make the car jumping around (wheel off the ground), the speed reduced because the wheel not planted on the road.
in GT2 using 10 damper will make the car follow bump smoothly, it shows clearly if you are using elise where you get less snappy spinning on bumpy corner, it start to spin little by little, which is very frustating. You know will eventually get spin, if you are skillfull you can keep the speed, if you are bad, you get a very big drift, if you are worst you get stop sideways. I still on the second one :dopey:

.

I agree that 20 spring rate is too hard, but in GT2 it's not so hard. You can win tuned turbo race in deep forest using 20/16 spring rate and 10/8 10/8 damper civic type r, winning against tommy kaira R34, mine R34 and mine Lancer, even though I have bellow average driving skill.

Scaff · Jan 3, 2006

sucahyo
That's what I thought before testing 255 damper.
I can only tell the difference between 1 damper and 255 damper clearly (from car bouncing, not speed) when using 0.1 spring rate. Using normal 2.0 sping rate I hardly tell the difference. Using 20.0 spring rate I can't tell the difference. You can mistakes it easily with normal setting.

I think part of the issue here is that you are comparing GT2 and GT4 settings, and as you say they are very different. It is quite easy to tell and feel the differences between soft and hard dampers and soft and hard springs without the use of extreme values.

A simple trip around Deep Forest (which is far bumpier in GT4 than any previous GT) illustrates this clearly, run a car with stiff suspension, then soften it and the differneces can be felt straight away.

sucahyo
Sorry, I was thinking about high speed, hard spring, frequent bump (GT2 spesific). If the bump not frequent enough (GT4) soft is better. But I still think 10 is softer because of Team666 says that 10 will give you "WTF" handling.

10 is without any doubht hard in GT4, I've spent the last nine months or so tuning and writing the guide, that 10 is stiff and 1 is soft I have no doubt at all. Once you tune a car in GT4 you will know what I mean.

sucahyo
If you can see car occilation, then you can see what happens when the car landing. Try filming the car landing using soft vs hard damper, use 2.0 spring rate, max ride height, and same speed.

To be honest I have done this, tuning a car in GT4 for a good time around the Nurburgring requires fine control over the suspension settings. In GT 4 even running high rumble strips or curbs can show problems with the damper settings.

sucahyo
Nice information, so, if we assume 2.0 spring rate is too soft and 20.0 is too hard then using 10.0 will be the optimum grip.
But, without testing, you shouldn't assume that 2.0 is grippier than 20.0 or 20.0 is gripper than 2.0. In GT2 10.0 is grippier (faster straight and cornering) than 2.0, 20.0 is grippier than 2.0, I never test 20.0 vs 10.0.
And in corner, less body roll (hard spring rate) give better grip.

None of this is without testing, nor is it an assumption. When cornering harder springs do mean less body roll, but this has nothing to do with giving better grip. Certainly in GT4, softer (too a point) equals more grip, just as it does in reality.

sucahyo
Many spring and damper tuning guide in this thread is more focusing on what they do to oversteer and understeer. They don't explain what's happen when you use all hard/soft spring or all hard/soft damper. And I don't agree that spring don't have effect on weight transfer.

I hate to say it, but my guide does state the efects of all hard/soft springs and/or hard/soft dampers; in fact it covers this for all relevent areas of tuning.

I'm sorry that you don't agree that spring rates don't have an effect on weight transfer. However the laws of physics can't be changed and put simply weight transfer in not effected by spring rates.

Spring rates dictate how much the car moves under weight transfer, remove the spring and replace it with a solid metal bar and the movement will be almost nil, the same amount of weight is going to transfer. Nothing you can do with spring (or damper) settings is going to change that.

Regards

Scaff

Mt. Lynx · Jan 3, 2006

sucahyo
Hard in GT2 is 1, and "WTF" as in really jumpy and twitchy only happens when we use 10 and above, which is soft. So, if you say 10 give you jumpy then I say 10 is soft. Soft setting makes GT2 car jumpy, not hard.
I am aware that GT4 and GT2 can be different , and like Kazunori says, GT1, 2 & 3 is first generation, GT4 and beyond is second. That's why I am curious for the result. Next GT physics should be the same with GT4.

I still don't understand. I thought jittery happens when the wheel goes up and down too fast because the damper is too soft (10) to prevent it.
If you set it hard (1) it will become less jittery because damper will brake the wheel up and down movement.
In GT1 you feels jittery/loss speed when using 10 damper (hard) but I think it's a bug, because I never feel it when using 1 damper (hard) in GT2. Using 1 in GT1 (soft) and using 10 in GT2 (soft) with hard spring will make the car jumping around (wheel off the ground), the speed reduced because the wheel not planted on the road.
in GT2 using 10 damper will make the car follow bump smoothly, it shows clearly if you are using elise where you get less snappy spinning on bumpy corner, it start to spin little by little, which is very frustating. You know will eventually get spin, if you are skillfull you can keep the speed, if you are bad, you get a very big drift, if you are worst you get stop sideways. I still on the second one .

If the car is jumpy and twitchy, it´s because the springs and/or the damping is too hard. If it is too soft, the car will sway and the body slowly bounce up and down. Very present at 300+mph. It will also cause the undercarrige to it the pavement from time to time.

sucahyo · Jan 4, 2006

sukerkin
This is because an over-damped car will not have had it's suspension return to 'zero' before encountering the next input whilst an under-damped one will overshoot 'zero' before encountering the next input.

It's because of circumstances like that that racing suspension tuning is still something of an intuitive 'art' rather than a science .

This is bad.........., If even a profesional racer has difficulty to tune the damper, what we can do .............

sukerkin
What I meant by 'perfect' set-up in the previous post is that the game code took the input of 'slammed' suspension settings as a trigger for it to actually apply the perfect suspenion settings for that car i.e. ignore the players tuning input and use what would work best (a sort of in-game cheat-code).

I see, perfect handling then. Not the fastest accel set-up though. I add the result later

Scaff
I think part of the issue here is that you are comparing GT2 and GT4 settings, and as you say they are very different. It is quite easy to tell and feel the differences between soft and hard dampers and soft and hard springs without the use of extreme values.

Maybe, but how do you differentiate soft and hard damper, how do you tell that the damper is too hard?

Scaff
10 is without any doubht hard in GT4, I've spent the last nine months or so tuning and writing the guide, that 10 is stiff and 1 is soft I have no doubt at all. Once you tune a car in GT4 you will know what I mean.

I really like to

.

Scaff
To be honest I have done this, tuning a car in GT4 for a good time around the Nurburgring requires fine control over the suspension settings. In GT 4 even running high rumble strips or curbs can show problems with the damper settings.

Can you explain it in detail? assuming the car has neutral handling.

Scaff
None of this is without testing, nor is it an assumption. When cornering harder springs do mean less body roll, but this has nothing to do with giving better grip. Certainly in GT4, softer (too a point) equals more grip, just as it does in reality.

Less body roll, means left and right wheel facing the road in more neutral angle. More body roll make inner wheel do the gripping more and with non neutral angle, making the car gripping with less wheel.

Scaff
I hate to say it, but my guide does state the efects of all hard/soft springs and/or hard/soft dampers; in fact it covers this for all relevent areas of tuning.

Yes, but many is theoritical, and I prefer experience telling.

Also are you sure about the bad side of stiff damper (10) : "Skips over bumpy surfaces, as suspension can’t react quickly enough." did you see it from the wheel cam?

Scaff
I'm sorry that you don't agree that spring rates don't have an effect on weight transfer. However the laws of physics can't be changed and put simply weight transfer in not effected by spring rates.

The amount is the same, but the weight that distributed to inner and outer wheel should be different. Well, that's what I can swallow.

From your opinion, changing spring rate should not affect acceleration and braking, but it does. Although weight transfer effect is much smaller than hard spring rate grip effect.
And I think what important is, hard spring rate give my B-Spec GT2 better laptime.

Team666
If the car is jumpy and twitchy, it´s because the springs and/or the damping is too hard. If it is too soft, the car will sway and the body slowly bounce up and down. Very present at 300+mph. It will also cause the undercarrige to it the pavement from time to time.

You seems to compare soft and hard spring rate, not damper. So, If the springs is both soft, can you explain what happens when the damper is 1 or 10 ? which has more bounce at 300+ mph?
IMO, more bounce = softer.

Mt. Lynx · Jan 4, 2006

sucahyo
You seems to compare soft and hard spring rate, not damper. So, If the springs is both soft, can you explain what happens when the damper is 1 or 10 ? which has more bounce at 300+ mph?
IMO, more bounce = softer.

Damping is for sure at its softest at 1, as the slow jumping is at its peak right there. At 10, the car shakes and vibrates badly in over 300 mph, and furthermore, if damping is set to 1, a higher speed will be possible, than if set to 10. This is because if the damping is too hard, it will not bound/rebound in large enough portions, thus making the car erratic.
Sometimes, especially if the car has strong downforce in the front, I set front rebound to 10, to help the car to "stand up", and minimizing the slow jumping.

Do you own GT4? Test the setup i posted yourself!

sucahyo · Jan 4, 2006

Team666
Damping is for sure at its softest at 1, as the slow jumping is at its peak right there. At 10, the car shakes and vibrates badly in over 300 mph, and furthermore, if damping is set to 1, a higher speed will be possible, than if set to 10.
Do you own GT4? Test the setup i posted yourself!

Sadly, I don't have GT4

. Just wondering if the twisted guide still carry on.......... and I still convince that it is.
Did that happens when using 2.0/2.0 spring rate?
Because I can't stop thinking that vibration comes from weak vertical brake (soft damper), a stick can't vibrate (hard damper). It seems like what sukerkin describe
"an under-damped one will overshoot 'zero' before encountering the next input."
I know that 1 damper can make faster time, previously from test, and now from knowing that using hard spring should be accompany by hard damper.

Sukerkin, this is the result, both using B-Spec driver, same type, upgrade and tire.
Blue : 2/2 spring, 89/89 ride height, 1/1 1/1 damper.
Red : 20/20 spring, 89/135 ride height, 1/1 1/1 damper.

2 second faster lap time is significant.

Scaff · Jan 4, 2006

sucahyo
Maybe, but how do you differentiate soft and hard damper, how do you tell that the damper is too hard?

By driving the car and watching it in replays.

Dampers too hard = Traction is lost easily, particularly over rises and crests. Bumps, curbs, etc cause the wheel to skip as it is not able to track the road easily. This is very visable on replays. The car will feel stiff and can skip around.

Damper too soft = Car rolls quickly and may ground if ride height is set to low. Wallowy feel over crests and bumps, car may carry on reacting after a bump has been encounter, particularly if the spring rate is also soft.

Damper just right = Car retains traction well over crest and rise and tracks surface changes well, with minimal impact on ride.

Dampers also need to be tuned to each track, a very flat track such as the High Speed Ring does not require soft damping as the track is very, very smooth. The Nurburgring on the other hand has many, many bumps, crests, rises and curbs. These require much softer dampers to allow the car to track these changes.

sucahyo
Can you explain it in detail? assuming the car has neutral handling.

I hope the above helps explain what I mean, but running very high damper settings on the 'ring (particularly in a light car) will result in a car that simple will not stay on track. Running my Caterham Fireblade at the 'ring I use Bound 1 and Rebound 2 (front & rear) anything higher and the suspension simply can't keep up with the changing surface on the track.

sucahyo
Less body roll, means left and right wheel facing the road in more neutral angle. More body roll make inner wheel do the gripping more and with non neutral angle, making the car gripping with less wheel.

Sorry, but I will say it again. The amount of body roll encountered does not change the level of grip (unless its so much that the car grounds). Body roll is simply how the car moves under weight transfer, spring rates determine how far it will move, dampers control how quickly it moves. Neither change how much weight is transfered.

Body roll itself is an effect, not a cause. The cause is the transfer of weight. Changing ride height, reducing the cars weight and/or adding balast (in GT4) will effect weight transfer, changing spring or dampoer settings does not.

Please have a read of Greyout's guide to Spring Stiffness and Weight Transfer (p14 - 16 of my guide or sticky here at GTP), which clearly shows how changing (in the example given) spring rates does not change the amount of weight transfered, just how it is distrubuted between the wheels at each end.

sucahyo
Yes, but many is theoritical, and I prefer experience telling.

I'm very sorry, but nothing in my guide is theoretical, I have over a dozen A4 notepads with tests details and results, everything I have written in the guide is based on tested set-ups in GT4.

Every bit is a result of experience with GT4 testing, as I say in the intro "The notes and techniques for tuning contained within this guide are not 100% real life, but rather the effects I have found from tuning in GT4"

sucahyo
Also are you sure about the bad side of stiff damper (10) : "Skips over bumpy surfaces, as suspension cant react quickly enough." did you see it from the wheel cam?

I am 100% sure about this, I've seen it from a number of camera angles, but more importantly you can feel it.

sucahyo
The amount is the same, but the weight that distributed to inner and outer wheel should be different. Well, that's what I can swallow.

Which is exactly what I have been saying.

sucahyo
From your opinion, changing spring rate should not affect acceleration and braking, but it does. Although weight transfer effect is much smaller than hard spring rate grip effect.
And I think what important is, hard spring rate give my B-Spec GT2 better laptime.

No what I said was that changing spring rates does not change the amount of weight transfered or the amount of traction generated by that transfer of weight. Springs, however play a much more complex role than that, as with damper settings they (should) ensure that the contact patch stays in contact with the road. Too hard and as torque from the driven wheels is applied the wheel can start to skip, softer spring rates (along with dampers) can help, to a small degree, the suspension cope with some of this skipping.

Regards

Scaff

Mt. Lynx · Jan 4, 2006

sucahyo
Sadly, I don't have GT4 . Just wondering if the twisted guide still carry on.......... and I still convince that it is.
Did that happens when using 2.0/2.0 spring rate?
Because I can't stop thinking that vibration comes from weak vertical brake (soft damper), a stick can't vibrate (hard damper). It seems like what sukerkin describe
"an under-damped one will overshoot 'zero' before encountering the next input."
I know that 1 damper can make faster time, previously from test, and now from knowing that using hard spring should be accompany by hard damper.

2.0/2.0 springs is as far as I´ve encountered, non-existent in GT4. The lowest I´ve seen so far is 3.5. Most racecars have 4.0 though. So it´s individual for cars. Damping is 1-10 though.
And as for hard damping compared to a stick. Well...
1. Even at 10, some movement will occure.
2. Let´s say no movement occurs. That would indeed make the car extremly hard to drive. It would jump high at any bump, understeer badly under braking, and most likely slide sideway in highspeed corners.

A damper set to 1 will not necessarily make faster time than a damper set to 10, that is totally depending on car and track, so thats not an accurate way to measure damping. Not in GT4. The only way to learn is by doing, and doing alot, like Scaff has more than enough experience from.

sukerkin · Jan 4, 2006

sucahyo
Sukerkin, this is the result, both using B-Spec driver, same type, upgrade and tire.
Blue : 2/2 spring, 89/89 ride height, 1/1 1/1 damper.
Red : 20/20 spring, 89/135 ride height, 1/1 1/1 damper.

You've lost me now, mate :confused:

.

How can you use a B-Spec driver in GT2?

Also, note that the effect I mentioned was for the race-car variant of the Elise (I can't really tell from the pics you linked but the cars didn't look to be that one (doesn't it only come in yellow?)).

One final thing, the ride height technique that you've employed to gain faster acceleration etc is called 'Wedging' in OLR circles. It was another 'feature' of GT2 whereby it's use would unrealistically influence a cars behaviour.

{As an aside, (unrelated to this disussion) it's also usually ruled to be an 'illegal' change in serious OLR, so it's probably best not to employ it in any of your racing (unless things have changed since my days in a GT2 cockpit of course :embarrassed:

)}.

On the general matter of this thread, I can only suggest that you do a little reading on race car engineering (I think I provided a number of links in a previous thread, if not let me know if you want them). No insult intended at all but there are certain clues in what you say that indicate a nearly-but-not-quite grasp of what the various parts of a suspension system really do. Once you've got that real world background pegged, I think you'll find it easier to discuss how it applies to the games physics engine.

sucahyo · Jan 5, 2006

I guess I should prepare my reason in a more proper way (I will post my GT2 slow motion wheel cam later), but initially, I see from the wheel cam that 10 damper has more movement than 1 damper on 20/20 spring rate.

And notes that no matter what the real value is, 10 is softer than 1 or 1 is softer than 10. The tuning will not change, because I am sure we tune using our feeling on the track, not theory.

Scaff, I guess I was wrong to call weight distribution changing as weight transfer. About the guide, I think its theory because you don't mention how you came up with it, sorry.
About braking, do you tune BBC using stand still weight dist? because you tune it first. As you say ride height affect weight dist, then isn't this make your BBC wrong for moving car if you change it later than BBC?

About spring rate, are you saying that "spring rate doesn't effect body roll" or
"body roll is happens because weight transfer and spring rate" ? The reason I post elise picture is because the only difference between them is spring rate, 0.1 vs 20.0. Or I was wrong to call the left image has more body roll?

Team666, I say 1 damper is faster than 10 because it makes it possible to use harder spring. And harder spring tested in GT2 give faster acceleration. So, if the spring is the same, damper will not make the car faster (side by side tested).

Sukerkin, to create B-Spec like, fill this address with 1 for computer control, 0 for default control (7 to stop your opponent

)
800A9E6A = 1st player
800AA9AA = 2nd player / 1st opponent
800AB4EA = opponent
800AC02A = opponent
800ACB6A = opponent
800AD6AA = opponent

I'll try racing elise later.
What is OLR?
Do wedging works for GT4 too? Duck seems to use it a lot.
I'll try finding your link.

sukerkin · Jan 5, 2006

Ah-ha! Okay, S, I had no idea that you could massage the memory addressing to give a B-Spec-like driver for the player car (long live PEEK and POKE it would seem

).

OLR stands for On-Line Racing i.e. the races that occur (not actually on-line for GT at the moment) between human drivers. There are quite a few fora here at the 'Planet (about eleven elements down the forum pick-list from this one).

Ride Height Wedging is a legitimate way of altering the handling capabilities of the car in all forms of racing (real or virtual), it's just that in GT2, minimum front height and maximum rear height had advantageous unrealistic effects. It's not a problem in GT4 as they sorted that 'feature' out.

I have noted that Duck uses physical wedging quite a bit in his tunings. Because personal style plays a large part in dialing in a car I won't say that it's wrong (many real world drivers use it after all), it's just that I don't like what it does to the general handling of the car - unlike Damper tuning, my personal favourite area of expertise, ride height disparity is an always-on change (by which I mean that it effects every motion of the car whether you're going in a straight line, cornering, accelerating or decelerating).

Kaizen, a very sound chap by the way, re-posted a few of the pertinent links in this thread https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/showthread.php?t=60369&page=1. It's worth reading the thread through as it covers quite a bit of the same ground as this one in terms of the workings of dampers not being fully understood 👍.

sucahyo · Jan 5, 2006

sukerkin
Ride Height Wedging is a legitimate way of altering the handling capabilities of the car in all forms of racing (real or virtual), it's just that in GT2, minimum front height and maximum rear height had advantageous unrealistic effects. It's not a problem in GT4 as they sorted that 'feature' out.

I see

sukerkin
Kaizen, a very sound chap by the way, re-posted a few of the pertinent links in this thread https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/showthread.php?t=60369&page=1. It's worth reading the thread through as it covers quite a bit of the same ground as this one in terms of the workings of dampers not being fully understood 👍.

I already download it

. But, the problem is, I can't fully believe it if it's not picture or video..........

And speaking of video, this is my GT2 test:
Both using 20/20 spring rate. All picture is taken from video with matching time.

damper 1 video

damper 10 video

Please ignore the image quality.
It's not switched, if you have GT2 you will get the same result. And I think if I use sukerkin description:
1 video fits "an over-damped car will not have had it's suspension return to 'zero' before encountering the next input"
10 video fits "an under-damped one will overshoot 'zero' before encountering the next input"

So, seeing damper in action is possible using non hybrid setting, with this, I will convince 1 is softer than 10 if there are GT4 video or picture of damper in action.

VIPFREAK · Jan 5, 2006

What car is that sucahyo?

GT4 Dampers

sucahyo

sukerkin

Scaff

VIPFREAK

sucahyo

VIPFREAK

Mt. Lynx

GT racing!

Scaff

VIPFREAK

VeilsideR33sub

Scaff

sucahyo

Scaff

sukerkin

sucahyo

sukerkin

Mt. Lynx

GT racing!

sucahyo

Scaff

Mt. Lynx

GT racing!

sucahyo

Mt. Lynx

GT racing!

sucahyo

Scaff

Mt. Lynx

GT racing!

sukerkin

sucahyo

sukerkin

sucahyo

VIPFREAK

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