Anomoly

[samj_13]

But he said that they all weigh the same. It may be just a minor glitch in the game, maybe the blue S4 is really a better car then the others. That's all I can think of, but I'm sure Famine could figure something out if only you had a MaxDrive.

 

[Luca]

Wait, there's one more hidden in-game effect that I remember being mentioned in a thread about GT3 a while back. I don't know if the same effect is present in GT4.

It was referred to as "break-in;" the idea was that a fresh car hasn't reached its full power potential. Instead, it takes several hundred miles for the car to break in, after which it increases power slightly. After some time, engine wear takes its toll and you see the horsepower drop again. I think the cycle was reset every time you got an oil change.

Still though, break-in and engine wear can't account for such radically different lap times. Have you tried using B-spec, or arcade mode? Arcade mode vs. actually lets you pick cars from your garage, but unfortunately you end up with only half the screen so you can't expect to do quite as well.

 

[Bram Turismo]

It does not take "severalhundreds of miles", maybe 50 miles will do it and I think after 22000 miles, that Audi will be broke-in a long time ago

 

[AlfaAlfa]

I ended up getting a max drive and sending my game save to Famine so hopefully he will find out what it is.

Even if it was "break in" though, it should be reflected in the horsepower figure and all four Audi's are at 408 hp.

Thanks for all the ideas...

I'm going to drive my Griffiths for awhile now as I've had enough of the S4's for today! :-)

 

[Moloch_horridus]

Whatever it is should be very noticable - those differences in aspec points are huge (post #25), almost 70 points - 200kg ballast would only add ~40 points and I think you would need at least 30 hp to make this difference. It will be very interesting to see what Famine finds.

 

[Alfaholic]

I remember reading a while back that there is actually such thing as engine damage in the game. Not chassis flex or dirty oil, but apparently you can actually cause permanent (if minor) damage to the engine if you over-rev too much. I remember someone testing it with the Team Oreca Viper - they compared a brand new one to one that had sat with the engine bouncing off the rev limiter for several minutes, and I think there was a difference.

Yes there was such a test. The permanent power drop that comes from use was apparently shown to be accelerated by over revving. However, the results of this were obvious from the power figures. If all these cars are showing the same power, then this is not the problem.

Remember though that there are a number of places in GT4 where you can see the car's power. Are all the cars showing the same power figure whereever it is shown, or are the figures the same at race start but, say, different in the setup screen or in the garage?

I suspect some kind of tyre bug. If this is so, it should be possible to match one type of tyre to a different type type on one of the other cars by checking lap times or acceleration runs (acceleration runs with TCS on to eliminate errors through loss of traction). If the superAudi on N1s performs (and, importantly, feels the same around a track) as the other Audis on, say, N3s or S1s, then the car has a tyre bug. Also, if it's tyres, can't you feel the difference on a track? The blue one would feel much better in the bends if it thinks it is on superior tyres. If it's power then the blue one will feel a bit better on the straights but will feel no better when cornering as it would run out of grip at the same time as the other cars. In fact, if the power increase is enough to give a second and a half per lap, then the car may feel slightly worse in corners as entry speeds will be higher and the throttle would be more sensitive.

If it has extra power this might be checked on the Test Track. If it has more power it will have a higher top speed - if it does not run out of revs in top gear. I don't think tyres have any effect on top speed, only on acceleration and braking.

Finally, my Alfa GTA felt much quicker in acceleration, braking, and throttle response, and was therefore more agile in bends, when I installed a racing clutch and flywheel, and carbon propshaft. This gave me nearly 2 seconds a lap around Tsukuba with no other mods, on N2 tyres, which is a substantial difference. These mods do not affect quoted power or weight figures, if memory serves, but will be obvious when driving from the faster gear changes.

 

[AlfaAlfa]

When I am looking at the garage list I can see four S4's in a row and down the power column it reads:

408
408
408
408

so it's not because I'm taking power figures from various places.

As far as feeling the difference, that's the clearest part. The aspec points just confirmed what was obvious immediately upon switching cars. It feels exactly like the blue one is fitted with better tires. It's just that, according to my settings adjustment menu - it is not actually fitted with better tires.

I have also checked the settings menu probably about seven times on each car (actually I bet it's more times than that!) to be sure because I just can't believe it. I always think, "man - I must be missing something somewhere." Like how Imprezas often come with an adjustable center differential but you'd never know unless you looked at the setting for it. Or how some cars have unexpected downforce available that I might neglect to check. But every time I check I see no difference between how the cars are set up. The gear ratios are down to the decimal point. Camber, toe, springs, driving aids,all match exactly. Parts that are equipped are matched. I will probably check again today!

Also I will try your top speed test and see if there's a difference, though I'm pretty sure the blue one has the same power - it just grips better! :-)

 

[Hypnotoad]

Well, sometimes cars are built better than others for whatever reason..

Maybe they just threw in a few special versions of certain models and you've found one??

 

[CRXnut]

So Famine, what did you find ?

 

[AlfaAlfa]

Well the top speed test turned out weird. The blue one was the slowest in both top speed and lap time. And all the S4's were faster on the curve than they were on the straight.

Blue S4:

189 mph top speed (on curve)
185 mph down straight
lap time - 2'05.153


Black S4:

194 mph top speed (on curve)
191 mph down straight
lap time - 2'01.632

The yellow and brown Audi's were comparable to the black one. This was on hard sports tires.

I tried putting the black S4 on hard RACING tires too to see if it would make it more like the blue one but it added one more mph on the curve (195) and cut the lap time by about 3 tenths of a second (2'01.359).

So I guess even though it came out the opposite of how I expected, it still shows a signifigant difference between supposedly identical cars.

And BTW I rechecked all the power and weight figures and the parts and settings again. I can't find anything different.