Car handling --- Different online

[GrahamTurismo]

Are you changing any suspension settings that may be giving you a different effect from what you're used to in real life? Or even changing suspension settings in real life that you aren't changing in the game? And if they are in fact, 'the same,' perhaps it's not the physics engine but a poorly implemented translation of suspension behavior....

 

[panjandrum]

OK, some of us are having problems with cars not handling the same online as offline. In particular I'm having extreme problems with the Yellowbird and the Alpines. Not only do they handle poorly online, they *feel like completely different cars*. In other words, their dynamics are all off. Here is a movie which I threw together which illustrates this issue with annotations. I tried to make it at least somewhat amusing so that it would be worth watching.

The important thing to notice is how differently the Alpine handles offline and online. Pay special attention to how comfortable I am with the weight-balance of the car (it is very similar to my Porsche 912E; somewhat more neutral than a 911) and how I'm comfortable shifting the weight balance around to use the rearward weight bias of the car (the "pendulum effect"), counter-steering, initiating oversteer by flicking the weight around either with the wheel or the brakes. If you were to see me autocross or ice-race you would see that I use essentially identical techniques during those events. Please take my word for it when I say that I'm very, very comfortable in RR cars in real life, both for daily driving and amateur motorsports. In fact, I like them so much that I almost can't stand to drive anything else. I'm sure that there are many other people here who drive the RUFs and Alpines and love them for exactly this same reason, even if only in-game.

There are basically 2 laps offline, one on sports softs and one on comfort softs. Then I go into online mode and demonstrate the same car with a few different tire configurations. It has been lightened and has additional power, but the suspension is stock. (Don't let the tuning be a red-herring; I've also tried the cars completely stock, and the same basic problems apply. Tuning does, however, make the problems a bit worse, so it actually works well in demonstrating the differences. And yes, if I were going for the fastest possible lap I would be more reserved regarding the drift-angle, but that also isn't the point.)

My primary point here is that none of the handling methods which should work with the car do so. It is a completely different car in offline and online modes. Additionally, in online mode it is completely unrealistic. The Yellowbird also suffers badly from similar issues.

Hopefully this will help those of you who aren't having problems understand why those of us who are consider this a very serious flaw:

Offline and Online handling of the Alpine 1600s

The car is on stock suspension (did I say that already?)

 

[TheDrummingKING]

So, seeing as I don't think any of you have noticed, in online races you can't roll over..

I'll post a video later today..

 

[shirakawaa]

My conclusion after several tests is that cars in online races handle differently because they are about 75-80 Kg heavier due to the 100 liters fuel load on the (usually) rear axle. I've made some tests, and even acceleration times are slower, and the time difference seems to be consistent with this. For example, the stock Citroen 2CV 0-80 Km/h acceleration time on the main straight of Fuji Speedway worsens by about 4 seconds. On a 180 hp 4x4 720 Kg car (Daihatsu Move SR-XX 4WD) I measured the difference in the 0-100 Km/h time to be about 0.3 seconds. Of course the handling was much different too, with the rear end feeling "heavy".

It looks like fuel weight is not taken into account in most offline races (it isn't even in Time Trial or Arcade single races with tire/fuel depletion activated). However it is in online races.

Note how especially small, light underpowered cars or cars with "on the edge" suspension set-ups are affected (often to the point of being undrivable online).

Also tires appear to start colder than usual online than offline. It takes a bit more time to get them to their correct operating temperature, and in the first few corners you have to pay much attention in order to avoid crashing into walls or barriers.

Anyway, the easiest way to test the difference is measuring acceleration times with slow cars with a stopwatch. All cars I've tested seem slower online. Can anyone make any other comparison on long straights offline/online?

By the way, personally I think that the inclusion of "standard 100 liters fuel tanks" is a serious fault that needs to be addressed as soon as possible by PD. Many GT5 cars have in real life fuel tanks that are a third or even a fourth of that. Also fuel weight should be always taken into account, not only in offline races. I guess that has something to do with the fact that fuel and tire depletion is enabled only in Extreme and Endurance races, another choice that I really can't understand. This is an issue that needs to get much visibility.

 

[BWX]

The fact that you CAN flip a car in off-line mode and that you CANNOT flip a car in on-line mode says everything. Physics are completely different and the different physics don't have to do with all these variables such as tire wear, fuel load, etc. Not being able to flip a car means it's a different physics model.

That sucks because GT Life off-line physics are amazing, really well done. It's a huge problem that we can't race online with the good physics but have to use dumbed down GT5p physics-- which suck compared to GT Life physics. Just one more inconsistency and disappointment from GT5. I love GT5, but all these problems are adding up.

 

[shirakawaa]

If the center of gravity of the added fuel load is unrealistically low (the "standard" 100 liters fuel tank capacity is already unrealistic in most cases, so there are reasons to doubt that its physical parameters could be unrealistic too), it can be enough to prevent any car, not only light ones, from rolling over online even if it's just about 80 Kg of added weight. Have you already tried depleting most of the fuel before trying to roll your car over online (this test could take much time on many cars, though) ?

 

[TheDrummingKING]

If the center of gravity of the added fuel load is unrealistically low (the "standard" 100 liters fuel tank capacity is already unrealistic in most cases, so there are reasons to doubt that its physical parameters could be unrealistic too), it can be enough to prevent any car, not only light ones, from rolling over online even if it's just about 80 Kg of added weight. Have you already tried depleting most of the fuel before trying to roll your car over online (this test could take much time on many cars, though) ?

Trust me, in the video I will be posting after school today, you will see that it isn't because of fuel and that it is physically impossible to flip over online.

 

[shirakawaa]

Have you already tried? Personally I think there's a good possibility it's because of that, since acceleration times are already affected by an amount coherent with the added weight.
By unrealistically low, I meant that the CoG of the full 100 liters fuel tank could actually be below the car, significantly affecting its dynamics (and thus, rollovers).

 

[GrahamTurismo]

I appreciate the theory of the fuel tank and that there might be something to it not only affecting the handling but also the straight line acceleration of lower powered cars when fuel weight isn't accounted for offline.

Here is a movie which I threw together which illustrates this issue with annotations. I tried to make it at least somewhat amusing so that it would be worth watching.

It would be more worth watching if you just focused on being informative as opposed to amusing. Your musical taste aside (which I won't say is horrible but unnecessary for your video), the video was still informative. It looks a lot like situations I get myself into. I have noticed that if you start to slide when you didn't intend to, it's almost impossible to save it. I tend to get those tankslappers a lot if I manage to drop a wheel in the grass accidentally. And after watching your video it seems as if it's not so much the handling, but actually the tire grip. Perhaps Racing Soft tires online are only about as grippy as Sport Soft offline or something to that effect?

 

[panjandrum]

OK, here is another video (much shorter) illustrating the "steady state sweeper" problem with the Yellowbird that I have online. First a clip from an offline lap on sports softs, and then online with the same tires. Then 2 attempts online with a stupid staggered racing tire configuration that I shouldn't need to waste my time trying if PD had their act together. (Seriously, did they test GT5 at all?) Notice how much smoother I have to be with this car than with the Alpine. She's definitely got a much hotter temper Throttle-steering a car with a heavy rearward weight bias is demanding but highly rewarding. Yellowbird is stock.

Stock Yellowbird Steady State Sweeper issue in online mode

 

[panjandrum]

The fact that you CAN flip a car in off-line mode and that you CANNOT flip a car in on-line mode says everything. Physics are completely different and the different physics don't have to do with all these variables such as tire wear, fuel load, etc. Not being able to flip a car means it's a different physics model.

That sucks because GT Life off-line physics are amazing, really well done. It's a huge problem that we can't race online with the good physics but have to use dumbed down GT5p physics-- which suck compared to GT Life physics. Just one more inconsistency and disappointment from GT5. I love GT5, but all these problems are adding up.

The more I try various cars offline and then compare them to the performance online the more I agree. There is something different in the physics model. Some cars handle in an at least similar manner in both physics models, and some handle completely differently, but every car I've driven, even if it handles in a similar manner in a technical sense, still "feels" different through the wheel. There is simply no way this could be down to a single element like fuel weight or tire temperature (also, most of you here are vastly overestimating the effects these things have on car handling. If cold tires had as little grip as I get in the Yellowbird or Alpine online, then motorsports like Autocross would be simply impossible without special tires. Yes, cold tires have less grip, but they don't have 90% less grip. Yes fuel has weight, but I can hold 130 pounds of gasoline in the front of either Porsche I do motorsports in, and I do in fact use various amounts of fuel to do exactly what you are talking about: modify the handling of the cars. But the effects between say a full tank and 1/8 tank are quite minimal on tarmac. When I am ice racing the effects are more pronounced, but still nothing that could be considered extreme.) So as far as I can tell, not only are the online physics a completely different model, they are also a completely wrong model (at least in the general type of cars which I know best and feel I can reasonably accurately judge. I'm perfectly willing to accept that this doesn't effect all cars the same way.)

*Rant on*

Why PD would do this is baffling. Did they think that people driving certain models would be happy having to learn two completely different ways to drive the exact same car? Did they think people wouldn't notice? Was development of GT5 so fragmented that the people designing the online and offline modes never got together, tested things and then said "oh my goodness we've got a huge problem here!"? Did they get together but then fail to test more than a handful of what turned out to be well-behaved cars and then say "good enough for our fans." Whether accidental or purposeful it is downright insulting that they have foisted this bizarre dual physics system on us, and I think it shows a tremendous level of disrespect on their part.

*Rant off*

 

[TT3AZ]

On certain tracks in online play "feel" that the physics differ from offline playing. If this is imagination or some fault, its hard to tell.

 

[shirakawaa]

The more I try various cars[...]

Let's say for example that the fuel tank location is the same for all cars and that for an error, it's got an unrealistically low center of gravity. This image graphically shows what I mean (fuel tank in red):

Even if in real life this is obviously impossible, in the game it could lead to the very weird rear-end heavy behavior (influencing straight line performance too) that I found on online races, especially with light cars.
Try thinking out of the box. Would such a fuel tank placement be consistent with the different behavior you get from your cars?

 

[panjandrum]

Let's say for example that the fuel tank location is the same for all cars and that for an error, it's got an unrealistically low center of gravity. This image graphically shows what I mean (fuel tank in red):

Nice schematic

It's a nice theory and thank you very much for actually trying to help figure this all out rather than just insisting "there is no difference" like a number of posters above.

However, the scenario you suggest would not cause the handling differences I experience. There are a lot of great books on racing techniques which go into balance, weight shifting, etc.

But the short version is this:

As a general rule the heavier the back of a car is in relationship to the front, the more planted the rear is under acceleration and the more likely they are to understeer (you squeeze the throttle down, weight shifts backwards, already light front gets even lighter. Light front=less pressure down on tires=less grip=more willingness to understeer or "push"). Thus RR cars like many models of Porsche, Classic VW Beetles, Alpines, etc. are less likely to break traction at the rear under acceleration than, say an FR car. It is also this effect which makes them such a joy to drive when you know how to do it well. (But when you do manage to break their traction on-throttle they can be very difficult to control because of the pendulum effect.) Also, as a general rule, they tend to lift-off-oversteer more dramatically as the rear gets heavier in relationship to the front. This is also OK until you break the rears completely loose during deceleration. This is why some (or most) RR cars are known for their "snap oversteer". However, they don't do this except when the driver muffs it up badly (Jeremy Clarkson is a great example of a very funny man. However his driving is somewht ham-fisted and clumsy, which is why until recently he always hated Porsche 911s. He simply didn't understand how to drive them). Watch some videos of classic Porsche races and you'll see the drivers who know how to use the weight balance of the car properly, and you'll see some who don't. The ones who do will often look like the are "drifting" ever so slightly around any corner where it is appropriate to do so. (The is not specific only to Porsches, I'm just using that as an example because I know them well.)

So, let's take your theory and apply it to the Alpine in the video I put together above. What you'll notice is that online the car is indeed snapping into oversteer under braking or just when throttle-lifting, whereas offline it does this in a controllable and much more realistic way. So at this point your theory holds up very well because the added weight would make the car harder to control once that rear lateral traction is broken. But, you'll also notice that the Alpine is much more likely to oversteer ON throttle, and this is completely wrong. Adding weight to the rear of a car as you suggest would tend to make the rear tires harder to break free under power, not easier, and would tend to make the car understeer on-throttle, not oversteer.

 

[BWX]

I raced online last night (this morning) for about 5 hrs. I raced with two cars I have completely upgraded with no RaceMod. The 2010 WRX STI and '10 Camaro SS. The Camaro is very fast (w/705 HP) in GT Life mode and with race tires handles very good. Online it is a bear to drive even with race medium or soft. The ass-end ALWAYS is trying to get in head of the front end. It is still fun, but very hard to drive and nowhere near as fast around corners.

The STI is a different story. Online it definitely isn't as glued to the road as in GT Life mode, but still fast around corners. The rearend is much "looser" on-line though, and setup changes need to be tweeked to compensate. I race with no driving aids- not even "1" on the ABS, so I get a real good feel for the cars. Plus I use these cars a lot in GT Life mode.

Hey, what happened to saving different setup profiles?? With two separate physics models we need that more than ever! Am I just not seeing it or is it not there?

 

[GrahamTurismo]

It's not there.

Also I'm beginning to wonder...

Since we know we can't roll cars over online and that they physics model is different, maybe they did that on purpose because if not people would just be rolling all the time on purpose. Perhaps they have the intention of adding the more realistic physics model somewhere down the road once everyone has had a chance to get used to the new physics in A-spec.

 

[panjandrum]

I raced online last night (this morning) for about 5 hrs. I raced with two cars I have completely upgraded with no RaceMod. The 2010 WRX STI and '10 Camaro SS. The Camaro is very fast (w/705 HP) in GT Life mode and with race tires handles very good. Online it is a bear to drive even with race medium or soft. The ass-end ALWAYS is trying to get in head of the front end. It is still fun, but very hard to drive and nowhere near as fast around corners.

The STI is a different story. Online it definitely isn't as glued to the road as in GT Life mode, but still fast around corners. The rearend is much "looser" on-line though, and setup changes need to be tweeked to compensate. I race with no driving aids- not even "1" on the ABS, so I get a real good feel for the cars. Plus I use these cars a lot in GT Life mode.

Hey, what happened to saving different setup profiles?? With two separate physics models we need that more than ever! Am I just not seeing it or is it not there?

Yep they took out ability to have 3 presets per car. You know, pretty much every time I find something I really like about GT5 along comes 2 or 3 things I think are unforgivable. Have you noticed how the suspension settings you apply online don't seem to "stick" either? So that you have to continually reset them?

Can you imagine the thought process on this one?

1) Look we have 2 physics models, should we do something about that?
2) Naw, Who cares? And besides, we have to go render the interior of a Japanese econobox in glorious HD!
3) At least players can save a special setup for online racing in one of their 3 tuning presets
4) Let's remove 2 of those presets, just because that will give us time to render the interior of one more Japanese econobox in glorious HD!
5) Great idea!
6) Uhoh, do you notice that online settings don't stick, they'll have to set it up again every time they race online!
7) Who cares, let's go render the inside of yet another identical Japanese econobox in glorious HD!
8) Yeah, cool, that sounds good!

This is what I mean about this being downright disrespectful. If you cared about your customers at all, you just couldn't come up with a scenario like what we are seeing here.

I'm collecting 2 of each of the cars I want to drive online. One for online and one for offline, in hopes that at some point in the future they will at least fix this ridiculous inability to save settings.

 

[jabo5778]

so i guess the only thing left to do is find out from the man himself..... alright who's volunteering to write it up?? The bottom line is regardless of how much fun I am having with this game both online and off, we really need to know. Especially because Sony is holding a contest online in what like 4 days and I think its bs that most of us are just now trying to relearn the online way to drive which is much more babying and after a while frustrating. That's my only explanation for it, they made the online physics very touchy with an emphasis on detail because their holding this big contest and they need to separate out those who don't want to drive online 24/7 for the next 4 months to try and win....

I do have a question though for anyone who has actual racing experience and thinks that there are two different physics models...... which is more realistic, on or offline?? Cause after this tournament that me and just about everyone else is going to fail at I would rather spend my time on what's more real......

 

[jabo5778]

o and one other thing that I think a lot of you have overlooked since you all seem hooked on grip driving..... what do the drifters have to say???? I've tried to drift one time since I got this game so I really wouldnt know, but if it is a different model then a car that is setup to drift offline perfectly would most likely be screwed up online. I mean drifting is such a feel thing I bet someone really good at it could tell in two seconds.

 

[BWX]

My Camaro drifted well off-line, doubt it would do well online.

I just noticed about the settings not sticking a few hrs ago. I had a SWEET setup on my STI for online racing yesterday.. I was going to write it down but figured I would do it sometime before I changed the settings. I go online again tonight and realise most of my setup changes are GONE!! WTF. Now I'll never get back to that exact setup... I didn't even try to memorize it.. DAMN #$$#$ %%%$#$$%** $#@@#$%^ %$# ing SONY

 

[panjandrum]

I do have a question though for anyone who has actual racing experience and thinks that there are two different physics models...... which is more realistic, on or offline??

I suppose I can only offer you a concise answer in regards to the RR cars I've tried, since I do motorsports in cars where the handling should be similar (and in fact is very similar offline). Two of the three cars I use in real life motorsports (autocross and ice-racing) share a chassis and suspensions which is close to identical to the Yellowbird and BTR. And the answer there is that offline is more realistic. In fact online isn't just a little unrealistic in these cars, it is downright wrong. I do think that in offline mode the cars are actually a bit too easy to catch after a blunder, but the overall feel is correct. The Alpines and Yellowbird respond properly to inputs as RR cars do in the real world. So a bit too easy, but basically correct. Online these same cars simply do not respond like RR cars do in the real world. (If you haven't watched them, watch the videos I posted above. It's night-and-day, black-and-white. No grey area. You get the idea...)

I have much more limited motorsport experience in FF, AWD and FR cars, so I can't judge them with as much accuracy, but most of this has already been discussed above in this same thread.

 

[Killer2142GT4]

Yes same here.

Try Lamborghini Murcielago on Daytona Speedway.

Offline you can go through the corners full throttle while online i have yet to master the corner without spinning the car.

Same with Highspeed ring and other MR cars.

Another example is the Lancia Stratos Rally car. Simply impossible to drive.

 

[panjandrum]

Another example is the Lancia Stratos Rally car. Simply impossible to drive.

Thats a good example. And of course the Stratos (both road and rally) should be very difficult to drive. Difficult, but not impossible (for kicks lookup some real Lancia Stratos videos online. There are a few around. I've never seen anything else that handled so sideways. I would very much love to drive one of them in real life since I absolutely love loose cars).

But the real issue here is consistency and realism. Even if we assume that offline is too easy (which IMHO it probably is; you can be awfully clumsy offline and still recover), at least the dynamics are correct. Because the offline dynamics are correct, things feel convincing even if you can be a bit of a clod while driving and get away with it. Online may be more accurate in terms of overall difficulty, but in the process PD has managed to use an online physics system in which the dynamics of certain cars is completely wrong. So then you are left with a system which doesn't feel right at all and is just frustrating. And in terms of consistency, why do we have two systems anyway? It's just bizarre.

At any rate, this is basically the last straw for me. At this point GT5 has far too many serious flaws for me to invest any more time in it. It's sad, because despite playing a ton of other sims now, GT4 was always my favorite. A few weeks into GT5 and I'm sick of it. I just can't stand the thought of trying to tune all the cars I want to drive online just to get them to perform with some degree of realism. I suppose if I wanted to drive one of the many car models which aren't so greatly changed online, then it wouldn't matter as much to me. But as it stands, not one of the cars I want to race online behaves anywhere near correctly, while most of the cars I don't want to use seem pretty much OK. My GT5 disc went back in the box earlier tonight and won't be going back in my PS3 for a good long while...

 

[vinze1129]

I felt this difference too. Maybe its caused by the lag times for online races. Pls correct me if i am wrong.

thx guys...

Fair race drivers are to be given a credit.

 

[That-guy-again]

I was wondering about this as well. I was grinding for the FGT with my Elise 111r rm at Rome for an hour or so yesterday. The entire time I'm just flying. I was even trying to get the back end to slip out to see if it would, not even close. Then I go online with a few friends and the rear is sliding out on turns that I've been rocketing out of for over an hour. The FGT even wanted to slide on me half throttle once or twice. BTW I'm using DFGT all assists off except abs 1.

 

[Inferno251]

i do feel a difference in handling when online. I was driving my FGT online today using the car's default settings,and i noticed that,even with TCS and ABS on,it spins out if I exit the corner too fast or turn too much. This,however,doesn't happen in A-Spec mode when I use the default settings. I don't know why...

 

[gtuuk73]

As far as Nascar goes I can do 42.1s at daytona online, but when i go offline im turning 41.3s. Im not sure why its diffrent but it is.

 

[Nonomori]

Some of you guys saying the car slides a lot exiting turns... couldn't it be that TCS is disabled on that room even if you set it to 1 using your wheel while on the track? All the cars I've driven online and offline behave pretty much the same. The only difference is the fuel weight and the tyre wear, which makes the driving more delicate on the first 1 or 2km and after 40-50km (racing soft).

 

[klondike]

Some of you guys saying the car slides a lot exiting turns... couldn't it be that TCS is disabled on that room even if you set it to 1 using your wheel while on the track? All the cars I've driven online and offline behave pretty much the same. The only difference is the fuel weight and the tyre wear, which makes the driving more delicate on the first 1 or 2km and after 40-50km (racing soft).

we are using the same settings online as offline.

When i go online and host my own lobby I always set the restrictions to no aids allowed, and i can defenetly feel that my cars behave different too when im using the same cars offline.

 

[panjandrum]

Some of you guys saying the car slides a lot exiting turns... couldn't it be that TCS is disabled on that room even if you set it to 1 using your wheel while on the track? All the cars I've driven online and offline behave pretty much the same. The only difference is the fuel weight and the tyre wear, which makes the driving more delicate on the first 1 or 2km and after 40-50km (racing soft).

If you read the thread, you will find that fuel weight and and tire wear have been conclusively ruled out as the sole cause of this. So popping in and saying "the only difference is fuel weight and tire wear" really isn't helping. You may simply be driving cars which don't suffer from this issue very much. But if you don't bother to read the thread, watch the videos, etc., then why bother to post? Let us know what controller, car and track you are using. Contribute instead of running around saying "I believe the earth is flat; ergo the earth is flat."