Forza 4 VS GT5 (read the first post before you contribute)

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For me FM4 has more than surpassed GT5 and PD have a lot of work to do if they wish to retain me as a customer for GT6 (and Sony in turn with regard to the PS4).

For me GT6 is a no-buy as is the PS4. I've wasted enough time, effort and money on the promise of GT5 and was disappointed , very disappointed. I'll have to get the word from guys like you and others that GT6 is manna from heaven before I go down that road again.
 
As things stand now the only area I personally see GT5 being ahead in is simply sales numbers, a situation that I believe has caused them to loose focus on what for many is vital to a sim title. As it stands now the have already effectively lost one customer and I'm sure I'm not alone.

You are not alone, indeed.
 
As it stands now the have already effectively lost one customer and I'm sure I'm not alone.

Well, I most certainly won't buy it straight when it comes out, that's for sure. But if it does get decent reviews, and iff it does include a livery editor (that really is a must-have for me now), I may purchase GT6. On the other hand, I'll most likely pre-order F5, and purchase any hardware it may require.
 
I'm aware of that but it's not only that it doesn't have FFB but it also wont give you 900° of rotation. Bottom line is its not comparable. He mine as well have just used a controller. You can't use a wheel that functions properly on a PS3 and use that same wheel that hardly functions on the xbox and get fair results.

Maybe i'm just late to the party and missed something...

Yeah definitely on Forza. It was set up on a sort of demo pod at some event I attended in Cardiff, I forget what for. I did notice GT5 felt a million times better with that particular wheel though. But like I said, I don't pretend to know too much about steering wheels.
 
Even in a stock car, if you hit the curb on the inside of a turn, there is a good chance the car will roll over. The suspension does not absorb any of the impact.

I can't say much on this as I've only tried the demo, but I haven't even seen a car come close to rolling F4.

Not only that, but I feel like the grip of the car is handled in a very arbitrary way. In real life, if you have two cars of similar weight with the same tires, they have about the same maximum grip(subjective handling and transitions, oversteer/understeer will be totally different, but I'm talking maximum steady-state grip) In Forza, it seems to depend on some unknown x-factor that is built into each car. It's hard to describe, but it feels contrived, like each car has a base value for grip (as in it's not calculated from the geometry of the car/chassis, chassis stiffness and other real world factors) and the different tires just function as multipliers for this base value.

Is this supposed to be in comparison to GT5? GT5 pretty much does this, it's all but confirmed. Tires determine your lateral grip, that's it. Downforce will multiply it, suspension has zero effect, and neither does adding a weight ballast.

At least when I played F3, I could get the lateral grip to change without touching tires. From what I've seen in F4, the same applies. But like I said, at the moment I don't own a 360 or F4.

For example, I was trying to race in a class S race with an RX-8, offline. The RX-8 had racing tires and yet was unable to maintain the same speed as the other, stock-tired, S class cars through the corners. It even had full aero. It should have handled like a race car, and it just didn't.

If F4's tuning options are like those in F3, then I'm not sure if you would be able to turn a road car into a full on race car to rival something like an ALMS GT car. I remember making a monster out of the Dodge Stealth in F3, but the car wasn't all that competitive because even with maxed tire size, it couldn't find enough grip. Only GT currently gives you the option to turn a road car into a full fledged race car (via Race Modification). In Forza, you just make an extremely fast road car that still has a lot of the original car's character and limitations.
 
For me GT6 is a no-buy as is the PS4. I've wasted enough time, effort and money on the promise of GT5 and was disappointed , very disappointed. I'll have to get the word from guys like you and others that GT6 is manna from heaven before I go down that road again.

:) as much as I'd love to say I wouldn't buy GT6 until after it was released and 'proven' to be what GT5 should have been, I'm a sucker for any new tech, especially if it has a sim-esque decent racer on it!

But, as it stands, I like hotlapping, and I'm always scratching my head when people say GT5 is much better then FM4 in how it feels on a wheel..

I can only think that people measure FFB in two different ways.

GT5 gives me feedback about the 'road', but not much about the tyres, FM4 gives me feedback about the tyres and not much about the road.

But on balance, even if I play both for extended periods, it's always GT5's numb tyre feedback that actually wears me down into it just feeling more like a game, and i'm sure that's a personal preference!
 
:) as much as I'd love to say I wouldn't buy GT6 until after it was released and 'proven' to be what GT5 should have been, I'm a sucker for any new tech, especially if it has a sim-esque decent racer on it!

But, as it stands, I like hotlapping, and I'm always scratching my head when people say GT5 is much better then FM4 in how it feels on a wheel..

I can only think that people measure FFB in two different ways.

GT5 gives me feedback about the 'road', but not much about the tyres, FM4 gives me feedback about the tyres and not much about the road.

But on balance, even if I play both for extended periods, it's always GT5's numb tyre feedback that actually wears me down into it just feeling more like a game, and i'm sure that's a personal preference!

I think both are important, and that is one of the main problems when switching between the two. With FM4's FFB, I can tell what the tires are doing, therefore making drifting, car control, catching slides, and threshold braking easier and better. With GT5's FFB, you can better tell where the car is on the road, which is why many people say hotlapping feels better on GT5. I agree with this statement because for hotlapping I would much rather know where my car is in relation to the apex and track out than how much grip exactly the tires have.
 
I think both are important, and that is one of the main problems when switching between the two. With FM4's FFB, I can tell what the tires are doing, therefore making drifting, car control, catching slides, and threshold braking easier and better. With GT5's FFB, you can better tell where the car is on the road, which is why many people say hotlapping feels better on GT5. I agree with this statement because for hotlapping I would much rather know where my car is in relation to the apex and track out than how much grip exactly the tires have.

I really don't feel anything in GT5, it feels heavy. But dead, with the odd twitch when you hit a bump in the road. Forza's feedback while not great, is certainly better than GT5's due to the fact that you can feel what the car is doing.
 
I'l tell you why most people were dissapointed with GT5, the simple fact being hype, 5 years in development with constant press conferences, turning up at E3 every year with a trailer or ideas or a speech will do that. Forza definately prevails when it comes to the community based parts where as GT5 is based more on the in depth descriptions of the cars, their backgrounds etc.
Either game can be played a different way, Forza if you wished you could spend endless months only in the auction house trying to get every car for a decent price and making money that way (which is what my dad seems to be doing as of late) and GT5 can be a collectors game as well if you want to.
One more thing is the car limit... when I first heard about GT5's 2000 car limit I was rather annoyed as I do like to keep 2 of every car (one stock and one finely tuned to a point), now this can be quite a problem with 1100 cars, but then I recently had the forza problem... 550 cars... seriously? there are now a total of 628 car in the game and I can't even have one of each for myself? Now that is ridiculous, and yes I know about the huge save game size with saved designs, tunes etc but surely the could have atleast put the limit up with each DLC, otherwise they are just making certain cars from everyones garage obselete and pointless. I know there will always be a few people who keep their garage clean with only 100 cars or so, but what about us collectors who like to personalize every car in the game and call it ours?
If you don't want to get GT6 in 4 or so years time that's your decision to make but rather than jumping to conclusions about the next game how about you remeber that people learn from their mistakes and the fact that both Turn10 and PD have been listening to the fans (Turn10 with Porsche and PD with in race saving, more A-Spec and B-Spec etc.).
I have been playing both games since day 1 Forza and Gran Turismo, now when Forza 1 came out, it was brilliant uncomparable to GT4 in terms of fun, but they haven't really progressed. With GT4 it was more of a serious game than anything else, tons more events more cars etc. But from that in some ways PD has gone backwards, in others forwards.
I will not compare the games with a wheel because Microsoft like to be cheap and make sure you can only use a Microsoft wheel.
As a photgrapher GT5 is an absolute dream to work with, the options are simple and realistic, you can move round the entire track freely without being restricted, whereas Forza, the options are strange the effects that they bring on are odd and you can't move very far from the car.
Now a big point: draw distance.
Ever wondered why there is quite a lot of fog on the Nurburgring on Forza, I think you can guess. The draw distance problem on GT5 is only really on Sarthe on the main straight, and is rather annoying if are looking behind you to see where the opposition might be.
Mirrors, Forza's mirrors seem to be running at 20fps, which is rather annoying and kind of offputting, GT5 seems to hadle the reflections rather strangely, it uses a completely different model of the track and cars (if they are at a distance), a lowpoly model but still at 60fps.
AI; this is a big one for me, in GT5 if they notice you coming past a lot faster they will move off their driving line to let you use your driving line, the big point most people are missing here is that they are meant to drive like proffesional racing drivers, not smashing eachother off the track and cutting them up every chance they could get *cough*Forza*cough*, proffesional setting on forza is odd, they AI are fast but they do not follow any track driving rules what-so-ever. The AI in GT5 is good but slow, this makes them too easy, compared to Forza. I am runnign out of time and I'll probably be back to pick up more points later.
 
Pop up in some city tracks if I remember correctly, due to draw distance. Might be fixed now though.

The mirrors in both games have different strengths and weaknesses. GT produces lots of volumetric smoke. Can't be seen in the rear view mirror though (unless that's fixed too)

Forza produces less volumetric smoke but can be seen in rear view mirror.
 
I'l tell you why most people were dissapointed with GT5, the simple fact being hype, 5 years in development with constant press conferences, turning up at E3 every year with a trailer or ideas or a speech will do that. Forza definately prevails when it comes to the community based parts where as GT5 is based more on the in depth descriptions of the cars, their backgrounds etc.
I can see why for some it may be the hype that caused disappointment with GT5, however I certainly would not see that being the majority of people here. Most of us moved over from GT Planet and as such have lived with hype in every release. A good number here are simply disappointed with actual aspects of GT5 itself rather than the hype that surrounded it.

I would agree that the car descriptions and the history in GT5 is a great addition its unfortunately a little tarnished by a car list that for me is rather lacklustre.


Either game can be played a different way, Forza if you wished you could spend endless months only in the auction house trying to get every car for a decent price and making money that way (which is what my dad seems to be doing as of late) and GT5 can be a collectors game as well if you want to.
One more thing is the car limit... when I first heard about GT5's 2000 car limit I was rather annoyed as I do like to keep 2 of every car (one stock and one finely tuned to a point), now this can be quite a problem with 1100 cars, but then I recently had the forza problem... 550 cars... seriously? there are now a total of 628 car in the game and I can't even have one of each for myself? Now that is ridiculous, and yes I know about the huge save game size with saved designs, tunes etc but surely the could have atleast put the limit up with each DLC, otherwise they are just making certain cars from everyones garage obselete and pointless. I know there will always be a few people who keep their garage clean with only 100 cars or so, but what about us collectors who like to personalize every car in the game and call it ours?
While I am yet to reach the limit in either the fact that it exists in both titles does cause a little bit of annoyance.



If you don't want to get GT6 in 4 or so years time that's your decision to make but rather than jumping to conclusions about the next game how about you remeber that people learn from their mistakes and the fact that both Turn10 and PD have been listening to the fans (Turn10 with Porsche and PD with in race saving, more A-Spec and B-Spec etc.).

I have been playing both games since day 1 Forza and Gran Turismo, now when Forza 1 came out, it was brilliant uncomparable to GT4 in terms of fun, but they haven't really progressed. With GT4 it was more of a serious game than anything else, tons more events more cars etc. But from that in some ways PD has gone backwards, in others forwards.
I will not compare the games with a wheel because Microsoft like to be cheap and make sure you can only use a Microsoft wheel.
Having followed the GT series since the first one I have to say that I don't see PD learning from mistakes, quite the opposite I see a developer that has lost focus and has taken the time since the launch of GT5 playing fix-in when they should have been working on supporting it with quality DLC (Spa is the only exception to that for me) and looking forward to GT6.

That they have moved the physics engine on so little in GT raises for me serious concerns about what PD's focus actually is.



As a photgrapher GT5 is an absolute dream to work with, the options are simple and realistic, you can move round the entire track freely without being restricted, whereas Forza, the options are strange the effects that they bring on are odd and you can't move very far from the car.
I would quite agree the tools in FM4 are a real pain to use, as is the limit to the disatcne you can travel from the car. However the BigShot option is excellent and the Movie Maker is something I would love to have in GT (and PD did drop the ball on this one).


Now a big point: draw distance.
Ever wondered why there is quite a lot of fog on the Nurburgring on Forza, I think you can guess. The draw distance problem on GT5 is only really on Sarthe on the main straight, and is rather annoying if are looking behind you to see where the opposition might be.
Mirrors, Forza's mirrors seem to be running at 20fps, which is rather annoying and kind of offputting, GT5 seems to hadle the reflections rather strangely, it uses a completely different model of the track and cars (if they are at a distance), a lowpoly model but still at 60fps.
FM4's mirrors run at a variable frame rate between 30fps and 60 fps depending on what is going on, which was a sacrifice they made to ensure the core frame rate is locked to 60fps.

GT5 however runs at up to 60fps and can run a lot slower on a crowded track with weather on (at which point it can drop to sub 30fps).

Now both are a compromise and as such will always split opinion, for me T10 made the better choice in regard to that. I can handle the mirrors dropping fps far more that I can the entire thing dropping fps (which will still include mirrors).



AI; this is a big one for me, in GT5 if they notice you coming past a lot faster they will move off their driving line to let you use your driving line, the big point most people are missing here is that they are meant to drive like proffesional racing drivers, not smashing eachother off the track and cutting them up every chance they could get *cough*Forza*cough*, proffesional setting on forza is odd, they AI are fast but they do not follow any track driving rules what-so-ever. The AI in GT5 is good but slow, this makes them too easy, compared to Forza. I am runnign out of time and I'll probably be back to pick up more points later.
Sorry but I can agree with this at all. While T10 do have a slightly more aggressive AI (and one that varies depending on the AI driver) if you treat they as if they were actually drivers (as you acknowledge you have to for GT5) then its not a smash-fest at all.

 
I'l tell you why most people were dissapointed with GT5, the simple fact being hype

I will say for me, it was hype, but the hype came from GT 1-4, they were insanely good games that always had something to go back to, mainly the insane number of races. This is something sorely lacking from GT5, granted it has online racing, but for someone who doesn't like racing online it doesn't help and the seasonal's really haven't done much for me as they are all more challenges than races(Still don't know why they have B-Spec seasonals).

Which brings me to my next point, B-Spec, granted I didn't love it in GT4, but I saw the potential for something great. I would have loved a combination of Forza(1) where you trained your driver and GRID where you had a team. Instead they branched it off into its own category and that's about it, there isn't really anything fun about it other than some credits.

I could go on and on, but I will just wrap it up and say that GT5 is a good game that could have been so much better if Kaz would have reached it's potential.
 
The biggest let down for me was the graphics, yes the inside of the premium cars are insanely detailed. But when you look at the pre release videos, the graphics looked far better than they turned out to be. Just look at the pre release rain on the windows and compare it to the full release, honestly Colin Mcrea 05 had better rain effects than GT5
 
The biggest let down for me was the graphics, yes the inside of the premium cars are insanely detailed. But when you look at the pre release videos, the graphics looked far better than they turned out to be. Just look at the pre release rain on the windows and compare it to the full release, honestly Colin Mcrea 05 had better rain effects than GT5
Couldn't agree more. I almost bust a nut when I saw the rain vids then when I get the game I'm had to take the disc out the PS3, shake it a little, and hope I loosened up the code that bought the good rain out and not the hot garbage that was on my screen.
 
I've had some great races with the ai in FM4. Imo very realistic. They follow real racing etiquette. If you hit them in the corners, they will get you. If you drive and pass cleanly the wont bother unless you make a mistake that enables them too pass.
 
Only way to have good racing with FM4 AI is to pick a car 1 class lower than them, or give yourself other ridiculous handicaps.
FM4 AI just feels backwards to me. When I get left behind at the start, it's very very hard to catch up to them. When I'm ahead, it's very easy to just keep building a larger and larger gap.
The whole EVENT LIST basically becomes at hot lapping comp after the 1st lap.
 
but then I recently had the forza problem... 550 cars... seriously? there are now a total of 628 car in the game and I can't even have one of each for myself?

Here a tip, obviously it's not ideal but is a workable fix to the 550 car limit.
Forza allows you to have as many game saves as you have memory devices (I think Four is the limit for the console) what this means it that you can multiply the car limit by the amount of memory devices, so potentially up to 2200 car slots in total.

What you'll have to do to move your cars from save-to-save is this, you'll need XBL gold firstly for the auction house access.

  1. Select a new memory device you wish to start a new save with when prompted when first starting the game that is not where your original save is kept, do the 1st Ferrari 458 introduction race as you would when starting any fresh game save.

  2. Repeat the first step for as many garages as you want or your memory drive count will allow.

  3. Now on to moving the cars from your original garage to your new garages. Go to the auction house and down to 'my auctions' and select it. Now you will see the option to 'create an auction' select it and it will take you to your garage.

  4. Select a car you want to move and auction it, (it is best to set it to a high price so nobody attempts to buy it but it's not necessary if you do the next step quickly, talking a few seconds or minutes rather than hours) Bare in mind cars with bought liveries and tuning setups will need to have them removed before they can be auctioned.

  5. Quickly find the newly auctioned car select it and use the option to 'remove auction'. it will now say 'expired' on the preview photo. We are ready to move on

  6. Repeat step 5 for as many cars as you wish to move. Once all the cars are prepared we can now move on.

  7. Start up one of your fresh game saves and go back to the auction house, you will see the expired cars still under 'my auctions' select one then select the 'resolve auction' option. You have successfully moved your car to your new garage. Job done

It is up to you how you organise your garages of course, I suggest keeping race cars in separate garages from road cars, so it will be easy to know which save to go to for a specific type of car. You can also name your memory device to assist in remembering what is where.
 
I've had some great races with the ai in FM4. Imo very realistic. They follow real racing etiquette. If you hit them in the corners, they will get you. If you drive and pass cleanly the wont bother unless you make a mistake that enables them too pass.

Only way to have good racing with FM4 AI is to pick a car 1 class lower than them, or give yourself other ridiculous handicaps.
FM4 AI just feels backwards to me. When I get left behind at the start, it's very very hard to catch up to them. When I'm ahead, it's very easy to just keep building a larger and larger gap.
The whole EVENT LIST basically becomes at hot lapping comp after the 1st lap.

I agree with both of you to be honest. I've had both experiences. I've had some "Whew I have to take a break that was a helluva race" races with the AI and I've had some "What in the hell" races.

Perfect example is right on my storefront. Two races I did with the AI in private. Both on the ring in my Scion. In one replay I just smoked the AI, the other I came in 2nd trying to block the AI and failing. I was blocking them but I kinda lost my nerve at the end cause I had a feeling they might try to wipe me out if I kept playing around with them and 2 laps on the Ring in a Scion you don't want to get so close to the finish line to get wiped out and watch the rest of the field come and erase the work you did do. Check'em out.
 
I'm not sure about the mirrors in either game. It doen's matter to me if the graphics are good or bad.
1. You don't need to look in the mirror, keep eyes ahead, you want to know where you are going and not where you've been.
2.BUT if you are last in the pack, like me, I HAVE to use the mirror to see who's going to lap me, haha
 
Only way to have good racing with FM4 AI is to pick a car 1 class lower than them, or give yourself other ridiculous handicaps.
FM4 AI just feels backwards to me. When I get left behind at the start, it's very very hard to catch up to them. When I'm ahead, it's very easy to just keep building a larger and larger gap.
The whole EVENT LIST basically becomes at hot lapping comp after the 1st lap.

Thats just a totally one sided anti Forza post. AI in Forza is light years ahead of GT5.
Both games suffer from the simple fact that pitching car against car means the better car will generally win. Races arent layered with rules and regs to keep cars similar, so you can get situations where you car it totally out classing AI and you may in that instance have to peg your car back a bit.....big deal.

I am always amazed at how good AI is in forza. Remember its not a racing game per se......its a sandbox driving game.
 
Thats just a totally one sided anti Forza post.

Anti forza? Mmmkay. I spend a good 2hrs a day playing forza. The game is much better than GT5, but I'm not going to sit here and praise it left and right when a lot of things about it are poor and some piss poor. What I said before is true and still stands.

so you can get situations where you car it totally out classing AI and you may in that instance have to peg your car back a bit.....big deal.

When the consistency is lacking, it is a big deal.
 
Thats just a totally one sided anti Forza post. AI in Forza is light years ahead of GT5.
Both games suffer from the simple fact that pitching car against car means the better car will generally win. Races arent layered with rules and regs to keep cars similar, so you can get situations where you car it totally out classing AI and you may in that instance have to peg your car back a bit.....big deal.

I am always amazed at how good AI is in forza. Remember its not a racing game per se......its a sandbox driving game.

This is an interesting topic. Maybe someone can explain it to me, because I fail to understand the appeal of "racing" in games like GT5 and FM4. When people complain about online racing, career, AI, etc. I always think to myself "Why?".

Honestly, how realistic is driving 5 laps around a track in a random selection of supposedly competitive semi-stock road cars with no practice or qualifying, and no flag system? That's not racing. That's a short track day where everyone happens to start at the same time and passing is allowed.

Even in a online dedicated racing series, which make much more sense, you are still limited by the lack of a good practice and qualifying system and no flag or penalty system.

For me, games like GT5 and FM4 have and still are purely sandbox driving games, good for road testing cars and hotlapping. Everything else just seems poorly implemented and not focused or well thought out.

For racing, I stick to dedicated racing sims, Race Pro/GTR Evo, NetKar, LFS, and iRacing provide great choices for real racing, but I come back to GT5/FM4 for the driving.

Back to what I was saying earlier, the only 2 reasons I can think of for the popularity of "racing" in these games is
A) Lack of anything better for some people. Which I agree with. Besides Race Pro, console gamers don't really have much else.
B) Fun. Maybe I'm in the minority, and no one else really cares about the realism of such systems, and like it because they think it's fun. For me, realism = fun, but I know this isn't how it is for everyone.

Am I missing something else, or does everyone fall into the above categories?

BTW, sorry for semi-derailing the thread, but this thought has been bouncing around my head for a while, and the current topic of conversation in this threads is semi-relevant to this post, and I am extremely curious as to why these things are important to people.
 
This is an interesting topic. Maybe someone can explain it to me, because I fail to understand the appeal of "racing" in games like GT5 and FM4. When people complain about online racing, career, AI, etc. I always think to myself "Why?".
Pretty simple actually. Those games are "sandbox driving games", which is I think an accurate definition. And racing is just part of a complete sandbox driving experience.

Of course, what we have right now in those games can't reasonably be called racing. Like you said, it's more of an extended track day experience.

Still, racing is part of what is expected of a sandbox driving game, and people simply use the tools they are given to "race", even if those tools are incomplete/flawed.

Edit : As for the AI, the basis for Forza AI is very good (in terms of "intelligence"), even if they're not the fastest drivers on the planet. They just seem to have been crippled by all the optimizations needed to increase the number of cars on track, like they have less cycles to compute or something, resulting in some delayed reactions and a few dead angles. But they can still be pleasant to race with, as long as you're aware of some limitations (always put a few more inches than you would put with a real driver). I just wish I could disable rubberbanding.

Oh and don't get me started on GT AI. An AI which does not respond to the same physical rules as the player has no place in a "simulation".
 
Back to what I was saying earlier, the only 2 reasons I can think of for the popularity of "racing" in these games is
A) Lack of anything better for some people. Which I agree with. Besides Race Pro, console gamers don't really have much else.
B) Fun. Maybe I'm in the minority, and no one else really cares about the realism of such systems, and like it because they think it's fun. For me, realism = fun, but I know this isn't how it is for everyone.

Am I missing something else, or does everyone fall into the above categories?

Or maybe it's a bit of both? Seeing there's nothing really better out there for console gamers, there really isn't any point going on about lacking realism, or is there? So you may as well do with what you have, and have as much fun with it as possible. Surely, an added degree of realism might well make you have even more fun, but that doesn't mean you can't have any fun without it, or does it?
 
Also I think the majority of "pick up and play" people don't want to be bothered with qualy and practice sessions before a race. They just want the "3..2..1..GO" and be off.
 
If yiu want a more realistic experience, buy race pro its very cheap now and is the most realistic sim on any console
 
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