From GT5 to FM3

[Samien]

I'd like to see someone tell me that GT5 is more fun to play than Forza 3, with a straight face. They should have ditched the license tests and slow novelty cars, and focused on things that a racing game really needs, like leaderboards, and a clutch.

 

[Soullessvessel]

I'd like to see someone tell me that GT5 is more fun to play than Forza 3, with a straight face. They should have ditched the license tests and slow novelty cars, and focused on things that a racing game really needs, like leaderboards, and a clutch.

Hate to disappoint you troll there is a clutch in the game, and it actually has slip unlike fms excuse for a clutch. I haven't checked for leaderboards cause frankly I don't care, but I have heard the complaints over it and meh if its not there I have no doubt it will be coming, but its still inexcusable I mean fms networking is perfect after all...oh wait...

 

[phil-t]

[edit]nvm..

If people think FM3 is an arcade game, and GT5 is simulator, then really I'm not operating at the same level of discussion, you clearly know far more then me, because my brain can't comprehend that as remotely true.

 

[phil-t]

Hate to disappoint you troll there is a clutch in the game, and it actually has slip unlike fms excuse for a clutch. I haven't checked for leaderboards cause frankly I don't care, but I have heard the complaints over it and meh if its not there I have no doubt it will be coming, but its still inexcusable I mean fms networking is perfect after all...oh wait...

I also hate to disappoint you, but FM3 has an analogue clutch, and it can behave as one if you have a Fanatec wheel.. you can find the bite point, and feed it in like a real car and the same as GT5(p).

The difference is, in FM3, even without a clutch pedal, they've at least added the token 'button clutch' to allow everyone else to add one small extra dimension to the experience.

Further, in some slightly twisted logic, just because I don't have a H Shifter, GT5 won't let me use the Clutch pedal..

 

[VXR]

One thing I noticed as soon as I started play the original FM is that it's easy to get a good flow going, as if you know the car really well already. I don't see much wrong with that, because presumably to be attempting a racing career, you'd have some sort of built-in understanding of how your car or even a random car works. I've always been able to jump in real world cars and find the pace pretty quickly on the twisty roads in my area and even something like a Ford Freda was easy to drive quickly.

I will never understand any racing game that makes the act of steering a car harder than it really is to appear like realism = difficult.

 

[Daddybird]

One thing I noticed as soon as I started play the original FM is that it's easy to get a good flow going, as if you know the car really well already. I don't see much wrong with that, because presumably to be attempting a racing career, you'd have some sort of built-in understanding of how your car or even a random car works. I've always been able to jump in real world cars and find the pace pretty quickly on the twisty roads in my area and even something like a Ford Freda was easy to drive quickly.

I will never understand any racing game that makes the act of steering a car harder than it really is to appear like realism = difficult.

Good post, I very well know what you mean by that. It seams like with gaming it's only a sim if it's really hard to drive a car in game, while in real life most cars are very easy (well at least sub supercar, but even they have all the electronic tricks in the world to keep you on track) to control if you know the basics of driving, especially when you get the feel with the car.

 

[430_Riviera]

I find it hard to believe Forza's physics are that far off when I experience the almost perfect balance of the E30 M3 on it. The way it is steerable and perfectly balancable on the throttle is sublime, and absolutely down with the road tests and reputation of the car in real life... As opposed to the Elise 111s on the Top Gear challenge in GT5, a car noted for it's shocking understeer in real life (went to a narrower front tire width and a wider rear tire width for this version) yet handles like it's got a 600kg bag of sand slung behind the rear axle in the game.

It just comes across like, "here's how confident we are in our physics engine: we will never, ever let you into any part of it that goes past the limit".

Something seems like it's broken in GT5, maybe why the cars have such a low power cap. Heh. Seriously, 375bhp out of a Silvia? The cars also handle and act oddly, there is a corner on the Ring' that almost tears the inside front wheel off the car yet the car doesn't even get out of shape, almost like it's on rails. Also, what's with the not being able to launch a car properly at anything other than full throttle? Try using about 80% throttle off the line and the car simply refuses to move.

 

[Daddybird]

I find it hard to believe Forza's physics are that far off when I experience the almost perfect balance of the E30 M3 on it. The way it is steerable and perfectly balancable on the throttle is sublime, and absolutely down with the road tests and reputation of the car in real life... As opposed to the Elise 111s on the Top Gear challenge in GT5, a car noted for it's shocking understeer in real life (went to a narrower front tire width and a wider rear tire width for this version) yet handles like it's got a 600kg bag of sand slung behind the rear axle in the game.



Something seems like it's broken in GT5, maybe why the cars have such a low power cap. Heh. Seriously, 375bhp out of a Silvia? The cars also handle and act oddly, there is a corner on the Ring' that almost tears the inside front wheel off the car yet the car doesn't even get out of shape, almost like it's on rails. Also, what's with the not being able to launch a car properly at anything other than full throttle? Try using about 80% throttle off the line and the car simply refuses to move.

I've said this before on the GT5 board and got absolutely shot for it.... but maybe there is a good reason there is no test track, I mentioned the physics engine. Like you said there is something wrong with the power output and the way some cars handle.

The E30M3 in FM3 is divine indeed.

 

[Kreepnslayer]

I've said this before on the GT5 board and got absolutely shot for it.... but maybe there is a good reason there is no test track, I mentioned the physics engine. Like you said there is something wrong with the power output and the way some cars handle.

The E30M3 in FM3 is divine indeed.

This is what I've been saying as well. Spending a weekend flogging a Porsche non-stop around some twisty island roads really opened my eyes to how close Forza got the feel of the car. The behavior of the exact same car in the game was nearly identical. Steering aid or not, Forza feels right.

 

[430_Riviera]

I don't mean to go on about it, but I just finished a race in the same M3, and had an extremely close battle (mildly modified to bring it up to c class spec, engine mainly. Cams bringing it to a 9,200 cutoff, noise is fap worthy) with a Caddy CTS-V which would absolutely blow by me on the straights then I could outbrake it and hold a tighter line in the corners. Watching that thing shift around on the brakes and struggle to get turned in just makes me like this game even more. Also, when I did shove it up the inside, it didn't turn in on me, it gave me room and would try and cut back on the power, at one point it got on too early and ended up on the grass and ended up getting swallowed by a Charger that was tailing us. I have never, ever had a race like this in any GT game. They either drop away, hit you due to the ridiculous slipstream and rubberbanding and plow you off the track, or get miles in front because it's impossible to judge a close race as GT always seems to throw a massively quick car in with a load of jalopies.

 

[HBR-Roadhog]

It's been almost a year since I have had a close race with the AI in Forza. The AI is slow even on the hardest settings. Many times I have actually lapped the field on the hardest level with a lesser car in the longer races.

Private lobbies of course is another story. I have had some very close races there with my friends.

 

[infamousDee]

I'd like to see someone tell me that GT5 is more fun to play than Forza 3, with a straight face. They should have ditched the license tests and slow novelty cars, and focused on things that a racing game really needs, like leaderboards, and a clutch.

GT5 is more fun to play than Forza 3, with a straight face.

 

[Bogie 19th]

It's been almost a year since I have had a close race with the AI in Forza. The AI is slow even on the hardest settings. Many times I have actually lapped the field on the hardest level with a lesser car in the longer races.

On hardest AI setting with full simulation difficulty, I have never had that happen in Forza 3. AI was dang fast, and smart. Sometimes frustratingly so.

 

[430_Riviera]

Ditto. Methinks our friend here is superhuman. In a C-class race it is fairly well impossible to get that far ahead, the cars just aren't fast enough to make that sort of gap even with incredible driving. Particularly when you are talking about cars that handle well, like the Beemer, and cars that are massively quick in a straight line, like the Caddy. 268 hp plays 400. That Beemer ain't pulling nothing on that Caddy the moment the road goes straight.

 

[boxox]

I find it hard to believe Forza's physics are that far off when I experience the almost perfect balance of the E30 M3 on it.

It's not really a this-game-is-better-than-that-game complaint, it's more, "why the hell did they leave this on and give you no way to turn it off", leaving "and it might actually be a much better game if they hadn't done that" open

 

[Zoom!Zoom!]

On hardest AI setting with full simulation difficulty, I have never had that happen in Forza 3. AI was dang fast, and smart. Sometimes frustratingly so.

AI isn't that hard if you do a little upgrading and tuning. I've left them setting a few times but I don't think I've lapped them before though. The reason I've never finish the sixth season is once I get the lead the races (often on the first lap) is basically over yet I still have to complete all those laps.

 

[HBR-Roadhog]

On hardest AI setting with full simulation difficulty, I have never had that happen in Forza 3. AI was dang fast, and smart. Sometimes frustratingly so.

I have had it happen numerous times. Especially on Maple Valley and Road Atlanta Short.

 

[otago]

I would suggest for every X360 newcomers to buy Forza 2.

Yeah, GT5 has crap AI and very questionable physics, but Forza 3 good physics is buried under all this autosteering and enormous traction so deep, that driving in game is nothing but boring.

Also Forza 3 doesn't have single race (AI locked on medium and because of this this is actually hotlaping). You can't save photomode pictures on USB stick, instead you have to upload/download and finally get something infested with enormous jpeg artifacts. LSD colors of most tracks just burn my eyes. And so on, so on.

The bottom line is: GT5 is just a better game.

Forza 2 is different, it blows away both GT5 and Forza 3.

And don't forget: there is no any steering wheels for X360 in production anymore. I already have seen several X360 MS steering wheels on Amazon for 700$

 

[Bogie 19th]

AI isn't that hard if you do a little upgrading and tuning. I've left them setting a few times but I don't think I've lapped them before though. The reason I've never finish the sixth season is once I get the lead the races (often on the first lap) is basically over yet I still have to complete all those laps.

Yup....I have no problems toasting the AI in Forza when I pretty much overkill the power on my cars, giving them like 600-700hp and smoke them. Then again, I am on Expert in GT5, and I can do the exact same thing. I have all golds, all with ease now that I am just throwing too much power in each car.

 

[Zoom!Zoom!]

Yup....I have no problems toasting the AI in Forza when I pretty much overkill the power on my cars, giving them like 600-700hp and smoke them. Then again, I am on Expert in GT5, and I can do the exact same thing. I have all golds, all with ease now that I am just throwing too much power in each car.

You don't have to overkill with power just be on level with the most powerful car on the track in both games. Once you learn the track and your braking points it's pretty easy to find the corners you can out brake the AI.

 

[ChadSpeed]

Well, I'd disagree. At least in my opinion, it is amazingly noticable and is pretty much a "ruin everything" switch they stuck on the game. Take a look at the famous youtube video:



In your opinion, should this happen? Throttle all the way down, all the way off, steering all the way to one side, then whipping it across to the other ... car keeps pretty much totally stable and heading in the right direction? Is that something that should happen at all?

It just comes across like, "here's how confident we are in our physics engine: we will never, ever let you into any part of it that goes past the limit".

For one the throttle is not all the way down, the throttle position indicator about the steering wheel is not full most of the time, the steering is odd, I want to try it with the controller, but am stuck in Fallout NV, and GT5 now. But seriously, why are critiquing a game you obviously don't know much about, and must not own or put anytime in to know how it really works.

 

[boxox]

I do actually have a copy of Forza 3. I'm not bashing it out of ignorance, I assure you, though I haven't really played it much (I mainly use it for stealing the nice models and putting them in Shift PC ). The thing is, I know what encountering the assist is like with the pad, which is like someone sitting on your shoulder breaking the 4th wall the whole time. I don't have a 360 compatible wheel, I only have the G-25. What seeing this means is that I really don't consider it worth buying a Fanatec wheel, just for Forza 3, if I'm still going to run into this thing.

Let's be honest here - would I be really far off base in saying that if, say, we shopped the UI out, and put in GT5's in, this would not be fodder for the Forza fanclub? That if you ran into this thing trying to make a physics mod you would not consider it a big problem and try to find any way you could to kill it?

 

[FyreandIce]

I do actually have a copy of Forza 3. I'm not bashing it out of ignorance, I assure you, though I haven't really played it much (I mainly use it for stealing the nice models and putting them in Shift PC ). The thing is, I know what encountering the assist is like with the pad, which is like someone sitting on your shoulder breaking the 4th wall the whole time. I don't have a 360 compatible wheel, I only have the G-25. What seeing this means is that I really don't consider it worth buying a Fanatec wheel, just for Forza 3, if I'm still going to run into this thing.

Let's be honest here - would I be really far off base in saying that if, say, we shopped the UI out, and put in GT5's in, this would not be fodder for the Forza fanclub? That if you ran into this thing trying to make a physics mod you would not consider it a big problem and try to find any way you could to kill it?

The assist is on at all times no matter what input device you are using. I seriously would have been peeved upon learning that the huge price of the fanatec was wasted when playing FM3...

For one the throttle is not all the way down, the throttle position indicator about the steering wheel is not full most of the time, the steering is odd, I want to try it with the controller, but am stuck in Fallout NV, and GT5 now. But seriously, why are critiquing a game you obviously don't know much about, and must not own or put anytime in to know how it really works.

It's there with the controller. To be honest, it's what makes the game play so well with the controller. It should however be turned off when using a wheel.

 

[phil-t]

It's not really a this-game-is-better-than-that-game complaint, it's more, "why the hell did they leave this on and give you no way to turn it off", leaving "and it might actually be a much better game if they hadn't done that" open

I've gone back and driven GT5/FM3 back to back and even looked once again at the 'steering assist'. Using the same track/car

And as before, it's all blown out of proportion, a lot of misinformation, and in comparison, GT5 might as well show you the same thing on screen, the behaviour isn't exactly complimentary either..

So, here's what I did/found

- Using an MacLaren MP24-12C on Suzuka

1. Test condition A - 2nd/3rd gear slowish speed
- Mimicking the video shown, I am trying to pendulate the car side to side using on/off throttle motions and moving wheel from one side to the other.

FM3 Result - Indeed, I'm able to keep the car pendulating and oversteer is quite easily controlled, however in FM, it's hard to sustain the pendulation as when speed increases, the car starts to understeer on sudden steering inputs, which make inducing the pendulation at higher speeds quite hard (I prefer GT5 on a more entertaining approach).

GT5 Result - Sadly, I can also Pendulate the car side to side with quite large angles of attack, even using Sports-Hard tyres which offer unrealisitically low levels of grip on the car. In fact due to the grip aspect of GT5, where the fronts have a lot of turn in response, I can keep the pendulation going forever and even get quite cheeky, maybe even getting lose to 90 degree attack angles without much effort.. After pendulating 60 times or so down the main straight, and through to turn 5, I just gave up. iRacing it is not..


2. Higher speeds, 3rd gear, oversteering test
The aim was to induce a higher speed moment through sudden pendulation, and see what happens, at a reasonable amount of angle, countersteering is applied. The throttle is kept on throughout..

FM3 - using a small pendulation at 100MPH in 3rd, throttle kept on, the car swaps ends immediately.

GT5 - The same..

Not sure what to say, I heard people saying that steering asists are to stop any major oversteer, this obviosly doesn't happen if you don't do something to stop it, i.e. lift throttle/countersteer.

3. High speed continuous throttle pendulation
Similar to test 2, but seeing how leaving the throttle on, and trying to see if it's catchable down the main straight, the aim to regain control.

FM3 - Having quite sticky rubber by default (Overly so and unrealistic) as long as the oversteer moment isn't too great, that and the understeering of the front end makes it easy to catch and the tyres retain their grip as heat levels take a second or so to heat up.
- Turn in response and tyre heat up/grip loss isn't so sudden and make this totally different to GT5 and my guy feeling is, too much grip = unrealistic.

GT5 - Easy to initially catch, the low grip tyres mean the rears just go red and loose all grip with a few milliseconds, coupled with the high speed massive turn in characteristic of the chassis physics, the car can become a handful if you don't lift the throttle to allow the rears to have more grip, in fact If I don't catch it within about 20 degrees of rotation, it's hit and miss if I end up in a Tank Slapper..
If I use stickier tyres to match FM3, the instant heatup and grip removal of the rears makes it again harder to control then FM3
- I find this entertaining, but the huge turn in and instant loss of grip on the rears breaking loose seems to be rather OTT..


Notes/Conclusions

The really interesting point of note for the pendulation tests was that despite all cries of FM3 having steering assist that dumbs down oversteer and makes it easy to drive seem misplaced, by far the factors that make the cars easier to correct are that the Chassis' understeer a lot more and higher tyre grip that doesn't fall off so quickly with heat build up make it naturally easier to control.
And anyone thinking GT5 is some uber unforgiving sim should note that unlike any 'proper' PC sim I've ever driven with zero assists, I couldn't make a car of the class of an MP24-12C pendulate to 60-90 degrees rotation in each direction constantly until you get fed up. There is a definite 'dumbing' down of oversteer when you lift the throttle to the same 'arcade' levels as FM. The only difference seems to be that very low default tyre grip levels in GT5 contribute to it feeling much looser, and that such (feels as unrealistic the other way as FM's understeer) amazing turn in response allows pendulation to be easily induced and continued for as long as you want.


Specific Steering Assist notes in FM3
1. Some of the 'steering assist' shown in the Youtube videos' is as I've said a long time ago, it's speed sensitive lock reduction. i.e. if you just turn a car fulll lock and slowly build up speed in a circle (using one of the test tracks) you see the full lock reducing as speed increases, this is obviously an attempt to make the car's steering more manageable at speed. GT5 doesn't do this, and I hear the argument that it should be turned off, which I kind of agree, but in comparing the two games, at high speed, I don't find either exhibiting any twitchyness, in fact the bumpier the track in GT5, the more you realise that it hardly affects the car at all other then visually, it does cause the odd loss of traction, and is felt through FFB, but the kicks through the steering don't really make the car react in a very adverse manner, clearly the physics has some fixed damping in it to make the cars this driveable over the bumps at speed.

2. The actual steering 'assist'- I save a replay of me pendulating in FM3 from the earlier tests, and using the super slo-mo replay ability, I looked at exactly what the steering is doing when the 'assist' kicks in.. And what you see doesn't fit in with some uber oversteer prevention/arcade assist that people are complaining about. The steering wheel actually very quickly 'kicks' equally in both directions, so for example if you are holding 70% Left Lock constantly and the car lets go, the wheel oscillates once or twice between 90% and 50% lock (20% either side), it does this once or twice, and always equally oscillates.

The conclusion is pretty straight forward, the sudden wheel motion is not IMO able to be classed as a real 'assist', why would it oscillate such that it goes between trying to countersteer then steer with the slide in equal measure, and why such a high frequency of oscillation? I'm almost happy to say it's a (stupid) glitch and it almost serves no purpose.
The real contributing factor people are latching onto is the speed sensitive steering, when you break lateral grip and you countersteer, the car starts to slow, and the steering range increases, which means if you hold a fixed amount of lock, you end up countersteering more, this looks bad, I totally agree, but it's not that simple, because initially the game is not letting you countersteer as much as you could be, it's only once sliding that the countersteering increases as speed decreases, which isn't quite so horrific, but it is a little unwelcome of course.

Saying all that, I'm very happy to say that that glitchy steering wobble when grip is lost, and the very noticeable speed sensitive steering affect is unwelcome, but I don't think it's actually the real main contributing factor to why FM3 tends to be easier to control oversteer. Just go and drive any R1 car with no traction around a small track and see how hard it is to control, it feels very much as loose as GT5, which again to me shows that when power to grip levels and turn in are naturally abundant in an FM3 car, it behaves as expected.

I believe that it's two things,

1. The setup/chassis physics of the cars, you can't induce the kind of turn in response that allows the car to develop significant 'moments' that make it harder to recover, and once it is rotating, since you can't generate the front end turning force in the opposite direction, you can't as easily 'excite' the pendulation into becoming massively unstable.
2. The tyre physics when a tyre slides takes a good amount of time to heat the tyres to the point that they loose all grip, so immediate lifting of the throttle seems to keep rear tyre grip at it's optimum, and this naturally stops the slide from being so severe.

For the record, I think GT5's turn in and instant loss of grip are as unrealisitic the other way to FM, but actually, I kind of prefer them.. So there!!!

I would love someone to analyse the Steering Assist that understands physics and cars, and see if they remotely agree, but people just looking at Youtube videos and seeing the telemetry and implying it's one god almighty assist of arcade proportions seem to be missing what is really happening IMO.

The assist is on at all times no matter what input device you are using. I seriously would have been peeved upon learning that the huge price of the fanatec was wasted when playing FM3...
It's there with the controller. To be honest, it's what makes the game play so well with the controller. It should however be turned off when using a wheel.

The major difference with a controller over a wheel is the 'damping' applied to steering inputs, if you go lock to lock quickly using a pad, you see it's quite damped, with the wheel, if you ignore the speed senstive aspect etc, it's 1:1 speed wise, it'll steer as fast as I can turn the wheel.

There is no reason for anyone to not benefit from the experience using a wheel, it's a much more direct experience, Although I'm thoroughly on my GT5 journey, I spent a lot of time hotlapping and racing in FM3, and it's ludicrous to come to your conclusion that a fanatec wheel is a waste of money for the game.. The FFB and vibration effects are pretty decent, the feel of the tyres is good, kerbs/collisions have a nice FFB reaction, as does the car, it's a great experience over a controller..

 

[FyreandIce]

The major difference with a controller over a wheel is the 'damping' applied to steering inputs, if you go lock to lock quickly using a pad, you see it's quite damped, with the wheel, if you ignore the speed senstive aspect etc, it's 1:1 speed wise, it'll steer as fast as I can turn the wheel.

There is no reason for anyone to not benefit from the experience using a wheel, it's a much more direct experience, Although I'm thoroughly on my GT5 journey, I spent a lot of time hotlapping and racing in FM3, and it's ludicrous to come to your conclusion that a fanatec wheel is a waste of money for the game.. The FFB and vibration effects are pretty decent, the feel of the tyres is good, kerbs/collisions have a nice FFB reaction, as does the car, it's a great experience over a controller..

Yes, the FFB and general idea of a wheel is all fine and dandy. But the steering assist is what makes the wheels pointless. All those little twitches etc are what makes slides so easy to catch and maintain. The game is doing all the fine adjustments for you.

The whole point of having a wheel over a controller is the ability to input fine movements but the game does that for you. Yes, a wheel can enhance the experience but it would be so much better if there wasn't a permanent steering assist.

p.s I agree that FM doesn't have the right turn in characteristics. From my experience's understeer builds up and violent turnings of the wheel will result in snap oversteer. In FM2/3 it just goes strait to understeer. You need to build up the pendulum effect to get oversteer in most cars.

 

[phil-t]

Yes, the FFB and general idea of a wheel is all fine and dandy. But the steering assist is what makes the wheels pointless. All those little twitches etc are what makes slides so easy to catch and maintain. The game is doing all the fine adjustments for you.

Please read what I did above, and feel free to try it for yourself, people jumping on the 'assists' bandwagon really don't seem to have looked at it in-depth, and the key points are
1. It has speed sensitive steering, that's a simple 'range' limiting according to speed, it actually prevents you giving maximum countersteering input, so although it'd be better if not there, it's not something that massively interferes or should be considered horrific, since by it's very nature it's not actually helping you with controlling oversteer.
2. The 'wobble' thing, it's oscillatory, it 'pings' between turning into the slide more, and turning in the direction of the slide, since it does so equally in both directions from the commanded input and occurs for just 100-200ms I can't see how it actually provides any 'assist'? It also only occurs when grip is completely lost.
3. If you don't start going into mass oversteer, the steering is 'direct' (apart from the speed sensitive aspect, it's 1:1)

IN fact if you look at it, FM3 has very nuanced tyre physics, it actually gives a lot of FFB to the wheel user, and the nuances of playing with a car on the limit is very detailed, if you try and set some top leaderboard times, you'd realise how difficult it can be, and how nuanced the control needs to be, just getting that balance between tractive and lateral grip as the weight transfers and the tyres start to lose grip is pretty good, when pushing it to the limit, that's when you really see what 'inputs' do really affect the laptimes by even a few hundreths of a second.

You can see how temperature/pressures affect things, if you've spent any time tuning, you can see how even unsprung weight changes how the car behaves, and it clearly calculates temperature across the tyre, so you get accurate modelling of more of the suspension geometry/tyre behaviour. I'm not saying it's the best, but on a technical level, even a blind man can see the complexity of the physics.. What it lacks is tuning of certain key parameters to give a more lively feel to the cars.

If you think a wheel is useless for FM3 FOR YOU, that's OK, but to suggest that it's a matter of fact is ludicrous, you could try and bring some science/common sense into it to back it up, Just out of interest, how do you rate GT5? (Not trying to make Vs debate, but there are some interesting simple 'tests' that shows plenty about the game)..

 

[boxox]

Yeah, autoblog noticed the same thing in GT5:

The Physics

We're very, very happy to report that the physics in GT5 feel great; they're a big step up from those seen in previous games. No, the realism here is still a far cry from things like rFactor, netKar Pro and iRacing, games that put the hard in hardcore sim racing. But still, this is easily the most realistic feeling Gran Turismo yet, including finally offering some amount of collision physics. Yes, you can still bounce off of your AI opponents to get around a turn if you like, but now if you do it too hard you might actually cause them to spin. Or yourself.

Still, things aren't perfect. Unmodified cars feel oddly loose when braking, as if the brake balance was set too far to the rear by default. And the proper race tires in the game are far too forgiving, not giving up their grip even when you're pushing a Formula car to Formula D-style drift angles. But, that's all to make things more fun, and driving here certainly is fun.

I still don't have it but from some of the videos I've seen I'm really not seeing this "ultra realism" borne out much. Looks kinda like driving with a lot of assists on, with a lot of assists turned off in GT5 to me.

Thanks so much for the long investigation of F3! It's one thing to talk about "physics" and another to actually sit there measuring 0-60 times and doing step-steers and changing setups to actually figure out how it works (believe me I know it can get tedious). From what I've seen I would have no problem believing that Forza is a very accurate game right up until the point where you try and drive out beyond where it really wants you to drive, and that limit itself is probably a quite realistic one - and indeed probably a realistic limit that a lot of people would not enjoy driving over.

You can see the wheel-shudder (both on the telemetry steering wheel display and on the front wheels from exterior views) on the first video posted. I don't know if that's a glitch, at least from appearances it's throwing off just enough countersteer to reset the tyre back into a place where it can get back into grip - sort of similar in a way to another common thing you find in console games, where when you zero steer input on a pad, the in-game front wheels instantly snaps back into straight alignment without traversing through the points between.

There are a few places you find reference to steer limits/slip limits in Forza 3's files, the one I can find now (because it's easy and just a text file) is this over here:

SteeringWheelFilter\Speed0 10
SteeringWheelFilter\Speed1 50
SteeringWheelFilter\ControlScale0 1.5
SteeringWheelFilter\ControlScale1 3
SteeringWheelFilter\CorrectSpeed0 5
SteeringWheelFilter\CorrectSpeed1 25
SteeringWheelFilter\CorrectControlScale0 1
SteeringWheelFilter\CorrectControlScale1 2.5

But I believe there are others in the main sql database which I would have to dig around for.

 

[phil-t]

Yeah, autoblog noticed the same thing in GT5: I still don't have it but from some of the videos I've seen I'm really not seeing this "ultra realism" borne out much. Looks kinda like driving with a lot of assists on, with a lot of assists turned off in GT5 to me.

There is even more stuff that can be seen that makes it far from a very realistic simulation in terms of PC Sims, but I admit that the initial grip/feel and ways car easily slide is entertaining, and it leads to having a good time, so you won't find me ragging on GT5 as a whole, I think on balance the overriding grip levels in GT5 outweigh most of the theoretical but poorly implemented stuff in FM3, in a perfect world, we'd have both.. but such is life

You can see the wheel-shudder (both on the telemetry steering wheel display and on the front wheels from exterior views) on the first video posted. I don't know if that's a glitch, at least from appearances it's throwing off just enough countersteer to reset the tyre back into a place where it can get back into grip - sort of similar in a way to another common thing you find in console games, where when you zero steer input on a pad, the in-game front wheels instantly snaps back into straight alignment without traversing through the points between.

That's why I did the more controlled test of a fixed steering angle, provoking oversteer and using the slo-mo replay playback with telemetry overlaid to see exactly what happens at the point the glitch occurs, it certainly is repeatable, and it certainly oscillates around the 'fixed' steering input in the tests I did, which makes it odd, because if it where truly a big 'assist', having it oscillate seems to have a net effect of almost zero, and of course as long as you keep the throttle pinned, it actually does nothing to arrest the oversteer at all, the car just spins..

There are a few places you find reference to steer limits/slip limits in Forza 3's files, the one I can find now (because it's easy and just a text file) is this over here:

SteeringWheelFilter\Speed0 10
SteeringWheelFilter\Speed1 50
SteeringWheelFilter\ControlScale0 1.5
SteeringWheelFilter\ControlScale1 3
SteeringWheelFilter\CorrectSpeed0 5
SteeringWheelFilter\CorrectSpeed1 25
SteeringWheelFilter\CorrectControlScale0 1
SteeringWheelFilter\CorrectControlScale1 2.5

But I believe there are others in the main sql database which I would have to dig around for.

I've got that database cheers, but I found it underwhelming, and nothing about the naming of those intimates much, all it does look like is possibly two 'set points' of values, perhaps the game interpolates between them according to speed, and are just basic filtering params..

The problem is, no game will use 100% direct from the steering wheel values, you'd always want to filter them slightly, to get rid of noise etc, the key being to make the filter fast enough to give the appearance of 1:1 steering (and looking at the telemetry, that is generally the case with a wheel), and to remove any 'noise' from the steering wheel output values that would be unwanted.

Since we can prove the game has simple interpolated speed sensitive steering range adjustment, some of those params should be for that.. I would whole heartedly agree this would be better not being a feature, but it's exceeding linear in it's behaviour, and not a major factor in the discussion of assists, just drive car in circles and slowly increase the speed, and you can see how simple and linear it is.

I'd actually expect a ton more params, but sadly, there isn't much more at all, it would have been nice to have seen more of the physics params exposed, but these seem like top level cursory stuff, and it may all be stuff that softens the experience', I'm not naive to think completely the opposite, more that I also can't gather enough evidence that backs up people's claims.. But I can see more obvious fundamental reasons the cars don't oversteer so wildly or often in FM3..

I think it's safe to say that all these console games, and GT5 is most definitely included, have plenty in them that 'softens' the experience and ultimately is 'assisting' the user in keeping control of the car, I can see several ways in which both games do this, which is why I think to pour scorn on FM3 (which has provably complex, if perhaps not realisitic, tyre physics) but seem to ignore all the obvious softening in GT5, I tend to step in and try to level out the discussion.

I'm all for 'facts' and proving these things, the youtube video's just ultimately show 'something' is occuring, it's people putting 2 + 2 and coming up with 5 with the assumption that it's all a bit attempt at auto-counter steering in an arcade way that doesn't hold any water, and anyone with the game and the interest can go and do their own tests and perhaps come back with some repeatable evidence?

 

[boxox]

I'm not disagreeing with you at all that raw input is not something they would ever use. However I think it's kind of getting to the point of "who do you believe, me or your lying eyes?" to dismiss the motion of the front wheels under those circumstances. It's obviously something that is not user-generated input, which affects both the game's own concept of where steering input is positioning the wheels, and the 3d wheels themselves. To say that this is not having an effect is basically to say that neither of those things have final say on driving, which I don't think leads us in a direction that is very complimentary of F3 either.

I don't think it's purely and only a speed sensitive steering (as is termed in the ISI engine games) issue either, but I am sure they do use something like that as part of their input filtering suite in addition to other things. A great many games use assisted steering, even a great many of the old 90s "real sims" - it's not a knock on a game at all to say it. But it is a problem if it's having a sub-physics and sub-input level effect on driving and can never be turned off.

 

[VXR]

When something is as well presented as that by phil-t, it's so much easier to accept the opinion than the usual 'x is rubbish/arcade' nonsense.