Gran Turismo 7 Physics

Do you want more detailed and realistic physics on the next GT

  • Total voters
    203
  • Poll closed .
I often wonder if the people who whine about GT Sports physics - the realism elitists - even drive a real-life vehicle.
I'm used to riding both cars and motorcycles in real life on the limit. Three times I've gone beyond that limit as well, crashing on a motorcycle, and to me GT Sport is super realistic and primarily INTUITIVE. With the small improvements coming in GT7, I'm super happy.
As someone said earlier here, more difficult does not equal more realistic. It's not that damn difficult and unpredictable in real life...
 
HugoTwoWheels
I often wonder if the people who whine about GT Sports physics - the realism elitists - even drive a real-life vehicle.
I'm used to riding both cars and motorcycles in real life on the limit. Three times I've gone beyond that limit as well, crashing on a motorcycle, and to me GT Sport is super realistic and primarily INTUITIVE. With the small improvements coming in GT7, I'm super happy.
As someone said earlier here, more difficult does not equal more realistic. It's not that damn difficult and unpredictable in real life...
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Agreed. I think the complaints are completely overblown and just serve to inflate the egos of those that choose punishing sims. It's "cool" to hate on the big dog and root for the underdog. It also has a lot to do with PC elitists who have probably barely touched GT and would magically have a much better opinion of it were it available on their chosen platform. 🤭
 
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We’ll, there are also people that have never touched another racing game other than GT. Those people may not understand why some are critical of PD’s minor, if any, changes. Again, even if leaving out real world physics, some GT players are afraid of change. Some think adding certain Simulated characteristics to the physics, taints how they too have played the franchise over the years. Almost to point thinking people will turn away from the franchise due to improvements.

We’ll see. What degree will PD program the track surface data? As someone mentioned pre-programmed scripted and/or some type of slider. Will it be seasonal based?

I think the most positive aspect of what we see in the Tsukuba wet clip, is the grip meter will be a guide to place players on the optimal line. That’s a way to keep players on the racing line, to be more processional, than divebombing for passes. Helps race craft, patience and concentrate on surroundings. Will many casual players really care to learn these aspects of racing or will many choose to leave such features off, If optional?
 
05XR8
Will many casual players really care to learn these aspects of racing or will many choose to leave such features off, If optional?
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Since we got an excellent ranking and matchmaking system, at least I won't have to bother with "casuals". Neither does a penalty system seem to matter at DR A or above - self-policing works better.
 
HugoTwoWheels
I often wonder if the people who whine about GT Sports physics - the realism elitists - even drive a real-life vehicle.
I'm used to riding both cars and motorcycles in real life on the limit. Three times I've gone beyond that limit as well, crashing on a motorcycle, and to me GT Sport is super realistic and primarily INTUITIVE. With the small improvements coming in GT7, I'm super happy.
As someone said earlier here, more difficult does not equal more realistic. It's not that damn difficult and unpredictable in real life...
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To me, cars in real life are much more predictable than GTS. When I run GTS after long time, I always have to realize in my head that I shouldn’t do what I’d do in real life. Maybe we’re just used to drive different cars, but still, the most noticeable difference is still in tyre behavior… GTS lacks lateral grip so much that when you try to drift, you can’t even mantain speed often times.
 
Magog
Agreed. I think the complaints are completely overblown and just serve to inflate the egos of those that choose punishing sims. It's "cool" to hate on the big dog and root for the underdog. It also has a lot to do with PC elitists who have probably barely touched GT and would magically have a much better opinion of it were it available on their chosen platform. 🤭
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Bit extreme to call it complaining and inflating egos. People have been pointing out for many years where it objectively falls short of realism. Realism is ALWAYS the bar to aim for, not other sims, and people have explained many times where there are issues, that have nothing to do with GT being the "big dog" or being PC elitists.

FWD cars, for example, just do not behave very much like real FWD cars in many ways. That's something objectively demonstrable, and making that more realistic would not be just making it harder for the sake of it.

If people are happy with the GTS physics then that's perfectly fine, but this idea that wanting realism equates to elitism and people wanting it to be harder needs to stop. FWD cars in GTS would not be harder to drive if they behaved more realistically. Quite the opposite.

It should also go without saying that despite people pointing out these flaws they/we do still play the GT games and enjoy them. They just think it'd be more enjoyable if the physics were even more realistic. I don't see how it's any different to people desiring better graphics, or anything else.
 
People saying it's unrealistic, can you explain how? Could it be a matter of faulty FFB settings?
10/10 in FFB settings, or 1/10, sucks for me. Even 5/5 is quite bad. I can't feel grip or weight shift. 5/1 is excellent. I'm not sure why 5/5 is the standard setting.

Drifting on asphalt is slower than being below or at the slip limit. I see nothing wrong there.

FWD don't feel strange either. They understeer when accelerating out of corners, more than RWD cars do (some oversteer). Otherwise it's a matter of chassis setup, not which wheels drive the vehicle.
In GT Sport, I clearly feel understeer, as I clearly do IRL - good enough for me!

But sure, different vehicles on different surfaces with different tyres and setups might behave differently.

Sporty motorcycles IRL on asphalt behave pretty much as balanced race cars in GT Sport.

I'm super excited about the small changes they're making, with input from Fraga and Hizal. Dynamic weather and surface grip will also make things more exciting, when you have to race on intuition more than different markers for when to brake and when to accelerate.
 
HugoTwoWheels
I often wonder if the people who whine about GT Sports physics - the realism elitists - even drive a real-life vehicle.
I'm used to riding both cars and motorcycles in real life on the limit. Three times I've gone beyond that limit as well, crashing on a motorcycle, and to me GT Sport is super realistic and primarily INTUITIVE. With the small improvements coming in GT7, I'm super happy.
As someone said earlier here, more difficult does not equal more realistic. It's not that damn difficult and unpredictable in real life...
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Over twenty years in the Motor Industry, most of it in the area of training. I've taught vehicle dynamics and driver skills.

During that time I've logged hundreds of hours of track and proving ground time in both race and road cars.

GTS (and the wider series) gets a lot wrong, PD have created an accessible title, but not one without some significant issues in terms of accuracy.

The areas of issue that have been touched on are FFB at the point of understeer, which should be a loss of steering force (caused by a reduction of self aligning torque). GT instead represents this with a wierd rattle/shake effect. No amount of FFB tweaks change what is an utterly inaccurate effect.

We then have FWD cars themselves, which do not understeer accurately, the effect is far to hard to recover from and when it comes to hot hatches with aggressive LSDs is utterly and completely wrong. I daily drive an I30n (and have driven all manner of Focus ST, RS Megan's, GTi, Etc), GTS utterly fails to accurately reflect how aggressive FWD LSDs work.

That's without the utter mess around FWD race cars, which 100% are not unsteering messes that GTS presents them as (quite the opposite).
 
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Scaff
Over twenty years in the Motor Industry, most of it in the area of training. I've taught vehicle dynamics and driver skills.

During that time I've logged hundreds of hours of track and proving ground time in both race and road cars.

GTS (and the wider series) gets a lot wrong, PD have created an accessible title, but not one without some significant issues in terms of accuracy.
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Care to explain? I'm genuinely interested. I might learn something that makes me faster. :D
 
Scaff
The areas of issue that have been touched on are FFB at the point of understeer, which should be a loss of steering force (caused by a reduction of self aligning torque). GT instead represents this with a wierd rattle/shake effect. No amount of FFB tweaks change what is an utterly inaccurate effect.
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My wheel definitely goes light. If there's severe understeer, it goes light and rattles.
G29 and 5/1 FFB settings. (Waiting for DD Pro...)

The rest of your explanation I don't understand. Is there a video demonstration of these effects?
Also, would it be practical/functional to implement these effects in a game where G forces can't be felt in your body?

I'm guessing that it's not practical/functional to create a totally realistic simulator when G forces can't be felt. Some things have to be simplified or changed, and wheel effects have to compensate for lack of G force sensations.
PD might be aiming at creating an intuitive experience, not necessarily as "realistic" as possible.

I love motorcycle riding IRL, but games/simulators are totally pointless to me. There's so much that can't be simulated with today's technology...
 
HugoTwoWheels
My wheel definitely goes light. If there's severe understeer, it goes light and rattles.
G29 and 5/1 FFB settings. (Waiting for DD Pro...)

The rest of your explanation I don't understand. Is there a video demonstration of these effects?
Also, would it be practical/functional to implement these effects in a game where G forces can't be felt in your body?

I'm guessing that it's not practical/functional to create a totally realistic simulator when G forces can't be felt. Some things have to be simplified or changed, and wheel effects have to compensate for lack of G force sensations.
PD might be aiming at creating an intuitive experience, not necessarily as "realistic" as possible.

I love motorcycle riding IRL, but games/simulators are totally pointless to me. There's so much that can't be simulated with today's technology...
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In reality a wheel doesn't go light during extreme understeer, it goes light (and does so quite quickly) at the point the slip angle limit of the tyre is exceeded. Note this isn't actually the point you lose grip, that happens slightly later, which is part of the reason why it's actually quite easy to reach someone to drive at 8/tenths, and a lot more tricky at 10/tenths.

The graph below should help illustrate what I'm talking about, the self aligning torque is the weight you will feel in the steering and the lateral force is the grip available (laterally). As you can see the steering weight drops off starts at 3degrees of slip/650kg lateral force. However as you can see the actual peak of available grip is around 6 degrees slip/775kgs lateral grip. At which point steering weight has dropped from 100Nm to 20Nm, a fifth of its weight!

As you can see steering load doesn't drop during heavy understeer, but rather at the point you are extracting the last bit of grip from the tyres!

SAT vs Slip.jpg
 
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@Scaff
Seems to me that your explanations aligns with what I was guessing earlier, that they have to change or simplify some things to make it practical/intuitive since you can't feel G forces.

I'm quite skilled at motorcycle riding, but there's no way I would be able to ride well if I only relied on the sensations in my hands. Many things would had to be simplified or emulated for a motorcycle game to be enjoyable.

In real life, when you're losing traction beyond what's optimal, I guess you feel a sudden loss of G force in your body? Not in wheel? Right?
 
HugoTwoWheels
@Scaff
Seems to me that your explanations aligns with what I was guessing earlier, that they have to change or simplify some things to make it practical/intuitive since you can't feel G forces.

I'm quite skilled at motorcycle riding, but there's no way I would be able to ride well if I only relied on the sensations in my hands. Many things would had to be simplified or emulated for a motorcycle game to be enjoyable.

In real life, when you're losing traction beyond what's optimal, I guess you feel a sudden loss of G force in your body? Not in wheel? Right?
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Nope, in the graph I posted, the Self Aligning Torque value in Nm will be felt via the wheel.

The tyre wants to go straight ahead, as you turn the steering the tyre is trying to still go straight. This deform the contact patch and can be felt as load via the steering wheel, once it passes its limit the rubber will realign and that resistance will be lost and that loss will be felt via the steering as well.

It's actually really easy to model, take a pencil eraser in your hand, then push it down into the surface of your desk. While pushing down as hard as you can turn it in one direction, you will initially feel resistance build, up to the point it can take no more and it will then self align and you will very suddenly lose all resistance.
 
In addition to @Scaff's example there's also the issue that many FWD cars understeer far too much, especially the modern racing cars, which in reality can seem like they're cornering on rails at times, certainly not screeching towards the outside of the corner whenever you get on the power or enter a corner at speed.

Gran Turismo's physics have always been decent, accessible for the most part, but flawed. The cars in the game do occasionally do something you don't expect and wouldn't happen in the real world, especially over curbs, some seriousely wonky things happen at times when you go over the curbs. But I dont think that they are aiming to take on ACC for driving realism.

There was a discussion either ealier in this thread or another similar thread about the focus being on pad users, which may explain some of the imperfections, but not what @Scaff mentioned or what I've mentioned above. I absolutely don't mind the game being optomised for pad users, but it'd be nice to see some of the obvious quirks dissapear at least.
 
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Dave A
In addition to @Scaff's example there's also the issue that many FWD cars understeer far too much, especially the modern racing cars, which in reality can seem like they're cornering on rails at times, certainly not screeching towards the outside of the corner whenever you get on the power or enter a corner at speed.

Gran Turismo's physics have always been decent, accessible for the most part, but flawed. The cars in the game do occasionally do something you don't expect and wouldn't happen in the real world, especially over curbs, some seriousely wonky things happen at times when you go over the curbs. But I dont think that they are aiming to take on ACC for driving realism.

There was a discussion either ealier in this thread or another similar thread about the focus being on pad users, which may explain some of the imperfections, but not what @Scaff mentioned or what I've mentioned above. I absolutely don't mind the game being optomised for pad users, but it'd be nice to see some of the obvious quirks dissapear at least.
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But to be fair all racing games have their flaws, even the super mega iper pc simulators aren't perfect as many people describe them...im playing a little bit of Raceroom these days and to be honest even it has a way smaller car roster than GT and has been in developement idk how many years to me doesn't seem that much superior to GTS and in some areas imho GT is better as the ffb where you can feel the weiht shift/road/curbs way clearer than on RR. Also some cars handle like absolute dog**** like the Tatuus where it drives like on ice when irl has tons of grip.
But yeah i agree that the fwd cars drives like **** on GTS, hope they fixed that on GT7
 
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Shingo_civic
But to be fair all racing games have their flaws, even the super mega iper pc simulators aren't perfect as many people describe them...im playing a little bit of Raceroom these days and to be honest even it has a way smaller car roster than GT and has been in developement idk how many years to me doesn't seem that much superior to GTS and in some areas imho GT is better as the ffb where you can feel the weiht shift/road/curbs way clearer than on RR. Also some cars handle like absolute dog**** like the Tatuus where it drives like on ice when irl has tons of grip
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I don't know much about Raceroom, but GT Sports' FFB is one of its biggest weaknesses imo. It feels really really dull.
 
br1x
I don't know much about Raceroom, but GT Sports' FFB is one of its biggest weaknesses imo. It feels really really dull.
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Raceroom to me feels even more duller on my t300, GT feels like a dream in comparision.

Also simracers like Random Callsign praises it:

 
Shingo_civic
But to be fair all racing games have their flaws, even the super mega iper pc simulators aren't perfect as many people describe them...im playing a little bit of Raceroom these days and to be honest even it has a way smaller car roster than GT and has been in developement idk how many years to me doesn't seem that much superior to GTS and in some areas imho GT is better as the ffb where you can feel the weiht shift/road/curbs way clearer than on RR. Also some cars handle like absolute dog**** like the Tatuus where it drives like on ice when irl has tons of grip.
But yeah i agree that the fwd cars drives like **** on GTS, hope they fixed that on GT7
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Nobody has ever said otherwise. No game is even close to perfect realism. Not even the multi million pound racing Sims professionals use.

The difference is most people can critique and point out flaws in all the games they play but you just go into defensive mode whenever someone critiques GT, thinking they can't possibly be a fan if they're criticising it.
 
Shingo_civic
But to be fair all racing games have their flaws, even the super mega iper pc simulators aren't perfect as many people describe them...im playing a little bit of Raceroom these days and to be honest even it has a way smaller car roster than GT and has been in developement idk how many years to me doesn't seem that much superior to GTS and in some areas imho GT is better as the ffb where you can feel the weiht shift/road/curbs way clearer than on RR. Also some cars handle like absolute dog**** like the Tatuus where it drives like on ice when irl has tons of grip.
But yeah i agree that the fwd cars drives like **** on GTS, hope they fixed that on GT7
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Absolutely, iRacing for example has pretty dodgy tyre physics to name another. But when you look at other racing sims, while none are perfect, and they won't be for quite some time if not forever, not all of their flaws are as obvious as the fact that the FWD cars handle/grip in GT Sport is all wrong.

Some flaws are design choices too, that has to be remembered such as where a company has a budget of CPU performance and they have to choose to dump some values even though they know how to simulate them and collate a more complex and accurate simulation into a simpler model that uses a fraction of the number of calculations.

The main issue is that the cars should behave as you would expect within a given margin to how they would behave in the real world. The FWD cars in GT Sport just don't, period. Stuff like that really should be improved. It doesn't pervent me from liking Gran Turismo or gaining enjoyment from it, far from that, but they should (in my opiion at least) be correcting issues like that.

Also, because I'm focusing on GT here and it's flaws, that's only because this is the GT forum, if we were in a thread discussing the physics of iRacing or another sim that had obvious flaws I'd be focusing on those instead.
 
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That FWD flaw, you're talking about the lack of oversteer when braking? Or are you saying that they should oversteer when accelerating as well?
Just trying to understand what your talking about. Smashing the rear brakes when turning, manually or automatically, is not desirable handling in my opinion, unless you're driving a rally car in hairpins.

Oversteer when braking in a FWD car that then quickly snaps to understeer when accelerating out of a corner sounds difficult to drive... I'd prefer constant and various degrees of understeer.
 
HugoTwoWheels
That FWD flaw, you're talking about the lack of oversteer when braking? Or are you saying that they should oversteer when accelerating as well?
Just trying to understand what your talking about. Smashing the rear brakes when turning, manually or automatically, is not desirable handling in my opinion, unless you're driving a rally car in hairpins.

Oversteer when braking in a FWD car that then quickly snaps to understeer when accelerating out of a corner sounds difficult to drive... I'd prefer constant and various degrees of understeer.
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It's the complete overuse of understeer and omittance of any discernable impact from the LSD on the front axle. I've driven mostly FWD cars in my life (including performance road cars and a couple of racing cars), and they don't handle nearly as bad as they do in GT Sport. The understeer is far too overstated in general, but particularly in the modern performance FWD cars and FWD racing cars there's a distinct lack of the LSD having any discernable impact on that front axle. Lift off oversteer as well.
 
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I just googled and read a short explanation of LSD. Everything you said suddenly made sense.
My experience from GT Sport is that this isn't simulated at all. The front axle/differential feels entirely rigid/simplified.
But surely, even with LSD, if you keep pushing, it eventually will understeer? It just comes later than with a standard differential?
Do FWD race cars IRL have lift off oversteer? There's none of that either in GT Sport... You're saying they feel like a 911 95- or R8 Grp. 3 in GT Sport? Doesn't sound like something that should be released to the public. :D
 
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HugoTwoWheels
I often wonder if the people who whine about GT Sports physics - the realism elitists - even drive a real-life vehicle.
I'm used to riding both cars and motorcycles in real life on the limit. Three times I've gone beyond that limit as well, crashing on a motorcycle, and to me GT Sport is super realistic and primarily INTUITIVE. With the small improvements coming in GT7, I'm super happy.
As someone said earlier here, more difficult does not equal more realistic. It's not that damn difficult and unpredictable in real life...
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Just for background:
  • Been playing GT since GT1. Have over 1000 game days in GTS. Usually 2-3 secs off top times.
  • Been playing PC sims from GPL, LFS, rFactor + many of its ISImotor variants, AC, ACC (200+ hours in AC alone).
  • Been driving IRL for 15 years. Done a few karting and track days as well (road car and slicks), though I don't profess to be a pro in anything.
  • Enjoy the occasional arcade game as well - Burnout, NFS, Driveclub - you name it. So I'm not a PC sim elitist by any means.

Breaking it down simply, realistic and intuitive physics are on 2 different unrelated scales (imagine an x/y plot), and different games lay on a range on this scale. For example:
  • Unrealistic & unintuitive - NFS 2015
  • Unrealistic & intuitive - Driver San Francisco
  • Realistic & unintuitive - Forza
  • Realistic & intuitive - AC, ACC

Where does GT lie on this scale? It's between Forza and AC/ACC. It's definitely aiming on the realistic side, but with certain cars in certain situations, it doesn't behave like it should in real life, and thus it is not as intuitive as AC/ACC.

Intuitive doesn't mean anybody can jump in and be Lewis Hamilton. Intuitive means, things happen as expected if you do the same things in real life. It just "makes sense". It doesn't make the game easy, but it makes it "easier" to find the limit, be consistent, and apply learnings between game and real life (provided you know what you're doing).

So, where do we stand currently with PD?
  • Hardware is definitely not an issue (AC/ACC can run on PS4 and both have better physics engine than GTS).
  • PD's physics knowledge is probably not an issue (Kaz races IRL, and the main physics guy of the series seems well read on the subject).
  • PD's desire to improve the physics is probably the main limiting factor. Why? Well I can only speculate, but the obvious one is balancing realism with accessibility as Kaz mentioned many times.
  • And this last point is where the reasoning breaks down, because currently, the physics in GT series are hard enough for a casual gamer, but for a pro racer it has lots of annoying/unrealistic quirks. So it's stuck in this middle ground uncanny valley.
  • Improving the physics towards more realism, will only bring good things. More realism = more authentic. More intuitive = easier to handle on the limit and everything makes sense. No more embarrassing bugs like this one. It's a win-win situation.

I hope people can understand, why some of us endlessly blabber on about why the physics in GT is not good enough. Once you understand the reasoning, wanting more realistic physics is just wanting a better driving game. No more, no less :) 👍
 

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