Gran Turismo 7 Update 1.57 - March 2025

[Voodoovaj]

So strange, I tried Le Mans gr3 with boos off, it was pretty much like always, finished P1. Then tried with boost weak and couldn't catch other cars and was losing positions, like the boost was only for AI or something. Was around P14 at the start of lap 2 and left. Really dont see the point.

Yes, it's a strange confusing outcome, but I LOVE IT

Let's face it, the player doesn't need any boosting. The player can change the AI difficulty, and even at the most difficult, a competent player can destroy the field with a top three finish almost guaranteed.

With boost on weak, the AI is keeping pace with you. It has that little extra necessary to be competitive. I tried boost "strong" and the results are not as much fun as "weak". On weak, I seem to be unaffected, but the AI is boosted. It's exactly what we need.

I created an all Japan 600pp SS race and an all Euro 600pp SS race. Same results. Good, close, competitive racing. The biggest deciding factor on how I finished was my choice of car and my driving, which is exactly how racing the AI should be.

Until now, I didn't see the point of Sophy. In the quick races, they give the Sophy driver much faster cars, so it feels like they are cheating. Now, you can see them driving. I'll try and post another video today from my Japanese race where Sophy is 4 wheel drifting my Subra around Tokyo.

And now that they stop for pitstops, so we can make longer events with tire wear and fuel stop. People wanted endurance events? Well, here you go!

The other part of this, that I don't think people have caught onto yet, is that this feature brings purpose to all the cars! Until now, yes, I could make a custom race, but the competition was a joke and it wasn't worth the effort (Sorry custom race lovers, you know it's true). Now though, with fun close racing, I want to make custom set ups for everything, classic lemans, VW's, Porsche cup, UNIMOGS!!

I can also self balance the race. If I see that some cars are OP or under powered, I can fix them. None of this mattered before because the custom races were a joke. This is truly a game changer.

 

[Imbissbrunto]

I really like how the game enables us to realistically recreate the Vantage GT4 with aero parts from GT Auto.

Made a few GT4 replicas already, and I‘m definitely going to create a few more!

 

[juanffy18]

Interesting some cars are not available in every circuit with Sophy AI, for example:

The Mercedes CLK LM is not available in La Sarthe and the Ford MK4 1967 is not available in Tokyo Expressway.

 

[Desert_Ranger]

Welp, Sophy has truly showed me that I can't competively race to save my life 🤣

Loaded up my Trans Am Series grid (all American muscle cars, fully tuned, engine swaps where available, RH tires for all, tuned to 700PP) on Laguna Seca, and stood absolutely no chance. The only car that had an issue was the 1970 Chevelle, but I suspect it was an issue with the tuning, as the AI consistently dive-bombed almost every turn they came to, even when they were well behind the rest of the pack.

But everyone else managed to stay pretty close together (except for me); even the Superbirds, which always brought up the rear with the normal AI, were pretty consistent. I was playing on Professional, with boost set to Weak. I have to go through and re-configure/test a lot of the tunes, as they were all made at least two physics updates ago, but so far, this new AI implementation is really promising.

Seperately, I also got my hands on the Kangoo and proceeded to fully upgrade it, put on the widebody kit and all aero, and tuned it to where I thought would be good. With RH tires, I think I got it to ~620PP. Added a little weight and downforce, got it under 600PP, and did the 600PP race on Tokyo Expressway South Counterclockwise circuit. Came in 1st by 2 or 3 seconds. What the Kangoo lacks in straight-line speed, it makes up for in cornering speed and manueverability. I was able to coast through a lot of turns that the AI was having to break for, and that really made all of the difference.

 

[WolfpackS2k]

As has been pointed out, plenty of other titles (admittedly many on PC) manage to do this already without the need for rubber banding, some have been doing it for longer than Sophy has been around.

Sorry, but I have to call that out, Sophy is still not great when it comes to racecraft at all, and certainly not close to being a benchmark in the sim world in that regard.

It's a lazy way of doing it, and simply masks issues with AI, it's not required at any driver level and a good adaptive AI (such as Raceroom has) is a far better way of doing the same.

So confidently wrong in so many ways.

The ability to exceed the rolling resistance of a tyre to a large enough degree to do a 'burnout' is a factor of rolling resistance and tyre grip limit vs torque at the tyre (not horsepower).

Let's do some (very) rough maths.

Tyre Grip assuming a mU of 1. Weight is circa 2100lbs, with a F:R weight distribution of 44:56, so that's roughly 588 lbs of load at each of the rear wheels.

The torque at each of those rear wheels is roughly as follows. 312 ft/lbs at the crack is then multiplied by the 1st gear and final drive ratios (and technically the wheel itself) and gives roughly 312 * 2.5 * 3.53 = 2753.4 ft/lbs, at the rear axle, and roughly 1,376 ft/lbs per rear wheel.

Yeah that's not going to have an issue in overcoming (significantly) the 588 lbs of load.

Okay, so then let's just assume the game won't let you abuse the clutch that much. Happy now? You're splitting hairs and it doesn't even matter.

 

[Revengel]

Had a (too short!) time with Sophy last night.

First, a frame of reference.

Spoiler: Where I'm coming from

I use a modified 512BB at 589PP and SH tires in a 10-lap custom race at Spa. Normally, I have a grid of 650-680 +/- PP cars and it's a close fight. Using overpowered cars for my opponents provides a sense of accomplishment when I actually do win. My goal is to make it as competitive as possible.

When Sophy first came out, I was amazed at what I saw. When the Drive Together update happened, I did that every day! Quickly I realized how potent she was; I'm not an "alien" driver after all.

Once Sophy 2.0 came out, I genuinely applauded the changes. They made her more accessible to the masses - a decision that certainly is not universally liked - but the races were short. I still enjoy a short race against her but with the lack of tire wear and fuel usage there were things that I'd hoped for.

To test Sophy, I decided to do something similar to my custom races. With my previous experience, using underpowered cars and slowly ratcheting up the competition was likely the best choice.

For this setup, and understanding Sophy is far better than the standard AI, I began at Spa and selected to use my own garage.

Spoiler: The Cars I used

By default, every car was the blue 512BB I was in (Sophy is compatible with this bad chicken) so that took care of the first test: Can I have her drive a tuned car?

Yes. Yes you can. No changes required.

I then proceeded to change the cars in the grid to others from my garage. The default was a number of cars that are compatible with Sophy - not the whole garage but still - and I could limit that in the standard ways (manufacturer, PP, etc.) After putting a Ferrari F50 near the front (615PP If I recall) I chose to select from 500-599 PP for the rest of the field.

Various versions of my cars - both tuned and stock - were selectable. I didn't check which cars had which tires as I was limited on time. But as an example, my C3 Stingrays were selectable from stock, lightly tuned and engine swapped. Ditto for my C4 fleet and others. I recall the number of selectable cars between 500-599PP in my garage was 295.

I wound up with a mix of cars around the 525-550 range for the most part; again, I was not sure how this would go. I had a couple Nissan 400Rs in the mix, I think a Supra . . . I'm still building the grid to see what's best for my racing needs. There was a BMW Z8 convertible, 1966 Ford GT40 . . . a mix of things.

At no time did I detune/re-tune any of these cars in my garage; it's just how they were. There were no signs indicating I had to make adjustments similar to if you try to enter a 557PP car in a 550 capped race. Just plug and play; no need to purchase & modify a whole new roster.

For the setup I used boost to "Weak" with x3 Fuel and x5 Tire Wear. It's the same as my custom race and as long as I pay attention, I can finish the race using my H-Pattern shifter with +/- 5% fuel or so. I wind up using 89% or so per lap.

(side note, I use the free GT Engineer app which pipes in lap times, lap counts and fuel calculations which is THE BEST THING to add to my V.R. driving.)

I started 10th on the grid just to see how it went. I had the best car on the grid (so I thought - I forgot to switch out the F50) so I expected to be able to be competitive.

Here's what happened.

Spoiler: Race Details if you want them

In fairly short order I found myself passed going into turn 1 because I left the inside open. The 1984 288 GTO fishtailed slightly as he pulled away; I imagined Sophy was showing off. However, I was able to make my way back up the grid and by lap 5 I was near the front. I found myself in a 2-3 lap battle with both a stock Miura (aka the Ex Girlfriend) and a stock 959.

Another sidebar: I am pretty sure the physics were changed. My car drove quite differently than it did just a couple days ago.

Once I finally got a clean pass around the 959, I was able to very, very slowly open up a gap. I finished in second.

The F50? Beat me by 29+ seconds in a 10-lap race.

After this experience, I made a few changes. I moved myself to 20th, left most of the grid the same but replaced the F40 with a Cayman (about 575PP) and placed that in the 19th spot.

The exhilarating part was as the two of us were picking our way towards the front, just how dynamic Sophy was with the car. There were gaps she shot through to make a double-pass and - when I could - I'd tuck in right behind her. Keeping pace was not that easy; while my car was clearly better, we each had traffic to navigate. More than a few times I'd get ahead of her by line choice through traffic only to have the reverse take place a short time later.

On lap 6 we were both in the top 4 when I made a mistake at Radion and crunched the car (heavy damage!)

At that point I saw it was midnight and I'd been up WAY past my bedtime.


TL;DR - don't have to re-purchase new cars, your custom fleet likely has drivable cars, Sophy is WAY better in the custom races, use "weak" boost.

I hope this helps anyone who is curious about custom races with Sophy and using the already tuned cars in your garage.

 

[kjeldsen]

So tried Sophy for the first time. A bug about Sophys tires always being Sport Hard, you say? Seemed like it as it was relatively easy for me to get in front with Sport Soft tires on hard difficulty and boost weak. Can i work around that bug or do i have to choose another tire for my car for competitiveness?

There is a trick i think has been mentioned, but in general i think that the same tire is the way to go since for all we know, that is the tire Sophy is trained on.

 

[Scaff]

Okay, so then let's just assume the game won't let you abuse the clutch that much. Happy now? You're splitting hairs and it doesn't even matter.

A correction to an utterly incorrect claim isn't splitting hairs, you were both factually and technically wrong.

 

[Sir Crashalot]

There is a trick i think has been mentioned, but in general i think that the same tire is the way to go since for all we know, that is the tire Sophy is trained on.

I don't think it has anything to do with Sophy since the exact same limitation exists in custom races with the regular AI since forever.

 

[Met Entso]

Yes, it's a strange confusing outcome, but I LOVE IT

Let's face it, the player doesn't need any boosting. The player can change the AI difficulty, and even at the most difficult, a competent player can destroy the field with a top three finish almost guaranteed.

With boost on weak, the AI is keeping pace with you. It has that little extra necessary to be competitive. I tried boost "strong" and the results are not as much fun as "weak". On weak, I seem to be unaffected, but the AI is boosted. It's exactly what we need.

I created an all Japan 600pp SS race and an all Euro 600pp SS race. Same results. Good, close, competitive racing. The biggest deciding factor on how I finished was my choice of car and my driving, which is exactly how racing the AI should be.

Until now, I didn't see the point of Sophy. In the quick races, they give the Sophy driver much faster cars, so it feels like they are cheating. Now, you can see them driving. I'll try and post another video today from my Japanese race where Sophy is 4 wheel drifting my Subra around Tokyo.

And now that they stop for pitstops, so we can make longer events with tire wear and fuel stop. People wanted endurance events? Well, here you go!

The other part of this, that I don't think people have caught onto yet, is that this feature brings purpose to all the cars! Until now, yes, I could make a custom race, but the competition was a joke and it wasn't worth the effort (Sorry custom race lovers, you know it's true). Now though, with fun close racing, I want to make custom set ups for everything, classic lemans, VW's, Porsche cup, UNIMOGS!!

I can also self balance the race. If I see that some cars are OP or under powered, I can fix them. None of this mattered before because the custom races were a joke. This is truly a game changer.

This is interesting, I tried again in Monza and the races was more interesting, with boost off but will try again with other combinations as you say

 

[kjeldsen]

I don't think it has anything to do with Sophy since the exact same limitation exists in custom races with the regular AI since forever.

My point is that the AI training is most likely done on the cars default tires. And that the best performance in all aspects would be expected from that.

 

[newmedia_dev]

My point is that the AI training is most likely done on the cars default tires. And that the best performance in all aspects would be expected from that.

Millions of laps done in a few minutes.

I don’t quite think you understand how Sophy learns.

It’s faster than 99% on crap tires, can do 360 no scopes for fun in 80s Lambos…

Honestly and this will offend a lot of people, it’s dialled back because most people are crap drivers, in their heads they think they are great but the reality is they are bad.

 

[JTB10000]

I was just about to come here to confirm and complain that Sophy has the same problem of slowing down in the middle of the race to allow the player to catch up but it looks like I need to give weak boost a try. GT has made me loathe rubberbanding so much that it feels icky to turn any kind of boost on lol

Update: Weak boost 👍👍👍🔥🔥🔥

 

[ohhhkay]

Honestly and this will offend a lot of people, it’s dialled back because most people are crap drivers, in their heads they think they are great but the reality is they are bad.

I'm one of those bad ones and I would love to have the option of actually dialling back Sophy even more, or at least to notice the difference between Beginner, Normal and Pro a bit more. On Weak Boost I have a feeling that it's just driving like mad regardless of the difficulty setting. 😅

 

[dkstz]

Does weak boost affect the player as well if he's running behind the pack or just the AI?

 

[Voodoovaj]

Update: Weak boost 👍👍👍🔥🔥🔥

Does weak boost affect the player as well if he's running behind the pack or just the AI?

That was what I expected, but the AI normally slows down for you. So, it seems that the boost is for the AI more than for the player. From what I can tell from boost "strong" that seems to make you a little faster. I don't know anyone would use this. Set the AI to a slower level.

I'm one of those bad ones and I would love to have the option of actually dialling back Sophy even more, or at least to notice the difference between Beginner, Normal and Pro a bit more. On Weak Boost I have a feeling that it's just driving like mad regardless of the difficulty setting. 😅

Then the setting for you is "amateur" with the boost off. That should allow you to get better.

 

[Neroblu Osaka]

The model in the game is an automatic, which is a 4-speed.
But an automatic Renault Kangoo would definitely be a rare sight anywhere in Europe

5-speed is available buying transmission “Full Customization” and shifts incredible! Try it up and enjoy!

 

[AmyUD06]

No Sophy for me (PS4), but I have driven both the Kangoo and the Aston. The Kangoo is a lot of fun and should enable some fun short-track sport mode races. The Aston, while it does sound nice, is just kinda bland, both in driving and appearance, especially the interior - the exterior design, except for the rear, is just another modern amorphous blob. Sorry not sorry hahaha.

Kangoo wins this update for me (not expected to be blown away by the CX-30).

 

[Snake55wildcat]

WOW is the vantage a colossal disappointment...the AMG GT-S it shares it's engine from its miles better in stock form in terms of driving feel personally

But the other two cars have genuinely impressed from a driving standpoint - unexpectedly this goes for the SUV too...wasn't expecting it to perform so nicely even stock but it does! It and the kangoo feel great to drive

 

[Tired Tyres]

I didn't like the Vantage when I first drive it at Dragon Trail Seaside against random Sophy's. it was soft and unfocussed. When I tried it again on the weekly I found it much better (no change to settings)

I've also found that I can't share replays of Sophy races. The system said the file size was too big.

 

[Fuz_Belvedere]

Awesome that we now have Sophy AI 2.1 in custom races but it still sucks that we have single file rolling starts... heck the slight offset in recently created events would've been nice.

 

[Marcus Garvey]

 

[kjeldsen]

Millions of laps done in a few minutes.

I don’t quite think you understand how Sophy learns.

It’s faster than 99% on crap tires, can do 360 no scopes for fun in 80s Lambos…

Honestly and this will offend a lot of people, it’s dialled back because most people are crap drivers, in their heads they think they are great but the reality is they are bad.

You got something to back that up with?

 

[newmedia_dev]

You got something to back that up with?

 

[Alfa Romeo GT]

She look so fun in 1 vs 1... oh yeah we can now !

Sophy is a great way to learn how to push yourself, take the right trajectories and keep clean...

I've got chills down my spine for GT8, with tests against sophy to be won for the gold medal.
But it's great, maybe it'll encourage new players to drive clean.

And besides, I think she may be under pressure

 

[Met Entso]

Why don't we have this Sophy anymore?

 

[Alfa Romeo GT]

Why don't we have this Sophy anymore?

Boost : weak + One AI with an equivalent car.

I never tried yet. (But sophy is clearly slower than in beta. )
In beta, she had a tendency to cheat by cutting at certain turns... I'm not against with that kind of behavior. (not for all of AI !)

 

[alectron010]

Why don't we have this Sophy anymore?

Does not compute for me either. The first outing was so promising...
Then a slew of new rubber-banding rules for Sophy came with every release, watering down and negating what PD/Sony achieved imo (presumably with the excuse that majority of people do not want the challenge...
Buy hey, let me TF please decide that!
Fingers crossed the addition of custom races for Sophy is a good next step...and also fingers crossed we can do the same challenging grid/races as the first demo of Sophy in GT7 promised 1-2 years ago when the kinks are ironed out)

 

[kjeldsen]

dude, we all know this, where did you get the:
"Millions of laps done in a few minutes"

And to quote you: "I don’t quite think you understand how Sophy learns", i have a fairly good idea thanks to the videos and the research papers they released over the years. My point is, and you have so far done nothing to disprove it, that the best version of Sophy is the car with the same setup/settings as the they originally trained it on. Best version being the best version to race against, not the fastest versions.

 

[HarVee]

I always find myself calling it the "Kangaroo" instead.