handling feels different between tuning sessions

[nomis3613]

Hi Folks,
I'm struggling with some tunes at Tokyo R246, because each time I get the car handling "just right" for me, I come back to it the next day and it feels like a pig again! This is for offline practice mode, without fuel and tyre wear. Any ideas what would be causing this? With damage off, even if I hit a wall, the handling won't be affected, right?

Also, I have noticed my lap times are 0.5s slower when the ghost is on (the car feels harder to control when oversteering, especially when following the ghost). I have been chasing my ghost for years and never had this problem before, so I don't think it's a case of driver distraction. Has anyone else noticed a difference when following their ghost?

Finally, in the Speed Tests, repeat runs are exactly the same time. Except for the first few runs, which are quicker. It seems to take about 5 runs for something to "settle" so that times are repeatable after this. I'm wondering if this is related to my troubles at Toyko perhaps?

 

[XDesperado67]

You may need to do Chassis Maintenance in GTAuto.

The more contact you have, the more likely it is to get out of wack. It will impact handling and overall performance. Also check that your not due for an oil change/engine rebuild as changing power levels will also affect the handling. Had a car that I thought I'd got just about right after several hours of tuning, set my best lap by almost 2 seconds with the car on Trial Mountain. Checked the tune and found it was down about 8hp and 1PP because of dirty oil. Changed the oil bringing the HP and PP back up and had to spend another hour adjusting the tune to get back close to that best lap as those few extra HP changed the handling of the car.

 

[nomis3613]

Thanks xDes, yeah it's not chassis maintenance because sometimes it's slower and somtimes it's faster.

My latest conspiracy theory is "sixaxis low battery lag". It gets a mention by a couple of people on the internet: link, link

At Suzuka (without ghost) I was running laps of 2:09.0, give or take 0.2s. After about 5 laps, the car seemed to have less front grip and I couldn't do any better than 2:10.5. It was then I noticed that the light on the controller was flashing (but the on-screen warning hadn't come up yet). I plugged into the USB and was straight back to my original times of 2:09. Continued playing for a while as it charged, then I unplugged and it stayed at 2:09 (controller was showing 1 bar of charge).

And I'm still hanging onto the theory that frame rate drops can also affect lap times (similar to the online bug that messes up wheel users in races). It's like time has marched on, but for a few instants the cornering force hasn't been present so the car has travelled in a straight line for those instants. I think this because in times when the frame rate drops (such as when the ghost "breaks out" to pull ahead slightly), the car pushes wide by a metre or so during the jerkiness. Repeated testing has found that following a ghost has added 0.4s at some tracks, and the car seems to be less responsive to steering inputs.

Has anyone noticed similar problems?

 

[Lambob]

that is insightful nomsis, I couldnt get a clean lap online at the Nur, in the last 5 days, and I believe you're onto someting with the sixaxis lag. That does it, I'm adding a wire, or will even try to turn the controller off in race, and advise all my peers to do the same.

But online in last week, is very wonky, very difficult to do clean laps, something goes wrong for so many, it is perhaps why the maintenance is coming April 4th, as if the server is hanging on by a thread perhaps.

 

[nomis3613]

that is insightful nomsis, I couldnt get a clean lap online at the Nur, in the last 5 days, and I believe you're onto someting with the sixaxis lag. That does it, I'm adding a wire, or will even try to turn the controller off in race, and advise all my peers to do the same.

But online in last week, is very wonky, very difficult to do clean laps, something goes wrong for so many, it is perhaps why the maintenance is coming April 4th, as if the server is hanging on by a thread perhaps.

Cool, I'd be interested to hear how it goes.

Online is a whole other can of worms, by the way here's the online bug I was talking about: https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/showthread.php?t=237539

 

[Johnnypenso]

The only time I run offline is for a tuning shootout and I always turn the ghost off because I don't want it blocking my view so I can't say if it affects anything or not.

And losing 1 or 2pp has a nearly infinitesimal affect on lap times, on the order of about .05 seconds per PP at Deep Forest for example, using my own laptimes at 450/500/550pp. .05 seconds at the Start/Finish line is 10 feet give or take. So I highly doubt an oil change or small loss of hp would make the kind of difference we're talking about here.