Is Suspension Tuning Backwards? - A Test with RX-8

[Greyout]

Take for example the 911 Porsche, it has taken Porsche 30-40 odd years to get the car to a point where most normal people (ie. not racecar drivers) can drive the car fast on the road and not be scared ****less that it will bite them in the ass if they make one small mistake

yet if you take a RUF balls-to-the-wall through a corner, and suddenly lift off the throttle for no reason.... gee, nothing bad happens.

 

[Greyout]

The extreme values of spring rates do throw the cars handling off, and as they should, I quite effectively showed that using my RC car example.
[/b]

so your experience with your remoted controlled car negates decades of published findings from hundreds of professional automotive sources?

So mate, which of us chaps has his bonnet up his boot when I say 1 click will make 1 car lengths difference at the end of the opening straight at Deep Forest? Oh, perhaps you don't know what I am talking about. Could it be because you have never actually taken the time to run 1 lap with a particular setting, then compare sucessive tuning adjustments to your ghost? What could 1 car length for 2000 yards multiplied by a 10,000yard + course possibly mean to people who slap thier slide adjusters around like they were playing air hockey?
To anyone interested in actually LEARNING something here, I encourage you to keep participating. The rest of you hotheads that already know it all, wtf, why do you even frikkin care?

Take ANY car in my garage. set the race suspension to default settings.

Run 1 lap at a time, each lap, progressively adding .5kg to the rear.

Each time, the car understeers CONSISTANTLY more, in all phases of cornering. There is no slider-slapping, and nothing hotheaded about this test!

Start with both spring rates in the upper regions of the slider (not full...) and each lap, remove 0.5 kg from the rear. Progressively, as you get softer and softer, the rear loosens up more and more, until you EVENTUALLY get to the extreme ends of the slider, and the soft rear is hanging out like a dorifto champion.

The only thing left to learn is wtf PD is trying to do!

 

[Bad760]

yet if you take a RUF balls-to-the-wall through a corner, and suddenly lift off the throttle for no reason.... gee, nothing bad happens.

Now that is just straight out BS

I was racing my RUF last night and I most certainly had very bad liftoff oversteer (all ASM & TC off)

I will note tho that it would settle down if I used a small amount of brake, I don't know if this is true to life as I haven't driven a 911 myself, so maybe someone who has had the balls to try that in their real 911 could tell me

 

[Greyout]

did it have the full race suspension installed? So far I have driven only one RUF, and it was my Brother-in-laws car - he may have had something weird done to it that removed the tendency...

 

[rk]

I hope that that is a typo on your part, either that or you have jumped on the "physics is backward" bandwagon

👍 Nice call, already edited. I wonder how many inadvertent friends I made with that typo.

Another example, and I have had this on many a hot lap, come around a fast corner get sideways and not be able to catch it, so I let off the gas and turn the wheel to make the car spin a full 360 so I can be on my way with a minimum of fuss and low and behold I get to not quite 180 degrees rotation and the front of the car suddenly decides to reverse it's rotation and go back the way it was coming from even tho the front wheels are pointed in the opposite direction

Yes, I have also experienced this, but not recently (better driving?). i had come to assume it was polyfunny's way of simulating a serious crash. Possibly when you reversed direction above a certain speed you triggered the "crash."It took Niki Lauda 6 weeks to get back in the race after his big crash, what is a 180 degree reversal compared to that?

 

[Duke]

I've actually had an easier time doing accidental 360s in GT4 than I ever had trying to do one on purpose in GT4.

And boys, now that some of us has settled down a bit, can we try to keep this discussion on an even keel? Thanks. Honestly, people with crappy and irritable attitudes are going to find themselves on the wrong end of the ban button after a while.

 

[Greyout]

Do we really think that PD would make such a gross and stupid error to release a game with the physics reversed! and not recall them in a hurry when they found out, I think not, some PD engineers are prob reading this thread and laughing their asses off

I can't think of one console game EVER that has been "recalled", much less because of gameplay errors.

Console games don't have a tenth of the support, after release, that PC games do. Unless there is a gross error that turns itself up IMEDIATELY, so much so that it causes the game to get poor reviews (which is the only way it would... none of the glitches in GT4 that you come across later in play will ever be discovered by a mag. writer who spends a few hours with it), a game will NOT be recalled. If the bad reviews hit the press, that'll be terrible, because sales will drop, but if everyone goes out and BUYS it, and it makes it through the first month or so of press, they WILL NOT make ANY effort to correct what you found wrong.

There are no downloadable patches! No aftermarket mod writers! What you get out of the box on opening day is IT. If bugs turn up, they'll just be spun around as improvements in the next version.

IF GT4 were a PC game, there would be a half a dozen patches available for download already.

 

[Bad760]

Just when I thought we were heading into a flame war, phew

Greyout

Yes I have full race suspension in it, and it is the 88? year RUF I can't remember the exact year.
Possibly PD would release a press release to the effect of "we stuffed up, the spring rates are reversed so just do the opposite when you are tuning cars" if it is was found that the rates are reversed. ( I personally don't think they are)


Maybe the whole doing 360's thing has to do with which controller people are using, it's possible they have limited some parameter when a DS2 is used as opposed to a wheel. I myself am using a DS2

 

[rk]

Maybe the whole doing 360's thing has to do with which controller people are using, it's possible they have limited some parameter when a DS2 is used as opposed to a wheel. I myself am using a DS2

Well, I have experienced it, it is is a sudden and deliberate thing, a complete reversal of the direction I was going and usually after scrapping with the AI cars.

 

[Greyout]

Possibly PD would release a press release to the effect of "we stuffed up, the spring rates are reversed so just do the opposite when you are tuning cars"

well, its not quite as simple as them being reversed, as someone here was nice enough to screen shots showing body squat & dive, and how the stiff rear springs caused the car to squat less under acceleration.

but I understand your point

 

[katana87]

does anybody know if laguna seca and Mazdaspeed laguna seca are 2 completely different tracks or is mazdaspeed just and updated version of the laguna seca in GT3

 

[Bad760]

It's just an updated version of Laguna Seca with Mazda as the title sponser

 

[katana87]

to me its seems as if the turns are wider like if it is ment for slower type cars

 

[katana87]

i liked the one in GT3 the sunset really made the view much better for my preference

 

[Bad760]

They updated some of the corner radii and such to make it more like the real thing.

There is a thread somewhere on here that talks about it, I think it is a couple of pages long

 

[Greyout]

does anybody know if laguna seca and Mazdaspeed laguna seca are 2 completely different tracks or is mazdaspeed just and updated version of the laguna seca in GT3

lol... so did you read the first 14 pages & then decide that it was a good idea to ask this here?

 

[rk]

lol... so did you read the first 14 pages & then decide that it was a good idea to ask this here?

Shhh, Greyout (cups hand to ear) "look where he's from...could be Kaz trying to spoof us!"

 

[Kiljoy]

well, its not quite as simple as them being reversed, as someone here was nice enough to screen shots showing body squat & dive, and how the stiff rear springs caused the car to squat less under acceleration.

but I understand your point

Hi Greyout,

I think it could be as simple as having the springs reversed. It's reasonable to assume that the graphics engine is a separate piece of code to the physics engine.

Lets assume that they are separate modules/classes. This would make their coding much easier to maintain and offer them the ability to change only the physics or graphics as necessary and also allow both sets of code to look at only one place to find any variables, spring rates, camber etc.

If the respective pieces of code look to the set up screen values to obtain the value of the springs then apply these values, it is a VERY SIMPLE coding error to apply the value of the front spring to the rear of the car and apply the rear spring value to the front in the physics engine while correctly applying these values in the graphics engine. End result, the graphic does not correspond to what the car behaves like.

Reasonable explanation for those of us who belive that the rates are reversed...
...I'll let those reading decide, as it is very difficult to prove without access to the code.

 

[tuff240]

Extreme values WILL throw off the car, and they do in the game - but not as they should!

Once again, the "extreme" values at each end of the spring rate slider ARE NO WHERE NEAR a rate that is "extreme" in real life. The softest setting is still stiffer then a stock spring, and the stiffest setting is a fraction of what many production cars run. Its one of only TWO sliders that have actual values associated with it, (the other is camber) so you'd think that the values listed had SOME attempt at accuracy.

plenty of people have run 8F / 12R, then 12F / 8R, and noted that the car behaves backwards. those are not extreme settings.

People are looking for way to have the car setup "just right" in order to prove that PD is correct. They are taking the stiff rear / soft front, and messing with EVERYTHING else (sway bars, shocks, driving method, or saying "you've gone too far") in an attempt to FORCE the car to behave the way the spring rates dictate it should.

Well all thats BS. If you've got 1200lb/in springs in the rear, 350lb/in springs in the front, assuming that your damping is SOMEWHERE in the same ballpark as it should be (and its apparent that the scale adjusts automatically, so thats not an issue), then you're going to get MORE OVERSTEER. It does not matter if you drive smoothly or not, it does not matter if you've got a degree of toe in or out, or if you've got 50lbs of ballast on one end or the other, or if your camber is dialed in just right. Those spring rates will cause the car to exibit relatively much more oversteer, compared to the reversed spring setup.

The "make small adjustments" argument is BS also. You want to add 0.3 kg/mm to the spring rate? WTF is that? They don't even manufactuer spring rates with such a small difference! If you add 0.3kg/mm and notice a small difference, adding 3.0 kg/mm will make a bigger difference! And more importantly, adding 6kg/mm will make an even bigger difference, not send the car into the 4th demention where logic & physics do not apply, and suddenly the FWD car with the iron-solid front suspension and the wet noodle rear suspension is drifting through the corners at full throttle.

I still think driving style has a LOT to do with it. If I go drive any car around like an arse, it pushes the entire time. Do you drive around in your real life car at full throttle, full brake and full steering around each corner you come to?
If you finesse the game controller a bit, stay ONLINE and drive as you would in a REAL car the cars handle remarkably realistic for a game. I'm hoping this is even better with the DFP (I'm using DS2).

Not clear on your "adjusting automatically" comment for the dampeners, could you please elaborate more on this for me?

Your .3 vs 3.0 vs 6.0 comment was a typical if more is good, too much is better.
Why not just put the largest cam in your motor you can possibly fit inside the valve cover/block or where ever it is on your paticular car? Do you also believe those "racing" stickers make your car go faster? (Not directly aimed at you, just trying to make a point.)

What are the values EXACTLY. Only PD knows for sure at this point. You said it yourself, "It has values associated with it...". That doesn't necessarily mean they are comparable to a real life spring rate (obviously they are not). So why would you think that each smallest increment couldn't be a normal (I use normal loosely) spring rate change? They have obviously done whatever they wanted to with little regard to actual real life settings. They have given the cars settings to make them handle realisticly for the game/simulation. Do you think the Pescarolo C60 really has 12.0kgt/mm front springs and 13.5kgt/mm rear springs in real life?
For instance...
Maybe PD's default setting is a basic average spring rate for that type of vehicle and drivetrain lay-out and each click is like 50lbs + or - if you tried to compare it to a real life car. That would make a 1.0 spring rate change on the game of 500lbs on a real life car. Anyone here ever add 500lb stiffer springs to their car? There will be an "extreme" difference in handling I can ASSURE you. I am not saying this IS what PD did, I'm just trying to provide an example to show a possibility of what might be going on.

Try playing the game first. Then talk.

You have a serious attitude problem. 👎
I have 80 golds, 34 completed missions, 424 cars in my garage, submissions on several different OLR spot races and 2250+ days under my belt.
What have you got?

Er....ONE click does the trick on the settings. It's progressive from the CENTER of the settings on out, for every car, in every situation. Extreme tuning doesn't affect it anymore than any other setting.

I'm sorry to have point this out to you directly, but I think it comes down to driving ability or your lack of it. I have no problems until I get way off of the default settings. Small increments work fine for me the way they are supposed to. (I'm using a DS2 with default settings and the NTSC-NA version for reference)

Saying all that I have found GT4 a lot more fun than GT3 because the cars react in a far more realistic way to my steering and throttle inputs, and I have been able to tune my cars quite effectively

This is definitely how cars are in the real world, some cars are infinitely tunable and some cars are not.

Take for example the 911 Porsche, it has taken Porsche 30-40 odd years to get the car to a point where most normal people (ie. not racecar drivers) can drive the car fast on the road and not be scared ****less that it will bite them in the ass if they make one small mistake

I couldn't agree more. 👍
My 1965 911 (1st production year) would swap ends if you blinked an eye during a "spirited" turn. My 1978 911 was MUCH more driver friendly, but would still seriously bite you if you let it. My 2000 911 I drove at Thunderhill Raceway was a pure tossable delight. I had to double check to see if it was actually still RR.

so your experience with your remoted controlled car negates decades of published findings from hundreds of professional automotive sources?

When was the last time you read about them changing the spring rates by 500-1000ft/lbs in any given car to "adjust" it? They generally start with a "close" spring rate from their years of experience for that paticular vehicle and application and adjust it from there because they already know that "extreme" tuning is usually pointless.

Start with both spring rates in the upper regions of the slider (not full...) and each lap, remove 0.5 kg from the rear. Progressively, as you get softer and softer, the rear loosens up more and more, until you EVENTUALLY get to the extreme ends of the slider, and the soft rear is hanging out like a dorifto champion!

Why would you change to "the upper regions of the slider" from the start?
Do you think their default settings are so terrible that you must instantly drastically change their settings? (I may be reading/interpreting this wrong, if so I apologize and will comment again when I do.)

I will note tho that it would settle down if I used a small amount of brake, I don't know if this is true to life as I haven't driven a 911 myself, so maybe someone who has had the balls to try that in their real 911 could tell me

In a 911 of that era.... Lifting + Braking (while cornering hard) = SURE DEATH!

 

[Maturin]

You have a serious attitude problem. 👎
I have 80 golds, 34 completed missions, 424 cars in my garage, submissions on several different OLR spot races and 2250+ days under my belt.
What have you got?

43,000 days under my belt, 100% completion, all missions, 430 golds. Oh, that's right IT DOESN"T MATTER (but it's still higher than you in all cases but missions). Most importantly the ability to separate theory from FACT. I listen to what my EYES say, not what I THINK they say. Even if I had ZERO percent complete, the last ability is most important

Once again, play the game, adjust the suspension one click at a time, or have a friend do it (blind), and tell me it isn't reversed.

If you can't do that, you're hopeless.

I also notice that M-Spec and the others who claimed it wasn't reversed have never again posted in this forum, as they have, no doubt, realized they are wrong, as have most other people.

 

[TruenoAE86]

This may have been discussed before but I would just like to share my tuning experience with the RX8, well what I noticed was that no matter what I did to the spring rates, camber, toe angle, bound, rebound, LSD, stabilizers. The overall characteristics of the car did not changer dramatically or at all for that matter (besides nose dives with heavy rolling with low spring rates). However, it seems the car is totally unresponsive to suspension changes, compared to the ford GT where a few clicks of the bound and rebound settings make the car un-raceable. Anyone else feel the same way?

 

[Maturin]

This may have been discussed before but I would just like to share my tuning experience with the RX8, well what I noticed was that no matter what I did to the spring rates, camber, toe angle, bound, rebound, LSD, stabilizers. The overall characteristics of the car did not changer dramatically or at all for that matter

.....However, it seems the car is totally unresponsive to suspension changes,

Anyone else feel the same way?

Uh...yeah, turn off the ASM.

 

[TruenoAE86]

Uh...yeah, turn off the ASM.

yeah it's off

 

[Maturin]

yeah it's off

I don't know what to tell you, the original post involved an RX-8, and the differences are pronounced, re: suspension changes, as verified by others on this forum. Might just be your copy.

 

[TruenoAE86]

Wow the prelude is ridiculous! It really feels like an FR car from gt3 if the front springs are strong. With weak front springs the car feels like FF from gt3. 1000X more noticeable then anything with the RX8.

 

[TruenoAE86]

I don't know what to tell you, the original post involved an RX-8, and the differences are pronounced, re: suspension changes, as verified by others on this forum. Might just be your copy.

I wonder, where do you test the settings? What track?... GT mode? arcade?

 

[tuff240]

43,000 days under my belt, 100% completion, all missions, 430 golds. Oh, that's right IT DOESN"T MATTER (but it's still higher than you in all cases but missions). Most importantly the ability to separate theory from FACT. I listen to what my EYES say, not what I THINK they say. Even if I had ZERO percent complete, the last ability is most important.

You do realise the topic reply notification sends us an un-edited version of your reply, right?

2150 days under my belt, 100% completion, all missions, 70 golds, and most importantly the ability to separate theory from FACT.

You are the one that said:

Try playing the game first. Then talk.

I was showing that I HAVE and DO play the game VERY seriously. Both for me personally and with others in OLR's around the world highly regarded as "the best" at the GT series.

I can also back up any of my postings with Max Drive or X-port files.
Care to share your game save (if you can... didn't think so )?

I think you are a bunch of hot air just looking for a place to vent. You're not worth my time and I will ignore all of your posts from this point on since you can't seem to have a reasonable discussion in an adult manner with anyone.

 

[Maturin]

I wonder, where do you test the settings? What track?... GT mode? arcade?

Motegi is a good one, since its relatively flat with different sized turns. I also like Trial Mountain, since I've been playing it since GT1 so I can clock consistent laps within maybe 1-3% for each car.

 

[Maturin]

I think you are a bunch of hot air just looking for a place to vent.

Really? I'm the one who did extensive testing in this thread, with results, backed up by others.

You're the one who doesn't seem to have played the game AT ALL, judging by your posts. I actually question whether you even own the game.

If you HAD played the game you wouldn't say things like "it depends on your driving style". Well, presumably, one has the SAME driving style for the same car, and if you change the settings and they are REVERSED from real-life with progressive changes, shouldn't THAT be a good indication.

I will ignore all of your posts from this point on

Judging by your weird posts and conclusions, I personally thank you for not corresponding.

 

[Bad760]

edited