NTSC vs PAL in the WRS

[bilts]

Disclaimer: This post will demonstrate that players from PAL countries participating in the WRS are consistently faster than those from NTSC countries. I do not claim to know why they are faster. One possible explanation is that the PAL version of the game differs from the NTSC version in some way. There are many other plausible explanations, including cultural/demographic differences and pure chance. I'm posting this because the data is interesting, not because it's conclusive.

Anyhow...

Looking at the WRS results from the first 4 weeks, I noticed that they have been largely dominated by players from PAL countries. NTSC players comprise a third or more of the participants, but have never had more than one representative in the top 10.

Being a nerd, I grabbed the data and analyzed it, with the following results:

Week 1:
PAL Mean Lap Time: 65.76s, Standard Deviation: 0.90
NTSC Mean Lap Time: 66.32s, Standard Deviation: 0.98

Week 2:
PAL Mean Lap Time: 81.72s, Standard Deviation: 1.28
NTSC Mean Lap Time: 82.48s, Standard Deviation: 1.49

Week 3:
PAL Mean Lap Time: 70.29s, Standard Deviation: 0.81
NTSC Mean Lap Time: 70.93s, Standard Deviation: 1.04

Week 4:
PAL Mean Lap Time: 95.31s, Standard Deviation: 0.85
NTSC Mean Lap Time: 96.13s, Standard Deviation: 1.32

Translation: the NTSC folks are significantly slower and less consistent than the PAL folks.

I also graphed out the results. The y-axis corresponds to lap time, while the x-axis is a percentile within NTSC, PAL, or all lap times. So, if you want to know what time to beat in order to be in the top 25% of NTSC players, you'd look for a blue dot above the 25% marker on the x-axis.

*Some notes about the data: I assumed that players from Canada, the USA, and Mexico were using NTSC, while all others were using PAL. I excluded all times where the player has not given a country of origin. I also removed one outlier from three of the graphs to make them more readable, but it doing so did not impact the graphs in any significant way.

My take:
What is causing this is not at all conclusive. I'm inclined to assume that we've just gathered a surplus of insanely talented PAL drivers. The top drivers are jaw-droppingly fast regardless of region. The fact that a Canadian won one week also suggests that there is no significant difference between the two versions. Further, I personally doubt that PD would have a reason to introduce subtle performance differences in the two versions

Nevertheless, the data is intriguing. Perhaps the difference is that the PAL players spend all night lapping while the NTSC players spend all night looking at meaningless data.

 

[Horst]

Interesting graphs.

 

[the_wilco]

I'm surprised there hasn't been more comment on this. I know there have been games where the different versions had subtle differences which made comparison between the regions difficult. But then it could be that the best North American drivers are playing a different game.

I was wondering if you plotted the data using the handicap time instead would you get the same results?

 

[EDK]

There have been a lot of comments on this subject over the years.

Several of us in the NTSC region owned PAL disks for GT5 Prologue, due to the fact that most of the online racing in that game was region locked, and therefore required you to have the same game version as others you wanted to race against. None of us found any difference in our times between the platforms, and if you graphed the Prologue WRS results, I think you would see similar trends. Tests were also done on GT4 to understand if there were differences between the games, but nothing significant was found.

There seems to be more overall interest in this type of racing in the PAL regions, and the NTSC participants have tended to be slower than their PAL couterparts over the years.

But there have certainly been exceptions, nothing that I'm going to get into right now.

Just trust me that this is not a software issue, you are seeing the reality that we don;t have as many people who perform as consistently at a high level as those in the PAL regions.

 

[Small_Fryz]

I did a race once where NTSC had a 4 - 5mph advantage over PAL by the end of the straight.

In all the 100's of combo's ive seen over the years the actual times ive seen any differences are very minimal. Especially with the latest releases.

The truth is as above, we simply dont have the amount of NTSC guys racing as compared to the PAL drivers, so the results will always be biased.

 

[tyl0r_r]

Seems like a cultural issue. That doesn't mean the fastest guy can't come from the USA or the slowest guy from Finland, but there certainly do seem to be tendencies at play.

edit: I know where I live it's a difficult task to follow motorsports at all through mainstream coverage, for example.

 

[bilts]

Yeah, to reiterate what I said in my original post, I don't think the differences come down to actual game differences. I originally started down this road out of frustration that I couldn't look at PAL replays from the top players, but the one win by a Canadian seems to undermine the idea that there are real game differences.

It's just fascinating to me that we have this collection of 200 people all trying their best for a fast lap time, and where they're from seems to make a difference. I'd love to understand what that difference is.

 

[Dolp]

a theory:

Most of europeans guys (or girls) drive or will drive cars with manual gearbox, from the tiny car to the german boat through some more or less sports sedans.
I assume North American people drive mainly big car with automatic gear and marshmallow shocks.

Furthermore, I also assume there's more sport friendly roads in Europe than in USA. But I don't know about tracks facilities availability (even if it's not so great in France for instance).

[Edit] And sorry for my bad english...

 

[dsgerbc]

How about some regressions? Say, with join date, country fixed effects etc as explanatory variables, and then see of there is residual effect of NTSC vs PAL. And then track players that switched (there must be some) and see if they got a bump/dump in performance relative to their former selves.

 

[mcfizzle]

When I eventually move to Germany with my wife, will it make me faster? I don't mean playing A PAL disc, I just mean become faster. Because I will agree to it now if it does.

 

[Strop]

As someone who has lived (and driven) in both NTSC and PAL regions I'm pretty sure it comes down to the opportunities available for sport driving in the region. In Adelaide, Australia where I come from there was a wonderful section of road through the Adelaide Hills that was full of tight twisty turns and was a joy to drive hard and fast. Living in San Jose now there is nowhere that I could do that anymore, most of the fast driving is on freeways which are for the most part dead straight.

I believe Finland has one of the best driver training regiments in the world, not to mention some seriously difficult roads with lots of twists and elevation changes, and not surprisingly have produced more than their fair share of F1 and rally champions (not to mention a few pretty damn fast guys who race here, timpaq being one).

On the other hand my nine year old sons are now honing their skills in the SLS AMG on the ring so maybe things will change in future.

 

[arora]

a theory:

I assume North American people drive mainly big car with automatic gear and marshmallow shocks

A common misconseption.

Furthermore, I also assume there's more sport friendly roads in Europe than in USA. But I don't know about tracks facilities availability (even if it's not so great in France for instance).

There are probably more 'sport friendly' roads in the u.s. than many eruopean contries if for no other reason than physical size. I'm not sure about track availablility, in the areas surounding me there are plenty of closed tracks to drive on or watch others.

Your English is fine, in fact better then mine 👍

I think in general it's a cultural thing as well, we grow up wanting to be football stars etc not race car drivers for the most part. It is interesting though how some countries generate such top skilled drivers, something genetic mixed with culture maybe?

I don't think the variance between pal/ntsc would explain us americans being 'slower' in the wrs, someone tell Ben to come back

 

[chukabilly]

@ mcfizzle: if you get any faster, D2 will be your place, regardless. 👍

@ strop: totally agree on that. That subtlety of freedom to drive, or ride, for immense distances has produced an interesting dichotomy of driving ability and\or psychological differences between a North American racer and his counterpart {here the definition of "conterpart" is loose, because I see both European and Asian racers consistently beating North American drivers}.

@ arora: You and I both know that the best North American racer will most likely be found driving to work, not on a track.

 

[BoostinCoyote]

I think this is being over analyzed a bit, I know people that are great drivers that just plain suck at racing sims and vice versa. I'll probably say I am alittle better driver at racing sims than in real life because I am willing to take more chances on the track because I dont have to worry about costly consequences . Does being a good driver and having knowledge about car setup play a role in a racing sim to a certain degree it does b/c you will know how to setup you car alittle better than someone that doesnt but seeing how it is a game it is alot easier to try different setups on the fly.

 

[LeftyWright69]

I remember way back in the early 70s when moto-x was dominated by nothing but Europeans and us Yankz were just a bunch of Alsoranz. It was their sport and we were just in love w/ it over here. We always knew that there would be a day that it would all change. The reality came somewhat slowly but we let the world know that they had awoken the sleeping giant. Now Moto-x is dominated by the U. S. and there is parity in the knowledge base and experience of the competition from all over the world.

I think that the same is true w/ the PAL and NTSC comparison. There is something inherent in the old money aspect of the PAL group. It’s just more important to them compared to lets say us Maricanz. It may take another 10 years of so before the art of driving in all it’s forms, cyber and real, becomes as important to us as it is to the PAL enthusiast.

 

[checkyoursix]

....Some notes about the data: I assumed that players from Canada, the USA, and Mexico were using NTSC, while all others were using PAL.

Do Japanese PS3s use PAL or NTSC? You might know. It would be cool if there were more Japanese involved in these races.

 

[EDK]

Do Japanese PS3s use PAL or NTSC? You might know. It would be cool if there were more Japanese involved in these races.

NTSC/PAL is actually a holdover from the analog TV days. As long as you have a digital TV, you can use any disk with any console.

Japan is NTSC, but there is a disk specific to the Asian NTSC market. So with NTSC, there is a NTSC/North America and with Japan, there is NTSC/J.

We've even had participants that used the Japan versions of Prologue. I think the bigger issue is the language barrier. The majority of our participants are from countries where English is either the first language, or commonly spoken.

 

[Jump_Ace]

This is all rumor and speculation imo. PAL regions just have more people interested in driving than North America. I remember in GT4 hOt6o4bOi and Holl01 would battle it out and they even finished .001 apart in the WRS and one used NTSC and the other PAL. Thats not to say Americans can't be equally fast, we have some fasty-fasts. However, I think there are just more 'fasty-fasts' in the PAL regions.

Jerome

 

[SHigSpeed]

This is all rumor and speculation imo. PAL regions just have more people interested in driving than North America. I remember in GT4 hOt6o4bOi and Holl01 would battle it out and they even finished .001 apart in the WRS and one used NTSC and the other PAL. Thats not to say Americans can't be equally fast, we have some fasty-fasts. However, I think there are just more 'fasty-fasts' in the PAL regions.

Jerome

I do remember those days... I just wish some NTSCers would step up and represent!

_SHig