- 392
- NL
- Morphisorius
Original testing 18-12
The first thing I thought of when getting route X was to find out once and for all what exactly are the settings that are affecting top speed capability.
So I went out for testing.
Note: Speed test does NOT deteriorate a car's status in any way - no washing or oil change needed even after dozens of runs. Car mileage DOES go up however...
Test car is the Nomad Diablo, with Turbo. Fully broken in, washed and oil changed beforehand. (Horsepower = 870)
Transmission is set to a speed of 400 km/h.
I started with maximized downforce, LSD initial & acceleration max, braking min.
Suspension reset to default, set toe and camber to zero.
No Aids. (ABS does NOT influence top speed however)
Washing:
The very first test I did was to see the difference between an unwashed car and a recently washed car. Though I have no idea how dirty my car really was at first, it certainly wasnt fresh. Test was with RS tires.
Unwashed: 366.7 km/h
Washed: 367.6 km/h!
So yes, WASH your car!
Tires:
I will now proceed to test every tire compound and show the difference!
CH: 363.4
CM: 364.3
CS: 365.0
SH: 365.6
SM: 366.1
SS: 366.5
RH: 366.9
RM: 367.3
RS: 367.6
RI: 366.7
RR: 365.6
As you can see, the tires with the most grip are the best.
Now, I am not exactly an expert on physics, but I was under the impression that tires with a lot of grip should actually negatively affect top speed because of the increased friction... Anyone?
LSD:
As said at the start, I started out with both initial torque and acceleration sensitivity settings to max (ever tried accelerating from anything up to 3rd gear with this beast? Then you know why). Braking sensitivity was minimised.
I will now adjust these settings one by one, leaving others as per the original setup.
To recap, with RS tires and max initial torque & acceleration sensitivity the top speed was 367.6 km/h.
Initial torque minimised: No effect
Acceleration sensitivity minimised: No effect
Braking sensitivity maximised: No effect
All settings the opposite of the original settings: No effect
As you can see, LSD seems to hold no influence over top speed at all.
Downforce:
The original settings include maximised downforce. This is what any sane driver uses for normal tracks. I will now test minimising downforce, which should positively affect top speed. Original downforce: 35/60. Minimised: 15/30
Minimised downforce: 374.9
Fortunately, this part of GT physics seems to obey natural laws
Minimal downforce is the best way to go!
As a side note, at this point the car is definitely hitting the redline with the current gearbox setting (max speed = 400), so it probably could go a little faster with adjustment, but for the sake of comparison I will leave it as it is.
-------------------------------------------
On with suspension settings!
Same settings as before, except now running minimal downforce.
Highest speed so far was 374.9 km/h with Racing Softs and minimal downforce.
I will test ride height influence first with standard spring rates, then with lower, higher, and mixed variations. Leaving the other settings untouched.
Note for this section:
Honestly, at this point there are so many settings that could influence the behaviour here that the possibilities are endless...and very likely different for each car. So, only basic changes will be tested here. This is by no means an expert's guide to top speed after all, just a basic physics test.
Ride height & Spring rates
Standard spring rates (13.0/15.0)
+10/+10: 374.9
+5/+5: 374.9
0/0: 374.9
-5/-5: 374.8
-10/-10: 374.8
-15/-15: 374.8
Minimal spring rates (9.1/10.5)
+10/+10: 375.1
+5/+5: 375.1
0/0: 375.1
-5/-5: 375.1
-10/-10: 375.1
-15/-15: 375.5
Maximal spring rates (19.0/19.0)
+10/+10: 374.8
+5/+5: 374.8
0/0: 374.8
-5/-5: 374.8
-10/-10: 374.8
-15/-15: 374.7
After completing these I realised I had yet to do mixed ride heights, so I did one series of these at the minimal spring rates, which have been the most successful:
-15/0: 374.4
-15/+10: 374.0
0/+10: 374.7
0/-15: 376.2
+10/-15: 376.7
Astonishing results, which led me to try again to raise the rear downforce only, to see if raising the front end of the car is what's needed for that trick to work. So, max rear downforce, minimal front, and +10/-15 ride height, minimal spring rates.
Result: 383.0 km/h!
So unfortunately.....this where GT totally screws up. It is not the downforce that is wrong, it is the suspension physics.
I almost forgot to use mixed spring rates as well. Will use the last 383km/h settings as starting point now, results:
Minimal front, standard rear (9.1/15.0): 379.6
Minimal front, maximal rear (9.1/19.0): 376.8
Standard front, minimal rear (13.0/10.5): 382.3
Maximal front, minimal rear (19.0/10.5): 381.9
Pretty clear results, extreme spring rates don't work.
Anti-roll bars
Testing various combinations of anti-roll bar settings combined with the previous fastest settings yielded no result whatsoever. No influence.
Camber
Front camber had no effect at all on top speed, no matter what angle. Rear camber however did have an influence; at max angle (10.0) the car's top speed was reduced to 382.2. I suspect this is related to the car in question being a RWD car, and the camber affecting the ability to put the power down. Testing cars with other drivetrains is a good idea.
Toe
Front positive toe has a small negative effect; with the maximum the speed was reduced to 382.5.
Front negative toe also has a negative effect, but it is VERY small: at maximum the speed was still 382.8.
Rear positive toe negatively affects top speed; speed was reduced to 381.5 at maximum toe.
Rear negative toe, like the others, has a negative effect on top speed: speed was reduced to 382.2 at maximum setting.
So, not suprisingly, any kind of toe is inadvisable for top speed runs.
---------------------------------
New test 19-12
I have conducted a set of tests with a different car to find out just how influential downforce really is. The car of my tests so far has levels of downforce higher than roadcars even in minimum trim after all.
The new test car is the Toyota 86 GT '12, fully modded. Transmission set to 340, suspension set to standard settings (without the standard rear toe however). SS tires.
First test subject was the difference between full downforce (0/20) and minimal downforce (0/5).
At either downforce level I achieved a speed of 297.6 km/h!
The effect of downforce on roadcars' top speed is absolutely minimal it seems.
Next up was to find out if the ride height mystery could be applied to this car as well.
I put downforce back to it's minimum of 5 for now.
First I lowered the spring rates to their minimum, and did a run. No difference in speed.
Now comes the part where I tested several ride height combinations, starting with the minimal -20 on both ends:
-20/-20: 297.6
0/-20: 297.6
+20/-20: 297.8
+45/-20: 297.9
Astonishing, huh? A car on which the downforce failed to influence the top speed enough to make a measurable difference gains 0.3 km/h from a completely ridiculous suspension setup.
Let's see if adding the downforce back in now will add to this madness though...
Why yes it does! Speed was increased to 298.7 km/h!!!
This is conclusive evidence that GT5's suspension system is fundamentally flawed.
And while downforce is not the cause of the problem, it DOES add to it after the suspension has been abused.
--------------------------------
Ballast test 19-12
Thanks to Lambob for pointing out that I hadn't done anything with ballast yet
So here goes!
I will do this test in two parts: one part with a normal suspension setting, and one part with a 'trick' suspension setting.
The latter has extreme ride heights which undoubtedly result in shifts in the weight balance after all.
The test is conducted with the Nomad Diablo from the first test. The base weight of this car is 1200kg, with a weight distribution of 47/53.
Part 1: normal settings
These settings are:
Minimal downforce
Default suspension settings with removed camber & toe
Default transmission settings, speed set to 440 km/h (higher than the first test, this setting is more suitable to the car)
RS tires.
The top speed achieved with this starting point is 380.7km/h.
Time to add ballast.
I will add ballast in 25kg increments up to 100kg, any more would most likely be silly.
All the way to the front, right in the middle, then all the way to the rear.
Front ballast (weight distribution):
25kg (48/52): 380.4
50kg (49/51): 380.1
75kg (50/50): 379.7
100kg (51/49): 379.4
Middle ballast:
25kg: 380.4
50kg: 380.1
75kg: 379.8
100kg: 379.4
Rear ballast (weight distribution):
25kg (46/54): 380.4
50kg (45/55): 380.2
75kg (44/56): 379.8
100kg (43/57): 379.5
The results are roughly what I expected them to be. Rear ballast apparently has a *slightly* less negative effect than the others, I suspect because of making the rear a bit lower than the front. But a negative effect it still is.
As a side note, the rear ballast did improve the launch of the car, up to a certain point. The extra weight became a disadvantage after the start though, making it useless for anything longer than 500m.
Part 2: 'Trick' settings
The changes to the previous settings are:
Minimal downforce front, maximal downforce rear
Minimal spring rates
Maximal front ride height, minimal rear ride height
The top speed achieved with this setup is 391.3km/h.
I will now add ballast the same way as before. It should be noted that the weight distribution shown by the game does NOT change with these crazy ride heights...guess they didn't factor that in?
Front ballast:
25kg: 391.5
50kg: 391.7
75kg: 391.9
100kg: 392.1
150kg: 392.6
200kg: 393.1
Middle ballast:
25kg: 391.0
50kg: 390.7
75kg: 390.4
100kg: 390.1
Rear ballast:
25kg: 390.5
50kg: 389.7
75kg: 389.0
100kg: 388.4
These results left me stunned. Front ballast has a positive effect on top speed with this setup...... And not only that but rear ballast has an *increased* negative effect! I'm thinking this could be proof that either the weight ballast or the ride height is reversed.
Further testing indicates that it takes a car with high horsepower to make the ballast act in such a way as to actually improve top speed. Neither the Toyota 86 GT nor the Lancia Stratos Rally Car were able to reproduce this effect, with the only similarities between the two being RWD and slightly less than 400hp...
-----------------------------------------
Summary
As this post and the testing involved have become rather big indeed, I thought it would be a good idea to summarize my main findings.
-----------------------------------------
That should cover it! If there's anything I missed, don't hesitate to let me know!
P.S: I am NOT gonna try my hand at optimal settings for acceleration either....that would actually require skill
The first thing I thought of when getting route X was to find out once and for all what exactly are the settings that are affecting top speed capability.
So I went out for testing.
Note: Speed test does NOT deteriorate a car's status in any way - no washing or oil change needed even after dozens of runs. Car mileage DOES go up however...
Test car is the Nomad Diablo, with Turbo. Fully broken in, washed and oil changed beforehand. (Horsepower = 870)
Transmission is set to a speed of 400 km/h.
I started with maximized downforce, LSD initial & acceleration max, braking min.
Suspension reset to default, set toe and camber to zero.
No Aids. (ABS does NOT influence top speed however)
Washing:
The very first test I did was to see the difference between an unwashed car and a recently washed car. Though I have no idea how dirty my car really was at first, it certainly wasnt fresh. Test was with RS tires.
Unwashed: 366.7 km/h
Washed: 367.6 km/h!
So yes, WASH your car!
Tires:
I will now proceed to test every tire compound and show the difference!
CH: 363.4
CM: 364.3
CS: 365.0
SH: 365.6
SM: 366.1
SS: 366.5
RH: 366.9
RM: 367.3
RS: 367.6
RI: 366.7
RR: 365.6
As you can see, the tires with the most grip are the best.
Now, I am not exactly an expert on physics, but I was under the impression that tires with a lot of grip should actually negatively affect top speed because of the increased friction... Anyone?
LSD:
As said at the start, I started out with both initial torque and acceleration sensitivity settings to max (ever tried accelerating from anything up to 3rd gear with this beast? Then you know why). Braking sensitivity was minimised.
I will now adjust these settings one by one, leaving others as per the original setup.
To recap, with RS tires and max initial torque & acceleration sensitivity the top speed was 367.6 km/h.
Initial torque minimised: No effect
Acceleration sensitivity minimised: No effect
Braking sensitivity maximised: No effect
All settings the opposite of the original settings: No effect
As you can see, LSD seems to hold no influence over top speed at all.
Downforce:
The original settings include maximised downforce. This is what any sane driver uses for normal tracks. I will now test minimising downforce, which should positively affect top speed. Original downforce: 35/60. Minimised: 15/30
Minimised downforce: 374.9
Fortunately, this part of GT physics seems to obey natural laws
Minimal downforce is the best way to go!
As a side note, at this point the car is definitely hitting the redline with the current gearbox setting (max speed = 400), so it probably could go a little faster with adjustment, but for the sake of comparison I will leave it as it is.
-------------------------------------------
On with suspension settings!
Same settings as before, except now running minimal downforce.
Highest speed so far was 374.9 km/h with Racing Softs and minimal downforce.
I will test ride height influence first with standard spring rates, then with lower, higher, and mixed variations. Leaving the other settings untouched.
Note for this section:
Honestly, at this point there are so many settings that could influence the behaviour here that the possibilities are endless...and very likely different for each car. So, only basic changes will be tested here. This is by no means an expert's guide to top speed after all, just a basic physics test.
Ride height & Spring rates
Standard spring rates (13.0/15.0)
+10/+10: 374.9
+5/+5: 374.9
0/0: 374.9
-5/-5: 374.8
-10/-10: 374.8
-15/-15: 374.8
Minimal spring rates (9.1/10.5)
+10/+10: 375.1
+5/+5: 375.1
0/0: 375.1
-5/-5: 375.1
-10/-10: 375.1
-15/-15: 375.5
Maximal spring rates (19.0/19.0)
+10/+10: 374.8
+5/+5: 374.8
0/0: 374.8
-5/-5: 374.8
-10/-10: 374.8
-15/-15: 374.7
After completing these I realised I had yet to do mixed ride heights, so I did one series of these at the minimal spring rates, which have been the most successful:
-15/0: 374.4
-15/+10: 374.0
0/+10: 374.7
0/-15: 376.2
+10/-15: 376.7
Astonishing results, which led me to try again to raise the rear downforce only, to see if raising the front end of the car is what's needed for that trick to work. So, max rear downforce, minimal front, and +10/-15 ride height, minimal spring rates.
Result: 383.0 km/h!
So unfortunately.....this where GT totally screws up. It is not the downforce that is wrong, it is the suspension physics.
I almost forgot to use mixed spring rates as well. Will use the last 383km/h settings as starting point now, results:
Minimal front, standard rear (9.1/15.0): 379.6
Minimal front, maximal rear (9.1/19.0): 376.8
Standard front, minimal rear (13.0/10.5): 382.3
Maximal front, minimal rear (19.0/10.5): 381.9
Pretty clear results, extreme spring rates don't work.
Anti-roll bars
Testing various combinations of anti-roll bar settings combined with the previous fastest settings yielded no result whatsoever. No influence.
Camber
Front camber had no effect at all on top speed, no matter what angle. Rear camber however did have an influence; at max angle (10.0) the car's top speed was reduced to 382.2. I suspect this is related to the car in question being a RWD car, and the camber affecting the ability to put the power down. Testing cars with other drivetrains is a good idea.
Toe
Front positive toe has a small negative effect; with the maximum the speed was reduced to 382.5.
Front negative toe also has a negative effect, but it is VERY small: at maximum the speed was still 382.8.
Rear positive toe negatively affects top speed; speed was reduced to 381.5 at maximum toe.
Rear negative toe, like the others, has a negative effect on top speed: speed was reduced to 382.2 at maximum setting.
So, not suprisingly, any kind of toe is inadvisable for top speed runs.
---------------------------------
New test 19-12
I have conducted a set of tests with a different car to find out just how influential downforce really is. The car of my tests so far has levels of downforce higher than roadcars even in minimum trim after all.
The new test car is the Toyota 86 GT '12, fully modded. Transmission set to 340, suspension set to standard settings (without the standard rear toe however). SS tires.
First test subject was the difference between full downforce (0/20) and minimal downforce (0/5).
At either downforce level I achieved a speed of 297.6 km/h!
The effect of downforce on roadcars' top speed is absolutely minimal it seems.
Next up was to find out if the ride height mystery could be applied to this car as well.
I put downforce back to it's minimum of 5 for now.
First I lowered the spring rates to their minimum, and did a run. No difference in speed.
Now comes the part where I tested several ride height combinations, starting with the minimal -20 on both ends:
-20/-20: 297.6
0/-20: 297.6
+20/-20: 297.8
+45/-20: 297.9
Astonishing, huh? A car on which the downforce failed to influence the top speed enough to make a measurable difference gains 0.3 km/h from a completely ridiculous suspension setup.
Let's see if adding the downforce back in now will add to this madness though...
Why yes it does! Speed was increased to 298.7 km/h!!!
This is conclusive evidence that GT5's suspension system is fundamentally flawed.
And while downforce is not the cause of the problem, it DOES add to it after the suspension has been abused.
--------------------------------
Ballast test 19-12
Thanks to Lambob for pointing out that I hadn't done anything with ballast yet
So here goes!
I will do this test in two parts: one part with a normal suspension setting, and one part with a 'trick' suspension setting.
The latter has extreme ride heights which undoubtedly result in shifts in the weight balance after all.
The test is conducted with the Nomad Diablo from the first test. The base weight of this car is 1200kg, with a weight distribution of 47/53.
Part 1: normal settings
These settings are:
Minimal downforce
Default suspension settings with removed camber & toe
Default transmission settings, speed set to 440 km/h (higher than the first test, this setting is more suitable to the car)
RS tires.
The top speed achieved with this starting point is 380.7km/h.
Time to add ballast.
I will add ballast in 25kg increments up to 100kg, any more would most likely be silly.
All the way to the front, right in the middle, then all the way to the rear.
Front ballast (weight distribution):
25kg (48/52): 380.4
50kg (49/51): 380.1
75kg (50/50): 379.7
100kg (51/49): 379.4
Middle ballast:
25kg: 380.4
50kg: 380.1
75kg: 379.8
100kg: 379.4
Rear ballast (weight distribution):
25kg (46/54): 380.4
50kg (45/55): 380.2
75kg (44/56): 379.8
100kg (43/57): 379.5
The results are roughly what I expected them to be. Rear ballast apparently has a *slightly* less negative effect than the others, I suspect because of making the rear a bit lower than the front. But a negative effect it still is.
As a side note, the rear ballast did improve the launch of the car, up to a certain point. The extra weight became a disadvantage after the start though, making it useless for anything longer than 500m.
Part 2: 'Trick' settings
The changes to the previous settings are:
Minimal downforce front, maximal downforce rear
Minimal spring rates
Maximal front ride height, minimal rear ride height
The top speed achieved with this setup is 391.3km/h.
I will now add ballast the same way as before. It should be noted that the weight distribution shown by the game does NOT change with these crazy ride heights...guess they didn't factor that in?
Front ballast:
25kg: 391.5
50kg: 391.7
75kg: 391.9
100kg: 392.1
150kg: 392.6
200kg: 393.1
Middle ballast:
25kg: 391.0
50kg: 390.7
75kg: 390.4
100kg: 390.1
Rear ballast:
25kg: 390.5
50kg: 389.7
75kg: 389.0
100kg: 388.4
These results left me stunned. Front ballast has a positive effect on top speed with this setup...... And not only that but rear ballast has an *increased* negative effect! I'm thinking this could be proof that either the weight ballast or the ride height is reversed.
Further testing indicates that it takes a car with high horsepower to make the ballast act in such a way as to actually improve top speed. Neither the Toyota 86 GT nor the Lancia Stratos Rally Car were able to reproduce this effect, with the only similarities between the two being RWD and slightly less than 400hp...
-----------------------------------------
Summary
As this post and the testing involved have become rather big indeed, I thought it would be a good idea to summarize my main findings.
- Washing a car definitely increases it's top speed
- Tires with more grip provide higher top speed; RS tires are the fastest
- LSD settings have no influence on top speed at all
- Downforce has a relatively small negative effect on top speed; one exception (see below)
- Soft spring rates are the fastest
- With ride height, lowering the rear and maxing out the front end has the best results....This is a major flaw in GT5
- Anti-roll bars have no effect
- Camber only has an effect when used on the drive wheels; the effect is negative
- Any kind of toe has a small negative effect
- The exception to downforce: Adding rear downforce to a car with max front and min rear ride height, DOES add to top speed!
- So far, ballast has a negative effect in all situations, EXCEPT for front ballast on high-powered cars. Somehow that combination does result in higher speed.
-----------------------------------------
That should cover it! If there's anything I missed, don't hesitate to let me know!
P.S: I am NOT gonna try my hand at optimal settings for acceleration either....that would actually require skill
Last edited:
