Why are time deltas calculated incorrectly?

[rlx]

One thing in GT7 that I find surprising, to say the least, is that the calculation for time deltas is obviously wrong. The time displayed as delta to the car behind you is how long ago you were at the position where the car behind you is now - regardless of whether you've crashed in the meantime or not. This is most obvious if you wait at the finish line in an endurance race to run down the timer: the delta to the car behind you is not going to change. As a consequence, there are sudden changes in delta around pitstops, and no deltas once you lapped your pursuer.

The correct way of computing the delta, of course, would be to calculate the time that it would take the car behind you to travel the distance to the point where you are at present. The game would have to know the average speed at each point of the track, but that's rather trivial. Wonder why PD has implemented this the way it is.

 

[jonoholland29]

I think PD have calculated it the same way it is done in really life, with timing loops installed into the circuit.

I believe in F1 tracks they install loops every 100m (10m in the pitlane). They probably include GPS data too.

I’ve also noticed that they self adjust too - bit like in real life with photocell data.

So I wouldn’t say the were wrong, I’d say they were pretty representative of real life

 

[TumeK5]

If you have a spin for example, the gap to the car behind remains the same - until they reach the point where you spun.

 

[Magog]

As pointed out above it is the same as real life racing. You're also essentially expecting the game to predict the speed of the AI cars for parts of the race track they have yet to race seeing into the future which isn't really possible.