Kazunori Yamauchi has confirmed in an interview with German outlet ‘Inside Playstation’ that Gran Turismo Sport will incorporate extended online support for servers in the much-anticipated ‘Sport’ mode of the game.
Kazunori states in the above interview that the ‘Sport’ mode will have dedicated servers and support up to 20 players in these PD or FIA hosted events. Given the importance of these events to the players, FIA and PD, this is a huge step in guaranteeing a consistent level of quality for the more prestigious race series’ that will be hosted on the mode.
However, the dedicated servers and 20-player count are specific to the ‘Sport’ mode, with Yamauchi further clarifying that any other lobby types outside of ‘Sport’ will run on a more traditional P2P (Peer-to-Peer) network infrastructure. As a result of this, 20 player rooms are not possible and the number will revert back to a smaller number seen in previous iterations. No exact number for the other lobbies have been specified for these other online modes as of yet.
A series-first 20-strong car grid and dedicated servers are sure to make the ‘Sport’ mode as comprehensive as possible from a racing perspective. It may be slightly disappointing that other online types won’t see this treatment but it’s also promising that steps are being made to ensure the eSports element of the game can deliver in the face of network pressure from the drivers and spectators who will watch the FIA Online Championships.
Hat tip to doblocruiser for clarification!
See more articles on FIA, FIA Online Championship, and Kazunori Yamauchi.
Really good news, this means that private lobby do exist.
P2P = Peer to Peer: Based solely off of individual internet service, throttled by PSN servers.
Servers: Sustained by developer, throttled by PSN, less dependent on internet service.
Low “Ping” (data packages dropped) is your friend.
What we really need is the ability for the host and others to be able to see the pings of the participants as we do in pc sim racing. If someone is causing an issue and has a high ping, the host should be able to remove them from the lobby for the sake of the other players. The more tools hosts have on hand the better the racing will be.
Word check…
Dedicated = limited
This is probably useful for enhanced player experience. But if your router or system is wack, it’s not going to matter. It’ll suck the joy juices right out of your palms like a thursty vamp.
I smell direct cable connections and steering wheel requirements in GTSport’s future
Im concerned about the network issues that occured in GT5/6. People not being able to see eachother and massive pitlag’s that still happen today should not be tolerated in GTSport. Hopefully they made some improvements to that stupidity.
I wonder whether Sport Mode dedicated servers will host quick-match type events that will be open all the time, like GT6 quick match? You would think so, which would be great. I suspect that any open events on those servers would count as “sanctioned” such that they affect your classification and ratings and stuff more so than any other events.
It may be that the quick match system is peer-to-peer like in GT6. This could be OK considering how powerful PS4 is. But if there are half as many issues from the start as there were with GT6 quick match… oh the agony.
Sport mode are weekly online events with fixed times
I had heard about the regularly scheduled events, but you’d think if they have big stacks of expensive hardware they would want to make use of it 24/7.
IIRC those sport mode events are only on the weekend as well.
Good and Bad news at the same time. One question about the dedicated servers, where are the servers set? because i remember seeing that Cod Black Ops 3 had servers around the world but non of them in places like Middle East and that might explain why i (and plenty others) have lag during the game. And since this is about a GT game focused on racing and race cars, it made me a bit worried but then again this apply’s to only the sport mode which i doubt i would play that much anyways especially since PSN doesn’t even fully support my country.
Also does it means that open lobby’s are confirmed?
That’s all well and good for the PD or FIA hosted races to have 20 cars on track, but why not the rest of us?
It’s cool that we can have P2P lobbies however, from what I’ve seen in the Preview videos, there are only 12 cars on track! Are we only allowed 12 in a lobby or can we have 16 like in GT6?
I’m not sure which races you are referring to to be honest.
I don’t believe we have actually seen any races in an Online Lobby.
Most races we have seen have been Arcade.
And commonly they show a Leaderboard to 12, but there are actually 20 on track.
So perhaps you remember 12 from there?
Just guessing.
What I can perhaps suggest is that the FIA Gran Turismo Championship Pre-Season Test
Manufacturer Fan Cup Final had 16 in the event according to their starting positions.
Am I right in thinking that would be a P2P ‘lobby’?
I have seen a race of MX-5’s that had 20 on track at Brands Hatch further below this article, but that and a couple of other races were deleted at the request of PD and Sony. The MX-5 race was here https://www.gtplanet.net/exclusive-mazda-roadster-tackles-brands-hatch-in-gt-sport/
I made a mistake with the 12 player thing… There were actually 16. My bad!
However, there is a screenshot of only 9 cars behind a pace car on the Northern Isle Speedway… https://www.gtplanet.net/gt-sport-image-blowout-over-100-screenshots-from-e3-2016/
All’s good.
I wasn’t really questioning you, more my understanding of the term ‘P2P. :p
But if the Copperbox can be defined as such then I guess we have some sort of proof of 16.
And that’s all I’ve got. :D
We have no idea what the number is for the P2P, non-championship races. It might only be 12, could be 16, could be any number at this point really. IMO the most important thing would for us to be able to see the ping of the host and all the racers in P2P lobbies. It would go a long way towards sorting out many of the online issues we have had in GT5 and GT6.
Dissapointing that it won’t match Forza’s or PCars grid sizes, but at least it’s something.
PCars is 16 online, which is what GT5 and GT6 were capable of online.
Do you even play Pcars? It also has a 16 car grid on console. What do we need 20+ car grids for anyway? It will almost always be a laggy cluster****. 16 cars was fine on previous gen, imagine how smooth it will be on ps4? You shouldn’t be disappointed.
*Sorry.
Disregard the second sentence.
I confused myself there. :D
**Ignore the above. Wrong post.
@Toyota GT1: Good server support helps prevent online gaming from being a laggy cluster *censored*. Gen doesn’t govern connection smoothness. Internet quality and server support does.
GTA V manages to have 30 player online support, with tons of mayhem taking place, so it’s possible.
In racing, more players = more realism & opportunity for racing excitement. If you start out front, you still have to worry about over lapped traffic, which equals more opportunities for real racing to take place at any section of the track. Once you clear the pack, smaller numbers assure smooth sailing. Bigger numbers may make it more challenging to do that. Winning is great, but the heart of GT racing is the climb from the back to the front and all of the battles in between. It can feel mundane and anticlimactic when it’s short lived.
Project Cars allows 16 on console and 32 bit PC but offline you can race up to 45 opponents depending on the grid size of the track. On PC 32 can be in an online race (on the 64 bit version) and 45 opponents offline.
I think Race Room on PC allows up to 99.
The restrictions on consoles whether it’s Project Cars, Forza or Gran Turismo aren’t necessarily the games but the crappy PS and XB networks.