Gran Turismo 4 tips

[imported_goku]

In GT4 I've currently got a Nissan Skyline GTR R32 that I've been driving and I can't help but notice it's issues with understeer (or it would appear) so I purchased the $17K suspension kit and I'm trying to tune out the car's suspension but it hasn't been exactly 'successful'. I've also got other cars I drive that I would think would need to tune the suspension as well but I'm not really sure how to go about doing it.

I just really need help on trying to get the car to handle turns much better for the best lap times. I'm also not sure if I should have the car oversteer a bit more or make it 'neutral' and even then, I'm not sure what 'neutral' would really mean in a car because it would appear to me that it's black and white (Oversteer or understeering). The whole shock bound and rebound with the camber stuff has all got me a bit confused, and I'm not quite sure how to approach the spring rate situation either or the stablizers (although stabilizers are a helping tool, not independent of it's self is what I know). I've tried gamefaqs but it really hasn't been of much help..



I've changed this thread into a general tips thread; if you can, please give any of your tips on performance tuning your car, thanks.

 

[clickynext]

The R32, being 4wd, WILL understeer under acceleration. The only advice I personally can give you is just brake early early early, turn into the corner slower, hit the apex, and find the point in the corner where you can get back on the accelerator. I really don't know much about tuning. All I know is get the car low, and increase the spring rate, but obviously not too much. All experimentation...

 

[imported_goku]

Originally posted by: clickynext
The R32, being 4wd, WILL understeer under acceleration. The only advice I personally can give you is just brake early early early, turn into the corner slower, hit the apex, and find the point in the corner where you can get back on the accelerator. I really don't know much about tuning. All I know is get the car low, and increase the spring rate, but obviously not too much. All experimentation...

In GT3 I've been driving the Lancer Evo V and I've been able to tune the car to oversteer a little bit so how come the Lancer a 4WD as well can oversteer but not the GTR R32?

 

[clickynext]

Originally posted by: goku

Originally posted by: clickynext
The R32, being 4wd, WILL understeer under acceleration. The only advice I personally can give you is just brake early early early, turn into the corner slower, hit the apex, and find the point in the corner where you can get back on the accelerator. I really don't know much about tuning. All I know is get the car low, and increase the spring rate, but obviously not too much. All experimentation...

In GT3 I've been driving the Lancer Evo V and I've been able to tune the car to oversteer a little bit so how come the Lancer a 4WD as well can oversteer but not the GTR R32?

Hmm, I'm not sure, have you tried the same Evo in GT4 for comparison? I never really played GT3, but I know that the physics in GT2 were quite different. You could drift a lot more in GT2, if I remember correctly.

 

[letdown427]

Nah, you couldn't drift for sh!t in GT2, GT3 was the biggest drift game, and GT1 was at the time, can't remember now. GT4, it's harder, but more realistic (hence harder I guess)

Anyway, may sound a bit stupid, but have you turned those BS Driver Aids off? That's your first port of call. I found that the Skyline didn't handle like a normal 4WD at all, it was more than happy to power oversteer, which is completely un4WD. If you're understeering going into the corner, in all fairness, you're probably just going too fast. As the front wheels are driven, you'll want to lift off just prior to turning in, to get the weight forward and so that they're just being used to turn.

Combine that lift off with a little feint, and you'll find the car sliding into the corner with a slight arse-out stance. This is where the Skyline differs from most 4WDs, in that you can treat it a lot like an RWD, and get on the power from this arse-out stance, and it'll power oversteer nicely.

I don't really understand how the Skyline handles like that, other prime examples of Japanese 4WD cars, the Impreza and Lancer, understeer under power, as they should, the Impreza especially. In all fairness, just buy an M5, or a TVR, and drift. It's way more fun! hehe

 

[imported_goku]

Originally posted by: letdown427
Nah, you couldn't drift for sh!t in GT2, GT3 was the biggest drift game, and GT1 was at the time, can't remember now. GT4, it's harder, but more realistic (hence harder I guess)

Anyway, may sound a bit stupid, but have you turned those BS Driver Aids off? That's your first port of call. I found that the Skyline didn't handle like a normal 4WD at all, it was more than happy to power oversteer, which is completely un4WD. If you're understeering going into the corner, in all fairness, you're probably just going too fast. As the front wheels are driven, you'll want to lift off just prior to turning in, to get the weight forward and so that they're just being used to turn.

Combine that lift off with a little feint, and you'll find the car sliding into the corner with a slight arse-out stance. This is where the Skyline differs from most 4WDs, in that you can treat it a lot like an RWD, and get on the power from this arse-out stance, and it'll power oversteer nicely.

I don't really understand how the Skyline handles like that, other prime examples of Japanese 4WD cars, the Impreza and Lancer, understeer under power, as they should, the Impreza especially. In all fairness, just buy an M5, or a TVR, and drift. It's way more fun! hehe

Yup, driver aids are off, always the first thing I turn off

 

[Soccerman06]

To save time on testing your adjustments, set it to computer driving and tun it to 3x, let it go for a few laps and see if the car goes faster or not. try finding a course with lots of turns to help keep things more toward cornering and not toward straight line acceleration. Also try turning the weight ballist (that what you talking about above?) forward a little bit.

 

[imported_goku]

Originally posted by: Soccerman06
To save time on testing your adjustments, set it to computer driving and tun it to 3x, let it go for a few laps and see if the car goes faster or not. try finding a course with lots of turns to help keep things more toward cornering and not toward straight line acceleration. Also try turning the weight ballist (that what you talking about above?) forward a little bit.

I thought about that idea with the computer, will consider it. I wonder though how I'd go about tuning the car in PRE Gran Turismo 4 cars since they are only A-Spec driving simulators, not B and A spec like in GT 4 (which I have to say, is pretty cool). Bold: I didn't mention anything about using the ballast IIRC, because I don't want to add weight to the car, although I may very well have to if I'm not able to improve handling characteristics of the car.


My biggest problem in GT4, is that for ever car I drive, I learn to adapt to it's capabilities and it's weaknesses in that some cars oversteer while others understeer and I work my hardest to take advantage of the car to it's very best (like most people should). But the problem with this mindset is that it prevents me from tuning the car so that it can perform better than it running at stock settings.

With an expensive suspension kit, I should be able to make significant changes to the way the car drives and be able to overall get better lap times. Another issue is that since I learn to adapt to the car, each time I make a change, I have to relearn it so I have no real clue as to what setting is really best for the car since I may drive poorly with that car at the new setting but don't really know if that is what *actually is BEST* for that car..

For example, you have a car that is used to understeering A LOT, I change it to a car that oversteers a bit because it's not possible to give the car netural handling capabilites (for some random reason), well because I adjusted to the car for understeer, when I drive it and it oversteers, I may feel that I made poor adjustments and I then bring the settings further away from what may *actually* be the best settings for the car overall **IF** you learn how to take advantage of those settings.


Anybody feel me with this?

 

[letdown427]

Your driving style effects how the car will be fastest. In all fairness, the AI is easy to beat, so this tuning is pointless to an extent.

For ultimate speed, you'd want it set up to oversteer, so that it has the maximum turn in, but this makes the car twitchy and hard to handle (i'm taking this from my past experiences/readings with Live For Speed)

I'd say set it up to oversteer, and drift. Everywhere. It's so fun, and given that the AI isn't challenging.....

Try Live For Speed for the PC, get the free demo from here. The handling is awesome.

 

[imported_goku]

Ok WTF is going on... I just changed my settings from normal to extremely 'loose' suspension, meaning that the spring rate, the shock bound and rebound are all at low levels, I run the track again and the b-spec guy runs off the road less (on setting 3 nonetheless) and when I drive, I get an incredible 1 second increase in lap time! (Which I say is pretty good since most changes I made were in the 1/10th of a second range..

I thought having a tigher suspension would equate to better handling, isn't that why most sports cars have 'sports' suspensions that are really tight?

 

[imported_goku]

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