WANTED - Video Game Driving & Racing Tips...

[Spooky]

Guys...

I know there have been lots of different conversations in different threads about driving games and strategies, tips, etc…But I would love it if we could have a refresher in this thread from some experienced folks on suggestions and help on how to better drive and race in SIM video games.

Now that Forza is out and seems to have drummed up a good amount of interest with more than just our normal, hard core racers, it would be an awesome time for some tips.

I am enjoying Forza 2 (as I also enjoyed the first Forza for a few months) and now even more with the steering wheel. The wheel makes things refreshing. It’s more difficult on some levels to use it, but it is more intuitive on other levels. Since I am going to try and play this game and attempt to be competitive I’d love some coaching!

I really want to be able to turn all the assists off. I raced last night with the stability off but ABS and traction still on. I then did some solo races with them all off and was mediocre.

My biggest problem right now is feeling comfortable going fast with the assists off. I then end up being overly cautious and too slow!

I understand most of the high level concepts about good racing lines and accelerating out of a corner, etc… but just can’t seem to get the feel yet.

How should I approach tighter corners? Do I slow down way before, then let off the throttle and coast until I am halfway through the turn then gently start accelerating?

Do I get really close to the turn then squeal the brakes before turning at all and then accelerate out?

Why do I spin out sometimes with just the slightest movements at times and then other times I seem to be able to move a lot more and stay on course!?!?

If my tires are squealing on a turn am I going too fast? Is it supposed to be silent on a turn?

Should I be applying the brake while still using the gas peddle sometimes? Should I always completely let off one before using the other?

That kind of stuff would be a good start for some tips…

[TCrouch]

Oy...so much to even begin to cover. Forza does a better job than any console game in history modeling the grip a tire has on the road. If you have 100% "grip", so to speak, you can only use so much of it for anything...if you're burning 80% of the grip on braking, you only have 20% left for turning. The biggest trick with Forza is to keep that balance happy. Brake earlier, and coast. It's not always about brake-or-throttle. There are large sections of track where you can actually be on neither pedal.

The biggest thing is to brake smoothly and early. If you're using a wheel, use manual transmission. I know it's even MORE to worry about, but you can use the engine to decelerate a lot faster than the auto tranny will. If I'm braking for a hairpin or about to go out of control, I can drop a gear and recenter the vehicle and more often than not grab it from the edge of a crash.

But bottom line, you must learn where the "sweet spot" is for both the brake and gas pedal. The more I play it, the more I think the braking model is fine, it's just a very strange feel because the brake pedal is so easy to depress. Where it's causing lockup is pretty much the same throw a car would have, only you have no tactile feedback so it's literally all feel.

The biggest thing you can remember is to brake early, brake smoothly, and turn earlier than you think you should have to. The cars, some more so than others, take a bit of time to "turn in" once you turn the wheel. There are some good physics behind the scenes here, so the trick is definitely to brake smoothly and stay one step ahead of the track. If you're going into a section of S-curves, you really need to be starting your right hand turn at the apex of the left, etc. Once you start to anticipate and keep everything smooth, it all becomes easier.

Manual transmission helps you keep the car in that "happy zone" during cornering. If an auto tranny sees you reach a certain RPM, it shifts. Doing that mid-corner can upset the entire balance of the car, and you really want to avoid that. It's actually MORE demanding to drive with an auto tranny with regards to car control than it is to drive with manual. At least with manual you can control the engine RPMs and when to shift it.

But the single biggest thing I can ever tell anybody is this: when you're exiting a corner, or particularly when you're in a good duel with another online racer and you're exiting a corner...RESIST THE TEMPTATION TO DROP THE HAMMER TO THE FLOOR AS SOON AS YOU'RE HITTING THE STRAIGHT!!! The car hasn't even finished re-centering its balance yet, and I can't tell you how many times I see a car near me, behind me, ahead of me, or wherever, completely goose the throttle because they want to get up on it and end up sailing right off the track or spinning out. I still suck at starts because it's tough to go from a standing start with no traction control, but during a race I try to really watch my throttle control...in Forza it's more demanding than any other console sim I've played.

Just remember if you're braking you can't really be turning more than a little. If you're braking hard you can't be turning at all. If you're turning hard you can't be braking or applying throttle at all. You can mix variations of all of them but only in small amounts. That is the essence of commanding a car instead of reacting to whatever it's doing. You realize that you'll need to apply a bit more throttle, so you give up a bit in the brakes or turning inertia. You plan for whatever's coming up...you are braking early so you make sure you that you keep the wheels straight until you are ready to let up on the brakes, then it's like the clutch in a car...as you release the brake pedal, you smoothly turn the wheel the same amount you're releasing the brake. It's a 1:1 ratio for full axis on any of the three: steering/throttle/brake. If you're half on the brakes, you really don't want to be more than half on the wheel or chances are you'll lock the tires and fly off the track.

It sounds like trigonometry or something, but it actually makes a lot of sense when you think about it. You can't make a tire do more than 100% of anything. When you do, you fly off the track. Period.

[TCrouch]

After re-reading your post, you also should be able to understand some of your own questions if you understand MY post before.

If you're squealing the tires, they're already at 100% turning. So if you press EITHER gas or brake without bringing them back down under 100%, something has to give. That's why sometimes, when the tires are not quite under maximum duress, you can use pedal. Other times, when you're right on the edge and barely touch the pedal, that exceeds the 100%.

And if you move ANYTHING in a herky-jerky manner...stomping on a pedal, that creates a huge spike in the inertia. So everything must be smooth.

[Zeppo]

Main thing for me is that in a video game, it is very hard to tell your momentum in comparison to real life where you are actually moving as well as the car. This causes me to be always on the gas or the brake all the time, like I'm playing Halo, than would be the case if I were in a real car.

Staying off both pedals as you aproach an important corner, or at first contact with another car, or when you start to lose it, is very important. Especially on the aproach to a corner. You can really tell how much momentum you carry when you let up off the throttle if you are behind another car as you aproach that pre-corner zone. Brake in the aproach to the corner, then NO PEDALS as you turn the car, let it go until you hit that apex, at which point you want to ease into the throttle, not mash it down. But ease into it until you are flat-out.

The most important corners on any race track are the ones before the longest straights. It's better to be conservative on these corners, to ensure you get a good exit, rather than trying to press the issue and get that super-perfect corner and then going too far and screwing it up. The ability a car has to pass another on a straight is all about how well it hits the corner before the straight vs. how well the car its passing hits that corner. That is, a more powerful car can still watch a lesser HP car walk past it on a long straight if the powerful car screws up the corner before the straight, and the weak car hits that apex just right. It's like the weaker car has a head start, because it started holding down the throttle earlier than the bigger car. Corners in complexes or chicanes are still important to try to get right, but you don't lose nearly as much time if you screw up a corner where the next corner is only 50M away vs. screwing up a corner where the next corner is 750M away. A straight is just the extension of the corner before it. A mistake made on a corner before a long straight affects you all the way down that straight, so the longer the straight is, the bigger the negative effect.

Use the braking line. Try to keep the red out in front of you and try to coast through yellow. This will help to teach you more rapidly how best to take each corner. If that line vanishes, you better be on the throttle!

So, controlling the momentum of the car is what it's all about in the corners. You can do that in many ways that don't involve the gas or the brake. Coasting, turning, engine braking by down-shifting, etc. are all tools to use alongside the brake and throttle pedal.

Oh, and get something to help the resistance of that brake pedal, like a racquet ball or a big sponge like Mix uses (apparently). Personally I find the braking with the controller much better than the first Forza, but I am very careful to ease into it and then squeeze it to avoid locking up. I'd think any but some crazy super expensive ultra-sim pedal getup would benefit from greater resistance on the brake pedal, so it's a no brainer to do something, anything (a #2 spring clamp?, a tennis ball?) to help that 360 rig feel more natural.

[Spooky]

You guys are studs! Let me digest this before I attempt to formulate any more questions.

Thanks a ton!

[Zeppo]

The best way to digest it, the fastest way you can learn, is to do time trails with the ghost on, so you can continuously try to beat your own ghost lap after lap. You not only learn that track better, but you also learn important universal lessons. Use a short track with just a few corners rather than a long marathon.

[Kruza]

There's not much for me to add since just about everything has been covered. But I'll try.

Knowing weight distribution of a car you're racing in is important in determining what ways to approach corners. "Front" displays the percentage of the car's weight that's in the front half. To get the weight percentage of the rear half simply subtract that percentage number from 100.

Front wheel drive (FWD) cars generally have understeer characteristics, meaning they have a tendency to not turn as sharply as it should dependent on the grip and behavior of the front tires. To compensate for this, a driver would have to brake earlier entering a corner in these cars than they would have to racing in an all-wheel drive (AWD) or a rear wheel drive (RWD) car. This is especially the case in front-engine FWD cars since the increasingly heavy load over the front axis over the car will prevent the front tires from turning much (related to what TCrouch pointed out earlier).

Driving RWD cars requires more careful steering and throttle management than in FWD cars whenever cornering. RWD cars generally have oversteering characteristics, meaning that it has a tendency to turn more than it should dependent on the grip and behavior of the rear tires. Once the rear tires are on the verge of losing complete grip of the road, the throttle and steering input must be handled with care or else the rear end will kick out and the car eventually spin out. It's possible to drift around certain corners by quickly kicking out the rear end of the car, immediately countersteering to regain traction in the rear tires, then powering on the throttle out of the exit. But it's very difficult too pull off correctly in a way that doesn't slow the car down.

AWD cars has a tendency to do both understeer and oversteer. The understeer behavior generally kicks in while approaching the apex, and the oversteer behavior generally kicks in past the apex on the exit. Careful steering and throttle management is needed.

While going downhill the front end of a car gets "heavier," so it's wise not to brake as hard approaching a corner going downhill as you would approaching that same type of corner over a level surface. Conversely, the rear end of a car gets "lighter" while going downhill, so it can get rather tricky at times controlling the rear end in RWD & AWD cars in this situation. That's because any sudden steering movements or significant boost of power on the throttle can spin out the car immediately.

Kruza

[Spanner216]

Good tips!!

[JRod]

I know this is going to sound crazy.

Here's what made me a better at "controller" racing.

Play DiRT.

The two modes, rally cross and rally mode are where you need to have a good understanding of braking into corners and acceleratings through them in order to get fast times.

Not it's not the same racing model but it really showed be a lot in terms of braking and taking a line into a corner.

That game helped me. I don't know why.