Need for Speed Racing Games

Hi. I've taken the plunge and turned off the remainder of assists. That is traction and stability, but left only ABS on as I have been advised it's ok to leave it on, and that traction and stability would have been slowing me down for best time attack laps. I use expert car handling model.

On laguna seca, I learned how to control the car around all the various corners to a reasonable degree of skill I suppose, but nowhere close to perfect, only been playing this game for a week. See my vid here:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t60cj38qucA&feature=player_embedded


My goal is to get closer to 1:30. So, the problem now is this. How do I go about controlling the oversteer and spin outs I get since turning off traction and stability, do I:

A. Readjust steering wheel deadzones & sensitivities

B. Simply learn to countersteer

C. Bit of both.


Example: At the first turn of laguna, once I've turned into the hairpin and am starting to straighten out, the car keeps turning until I'm facing the track the wrong way. It's a works converted Nissan 200SX (S14), which even the expert drivers are saying is hard to control, nevertheless, I need to learn. Thanks for any advice.


Info that might help:

These are my current sensitivities and deadzones for when I had assists on.
http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/7915/deadzones.jpg


And wheel is this, thrustmaster force feedback.
http://i.imagehost.org/view/0318/IMGP3213

I see you're not braking in the turns...

Your car is wandering in the video, try increasing the caster setting. In real life this would only affect steering effort in turns, but in NFS Shift it stabilizes cars. I run most cars at 2.00 and problem cars like the works Z06 at 4.00. For corner exit under throttle, I set differential acceleration lock to 80.00. I usually leave the deceleration (enging braking) value at default.

Even though you have all assists off, there are still some hidden assists that you can't turn off.

One of these is a traction control assist that reduces the sensitivity of the throttle by reducing power if the car oversteers, although it varies depending on the car. You can easily spin a works Z06, but the works LP640 (Murcielago) is less spin prone since it's all wheel drive. On the other hand, the LP640 slows down if you oversteer it too much, but the Z06 (and especially the Zonda R) turn fastest when you're essentially drifting with a lot of oversteer through the turns. The limiting of power by this hidden traction control, combined with the slowing of cars under high cornering loads, means it's best to enter higher speed turns a bit faster than normal, turning in a bit early to get the car to oversteer, and keeping pressure on the throttle. In these videos of the Zonda R at Willow Springs, turn 2 is taken at full throttle. In the last turn, turn 9, the throttle is lifted to allow the car to scrub off some speed, but is back to full throttle well before reaching the apex of the turn.

This is my video where I jerk the wheel hard into turn 2 to exaggerate the idea behind this method:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBSg1eG_cys&fmt=22

Another video by one of the fast palyers, using the same method:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbywBxTFoQU&fmt=22

abs

The other hidden assists are an engine braking limiter and some hidden ABS. Turn off ABS and downshift while braking and most cars will stop faster. On some cars, like the Evo IX, the downshifts are very slow unless you have pressure on the throttle. The idea was to probably require the player to blip the throttle (assuming separate axis for brake and throttle), but instead you can downshift quickly while at speed and at full throttle just before braking, as long as damage is off. The car sounds like it's sliding a lot, but it ends up smoother than having a delayed and jerky downshift occur mid-turn. For most other cars, the downshifts occur quickly even with no throttle and on these cars, you can use downshifting to create additional braking force, to exploit the physics of NFS Shift, as seen about 35 seconds into this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVwJNmaJUvM&fmt=22

rcgldr, thanks, I appreciate the information, and those videos are unbelievable, amazing driving! After driving around in this slow nissan for a few days, I thought the zonda videos were actually sped up, but it's just that the car is so fast. Great engine sound too, so aggressive. I've not bothered to have a go in my zonda yet, I will though. How long do you have to be playing this game to drive like a bat out of hell and keep it on the road, lol. As far as settings, I've got exactly the same settings as someone who is the time trial leader in our contest. These ones:


http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/uu54/NIKSPIK/OcUK%20Shift%20TT%20Comp%20Week%209/shift2010-02-0121-44-03-48.jpg
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/uu54/NIKSPIK/OcUK%20Shift%20TT%20Comp%20Week%209/shift2010-02-0121-44-10-83.jpg
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/uu54/NIKSPIK/OcUK%20Shift%20TT%20Comp%20Week%209/shift2010-02-0121-44-14-63.jpg
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/uu54/NIKSPIK/OcUK%20Shift%20TT%20Comp%20Week%209/shift2010-02-0121-44-20-35.jpg
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/uu54/NIKSPIK/OcUK%20Shift%20TT%20Comp%20Week%209/shift2010-02-0121-44-26-77.jpg
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/uu54/NIKSPIK/OcUK%20Shift%20TT%20Comp%20Week%209/shift2010-02-0121-44-29-52.jpg
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/uu54/NIKSPIK/OcUK%20Shift%20TT%20Comp%20Week%209/shift2010-02-0121-44-33-50.jpg
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/uu54/NIKSPIK/OcUK%20Shift%20TT%20Comp%20Week%209/shift2010-02-0121-44-40-78.jpg
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/uu54/NIKSPIK/OcUK%20Shift%20TT%20Comp%20Week%209/shift2010-02-0121-44-44-97.jpg
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/uu54/NIKSPIK/OcUK%20Shift%20TT%20Comp%20Week%209/shift2010-02-0121-44-49-03.jpg


This car is hard to control though. For instance, when I drove a porsche 911 GT2 around the track, it was much easier with a better time, but it's a faster car anyway. The guy whose settings these are since posted his video of laguna seca, showing me how to do it in the nissan. He kept a perfect racing line throughout and did it in 1:30, so I'm not sure if I need to change the settings but rather improve my driving. I don't think this laguna seca can be done any quicker than that in this particular works converted nissan. That video of mine was with traction and stability still on. I guess I need to just go easy and re adjust and relearn how the car handles now.

cem_ea_id.bandola54 wrote:This car (works 200sx) is hard to control though.

It's just that car and a few others. I'd move on to other cars before spending much more time with a problematic car like that one. As you noticed, the GT2 was much easier to drive. The Zonda R will be must faster, but easier to drive than that 200SX.

MAIN.rcgldr wrote:

cem_ea_id.bandola54 wrote:This car (works 200sx) is hard to control though.

It's just that car and a few others. I'd move on to other cars before spending much more time with a problematic car like that one. As you noticed, the GT2 was much easier to drive. The Zonda R will be must faster, but easier to drive than that 200SX.

I have to stick with it till saturday, I'm part of a time attack competition where each week, someone nominates a track and car combo. Anyway, turning assists off is really helping me, I actually reduced my lap time by over 2 seconds! http://i.imagehost.org/0580/Assists_off.jpg

I couldn't budge on my time before with assists on. I can really see now how traction and stability control took the power out of the car.


With assists off, the car tends to doughnut quite easily out of corners but after a few tries I've started to get the handle of it, but not mastered it, it's still very touch and go whether I manage to keep it on the track or not. Very happy I've turned assists off though. I suppose I could be classified as hardcore now
My goal is to get closer to the 1:30 on this track which the experts are getting.

cem_ea_id.bandola54 wrote:Hi. I've taken the plunge and turned off the remainder of assists. That is traction and stability, but left only ABS on as I have been advised it's ok to leave it on, and that traction and stability would have been slowing me down for best time attack laps. I use expert car handling model.

On laguna seca, I learned how to control the car around all the various corners to a reasonable degree of skill I suppose, but nowhere close to perfect, only been playing this game for a week. See my vid here:

Bear in mind most of the folk you see supposedly driving fast laps in NFS Shift are using the normal handling mode.

e.g see here http://wrecord.com/records.php?track=4

Assists are really neither here or there by comparison.

The difference between normal and pro is the difference between chalk and cheese and the former really needs you to forget any precepts or ideas you have about driving and think "playing a video game" - although that's probably true of both to a certain extent.

There is also no point at all looking at how someone can drive in this "normal" setting and trying to emulate it when it's on pro...and definitely not trying to match their lap times.

But, it's moot really, if you want to be competitive there's little point switching to pro to do it. (it's a pity the game authors didn't differentiate this on their leaderboards, as well as having some kind of leaderboard that would let you say something like "what's the fastest time for a Ford Escort on this track" and see the times, rather than the rather dull "normal handling mode in the zonda" that both the official and wrecord stats do instead.

Yes you expect the Zonda's times to matter, but only having one leaderboard does nothing except make the game about 80 times smaller than it could have been, (and another 3 fold if they'd separated handling modes too so that there was some point to either racing online or hotlapping on pro) It's one of the things that Forza 2 got right which made choosing to hotlap the slower cars worthwhile and a challenge.

OTOH, although I don't want to use the 'R' word, certainly if NFS shift is at all realistic, that certainly requires you to use pro.

Needaxeo, I believe the person who I'm competing against who is getting 1:30 on this track is on pro or experienced car handling. I don't fully understand what you're saying, are you saying that if I change from experienced car to normal car I can still get the same lap times, or it's easier to handle and I'd do better?

cem_ea_id.bandola54 wrote:Needaxeo, I believe the person who I'm competing against who is getting 1:30 on this track is on pro or experienced car handling. I don't fully understand what you're saying, are you saying that if I change from experienced car to normal car I can still get the same lap times, or it's easier to handle and I'd do better?

Much easier and you'll do better.

See the link I posted, all the top times at the wrecord site, and on NFS's own weekly hotlaps and on the in game leaderboards are folk using normal handling.

The point really wasn't what your comp is using (if you've found a comp where folk all agree to use pro and stick to that, fair enough)

It's that if you follow advice or look at laps to at least bear in mind that 99% of the fast laps you'll see simply are not obtainable if you are using Pro. So you could waste hours trying to get your lap time quicker to absolutely no avail or wondering how they get around corners so fast or why they aren't spinning.

The answer is, because they have the game in a mode that makes it much easier because it gives them more grip and lowers the centre of gravity of the cars etc.

So, at least if you're going to compare yourself, make sure you are comparing like with like, whatever mode you choose to do after that is of course down to you, just as it's down to them what they use.

The most obvious difference between difficulties are two heuristic values called "grip" and "cgheightscale" which vary depending on difficulty level. Driving in Novice mode gives about 20-25% greater grip and lowered centre of gravity on the car compared to pro, with normal and experienced falling in the middle of that.

Oh and re "hidden assists" or "hidden abs" or "hidden tcs", it actually sounds like you are talking about the differential here. Also caster is not only for cornering

That's very interesting then. I kind of thought that normal car handling mode would slow me down, much like assists did. I just tried normal handling mode and tbh, it was harder to handle than experienced. Maybe my wheel lost it's calibration, it's always doing that. I'm gonna reboot and try normal mode again with still with all assists off.


Ok, I've rebooted. It's harder handling the car in normal mode than in experienced or pro. The car is all over the place in normal mode.

cem_ea_id.bandola54 wrote:
Ok, I've rebooted. It's harder handling the car in normal mode than in experienced or pro. The car is all over the place in normal mode.

Doesn't normal mode enable low steering and braking assists by default? Switch those both off if so.

xbox.Needaxeo wrote:

cem_ea_id.bandola54 wrote:
Ok, I've rebooted. It's harder handling the car in normal mode than in experienced or pro. The car is all over the place in normal mode.

Doesn't normal mode enable low steering and braking assists by default? Switch those both off if so.

Yes, and I switched them off. It also changed my gears to auto and I switched them back to manual. I thought the car was going to be easy to handle but it was even more all over the place than it is as experienced mode, and that's all over the place as well but I'm getting used to it now, lol.

I don't recall any mention of using pro mode in the original post, just turning off assists. There are 4 modes, casual, normal, experience, and pro. The only differences I'm aware of are the grip multiplier and center of gravity multiplier which in order are:

casual normal exper pro grip multplier: 1.450 1.300 1.300 1.200 center of gravity multiplier: 0.600 0.600 0.750 0.825

Although casual mode has the highest grip level, you can't turn off the steering and braking assist, so it ends up being slower. Normal mode with all assists off is fastest for most players. Steering assist set to low and traction control set to high is fastest for some other players, including some world record holders. Based on videos of game play and how the assists help some players, I suspect the game play of NFS Shift isn't the same on alll PC's (hardware, OS, controller, ....), so some players have an advantage just because of their system or controller.