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[DiRT 4] Constructive feedback on the subject of car-feel and physics: The Ultimate Thread

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LOL HOPE WE GET THIS SORTED EVENTUALLY! :)
love the game,but get us closer to real physics please 

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LOL HOPE WE GET THIS SORTED EVENTUALLY! :)
love the game,but get us closer to real physics please 
Exactly. What I think is that we...
need another difficulty option (sic!)

-Game mode (stays unchanged)
-Pro mode (current simulation mode)
-Simulation mode (with all improvements we mentioned in this thread, hopefully focused and tested for wheel users, with all assists available for gamepad users)

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On tarmac i really  think its in their tire modeling  or lack of sophistication of it.Personal opinion.:)

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On tarmac i really  think its in their tire modeling  or lack of sophistication of it.Personal opinion.:)
Tarmac is the most raw experience of tyre model, there is no tyre biting into a loose surface simulation involved. Still not perfect, on slow speed tight corners try to use handbrake. You don't feel much of car's inertia, just press throttle to the max and make small corrections with wheel. In real life there is lot's of spins going on even by the best drivers. But I must admit- I did not drive tarmac as much as I should, so I will wait with more detailed opinion on this particular surface.

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yeah maybe i just suck,but i love tarmac rallies,and as such would soooooo enjoy it in D4.Keep giving it tries,but the lack of feel on T300 on tarmac is not enjoyable.

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yeah maybe i just suck,but i love tarmac rallies,and as such would soooooo enjoy it in D4.Keep giving it tries,but the lack of feel on T300 on tarmac is not enjoyable.
Didn't mean to suggest that at all! I apologize if that sounded like I did!

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SamRWD said:
OK, so my theory that grip is too high overal just became very apparent. It is not aero inducted grip (downforce), but tyre parameters.

If you go really slow (downforce next to zero), ie through those tight turns let's say in Australia, you will notice that using Hyundai R5 (very easy to oversteer car with right setup) after throwing car into the corner the slide is soon sopped by lateral grip.

What you've described here is perfectly normal car behaviour on a softish dirt clay-like surface. Would you like me to explain why this behaviour is normal, or will I be wasting my time again?

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SamRWD said:

If you powerslide with throttle, the slide also stops soon and car starts to jump forward because forward grip is also too high...
Again, quite normal behaviour on all soft surfaces, and it doesnt happen because "forward grip is too high". Again, would you like me to explain why this happens, or will I be wasting my time again?

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bogani said:
fab1701 said:
Toe gives the wheels a tendency to turn. In the case of toe-in, the outside wheels want to go to the inside. When turning, the weight goes to the outside and the turnig then seems to be quicker, or more responsive in the process, thats how I understand it. I think negative camber has a similar effect, and can be countered by a bit of toe-out. The downside of this is, that toe also comes with instability, because the neutral direction the car wants to go then depends on the weight distribution. FWDs also come with a bit of toe-out, because under power the front wheels are forced to the front and then straighten out in the process ;).
Toe-in is not the recipe for better turn in response, toe-out is.

The description is the tuning menu is wrong, which they are aware of.
Sorry, but this is wrong. Toe in at the front will give you better turn in response, but might cause understeer if excessive. To maximise oversteer you need toe in at the front and toe out at the rear. 

Similarly toe in at the front and toe in at rear will increase responsiveness but cause excessive understeer.

Toe out at the front and toe in at rear will increase front responsiveness and give tendency to understeer. 

Toe out at front and toe out at rear decrease responsiveness while increasing oversteer. 

Let me me know if you'd like me to clarify anything else. 

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Heres a video of me locking the rear diff of the Mk2 and driving (very badly so please forgive me) around Dirtfish but you can see it understeering when I put the power down. Sometimes it does step out but you should be able to throttle control a slide around that donut area and it just doesn't want to. Let me know if I have done a setup wrong though...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJdJNz9QDOw
WOW, you have the setup SO wrong. What you have there would create understeer, lol.

Anti-roll bars are the big thing though, really stiff at the rear, and soft at the front (not the way they work in RL but is gets the game right.) 
What do you mean this is not the way they work in real life? 

Soft antiroll bar at the front and a stiff antiroll bar at the rear will give you oversteer in most situations. A stiff anti roll bar just tranfers most of the load to the outside wheel, thus reducing the overall grip at that axle. The only complication is soft surfaces where a stiff anti roll bar can actually cause the outside tyre to dig in more, thus making it more difficult to slide. In those situations you need to find a sweet spot, otherwise you might get a car that for example understeers like a pig on a really soft surface and goes into massive oversteer a few corners later because the surface composition changed to a slightly harder, more compacted one. 

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chukonu said:
There are a couple of separate threads floating about and nothing to bring it all together. .......................................
......................................................................................................................................................................................................
PS4 G29 Wheel. Sim, All assists off.
I totally agree with everything you've posted about handling physics and feedback.  Loving Dirt 4 but here's my gripes n niggles.
Apart from the above already mentioned.
Spending hours in career mode n building a full strong team then going online multiplayer only to find all your staffs contracts have expired when you return to career. I do get mail to say a contract is expiring so I leave a great online battle to renew contracts only to find they've expired already. Sponsors contracts are still fine and the way I left them but staff have gone! I've lost 4 or 5 full and expensive teams so far.

Spending hours getting feedback and input settings just the way I like them then go online multiplayer and the cars all over the shop. Spend most of the championship tweaking the car whenever possible which just isn't enjoyable. I've turned soft lock off which helped a little but still a pain.

Not sure if the next 2 are Dirt 4 issues or something I'm not understanding.
I Set up an event in career. One or two stages, car feels pretty awful and floaty. Next stage without any adjustments It's off like a rocket and handling much better. ??
Audio. I use the Playstation gold headset and adjusting Effects, Engine, Speech and Surfaces makes no changes no matter how I adjust them. Cant get Push to talk to work either.

That's my gripes for now but loving the game. I'm sure Dirt 4 will evolve into one of the best rally games to date. B)       
 

  

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Ok, after another test session the center of mass seems to be correct, but I have this weird feeling with the cars that something is going on here. It's like Codemasters did such a beautiful job with the physics and the simulation got sooo close to perfection now, that it is really difficult to put your finger on it :) .
So assuming the weight, grip, all of the suspension and the aerodynamics are really refined, there isn't much left that can be it. The only thing that comes to my mind is the distribution of the different masses in the cars. Thinking about a heavy front because of the engine and heavy rear with the fuel tank. I really doubt this isn't considered, because this has an impact on the rotational inertia of a car. But, depending on the car, there may be some variations on this. With a higher moment of inertia cars wouldn't turn that easily and keep their rotation in powerslides. Additionally this wouldn't affect weight transfer, because that depends on the mass center. What do you think? :)


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Engine weight is not a big issue when it comes to understeer nowadays . Old Quattro gr B was one of cars that had problems with understeer because of engine placement, but that car had it's engine really moved forward, I believe it was sitting way in front of front axle. 

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SamRWD said:
LOL HOPE WE GET THIS SORTED EVENTUALLY! :)
love the game,but get us closer to real physics please 
Exactly. What I think is that we...
need another difficulty option (sic!)

-Game mode (stays unchanged)
-Pro mode (current simulation mode)
-Simulation mode (with all improvements we mentioned in this thread, hopefully focused and tested for wheel users, with all assists available for gamepad users)
This won't and shouldn't happen, sim mode should just be that and gamer seperate. This would mean a whole other set of AI, leaderboards etc and theres no need for it really apart from just to fix the sim handling

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SamRWD said:
Engine weight is not a big issue when it comes to understeer nowadays . Old Quattro gr B was one of cars that had problems with understeer because of engine placement, but that car had it's engine really moved forward, I believe it was sitting way in front of front axle. 
Yes you're right, but I'm not talking about the actual weight, rather about its position.
Let's say you have a car with an engine mounted far out in the front and some counterweight like the tank far out in the back. This car could have the same center of mass as a car that has its engine and fueltank equally moved more to the middle of the car. Thats what modern cars tend to have. But because the weight in one of the cars is located more to the outside, this leads to a higher resistance against rotation around it's yaw-axis, which is located in it's mass center. So this would lead to a higher resistance against turning, but also, because of the higher inertia, the rotation of the car has an easier time to continue in a slide, because it then needs more lateral force to stop it. Maybe this is the reason why the modern cars actually feel better in D4 than the historics ;).

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I get that nagging feeling to play D4 a lot but once I boot it up, after a couple minutes..

I just can't get over the physics.  I'm trying but the hand of god straightening your car out not letting you powerslide and the massive understeer are killing me.  Tuning helps a tiny bit but there is something seriously up with the physics and it just feels wrong while driving a lot of the time.  I used to love watching replays in DR and RBR, but I can't stand them in D4 because the cars move so oddly it doesn't look right.  Feels wrong, looks wrong.  Just pendulum back and forth and point and shoot.

It's so odd because at times the physics feel incredible, most at speed and under braking.  But just so wrong when it comes to anything powersliding or taking hairpins.  I swear, I'm starting to really feel it is some kind of assist that is stuck on more so than grip levels.  Maybe something from gamer mode or gamepad assist that is bugged on.  As soon as the car starts any kind of lateral sliding, the FFB forces you to counter steer into it instantly then the car straightens out and shoots off.  RWD and AWD cars drive more like FWD.  On hairpins you pull the handbrake, the car might spin around sure but then it just bogs down and won't power through the corner.

I think the foundation is there, I wish we would hear something official from CM.  The complaints about the handling are pretty universal.  They can really turn this around, fixing the rally physics and adding tiles for the stages and I think that Mixed score on Steam would defintely change.

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if you really think about it: what kind of "sim" can you get when half the game is "gamer" mode?
thats why im afraid that our SIM concerns wont get addressed.

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if you really think about it: what kind of "sim" can you get when half the game is "gamer" mode?
thats why im afraid that our SIM concerns wont get addressed.

Only the gamer portion of the game is gamer mode - which, funnily, is just sim mode with assists on.

Besides, they've already mentioned addressing the issues in due time, so I don't understand why people still complain about it.

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griev0r said:
I get that nagging feeling to play D4 a lot but once I boot it up, after a couple minutes..

I just can't get over the physics.  I'm trying but the hand of god straightening your car out not letting you powerslide and the massive understeer are killing me.

Tuning helps a tiny bit but there is something seriously up with the physics and it just feels wrong while driving a lot of the time

It's so odd because at times the physics feel incredible...

I swear, I'm starting to really feel it is some kind of assist that is stuck on more so than grip levels.

Maybe something from gamer mode or gamepad assist that is bugged on. 

+1 Pretty much sums up my experience and thoughts as well. Good post.

The handling doesn't seem to be consistent from stage to stage even in the same location, but it's really hard to pinpoint what the deal is. I've got almost 60 hours in now, and have driven FWDs, RWDs, and AWDs significantly. so I've given it a fair chance. 

The inconsistency is the part that's really off-putting.

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problem is we simmers can pick out issues with D4 ,............problems the audience ,that the game is intended for cannot .

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fab1701 said:
Ok, after another test session the center of mass seems to be correct, but I have this weird feeling with the cars that something is going on here. It's like Codemasters did such a beautiful job with the physics and the simulation got sooo close to perfection now, that it is really difficult to put your finger on it :) .
So assuming the weight, grip, all of the suspension and the aerodynamics are really refined, there isn't much left that can be it. The only thing that comes to my mind is the distribution of the different masses in the cars. Thinking about a heavy front because of the engine and heavy rear with the fuel tank. I really doubt this isn't considered, because this has an impact on the rotational inertia of a car. But, depending on the car, there may be some variations on this. With a higher moment of inertia cars wouldn't turn that easily and keep their rotation in powerslides. Additionally this wouldn't affect weight transfer, because that depends on the mass center. What do you think? :)
The mass or the COG itself isn't the problem.
I think that the problem is that Codemasters are trying to use realistic spring rates, ARB rates and damping values, but the forces that the tires and the chassis generate are at least 2 times greater than the realistic values.

Almost every default setup does have a too low spring rate at the rear wheels and the car can't keep the front wheels loaded when accelerating.
Some cars in the game do have a high enough spring rates for high tire forces, if you use the highest possible values in the setup. Some car's can't handle the tire forces, even with the highest possible values, e.g. Ford Escort MK II.

If you want to accelerate and steer with the MK2 on the gravel, you have to lower the car, set max spring/ARB rates at the rear and set the lowest rates to the front. It makes the car almost undrivable when you are not accelerating, but you can do sustainable on throttle oversteer!

All of these problems might be solved by lowering the friction coefficient values, so that the tire forces would match better with the current car setups.
Of course another possibility would be to allow much higher spring rates and ARB rates in the setups, but i wouldn't choose that route. High spring rates will cause other problems with the physics calculations, if the physics calculation rate isn't high enough.


P.S. I got banned after the latest post i made with my another account (hawku0). I don't think that the ban was intentional, but i can't get any response from the Codemasters support email. Does somebody know how i could get that account unbanned?

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hawku2 said:
The mass or the COG itself isn't the problem.
Yeah, the actual mass values and the position of the COG seems right to me too. Again, what I'm trying to get to is the distribution of the mass, with the same COG or mass values in mind. A heavy rear is more consistent to throw around and keeps it's momentum. Doesn't mean that this comes with an increased weight overall, or a different position for the COG. If the mass is more centered, then it's very easy to change direction or to spin around, but also every tiny force that goes against a cars rotation might then be enough to counter it (how it seems to me in D4 atm). Well, the actual distribution of the masses in a specific car need to be researched and based on real data. Wouldn't surprise me if thats actually already in the simulation, and the problem is something completely different though :).

Regarding the springs: This actually might be connected. If the mass is more or less centered around the COG this also leads to increased pitch angles while braking or accelerating, because there is less force needed to rotate the car. Contrary, if there are concentrated masses in the front and the back this will resist pitch, because the same mass now needs to be lowered or hightened by a greater amount and that requires more energy.

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Dirt-handling issues aside for a moment, the tarmac handling is where the physics really don't hold up when compared to Road-racing Sim's; those titles just feel far more precise and detailed in their behavior and far more informative regarding FFB self-aligning torque, threshold of grip, buildup of steering resistance prior to grip-loss, torque-steer, etc. Some of those can be very subtle effects but, can be amplified when using a direct-drive wheel so their presence (or lack of) becomes far more obvious to the player.

Still, I'm not as bothered by the tarmac handling because I play Dirt titles primarily for the Dirt-racing aspect but, of course - it would be great to have things working at a high level across all modes - especially in career mode. Those same subtleties I mentioned above are also absent from RallyX tarmac but, I should mix in more of the game FFB to better understand how the FFB algorithm may affect the tarmac feel overall.

None the less, the game FFB and telemetry-based FFB should not differ by that much regarding those effects felt through the wheel - unless, they involve "canned" FFB effects, not those derived directly from the game physics.  I'm not saying that is the case here but, it's something that I want to test further to find the right formula for tarmac because, it doesn't feel great as it is now.

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Fab, ive said all long i believe it ro be some sort of assists bug or aid that's glitched. The actual  physics feel fantastic, i dont believe for one second it has anything to do with them.

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