So I'm on day 2 now of xBox 360 w/ Forza 4 ownership. I bought it with the thought that I could "train" for the Chumpcar race at Road America next month with it. Yeah, yeah, I know it's a video game, but for an only medium-skilled driver like me who has never been to the track, I like to think a few evenings doing hot laps on the couch has some benefit, if for nothing else to help learn the geography.
All the better if you've got a car tuned to match the real-life track car, right? I set about doing that in Forza, and then bench marked it at Road Atlanta in Forza to compare my video game lap times to real life lap times. My virtual track car is an easy 10 seconds faster than reality. I then went about 'detuning' the virtual car until it was almost as slow as the real thing. I grant the video game a second or so per lap, as I'm a lot braver sitting on the couch than strapped into a racing seat.
So is it just my oddball setup, or is that about right? Trying to match Chumpcar performance with a Forza car, I had to put the 'racing' coilovers and sway bars on so that I could turn them all the way soft, cut the HP back about 30% versus reality, put the tire pressures at 45-50 psi, and of course put the 'race' transmission in so I could set the ratios to match the real thing. When it's all done I have a totally noncompetitive Forza car, but one that I believe to be a realistic virtual representation of what I intend to bring to the track.
Anyone else experience a 'Forza correction factor' to make the cars in the game match their experience in reality? Are the 'street' cars really just faster in the game than in reality, or am I just that much better at video games than driving a race car?
gamertag: sporqster, by the way. Be my friend
I don't have any real life data to compare, but I think at best Forza is a simulation that compromises realism in some ways to appeal to a broader audience. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I'm a self proclaimed forza addict and I am doing something related that game in one way or another every single day.
As it is, its fun, challenging, and even its if its not 100% a true simulator when you really get down to it, you can certainly learn from playing it. Same could be said for many other games.
One example comes to mind when you mentioned the race suspension. I feel like the game just ends up using the same suspension geometry for each car (I dont know for sure, maybe it has a couple setups that are shared by all the cars in the game, but Im also not going to sit and analyze each car in the on screen telemetry to sort it out). Twist beams and solid rear axles all of a sudden become independent suspension, that gains negative camber as it compresses. To be fair I guess I havent compared that to what happens when you are on stock, or sport suspension (non adjustable)
I think they just want it to feel pretty realistic across the board for all the cars, but its not a flat out simulation of each car.
Sent you a request :) While I don't have a racecar, theres quite a few around here who do and race on Forza. We're online most nights, lotta fun and a great way to practice/learn the tracks.
One thing forza doesn't do is simulate aero drag very well. A stock WRX in forza is 20mph faster on the back straight of Road Atlanta than what my car is. :/ 10 seconds faster per lap. although i could probably pick up 2-3 seconds since I've only been once on street tires. Either way, That is probably the BIGGEST difference IMO. everything else seem pretty close.
I've often wondered about the suspension geometry issue. I was thinking, "there's no way they measured all those cars alignment change throughout wheel travel!".
I didn't even think about the aero drag...
On video games in general, you can push much harder than you can in real life because if you make a mistake, you press the restart button. Combined with the lack of gravity, there is much less of a fear factor in sim racing. In GranTurismo, they often give the car much better tires than what it comes with, try running around in a 200ft. circle looking at the g-meter to get a rough idea.
Forza and other racing games aren't going to go to the full lengths to simulate the track surface. Pretty fixed amount of grip. Never gets gummed up with marbles, dirt, oil, coolant, etc. There are no tiny bumps or imperfections like you get on an actual track. This means more grip. It also means the car never gets upset by a loss of grip over some imperfection that the driver then has to bleed off momentum correcting for.
AtticusTurbo27 wrote:
One thing forza doesn't do is simulate aero drag very well. A stock WRX in forza is 20mph faster on the back straight of Road Atlanta than what my car is. :/ 10 seconds faster per lap. although i could probably pick up 2-3 seconds since I've only been once on street tires. Either way, That is probably the BIGGEST difference IMO. everything else seem pretty close.
Yeah for some reason the audi quattro s1 car likes to roll alot over the rumble strips on the corner apex's when you know in real life it has lots of travel and would just keep on going, mine tends to catch wind like a sail and tumble sideways in slow motion.
