GT 4 understeer problem update

[Guest bastaad525]

Okay for all who were following and posting in that topic (of which I was surprised by how many replies there were!) I thought this little update might prove useful for the large group of us who felt GT 4 is just too severe with the understeer when breaking into a turn.

 

 

After trying many different combinations of suspension setups, including following some tips from a couple guys in that last thread, as well as trying different traction tires, different brake settings... nothing worked. I could get the car to loosen up, the biggest difference came when I put lower traction tires in the rear, but then it got WAY too loose and getting thru a race w/o spinning out multiple times was almost impossible.

 

 

So... much as I loathe to do it, I took a second look at the driving aids. I've always felt that the driving aids kill the game... making it way too easy to be way too good. In GT3 the ASM and TCS were really just crutches for people who suck

 

Well in GT4, the ASM is split into two settings now, understeer and oversteer. So I gave the understeer setting a shot. Well let me tell you right off the bat... increasing this setting by itself would NOT make anyone any better at the game if they sucked... it's not a crutch at all, IMO, as it LOOSENS the car a great deal.

 

Well, I found that using a low setting, like 3-5 (out of 20) loosens the cars up just enough that if you brake hard into a turn you WILL spin out, and power-on oversteer is a bit more pronounced, but overall it seems to me to improve the balance of the cars greatly, allowing you to brake lightly into a turn to tuck the nose in and drift ever so lightly (like back in GT1...drifting thru EVERY turn... maybe not as realistic, but way more fun!), point your nose where you want to go and NAIL the throttle. I tried this with the Evo VII and the 300ZX TT, which were both really bad before with the understeer in the turns, especially if you were braking at all, and drifting well just seemed out of the question. I also found that in moderately powered cars, I like the Road tires instead of the Sport tires (road tires are a bit less traction). Putting those on the Evo with the ASM Understeer on 4 made it a real drift machine! Lots of fun around curvy tracks I haven't tried it with any high powered cars yet or with all the suspension and brake mods done but I'd expect similiar results, maybe with needing to tweak the ASM setting a bit. I was testing just a stock Evo and 300ZX.

 

A side bonus (I think it's a bonus?) I noticed on both cars after trying these new settings was that I no longer get horribly uneven tire wear thru the race. Before, with all the understeer my front tires were wearing out VERY fast, now I find that all four wear evenly by the end of most races, I think that's a very good sign.

 

Well anyways, just wanted to share that with you guys, hopefully this helps others out as so far it is helping me to enjoy the game MUCH more than I was before, as much as I used to enjoy GT3 with it's looser handling. So try it out and let me know what you think.

[Guest bastaad525]

small update: upped power in the 300zx TT to about 400hp, still stock everything else on Road tires, ASM understeer set to 4, and man it STILL handles great... I thought all the extra power would make it very hard to control without changing or upgrading something but it didn't. FINALLY getting the fun out of this game I had hoped for