Slightly Increased Gravity/Downforce Strength

I have noticed that the cars in BeamNG.Drive seem to me like they have too much understeer. I am used to playing project cars, which is what physics I am used to, and I have driven real cars too. I have noticed that the cars in BeamNG.Drive can't really turn as sharp as they should at high speeds (atleast from what I feel, then again I don't have very much knowledge of car handling.) So, what I have done to "fix" this handling problem, is that I increased the gravity from 9.81, to 13.50. I feel like with this gravity setting, the cars handle much more realistically. For example, the Civetta Bolide can perfectly handle a tight turn at around up to 100 MPH. While before it couldn't quite handle a turn at that speed. Here is a video to better explain what I mean.

 

I've read many complains that beamng cars have very little lateral tire grip, while having a tiny bit over realistic standar grip.

 

The video looks much smoother going around the corners with the increased gravity as well. I might try this out myself.

 

BeamNG is actually very close to real life in terms of grip. That second corner is deceptively tight, and I'm willing to bet quite uncomfortable in real life even at 50 mph. You could've driven that corner a bit better too, the Group 4 Bolide can get around that corner at 80-85 mph if you get a better turn-in and balance it right.

 

How many G's you are pulling and how many you are excepting to be pulling? Video is not much use without some data, have some throttle and steering input apps there, g-force app as well as wheel debug and then it starts to show something.

BeamNG cars top out to around 1.2 - 1.3G's on skidpad currently, it is very dependent on the setup if you have understeer or not.


Some setups are tuned very understeering, with understeering setup when you go into corner at speed you are narrowing angle that you can turn your wheel and how much car will turn, with some setup adjustments you can then overcome that.

Some vehicles do get quite understeery at greater speed because of their wing setup.

You can do skidpad testing of vehicles yourself, very useful when you tune setup to your liking:


So one big difference with racing sims and BeamNG is that in BeamNG you have to mind the weight of the car, you don't turn cardboard shape on tracks, but real live mass on flexible air balloons called tires. That means that you need to shift weight in addition to typical memorizing the pattern that works well with other racing games.

That means, where as in project cars you memorize your braking spot, your turn in, your roll to throttle spot, you can then do same even with eyes closed, but in BeamNG each time is bit different, you have to adapt to small changes in physical forces, instead of same spot, you have to manipulate weight transfer to be same in addition to be in same line, same braking spot etc.

Reduce brake pressure and adjust brake balance is first thing to do when starting bit more serious race sim kind of driving as BeamNG cars have brakes set really strong compared to how sim racers usually set them, causing early lockups, poor modulation etc.

I'm using FOV of 65 to see apex better and get better feeling of the speed.

Also I get really good feeling of weight transfer as well as front tire grip / understersteer trough FFB, worth to check if yours is performing best way, this has pics of older version, but same principles still apply:
https://www.beamng.com/threads/guide-to-ffb.56886

 

doing 100 mph around a 75mph corner, what do you expect lol

 

Corners are pretty unfriendly at speeds like 100 mph.
You probably couldn't do that turn in real life at speeds like that with that particular setup.
It may look like you can make it, but really its easier then you think for that grip to go out and stop turning.

So whats unrealistic here, BeamNG or your Expectations?

 

Alright... I am going to attempt to keep this short..m might happen... might not...

I want you to go back and try that corner again with normal gravity... but some things to keep in mind.

Outside, inside, outside... look through the corner (I understand, its hard to do with a screen but still... the best you can), and keep your steering, throttle, and brake inputs as smooth as possible. By doing this you are effectively maximizing the radius of the corner you are trying to hold the car too. The faster you go, the larger the radius of the corner your car MUST take to keep from losing traction.

If you watch your own video, when you are still on the straight stretch before the corner, you already are setup to fail. You are in the right lane with your left tires on the double yellow line before you even start turning into that corner. In doing so you have effectively reduced the radius that the car must now take to be able to make the corner. That won't help anything. Next, when you do start turning, you turn the wheel abruptly (I understand that you're probably on a controller and this is hard, but... facts are facts). This doesn't allow any time for the car to transfer weight to the outside tires safely and just effectively overloads the front tires immediately... inducing understeer. After that, rather than reducing the throttle input to reduce the radius the car can safely make, I noticed you kept the throttle pressed for more acceleration... again, this will unload the front tires even more and not help with the understeer while simultaneously increasing the radius the car will safely make. Finally, when you realize that the car is understeering and not going to make the corner, you then try to turn the wheel further... if the vehicle is already in an understeering state, turning the wheel further will actually increase the problem by introducing a much higher slip angle. A more effective strategy would be to reduce the steering angle to get the tires to grip up again... granted... by this point, there wasn't much saving that you could do to clear the corner successfully.

If you smooth your inputs and use a proper outside, inside, outside technique, you should be able to clear that corner at much higher speeds... it will feel scary... but hold on, trust in the car, steer slowly and precisely, and be smooth on the breaks and gas... this will get you the success you desire.

 

To all of you who have replied, thank you soo much for taking the time to correct me. Once again, I do not know very much about car handling because I am used to project cars, and haven't driven real cars very much. Now I understand why the cars in BeamNG drive act the way they do.
--- Post updated ---

Definitely my expectations. Thank you for taking the time to correct me.
--- Post updated ---

Once again, thank you for taking the time to correct me. Also, I can understand how an increased FOV can improve the feeling of speed. Also, now I think that what would be better to have done is to have BeamNG find a way to give a better feeling of speed, which is why I am hoping there will soon be motion blur.

 

Motion blur at speeds wouldn't be a bad idea. I dont agree with it because motion blur naturally comes from the eyes, not from the speed or game, so it would only make sense if mixed with TrackIR or VR headsets.

The thing about feeling of speed is that sometimes games dont focus on it too much. IIRC Gran Turismo 4 originally ran at 50/70% speed of the emulation the current cars run at, but it was decided to increase speed of the cars to give a sense of speed and not make using slow cars a boring time.

 

You have a good point... I wonder what would be a good way to convey a sense of speed. Right now, even I have to admit... even when you are REALLY moving it is very hard to judge just how fast you are actually going. Granted, in real life, you not only see the effects of going fast, but you feel it. That and when you really get up there in speed it, especially on uneven surfaces, it can start to scare the crap out of you because you are right on the limit of control and grip.

What is a good way of conveying speed in a video game though? On one of the simulator chairs, sure, you feel everything... even the G forces... but not on your average setup that 99.9% of the rest of us have. It almost all has to be done visually or audibly for us to "feel" it. So what sensations really convey a sense of "speed"?

Things I can think of (other than motion blur) would be rattling sounds on older cars. My old Mustang sounded like it was just going to fall apart because everything in the interior just rattled so badly. Shaking body parts... the hood used to rattle around as well and seeing as it was right in front of my face I could easily see that happening. Um... when your accelerating you get pushed back in your seat... I haven't really tried looking how much the camera moves around, but perhaps that could help... same thing for breaking and turning as well when you haven't got proper bucket seats or race seats. Uhh... audioably, whenever I was driving quickly with the windows open, I could tell I was really moving when driving past guard rails or telephone poles, the reflected sounds went from a sounding like a beat (bupbupbupbup) to almost like a hum of an idling engine (bddddddddd... great sound effects I know). That or the fact that slower cars need to really be reved up to the higher rev ranges to be able to achieve any sort of speed.

But there is something else.... something else I am just not grasping here. Like... in my Mustang (it was a 4cyl, so going fast in it was already an achievement) anything above 65mph felt like flipping light speed in that thing where you were on the absolute edge of what was humanly possible while, at the same time, doing 120+ in my Corvette just feels like I am out for a relaxing Sunday drive down to the shops. Another comparison to that I guess would be my Motorcycles. I have 2 Motorcycles now. My old one being a 1983 Yamaha Seca XJ 650R. It was a heap of junk when I bought it and has proceeded to try and kill me multiple times through various means (that is a long long LONG story that I don't feel like going into). Long story short... whenever you go out on this thing you fear for your life. Anything above 55 or 60 on it just feels like you are warping the very fabric of time and space. My new bike though, a 1999 Buell X1 I decided the speedometer was wrong on for the longest time. Reason being is because, according to the speedometer, it felt like I was doing over 100mph up my road... a rather short stretch mind you. Now the bike is fast, but it didn't feel that fast... 100+ according to the speedometer felt like 45 on my other death machine. Turns out the speedometer was correct and I had just spend the better part of a month attacking roads in my town well over 80mph thinking I was doing 50 or 60 because there was no way I felt like I was doing 80.

So I guess that something might be a sense of fear... granted... how do you convey a sense of fear of a car through a video game?

 

Well put two fans where side windows should be, use clever programming, outsim and arduino to drive them by airspeed or something, you feel and see the speed.

Lot of feeling of speed comes from peripheral vision, you see things flying by and feel like speeding.

With single monitor you can't really get quite the effect unless you go for bit too high FOV to compensate that.

You can calculate correct FOV here, but especially with single monitor that is going to be quite poor feeling of the speed and it is likely Pcars runs something lot wider FOV setting.
http://www.edracing.com/edr/FOV.php

I should have my monitor 45cm away from my eyes for 65 FOV, but I have it at 70cm, because I can't get it closer as wheel is taking space etc. Having something like 24" screen is going to be even narrower window to game world and running at calculated FOV will not have much feeling of the speed left.

So I kinda want to get bigger screen, but there is money and space questions. However when I did move from 19" to 27" that certainly did improve things a lot. Next might be 42" or then U-bolts to lower table (kind of same as swapping axle above leaf springs with my table setup), then to craft monitor box that gets monitor to be above wheel, which would be bit of compromise, but would help with many issues my current setup has.

My crappy setup can be seen here, lowering desk is what I have planned for a tomorrow and need to figure some clever way to have kb and mouse below desk while allowing wheel being mounted and all this to work with two different height of seats, current ergonomic sucks big time.


That would get my monitor bit better positioned and to have higher FOV and larger area of my vision covered by display should provide much better experience overall.

 

While I like the idea... that might be a little overkill

That's a good point... I never thought to adjust the FOV... I might have to try that and see what's what... honestly I don't even know what size monitor I have... Its some TV that I found and am using as a monitor... so it's not that great...

Thanks for that little calculator though... I am gonna try that tonight and see how much that helps out in that situation... right now I think I am just running stock FOV.

 

Hmm, maybe using leds would be sufficient, it is enough if there is something, I guess Possibility to go way overkill is why I like this game so much, there usually is a way to make it happen, no matter how crazy idea one gets.


FOV is indeed quite important aspect, I wonder if I can find slot of time where to make guide "how to setup your game, environment and vecicle like a sim racer" it probably would be useful, but also takes quite bit of time, also if there is going to be tire temps that changes a lot, so maybe some day I can make such guide.

From my experience though, with single screen it is good to run bit higher FOV than what calculators suggest, but everyone is bit different in this regard, it is better to experiment. When you find that magical FOV that works for you, you will know as hitting apex happens magically then, almost

 

You dont really "feel" speed. You feel the acceleration. if you close your eyes, the windows, and be a passanger in a car staying 300 kmh in an totally even and flat road you will feel almost static. the speed or vertigo is a sensation that comes from adrenaline, and its almost all mental and a mixture of audio visual feedback with the wind hitting your face. Or, you know, extreme bumpy road, but that's not so much with speed.

IIRC someone was trying to market this for the sim racing market. They were 2 small fans or as many as you wanted with driver controllers to sync them up with the videogame you were playing, and the speed would depend on the speed of your car in game.

 

Right... well you still get what I was saying... I guess when I said "feel" I shouldn't have really said feel in the sense of... like... forces... as I was more talking about "feel" like the sensation. You are totally right though... in a good car on a good flat road... the only thing you would hear would be wind noise... its like when your in an airliner at cruising altitude... you barely even feel like your moving when in reality your doing 500 to 600+.

Well then... I called that overkill when people have actually gone out and done it.

 

if you want to get vertigo and adrenaline then i guess your best bet is to get VR? Your brain knows you are playing a game. I was driving once alone in the middle of the night my dad's 1.6 FWD hatchback shitbox without him knowing and just revving it to 4k and accelerating a little bit faster than usual in the narrow street made my back feel all the vertigo. Since its all mental, you cant really tell what to do. I remember old PS2 nascar games playing with FOV to give a sense of speed, and other games having a dynamic FOV depending on speed.

And as for the fans, im more interested in the other product he reviewed.



Having some kind of shaking or vibration simulation for your ass is super important.

 

In order to keep controls even in a tight turn, use Jupiter downforce trick to adjust the passive downforce to -24.92 ; if You don't want to overtorque, just use Neptune downforce, -11.91 Yet half than Jupiter.
If You generate extreme downforce BY speed (active one), remember to toggle the passive one from the Environment settings; the faster You go, the lower must be the value. I 've even tried a "negative mars" +3.71 (upforce) and the vehicle, Hirochi SBR4 Hillclimb red, maintained ground contact at overspeed, at 340 km/h. As I brake or slow down, the upforce (that is "negative mars", not available as preset however) starts pulling up the car off the ground.
To make the same effect with Negative Earth force +9.81 I need a single JATO rocket with node coupled to the top of the vehicle equipped with wingtips, and ignition to gain extreme speed, 300 Mph but not over or tires can pop out for exceeded stress. This will generate enough downforce to override the upforce.