Can someone please give me some tips on how to drive the car with manual gears!! I just can't do it. I join a server than their all miles ahead of me. I don't know when to change gear, when to brake, how many gears do I go up or down in a row? My rear end always steps out and I spin. And if I brake and change gear I spin! It's getting to the stage of where I need to learn, it annoys me that I can do ok with automatic but get lapped after 2 laps on manual. I'd appreciate and advice.
I would strongly suggest as a beginner to manual gears that you ensure the help is selected for clutch AUTOBLIP. This means that when you change down, then engine revs get better matched to the new gear ratio - this will help to stop throwing the rear end. You need to appreciate that gear changing changes the weight distribution of the car and obviously some cars are far more suseptable than others. So the gear change process is as follows: Engage cluth in order to change gear - let clutch out gently as not to send the car in circles! Example: Sat on the grid waiting for race to start. Clutch In -> Slect First Gear. Keep foot on cluthc waiting for lights to change (some courses face downhill so you will need an extra foor to hold on the brake too!! - This becomes fun). When lights changes, ease clutch out and gently feather throttle, off we go. When revs hit red line, clutch in engage 2nd gear and so on. When down changing, if AUTOBLIP is not switched on, then you wil NEED to HEEL AND TOE. So just before you down change, you engage clutch, blip throttle, shift down, ease clutch up. If you "Dump" or lift clutch instanty then the weight shift will indeed throw thre car completely especially in the F1 1960 cars which the above is best describing. I hope you dont think im treating you as dumb, and good luck!
I was going to post something similar. I'm racing with no assists using a G27 and really struggle with the stick shift cars when downshifting. Thanks for the advice jonchard, hopefully i can sort it out now. If anyone has any other general tips i would appreciate them, i seem way off the pace on rfactor compared to arcadey racing games like F12011 etc and would really like to improve.
All i can say is that arcade racers generally involve some kind of catchup mode. This helps keep lamers in the action as such and fool them into thinking that the they are actually good drivers. The world of sim is a cruel and unforgiving beast, and i must be honest, generally makes me look stupid lol! But to feel the first time and susequent times that you actually catch a slide at speed, and then to put the cars sideways to actually catch it knowing YOU DID THIS makes all the difference over the arcade version! My greatest tip (if i have any) to make you a better sim racer is simply to slow down and learn to take the apex's accross the correct line. Take the line correctly and then slowly speed up as you learn the track. Forget laptimes until you learn the apex of each corner and learn to consitantly hit these lines. Sounds obvious doesnt it ... but once you hear the roar of the 60's F1 car, most of this good advice goes out the window and you simply try to get round the first corner faster and faster before wiping out! I think starting in the F2, then F1 teaches many disciplines for the other cars. Good luck.
A really good way to learn to drive sim is the driving school from GTR2, help me out loads, actually I think it is worth me doing a refresher on it. Would be cool if RF2 came with a driving school too.
Once you know your corners, and have practised for many days (generally if you are slow like me) then jump online and try to follow the pack, this is the only way you are likely to see where you are loosing speed around the track. People are sneaky and cut corners with just the right car setup leading into the corner allowing them to take the corner an awful lot faster than you think you can. In iRacing, we often get to see the top drivers racing inputs (clutch, brake and accelerator) and it was always surprising to see that some corners are taken FLAT OUT with a slight half lift on the throttle for literally a split second. I would always brake until i saw this and realise setting the car right for the corner and the appropriate 0.25s half lift on throttle was all that was needed!! You must first learn the track, then watch people race it when you know it well enough. Its great advice, but i still suck lol! I just have an awful lot of fun trying!
HI there... I have had the problems you had many years ago. The only way I learned everything is to disable als aids except for auto-clutch en then just practice in a private session. For the spinning part on acceleration: Try to feel the car, as soon as you hear the car revving when you do not want it try to release the gas a bit. When you are about to up-shift, release the gas, the up-shift, and start giving gas again. (not too fast) For braking and down-shifting: Do not push the brake all the way down or your wheels will block. When in an open-wheeler you can see your wheels slowly blocking by watching the discolorisation on the wheels, they will become darker because of the heat when they are about to block. When you down-shift at high speed, release the gas, down-shift, and as soon as your car is in gear give a bit of gas so your rear wheels will not slow down suddenly because of the engine. At low speed you just have to release the gas when down-shifting. If you have any more questions, just let me know!
Hows it going man. First off for now (and pretty much in general) you want to do your downshifting before your turning into the corner, dont rush them though as you dont want the revs going sky high causing your back end to get nervous. In a modern formula car you can usually brake alot harder especially if your braking from high speed in 5th or 6th and can usually get the first 2 or so downshifts out of the way pretty quikly but as your slowing down you loose downforce and cant brake as hard so you need to wait a little longer for your remaining downshifts. Get most of your braking done in a straightline. Remember your tyres can only ever give 100% of grip at a time. So you want to be off the brakes by quite a bit as you start turning in or else if your using 100% of the tyres grip for braking you wont have any % left for turning, you know what im saying? Stick with one setup and dont touch it for a long time, for now you have to learn to drive the car, reach its limits in all types areas, have to learn how to feel what its doing through your eyes, ears and wheel. You have to get into that zone where you can feel the car talking to you, telling you what its doing etc. If the car is generally doing some weird stuff and you know what your doing then sure make a tweak here or there, but thats it. Then stick with that setup until your consistently lapping over and over within id say max 1.5 seconds of each lap, over and over. Then once you can do that over and over again, try pushing to see if you can knock your best time down and then try and lap withing 1.5 seconds of that over and over. Once your really consistent and you can drive within 1.5 seconds of your best lap over and over again but your struggling to improve your ultimate best lap then first see where you can really improve your driving, by talking to guys online, researching and reading, talking to us on the forums etc. then go back and try to improve (remember everytime you improve your best lap you should also be trying to lap within 1.5 secs of that new best lap CONSISTENTLY, that means more than just 3 or 4 lucky laps in a row. Once you got a decent lap time, and your lapping consistently and your getting a nice feel for the car and you can feel what its doing, what its about to do, why you lost it on that last corner etc. well now your starting to get in the zone, your feeling the car, you guys are talking to eachother, now you can start playing with setup and changing how the car behaves. First things first though, get your basics right, braking phase, corner entry, mid corner/apex, corner exit, remember those 4 steps. The pedals are attached to the wheel with a string and theres not much slack on it, as you turn the wheel into a corner more and more you must release the brake pedal more and more, same for exit, as your trying to get on the throttle more and more you have to be unwinding the wheel more and more. Think of them as connected with a string. Just keep pounding those laps away over and over, i wouldnt worry about actually racing others, just testing, testing, testing. Oh and dont forget when you just cant improve anymore and your trying everything but you just cant go faster, take a break, not a 15 minute break, I mean hours, or even the next day. I dont know if it works with everyone, depends how your brain works maybe, but I constantly improve till a certain point then no matter what i cant go any faster, no matter how long i try, then i shut the game off go to bed, and bang the next evening within 10 or so laps i beat it, then i might beat it again and again, then I get stuck no matter how hard I try, and bang the next day within a few laps i beat it again, its so weird. Its like you get overloaded and try too hard or something, you just need to take a break, clear your thoughts, freshen your mind and it feels easy again. I dont know if everyone is like this, but I definetely am.....
Great advice from above posts. To summarize:Start low, F3 then F2 then F1. Go slow so u dont spin. Learn yor track so you know what lies ahead (veeery importand). Do most (if not all) of your braking, shifting, accellerating when you are in straight line. Change in garage/general, brake bias to 65-35. Do A LOT of practise, rest will come. Dont think too much about it, just relax, forget about lap times and let your insticts (ahem) guide you. When you are more confident come back here and reread all the advice, it will make more sense then! Good luck from a rookie nikos
I would stress, as no one has put anything simply yet, practice, practice practice! That is the only way to get good. Also look very closesly at car setup. If your car is not set up for the track you will get left behind, doesn't matter how good you are with gears if car setup is wrong. I would advise when in a modern single seater, if you are just starting out, set the car up for cornering more than straight line speed, it will make the car easier to drive when learning so that means plenty of downforce. I would highly reccomend doing research on car setup, it will serve you well.
Plus the F 3.5s are VERY unforgiving. Try driving the Meganes for a while, and learn in those, you can actually catch a spin with countersteer in those ( sometimes ) Also, learn to blip the throttle when you downshift, and set your brake balance to get better braking. Too much towards the front, and your front wheels will lock up, too much towards the rear, and your rears will lock, resulting in a spin. Also, turn the brake power down to like 90% instead of 100....
If you using the clutch try setting the sensitivity to 200% , found that helps a lot , makes the clutch seem more real and useable
Just practic and practice!for example I hate Portugal circuit and the first time I raced online my best lap was 1'42 then I made a lot of offline session and now i can lap Portugal in 1'38 but i still hate it because I can't manage to do 1'36!
If you've never practiced the heel and toe technique, remember it just needs practice and practice to master. this is an example of how you should downshift:
Driving a race car is not intuitive and any bad habits you develop now will carry through until you unlearn them. It's much easier to LEARN good habits than to BREAK bad ones. Some guys hop in a car (virtual car) and just get it and are fast right away. The rest of us have to learn to do it. I recommend getting this book if you are a beginner. It will teach the foundations of driving a race car. -DO NOT listen to online advice (LOL which I am giving you) -DO NOT just run laps and bang your head against a wall -DO run laps, but with a purpose to learn some technique -DO know the track you test on- know it well (Carol Smith says to know the track like you know your lover's body) -DO NOT mess with setting up the car until you understand what you are tweaking. Stick to stock until you learn what it is you are tuning and why you are tuning it. Practice DOES NOT MAKE PERFECT! Perfect practice makes perfect...
