ABS on low or off?

[Keith Pawson]

Hi All

I'm sure I read somewhere on this forum, (but can't find it) something about setting the ABS to low is closer to how the real cars brake... is that true or should there be no ABS set at all?

At the moment I've got it set to low but I don't think I can lock the brakes at all with it on low, and if I turn ABS off I need to adjust my brake bias and pressure in the setup and also brake different in the game.

I'm after having the most realistic settings or as close to the real thing that is possible, so if anyone can confirm or deny this setting that would be great.

Thanks
Keith

 

[Niels_at_home]

In GSC, there is no difference in ABS performance between Low and High. The real cars have no ABS but they require a very firm foot on the pedal, unlike 95% of the brake pedals simracers use. With ABS you can just floor the brake pedal and not have to worry about a thing. Without ABS, more realistically, you get more satisfaction and realism pressing them hard then slowly letting go as you turn in. With ABS this isn't as natural, but ABS does make it a lot easier..

 

[Keith Pawson]

Thanks Niels, I guess that's why they were saying to turn the ABS on. Out of interest do you have ABS on or off?

 

[Niels_at_home]

I have it turned off, you do make things too easy when you turn it on, its a bit of a cheat really! Braking is quite a difficult skill in real life and simracing so its not an area where I'd like to cheat

 

[Patrick Giranthon]

Yes but, as you said before, my pedal is not really firm (G25, like 95% of players).
Is yours firm Niels?

 

[Antonio Pompeu]

According to the stockcar real drivers, abs "low" ... better simulates the behavior of the car's brakes.

Excuse me english google

 

[Patrick Giranthon]

I think too. Not really realistic for me to press 2 cm of the pedal to block the wheels...

 

[Niels_at_home]

Is yours firm Niels?

lol

Braking is one of those things where simracing isn't really simulating real life for most people. They press the pedal *REALLY* hard in real life and locking up is not easy, but there is no anti lock brake system. So using ABS is kinda cheating. The best way to improve realism is to get a very firm brake pedal, but they are not available for simracers! (Todd Cannon's pedals are stilll too weak in brakes)..

So yeah I can see why you would want to brake with some ABS using a G25 but that does make it easy. Pressing 100kg on a brake pedal, as you may have to do in the real car, is extremely hard. Going to a G25 + ABS after that makes it feel very unrealistic. But since you can't just get a 'heavy brake pedal' for 95% of simracers, ABS could help. Its not more realistic, but it might be less unrealistic than using a G25 brake without ABS if that makes any sense

 

[Keith Pawson]

I think that makes sense Niels, and I think I'm begining to make sense of the brake settings in this game vs real world... but I've never driven a Stock car in the real world.

I'm running CSP pedals and I get the feeling that using these pedals or perhaps any load cell based brake pedal with ABS on may be more realistic than running with ABS off and locking up the brakes. For example the way I have my CSPs dialed in I have to brake fairly hard to pull the car up properly and obviously they don't lock up. If I turn ABS off it's far easier to lock up with not that much physical brake pressure (from my foot that is) which doesn't seem to be realistic from the You Tube footage that I've seen of the series and the above comments... agree?

Can I suggest that Reiza look at tweaking this in a future patch?
So that having ABS off the brakes don't lock up until you really press hard just like in the real world?

 

[Patrick Giranthon]

The good thing is we have the choice... ;-)
In my community, some poeple have difficulties with brakes, so our server is set with abs allowed but some of us disable it...

 

[tAz-07]

do you know how to save brake pressure ? by default it's 95% , i set it to 90% to push hard on my loadcell brake pedal but it's not write with setup...90% is lower value but for more realisme i need a little less (around 85% i think). This params depends oh hardware.

maybe a bug/ patch

thanks

 

[Antonio Pompeu]

They press the pedal *REALLY* hard in real life and locking up is not easy, but there is no anti lock brake system.

This is exactly what the real drivers of the stockcar say!

 

[Niels_at_home]

It is an interesting debate that is for sure. Fact is sim pedals are not like real pedals so we have to find a compromise. One is to use ABS, the other could be to reduce the brake pressure in the car setup.

From a physics tweaking point of view, we can make the ABS good or bad. My feeling is ABS should be worse than a really good driver using really good pedals, but not so bad that you loose many seconds per lap. For example with my pedals without ABS, I might do a 1:36.5 at Interlagos. With ABS, I would aim for at least 1:37.0. However, I must confess it has been a while and I don't really recall if our ABS works like that in practise in the release version!

Brake pressure settings in the car setup menu simply reduce the power of the brakes. Our minimum is 90%, and when you go straight and brake fully, the tires will not lock instantly. The rears won't at all, the fronts depend on tire / brake temperature and fuel level, but its not an instant lockup. Even at 100% brake strength, all 4 tires do not lock up instantly. In our view that makes the brakes barely strong enough at 100% strength. The problem is we can press full strength easily and real drivers need to press until it hurts. The main problem with locking up seems to be that it happens on turn-in, when you ask the tires to provide cornering and braking grip at the same time, reducing how hard you can brake. If you'd reduce the brake pressure to 50%, this won't happen much anymore, but you've also lost a huge amount of brake power so you'll be braking twice as early!

This is some telemetry for turn in. www.h-engineering.nl/pics/GSC_brake_telem.png It is basically the same idea in all motorsport. See the attachment for some tips. The idea is, you MUST come off the brakes slowly as you feed in the steering or trailbrake into the corner. Tire physics say you can't do hard braking AND cornering, and there is a phase during corner entry where you need to to some cornering and some braking.

 

[tAz-07]

very interressing niels, thanks

100% travel of break pedal is ok with rfactor (i need to push very hard to reach 100% inside rfactor controller menu) but in game i look up tyre before this zone and so i search a way to force it (brake pression , maybe sensibility, i don't know). Goal is to brake as realist as possible.

 

[Keith Pawson]

This is some telemetry for turn in. www.h-engineering.nl/pics/GSC_brake_telem.png It is basically the same idea in all motorsport. See the attachment for some tips. The idea is, you MUST come off the brakes slowly as you feed in the steering or trailbrake into the corner. Tire physics say you can't do hard braking AND cornering, and there is a phase during corner entry where you need to to some cornering and some braking.

Thanks Niels this is an interesting discussion and I'm still sitting on fence as to either using ABS or not.

I have to ask about that last comment and screenshot :tongue:
It looks like you are in fact using Motec i2 with GSC?
I posted this question http://www.racedepartment.com/game-stock-car/63104-data-acquisition-plugin-motec-i2.html can you provide any info about how you have this configured in GSC, I would really appreciate it.

 

[Patrick Giranthon]

I think that the defaut setup ingame for brakes is a really good choice with a "load cell" or something like that.
Without this, abs could be helpful for some poeple...

http://www.apelectrix.com/

 

[Smidlee]

I think that the defaut setup ingame for brakes is a really good choice with a "load cell" or something like that.
Without this, abs could be helpful for some poeple...

http://www.apelectrix.com/

Note if you used this load cell you still have to calibrate the brakes by press the pedal hard to set 100% braking point every time you load up the game/PC.