Downshift protection removal

[Terry Rock]

How can I get rid of that blasted feature for good?
I've tried turning it off in menus and it still exist.
The darn thing does not work properly for me.
I can be in 5th gear going 60 or 70 mph, try to down-shift to select 4th gear and the gear won't select until I'm way below.
I absolutely hate that feature.

 

[Gevatter]

One person may not be able to or have the time to figure something out on their own, but with others they might just be able to. Simple as that.

Sure, but if the others don't know where to look it gets difficult. Those kind of findings don't really help locate the problem, they just say that there is some kind of problem, but we already know that from the opening post. To find and fix it you need to be analytic, and you need a starting point.

If one doesn't have the time or will to do testing, that's okay. Nobody forces anyone to endlessly test. That's the devs job after all, and a few users may be willing to help as well. But give those people some data like @Terry Rock did up there.

Edit: Spelling

 

[Coffer]

Go drive the Audi R8 LMS at the Nurburgring.
Just as you start down-shifting for the fast right-hander at turn five, is where I experienced it.
One, two, three pulls of the down-shift paddle...indicator stays in 5th gear...go sailing into the sand trap as I go into understeer.

Tried it myself, not seeing anything out of the ordinary at the moment. If anything, I've found that the DSP is absolutely spot on for this car.

 

[Radu Oros]

Believe it or not, a lot of people don't have unlimited time on their hands to use on endless testing and analysis. A lot of these findings are made during casual driving, while, you know, playing the game as opposed to being an unpaid bug tester. That does not make their findings any less valuable, and these threads exist for a good reason - to point out their findings and see if they are verified or denied by others. One person may not be able to or have the time to figure something out on their own, but with others they might just be able to. Simple as that.

Then at least have the decency to not use veiled insults towards the game or the devs only because you think you found a problem but don't know how to help objectively, so you go aggressive on the devs.
"Just seems a trifle inconsistent to cut in at times. But inconsistency is a theme in AC really so no shock."

If people have the time to come to a forum and write a post long enough about a game problem + ironically criticize the game, then they must also have time to give enough details about the problem so the devs have a good ground to work on that.

If you want improvements in the game you're playing then you should also want good reports and feedback for those problems to turn in good improvements. That would facilitate the job and devs wouldn't need to go fishing for what the player meant to say with that. So is not out of this world to ask people to give analytical feedback, like Gevatter said above. If you have time to write passive aggressive posts towards a game/devs/company, you also have time to write analytical posts.

 

[Coffer]

Sure, but if the others don't know where to look it gets difficult.

The problem with this is that, given that most people don't exactly stick to a single car all the time, you'd be very surprised to find anyone other than the OP and maybe 1 or 2 other people who can accurately remember off the back of their head the last time they had an issue like this. That's where corroborating one's observation with others comes into play - for instance, right now I'm not able to confirm OP's findings for that car in particular, as the DSP issue I've encountered with other cars (which I do not remember at the moment) does not seem to be happening with this car.

then they must also have time to give enough details about the problem so the devs have a good ground to work on that.

In a world where people have work/school/etc breaks and phones or other ways to access such forums while not sitting in front of their wheel, this is quite simply not true.

If you want improvements in the game you're playing then you should also want good reports and feedback for those problems to turn in good improvements.

If this was entirely the case, things such as customer service outside of gaming would be obsoleted. Simply put, the expectation that anyone should instantly be able to do the kind of analysis you have in mind for any given potential bug is quite extreme, and for the most part an increasingly antiquated idea in an environment such as these forums.

 

[Coffer]

I'm driving the F138 now and sure enough, the DSP does seem to be too lenient for it - downshifting at the limit puts me above the redline for any change other than 2nd to 1st, which works fine. The delay, however, also seems to persist - braking from 2nd to 1st past the point where the car would let you downshift and then downshifting works fine, but if I first attempt to downshift before that and then do it again just after the revs have dropped below the threshold, then if the sequence is fast enough, about half the time it does not let me downshift, no matter how far down the revs have dropped since the failed downshift attempt. This is with the debouncing at 0ms. I can't figure out where the inconsistency is coming from at the moment though.

Odd thing is, at Monza, the R8 LMS exhibits identical behavior, whereas I could not replicate this at the Nurburgring.

EDIT: Okay yes, it's now happening at the Nurburgring for the R8 LMS as well - 3rd to 2nd puts you above the redline. I've also managed to replicate the double downshift blocking - doing a DSP-blocked downshift in 3rd just above the threshold followed by another downshift at 6100 RPM (below the threshold, normally accepted) caused the second downshift attempt to be blocked as well. Again, this is with the debouncing at 0ms, so either this is down to my G27 (which I doubt, especially after a quick look at the profiler and the game controllers section), I'm doing something else wrong, or this is an actual problem.

EDIT: Changing the debouncing setting back to 50ms makes absolutely no difference either, not even making it happen more often.

 

[PhilS13]

The reason why DSP sometimes feels inconsistent is because it uses more variables than just current rpm + ratio change to next gear.

Seems to me it's taking into account wheelslip for sure and maybe overall deceleration rate. The people complaining about DSP I've seen were running way too much front brake bias. The loads on each tyre and the bumpiness will also slightly change how DSP reacts so it might feel different from corner to corner. Iirc @kunos has specifically said few months ago it was something that could easily be looked at and tuned if some cars were way off. No need for a deep analysis...just report which car/corner and I'm sure someone will have a look.

 

[Coffer]

The people complaining about DSP I've seen were running way too much front brake bias.

I tend to put my brake bias further to the back than most people I've seen, and I'm seeing some potential issues as well.

The loads on each tyre and the bumpiness will also slightly change how DSP reacts so it might feel different from corner to corner.

That's a pretty weird way to get it to work, but then I have no idea if that's how it works in real life as well, so maybe it's correct. That said, it's happening on straights when taking it easy (maintaining revs right above the threshold, then decelerating at different rates (including no brakes) to bring me below the threshold) to me as well, and braking or decelerating at different rates so far seems to makes little difference to the rate at which I'm getting the failed double downshifts. The only real difference I've seen so far is at Pouhon, where my most aggressive approaches at it in the F138 (qualifying in a pub lobby not too long ago) have resulted in either a failed double downshift or engine damage, whereas I've not been able to damage the engine in any other scenario so far, including my tests right now.

 

[Gevatter]

The problem with this is that, given that most people don't exactly stick to a single car all the time, you'd be very surprised to find anyone other than the OP and maybe 1 or 2 other people who can accurately remember off the back of their head the last time they had an issue like this. That's where corroborating one's observation with others comes into play - for instance, right now I'm not able to confirm OP's findings for that car in particular, as the DSP issue I've encountered with other cars (which I do not remember at the moment) does not seem to be happening with this car.

Sure, but only observing that some undefined car on some undefined track sometimes runs into DSP doesn't help anyone corroborate anything useful. There's too many variables to just go by trial and error, to use an extreme example. If you don't remember right now but still want to contribute, come back when you have a concrete car/track combo to look at. I'm not talking about you personally here of course, I'm talking in general.

We all agree that the code isn't always consistent, that's not what we're discussing here. We need data so the devs can go about find out if it's the players fault or the code's, and then go tune individual vehicles' DSP if necessary.

So to get back to the point, I ran 19 laps around Nürburgring in the Audi R8 LMS and only once ran into DSP which was clearly my own fault. So I too can at the moment not confirm OP's findings.

 

[Coffer]

doesn't help anyone corroborate anything useful

That is only correct if you're trying to fix an issue for multiple cars at once, whereas we've established through an earlier post that individual cars, such as the Exos, could be bugged on their own.

There's too many variables to just go by trial and error

All the more reason why the average player shouldn't be expected to provide a perfect analysis in record time on their own, hence the existence of these threads.

So to get back to the point, I ran 19 laps around Nürburgring in the Audi R8 LMS and only once ran into DSP which was clearly my own fault. So I too can at the moment not confirm OP's findings.

I've done further testing with the same combo as well, and while I also wasn't able to confirm OP's findings, I was able to confirm the failed double downshift finding.

 

[Stereo]

Believe it or not, a lot of people don't have unlimited time on their hands to use on endless testing and analysis. A lot of these findings are made during casual driving, while, you know, playing the game as opposed to being an unpaid bug tester. That does not make their findings any less valuable,

It's not about doing more ingame testing, it's about saying what actual car/track you were driving and when you were hitting it a lot. (like 5th to 4th at Stowe in the BMW M235i) Just saying "it happens too much" is completely valueless and won't get any changes made.

 

[Gevatter]

I've done further testing with the same combo as well, and while I also wasn't able to confirm OP's findings, I was able to confirm the failed double downshift finding.

I actually didn't test for that, slipped my mind. Maybe the gear shift debouncing setting in the AC control options could play into this. You mentioned Massa shifting within a few milliseconds after a misshift. By standard the debouncing is set to 50ms, so the game (not the DSP) won't let you shift within 50ms after shifting. That's supposed to help accidential double shifts with wonky paddles. You can disable that in the shifters section of the control options.

 

[Radu Oros]

The problem with this is that, given that most people don't exactly stick to a single car all the time, you'd be very surprised to find anyone other than the OP and maybe 1 or 2 other people who can accurately remember off the back of their head the last time they had an issue like this. That's where corroborating one's observation with others comes into play - for instance, right now I'm not able to confirm OP's findings for that car in particular, as the DSP issue I've encountered with other cars (which I do not remember at the moment) does not seem to be happening with this car.


In a world where people have work/school/etc breaks and phones or other ways to access such forums while not sitting in front of their wheel, this is quite simply not true.


If this was entirely the case, things such as customer service outside of gaming would be obsoleted. Simply put, the expectation that anyone should instantly be able to do the kind of analysis you have in mind for any given potential bug is quite extreme, and for the most part an increasingly antiquated idea in an environment such as these forums.

So you're encouraging bad ways of giving feedback. Gotcha. If sim racers want better than mediocre games and fixes to those games, then sim racers also have to work in their analytical feedback. After all, devs try to shape the games to what people want and in the way people want, to reasonable extents such as always following simulation first and what people want second. If simulation of cars includes Downshift protection who are players to say it should be disabled.

It's not about doing more ingame testing, it's about saying what actual car/track you were driving and when you were hitting it a lot. (like 5th to 4th at Stowe in the BMW M235i) Just saying "it happens too much" is completely valueless and won't get any changes made.

Thanks, that's exactly it for this particular subject. That's why my first post in this thread was asking what car was the OP finding problems. If you're reporting physics problems then you gotta give devs the context of the problem. That isn't much to ask for.

 

[StefanoCasillo]

I don't think anybody is forcing people to turn into QA operators.. the point is, we, as a team, drive AC daily and don't experience any problems so, from our point of view, the game is "fine". The vast majority of users seem to agree, some individuals claim there is a problem.
At this point we get into a catch 22 problem.. most people will start accusing the users claiming that there are problems of being "bad drivers".. which might be a reasonable conclusion for people that do not experience problems. But this is not really going to solve anything... what if there really is a problem due to some combinations of software configuration and hardware and it's not down the single user to be unable to drive?
That's why we have things called logs, and an official support forum.. now, I hope it isn't asking too much to open a thread on the support forum attaching a log.txt file of the session in which the problem manifested itself, in the latest version of AC I've added some additional debug info in the log specifically to investigate DSP inconsistencies... that should be reasonable even for the busiest of the busiest simracer out there.

Of course getting frustrated and going online to rant about how stupid we are is a perfectly acceptable reaction too... it will make some people feel better about themselves.. won't fix any bug tho sadly.

 

[Terry Rock]

I wasn't about to respond to the outright "stupid" criticism..but I'll bite.
@Uff... I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and pretend English is not your first language.
I'll just chalk that up to 'something got lost in translation' since there was no 'LOL' after your assumption.
You don't know me...you certainly don't know anything about my motorsports background.
I asked if anybody knew how I could turn off a feature since it was clearly malfunctioning in my case.
My post clearly states it wasn't working for me.
I don't have to explain my not liking a particular feature.
I never stated it was broken.
Go read the darn post again.
I'm a bit taken back by the sheer stupidity of some of these replies quite frankly.
As to Assetto Corsa... I drive it more than just about any other sim in my vast inventory.
What the heck do you suppose that says?
I'd suggest I like it...a whole lot.
That's why I own it and every DLC pack.
I've praised it since I got my hands on it.
There is no bad-mouthing Assetto Corsa....or any other sim for that matter.

 

[Metla]

 

[Nick Gregory]

Downshift protection is something used in real cars, even F1. It doesn't bother me it's actually implemented.

 

[InsaneOzzie]

I struggled with DSP , in fact I hated it at first, but with some practise found if I brake for a few seconds before I start downshifting, I never have an issue. But I suffer lockout if I brake & downshift together quickly, for me it was all about timing.

 

[Terry Rock]

View attachment 187045

What if you checked your and it said you were being an idiot.

 

[Metla]

 

[Michael Hornbuckle]

I asked if anybody knew how I could turn off a feature

And the answer is 'NO', you can't turn it off.

Either it is
1. Malfunctioning only for you
or
2. You have bad driving habits

Apparently your logs will show which one of those two scenarios is causing the issue. It is up to you whether or not to spend a few minutes opening a thread and uploading logs in order to get to the root of the issue or not.