How fast can you change gears?

U havent tried it because your clutch is broken, so who is telling lies? who has to test before talking? lifting off when using paddles wont make the rev bounce at all. dude please go play sometimes else because sim racing is not meant for u. to answer @Rodrigo Pires question, niki havent done a single lap with H shifter since the damage got implemented. He is used to only use the clutch for upshifting and clutchless downshifting and think this still applies right now

 

But you can´t dumb down just because people have wrong/inferior hardware, actually all other sims have dumbed down gearbox models for decades exactly for that reason. We want simulators to get better no?

In other sims with some gearbox damage/penalty (iracing, lfs, historic + grinding tranny) i could downshift most cars without a clutch. But in AC, its not worth the risk. For a hotlap? yes, in some cars. For race longer than 10min? no. The gearbox will get damage eventually, and once its damaged, its downhill.

 

heel and toe is something you train not some magic technique only a few can master, give it time guys and it would start to click in you, try to master it in your real live car and you would see how easy is to do it with gaming pedals.

i would say if you have 3 pedals and a H shifter for AC, use it, even if you are slower.

 

Fans of Captain Obvious rejoice

You should (and you do) get gearbox damage if you shift without pressing the clutch. Even with proper clutch usage you can end up with yellow gearbox after 2-3 misshifts, let alone losing a whole corner due to a misshift.

It's easier to use the paddles compared to an H-shifter with a clutch. When using the paddles, you can concentrate more on steering and accelerating-braking.
Why would the companies opt for such systems if it was the same difficulty as using an H shifter.. ? Almost all the supercars have paddles now. That fact by itself tells a lot.

 

@Hany Alsabti: no matter what you do auto clutch is predetermined speed and nothing you can do to make it faster, that's the end of that. Test it if you need to make sure for yourself.
@Rodrigo Pires: I'm not saying that h shifter is easy, I acknowledge the fact that it is a difficult task with all of it's risks, but what I'm making a case for is that the auto clutch is simply too slow to compete even with all of it's supposed easiness.


Heel and toe is something you can train and more guys have already stated that they're faster with the h shifter.

 

Not with every car...
And also ,they are maybe faster in hotlap, sprint race with 5-10 laps ...but like i told you before..bring that guys on track with 20+ laps ...

 

30 - 40 lap race in a h shifting car, yea I would like to see that .. Haha as if roadcar could ever last this distance on Max performance

 

In future when we got some old endu series, with ruf maybe ...
Il give you as gift new t500rs if u finish the race in top 4 with h shift ....
fair enough

 

Thx i have shifter Mate. Cheers. And u have good point in 1 and a half hour or two hour fatigue in h shifter could make a difference. But some other guys are speaking 1 lap or 5 lap performance.

 

But if you have to favor someone it would be who do it as it was designed no? If auto clutch were as fast as h 99% of the people wouldnt bother shifting properly. It forces people to use the clutch, and that is good, ac is the first sim to have balls to do that!

And it only takes a while to adapt, as i said before you dont need to learn heel and toe to set good times, a couple of months ago i was running a championship with the 312t where the guy who won the first 3 races was left foot braking and blipping (no damage implemented), i finish second to him in all three races (aggregate 10sec between us in 3h30m of racing), then in the 4th race damage was implemented, he lasted 15min and retired with a busted gearbox, next race? He won, right foot brake without rev match. It took two weeks for him to adapt - http://www.radiators-champ.com/RSRLiveTiming/index.php?page=driver_profile&id=8828 - left or right foot he kept the pace anyway.

 

Rodrigo that's a nice story, my suggestion isn't making paddle as fast as h shifter. My suggestion is just making it a little bit closer to hshifter in roadcars for people with dfgt, trustmaster wheels etc who deserve to compete and enjoy driving regardless of which car is it. We should always welcome new players.

 

This is soooo weird - am I really the only person here who has absolutely no problem doing clutchless downshifts for an entire race distance ? I'll admit, if it's a car I haven't done many laps with and I haven't quite got the timing perfect then yes I will eventually kill the gearbox - did that in a recent online race in a BMW.
Hany makes me laff - I was so obviously being a wind-up by calling him a noob & he fell for it! I'm well aware he's been glued to AC since day 1 trying to be the fastest alien to boost his ridiculous ego. So sad when 'elitist' people like him say 'if you're not as fast as me then obviously this sim isn't for you - go play some arcade racer instead' - not exactly a nice welcoming attitude for the more casual racers ! I just hope I never accidentally end up in a race with him - he'll probably try to take me out when he can't handle the pressure of me sitting on his rear bumper for a few laps.

In regards to technique for clutchless shifts with H-pattern :
First, I always use the clutch for upshifts simply cos my left foot is free and it's faster than waiting for the revs to fall.
The technique I use in my RL car is :
While left-foot braking, dab the throttle & pop the stick out of gear into neutral. This 'dab' unloads the transmission otherwise you can't pull it out of the current gear.
While the stick is in neutral, give the throttle more than enough blip - the revs will rise above the point where you can shift into the lower gear.
Allow the revs to fall (depends on engine - some engines are very 'revvy' ie the revs rise & fall very quickly which makes it much harder) - in a RL car you have your hand on the stick and 'feel' when it wants to go in (ooer!) - when the revs match, you can feel the resistance suddenly drop & you can easily slot it into gear.
In AC, there's no 'feel' simply cos we don't have FFB gear shifters (yet) so you just need to get used to the timing for each different car.
It's fairly easy to do with the Lotus 49 & 98T, but almost impossible with the Ferrari 312T. Most road cars are quite forgiving, but some 'tuned' cars have the fast rise/fall rev characteristic so it becomes progressively harder to get right.
For example - it's dead easy in the standard BMW E90s, but the Group A & DTM versions are harder.
Another point is that you need to remember that the gears are not meant to be used for slowing the car - it just wears the gearbox in RL. You can give yourself plenty of time when downshifting once you forget about trying to use downshifts to decelerate. This is also why in RL they tell you to get down through the gears well before turn-in - you don't want to be faffing around trying to rev match while thinking about steering. Just read Ross Bentley's Speed Secrets for more on this. This is also why you may decide to miss a gear on downshifts when going from very fast to very slow - just get slowed down enough before shifting down to avoid having to over-rev. (eg 4th ->2nd).
I 1st tried it in the Lotus Elise - another one that's easy to do as it's not a mega-tuned engine compared to the higher performance Loti. (is that the plural of Lotus lol)

 

Really, too much discussion about something that is kind of basic and personal preference too, to some degree. I don't race online because I usually have limited time to race (lately only 1 or 2 hours per week, unfortunately) and I also don't want to come across some of the attitude I saw in this thread, just because I don't have the time to know the car and the track beforehand!

Back to the topic, yes you can shift without clutch as long as you rev-match as Tony74 explained. It's not that hard once you know (or feel) the timings. And the game simulates this well, in my opinion. And you can also change gears with manual clutch blazingly fast. You just have to be fast enough with the clutch and the gear lever!

I usually use the clutch, H shifter (or paddles for those with them, obviously), right foot braking, heel and toe, left foot braking, throttle blip, in any combination depending on the car, the corner or the situation I'm in. I find my self changing a lot from right foot braking with or without heel and toe to left foot braking and some throttle to stabilise the car when driving at Nurburgring, e.g. I think, in the end, it's a matter of preference and experience whatever technique one uses, it's what makes one comfortable to use and that will be faster for that person!

Regarding the game penalising who doesn't drive as IRL (I honestly don't know as I only drive manual), IMO it's the right way to go so people are more drowned into trying to simulate the real thing and not the other way around to be faster like in many other games/sims. Kudos to Kunos for this and for the gearbox damage!

Regarding the use of the engine to brake or not, it really varies with the car! I used to drive an old Renault 19 which had hideous brakes (I call them "slowerers", not brakes!!!) and I had to use the engine to slow the car down. It was simply impossible to rely only on brakes. And my go-kart doesn't mind it either... So I tend to do it in the game as well.

 

Heel and toe is easy... Took me 15min to learn without prior driving experience a few years ago.

Now I do it all the time in my real car (94's MX-5), aswell as in the sims, whether I'm driving against the best in the Lotus 79 on iRacing, hooning the Yellowbird or ****ting myself in the 98T on AC. I have trouble not heel and toeing, actually... lol.

 

Not this conversation again

For semi and serious sim racers who are doing over 40 mins races H shifter is much more prone to mistakes and fatigue.
I prefer using H shifter because i enjoy it more with heel n toe and also feels more authentic, i don't really give a crap to win or lose a race.
Paddles maybe slower in a straight line but they surely are faster over the course of a race (a long one) since you have a lot less to think about while struggling to keep your car in check, it being the 312T (my personal favorite to screw up), Cobra, RUF, every manual Lotus etc...and dont forget, that for the powerful cars half the time of the lap you are driving with one hand. With paddles you are using both hands all the time.

 

I also enjoy driving.

 

No.

 

Yes.

 

Get better then.

 

What a battle going here . Nice Thread .