GTL Car Setups - Hints & Tips Thread

Knut Omdal Tveito · Feb 25, 2013

Sharing Setups
Use the subforum here for sharing setups.

GTL-specific tips

Live telemetry
To show live telemetry in GTL, install the XD plugin here: http://www.vitumo.de/

Show damper settings in real units
Open your *.PLR file and set Damper Units="1". The damper settings in the garage will now show in real force units (3000 Ns/m etc) instead of step increment (1,2,3,4,5 etc). Although the real units will not easily tell you how stiff or soft the dampers are, they will show you the difference between Bump and Rebound. Normally if you set both the Bump and Rebound to 1 it doesn't mean that the two damper forces are equal and this will be much clearer if you show the real units instead of step increment. It will also show you how much one click affects the damper value (some cars will give just a small change in damper force per click, will other cars give a larger jump in damper values).

Changing wing settings, making asymmetric setup and changing fast-speed damper setting
Since the garage menu in GTL is simplified compared to rFactor and GTR2 it doesn't show all the available setup options in game. However, GTL works in the same way as these sims but in GTL we have to edit these settings manually. To edit the setup go to Userdata/*username*/Settings/*track* and open the setup file *.svm in Notepad. Here's the extra options you can change:

Wing settings: In the svm file look for [FRONTWING] and [REARWING]. By increasing the setting you increase the downforce. Note that none of the default cars have wings and it's extremely rare that mods have them too. Only cars I remember that has adjustable wings are Porsche 935 and BMW E21 320
Asymmetric setup: In the svm file you can change the setup of each individual corner which is not possible from the garage menu. In the svm file, the sections for each corner are named [FRONTRIGHT] etc.. Now you can change springs/dampers/camber/pressures for each wheel. Note that having uneven dampers and springs usually makes the car more difficult to drive and can just as easily make you slower than a symmetric setup (I never use asymmetric springs/dampers). However, adjusting the tyre pressure in each corner can help you get even temperature distribution in all tyres.
Fast-speed dampers: The garage menu only shows the damper settings for slow speed damping, so to edit the fast-speed you can edit the settings FastBumpSetting and FastReboundSetting in the svm file. SlowBump refers to damping under slow suspension movements (braking and turn-in for instance) and FastBump is for high velocity suspension movements (driving over bumps/kerbs).

Knut Omdal Tveito · Feb 25, 2013

Here's my usual procedure in setting up the car:

Set the steering lock to your choice and set the gearing and race fuel.
Adjust the anti-roll bars to find a rough setting. The anti-roll bars are usually the most important in setting the overall balance of understeer/oversteer around the track. Increase the front anti-roll bar to get more understeer and loosen it to get more oversteer/neutral balance. Increase rear anti-roll bar to increase oversteer and loosen it to get more understeer. If you are having trouble on turn-in and bumps during testing, that could do more with the springs/dampers so focus on the steady-state handling (focus on the apex of the corner or through the long sweeping corners). Aim for a neutral balance (not much understeer) for the next 3 steps
Increase front camber by 0.5 degrees. If the car becomes more oversteery it means you have increased front grip which is a good thing. If there is not much change, the camber is usually ok.
Increase rear camber by 0.5 degrees. If the car becomes more understeery it means you have increased rear grip which is a good thing. If there is not much change the camber is usually ok.
Do one more sweep on the camber. When you now longer increase the cornering grip or if you start loosing grip under acceleration/braking decrease front and rear camber.
Do another sweep on the anti-roll bar. Aim for a balance of understeer/oversteer that suits your driving.
Set the dampers/springs like I described above.
Change tire pressure to get a uniform temperature across each tyre.
Another final sweep on the anti-roll bar.

Knut Omdal Tveito · Feb 25, 2013

For the Season 10 league, I uploaded a setup sheet for the cars here:
http://www.racedepartment.com/forum/microdownloads/rdhcs-s10-setup-sheet.692/viewfile
This is not a crucial tool for setting up cars and you can make a good setup without it, but it can be a helpful tool to understand whats going on, and setting up a baseline setup before you start testing.

For most of the cars I made a base setup from rule-of-thumb and in the spreadsheet you can find the settings for anti-roll bar, springs and dampers. I haven't tested all of them, so use at your own risk

The sheet includes calculation of natural frequency and damping ratios of the front and rear suspension. These numbers are very helpful in setting up the car and tells you how soft/hard the springs/dampers are set. Some simple rules:

Natural frequency (Hz - oscilations per second) :
Normally it ranges from 1.6 Hz (soft springs) to 3 Hz (hard springs) . I usually set the springs such that the front and rear frequencies are quite similar or a little higher at the front.

Damping ratios:
A ratio of around 0.4 is a soft setting for the dampers, while close to 1.0 will be a firm setting. A low ratio is good for dealing with bumps and kerbs etc, while a high ratio will firm up the chassis and make it more responsive and improve turn-in. The Bump setting is the most important setting for controlling the movement/response of the body, but also has a stronger negative impact on bump/kerbs than the Rebound. On a smooth track a good starting point for Bump would be 0.8 front and 0.6 rear and around the same for Rebound at 0.6-0.9 front and rear. If the car becomes too responsive/snappy or rough over bumps or overall hard to drive, I would reduce the Bump down to 0.6-0.5 front and 0.5-0.4 rear. Then to bring back some body-control I would increase rebound to around 0.9-1.1 front and 0.7-1.0 rear.
If you want more understeer on turn-in/direction-changes, increase front bump ratio and to make it more neutral/oversteery increase rear bump.

Note that these are all rule-of-thumb so doesn't always work. But I usually find that these rules get me in the ballpark

Knut Omdal Tveito · Feb 25, 2013

Thread opened. This is the place to discuss setups in GTL

David Wright · Feb 25, 2013

Knut Omdal Tveito said:
Sharing Setups
Use the subforum here for sharing setups.

GTL-specific tips

Live telemetry
To show live telemetry in GTL, install the XD plugin here: http://www.vitumo.de/

Show damper settings in real units
Open your *.PLR file and set Damper Units="1". The damper settings in the garage will now show in real force units (3000 Ns/m etc) instead of step increment (1,2,3,4,5 etc). Although the real units will not easily tell you how stiff or soft the dampers are, they will show you the difference between Bump and Rebound. Normally if you set both the Bump and Rebound to 1 it doesn't mean that the two damper forces are equal and this will be much clearer if you show the real units instead of step increment. It will also show you how much one click affects the damper value (some cars will give just a small change in damper force per click, will other cars give a larger jump in damper values).

Changing wing settings, making asymmetric setup and changing fast-speed damper setting
Since the garage menu in GTL is simplified compared to rFactor and GTR2 it doesn't show all the available setup options in game. However, GTL works in the same way as these sims but in GTL we have to edit these settings manually. To edit the setup go to Userdata/*username*/Settings/*track* and open the setup file *.svm in Notepad. Here's the extra options you can change:

Wing settings: In the svm file look for [FRONTWING] and [REARWING]. By increasing the setting you increase the downforce. Note that none of the default cars have wings and it's extremely rare that mods have them too. Only cars I remember that has adjustable wings are Porsche 935 and BMW E21 320

Asymmetric setup: In the svm file you can change the setup of each individual corner which is not possible from the garage menu. In the svm file, the sections for each corner are named [FRONTRIGHT] etc.. Now you can change springs/dampers/camber/pressures for each wheel. Note that having uneven dampers and springs usually makes the car more difficult to drive and can just as easily make you slower than a symmetric setup (I never use asymmetric springs/dampers). However, adjusting the tyre pressure in each corner can help you get even temperature distribution in all tyres.

Fast-speed dampers: The garage menu only shows the damper settings for slow speed damping, so to edit the fast-speed you can edit the settings FastBumpSetting and FastReboundSetting in the svm file. SlowBump refers to damping under slow suspension movements (braking and turn-in for instance) and FastBump is for high velocity suspension movements (driving over bumps/kerbs).

Can I make a plea for realism? GTL is after all a simulator. The GTL setup menu is "simplified" compared to rFactor/GTR2 because that is realistic for the cars GTL simulates, which are not modern F1 or GT cars. You can't adjust fast damping rates separately for example.

Also damping approaching critical seems far too stiff for these kinds of cars.

Knut Omdal Tveito · Feb 25, 2013

I agree David, and I like that it's limited. But it's just some things to be aware of in GTL, and to inform what's possible to do if you want to.

The setups preferences are individual of course, but I like to have some body control during direction changes and on turn in etc. I usually end up with a bump ratio of around 0.6-0.9 for the more heavy and sluggish cars (Mustangs etc) and a bit lower for the nimble cars (911, Alpine). These cars are closer to road cars than modern racecars and set up for a little more ride comfort. So the default dampers tend to be quite soft in bump and and a good amount of rebound to make up for it. But for reasonably smooth tracks I don't see a need to run low bump damping. For rebound, most default cars have a damping ratio of around 0.7-1.2. What damping ratios do you run?

Rupe Wilson · Feb 26, 2013

At the moment i use what the sim will allow through its options ingame, i feel this is how this sim should be used,
But if it helps to tame some of the more powerful cars to get them more stable i dont think i can hurt to much,
id rather have more drivers with stable cars than a few ..
I will have to do some testing with this before i can say one way or another, but feel id like to stay true to the sim..

Nice informative post Knut

Kjell Eilertsen · Mar 14, 2013

Here's a hour and a half of Skip Barber racing school about how to go faster, Rupe and Knut told me to post it here;

Found it over at the Assetto Corsa threads here at RD so all credit goes to whomever posted it there first! Found it very interesting and learnt a lot!

Btw a hot tip would be finding a way to download the video off of youtube (google for youtube download and you'll find tons of options), it might be pulled off the tube any day if Skip Barber decides to pursue it.

Warren Dawes · Mar 14, 2013

Rupe Wilson said:
At the moment i use what the sim will allow through its options ingame, i feel this is how this sim should be used,
......................................but feel id like to stay true to the sim..

I am the same, I'll use only what the Sim allows (and what was intended for GTL). If that leaves me at a slight disadvantage to someone using "additional" setup options, so be it.