GTA IV car physics are NOT realistic

[sgtsev3n]

i dont dislike the physics, but i read all in the internet that the car physics in this game are very realistic and people talk big about the phyiscs. Im sorry, but i myself drive a car in real life and there is nothing realistic about the car physics in gta IV. Yes the car physics are great, i had my fun with them back when i played gta IV, but tbh, it feels like im driving a boat and from all cars i used to drive, i saw on the traffic and watching car previews, NO single car ever handled like in this game.

the car physics are great, the damage model better than in any gta title, the physics are "hardcore" or "hardmode" but sorry, realism is the wrong term. Stop calling them realistic.

[billiejoearmstrong8]

"Realistic" is a relative term. Is it like driving a car in real life? No. But is driving a car in any GTA game like real life? Also no.

 

Perhaps a better word to describe IV's driving is "detailed" - you feel the differences between the different vehicles, the contours of the road, you can't magically turn perfect corners without braking or come to an instant stop at 100mph so you have to engage more to control the car by braking earlier etc, extra small details like being ejected from the window or being able to deform the car extensively or having the option of being able to leave the engine on or off etc are present, the physics of the game in general are more detailed and this extends to driving. I prefer the word detailed but I would also say that compared to other GTA games it can also be described as realistic. Would you say there's another GTA game where the driving is more realistic?

Edited May 23, 2021 by billiejoearmstrong8

[sgtsev3n]

59 minutes ago, billiejoearmstrong8 said:

"Realistic" is a relative term. Is it like driving a car in real life? No. But is driving a car in any GTA game like real life? Also no.

 

Perhaps a better word to describe IV's driving is "detailed" - you feel the differences between the different vehicles, the contours of the road, you can't magically turn perfect corners without braking or come to an instant stop at 100mph so you have to engage more to control the car by braking earlier etc, extra small details like being ejected from the window or being able to deform the car extensively or having the option of being able to leave the engine on or off etc are present, the physics of the game in general are more detailed and this extends to driving. I prefer the word detailed but I would also say that compared to other GTA games it can also be described as realistic. Would you say there's another GTA game where the driving is more realistic?

 

Agree with that post. The driving is indeed more detailed compared to gta 3-sa. There is not any gta game with realistic driving, however, the driving in gta V is for my taste better than the IV driving physics. One reason for that is the shaking cars, they exaggerated that feature. I simply dont like it and driving feels weird with that. 

[billiejoearmstrong8]

24 minutes ago, sgtsev3n said:

 

Agree with that post. The driving is indeed more detailed compared to gta 3-sa. There is not any gta game with realistic driving, however, the driving in gta V is for my taste better than the IV driving physics. One reason for that is the shaking cars, they exaggerated that feature. I simply dont like it and driving feels weird with that. 

 

Yeah it comes down to taste I guess. I find IV's driving more fun and engaging but it's personal preference.

[Guest]

Rockstar really should implement the option to choose between different driving styles, the this debate wouldn't need to exist and people wouldn't need handling mods. Like in MAFIA II:
Driving mode: Arcade or (Semi-)Simulation.

[Americana]

I don't know.

 

However, in my opinion, Grand Theft Auto IV has the best driving physics.

Edited May 24, 2021 by Americana

[DX12]

Idk really, I feel neutral about GTA IV's driving physics, they feel as if I'm driving on ice 24/7. Of course, that doesn't mean they're terrible, they're just hard to get the control of and get used to them.
I can count the amount of times I failed a drift man, just because of the physics lmao

[billiejoearmstrong8]

12 hours ago, DX12 said:

Idk really, I feel neutral about GTA IV's driving physics, they feel as if I'm driving on ice 24/7. Of course, that doesn't mean they're terrible, they're just hard to get the control of and get used to them.
I can count the amount of times I failed a drift man, just because of the physics lmao

 

Coming from 3D era IV and V felt like driving on ice in comparison to the older games to me at first, although now I'm totally used to it. I think that's an HD era thing rather than a specific IV thing - perhaps most people played IV first so were no longer noticing it by V. Even now although IV requires earlier braking I find it harder to come to a stop exactly where I want in V.

Edited May 25, 2021 by billiejoearmstrong8

[Jamasen]

It's a bit too "spongey" but in terms of vehicle response and traction, it seems fairly accurate.

GTA V corrected this but over did it to the point where motorcycles handle like ice skates.

[ChebbyZ]

I like the GTA IV driving physics, but I do agree on the spongey part. I feel like the word "realistic" has been thrown around too much, detailed is definitely the better.

[7yp3laueladhsaidf]

I love how vehicles handle in GTA IV, it adds a bit of extra difficulty to it which I personally do enjoy with the vehicles actually feeling heavy and actually having some type of proper suspension, while GTA 5 it's just far too easy to drive - Rock hard suspension and little to no effort what so ever. The cars feel like feathers.

 

While neither of these games may have a "realistic" feel to the vehicles, I'd still go ahead and say that GTA IV has more realistic handling than GTA V.

[Yinepi]

On 5/22/2021 at 11:44 PM, horsewithnoname said:

Rockstar really should implement the option to choose between different driving styles, the this debate wouldn't need to exist and people wouldn't need handling mods. Like in MAFIA II:
Driving mode: Arcade or (Semi-)Simulation.

People would still need handling mods. Car handling has never been Rockstar's strong suit. For every game they make is every time I need to create a handling mod. They [Rockstar] can never find the balance and always manage to f*ck things up. It's either the cars are too stiff, too grippy and lifeless or they have exaggerated body roll and grip loss. Already I've created a mod for 3, VC and IV. Now I'm in the process of creating one for V. However, I've not shared any of them, though might share the V version since there isn't a mod that I know of that covers every single vehicle. Yeah, all 700+ of them.

Edited May 25, 2021 by Yinepi

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Yinepi said:

People would still need handling mods.

Yea, I know I should have chosen my words better. But at least people would still have a choice between two awful default driving modes instead of just one!

[Jokeman123]

11 hours ago, Jamasen said:

It's a bit too "spongey" but in terms of vehicle response and traction, it seems fairly accurate.

GTA V corrected this but over did it to the point where motorcycles handle like ice skates.

GTA IV's motorbikes handle like ice skates*

[B Dawg]

27 minutes ago, Jokeman123 said:

GTA IV's motorbikes handle like ice skates*

Cap your FPS to 60 or get ZolikaPatch

[eyeballs]

You've obviously have never driven a car in real life. The car physics in GTA IV is the closest thing to an accurate car driving simulation in a video game.

[Yinepi]

4 hours ago, eyeballs said:

You've obviously have never driven a car in real life. The car physics in GTA IV is the closest thing to an accurate car driving simulation in a video game.

Assetto Corsa and Gran Turismo would like a word with you.

[Americana]

Grand Theft Auto IV would like to have a world with you.

 

I mean, of course that some  racing games have good driving physics. I guess.

[pariah87]

Not realistic but more fun for gamepkay, especially with the old deform physics.

 

It honestly made racing and cops n crooks special too because it required a bit of skill but I think it still needed improvements. 

 

Things like startup acceleration and tire grip needed to be addressed.

[Yinepi]

18 hours ago, Americana said:

Grand Theft Auto IV would like to have a world with you.

 

I mean, of course that some  racing games have good driving physics. I guess.

I had a conversation with GTAIV. It told me that it was not realistic and its fans are under a misconception.

Edited May 28, 2021 by Yinepi

[Magic_Al]

Killatomate's handling mod is very good, though I recommend editing it with the speed scaling formula they used for their newer GTAV handling mod because the streets of Liberty City are not built for real car speeds. For my own preference I added individual multipliers to the scaling formula so it would land on the vanilla fInitialDriveMaxFlatVel value of each vehicle — basically trying to have the original top speed of each vehicle with otherwise realistic handling and I'm pretty happy with it.

[Yinepi]

Killatomate's mod was the first handling mod for IV I tried, and it's the one I ended up keeping albeit tweaking to fit my needs. Killatomate's V handling is the base for my V handling mod only with the V version he didn't cover every vehicle, however looking into his files I figured out what values he changed so it's easy to get every car in the game to act in coordinance.

[B Dawg]

7 hours ago, pariah87 said:

Things like startup acceleration and tire grip needed to be addressed.

This is where I disagree. The acceleration is perfect. Top speed is scaled down in comparison to the real thing, so it also has to be applied to acceleration too. Grip needs to be lowered somewhat tho (or just get rid of the traction control system).

[GabeMuadDib]

gta 4's vehicle physics always felt like the vehicle has some weight, the driving actually becomes easy by time, specially the drifting is so easy in gta 4 and i love it

[lolleroz]

The physics are realistic, the game just assumes every car has blown shocks/cracked springs and a damaged steering rack cause its NYC.  Speed is too slow but that's cause it's scaled down for the map to feel realistic, I tried giving the cars real-life top speeds and it really didn't feel right. Yes it sometimes feels like you can't go into corners as fast as real life, but first of all the perception of speed is really wrong in the game (you have to enable a trainer to see how fast you're really going then you realize its somewhat believable) and again the cars all seem to have blown suspension as some design choice.

 

One thing they get really right in the game is how RWD cars with no LSD behave. When you start swinging the wheel completely around you can kinda get them to drift but it's more like a powerslide and sometimes it's hard to countersteer. I hate the fact Sentinel doesn't have a LSD though, given it seems to be based off an M3 (maybe they wanted to take shots at people who put fake M badges on their BMWs lol)

Edited May 28, 2021 by lolleroz

[TWIST_OF_HATE]

Not realistic - maybe

But very fun - 100%

[Xiled]

After playing the 3d trilogy for years and than stumbling onto IV, the physics were different in the way they are different between say gta 3 and SA. I just got used to the physics over time. At the time I was young and just blown away at gta iv and was distracted by things other than the car physics.

 

Like those older games I sucked at driving and spent dozens of hours just driving around to get used to how the cars handled. Driving and shooting is the actual gameplay in gta games and the missions are just the side content. In the way I sucked at driving I sucked at shooting not being used to the cover system and constant mission fails. A while later they kind of just clicked and got it and started taking the driving and shooting to their limits. A while later I stopped using the cover system and got really good at free aim, well mostly because the ai were pretty easy to beat by having to repeat missions over and over. 

 

Were the cars slippery, well yes with them being heavy and going fast and having to brake it was part of the challenge until my skill got higher. Was kind of like trying to drive the Super GT in gta sa. It took time. Maybe it was because of SA having such a big map and having to drive everywhere helped me get used to the physics super quickly. The driving a boat part is a really silly way to call the physics of a game your not used to. You probably have never sailed a boat let alone driving a vehicle.  You could argue driving on ice but take a heavy car up to highway speed and slam on the brakes and see what happens your not gonna stop in 3 seconds. And there is quite a big difference in different vehicles when it comes to braking distance from full speed. 

 

Most people who I see play IV for the first time keep ripping on the handbrake after going way too fast. They always spin out and usually never touch the regular brake. Than you have the bikes which should of probably of been better before the game released. I feel it was a bit cruel and trolling of R* to have as many missions with motorcycles as they did. Bikes seem to have always been a big problem for them to get right other than in SA. 

 

In the 3d era games you could get up to max speed and brake with relative ease and you had a lot of long straights. IV was the first time they extended those and essentially forced me to go slower a lot of the time and nail in the timing needed for braking and turning. To go fast you must go slow. They were realistic a bit but things like the body roll was a bit too much. Or the physics doing weird things sometimes. 

 

V on the other hand I expected driving to be different but was disappointed in the fact nearly immediately that there was no challenge what so ever in driving the cars. Like they took not only a big step backwards from IV but also SA. Every car became superglued to the road and between a sedan and super car they all felt like slight variations of the same vehicle. SA had a bigger difference in between the vehicles than V did. 

 

 

 

 

 

[lol232]

I mean a lot of people fail you realize, you literally never make 90 degree turns going 100km/h in real life, which literally damn near every player complained about when GTA IV launched. If you drive slowly turning is super light like in real life, hell in real life unless you're on a highway you never not-drive straight going at higher speeds. Now compared to GTA V and damn near every game, turning is very easy and light in GTA IV when you're driving slowly, much like real life.

 

I enjoyed it a lot, sure the breaking could've been better and the cars shouldn've felt a bit heavier, but GTA IV's is definitely the most realistic handling by far.

 

GTA V feels like driving a go-kart.

[icebeeblue]

Not realistic
This game just for fun 99%

[theweekforme]

On 5/23/2021 at 3:36 AM, sgtsev3n said:

i dont dislike the physics, but i read all in the internet that the car physics in this game are very realistic and people talk big about the phyiscs. Im sorry, but i myself drive a car in real life and there is nothing realistic about the car physics in gta IV. Yes the car physics are great, i had my fun with them back when i played gta IV, but tbh, it feels like im driving a boat and from all cars i used to drive, i saw on the traffic and watching car previews, NO single car ever handled like in this game.

the car physics are great, the damage model better than in any gta title, the physics are "hardcore" or "hardmode" but sorry, realism is the wrong term. Stop calling them realistic.

for me the car physics feel realistic unlike GTA V car physics. Like when i drive and take a turn it feels hard to do that as an example.