Pedal Fury

Clutch disc, Public Domain

As I said in November, I've spent 14 years playing the Gran Turismo series. And as I said in July 2011, for the sake of simplicity most racing games ignore the existence of clutches. Well now let the two combine, for I have spent the last five days getting to grips with the Logitech G27 racing wheel.

One of the reasons for getting a wheel (aside from further immersion) is that for a few months now I've been watching Valdudes' Gran Turismo videos on YouTube and Twitch and secretly coveting a place in a subscriber race (which also explains my venturing into the open lobby). One of the near requirements is a racing wheel, simply due to the greater control over one's virtual vehicle - which is a kind of shibboleth for competent participants. In my own opinion I've mastered the art of driving with the controller. Aside from the joypad being too crude to recover from the majority tailspins, the right analogue stick offers a close approximation of the pedals - I can quite easily feed the accelerator on exits in the absence of traction control (TCS) and graduate the brakes on entry in the absence of anti-lock brakes (ABS). Some people are unbelievably still using the □ and ╳ buttons, and with all the assists turned on the kiddies must think GT is bloody Mario Kart. If you're going to let the computer do everything for you then you might as well play the game in B-Spec mode.

That's not to say Gran Turismo 5 is a proper simulator if you opt for the hardcore approach. It might be the most recent instalment of the series on a current generation console, but it still fails to live up to the tag line of "The Real Driving Simulator". Obviously a retail game played at home is never going to provide the same level of immersion as an actual simulator, but it could at least get the number of pedals correct - the clutch is forever absent. I've always driven manual transmission in racing games, all the way back to F1 97. However, in real world terms this is actually semi-automatic as the player only selects the gears manually in sequential order. A clutch is coded into the game which becomes available when controlled with a full pedal setup, but it was immediately apparent to me, as a non-driver in real life, that something was wrong with its implementation. There was no culture shock using the paddle-shifters for semi-automatic vehicles which use those to shift gears in reality, except for the leap in exertion from thumb on a stick to fighting the feedback on a steering wheel. The manual H-pattern and clutch, however, took at least six hours to get used to - or rather the way GT5 behaves using those.

I first tried out the wheel on my Ferrari F40 at Circuit de La Sarthe, feeling very confident. Instead the feeling was pain in my arms because it did not want to negotiate the Ford Chicanes. I dialled down the feedback and turned power steering back on. I went out again and tried to get used to manually shifting but couldn't control the F40. I decided to look up a beginners guide to wheel use on GTPlanet, which recommended a less powerful car to practice in at Trial Mountain (an old favourite). Seeing as I prefer Premium model cars for the immersion of the interior view, I selected the Mazda MX5 I bought for the Tsukuba 4 hour endurance race. With the slower and more stable roadster I had more time to co-ordinate my foot movements from accelerator and brake to clutch and brake and the arm movements in time with the depression of the clutch. I couldn't yet down-shift sequentially during braking, rather I selected the appropriate gear for the corner exit. The other pain I felt was in my left leg from hovering over the clutch too much. After a few hours of that across a few days (as I've barely had any time between work and sleep) I decided to progress onto the more powerful Skyline R34 I bought just a few days earlier and, feeling bold, take it out on the Nürburgring Nordschleife. With the controller I had set a time of 7:26.648 in the stock R34. As the Green Hell is a hell of a long track I was only able to make a few clean laps, mainly by being cautious, and posted a time using the wheel and pedals of 7:37.076.

I expected a move to full manual would inevitably dent my lap times, but this is where I describe what is so annoying about the implementation of the clutch in GT5. Some people think the clutch works digitally and the pedal only registers engaged or disengaged. Some think the players are a bit slack in their technique and don't take their foot off the accelerator. Some think it's the design of the hardware in the H-pattern shifter. It seems like is a combination of everything. A little experimentation reveals the clutch pedal is in fact analogue, but by what seems like the most minuscule amount - there is a tiny little window of sensor travel in which the clutch can partially engage and transmit some engine power to the drivetrain. Newcomers to pedals are very likely to be shifting poorly and remaining on the accelerator by a tiny amount (which may be down to signal lag when attempting swift changes). The gearbox, I'm told as a non-driver, should not permit the gearstick to move into the position of the gear unless the transmission has successfully shifted into it - it should act like a gate opening when executed correctly and otherwise deny access.

The result of a failed shift in GT5 is incredibly annoying whatever the cause. You move your foot off the accelerator, depress the clutch pedal, and move the gearstick into the desired position, remove foot from the clutch pedal, and depress the accelerator - all as fast as you can. Only then do you realise the game has deigned this ballet of movements a failure and left you in neutral as the engine is screaming and the needle is bouncing around the redline. It can sometimes take three or four tries to get into gear because you have to do all those movements again precisely (beginning with moving the stick into neutral even though the game already has you in neutral) and you won't be in a conducive mood at that point.

The solution is to take your time when shifting - it's not a race... well, actually, it is. That's the cheap solution. The expensive solution is in two parts. Firstly, for Polyphony Digital to code a better clutch and patch the game (lord help them if Gran Turismo 6 doesn't) and, secondly, for better hardware to provide some feedback on the gearbox and clutch pedal - but the Logitech G27 was bloody expensive enough, hence why it was a present and I didn't buy it myself. I'm still mulling a second entry into the Le Mans 24 Hours and wrestling with a wheel and pedals might just make it physically exhaustive enough to be challenging and not just boring (and I'd like to win in the Ford Mark IV just cause it's a proper manual). I could do with the experience points, though. I'm halfway to Level 40 and I haven't heard of anyone that's reach maximum yet... that could be me.

Written 17th and 18th December
[1249]