Forza Motorsport

I've read quite a few tuning guides now, and they all say similar things, so for my own quick guide I have pulled together what I think is the key info - will be trying this out later but sharing now as it might be useful for others.

At the bottom I have what I think is the right order to do things for a quick setup....

Tyres

Compound - Better compounds are a benefit on tracks with tight corners, for faster/straighter tracks you can get away more with stock or street

Pressure - Higher pressure brings better responsiveness and more turn in, but less grip overall. Best on smooth tracks with fast corners. Lower pressure will give more traction, but lead to higher temperatures and in turn faster tire wear. Lower pressure may be an advantage on bumpier terrain.

How/When to set - Do this first before any other changes, then come back once everything has been modified and recheck check the pressure and adjust accordingly. Tires should be 33 PSI (2.27 Bar) when warmed up - so do a few laps, then use telemetry to check the pressure and adjust accordingly. Also check the tire temp and make sure it doesn’t get too high - Street should stay below 80°C, sports below 95°C and race no higher than 105°C

Gears

Do a lap, and if you are not hitting top speed the car is capable of in it’s current setup, set the final drive ratio higher. If you are reaching top speed to early, set it lower. To avoid wheelspin in RWD cars, the first 3 gears can be made longer. You can also tweak any problem gears you are having to change up from just before a corner to eek a little more out of them

Wheels

Camber - Negative camber improves grip during turns but can affect straight-line stability

How/When to set - Start at -1.5 for the front but lower at the back, do a couple of laps, and check the temps as you pull out of a turn. If hotter on the outside, make the camber more negative, if it’s the insides, move towards zero, but keep between -2 and -1

Toe - Generally leave alone, but if after all other tuning, the car is FWD and not pulling into turns fast enough, add .1 toe out to the front. If RWD and there is still too much oversteer add .1 toe in to the rear

Caster - Generally leave alone (between 5 and 6), but if after other settings the car weaves on straights, increase the angle by a tenth until better then recheck camber

Suspension

Ride Height - Keep the car as low to the ground as possible to increase straight line speed, but when lowering, you need to stiffen the springs

Springs - Softer is generally better, especially on bumpier tracks, but the car shouldn’t bottom out

How/When to set - Set the car low as you can. Do a couple of laps and monitor the spring rate in telemetry - if you hit the max limit, either stiffen the springs, or increase the ride height. Set the rears stiffer than the fronts to promote oversteer as apposed to understeer (assuming that is your preference). Front engined cars may need more stiffer fronts, rear engined stiffer rears

Dampers - Generally leave alone

Anti-roll bars - These are the first thing to look at for fixing over/understeer. Softer bars result in a slower response from the car but more control, stiffer will be more responsive but harder to control

How/When to set Soften the front (or stiffen the rear) to reduce understeer, soften the back (or stiffen the front) to reduce oversteer

Suspension Geometry - Leave alone

Aero

The track should generally dictate the wings. More aero brings lower top speed but better cornering. Tracks with long fast corners can benefit from increased aero. If understeering (and not fixed by ARBs) add some to the front, oversteering add some to the back. Keep this as low as you can for online and the front and rear close to each other

Brakes

Brake Balance - It's recommended to set it between 55 and 48, with a sweet spot at 49
Pressure - Leave it at 100% but if ABS is off, and you are get too many lock-ups, reduce this in small steps until you find your sweet spot

Differential

For RWD Cars set acceleration between 40-60% and deceleration between 20-40%. 
FWD cars require aim for 20-30% acceleration and 0-10% deceleration.
AWD go in-between. Set center split in the 60-70% range.


Setup process

• Get the tire pressure right before anything else - so go for a test drive and monitor the PSI and adjust as needed so after a couple of laps (when the tires have warmed up) it's 33PSI (2.27 Bar) and the tires aren't getting too hot
• Now adjust the wheel camber - set to -1.5 for the font, -1.0 for the back and go for another test drive, looking at the tire temps coming our of corners. If hot on the outside, make the camber more negative, hot in the inside move towards zero, but keep the value between -2 and -1
• Adjust the breaks - basically put the balance at 49 and the pressure at 100% unless locking up and not using ABS
• Set the differential to the settings above
• Lower the car
• Adjust the springs by doing another test drive - if bottoming out stiffen the springs or bring the ride height back up a bit
• How's it handling? Too much over/understeer go to the Anti Roll Bars - Soften the front (or stiffen the rear) to reduce understeer, soften the back (or stiffen the front) to reduce oversteer
  
• Now go back and check the tire pressure and wheel camber so you are getting the most out of the tires with the new settings
• If you still have under/oversteer, look at the toe. If weaving on straights, look at caster
  
• Save the setup
• For each race - adjust the aero and gears - you want a gear ratio so the car is hitting top speed just at the end of the fastest section, and you want (online) only enough aero for the car to feel good in corners (where it is easier to hold position) without sacrificing speed (on straights, where it is easier to overtake)

Not against Dave- he *tunes*

Can I trust this game to save my single player progress yet, or has anyone got trick to force it to save progress?

I lost progress after finishing one series, then clicking directly to the next series, then I existed the game. There must have been a "saving" spinner or two, so it seems it's just buggy.

They’ve apparently patched the thing where a pre-race upgrade freezes and borks it but this was by no means the only way progress was lost for me. I’ve taken to quitting to menu after each race or two.

It’s doubly poor the state it’s in- it’s status as a key title for MS and the contrast between how Turn 10 usually make solid games and this. What’s going on with game production for Microsoft? How does a normally very competent company take six years and only come up with this?

I’m pretty much sticking to Rivals and tuning only by backing right out and going in via the “my cars” menu at this point. Still really love the handling at the core of it, such a shame.

My experience on Series X has been quite good I’d say; on par with other recent games. Only 1 or two hard quits, quick resume works most of the time and lost a practice session only once in terms of progress. Sad to hear the PC version is a mess.

Maybe Microsoft's love of contracting is contributing to the dev hell situation. I don't see how replacing your staff every 18 months is conducive to efficient game development.

"cascading down elegantly" works great on paper, but I fear what we're seeing is a product of this strategy not working in reality... There will always be complications and compromises when catering for vastly different hardware.

As Resident Knievel said, this is further compounded by high staff turnover.

The hardware similarities (x86-64ness) are a bit overblown. The porting process has got 3-4 main components:
1. Make the code actually compile and run on the other platform. Which is hard but is usually done, even in the PS3 days most the internal engine code I saw could compile to PC. So the compiler and header files were usually all there even on internal projects. The first PS4 devkit I had was literally an Alienware PC (though running Unix). Except Polyphony Digital, probably, as those guys were weird.
2. Do all the things to pass the other platform holder checklists, e.g. change the buttons that are displayed on screen to be the correct controller layout. Relatively simple, often overlooked. Though Steam mostly don't give a fuck so...
3. Actually make the port changes for PC that matter and take some time. Changing FoV options because people's faces will be closer to the screen, change the UI scaling, add keyboard+mouse support etc. They're usually known solutions to any of this and doing it once will set you up for the next time.
4. Actually optimise it (which isn't so much to do with the CPU instruction set or graphics card as you'd think)

Anyway for most projects 1,2,3 are either previously solved, barely relevant because Steam or just come for free. E.g. MS SDKs will just compile for Windows or Xbox out of the box.

4. is always the sticker. As it may run fine on 8 bare metal, medium-high(ish) power cores on an Xbox... what happens if you run the same code on something with 6 higher power cores and with an Operating System in the way. That's the kind of thing that takes weeks of re-writes then you try some other CPU and it all changes again. Even PC first devs regularly screw this stuff up.

• Actually put some AI drivers in to replace the driveretards, well, we can dream:

old.reddit.com/r/forza/comments/17iat0a/most_idiotic_drivatars_ever/

You have a terrible name for online racing 🤡

Did the hards go the distance or you had to pit also? I find the grip differential to mediums is not made up by longevity with the hards.

I think the idea is you go hard -> soft, but on most races you can go medium -> soft which is way more effective (just have to time pit stops well).

I haven't even tried online yet, but I'm really enjoying the single player races.

I find Sport rules, difficulty 5, then starting mid-pack always makes for a competitive and involved race.

Like rammy18 said, this is fast becoming one of my favourite racing games, despite all the issues. It feels like proper racing, whilst providing a handling model that's arcadey enough to be fun and controllable.