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So am wondering, which is the best/fastest for racing? Am also thinking in the line of real life, manual stick shift with clutch vs flappy pedals on the wheel.

I understand that maybe when drifting and such, having a clutch is a must, but am thinking about pure racing, shouldn't flappy pedals be the best or quickest? As you have to think about/do less? Not sure what you call them, semi-automatic transmissions maybe? Probably a few years back they weren't so good, but i believe that today, and those cars that got these, or at least the sport/supercars, are pretty darn good, aren't they?

Or is it so that in the end, if you get good enough, good old manual with clutch wins?

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Forza Motorsport 4 finally here!

The game is set up so that the more assists you turn off, the faster you should theoretically be.  So usually manual with clutch is fastest, aside from a few cars.

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NitriusX:

good old manual with clutch wins

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FerchoKingz/E89 & E92<3

Playing with the clutch gives you a fairly good speed increase when accelerating.

Without the clutch, the speed will not increase while the gear change is happening (this takes about half a second or so).  With practice, you can be faster than that by using the clutch and you'll be able to easily out-accelerate people.

The downside is that use of the clutch can be quite tricky to pick up.  Having your controller set up with the right button layout might well help.

Personally, my old fingers can work quickly enough and consistently enough to make the use of clutch worthwhile for me, so I cope with manual (without clutch).

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Pete
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For feel in real life nothing beats a standard stick shift for getting involved with the car but the gard truth is that there's no way for a person to shift as fast as a computer so for all out speed new paddle shifts and dsg boxes are unbeatable. I'll always drive stick though. lol.

In game as said above I think the manual w/clutch is made to be faster so you get benefits for turning aids off but there are cars like the 458 that seem to shift just as quick either way

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FTW RomeSDS:

The game is set up so that the more assists you turn off, the faster you should theoretically be.  So usually manual with clutch is fastest, aside from a few cars.

Hmm okay, is this the case in real life as well? As i've heard that some of the cars that got these flappy pedals shifts gears faster than what's possible for humans to do, heard some numbers but don't remember them right now, if this is right or wrong am not sure of though.

Also if we take restrictions and what not out of the picture, shouldn't flappy pedals theoretically be faster? As you only have to "click a button" and before you know it, you've changed gears? Also your are still the one that decide when to change gear, you just do it without the use of a clutch.

Or is there something am not catching here? But yea i see the thing with the game, it can be programmed so that you get some sort of advantage if you turn everything to "pro", but that's not the case in real life i guess?

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Forza Motorsport 4 finally here!

OTSEGO AMIGO:

For feel in real life nothing beats a standard stick shift for getting involved with the car but the gard truth is that there's no way for a person to shift as fast as a computer so for all out speed new paddle shifts and dsg boxes are unbeatable. I'll always drive stick though. lol.

In game as said above I think the manual w/clutch is made to be faster so you get benefits for turning aids off but there are cars like the 458 that seem to shift just as quick either way

Agree on the feel thing, but am thinking about racing the fastest/shifting the fastest. But anyway, so ingame(forza) it's made so that manual w/clutch is faster, as you get benefits for turning aids off, beside a few cars, so here there is actually some sort of programming doing some magic so you got the edge on people that use automatic/manual, if you manage to use the manual w/clutch properly at least.

But in real life, as said, there is no way for humans to do it as fast as a computer can do it, so i guess for real life racing, with a good paddle shifter, they should have the edge?

Edit: But again, all this use of computers complicates a lot of stuff as well, so the possibility of problems to arise is probably bigger.

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Forza Motorsport 4 finally here!

NitriusX:

Hmm okay, is this the case in real life as well? As i've heard that some of the cars that got these flappy pedals shifts gears faster than what's possible for humans to do, heard some numbers but don't remember them right now, if this is right or wrong am not sure of though.

Also if we take restrictions and what not out of the picture, shouldn't flappy pedals theoretically be faster? As you only have to "click a button" and before you know it, you've changed gears? Also your are still the one that decide when to change gear, you just do it without the use of a clutch.

Or is there something am not catching here? But yea i see the thing with the game, it can be programmed so that you get some sort of advantage if you turn everything to "pro", but that's not the case in real life i guess?

In real life cars with gearboxes such as sequential or paddleshift (Ferrari's have had them for the best part of 10 years now) can shift gears in less than 50 milliseconds. To put that into perspective for you blinking is slower!  SO in real life YES it's going ot be quicker to use those types of gears.  However in Forza 4 the game wants to reward you for making the game more challenging-therefore you going to be quicker in the long run if you can get used to using manual w/clutch.  As Aperture said it does help if you map the buttons to whatever is comfortable for you-personally I put clutch to A button and then change up using B and down using X that way I'm pressing both buttons with my thumb at the same time

Having been lucky enough to drive fast cars with normal gearbox setups and clutch (I did a track day a couple of years ago in an Audi R8 with an open gated gearbox-OMG that was amazing) and paddleshift (BMW E42 M3 CSL) I can say they both have advantages in real life-however on a track I must admit I like not having to worry about what I'm doing with the clutch

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NitriusX:

OTSEGO AMIGO:

For feel in real life nothing beats a standard stick shift for getting involved with the car but the gard truth is that there's no way for a person to shift as fast as a computer so for all out speed new paddle shifts and dsg boxes are unbeatable. I'll always drive stick though. lol.

In game as said above I think the manual w/clutch is made to be faster so you get benefits for turning aids off but there are cars like the 458 that seem to shift just as quick either way

Agree on the feel thing, but am thinking about racing the fastest/shifting the fastest. But anyway, so ingame(forza) it's made so that manual w/clutch is faster, as you get benefits for turning aids off, beside a few cars, so here there is actually some sort of programming doing some magic so you got the edge on people that use automatic/manual, if you manage to use the manual w/clutch properly at least.

But in real life, as said, there is no way for humans to do it as fast as a computer can do it, so i guess for real life racing, with a good paddle shifter, they should have the edge?

Definitely. With a good modern paddle shifter you'll always be faster. The DSG setup in the 458, GTR etc in real life goes as far as to pre selects your next gear for you. So there's no way a person could shift as quick using a clutch and the paddle will always be better for a race. The only mechanical setup that would be competitive would be something like a sequential dog cut arrangement where you don't need a clutch either, just brute force. lol

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I was thinking about this when I was playing the Demo this past week. In a way I feel if the actual car doesn't have a clutch, then they should remove the manual only penalty. I have a fanatec wheel so I change the configuration based on what car I'm driving in. The Pagani Zonda Cinque uses a paddle shifter with no clutch so I set up my wheel so I'm driving without the 6 speed shifter and using only the paddles to be as realistic as possible. So from the sound of it I'm being penalized for setting things up as realisticly as possible. That's kind of lame but oh well..

I am a manual without clutch racer myself.  Although with the clutch is faster.  

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I race with manual and no clutch, using the paddle shifters on my wheel, mainly because I find that the most enjoyable. I'll fool around with the clutch one in a while, just for fun, or drag racing. 

in terms of the game, it would depend on your skill/abilities.  i prefer auto-shifting since I'm playing with the gamepad 360 controller, although I did tinker with manual+clutch shifting in Forza 3, and from what I remember about it, clutch vs no clutch shifting the only real difference was with the clutch you have an additional way to wreck your car in the game.  i'm fairly certain if you go the no clutch manual shifting route, the auto-clutch stays engaged while you hold down the gear change buttons anyway, so if anything there may be a few milliseconds of additional time changing the gear, but honestly once you get used to it it's negligible.

i would add that having the use of a manual clutch should make control of spins/loss of traction a bit easier to manage which would undoubtedly result in faster lap times for a player more skilled than me (which is pretty much everyone tbh).