I thought a RUF BTR would be cool...
 

until I tried to drive the sucker on ps2 with my other half tonight. She kicked me stupid in an mx5 while I was oversteering and sliding all over the place with the driving aids off. So are these things really that difficult to drive? Wheelspin everywhere!! I read an in depth review on one of these things last week & it sounded quite drivable, so I was surprised at the simulation version.

You're joking, right?

I wish I could say that I've compared the two, but I am but a poor, simple man.

Re: I thought a RUF BTR would be cool...
 

Are you talking about a video game?

Re: I thought a RUF BTR would be cool...
 

Hey Gav,
I found the RUF's to be heavy on the understeer in Gran Turismo-much more in GT3 than GT4. To counter act this, in GT4 I played around with traction control settings, to some sucess.
The default setting is '10' for oversteer, '10' for understeer. I reduced the understeer setting to '3', which really helps the handling- still tricky to drive, but a great sense of accomplishment when you get it right. The Trial Mountain/Deep Forrest/High Speed Ring tracks are great tracks to work out the kinks.
Then head over the the Nurburgring once you get it.

Hope this helps you.

It's a video game, not real. If you tried to drive a car in real life the way it's done in a video game you'd be dead quickly.

As much as I like both GT3 and GT4, it's a Japanese game and as such, heavily favors the Japanese cars. Where ALL the other cars have problems, the Pitworks Z and all the other Nissan 350Z clones are virtually flawless and walk everything else. Ridiculous. It ain't that way in real life. A Ruf BTR would kick the snot out of even a built Z any day of the week. I think that's a bit too much either national pride or "Nissan paid us more to represent them in this game" factoring in. . .

I'm a poor simple man too :) That's why my driving of such exotics only takes place on a screen in my lounge room - sad to say.
Yes I know it's just a game but I was under the impression the cars handling traits in GT4 were somewhat similar to the real thing. It felt similar enough on the lowly ranked cars that I've driven myself in real life so that's why I was surprised with the RUF. Maybe you're right porscheophile. I'll have to give my other half a hard time over it - she's japanese so it's a small source of pride (Nissan this nissan that :)

edit - and Sarc, thanks for the tips. The deep forest track was where my humiliation took place (several times) so I'll practice there.

The Ruf cars in GT4 understeer like mad -- you have to tweak the crap out of the suspension settings to get them sorted out. THen you mod the engine to >800hp, and you're good to go...

Not to mention how you drive determines the behavior of the car. Maybe if you were oversteering and sliding you should try driving differently.

I found the BTR to be a BLAST !!!!

Before heading out to my first DE at Sears, I drove that track on GT4 using the BTR and other RUF models to prepare. I found it to be pretty realistic, throttle steering was cool, but I am still a bit timid to try it in real life. Something about tracking a daily driver :)

but I do agree that the Japanese cars seem to out perform the rest. I have been driving the Minolta/Toyota race car and it can hang with the Formula cars!

-Chris

To their credit, the Sauber Mercedes almost can too. . .

Sauber used to be my biggest enemy, now I can take 'em!

-Chris

How does one win the Sauber besides completing the last driving mission??