The Truth About Speed in GTA Online | Why are the cars so slow?

Welcome back to another episode of Truth Behind! In this video, we delve into the murky world of speed and physicss in GTA Online.

Well know for having slightly odd physics, in this video I look in to why, how it works and what the game would play like if the driving physics mirrored real life a little more.

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Transcript:
Welcome back, and in this video we're looking at the truth about speed in GTA Online. But what do I mean by that? Well, no one's ever claimed that the physics engine in GTA 5 is super realistic. I mean, let's be honest, this physics engine was designed by someone who thought Einstein was the guy who scored the equalizer in the 1966 World Cup Final.

He didn't. So let's take it as read that the physics in this game only makes sense if you think the earth is flat. You know, controlling cars in mid-air, flipping them back over when they fall over, all that kind of stuff.

So this isn't a video about why the physics isn't real. It's a video about why the cars are so slow. Now, you must know, you've seen the cars, the top speeds of the cars in this game are atrocious compared to their real-life counterparts.

So what I wanted to do is make a video to find out why that's the case. And if you watch to the end, you'll see there's a perfectly good reason why Rockstar designed this in the way that they did. And it becomes perfectly obvious as soon as you look at it.

To test this, I needed two cars. I needed two fast cars, cars there was a lot of data about. So I started with the one you can see on screen now, which is the Adder, which in real life would be the 250-odd mile an hour Bugatti Veyron.

So in order to make this work, I took the Adder and recorded a lap. But I quickly realized I needed some measurements to work this out. I needed to work out the acceleration between different speeds.

I needed to work out the braking, the cornering speed, all that kind of stuff. And the only way I can do that, I had to use the Rockstar editor. And anyone that's used the Rockstar editor will know why I'm saying.

So I had to do an interior shot so I could get Speedo, but then take the same footage and edit that as an exterior shot so I could match it up to the footage recorded from the game. Because as I later found out, the Rockstar editor exports a different frame rate, which is really helpful. Thanks Rockstar.

So after all this, I had all the data I needed. So all we needed now was what I believe to be is the world's first ever maths-based training montage. And what this all told me is there is a very unusual discrepancy in the way cars behave in GCA Online.

First of all, what you need to count is that the Speedos only go up about half as far as the ones in real life. So for example, the Adder tops out in real life at over 250 miles an hour, but the Speedo in the game tops out at about 120. So any speeds I was mapping against the Speedo, I would need to adjust those accordingly.

So then you look at the different performance through the speed range, and up to 60 miles an hour, the performance in the game is nearly twice as fast as it is in real life. Up to 100, it's two and a half times as fast. Up to 130, it's 2.8 times as fast.

And up to 200 miles an hour, the acceleration in the game is almost three times as fast as it is in real life. But this is when it gets odd, because when you get above this, the top speeds in real life are actually twice as high as they are in the game. So how do I square that circle? Well, with a bit of Googling and a bit of help from some fabulous YouTubers about how to use speed ramping in DaVinci Resolve, I came up with half a solution.

And using that, I've managed to put together a lap, which I feel somewhat represents what it would look like in real life. But for this, I needed another car, and not any car would do. So I opted for nothing other than the second best car ever made.

Obviously the best car ever made is the Mini, and that's not opinion, that's a fact. But in my view, the best car ever made, the best interpretation of what a car could be at the time that it was made, is something that takes the best of current technology and the best of emerging technology to make something that is the absolute best that it can be. And I think this car is that, and I don't think it will ever be beaten.

So yes, that car is the McLaren F1, or as you will know it in the game, the Progen GP1. So here we go with my speed adjusted lap in the McLaren F1. And I'll be honest, it gets weird really quickly.

So let's just let it count down, and off we go. And as we accelerate here, we're going really slowly, but we're already at 60. And we're already at 100 miles an hour.