Handling with keyboard

[ViBE]

For me the CMR series means rally. Basically I totaly skipped the DiRT series. DiRT Rally is the only exception. Now I have some time to play with it. But after a short review it feels like that the handling is very different than the CMR series. After installation I did not changed anything so I'm using the default settings. Mostly it feels like I'm driving a boat. Does anybody have any advices for ideal/better settings? Pretty hard to not convert the car to a sh1tbox after every stage because of the weird handling.

[MystaMagoo]

DiRT Rally is a 'sim' = not so good with keyboard
CMR is arcade
Dirt Rally 2.0 is DiRT down played on the sim angle and up played on the arcade angle
The Dirt series 2,3,4 is arcade

[Mortal Motö]

Mysta is correct. This is a simulator. If you want more relaxed game, consider getting Dirt 4 and playing with gamer settings.

But if you want to give Dirt Rally a go on keyboard, the trick is to learn to quickly tap the keys instead of pressing them down. If you're arriving at a turn and need to slow down a little, don't just press the brake key down. That'll most likely send you off the track. Instead tap the key a few times (this is basically the equivalent of gently pressing the left trigger on Xbox controller). And when you're turning, don't just push the turning key down (unless it's VERY sharp turn) but again tap the key a few times.

But ultimately this game wasn't made for keyboard since it relies on gentle input. It's possible to learn to master the game on keyboard but a controller (and obviously a steering wheel) is infinitely better choice.

[Ragequit Inc.]

I concur with the above.

And in addition -regardless of your input device- as with all sims/sim-ish games, first learn to crawl, then walk, then run. Meaning; don't try pushing to the max at first, just learn to keep on the track and learn how the car behaves in any given situation. As you have that covered then push further and further, faster and faster.

And don't worry about mistakes along the way. We all make them.

As to the (keyboard) setup, sorry can't be much help, I haven't driven on a keyboard in 20 years. :)

[mr. z]

Yes, even with a pad it took 10 - 20 hours to get the car go straight, turning was easy. I was overcorrecting and a little late all time.

[GATTACA]

Your post remind me i used to play Richard Burns Rally on keyboard, and people say that is more real/sim than Dirt Rally.

Yes, I bought a wheel (Logitech MOMO) for Richard Burns Rally, but i can play on keyboard as well.

The main upside with rally is: it doesn't require fine control on wheel, throttle, brake. Most of times (not on tarmac) all you need is push to MAX as QUICK as you can to make car slide.

So...

Yes, on loose surface, you can play on keyboard very easily, because i done it on Richard Burns Rally.

No, on tarmac you need fine control, use keyboard will be a problem.

[ViBE]

thank's guys. since i'm playing i have only 1-2 tarmac stage. so now it's clear that the keyboard handling is basically okay by default. but the game modeling handling very different on any other surfaces. the difference is huge comparing with the predecessor CMR series. yeah i guess with a wheel it would be better. but that's true for every rally games. atm it's not an option for me. so if there are no better settings for keyboard then i keep pushing. the hardest disadvantages of this that i have to play like a pianist and restart the stages a tons of times. it's still worth for me.

[Mortal Motö]

Yeah, the game is called "Dark Souls of racing games" for a reason. But just like Dark Souls, the difficulty is actually a little bit overblown. I doubt it'll ever feel outright easy but you definitely will see yourself getting the hang of things and making progress in a couple hours. I myself only have 25 hours played and I'm already doing the elite championship on career mode (altho I use Xbox controller).

[the jews took my PFP]

I just reinstalled the very first DiRT from 2007 and it's like the cars are glued to the road. It's actually difficult to get them to spin out with the default setup. Now I'm reinstalling this one since I want my cars to be difficult to control, not planted on rails.

[BluesyMoo]

Can you not use a gamepad? The analogue stick, while not as good as a wheel, is still better for fine inputs than keyboard.

[ViBE]

i tried it back in the days cause i have PS4 and 8BitDo controllers but it was not fun for me. i'm still better on keyboard somehow.

[Zebak]

Originally posted by ViBE:

i tried it back in the days cause i have PS4 and 8BitDo controllers but it was not fun for me. i'm still better on keyboard somehow.

You may need to change the controller settings in game, they actually can make a huge difference to how it feels. I've had a lot of friends who play keyboard in other games but DR you need at least a controller in my opinion to enjoy the game.

[Zebak]

Originally posted by Mortal Motö:

Yeah, the game is called "Dark Souls of racing games" for a reason. But just like Dark Souls, the difficulty is actually a little bit overblown. I doubt it'll ever feel outright easy but you definitely will see yourself getting the hang of things and making progress in a couple hours. I myself only have 25 hours played and I'm already doing the elite championship on career mode (altho I use Xbox controller).

Yeah it's pretty easy to get the hang of but take off all assists, manual gears and all that jazz it's a different beast entirely. Also depending on which cars, the Stratus for me is impossible to handle when compared to a 4WD car.

[deftmousetail]

After 500+ hours in, I can say with good authority that you can use keyboard and be pretty competitive especially on tarmac with 4WD cars.
The main issue with keyboard in DR1 is that you can't adjust the keyboard settings like you can in DR2, so you have to adapt either the assists or the car setup to fit this input technique.
With DR1, most people will start off the career mode with the Renault Alpine (it has the highest horse power of the three, so why settle for less, right?) which is a RWD and therefore a nightmare to drive on a keyboard especially on snow and gravel. That's how many people got discouraged from playing the game I think.
The trick is to turn on the assists for Traction Control to 1 or 2 to help you control the throttle a little bit and not lose traction while accelerating and turning as this is the main problem with the keybard - there is no way of gradually increasing or decreasing the throttle input (or brake for that matter), it's always 100% or 0%.
As a result, you need to be quick with your fingers and tap a lot of times instead of pressing the keys especially when accelerating through the exit of a bend.
Another thing that helps is using manual transmission especially with RWD cars (Lancia 037 is a nightmare to drive for example) - you can avoid the unnecessarily high revs that would otherwise get you spinning in the middle of a turn when on the automatic transmission. I personally prefer the comfort of the automatic transmission as it keeps my brain capacity available for focussing on the best line. I know I'm missing out on being able to downshift and gain some extra high rev traction, but you don't really need it if you're driving the perfect line at the right speed (plus there is the clutch override if needed).
Plus, of course, you can play with the car settings to make the car more manageable (increasing the camber to increase grip in turns, reviewing the RW FW drive balance to make the car more of a FWD style via differential modifications, sometimes increasing damping on the rear wheels to ensure better traction for RWD cars on wet surfaces etc.).
Finally, I have tried a controller (X360) and a wheel (T150), but I couldn't get the hang of it - the clear advantage of the keyboard is that you don't need to "turn the wheel back to point 0" (the same applies to the controller's stick, it's even worse than the wheel imho and far less precise) to start driving straight, it just happens automatically and you have more time to make other corrections.
You can check out the telemetry data for the daily stages to see how keyboard drivers manage their input here:
https://www.dirtgame.com/dirtrally/uk/telemetry/0
The guys to watch is dkvperformance or Mira (he doesn't play DR1 that often anymore) or Vindanae in DR2. You can tell if the input is controller/wheel or keyboard based in the input bars - if it's jumping left and right it's keyboard, if it's more gradual, it's the controller/wheel.

[Ragequit Inc.]

Originally posted by deftmousetail:

*snip*

No offense, my dude, but have you ever heard of a thing called 'paragraph'?

Walls of text aren't exactly pleasing to read. And my apologies for being so pedantic and anal, but *I just had to say it.. :)