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Great to hear someone is actually interested in racing the 2 stroke GP500 bikes! As everyone knows, I'm a big 2 stroke fan, so I'd definitely be interested!

Only trouble is that beta 13 isn't working for me and I haven't been able to sort it out, so I'm waiting on beta 14 release; hopefully then I'll be able to get back into racing GPB online again.

There certainly doesn't seem to be many if anyone putting up 2 stroke GP500 class servers right now(Shame cause they are great bikes to ride)..... Maybe because it takes greater skill sets to ride the 2 stroke GP500 bikes fast and the modern 4 stroke riders here can't hack it these days...... We have to forgive them, they get very lazy with using all the modern electronic rider aids these days! Lol! 

Hah! I'm glad I'm not the only one.

I am a huge 90s and early 2000s 2-stroke fan. Used to be a huge Microprose GP500 fan for the same reasons. 2-stroke 500s were my jam up until the interim season where they ran side-by-side with the 4-stroke 1000s (Barros vs Rossi @ Assen comes to mind). So, I have a massive soft spot. That being said, I won't pretend to be a GP Bikes rider of any calibre, but just as an arbitrary yardstick, if I had to choose between Moto 2 and GP500s, it wouldn't even be a contest. I enjoy the latter way more, and might actually be somewhat proficient at it. The bike pack is exceptionally made IMO. Throttle response, tires, suspension, I love it. It's the reason I've been aching to actually race these. Sucks to hear about your Beta 13 issue... Any chance I could ask what it is? (I swear, I won't start armchair troubleshooting stuff you've done 1000 times already)

I find these bikes a whole lotta fun. I can't stay on them for the life of me, but would definitely join you and anyone else who's interested 

I'd like to know if anyone has any tips or setups on how to ride these things... My biggest issue with these is they run wide on exit. Not sure what I'm doing wrong. 

I don't recall who posted it, but there was a really cool post I encountered some time ago about how to handle a lot of these bikes. Bikes in general don't like coasting when cornering, nor do you want to be trail braking on your front brake, as the torque will keep you upright. So in general, but especially for these things as far as I know (and trust me, I'm no expert here) you have to:

A. Get done with your heavy braking mostly in a straight line, trail brake with your rear brake to fine-tune your line mid-corner.
B. Always keep a tiny bit of throttle on as you're riding over the apex.
C. Tires tend to perform best when actually slipping a bit, so the ideal exit attitude is a little bit of a slide as you're powering out of the corner, bearing in mind the sneaky torque curve of the 2-strokes, so you don't want to mindlessly hammer the throttle as you're going into the torque band.

Trial and error after that, but eventually you'll feel the rear when you have enough confidence to give it the beans coming out of a corner, it's quite satisfying actually, and it really helps rotate these bikes instead of washing out wide.

(Anyone who actually knows what they're talking about, please feel free to chime in)

Hi guys, as the title states, is anyone around here racing the '92 500s? I know the lobby isn't teeming with people at all times to scatter them into different servers as well, but I really really love those bikes, and rather curious as to whether anyone races them, or if maybe people would hop in if I managed to host one.

Thanks in advance

With the demo you only have the default 125 - not an easy bike, if you are on Victoria and keep falling at the bottom of Lukey heights on this bike its not unusual. The rest of the track should not be too bad although Honda turn can be a bit 'iffy'.
Most bikes do not like no throttle on a turn, try and get all your braking out of the way before the turn (front brake while turning will keep the bike upright - which you do not want) then you can use the throttle during the turn. Dragging the back brake a tiny bit can help tighten a turn and is OK while applying the throttle.

Thanks for the input regarding the throttle. I was generally not off it very much, but you prompted me to fight the urge to merely lift when I felt a bit of understeer. It felt like a super simple leap to make after the fact, but I couldn't imagine how much more there was in the bike. I know tires operate at their best with an optimal amount of slip, but pushing through the urge and actually staying on the throttle and powering out way more aggressively than I used to gave me more than a second on my Varese PB at Philip Island. No idea what decent times are, I'm just going off personal progress. Very glad about the 34.2. Thanks for that little bite of information. Felt pretty awesome to finally feel the rear gently slip as I came out of corners.

This is a bit of an interesting topic, as I think a comfortable control layout is vitally important.

I have been lurking around and playing GPB for ages, and just recently started finally clicking (I think I've had it since Beta 4? Not sure). Even though I recognized the dynamics etc, I felt that something was always off with my inputs. Even though I was a massive bike nut back in the 500cc days, I haven't had much experience with bikes, so I started slowly working on it. Most of my vehicle dynamics experience was with cars, so I had to start from scratch in some ways. So after much trial and error, I arrived at this.

For reference I'm on a regular XB One controller (was on 360 prior).

LT: Rear Brake             RT: Front Brake                    Y: Camera
LB: Shift Down            RB: Shift Up               X:None              B:Look Back
                                                                              A: None
LS(L/R): Steer             RS(Back): Throttle
LS(Back): Clutch

Left Menu button(?): Reset

Those are the only controls I'm going to emphasize, the rest (other than left D-Pad being tearoff) are free for gestures and whatnot.

What I was trying to do essentially with this setup is emulate an actual bike layout. I refrained from pushing a control for throttle input and resorted to pulling on a longer throw (hence RS Back for throttle). I find it's way more accurate as the spring works to stabilize your input rather than hinder it. As a side-note, I feel this control scheme makes use of the rear brake way more viable in my case, and I have gotten out of hairy situations I'd never have imagined before. The rear brake is my friend now.

Extra Parameters:

Lean Linearity: 60-80% depending on personal preference (I usually hover around 70% as you can be pretty accurate between 0deg and full lean while maintaining smooth control)
Direct Lean: 30% (For damping your inputs a tad but maintaining some directness without wobbling)
Lean Deadzone 5-8% (I only have some to account for the natural drift these have sometimes)
Clutch Deadzone: 20% (So you don't bump it while steering)

Additional Info:

A massive issue I had originally was with the brakes, which I totally glossed over thinking it was just going to take seat time, but they always felt incredibly razor sharp to be able to operate on a short throw input reliably without eating a face full of Catalan Tarmac Pie.

Brakes are a weird thing because IRL, they're pressure-operated, whereas in most cases in sims, they're movement-operated. The latter can be very annoying as it takes you a way bigger movement to get out of the danger zone rather than simply easing off the pressure. The best thing to emulate proper braking input would be a load cell. But, since we're only talking about Gamepads here, I found that tweaking the Linearity all the way down to 30-40% does a good enough job of emulating pressure actuation. The initial range is fairly light, which does wonders seeing as that's usually the range you're in when you're snatching the trigger coming into the braking zone, with a steep ramp-up towards the latter end of the range. That means that if you do overcook the brakes, a slight lift will settle the bike again. I do it on Pedals as well with driving sims, it's a night and day difference for me.

I'm sure there are many, many, way more advanced users on here who can suggest viable input schemes, but I thought I'd share some mutterings in case someone found it useful.

EDIT:

P.S. Super-important note which I cannot overemphasize. Bike Riders will snicker as this is Riding 101, but a lot of people tend to forget about it in a gaming context. Always look at where you want to place the bike. Always look ahead and picture your line. If you target fixate, you're gonna have a bad time. If you lose focus during an upset, you're gonna have a bad time. Whatever you do, always look for the next point you want to be at. Even if you think you're doing it already, do it more. It's essential seeing as most of your steering is going to be with the throttle. And the better premeditated the line, the smoother the throttle input, the faster you exit, the less you fall.

Ooh, coolio. Thanks for a lot for the info!

Long-time lurker and player of GP-Bikes, just never had the opportunity to mess with a lot of online stuff sadly. I've been dying to do some seeing as I finally found a control scheme I love and I'm slowly getting better. Hope to meet some of you peeps online (once I manage to get all the bikes without exceeding the Mega quota...)

Just installed beta5b and got rid of all previous documents folders etc. I'm noticing some incredibly weird physics bugs.

First one I noticed was that under circumstances where you'd fall instantly (high speed, high angle of lean, clipping a curb) the front wheel appears to steer into the corner, slide, smoke and then keep going.

Another thing i noticed while on the 125 was that when i entered the S/F straight at PI, going over the crest, the front wheel lightened up (i remained on the throttle) and as soon as it was loaded again, the bike went into a violent oscillation/tank slapper which I can only compare to Paul Orritt's Isle of Man crash. Letting off the throttle resulted in a similarly violent crash.

Lastly what i noticed was a tendency the bikes had after falling, to "hook" into something on the tarmac and flip 2m into the air. So, functionality is fine, but I'm noticing numerous physics bugs.

Thanks for the info, much appreciated.

Hello Guys,

Not sure if this should be under support or bug reports. I just recently installed Beta 4b and noticed that the shift light on all bikes stopped working. I don't know if it's a known issue, although I did search through the forums and guides for any particular .ini setting to no avail. At first i forgot my old profile folder in and afterwards decided to delete it and go for a fresh install, but still no shift light. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Thanks