CarX Drift Racing Online: Which transmission is best? Auto v Manual

CarX Drift Racing Online is a game that we can't get enough of since it jumped to console. What started out as a humble mobile game has evolved into one of the most popular drifting games of them all. Both casual and hardcore gamers alike love this title and it's easy to see why.

CarX can be whatever you want it to be when it comes to the challenge you're looking for. So, with that in mind, which transmission is the best to go for? Both manual and automatic have their pros and cons, so which to we believe is the fastest?

Choosing your settings

When you boot up CarX Drift Racing Online for the first time, one of the difficulty settings the game will ask you to set is your transmission. Automatic and manual are your two options, so, without going into too much detail, what's the difference?

CarX Drift Racing Online 20210623082605
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If we're talking purely about the skill required, then automatic gearbox is without a doubt easier. The automatic gearbox does exactly what it says on the tin in that the gears change up and down automatically depending on your speed. Manual requires the player to change up and down by pressing a button.

Changing your racing settings couldn't be more straightforward in CarX. From the home screen, navigate over to the "Controls" tab using R1/RT. Then go to "Advanced Settings" using the same button and the first option at the top will be for "Gearbox Type"

You can also change settings such as whether to have an automatic or manual clutch and the dead zone of your steering wheel. For the moment though, we're only interested in the transmission type.

Auto or Manual?

In conventional racing, manual gearbox settings is the fastest way to go in general. This is because the player can account for things like camber and gradient, which allows them to select a better gear than a computer can. The main downside is that the player can choose the wrong gear and cost them a lot of time and performance.

Drifting though, is a different kettle of fish, so is the automatic gearbox not as much of a disadvantage?

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SIDEWAYS ACTION: Which gearbox is best for going through corners the fun way?

Well, if you carry out a drag race between two identical cars, the automatic is surprisingly faster. This is the case for most types of car in the game as well, but not all. This isn't what you'd expect, as a manual car can stay in a lower gear for slightly longer, thus having more power to play with for longer.

Speed isn't everything in CarX though, far from it. So, how do automatic and manual cars compare around a drift course?

The easiest to control and drift is the automatic option. However, it's not all about ease, and if you're skilful enough, you can make a manual gearbox work very well.

Changing gears can unsettle the car and if you have an automatic gearbox, you don't have control over changing down a gear mid-corner. That isn't an issue with a manual gearbox, as you can stay in a gear as long as you want. What's also not a problem with manual is the ability to downshift mid-corner to keep the revs high and wheelspin up.

So, while automatic is easier and perhaps more consistent, manual transmission is the way to go if you want the best drifts in CarX.

Trailer

If you're still unsure whether you want to give CarX Drift Online Racing a go, we've linked the most recent trailer following the game's console release below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-zngioX36M&ab_channel=GryOnLineTrailery

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