Part 1 - How they're faster: This is actually a rather simple answer. In all the other shifting modes, the game simulates changing a gear by forcing the throttle off for like a whole second while engaging the clutch. In H-Shifter mode we operate our clutch ourselves and can have it done faster. Here's a comparison!
Part 2 - Setting an H-Shifter up without an H-Shifter So this feature is made for actual shifters... like ones you plug into your steering wheel. So they're blocked by the game unless any gamepad/wheel is connected. So this will work with wheel or gamepad setup but not pure keyboard setups as the binds are not enabled by the game. But yes then you assign the buttons "Postion reverse" to "Position 6" and the Selection 1 and 2 buttons.
For other settings, I have the shifter on "Splitter" and the shifter mode on "Simple". You can use a different shifter but i strongly advise Simple shifter mode for staging gears
Part 3 - How your new shifter works In splitter mode position 1 stands for gears 1 and 2 and then you switch between those with the Selection 1 button. You have to operate the clutch now to change gears. Other shifters split the 12 gears over the 6 positions differently but i found splitter to be the simplest.
Part 4 - How to stage a shift (eg. how to shift fast) Okay so why did i insist on "Simple" shifter mode? it allows some funky behavior that will allow us to shift very fast. Let's make an example that we're in 10th gear and want to shift to 11th.
- Press the Selection 1 Button (into 10th we went with the even gears so we have to switch to the odd gears)(this won't change our gears yet)
- Hold the desired gear button, in our case now it is the Gear position 6 button.
- Press down the clutch axis fully, this will engage the new gear
- Retract the clutch axis. You're now driving in the new gear.
2b. If you're changing on the same gear position (like from 11th to 12th) just be sure to perform step 1 and then just hold the same gear position in step 2 (in this case Position 6)
Part 5 - Closing thoughts Is worth the bother? Yeah, like i spent like a few hours getting the grip down, and while it takes a bit of getting used to, once you remember you have to stage your gears and how the new shifting works, it can become second nature quite quickly
Is it possible to choke your engine by being in the wrong gear now? Yes.
This could be a new inventive way to "complete" the game. I have tried some levels and for instance, in level B13 you can jump left and land right before the finish line.
Now that we know how to install Goime500 to our computers, would it be hard to create a Livesplitter for the game? I have close to none experience with these types of things but would it be hard?