nInitialDriveGears
Gears
nInitialDriveGears is the number of forward gears. The game does not read ratios from the file; it picks a fixed ratio table for that count when the vehicle spawns, so this field decides how the speed range is split.
- Unit
- count
- 1 to 10, FiveM native clamps at 7
- Vanilla median
- 5
- Paragon R Armored has 8
- Top gear ratio
- 0.9
- always, whatever the count
- Applies
- respawn
- ratios are built at spawn
Try it on a real car
Add a gear and a bar appears; the others move to the next table row. The redline of the last gear never changes, only how the range below it is split.
Number of forward gears. The ratios come from a fixed table per count, so this decides how the speed range is split.
Open this in the editorGear ladder
- 155
- 294
- 3131
- 4167
- 5192
- 6203
Redline in top gear 203 km/h. Drag stops the Elegy RH8 22 km/h before that. Measured fully upgraded: 191 km/h.
The ratio table
There is no ratio field in handling.meta. Each gear count maps to a fixed set of ratios, read out of the game and confirmed by the drivetrain lists on gta.wiki. Reverse is −3.33 in every row.
| Gears | Ratios, first to last |
|---|---|
| 1 | 0.90 |
| 2 | 3.33 · 0.90 |
| 3 | 3.33 · 1.57 · 0.90 |
| 4 | 3.33 · 1.83 · 1.22 · 0.90 |
| 5 | 3.33 · 1.92 · 1.36 · 1.05 · 0.90 |
| 6 | 3.33 · 1.95 · 1.39 · 1.09 · 0.95 · 0.90 |
| 7 | 3.33 · 1.93 · 1.37 · 1.07 · 0.92 · 0.87 · 0.90 |
| 8 | 3.33 · 1.90 · 1.32 · 1.01 · 0.85 · 0.79 · 0.80 · 0.90 |
| 9 | 3.33 · 1.85 · 1.25 · 0.93 · 0.77 · 0.69 · 0.69 · 0.75 · 0.90 |
| 10 | 3.33 · 1.79 · 1.18 · 0.85 · 0.68 · 0.59 · 0.57 · 0.60 · 0.70 · 0.90 |
Two things follow. First gear is always 3.33 and top gear is always 0.9, so the launch and the redline do not care about the count. And from 7 gears up the second-last gear is longer than the last one, which is why cars with 8 or more shift into a shorter gear at the end and feel odd.
Gear speed is fInitialDriveMaxFlatVel × 1.2 divided by the ratio. A six-speed with 150 in the file redlines first gear at 54 km/h and sixth at 200.
Upgrades and the CVT bit
The transmission upgrade in Los Santos Customs adds one gear, so a five-speed becomes the six-speed row above. That is the whole effect, and it is why the upgrade helps some cars a lot and others not at all.
Electric and a few other vehicles set HF_CVT in strHandlingFlags instead. They run a single ratio of 0.9 with no shifts and, in our measurements, hit exactly 1.2 × the flat velocity value.
Values in the game
Five and six cover most of the game. Single-gear entries are CVT and electric cars. The 8-speed group is 23 newer cars such as the Itali RSX, Paragon R and Deity.
Computed from the 608 vanilla cars that have a public measurement, one entry per handling name. Motorcycles (49) are kept out of the chart; they run 1 to 6.
Bars cover the 1st to 99th percentile. Extremes: 1 (Dilettante) to 8 (Paragon R (Armored)).
- Industrial · 111 4 6
- Utility · 211 4 5
- Military · 121 4.5 5
- Service · 104 4.5 5
- Compacts · 141 5 6
- Off-Road · 571 5 6
- SUVs · 451 5 8
- Sedans · 441 5 8
- Muscle · 813 5 8
- Emergency · 313 5 8
- Sports Classics · 493 5 6
- Commercial · 154 5 6
- Coupes · 194 5 6
- Vans · 224 5 5
- Sports · 1171 6 8
- Super · 601 6 7
Five cars from the bottom to the top
- Lowest1countDilettanteCompacts
- 25th percentile4countTornado Rat RodSports Classics
- Median5countContenderSUVs
- 75th percentile6countStreet BlazerOff-Road
- Highest8countParagon R (Armored)Sports
Applying it
The count and the ratios are baked in when the car spawns. Change the file, restart the resource and spawn the car fresh. The FiveM handling native clamps the count at 7, so 8 to 10 gears only work through the file.
-- shape the gears of the spawned car directly SetVehicleHighGear(veh, 7) SetVehicleGearRatio(veh, 7, 0.9)
Related fields
- fInitialDriveMaxFlatVel
Sets the gearing. Redline in top gear is 1.33 times this value; real top speed lands lower because drag wins first.
Read the page - fClutchChangeRateScaleUpShift
Upshift speed. The shift takes 0.9 seconds divided by this value, with no drive during the shift.
In the index - strHandlingFlags
Behaviour switches: CVT gearbox, off-road bonus, armour, rear-wheel steering. Half of all vanilla cars leave it at 0.
Read the page - fInitialDriveForce
How hard the engine pushes per kilogram. Roughly 10 m/s² of acceleration per 1.0 in first gear, before drag and grip limits.
Read the page
Numbers on this page come from the vanilla handling files of GTA V (one entry per handling name, 55 fields catalogued) and from a speed model checked against 617 measured top speeds. Published 2026-09-08. Not affiliated with Rockstar Games or Cfx.re.