Car won't go into gear

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Andrew Nagy, Mar 2, 2021.

  1. Andrew Nagy

    Andrew Nagy Registered

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    Well, after several weeks of flawless performance, I've suddenly got a problem. As it says in the subject line, I can't get my car to go into gear. It worked perfectly last night, but now, after selecting Race, waiting for the track to load, and then selecting Drive, I can rev the engine normally, but there is no response when I pull back on my paddle shifter to attempt to put the car into gear. Reverse doesn't work either. I've tried it with the Auto clutch both On and Off, and it doesn't make a difference. I closed out of the game and reopened without any success, so I rebooted my computer, and still nothing. All of my settings and assignments are at their normal values, and I haven't done anything to any of them since the last time I ran RF2. Any ideas? Thanks.
     
  2. Lazza

    Lazza Registered

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    @Andrew Nagy I would first assign shift up and shift down again, just to make sure they're correct and the game is detecting them.

    Then check the difficulty menu, or the aids HUD page in the car, to see if any assists might be interfering.
     
  3. davehenrie

    davehenrie Registered

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    First, make sure you power up your wheel BEFORE loading steam.

    Also before loading steam, go to the windows control panel for your wheel/pedals and verify windows is properly seeing your wheel and shifters moving.

    Under the Assign screen inside rF2, reload your saved controller profile(the one we told you to give a new name) and then calibrate the pedals and wheel in the calibrate screen.
     
  4. Andrew Nagy

    Andrew Nagy Registered

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    Thanks. but to be perfectly honest, I never really understood how the Assign and Save features work - the only thing I ever assigned were start and ignition (neither of which I ever use - the engine turns on automatically soon after I select Drive), and the pit speed limiter override, which I assigned to one of the buttons, and of course I use that every time I pull out of the pits. But I've never assigned either the shift up or shift down, largely, again, because I don't understand what this does - the car has always shifted correctly with the paddles, without my ever having assigned anything. Currently, Shift up is set to JOY1 B5, and Shift down is set to JOY1 B6 (no idea what that means - I assume JOY means joystick, which doesn't apply to my setup), and again, I have never touched these items.

    I checked the Difficulty menu, and confirmed that I don't have any of the driving aids turned on (I never have).

    Dave, I'm not sure I understand what you mean by making sure I power up the wheel before loading Steam. My wheel is always powered on - I've never turned it off (should I be turning it off between sessions?).
     
    Last edited: Mar 2, 2021
  5. davehenrie

    davehenrie Registered

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    In the old days, I always left the wheel on. But as they have become more complex and rely on powerful motors, I generally try to keep the wheel un-powered, except when I want to use it. This means I have forgotten several times to start up the wheel before using rF2 and I end up having to exit and re-start everything so that rF2 can recognize the wheel. I do leave the wheel powered until the interior fan has stopped. Don't want to heat soak the internals.

    Windows, and therefore rF2 does not see that you have a wheel or pedals. You have generic joysticks that use drivers(small computer programs that allow windows to communicate with your hardware) These drivers teach windows how the wheel operates Almost everything connected to your computer has drivers, the mouse, the keyboard, the monitor, the Video Card, the CPU, the monitor, they all talk to windows via drivers.. So when you see JOY1 X+, that means the 1st axis of the first controller, in other words, your wheel or pedals. When you assign shifting to the paddles, you click on the word UPSHIFT and then pull on the paddle you want to use.(I use right to upshift, left to downshift) The program will then tell you if the paddle is used by another item and to press enter to confirm. Do that, press enter. Then click on the word downshift and pull the left paddle, press enter to confirm your choice. You also need to assign neutral, I use the keyboard letter n, click on the menu word Neutral, press the letter n on your keyboard and then press ENTER to confirm. If you are shifting with the paddles and have another key assigned for Neutral, then you can shift up and down the range from 1st to 6th. But this method does not allow you to keep downshifting to neutral or reverse, which is a safety feature to prevent you from banging down the gearbox and throwing the car into reverse while at speed.
    By assigning n to Neutral, and using the paddles to upshift and downshift, you can access Neutral by pulling BOTH PADDLES at the same time. It will become very natural once you 've spun off once or twice and immediately pull both paddles before you stall. Once in the gear Neutral, you can pull the downshift lever again and engage reverse. And of course, save your profile since you have added new commands.

    Remember to also assign the clutch pedal and hold it down whenever you are not in motion. Your problem could be the car is stalling and the computer keeps trying to restart the engine but you are not using the clutch to disengage the drivetrain. You can also test this by pulling both paddles and ensuring the car is in neutral. Once there and the motor is running, push in the clutch & hold it down. , pull on the right paddle , press on the throttle and slowly release the clutch pedal. Give it lots of throttle as you begin moving. Once underway, you can ignore the clutch completely or until you stop in the pits, or start to spin off track.

    Also remember many of us here are old users who have forgotten more than we remember about rF2. For instance the starter and ignition buttons we tasked you with. Older versions of rF2 ALWAYS required you to turn on the ignition and then use the starter to fire up the car's engine. But somewhere along the way, they made a change that defaults to the engine starting for you. If we had paid attention to that change, we probably would not have insisted you assign those commands.

    PS. When I say Pull on the Paddle, I mean pull quickly with your fingers til you hear it click, then let go and let it naturally resume it's resting position. (don't HOLD the paddle up against the wheel)
     
    Last edited: Mar 2, 2021
  6. Lazza

    Lazza Registered

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    Yep, JOY1 just means the first input device, could be a joystick or wheel or whatever.

    Hardly anyone means to turn them on, but sometimes it happens. So worth checking if things are acting strangely.


    I would suspect your wheel just decided not to play nicely with windows or rF2, and it's possible a reboot might fix it. Or it could get more complex...
     
  7. Comante

    Comante Registered

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    Joy# b# simply mean: : peripheral number n. Button number f. The game recognizes external stuff plugged to the pc as joystick (yes a little bit old fashioned) it create a list of those peripherals and then when you configure your device it record who is who and which command is activated by each button or axis. It may happen that the list of peripherals change after an update,( windows or rf2 dunno) in this case he fail to find again your paddles because he look at the wrong joystick.
     
  8. Andrew Nagy

    Andrew Nagy Registered

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    Thanks for the detailed explanation. I de-powered my wheel and turned it back on, and it seems to be working now - I can put it into gear again. Will have to remember this in the future. As a general rule, then, is it good practice to de-power the wheel between sessions? I have a Fanatec DD1 direct drive wheel. Thanks.
     
    Last edited: Mar 2, 2021
  9. davehenrie

    davehenrie Registered

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    yes, but before going back to Steam or rF2, let your wheel power up and swing back and forth to self calibrate. Then click on the search box located in the lower left hand corner of windows. Type Fanatec(I think I remember that was your gear) and the Fanatec control panel app should be listed. Click on that. Then click the ADVANCED button & verify the wheel base is the preferred device & click ok. Now click on the properties button. You should see a depiction of your wheel on the first screen. Pull the left and right paddles separately to see if there is a small blue circle highlighting your action on each paddle. You can try pressing other buttons to also verify the buttons are all working correctly. That should also show you how far you have to pull the paddle to activate it. Move the wheel back and forth, the sliding bar graph should move in the same directions you move the wheel. Try the various tests just to fully see if Windows and your wheel/pedals are communicating properly. Click OK, to exit that and OK to exit the first box that appeared when you started the Fanatec app.
    Now launch rF2 and look at the ASSIGN screen. Verify your saved controller profile is highlighted on the left & try to assign the paddles again. If nothing seems to happen after pulling on the paddle, press the ESC key instead of enter. That should clear the incorrect ENTER choice.
     
  10. Andrew Nagy

    Andrew Nagy Registered

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    Thanks - I definitely haven't been doing any of that - all I've been doing is exiting RF2, and leaving everything powered on. I went through the procedure you describe the first time I used my wheel, but I haven't done it since. Even on the very technical track I've been driving on (Atlanta Motorsports Park), the wheel base doesn't even get warm to the touch,even after a very long session.

    As far as the whole Assign thing, you make a good point that the game has evolved over time, and items that previously had to be assigned come on automatically today. Examples of this are starting the engine, and the operation of the paddles, which have always worked for me despite not assigning Shift up or Shift Down to any keys or buttons. So I'm wondering, especially for my case, where I'm using my sim strictly to learn and master one specific track in preparation for competing in a real-life race series there (I've hired a coach to accelerate my rate of progress), what the purpose of all these assignments actually is. As I said above, the only thing I've assigned is the rev limiter disable feature, and everything seems to be working fine - I don't seem to be missing anything I need. Thanks.
     
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  11. Comante

    Comante Registered

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    What about brake bias?
     
  12. Lazza

    Lazza Registered

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    As a fairly off topic correction, the engine has always started by itself. The player.json option to not do so was added some years ago.

    @Andrew Nagy There's generally no reason to check your wheel functionality in windows, or to check the in-game assignments. They're just good things to check if something isn't working right.

    But with computers in general, if it's playing up, try rebooting (or with a wheel, turn it off and on again). And as above, there's usually no reason to turn a wheel off between sessions, being left on won't do any harm.
     
  13. Andrew Nagy

    Andrew Nagy Registered

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    Thanks, @Lazza. I occasionally have small glitches, like sometimes RF2 doesn't allow me to close it - I have to go into Task Manager and select End Task. Usually a computer reboot takes care of that. And I had a weird thing happen awhile back where it was allowing me to put the car into gear, only to drop immediately back to neutral. Toggling the Auto Clutch and Auto Shift assignment between On and Off somehow cleared that up.

    But I'm still confused by the value of assigning keys or buttons to the various items listed in the Assign menu. Maybe many of those items are useful for advanced sim racers and don't apply to someone like me who's only currently using their sim for training.

    It would be really nice if there was a user's manual for RF2 which went through each item in every menu and explained what it does, who might find it useful (and who could just as well skip it), how to set up the view in the cockpit (figured a lot that that on my own through trial and error), how to set up a configuration and how to save it, the pro's and cons of the different options for the various selections (according to the experience level of the user), how to replay sessions, how to share session data, including telemetry data, with other users, how to overlay a more advanced driver's laps with you own, etc. I know this information is all available in one form of another, but it would be really convenient, particularly for new users, if it were organized all in one document. I know what you're all thinking: "If he thinks this is such a great idea, why doesn't he just go ahead an do it?". Maybe in a couple years when I've had a chance to explore more of RF2's features...
     
  14. David O'Reilly

    David O'Reilly Registered

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