Extremely Dangerous Unexpected Behavior in rF2

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by prceurope, Jun 2, 2021.

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  1. prceurope

    prceurope Registered

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    Dear developers, I love this game/sim. I recently bought a HP Reverb G2 and I have to say this makes rF2 the most addictive and immersive gaming experience I have had so far in 30 years of gaming.

    There is a very dangerous bug/UX oversight:

    When doing a Fast Rolling Start or restarting a race from the UI, immediately my DD wheel violently snaps into a position determined by the game. There is no warning and the movement is as violent as hitting a sausage kerb at high speed at full steering lock.

    I have a Simucube 2 Pro with 26Nm of torque. Yesterday was the first time I restarted a race and the first time I did a Fast Rolling start instead of the full manual formation lap. The wheel snapping nearly resulted in the dislocation of my thumb. In VR, this is even more dangerous as there is no prior warning, and no prior understanding that the in-game wheel is not matched up with the physical wheel.

    This snapping can also cause an overload of the wheel, resulting in it producing a fault and requiring a reset.

    It's an extremely dangerous UX oversight on your part and you must fix this asap before this happens to a lawyer with a lot of free time.
    1. Add a warning
    2. Require the player to move their wheel back into a neutral position before rF2 triggers the FFB.
    3. During initial setup, give players more options to tone down the harsh FFB of sausage kerbs, collisions and other movements that cause max torque spikes.
    Thank you!
     
  2. Ef123

    Ef123 Registered

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    That's entirely your responsibility tbh. Keep your hands safe at all times. You never know if anything glitches, tyre pops out, AI or a player hits you unexpectedly etc. You literally have an industrial electric motor which can and will move in any direction with any amount of force it's capable of.

    Lower your max torque too. Rarely anyone in real life drives a wheel that produces 26nm force.
     
  3. EricW

    EricW Registered

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    He is right though.
    Even at low settings this spike is very harsh.
    I know it does and know to grap tight when I restart by now.
    It has cost me a USB cord once, which can't happen anymore after this lesson.
    It's mainly the transition from AI to user control.
    When you do not line up perfectly it goes wild.
     
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  4. prceurope

    prceurope Registered

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    The need to fix this bug does not exclude a responsibility to keep hands safe. It's a dangerous bug because it happens when you are least expecting it. A glitch is one thing; a dangerous game design flaw is something different. This is a simple fix and it's lazy to leave it as it is.

    Thank you.

    What do you base this on? Are you referring to static forces in cornering or are you referring to the 35+ Nm that DTM cars produce when the steering rack slams into a barrier?

     
  5. atomed

    atomed Member

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    This issue used to happen to me, though doesn´t anymore, nefer found out the motive. I don´t know if it was on my side or sim´s but a dangerous one indeed.
     
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  6. Adrianstealth

    Adrianstealth Registered

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    I’ve noticed this
    Should really be a soft positional start for the ffb system

    I use a bodnar 22nm it can be very powerful
     
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  7. RaceNut

    RaceNut Registered

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    FFB anomalies may occur with any title / DD-wheel, for any number of reasons, sometimes as a result of the game crashing or other factors affecting the USB data stream. Such cases may be more common when combined with VR use and may depend on PC Mobo design as well, perhaps related to USB system architecture.

    I have experienced such behavior throughout my experience with DD-wheels + VR + beta game versions many, many times. There are no guarantees that such behavior will not occur in any case, it's an inherent possibility with any steering system but, potentially more serious with DD-wheels, especially when running them at high output levels.

    PC System lock-up due to audio or graphics related issues can also trigger wheel jolts or full-turn behavior at any time.

    Something I have done to mitigate such issues is to run my VR-related USB connections on a quality dedicated USB PCie add-on card. Doing so can insure that the DD-wheel and VR HMD are not competing for throughput within the same USB space.

    Cabled wheel button boxes may be more prone to USB interruptions at the connectors or from broken wires within the cable itself. In some cases, I've had abrupt wheel behavior resulting from USB signal loss events.

    Follow the wheel manufacture safety guidelines and run the steering system output at levels that you can control if / when such events occur.

    One common mistake DD novices make is not using enough damping to reduce the wheel rotational speed. Really fast rotational speed plus high output is exponentially more dangerous for the user.
     
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  8. prceurope

    prceurope Registered

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    All true but this is not a FFB anomaly. This is either a bug or poor UX design. Other people have experienced it, so by definition, not an anomaly.
     
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  9. lagg

    lagg Registered

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    If you change from AI to drive in a moment of big forces and your wheel isn't in the correct position, rF2 will put it in the correct degrees with the force of that moment.
    Thi is not a bug. This is how this works.
    Is it user friendly? No.
    I've a DD too and always simulate that i'm driving during the 5? seconds of the countdown to avoid this.
     
  10. prceurope

    prceurope Registered

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    If it's not a bug, it's dangerous and unexpected behaviour and needs to be changed.

    Not telling a user that, if the wheel is not in the exact matching position by the time the AI handover occurs (which is not communicated to the user either), then the game is going to correct that gap in 1ms applying the maximum force available in the wheelbase, is a horrendously bad choice when the developers know what DD wheels are capable of.
     
  11. EricW

    EricW Registered

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    Well, not sure if it's possible, but a slow ramp up in force right after the transition from AI to User control would be welcomed.

    Another thing I still experience with my Simucube 1 is occasional loss of FFB during the spawn from UI to track, be it on the grid or the garage.
    Can be solved by using the reset FFB function.
    But that takes a valuable button on my wheel.
    Isn't it possible to send a reset FFB after each spawn event?
     
  12. EricW

    EricW Registered

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    That's a very long and detailed post.
    And some useful information too.
    But calling the use of low damping settings a novice mistake...
    You set the amount to have the driving feel you prefer, it's not a safety feature and wasn't designed as a safety feature either.
    A 20 Nm servo driven system, hand controlled, without mechanical end stops would not pass any industrial safety norm imho.
    It's a use at own risk thing, just like running your streetcar on nords tourist...

    This topic is about a game related issue.
     
  13. RaceNut

    RaceNut Registered

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    I was once a novice DD user and I made that mistake as well so, no offence intended, just something we learn along the way.
    Intended or not, controlling wheel speed with friction and damping can certainly enhance safety. I've been injured by abrupt jolts several times over the years, so I speak from personal experience. Damping also lends itself to greater realism in FFB, something most users agree is a good thing.
     
  14. prceurope

    prceurope Registered

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    Are you 100% certain that setting a Damper setting to a given ("realistic") value will block the wheel-snap-on-AI-to-Player handover?
     
  15. EricW

    EricW Registered

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    I'm not offended at all btw,
    Just wanted to point out that proper device safety features on DD systems would destroy the experience.
    And the only way to have some control over the operation is by proper software that drives it.
    I suffered a thorn shoulder muscle by my DD... something even never happened to me in real life racing.
    So I know what you mean.
    But this is imo really something the devs should look at.
    Even when you know it, it can surprise you at times.
    (What happens is the wheel reports its encoder value to the game, the game expects a different value.
    The difference gets solved by the wheel rotational acceleration as fast as possible in Ms and with the maximum force as setup in the servodriver settings, you'd need a high inertia setting to overcome it)
     
    Last edited: Jun 2, 2021
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  16. Wanderpoole

    Wanderpoole Registered

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    I read nothing wrong here in any of these posts.
    But there are 2 things you must remember about Sim Racing.
    1. Your safety, both here and anywhere in life, is ultimately your responsibility.
    2. Sim Racing equipment is not a toy.
     
  17. prceurope

    prceurope Registered

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    Of course. However, neither point 1 nor point 2 relieve the developers of the responsibility to code their game in a way that does not send a DD wheel from Position 359 to Position 0 in 1ms without warning the paying customer that this is about to happen.

    Can we at least agree on that?

    What has happened to people's abilities to think critically on this planet? There is zero warning that the wheel is just about to unload maximum torque onto your hand because you clicked an interface button with your mouse. This isn't a glitch, which I would accept. It's a design choice. It's lazy. It needs to get fixed.
     
  18. prceurope

    prceurope Registered

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    100% correct. They could simply pop a modal after you click "Restart Race" saying that you need to turn the wheel back to neutral and to mimic the AI's wheel movements when it's on autopilot, with a countdown to the handover. And, if you have the graphical wheel turned OFF by choice, you should see a wheel indicator on the screen (like iRacing has) showing you what position the wheel is in.

    I am fully aware that they support tons of wheels and peripherals, etc, etc. This is not a complex fix.
     
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  19. bluet

    bluet Registered

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    Same problem here also with my DDwheel
    what i do now before i use restart i press my emergency stop for DD wheel then press restart on the grid i center wheel and release the emergency stop for the DD wheel .never had the problem again
     
  20. RaceNut

    RaceNut Registered

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    Your points are certainly valid and I don't mean to remove responsibility from game dev's either. If everyone does their best to cover such issues on their end, we'll all be better for it.
     
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