Guide: Optimal FFB settings for rFactor 2 - The key to being in the "Zone" :D

Hey Guys, just a lil observation from my side.

Many suggest to put Damper and Spring to zero in the Logitech driver. Here is why I believe that's wrong:

You will find those parameters in your controller.json:

These settings don't work with the values in the driver at zero "0" What it does is giving weight (and counterweight) to the G25/27. Which is important when there is only little feedback from the road itself. It overall makes the wheel feel heavier, to me, more realistic to some point.

I have tested it in rf1 and rf2 with different values.

So why shouldn't it be used to feel a bit more like a "belt driven" wheel for example. Response time maybe?

 

What values did you settle on in rf2 and how do you know that those json settings don't work with the logitech settings at 0? Just interested.

Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk

 

I tried it out.

And I use what ISI gives us in the G25 .json, because I think it should be used that way. But it only works when you have set the Logitech driver to 100% for damper & spring...

 

Very interesting discovery/observations Flaux.

I was not aware that setting/enabling damper and spring in the g25 would then allow the use of damper and spring functions coded within rf2. I thought they were driven/derived purely from the wheel driver/profiler as an extra layer of ffb effect, making them what i called "artificial".

It could still be that the spring and damper effects are technical "artificial" in that they are not a natural product of the dynamic ffb-physics simulation but rather a post effect applied to the ffb output.

However, even if that is true (that it's artificial in nature still), my understanding of ffb hardware has changed and i would now say that these effects may indeed be beneficial and even desirable. I've not had the chance to confirm your observations for myself and won't be able to but i think i can see where your coming from.

Thereby simulating more accurately the steering system inertia (and natural damping) and behavior of the real car on your g25.

Can you tell me though please if you can notice it affecting how the ffb feels when there is dynamically changing ffb output occurring from your g25 please.

I'm curious if these functions only take affect when no ffb is present (e.g. when you said "when there is only little feedback from the road itself") or if they are always present in the background and if so whether they are too subtle to be felt when stronger ffb outputs are occurring or not.

Thx.

 

A bit off topic, I know, but I followed these instructions, and now when I enter T1 at monza, say my wheel is turned 90 degrees to the right, when I try to turn it back to the left for T2, the resistance is so high to the right as soon as I start turning back left - in other words, not after centre, but immediately after I start turning left from 90 degrees right - it's so hard to turn back that it feels unnatural.

And I have no idea which of these settings changed that, if any, or if I can use any settings to counter it. I don't want to start over as most settings feel perfect now, but this is slightly off-putting.

My current wheel is a Fanatec Forza CSR.

 

Ho3n3r, do you mean Flaux's instructions?

 

No the whole thing. and a few other settings, can't remember which, it's been like this since I got this wheel(4 months) after I fiddled.

I just thought maybe you'd know how to rectify this. You clearly know a lot more about it than me.

 

Ok, so just to confirm, you haven't tried Flaux's instructions and the problem you described has been present for the last 4 months?

In any case, from your description of the problem i can't think what it might be.

It may sound like a pain in the ass but i would backup the json files that you've changed and start again. It's not that hard to do and it's the only way i can think of to try and figure out what is the cause unless someone else here might know. Starting from scratch and applying each change one at a time and checking to see whether the problems comes back or not is what i would do to try and recreate the problem and pin down the cause.

Sorry it's not the answer you were hoping for.

Perhaps the problem is what Flaux is talking about. Perhaps you turned the spring and damper off completely as i recommend in the guide and that is the issue. Maybe try with them back to 100% in the fanatec profiler.

 

To me it changes the steering and countersteering behavior. Set it to a large positiv Number (1.0 on both parameters) and you get a very unresponsive feeling. (More weight, like without abs or something like that. Like a friend of mine has in his Nordschleife Civic in real-life. Very numb, but also very good to position the car because it is very consistent and calm...)

Set it to a negative Number on the other hand (-1.0 coef. and 1.0 sat.) and it gets ultra-responsive. You can feel the tiniest oversteer because the wheel would immediately countersteer it.

ISI's numbers are only a fraction of these extreme Examples. 0.1 and 0.1. So the difference (at least for those values) isn't to big.

I'm not entirely sure about other FFB effects. Might be that there are more effects that use the damper and spring effects from the Logitech profiler...

 

And do you find the default 0.1 settings from ISI the best?

Also, i'll add your info to the guide. Thanks.

 

Well, it is the original setting. I go for it. The fact that people since rf1 turned those effects of is more of a shock to me.

Maybe there is a reason but i can't figure it out yet. As it adds an important factor to the sim I'd say.

Maybe Techade can help us.

 

Interesting findings Flaux, I'm following this with intrigue as I want my G25 to be performing to the best of its (lacking) capabilities, so when you're done finding out please share your settings
Currently I just go with the first post and it feels just fine, but if there is more to be had then that's good.

 

+1

 

timely thread...i recently upgraded my g27 to a thrustmaster TX & took the formula 2 car to bathurst. its been pretty much undriveable bc the feedback is terribly light, i would get no feel until the wheel was at a 90 degree angle. with the TX it somehow feels fine. this has to be damping, but for some reason it didnt take with my g27. maybe theres been a change to the car or the core recently.

anyway, point is i agree use 100/100/100 & if you feel nothing in the formula 2 with your g25 i think its clear something is wrong somewhere, either with the profiler or rf2.

 

Are you saying it feels fine now with your TX without having made changes to any settings you used with your g27 previously (e.g. damping and spring in profiler)?

If so, are you therefore saying the TX has more friction/resistance built into the wheel than the g27?

It was my experience that the t500 had a heck of a lot more friction/resistance built into it than my previous wheel the CSR-Elite which felt like it had absolutely non. I remember observing that moving to the t500 i could finally drive on grass without it being a total spin-fest with any amount of throttle. I now also remember scenarios where when the ffb became very light...keeping the car stable with the t500 was many folds easier. At the time i thought it was because the t500's ffb output felt so much stronger in torque output but now realise that during the same times/driving scenarios where there was little to no ffb on either wheel....it was probably due to the t500's default friction/resistance that was why it was immeasurably easier to keep the car under control vs with my CSR-Elite wheel that was absolutely loose.

There are/were however negatives with this baseline friction/resistance in that any small changes in ffb became somewhat difficult to notice (i.e. low end force details degraded/lost). But the general benefit from the background friction/resistance somehow made keeping the car stable where there was little to no ffb output present infinitely easier to do than without any friction/resistance in the ffb wheel at all.

Very, very interesting that this seems to explain/fit my observation here from way back.

 

yep, exactly that, although i thought it was some kind of error with logitech or rfactor2 rather than a thrustmaster feature. ive always left damper & spring at 100% so games can take advantage of them unless theres an explicit reason not to. but perhaps its not rf2 thats making use of the damping, but rather what the thrustmaster profiler exerts on the wheel when its not getting much in the way of force.

actually the first thing i noticed after the belt was that the TX didnt feel noticeably stronger to me, even made a post saying as much on this forum bc i was wondering if i should up the strength in the profiler. of course i noticed not long after that its not tha typical forces that are much stronger, rather its the potential amount of torque that is increased substantially giving a much broader spectrum. still very weak compared to the real thing but a major difference from the g27.

 

So I did further testing with the friction/resistence values and although you can get good solutions for a specific car, it messes up other cars.

Still need to do further tests as I always need to check not only the change of values in the .json but also the behavior w/out spring and damper at 100% in the profiler

 

Read something interesting from TechAde today:
http://isiforums.net/f/showthread.php/7546-rF2-Pedal-Overlay-Plugin?p=370865&viewfull=1#post370865
When the bar goes red it's software clipping i.e. the sim has calculated a FFB output of 1.0 which is the maximum it can output. The plugin cannot tell if there is any hardware clipping happening at the wheel end of the chain as it only has visibility of what rF2 is outputting to the wheel. What the wheel drivers do with the signal after that is not visible to the plugin.

Maybe could be worth including in your great tutorial.

 

Can any G25/27 owner backup his controller.json and try something out?

First set your profiler to this:




and then copy and overwrite these lines in your controller.json:

 

Firstly I'm no FFB expert so can only relate what I feel, someone with more knowledge would probably be better, but still:

This was a much Heavier feeling through the wheel when turning (I made sure there was no clipping) and the road felt "numb", all the little bumps around Bathurst became non-existent (Bump down into Forest Elbow especially), so to me this felt completely wrong and totally different to my normal settings of which I got from following Post #1 where I feel pretty much everything the track has to offer.