Hey all. I have read and watched videos on FFB clipping, and how bad clipping is. Here's the thing though, I don't completely understand what clipping is and the settings to help avoid it. I keep seeing terms like FFB Gain and FFB Strength, and have a hard time understanding the difference. movies download movies at forum What should I be adjusting to eliminate clipping? Is this done in game settings, or the software that comes with my wheel? Help a newbie out please
We need a bit more information. What wheel do you have? Clipping is when the forces sent to the wheel by the sim overwhelm the wheel's ability to accurately relay the ffb information. For example, if you charge through a long turn, at some point the ffb is more than the wheel was designed for and you get essentially stuck at that level until you travel far enough thru the turn to lessen the forces. Both the wheel software and the in-game settings can help. Go back through that large long thread shown here and look at the screens that show the rF2 menus. Usually there you will see the two settings most useful to you.
It's important to understand that if the FFB signal is clipping at the game level (soft-clipping), that same clipped signal will absolutely transfer to the hardware. If we run the game FFB output (may be referred to as Strength, Gain, Power, etc.) at 100%, clipping is likely to occur - at least in certain cases. If it only happens due to extreme events (contact with a wall or off-track terrain, etc.), it's really not a problem. If it affects other desirable events, it's going to ruin the FFB or, diminish the experience at best. Some games have a clipping-meter that can show us if and/or when clipping occurs in real-time. Depending on the wheel's capability and your desired steering force, you want to strike a good balance between the game FFB-output and the hardware strength setting where you get the detail you want within the range of normal driving.
The game calculates the torque at the steering wheel shaft of the virtual car. This is usually way higher than the maximum torque that consumer grade FFB wheels can output (20+ Nm versus 2รท6Nm of FFB wheels). The game first scales the torque on a percentage scale from 0% to 100%, then passes that value to your FFB wheel. For every car there's a torque that developers set to 100%, let's say it's 20Nm: if the game calculates 10Nm, it passes 50% to the wheel. If it calculates 20Nm, it passes 100%. Now, if it calculates 25Nm, it still passes 100% and that's clipping: whatever torque higher than 20Nm will be passed as 100%. You will lose information about what happens there because FFB value will always be 100%. On the other hand, you don't want peaks in torque like sharp bumps or kerbs to correspond to 100% because then the "normal" torque of a turn would result in an output too low for your wheel. E.g., if 100Nm corresponds to 100%, then for 20Nm of torque that gets calculated in a smooth turn only 20% will be sent to your wheel, which will be very likely too soft for your taste. If you adjust the in game multiplier, you can scale the calculated torque by a factor. With this, you have control of what torque corresponds to 100%. Most cars in game have a nice output out of the box. Some other cars produce higher torque at the shaft so 100% is sent for too much time and you may lose some important information about the front tires grip. The solution is to downscale the torque by lowering the in game multiplier. You can visually check the output of the FFB value with MoTeC i2Pro and DAMPlugin. Other than scaling, the game can apply smoothing and minimum torque. Some other games have even more adjustable settings and may output more than one value (I've talked about constant force, but there's a periodic too but I don't know who and how makes use of that). When the FFB value is sent to the wheel, it gets processed by the wheel driver with options that you will find in its control panel. Don't forget to read the wheel manual for their detailed explanation. Usually the control panel strength % represent the max torque that your wheel will output. For example, 100% FFB value is sent to the wheel: if you set control panel strength at 100%, it will output its max torque of 4Nm, if you set control panel strength at 50% it will output 2Nm. It may happen though that your wheel cannot give a linear response or it does but only for some FFB values. In this case preventing clipping isn't enough.
Simple explanation of clipping is basically when the forces get so strong that it cuts out the FFB detail. So when its under the clipping limit you feel all bumps from the road surface coming through to the wheel but when you turn the wheel in a corner for example and if the force is too high you will only feel the heavy resistance of the FFB but you feel no detail from the track. Its just heavy without any small bumps and shakes in the wheel basically. So you want to lower the FFB Mult for the car so that when you take corners you still feel details coming through. In Assetto Corsa there is a graphical bar you can have on screen and see when it clips (a bar turns red as forces are too high and elimiate detail). In rF2 just feel your way towards a good FFB setting.
We have rF2 that now is running with DX11 and the plugin made for the clipping is not working anymore. Are you aware if a new plugin exists to be used with our rF2 with DX11?. Thanks
You should be able to use the old plugins IF you go to Steam and opt into the beta programs. I just took a look and all the previous betas seem to be there. v1109 should work. You would need an older car/track, test your wheel, then get your info and exit the beta program back to the newest version. None of the S397 DLC will work with the older beta files. So revert to an old version. do the tests, keep track of the results and then reload the current version. You'll probably have to re-enter the information manually in the menus. Best of luck.
Perhaps this old thread can help you: https://forum.studio-397.com/index....actor-2-the-key-to-being-in-the-zone-d.42931/
Had a look at simHub and looks great, where is your overlay for the FFB clipping shown in Martin Fiala video .
Thank you to the Iron Wolf, I did not know this was possible with Simhub. I have created a dashboard following Martin Fiala's video (a.k.a. Moving Chicane. Thank you for the instructions). You can download it here: http://www.myfamilyhomeopath.ca/images/FFBGauge.rar I normally run a Simhub dashboard using a 8x5 small screen, I am using the same one for the the FFB Gauge. See below: I hope it helps you guys getting FFB properly set up. Cheers
Thanks a lot. Very useful, I've tried but I cannot see displayed in SimHub the FFBGauge even if I've followed your instruction. There is no listed in the Dashboards options. Any idea? Thank you
Thanks a lot Juan. In the meantime I just fixed with this bar, here the link: https://www.racedepartment.com/thre...oring-now-possible.159219/page-2#post-2919652 If you may help with yours it wll be great. Thanks
Hi Lynx, there was an error in the .rar file. It has been corrected. Download it again and extract the contents of the .rar file under the dash template directory. Then open Simhub, click on Dash Studio found on the left side, then make sure you click on dashboards (one of the options at the top under Dash Studio). You should see the FFB Gauge dashboard listed now. Cheers, Juan
I got this running on my second monitor. I then pinned it into my VR environment and it worked like a charm. Thanks Juan.
I use the oculus rift. I take the force feedback meter and place it on a second screen on my computer. When I am in VR I can use oculus dash to open up a virtual monitor that has the 2nd screen on it. I can then take out the force feedback meter from that screen and pin it to the inside of my VR environment. I don't know of this type of thing works for the HTC vive or other headsets. it's a feature of the rift through oculus dash
