Would like to reduce the "arcade game" feel to steering response

As many of you who've followed my saga know, I built my rig for the sole purpose of using it as a training tool to prepare for my foray into real racing, which I've started doing with Primal racing at Atlanta Motorsports Park, driving Primal's SR1 in an arrive-and-drive concept. I have two races under my belt, along with track time from their two-day class, and one day of a private lesson. My progress has far exceeded my expectations - after only two races, I'm within striking distance of actually being competitive with people who have been racing for years, so I feel like I'm in a good position to compare the experience on the sim with that of driving the same car at the same track. Overall, the sim has been helpful, but I've found the feel of the steering response to leave a lot to be desired. I have a Fanatec DD1.

The SR1 is a live wire of a car - far more capable and responsive than anything I have ever driven, but the sim's steering response is much more touchy and sensitive than the real car's. The slightest misplaced twitch of the wheel can send the car unrealistically careening off line, forcing me to make abrupt corrections to keep the car on the track. The feel is a little like the exaggerated pendulum effect in an arcade game (although not as bad). This has resulted in my having to adopt a very defensive driving style on the sim to adapt to the fact that the fastest lap times happen by avoiding making even the slightest mistake. In contrast, while of course minimizing mistakes in the real car is also beneficial, the true key to fast laps is being aggressive to prevent over-slowing the car to keep the momentum going as much as possible. My times are slightly faster on average and MUCH more consistent in the real car - if I drove the sim like I drive the real car, I would never complete a lap without crashing, yet I have no problem whatsoever controlling the real car, which tells me I'm still driving too conservatively. So in a way, the sim experience has probably actually impeded my progress in the real car because of the way it has rewarded me for being excessively cautious.

With that long-winded introduction, I'd like to hear any recommendations to improve the realism of the steering response. I've been working with a coach, and we've made several adjustments to the car's suspension settings, which has helped a lot, but it still isn't all the way there. Looking at the calibrations page, here are my current steering-specific settings:

Force Feedback
Type: Wheel
Smoothing: 9%
Car specific multiplier: 100%
Minimum steering torque: 0%

Steering
Steering wheel range: 360
Vehicle set: X
Speed sensitivity: 0%
Exaggerated yaw: 10.4%
Look ahead: 0%

I've been using the Naturally Progressing setting in Real Road. Of the above settings, the exaggerated yaw sounds like it might have the greatest impact on the steering response, but I have no idea if 10.4% is a reasonable number, or what interactions may exist between Exaggerated yaw and the other settings.. Yes, I could and will play around with it, but I wanted to get some guidance from the experts on this forum to hopefully speed up the learning curve. Thanks.

 

I always ask this: does steering in game match your actual steering motion ?

P.S. 9% smoothing is a lot, you'd probably be fine with 1 or 0.

P.P.S. It could be that car in sim is not built that well, or perhaps uses some very different tire than the one you have driven IRL.

looks fun indeed

 

Could you also provide a screen grab of the calibration screen that shows the wheel & pedals and the sliders beneath them?

 

Exagerated yaw just configures the camera movement to do just what it says, giving you a bigger sensation of the car yawing.

Also take a look at differentials if they can be adjusted, I guess, as that will probably make the car less prone to rotating too much as you seem to be experiencing. Other than that it can just be down to RF2 or car development. There are of course limitations to all simulation softwares, so there might not really be a fix other than maybe modding that specific car to see if you can make it closest to what you feel.

I think you also should leave vehicle set to on, unless you have different degrees on the real life version and you can't match that on the setup menu. Other than that, maybe something related to saturation or linearity of the wheel. You should also show us the DD1 profile I guess.

 

Thanks for the replies, but before I act on any of them, I forgot to mention something that may provide a clue. I've noticed for a long time that the car's feel on the untimed out lap from the pits is significantly different from that on the subsequent timed laps - it feels much more natural on the out lap. The steering isn't nearly as sensitive, and I can be more assertive with the throttle coming out of the corners without the car getting out from under me. So if I could somehow replicate how the car responds on the out lap, it would get me a long way toward feeling how the real car does.

 

Well, that indicates something about the tires then, I would assume. You might want to configure the real road to a scripted one, with less grip to see if it helps. Guess it would have to do with how much understeer you feel when your tires are cold verus warmed up? Since you mention how much yaw it has. Thats also why I mentioned differentials, since you mentioned configuring only suspensions.

 

The change from the out lap to the first timed lap feels a lot more abruptly different than I would expect from a warm-up effect. The feel of the car falls into two completely separate categories: 1) The out lap; 2) All the other laps. In other words, the feel of the car doesn't gradually change during the first few laps. It just feels more "hooked up" and natural during the out lap - much less twitchiness to the steering, better grip everywhere, and just a more realistic, less "nervous" response to all driver inputs. I can drive the car with abandon on the out lap, but I have to drive it on egg shells on the timed laps. It's completely backwards from how a car should behave as it's warming up, which has me thinking it's something with the game set-up, as opposed to something with the car's set-up.

 

@Andrew Nagy before getting bogged down in all that, you should focus on the earlier responses - namely, does your wheel match the on-screen one (ie is your steering lock correct), and are your control responses linear.

 

What car is it you are using in the game? I don't remember the subsquent laps being harder to manage in any car, unless you talk about softer tires and around the 4th lap if I am really pushing some cars. Other than that grip gets better, not the opposite, so maybe it's a car/tires thing specific to that car you are driving, since you feel that way.

By the way, 61 years old! First ventures into the real life racing?

Edit:

I just went to refresh my memory and I think you are driving the SR3 but modified, am I right? Maybe something was broken in the process? I was juat driving the SR3 and can't reproduce what you are talking about to be honest.

 

I've also had that feeling that Andrew describes in different cars and circuits, and I use a G29. I don't usually touch on any of the steering wheel settings for a couple of years or more, just the degrees of turn when switching from one car to another, but I rarely touch the smoothing, multiplier, or minimum torque.
Perhaps, without touching anything on the steering wheel, you should try to deactivate the tire wear (off) and check if you have the same feeling in the following laps as you feel at the beginning. Maybe it is more useful because it feels more like the real car, which is what you want, I don't know if that feeling will disappear when the tires rise in temperature and gain pressure, but it is an easy way to test ...

 

I would try to increase tire pressure.

 

Screen grab Andrew. Let us see how you have your wheel configured.

 

***Insert disclaimer about being a non-expert here***
If the front end is feeling too responsive and it's hard to maintain smooth lines, have you given the following things a try? (I can't remember if you can adjust all these settings on the car you're driving)

-Increase the caster angle
-Softening the front arb/springs/dampers
-Increase diff lock
-Lower tire pressure
-Dial in some front toe-out and some rear toe in for stability.

To make the rear feel more planted on mid corner/corner exit
-Soften rear arb/springs/dampers
-Lower tire pressure
- Lower diff preload
- possibly less camber

Although perhaps not fully realistic, maybe increase the steering lock.

My two cents, as always chime in to correct me if what I have said is wrong or misleading.

 

Unfortunately only you have driven both cars, so, configuration errors aside in the wheel settings,, It will be hard to give advice . There are a lot of variables just in the tarmac and tires, maybe you can compensate those differences with car setup, even if in numbers it is a setup you won't use in R/L.
Have you tried on other tracks if the feeling is the same?

 

Yes, racing has been a lifelong dream of mine, but I had to wait till the kids were gone, and I had enough money saved up to be able to afford it. Arrive-and-drive is the only way I'll ever do it - I will never, ever, ever race may own car, and deal with all the hassles of storing, hauling, maintaining it. I've literally been training my entire adult life (crossfit, Orangetheory, strength training, strict diet, etc.) for this moment, and I'm thrilled that it has been every bit as fun as I had hoped. The fact that I've found that I don't suck at it helps, too - my lap times are where I'd hoped they'd be near the end of the season, and we're only three races into the series. But as challenging as real-life racing is, I find the thought of sim racing to be about 20 orders of magnitude more intimidating - the massive amount of tech knowledge required is a huge barrier to entry, as my experience as a newbie has shown.

An unexpected issue at work has consumed my weekend so far, which is why I haven't had a chance to respond to all the suggestions - my apologies. And as far as a screen grab, I still don't understand how to do that. This is a question I've asked many people on many forums over the years, and I get a different answer each time, always with the preface, "I'm sure my method isn't the best, but it's what I've always used", followed by a long, complicated series of steps, often with the requirement to download an obsolete piece of software. If someone could please describe, step by step, the easiest way to to a screen capture that I can post here, ideally with the ability to edit it, I would really appreciate it. It's my wife's birthday, so we're going to our younger daughter's to celebrate, so I'm not sure I'll have much time to work on this today, either. But once I understand how to do it, I should be able to at least post a screen capture. Whatever is creating the very different feel of the car on the out lap compared to all the timed laps has to be the root cause somehow.

A member of this forum did reach out to me via IM and gave me some things to try, which seem to have helped, but I'll have to spend more time with the game to confirm.

 

The outlap vs race thing is very strange. Could it also be software performance thing, maybe it starts to lag? Then limit visible cars option, as one way to make game smoother.

By the way, I have a suspicion that in those amateur driving clubs highest performance tires might not be used, although I don't believe S397 tires come with enough sharpness and reactiveness for high performance slicks, but thats other topic without an end.

Also, as green serpent wrote, perhaps steering lock degrees setting is available, it can make steering slower. But you actually need to decrease that value to make steering less reactive and more precise also lighter, because it is not for steering wheel, but lock of steered front wheels of the car.

 

This sounds a lot to me like a car set-up and tyre issue.

There is often an advantage in setting up sim cars to prioritize grip over handling. As simracers historically don't have the advantage of seat of the pants feedback and also didn't have to deal with the physical effort of overly heavy steering there has been a tendency towards exploiting softer, less responsive set-ups.

Often the advice when sorting out a handling problem in the sim world is to make the area where the imbalance is felt softer, grippier, more stable. This leads to heavy pendulum like handling where the car is slow to respond to corrections. If you are using realistic steering wheel forces it becomes impossible to muscle the car in to quick enough direction changes.

Try starting the set-up process with a car that offers quicker, more precise handling. Higher spring rates and corresponding damper settings, stiffer ARBs, higher tyre pressures then work 'downwards'. You should be able to feel where you need to make adjustments in driving and set-up with more clarity than with a car that wallows relatively slowly from input to input.

 

Yikes! OK, I REALLY appreciate everyone's advice and recommendations, but it's getting pretty overwhelming, so I don't know where to begin. Springs? ARB's? Tire pressure? Steering settings? Differential? Overall, the car feels pretty neutral - no excessive understeer or oversteer. My only major complaint is the response to steering inputs, which should respond to changes in toe, but I've tried that, and it has only helped marginally.

My coach, an extremely knowledgeable guy and an insanely fast sim driver, has worked with me quite a bit on the suspension settings, so I'm confident they're in a reasonable place. Also, I'm reluctant to get into a discussion about specific spring rate, camber, caster, toe, tire pressure settings, etc., because that's a topic, both in sim and real cars, where there are many opinions as there are people giving them, and it usually ends up being a never-ending debate. So, as several people have said, I'd like to start with factors outside suspension settings that could impact steering response. If someone could give me a crisp, hopefully simple explanation on how to do screen captures that I could post here, along with a list of screens of interest, I would be glad to start with that. Thanks again for all the interest and advice.

 

your video card may have keyboard shortcuts to get a screen grab. There is the prnt/scrn key that may or may not work now, you can use 3rd party screen grab programs or use the snipping tool from microsoft.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...eenshots-00246869-1843-655f-f220-97299b865f6b

 

So that's all there is to it? All this time, I thought it was some terribly cumbersome process involving multiple third-party softwares (OK, I'm exaggerating a little). I see that this works, so I'll post some captures later today of what I think are the relevant screens. I feel so empowered all of a sudden!