For more than a year I have been observing a problem with FFB on the Fanatec CSL DD steering wheel. Some time after the start of the game (15-20-30min), after several entries into the garage and exits to the track, extraneous noise, rumble, vibrations, 'sand' appear on the steering wheel, which does not disappear even when the car is in the garage. Resetting FFB in game doesn't help. Noise, extraneous vibrations are temporarily reduced by setting [DPR] Damper Effect Strength =0 in the Fanatec driver. If you turn this DPR setting back to 60-100%, then the noise returns. The problem goes away when you restart the game . After a while, everything repeats again. I saw several posts on this forum where people complained about a similar problem back in 2020, but so far, despite many Fanatec driver updates (v4.3.9... 4.5.0) and rFactor 2 (v1130) ...today), in 05.2023 the problem has not been resolved. Here are the messages on the forums that I know about this case: https://forum.studio-397.com/index....broken-after-leaving-pit-several-times.66007/ https://forum.studio-397.com/index.php?threads/fanatec-direct-drive-degradation.70220/ https://forum.fanatec.com/discussion/23806/csl-dd-strange-magnetic-noise-and-distorted-ffb/p1?new=1
As you found out yourself, it is a long known issue with little expectation of a resolution. S397 says it's something wrong with the Fanatec drivers/hardware. Fanatec points at rF2.
If this problem has been known to everyone for a long time, can't the developers from the S397 studio directly contact the developers from Fanatec to finally solve this problem?! The distortion only appears in this one game. There is no such thing anywhere else. I am very sad to think that such issues clearly show the attitude of the studios towards the users of their products.
S397 says rF2 works correctly with EVERY SINGLE OTHER BRAND of wheels. Fanatec say this ONLY happens with rF2. I'm sure they both have reached out to the other, but something very core to one or the other seems to be the root cause. I think I remember the previous CEO/President @Marcel Offermans was asked which high end wheel he would recommend and, if I recall correctly, he said ANY wheel but Fanatec.
It looks very funny from the outside, but, unfortunately, very sad for me as a Fanatec user. Thanks for the information!
It’s not the only finger-pointing FFB issue that has waited years for resolution. Direct drive owners are at physical risk from out of control oscillation on the grid when restarting races (I.e. hitting escape mid race and then selecting restart race). It’s a lottery as to whether it will happen but if it does (particularly in VR) it can cause injury. It’s never been restricted to DD wheels (or any brand/model) - my old Thrustmaster T500RS used to do it but didn’t have the strength to do me any real damage…
Yes, I also notice this when restarting a race with bots. But for now I treat this problem as a necessary evil and reconciled
As for the Fanatec issue, I find it hard to understand why S397 is letting the problem go unaddressed, even though it is probably one of the most user-intensive brands of steering devices.
I won't bother posting on the main thread for this issue as I don't have a solution, but I'd hoped the REST interface would allow a plugin (or similar) to temporarily disable the FFB in this scenario. Unfortunately only vehicle specific FFB can be adjusted when in-session, not the overall FFB strength (which may not have helped, but can't be tested anyway).
There are several threads in the internet about issues with the Fanatec CSL DD, not related to rF2. In the Fanatec forum post you've linked there's one user that's having the same issue on F1 2021 too. I don't own a Fanatec but my general advice would be making sure your wheel firmware is updated to the latest version and trying different USB ports in your computer. Also, don't connect it to USB hubs. If all this fails I would contact Fanatec. Some users have started an RMA and received a new base.
I've tried all of these, but it doesn't help. The Fanatec driver version is the latest 450 (public) or 451 (beta). I've switched the wheelbase to another USB port and removed the adapter (USB) - (USB-Type_C). Unfortunately, nothing helped. Thanks for the advices.
I had a TMX with the same problem. Now with Simagic Alpha the same happens. I dont play anymore rfactor2 because of this.
One of our testers reported that setting all the saturation settings in the controller json to 0 helps. Like in this file:
Thanks! Last year I only tried to set "Steering resistance saturation":0 - that wasn't enough to solve the mentioned problem. Now I changed all the lines '... saturation' - extraneous vibrations didn't appear during the day
Most of the saturation lines are :1, so if you did a search & replace all those lines would be changed. But there are a couple of saturation lines that end with :0.1, Those require a 2nd pass through the search and replace process.
I complained about a similar thing a while ago and someone posted a fix by changing something in the controller json or some other file and it totally resolved the issue for me. I can't find the thread and I totally forgot what it was... so sorry that this post isn't more helpful! But there definitely is a fix, or at least there was.
Probably what was posted just above, set all Saturation values to 0. I went ahead and also changed all my various custom profiles, the DRS one, the P2P one etc.
Ok, for the sake of potentially actually identifying the issue (or the clear way to fix it), can someone with back-to-back success try and test which saturation setting(s) is/are doing the trick? I ask, because in theory coefficient & saturation both have to be > 0.0 in order for the effect to do anything. All default profiles have Steering spring coefficient set to 0, which should mean the Steering spring saturation doesn't matter (and therefore setting it to 0 will have no effect). Most profiles have some Steering resistance coefficient and Steering resistance saturation, and that's been stated as a possible fix in many threads (including one of the ones from the first OP), but for others it hasn't worked and it looks the same in this thread. The other saturation values are these: Brake spring saturation Clutch spring saturation Gearbox spring saturation Throttle spring saturation Other spring saturation Now, in theory the first 4 won't be contributing factors (none of those are set to act on the steer axis, in all profiles), while I have no idea what the last one is meant to actually do. What am I saying? The 5 saturation values I've listed here should have no effect whatsoever on this. So if you're consistently getting a fix by setting all saturation values to 0, try putting all those ones back where they were and try again. And consider testing that last one ("Other") by itself, in case it's something affecting things. If none of those have any impact on it even if > 0, check if the 2 steering saturations on 0 is a fix, or you need to also set the coefficients to 0.
