So, after many discussions where people have mentioned that FFB is very important to them. I can't recall anyone actually discussing what FFB should be like. So, I pose to the community--perhaps in hopes that ISI or someone else may implement/fine-tune for rF2, if not for the beta, then hopefully for the full version or an update: What is your idea of 'perfect' force-feedback? Is it only feeling exactly what you would otherwise feel on a real vehicle? Or is there something 'added' to take place of many of the other "seat-of-the-pants" feedback you'd otherwise normally get? Would it require all new hardware, or can it ideally be done through software and a typical FFB steering wheel? I ask this because I've noticed from just observing what I'm actually feeling in the steering wheel that you really don't get all that much 'feedback' of the surface of the road actually coming through as torque on the wheel. You get a lot in the way of vibrations in the wheel, but you really don't get much that tries to turn the wheel--which of course, is all that most, if not all, FFB is designed to do, both hardware and software. Take rumble strips for example. In the real world, you really aren't feeling any torque on the wheel (assuming they're the grooves that go across the whole lane, and both left and right side hit at the same time), but you feel the vibration. However, in the sim, it's often coded so the wheel shakes violently back and forth to 'simulate' these vibrations. So, which implementation would be 'better'? You get a better 'feel' for the road with the simulated way, but it's not simulating the exact torque you'd feel in a real vehicle. I guess the better wording of my original question should be: at what point are you willing to give up 'realism' to get back those cues we lack in a simulated environment? Also, maybe someone has already implemented it and I just haven't noticed it, but I haven't really noticed torque-steer in any sims in the FWD/AWD cars. This may be because I generally use RWD cars in sim, but FWD/AWD cars in real life, though. Thoughts?
In case you have not seen this .... https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=...er%20Simulators%20Does%20Not%20Work.pdf&pli=1 Alot of work in the flight sim community here on this topic also. I would love to see more attention in this area though I was think that a certain standard of hardware needs to be specified in order to get anywhere with it. Perhaps ?
That's an interesting read. I'm not entirely convinced though that even if the software and hardware worked as harmoniously as he described that people would then say "yes! This feels right!" I think they would still say that they can't feel the road surface. But I do agree that that inertial effect he describes is severely lacking in either of the Logitech wheels I've owned.
You make better points blackbok than Leo Bodnar. Of course FFB isn't realistic because you need to feel things through your SIM racing wheel that you don't feel through a real wheel in a REAL car. You're sitting on a chair not moving with a machine. In a real car you are receiving feed back from every part of the car that is in contact with your body. You don't need to read that article by someone who is arrogant to understand about FFB in a VIDEO game. Good FFB is possible as has been proved by Kunos and netkar pro. LFS is pretty good too but it seems netkar has less damping.
My ideal force feedback is simply one that can easily be configured. Both realfeel and leo's felt great 'when' they were properly configured. But no one could get them to feel great without wasting alot of time testing and tweaking. Not to mention each mod needing a different configuration and the user being left wondering if they got the config wrong or if they car just didn't have good ffb. If ISI could provide an interactive way to configure ffb without people staring at numbers wondering what they mean it would really help.
