I've been trying to dial by FFB settings in better. I am using a Fanatec CSL Elite v1. I am noticing that "Brake Effects on steer axis" doesn't seem to do anything. I've tried this with both Fanalab's plugin enabled and with it disabled. I have Fanatec PC Driver 450 with the wheel base at Firmware 692. I do not believe there is anything newer, and no updates are reported as being available. Whether the setting is 0 or 1, there appears to be no change in the wheel feel under braking, whether or not the car's ABS is dialed to max or set to off. Any thoughts here?
test it with the Porsche GT3(NOT THE CUP car) That seemed prone to having a clunk when braking hard on uneven surfaces.(like the downhill at Bathurst for example) At least that would tell you if any forces are being transmitted to the wheel.((if they fix that with the last update or two...))
OK, that means it could work. But it did not work for me in the M4 GT3. I have not tried other GT3s. Can you share your software, firmware, controller, and other settings? Which CSL Elite version do you have? There have been several over the years. I believe I have the first version, but there was a 1.1 and possibly others.
Also, how strong of a sensation is it? Lastly, does loading a controller file pick up that setting and others when the game is running, or do settings only available in the JSON only get loaded on restart?
@davehenrie @franser are you two talking specifically about the "brake effects on steer axis" or just the way ABS acts on normal FFB? (which by default does not use that option) PS @thoraxe I personally have no idea what that option is supposed to do, or what it potentially uses for output.
I was asking him to try the Porsche GT3 because that car had a noticeable CLUNK when braking on uneven or transitioning surfaces. It may have been corrected since the 1st quarter, but I wanted to see if he was getting any braking feedback.
And again, I ask: do you have the option he's asking about, enabled? Or are you just seeing "brake effects" and picking a car that gives you FFB while braking? *I'll add a useful part to this post: If you load a profile where you've (manually) changed that setting, it should pick it up at that point (ie with the game running). Direct edits of controller.json would require an rF2 restart.
a car with an outsized effect that was talked about earlier this year. Simply to test the hardware, not the code.
The hardware? What, FFB? I'm sure he has FFB. He's asking about a specific option in the controller files. If he wanted random stuff that may or may not be related he could just as well ask ChatGPT
After doing several hours of testing, I realized that, in typical S397 fashion, the way things work is maddeningly un-obvious. While your controller-specific profile (eg: mycsl) file might have settings in it, these settings aren't all loaded to controller.json unless you are "in-game." Note that "in-game" is not "in-menus." That's right - if you start rF2 and are not in some kind of actual driving session, loading your controller-specific profile will NOT affect the "brake effects on steer axis" setting in controller.json. It's not until you go into a game session that this option changes. And, if you edit controller.json directly before going into a session, you will get unexpected behavior, usually with controller.json being updated by something when actually joining a session. Ultimately what I found is that I had to: Start with rFactor2 not running Modify my controller-specifc profile Start rFactor2 Go into a game session FINALLY load my controller-specific profile When following the above procedure, I finally was able to get the "brake effects" function to work. Further, the GT3 911 has horrible behavior when this function is working, so it is definitely the vehicle to use to test it. I found that some of my mods, despite having ABS, would never really actuate this feature. And the other GT3 cars (Bentley, Ferrari) would barely cause it to engage even with the ABS setting on the vehicles dialed all the way up. Note that I am not talking about things like Fanatec Brake Level Indicator or others. Side note - don't get me started on "vehicle-specific FFB adjustment." The various controller JSON files mention that the vehicle-specific setting comes from some CCH somewhere, but I'll be damned if I could find it.
@thoraxe The controller.json should only be viewed/edited with the game closed. It can't be relied upon as a reference for current game settings while the game is running. Your custom files can be but only with the caveat you understand when you're saving/loading to them. (I realise there seems to be some confusion, this is the second I've seen in a couple of weeks, that all game data is stored somewhere in a file. This isn't true - game data resides in memory and is only saved to file at times determined by the game. I'm actually surprised the controller.json is modified at all while rF2 is running, and I wouldn't expect any of the other .json files to change until the game has closed successfully. These are files storing values used for when rF2 loads; their contents between load and shutdown I would consider volatile) The .cch mentioned will probably be in your player folder, all_vehicles.cch if I remember correctly. *make that all_vehicles.ini* However, often you can avoid editing each car's vehicle specific mult by setting the force feedback strength to your normal desired level. E.g. if you usually set vehicles to 75, just change the overall force feedback strength to 75 (in the game). Then you need only set vehicles that have different levels. On the brake effects: yep, so still no idea what they're supposed to be. *edited to fix the cch/ini thing. There's a player.json option "User Vehicle Data" which defaults to 1, and that means vehicle config data like ffb mult and mirror position etc are stored in the all_vehicles.ini. If you set that to 0 that data should instead get stored in the .cch file (for the series? I think). So the comment isn't entirely incorrect, but it's not default behaviour. Anyway unless you're wanting to do mass changes you don't need to know, since it's in the UI. And as above you can avoid mass changes for the most part now, by changing the FFB strength in game (which is a recent change).
@thoraxe I loaded up rF2 a couple of times to test things. With the GT3 Porsche, hard braking even at pit speed, there's harsh feedback as the wheels lock and ABS kicks in. Quit, edited the controller.json to add brake effects. Tried again. Felt pretty much the same. There was 1 difference: turning left gave a centering spring type force, even with FFB on 0 in the game. Nothing unusual when turning right.
