My steering wheel has a problem which makes it preferable that I avoid the brutal and violent FFB signals caused by very large curbs and walls/opponents. Obviously, it was out of the question to avoid big curbs, so I lowered the FFB of the game below what is necessary to avoid software and hardware clipping, but out of the question that I lower it too much because otherwise I wouldn't do not get enough driving information. *From this point of view, I accept it for the moment.* On the other hand, the effect which I think is fake coming from the shocks with the walls and the cars, I imperatively want to deactivate it. In the controller file as well as the file corresponding to my currently loaded controller profile, I tried to modify the following line without success by trying 3 values (-2, 0, 0.1) and the standard value being 1.5: Jolt magnitude" :1.5, "Jolt magnitude#":"How strong jolts from other cars (or walls) are. Suggested Range: -2.0 to 2.0.", I really need to disable this effect if possible, any solution is good to take.
I would guess the jolt either doesn't actually get used or is no longer adjustable, based on your lack of success with that parameter. It would take a dev to answer whether there's still a canned jolt effect that you can't adjust, or it's actually the reaction of the physical bump coming back through your car to the steering. (it would be possible to test with a steering arrangement that gives very little force in order to isolate a canned jolt, if someone has the time and inclination to do that) For overall FFB and strong kerb reactions especially, you might benefit from aiming for no clipping during normal driving but clipping when hitting kerbs. Lowering FFB (through either/or FFB Strength and Vehicle Specific) will lower all forces but also give more room for spikes to come through. There are diminishing returns here though - since you're clipping what could be a recurring force, it can start to end up feeling more harsh because the whole waveform isn't conserved.
Thank you for your answer. I'm going to ask a developer, who do you suggest I tag ? I think of Devin, he is particularly helpful with the community.
My idea to prevent any software and hardware clipping was to put the FFB to the maximum in the fanatec driver, and lower it sharply in the game (50% FFB strenght suited me with sometimes an increase above 100% of the multi FFB, but even at 45% I have my problem). I did not specify my problem, no need to give details, but the base of the csl dd has no problem, but the QR Lite which connects the base to the steering wheel was poorly designed and has play. Unpleasant and I'm afraid it will damage it. Maybe it would be better to increase the FFB in game to about 50% and reduce the FFB in the fanatec driver to the equivalent, i.e. from 100% to 90% (to roughly correspond to 45 % to 50% in the FFB strenght of the game). Is this idea good for reducing very strong FFB signals, or is it similar to decreasing the FFB in the game?
Discussions on this could very quickly get confusing. I'm going to just pick some example figures in order to illustrate the concept; exactly what you (can) do depends on your situation and preferences. Let's say 75% rF2 FFB* gives you clear FFB with no clipping during normal cornering in your car at your track. Meaning the FFB output actually approaches, but never reaches, 100% during normal on-track driving. *FFB Strength x Vehicle Specific Mult Running the wheel at full strength, and reducing rF2 FFB to 50% to lower overall forces encountered, will reduce those normal cornering forces to 66% of your wheel's maximum output. If kerb strikes etc cause bigger jumps in FFB, they could be reproduced up to 50% stronger than your normal cornering forces. (66% -> 100% output) If you instead left rF2 at 75% and lowered the wheel strength itself to 66%, FFB above the normal cornering forces will get clipped (which might help reduce the harsh effect of kerbs etc) while still being weaker than full strength - which may help with your QR issue/fears.
Did I understand well : To make the risk of software FFB minimal or existing as it was before, while relieving my steering wheel of huge FFB spikes (walls + big curbs), I can change this in red to this in green: 100% Force in Driver Fanatec + 50% ingame Force FFB strenght (with multi at 100%) = 50% theoretical base force. (75% Force in Driver Fanatec + 66.67% ingame Force FFB strenght (with multi at 100%) = 50% theoretical base force.) 87.5% Force in Driver Fanatec + 57.143% ingame Force FFB strenght = 50% theoretical strength base. As I understand it, while not suffering from excessive software clipping in rFactor 2, large FFB spikes should be hardware limited (very large ones). I'm sorry if I misunderstood, I will re-read your message if necessary and I don't speak English very well.
It's ok, after re-reading what I said and thinking about it again I realised I'm over-complicating it as I confused myself. You already know about maximising FFB while avoiding clipping during normal driving, which will often lead to in-game FFB of around 75%. Keep doing that in whatever way works best (example: FFB Strength 75%, then Vehicle-specific adjusted where necessary). This will give close to 100% FFB output during normal driving. Then, set your wheel to 66%. That will give you non-clipped cornering forces approaching 66% of your wheel output, and any stronger forces (kerbs etc) are clipped. To explain the 66%: your settings (wheel 100%, game 50%) would have given you normal cornering forces in many cars at around 67% wheel FFB, because as we know 100% game FFB produces a fair bit of clipping in most S397 cars. That's the bit I was forgetting to factor in; we adjust the in-game FFB to maximise the strength while avoiding clipping at the times we want to still get information from the FFB. So after our in-game FFB adjustment, the output will be the full 0-100% range. By lowering the game to 50% you were making it around 2/3 the ideal strength (75%), which would have produced normal cornering forces at around 66% of your wheel's maximum output. Meanwhile the game could still send forces up to twice that, which would push your wheel up to (but not beyond!) 100%. So: just keep doing what you were already doing with the game FFB, maximising strength while avoiding excessive clipping. Then lower the wheel strength so you're not stressing (about) the QR. 66% or so will get you to where you were before, but without any stronger forces coming through. I should probably draw a picture. Consider it english practice
Thank you very much Lazza. No longer using Damplugin due to lack of time to determine a strenght FFB of the average game that would suit the vast majority of S397 cars, considering that driving itself should never and under no circumstances be the object of clipping (very large bumps, big curbs and walls = clipping OK), I went to look at all of your Discord messages as well as those of @Devin by typing the keyword "clipping" to see your recommendations. Yours seem to be 70% and Devin's between 70 and 75%, can you confirm ? If you recommend rather 67 or 65% I think that information would be good to take. Indeed the QR lite resists without problem at 5 nm, but between 7 and 8 nm it's another story. Also, if the FFB spike is sharp, brief, and violent, that's where there could be a problem. I will probably buy the QR1, but I find it disappointing from Fanatec (with the shipping costs, around 115 euros, it's not normal). In the meantime, I'm going to use the linear mode which simply limits the power of the base to 75% (6 nm against 8 nm). It's a shame, but I'll deal with it. To compensate, I will maximize the FFB strenght of the game, but without clipping in normal driving condition with official car + lots of grip (very important). While waiting for your answer, I set my FFB strenght in the game to 70%. Thanks again (a lot).
There's no single correct answer for the in-game FFB, it depends on the car and the track and the setup, and that's assuming you want absolute max unclipped FFB ignoring all kerbs and bumpy roads (otherwise it depends on your preference there as well). For you, if utilising the clipping to reduce the jolts works, you might want to stay on the higher side (75-80). But this is always only a guide. It's best to check periodically.
I'm not sure having optimal clipping range is going to be effective with all cars. There may always be some outlier cases, especially where mod content is involved. I do get the general impression that some players avoid using Friction / Damping at sufficient levels to serve as a way of normalizing suspension / bump effects. Such cases are common in other titles as well. Another case is with FWD cars, where Torque-steer may be quite strong without the correct level of damping applied. These issues are magnified with stronger steering systems. The optimal level of damping can be rather narrow in range so, considerable trial and error may be required.
That's what vehicle specific is for. I know pilAUTO is more than familiar with this, but I've also mentioned the pair of FFB settings multiple times to hopefully avoid anyone newer thinking they're trying to tweak one FFB Strength setting to suit all content. Good call on wheel damping, I still can't help but feel rF2 having a visible setting for this would help with the extreme FFB over bumps. (rF1 had a per-frame limiter available [somewhat analogous to slew rate], I wonder how much simpler FFB tweaking would be if we had something similar alongside the smoothing option)
