FFB Settings for T300

[Flaux]

That's functionally equivalent to 100% in the control panel and 0.75 Mult in the game - except you reduce clipping that way.

When clipping happens in the game, you can't recover the lost data.

It is definitely a difference, yeah. You can get clipping with 50% in the Thrustmaster menu. But u only have a maximum of 50% forces ingame then. So it is vital to always use 100% in the Thrustmaster profile and then reduce the multiplier ingame to around 0.75. This way you get peaks at around 100% and not only 50% overall forces.

I also tried to use the "Steering torque sensitivity" to get a linear ffb curve, as the stock t300 curve is quite exponential... it might work, but you can't get a readout to proof this, sadly.

Steering torque zero-speed mult is also nice if set to 1.0. Steering is as heavy as it should while standing still this way...

 

[regged]

Why is "1.3. Spring and Damper = 0%" in your settings?
Is there a recommendation for this anywhere? As far as I am aware Spring and Damping is controlled by Rfactor2 and you will be missing the associated forces?
Have you tested this and it feels wrong? The force feedback seems to me more detailed with Spring and Damper set to 100%

 

[DrivingFast]

Why is "1.3. Spring and Damper = 0%" in your settings?

This removes the support of these 2 features BY THE DRIVER THRUSTMASTER and are thus handled directly by rFactor 2.

On the one hand it was confirmed to me by Thrusmaster, but also A LOT of people use these setting.

But above all, the FFB is much more "raw" and detailed with these settings.


Example :

During the 2019 update of the thrustmaster driver, the values were reset by default without my knowing it. The FFB was much worse and I was disappointed with the update from the first minute of driving. Just close, I realized that my values had been reset to 100%, and after having reset them to 0% I retested the same combo : It was day and night.

But these settings are common, they are not sorcerer's apprentice settings.

 

[Flaux]

This removes the support of these 2 features BY THE DRIVER THRUSTMASTER and are thus handled directly by rFactor 2.

On the one hand it was confirmed to me by Thrusmaster, but also A LOT of people use these setting.

But above all, the FFB is much more "raw" and detailed with these settings.


Example :

During the 2019 update of the thrustmaster driver, the values were reset by default without my knowing it. The FFB was much worse and I was disappointed with the update from the first minute of driving. Just close, I realized that my values had been reset to 100%, and after having reset them to 0% I retested the same combo : It was day and night.

But these settings are common, they are not sorcerer's apprentice settings.

The feature is disabled when set to 0% in the profiler. So I use it at 100%.

Anyway, rf2 only uses a very very small amount of it. I think its 0.1 multi and 0.1 coefficient. So almost not noticable. You can add a bit of weight to your steeringwheel using this feature. Might be interresting to some. You can also change between a damper or a friction integration.

 

[DrivingFast]

The feature is disabled when set to 0% in the profiler. So I use it at 100%.

Thrustmaster :

"We would like to point out that setting values to 0 in the control panel completely eliminates the support for its features by the pilots so that you can fine-tune these settings directly in the game".

 

[Flaux]

Thrustmaster :

"We would like to point out that setting values to 0 in the control panel completely eliminates the support for its features by the pilots so that you can fine-tune these settings directly in the game".

Well, it is an easy test to do. Maybe I'll try it later during the weekend.

 

[Lazza]

It is definitely a difference, yeah. You can get clipping with 50% in the Thrustmaster menu. But u only have a maximum of 50% forces ingame then. So it is vital to always use 100% in the Thrustmaster profile and then reduce the multiplier ingame to around 0.75. This way you get peaks at around 100% and not only 50% overall forces.

I've read this a few times to try and work out if you're maybe disagreeing with something I've said, but you seem to be saying the same things. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I also tried to use the "Steering torque sensitivity" to get a linear ffb curve, as the stock t300 curve is quite exponential... it might work, but you can't get a readout to proof this, sadly.

I already mentioned WheelCheck in this thread, and that's usually the basis for people talking about linearity (or lack of) in wheels. There may be something in it for an unloaded wheel (so how the wheel behaves when you're letting it spin) and it may also be of some consequence when the wheel is rotating quite quickly. I would point out that the first isn't very useful for many cars (you tend to keep your hands on the wheel) and FFB seems less important (and harder to actually feel) when you are moving it very quickly.

If you take it back to a static, or close to static wheel, an electric motor will ramp up linearly with voltage. The tests I've seen measuring static force on wheels back this up, and I think that's closer to the average use-case (especially at the moments where you can feel the FFB best, which is where it's most important) so I wouldn't get too hung up on chasing linearity. Your mileage may vary as they say, especially if you do a lot of drifting, but as general advice I'd say stay close to 1.0 for the STS.

Steering torque zero-speed mult is also nice if set to 1.0. Steering is as heavy as it should while standing still this way...

Thank you for mentioning this, I managed to lose my controller.json settings a little while back while testing something and forgot to change this setting. I tend to notice when I jump in the car and forget about wanting to change it by the time I get back out of the game

 

[Flaux]

I've read this a few times to try and work out if you're maybe disagreeing with something I've said, but you seem to be saying the same things. Correct me if I'm wrong.



I already mentioned WheelCheck in this thread, and that's usually the basis for people talking about linearity (or lack of) in wheels. There may be something in it for an unloaded wheel (so how the wheel behaves when you're letting it spin) and it may also be of some consequence when the wheel is rotating quite quickly. I would point out that the first isn't very useful for many cars (you tend to keep your hands on the wheel) and FFB seems less important (and harder to actually feel) when you are moving it very quickly.

If you take it back to a static, or close to static wheel, an electric motor will ramp up linearly with voltage. The tests I've seen measuring static force on wheels back this up, and I think that's closer to the average use-case (especially at the moments where you can feel the FFB best, which is where it's most important) so I wouldn't get too hung up on chasing linearity. Your mileage may vary as they say, especially if you do a lot of drifting, but as general advice I'd say stay close to 1.0 for the STS.



Thank you for mentioning this, I managed to lose my controller.json settings a little while back while testing something and forgot to change this setting. I tend to notice when I jump in the car and forget about wanting to change it by the time I get back out of the game

1. What I wanted to say is: It is recommend to have 100% in the profiler, otherwise rf2 doesn't use the full ffb range of the wheel. You don't reduce clipping by setting the thrustmaster profiler to output only 50% of the torque, you only have half of the maximum power-output and still get the clipping.

2. I agree, wheelcheck measures only half of the equation. Anyway, DD-wheels usually output a linear "curve" within wheelcheck. So that's something to strive for, no? (not sure)

3. You're welcome!

 

[regged]

Thrustmaster :

"We would like to point out that setting values to 0 in the control panel completely eliminates the support for its features by the pilots so that you can fine-tune these settings directly in the game".

I think that this is where it would be useful for S397 to advise on recommended settings for at least a couple of the more popular consumer Force Feedback Wheels, anything else is simply anecdotal.
I would certainly recommend leaving this (Spring and Damper) setting at the default of 100% unless otherwise recommended by S397, It feels to me that there is more nuanced details provided with tires slipping/understeer/oversteer with it than without, this may feel strange initially but is worth at least a degree of testing to see if it is preferred.

Historically there seems to have been some misundestanding around this setting and it seems to be disabled without a great deal of understanding of the benefits provided.

 

[DrivingFast]

Setting to 0% does not disable these effects, they are not managed by the thrustmaster driver but by rFactor 2, which in my opinion is better.

Historically that's why it had been disabled by so many users.

The message sent to me by thrustmaster support (above) points in this direction (I think).

 

[regged]

Setting to 0% does not disable these effects, they are not managed by the thrustmaster driver but by rFactor 2, which in my opinion is better.

Historically that's why it had been disabled by so many users.

The message sent to me by thrustmaster support (above) points in this direction (I think).

Surely then it would be best to set all the settings to 0% and let Rfactor2 manage them?
1.1. Overall forces = 0%
1.2. Contant and Periodic = 0%
1.3. Spring and Damper = 0%

I would take whatever support told you with a pinch of salt, unless you spoke with an actual developer who wrote and fully understands the drivers.

 

[davehenrie]

I think that this is where it would be useful for S397 to advise on recommended settings for at least a couple of the more popular consumer Force Feedback Wheels, anything else is simply anecdotal.
I would certainly recommend leaving this (Spring and Damper) setting at the default of 100% unless otherwise recommended by S397, It feels to me that there is more nuanced details provided with tires slipping/understeer/oversteer with it than without, this may feel strange initially but is worth at least a degree of testing to see if it is preferred.

Historically there seems to have been some misundestanding around this setting and it seems to be disabled without a great deal of understanding of the benefits provided.

recommendations from S397 would be no less subjective than anything from here. I've owned TM's for years, almost all advice recommends zero for spring and damper. Using spring & damper values above zero are for games that do not have physics based ffb but canned effects. HOWEVER!!!!!!! If you prefer the 100% feel, then go for it! I now have Fanatec and the first thing I read about the website was to ignore the official rF2 recommendations since they 'felt' too light for most of the reviewers. Whatever product you have, use what feels right to you. Enjoy!

 

[regged]

recommendations from S397 would be no less subjective than anything from here. I've owned TM's for years, almost all advice recommends zero for spring and damper. Using spring & damper values above zero are for games that do not have physics based ffb but canned effects. HOWEVER!!!!!!! If you prefer the 100% feel, then go for it! I now have Fanatec and the first thing I read about the website was to ignore the official rF2 recommendations since they 'felt' too light for most of the reviewers. Whatever product you have, use what feels right to you. Enjoy!

Respectfully disagree, S397/ISI will have coded the force feedback to specific objective paramaters, disabling an aspect of your force feedback wheel simply on advice without any reason other than everyone else does it - is crazy. Yes, ultimately the feeling is personally subjective and people can do what they want with their force feedback settings but to advise these settings be set to 0% without any reason seems weird, hence a recommendation from the developers who must have spent some time testing the feeling would be nice, they may be able to advise that this Spring/Damper is a key setting and disabling it is disadvantageous one way or another. To me, with Spring/Damper at 100% the wheel becomes understandably lighter and heavier during cornering/oversteer/understeer and people may be missing out on usefull feedback by disabling it, I just think it's worth people testing with it at 0% and 100% and making up their own minds.

Misinformation on the internet is worse than lack of information, and some things like disabling a setting can easily become repeated until it becomes normal, other than the odd (strangely worded - possibly translated from French?) recommendation from Thrustmaster that Drivingfast received I know of no other developer recommendations to set Spring/Damper at 0%.

 

[Flaux]

Setting to 0% does not disable these effects, they are not managed by the thrustmaster driver but by rFactor 2, which in my opinion is better.

Historically that's why it had been disabled by so many users.

The message sent to me by thrustmaster support (above) points in this direction (I think).

Ok I can't test it because I'm on Firmware 25 and therefore not the latest. But on FW25 you disable spring and dampening effects when you turn the sliders to 0%. That is why I leave it at 100%.

 

[davehenrie]

Respectfully disagree, S397/ISI will have coded the force feedback to specific objective paramaters, disabling an aspect of your force feedback wheel simply on advice without any reason other than everyone else does it - is crazy. Yes, ultimately the feeling is personally subjective and people can do what they want with their force feedback settings but to advise these settings be set to 0% without any reason seems weird, hence a recommendation from the developers who must have spent some time testing the feeling would be nice, they may be able to advise that this Spring/Damper is a key setting and disabling it is disadvantageous one way or another. To me, with Spring/Damper at 100% the wheel becomes understandably lighter and heavier during cornering/oversteer/understeer and people may be missing out on usefull feedback by disabling it, I just think it's worth people testing with it at 0% and 100% and making up their own minds.

Misinformation on the internet is worse than lack of information, and some things like disabling a setting can easily become repeated until it becomes normal, other than the odd (strangely worded - possibly translated from French?) recommendation from Thrustmaster that Drivingfast received I know of no other developer recommendations to set Spring/Damper at 0%.

ISI is long gone out of the picture. Whatever coding they did was long before mass market direct drive wheels became available and well before the current crop of Thrustmaster products. All I have passed on is what users over years have recommended. And, as I stated, if you prefer another alternative, go for it. If you asked S397 and if shockingly somebody responded, you would get Rudy's preferences or Christopher's. With as many items on a to-do list that have been languishing for years, I can't imagine they would step up and produce a testing plan that would cover all the bases. No, they would just ask one of their beta testers if anyone still has a T-300 to post whatever settings they are using. The bulk of the pro drivers they are catering to start with Fanatec and progress to higher costing systems. You are asking for disappointment if you expect S397 to come up with anything other than marketing-based suggestions.
Finally, what are dampening effects? To me that says placing a number based on user preference over the top of FF effects and using that math to reduce the fastest responses from the wheel to calm the process. In other words, dull down the response. The higher the number, the more dampening occurs and thus the less true feedback the user feels.
And spring? Most likely that refers to centering spring, An effect to return the wheel to center barring other interactions. Well rF2 has that effect in the tires. So if your wheel's spring is trying to return the tires to center, it is fighting against the natural response from the rF2 tire. The higher the setting, the stronger spring overwhelms the physics the tire is trying to communicate to you.

 

[regged]

ISI is long gone out of the picture. Whatever coding they did was long before mass market direct drive wheels became available and well before the current crop of Thrustmaster products. All I have passed on is what users over years have recommended. And, as I stated, if you prefer another alternative, go for it. If you asked S397 and if shockingly somebody responded, you would get Rudy's preferences or Christopher's. With as many items on a to-do list that have been languishing for years, I can't imagine they would step up and produce a testing plan that would cover all the bases. No, they would just ask one of their beta testers if anyone still has a T-300 to post whatever settings they are using. The bulk of the pro drivers they are catering to start with Fanatec and progress to higher costing systems. You are asking for disappointment if you expect S397 to come up with anything other than marketing-based suggestions.
Finally, what are dampening effects? To me that says placing a number based on user preference over the top of FF effects and using that math to reduce the fastest responses from the wheel to calm the process. In other words, dull down the response. The higher the number, the more dampening occurs and thus the less true feedback the user feels.
And spring? Most likely that refers to centering spring, An effect to return the wheel to center barring other interactions. Well rF2 has that effect in the tires. So if your wheel's spring is trying to return the tires to center, it is fighting against the natural response from the rF2 tire. The higher the setting, the stronger spring overwhelms the physics the tire is trying to communicate to you.

It seems strange for you to reply that you don't know what the setting does, then ramble on about what the settings might do.
As this discussion is specifically about the Thrustmaster T300 and not "mass market" direct drive wheels, I hope everyone with one tries the setting at 0% and then 100% and goes with whatever feels best to them, any additional information provided by the developers would be a bonus.

 

[davehenrie]

It seems strange for you to reply that you don't know what the setting does, then ramble on about what the settings might do.
As this discussion is specifically about the Thrustmaster T300 and not "mass market" direct drive wheels, I hope everyone with one tries the setting at 0% and then 100% and goes with whatever feels best to them, any additional information provided by the developers would be a bonus.

OK Then

 

[DrivingFast]

other than the odd (strangely worded - possibly translated from French?) recommendation from Thrustmaster that Drivingfast received I know of no other developer recommendations to set Spring/Damper at 0%.

This is the translation by google translate of the response from thrustmaster support about putting the spring and damper on 0%.

I am French and Thrustmaster is a French company, which explains the response in French by Thrustmaster support.

 

[Lazza]

1. What I wanted to say is: It is recommend to have 100% in the profiler, otherwise rf2 doesn't use the full ffb range of the wheel. You don't reduce clipping by setting the thrustmaster profiler to output only 50% of the torque, you only have half of the maximum power-output and still get the clipping.

Ok, and just to be clear, that's exactly what I was saying (use 100% in profiler, 75% in game, not vice-versa). That's why I'm a bit confused by you quoting me.

2. I agree, wheelcheck measures only half of the equation. Anyway, DD-wheels usually output a linear "curve" within wheelcheck. So that's something to strive for, no? (not sure)

I think removing cogs and belts greatly reduces inertia, so DD wheels will look better in these tests. I wouldn't call that 50% of the equation for most users (I know I'm being pedantic here), because the most useful feedback you get when driving is a change of grip at the front wheels during cornering - which usually involves very little wheel movement and hands firmly attached.

Finally, what are dampening effects? To me that says placing a number based on user preference over the top of FF effects and using that math to reduce the fastest responses from the wheel to calm the process. In other words, dull down the response. The higher the number, the more dampening occurs and thus the less true feedback the user feels.
And spring? Most likely that refers to centering spring, An effect to return the wheel to center barring other interactions. Well rF2 has that effect in the tires. So if your wheel's spring is trying to return the tires to center, it is fighting against the natural response from the rF2 tire. The higher the setting, the stronger spring overwhelms the physics the tire is trying to communicate to you.

Every time you write "most likely" you should take a deep breath. Why would you think spring refers to centering spring when that's a different option? You've even listed them separately when suggesting panel values. Think about it, man.

Spring and damping effects are defined in the interface for controlling FFB devices, and games can choose to use those or not (along with other facets of that interface). That's about as much as I know on that, so instead of just making up a theory I'll add to the "test different values for yourself and see what you like" message. Not so hard, right?

Respectfully disagree, S397/ISI will have coded the force feedback to specific objective paramaters, disabling an aspect of your force feedback wheel simply on advice without any reason other than everyone else does it - is crazy.

The FFB coming out of the physics engine is based purely on the physics. There is no internal code massaging or shaping the FFB (based on your wheel, say) before the controller json parameters, then the wheel driver/profile settings. So I wouldn't consider what the game does as targeting any particular wheel settings; if S397 were to make any recommendations it would be purely about trying to get each wheel best reproducing what's coming out of the game based on the wheel's shortcomings.

 

[DrivingFast]

@regged

I just realized that Thrustmaster, while answering me on how to configure spring and damper, told me to look at a certain thread of a French forum...................................

You know what ?

I created this thread where we can find very complete tutorial on how to configure the T300 and any Thrustmaster steering wheel

I honestly didn't even notice this suggestion from Thrustmaster when I read my email.
But Thrustmaster tells me to refer to my own tutorial (obviously without knowing that I wrote it !!!).

I think that means that my spring and damper settings are not too bad !!

Translation of my email from French (sorry if the translation is not very good) :

Hello XXXXXXXXX,

We thank you for contacting Thrustmaster technical support again and we apologize for the delay in our response due to the large number of inquiries we receive.

The settings of the force feedback values in a game being linked to the personal feelings of each one, it is not possible for us to give you categorically values to apply in the control panel.

We would like to point out that setting values to 0 in the control panel completely eliminates the support for its features by the pilots so that you can fine-tune these settings directly in the game.

We invite you to consult the following community forum which discusses the force feedback settings of the Rfactor 2 simulation:

https://www.racingfr.net/wbb/index....ur-rf2-par-l-example-de-thrustmaster-éléments -of-know /