Guide: Optimal FFB settings for rFactor 2 - The key to being in the "Zone" :D

I'm glad to hear you've had positive results following the guide but think maybe a lot of the difference you're feeling might be from the naturally higher power of the t500rs motor compared to your g27. The motor difference between those wheels is very significant in terms of peak torque and ffb responsiveness. "It feels like my actual track car half the time!" - This is very interesting to me but for other reasons regarding the input/output feedback loop between sim and ffb wheels. Let me ask you this and you may need to go drive the car again to see if this is difference. When you turn the steering wheel progressively instead of sharply, the ffb feedback feels closest to your actual track car?

Also, i actually use 70% overall effects strength in the thrustmaster game controller profiler. I used the wheelcheck.exe program a long while ago to see how the ffb response and dynamic torque range changed with increasing value of the overall effects strength and found there were some improvements as i increased it above the default 60% but go above 100% and you get severe ffb clipping from doing so. I settled on 70% for a slightly higher peak torque (though this is more likely a false reading because TechAde did a true force/torque measurement with a force sensor directly to the wheel and found constant peak torques from 60% to 100%) but mainly for increase in ffb responsiveness to all the lower end forces (as seen by the steeper green line vs the shallower purple line) which also reduced the initial deadzone some more. So for me i ended up using 70% overall and 0.03 STM. You're welcome to try or stick with what you're happy with now ofc. It might lead to an improvement or not or the apparent improvement could just be in my head.

I had the same problem. My CSP v2's load cell was faulty on arrival and i couldn't achieve full force even when standing on it. I had to make a video to prove to fanatec my theory of the fault was correct and after that they immediately shipped me out a replacement load cell. Some of their products are not very reliable but as long as you're within warranty and you give them video evidence, they have always been good with dealing in replacements and fixes for me. For example, the choice of motor for their CSR-Elite and CSW wheels was horrible, some uber cheap motors were used. Mine broke 3 times in a year and a half. Some really poor design choices went into that wheel. Having said all that, i would be willing to take a chance with the CSW v2 wheel (as you never know, could be the next g25/27 in terms of reliability), however i have my eyes set on a Direct Drive wheel now, still to be decided which one though.

 

Oh yeah, the difference is definitely due to coming from such a (relatively) bad wheel. I didn't even ever try the stock t500rs settings, so I can't compare yours to them. All it took for me was to check the wheelcheck graph, see the huge non-linearity at anything other than 60%, to make me set it at these numbers from the get go. Either way, I love this wheel and I can't stop using it!

Regarding when it feels closest to my actual car, it's mostly just feeling the front tires load and unload, either due to weight shift from throttle, brake, or simple turn in. the t500rs can produce a good enough range of torque values (compared to my old g27 anyway) to let you feel various levels of this like you'd get on an actual car, instead of "fully resistant and stiff" to unloaded and suddenly totally loose, like I would get on my G27. As for turning progressively vs sharply, it definitely feels most similar when turning progressively as this produces steering shaft torque within the range of the t500rs's capability, turning sharply and quickly is the easiest way to generate the most resistance/torque on the steering shaft and for most wheels this makes them hit their max torque values pretty quickly. This is actually quite easy (and interesting) to observe in RF2 by taking it's telemetry output in motec I2, and simply plotting the steering shaft torque channel alongside the steering input % channel. You can see with progressive slower steering input the steering shaft torque doesn't peak very high or quickly, but of course with quick large inputs it shoots right up. I hope that makes sense! as I'm sure you know it's hard to put feeling-based stuff like this into objective wording, but overall I'm just very pleased with the wheel, it's made RF2 an entirely different experience


I do recall seeing a few people had decided to move on to 70%, I had initially decided not to after seeing how non-linear it is through most of it's midrange and especially above 80% where it nearly flattens out. However it definitely does have a quicker rise from 0% and a lot of people seem to like it so I think I'll at least give it a try!

 

I am trying the 860 demo with Honda Civic.
Just to add to the data points, I have G25 and was also surprised Steering Torque Minimum" had to be so large!

[edit]
On Sunny (29°), I got the oscillation at 0.20900 but not at 0.20800.
On Raining (26°), I got the oscillation at 0.19400 but not at 0.19300.
On Default (22°), hands on the wheel were enough to stop any movement at 0.09700, however it could still be felt almost imperceptibly when the wheel was straight. I settled for this.
[/edit]

As per instructions in original post by DrR1pper:

RFactor2/Garage/Settings/Controls=
Car Specific FFB Mult 88%
FFB Smoothing 0

Game Controllers control panel=
Overall Effects Strength 100%
Spring Effect Strength 0%
Damper Effect Strength 0%

[edit]
Now tried 910 demo with Corvette, using same settings, and everything feels fine so far.
[/edit]

 

Guys, sorry if this has already been written in those 36(!!!) pages but can someone help me which controller settings IN GAME are best to use with a G27?

Thank you very much...

 

Hi Rui,

Not used a g25 in a very long time and it was before i made the guide so people who do use a g25 may have different setting choices to what i would recommend off the top of my head.

Firstly i would setup the logitech g25 game controller profiler like so



But set "Overall Effects Strength" to 110-112%. To find this window, hit the windows start button and then "device and printers". Right click on your g25 device and select "Game Controller". Then hightlight the g25 and hit "Properties" and you should find a page/tab looking like the above.

Then go to :\rFactor2\UserData\player and open the Controller.JSON file and find the line "Steering torque minimum":0, and set the value to somewhere around 0.08-0.15. I'm really not sure what the ideal value is for the g25 with a 110-112% overall effects strength value and the chosen ingame car specific ffb multiplier you would use. Once you've settled on the overall effects strength percentage, that's a fixed and constant value so it's no longer a variable you need to worry about when setting correct car specific ffb multi to matching steering torque minimum values. But if you wish to drive with ffb above or below the optimal ffb multiplier value, that can change the necessary amount of "Steering torque minimum" somewhat therefore requiring some trial and error on your part to figure out.

If you'd rather not tinker around, then probs best to ignore what i just wrote and mimic some elses g25 settings then.

 

Thank you DrR1pper, but i would like to know how you set up in CONTROLLER SETTINGS inside the game, like Steering rate, Look ahead, etçª

 

Sorry but I'm lazy to read 36 pages today, so let me ask something.

In rF2 the steering wheel gets lighter when the front wheels commences to slip (understeering). Aside this is a good information to correct the corner speed, I fell it's a bit overdone in rF2. Is there a quick way to reduce this effect?

 

Overdone? Can we trade wheels ? I use a T500RS and find that it's not only highly dependent on the particular car and setup, but literally, at times, the particular turn as well. Am I correct in assuming you aren't using a T500RS?

 

I'm struggling with the same problem Hype_z.

btw upping smoothing helps. The value i use is around 10-20.

 

I am...

My t500rs gets very loose when the car starts to understeer. It bothers me a bit. Specifically I'm regarding to URD and ISI Corvettes. I can't assume it's the same for all cars.

 

Guys a little help or just a "yeah that's normal" will do!

Driving the 370z (latest 1.47 version, Build 930) with my G25 I'm having to stick the 'Car Specific FFB Multi' way up to 1.40 before the Yellow Bar (plug-in) is even getting anywhere near "Clipping". Most other cars I have to lower to 0.75 at least and this is the only one that (recently) I can remember having to go the opposite way, is that normal? ta

 

MarcG, sounds like they just updated the default ffb multiplier ratio. Sorry i can't test to confirm for you. I have no rig to test on.

 

Don't always go by that clipping bar, the game has no idea what your exact piece of hardware clips at, it doesn't read the mechanical motor or anything like that. Hardware clipping is just as big a deal as software clipping, hardly anyone seems to mention it though.

I've felt loss of particular FFB details at particular moments even when the bar wasn't yellow. Software clipping is just one half of the entire clipping story, hardware clipping is the other half.

 

Ok mate no worries, just wondered why really!

I thought the idea was to make sure you don't go into the Red Spikes for Clipping but got close too it? If the Yellow bar is always low on every (fast) corner then FFB feel is virtually nothing so for me it needs to be High for any FFB feel at all.
Besides it works perfectly fine in all other mods, as above just wondered why I have to go Higher with this mod but no issue if it's the way it is, just curious.

 

Correct. You optimise the ffb and prevent ffb clipping from the game you want to set the ffb multiplier so you don't hit red spikes when driving on the track. So the ffb bar should tittering on the edge of yellow to red when driving in corners with the highest amount of ffb torque produced if you want the strongest ffb feel without clipping.

What Spinelli is talking about is equally important and if you're wheel is clipping due to poor logitech/thrustmaster/fanatec profiler settings then you could be wasting your time optimising the game ffb multiplier. To test if your profiler settings are not causing ffb clipping, you can use the wheelcheck.exe program. The program download link and instructions on how to use it are in the OP.

 

Cool thanks for the clarification

yep did all that ages ago so I'm fine with all that, thanks mate

 

Coolio.

 

How can an external program know if you're getting hardware clipping? Is there a way to run it in the background while playing RF2, or something?

 

There are two sources of possible ffb clipping because there is an intermediary step in the flow of ffb information from sim to ffb wheel which is the ffb profiler/driver. Depending on what settings you have in the profiler, the game ffb signal is influenced by the profiler (i.e. modulated) and then sent on to your ffb wheel. So the first possible source of ffb clipping is from within the game (e.g. setting too high a "car specific ffb multiplier") and the other is in your logitech/thrustmaster/fanatec/etc profiler (e.g. setting too high an overall ffb effects strength = non-linear response curve = ffb clipping in the top end of forces/torques).

For TechAdes plugin to reliably report whether your ffb wheel is clipping or not, you must first ensure that there is little to no ffb clipping caused by the profiler. Otherwise, the ffb bar in the plugin may seem like it's reporting no clipping when in fact your ffb wheel is clipping. The only way to know for sure is to somehow test just the influence of the profiler on the ffb output of your ffb wheel.

The wheelcheck.exe program is the way we can check if our profiler settings influence on the ffb wheel output. If you see there is little to no clipping in the response, then you know you can rely on TechAde's plugin to report whether your wheel is clipping or not.

If for example however, the wheecheck.exe shows clipping at around 80% of your peak torque output, then back in the game when TechAde's plugin ffb bar is reporting 80% of peak ffb, that is where your ffb wheel is actually clipping. So either you correct the profiler settings so you can rely on the plugin bar 100% to represent clipping, or you factor in your profiler settings influence on where the real ffb clipping starts (e.g. 80%) and in game just be aware that when the bar is hitting around 80% that is when your ffb wheel is actually clipping.

Ofc it makes more sense to calibrate the profiler settings so we can rely 100% on TechAde's plugin.

For me, i would set my logitech profiler overall effects strength from the default 60% to 70% because the trade off was worth it to me. A little bit of ffb clipping (represented by flattening of torque output response in the high end forces) for added strength in the low end forces. But each to their own.

 

Hi Guys,
Build 930 and FFB, I have run with old G27 for years, never has this wheel performed like this.
I feel huge improvement in car control with this build, it could be the car feels a lot more planted (grip) due to updated tyre model but for me also feel a huge improvement with FFB particularly through centre of the wheel.

Post 930, I'm catching oversteer smooth (much cleaner) @ times a little to harsh but loving flat spotting as well.

Have others experienced a reduction in dead zone? vast deference in feel?

Cheers,