Jeremy Miller tweets (Senior Programmer at ISI)

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Opposite for me and for the pros who tested. We've had karters have your opinion after release, but a lot more who said the opposite.

 

And I am sure that's mostly down to hardware and config differences.

 

Generally, yes, but if someone has issues with the default, then they are feeling something different about the same thing. In that situation, I can only assume they don't have a good FPS (which can affect everything about how a sim feels), or just simply aren't feeling it to their taste.

 

Believe me, those of us who tinker could end up (inadvertently) with completely different "feelings" running the same content with the superficial settings all at default. It's the stuff underneath (FFB; steering ratios; which wheel you own and how is it configured in Windows, etc.) that can enhance or ruin one's experience and make it so different from the next person's. Same goes for graphics.

 

Frustrating part of having configurable software and options. Another reason why PC software is great for the user in many ways, bad for the user in others - and horrible for the devs.

 

I guess a good device calibration wizard would help. The kind of wizard that tells user what to do and when, during process of calibration.

For example - "Turn wheel right until you believe strength of FFB is enough for hard cornering". Then the software increases FFB strength as user turns wheel to the right.
Another example - "Let go of steering wheel now and wait". Now the software starts increasing torque - looking for the moment when readings from wheel indicate movement. Now you have minimum torque determined.

And so on.

The smarter you are about it, the better the chances more users will have good experiences with the sim.
This is just an idea from the top of my head, so I haven't looked into details of it, but I believe there's a big part of configuration process that could be done this way. You can give users thousands of options, but it doesn't man they will know how to configure their hardware. That takes certain knowledge / understanding and not everyone is an engineer

 

Great idea!!

 

Now this would be a very useful feature!! Tim!!!

 

Amen to that!!

 

Yeah some kind of wheel setup wizard would be highly beneficial to allow users to get the most out of this sim. After all, FFB is one of the killer features of rF2 and if users aren't getting the full effect for their wheel then the software is selling itself short.

 

iRacing had a good one when I was there, but then people just short calibrated, etc, anyway to get the effect they felt like having. I agree though, would love to have something.

 

Maybe so, but it was intended, deliberate action on their side, so they were kinda aware it's their own responsibility.

It's not about forcing people to calibrate their hardware in a certain way - I wouldn't like that as user either.
It's pretty much about helping those unaware people to get things configured properly. I'm willing to bet, majority of rF2 users haven't tried the minimum torque setting yet or are not sure how to find the optimum value. Sometimes it's like - "Oh, I see you've set 0.15 for your G25, so what do you think I should set for my G27?". It's the same with people sharing complete FFB configurations (for real feel plugin for rF1 or others) - many people will just copy these settings on completely different hardware - simply because these are "some kind of good settings, recommended by someone else".

That's the point of having such wizard - it acts as a domain expert, helping you configure your sim for your hardware. So it's not like copying other people's settings anymore - it's more like having some expert come to your house and help you

 

FYI this should be in game, where the steering adjustment bits are.

 

I'm one of those weirdos, that if you give me the most realistic feel in the sim out there, I'm tickled pink even if I didnt like it.

 

Also with a 'Wizard' it helps those of us who dont get the time to tweak their FFB for hours on end, many people just want to jump in game and race so having a Wizard would help them get closer to what they want much quicker and that's surely a good thing.

I'm pretty sure my FFB settings are all whack but right now it feels good, for all I know a bit more tweaking and it could feel 100x better and that's maybe where a Wizard would help (dont have time to sift thgrough all the threads and settings!).

 

But all cars are different, how will one generic wizard work when all cars are different and require different values?

 

General wizard
Advanced wizard for car specific FFB
job done

 

Good news :=

 

FFB calibration is for your hardware and has nothing to do with the car in simulation.

Simulated car's behavior produces FFB output that sim wants to put onto steering wheel.
This is where fun starts - every wheel is different and sim has no way of knowing how to present given output on given wheel. This is where calibration comes in - you neutralize deadzones, use available ranges, avoid force clipping, etc. These things are not car specific and not really subject to individual preferences.

Of course you can have some additional options like FFB filtering - these could be set according to individual preferences and possibly per car, but even this one is partially related to your hardware.


This is just like monitor calibration - you can have a test image that will help you calibrate brightness, contrast and gamma. You don't calibrate your monitor individually for each game or movie.

No need for the second one. Physically, there's no such thing as car-specific FFB, but users have their preferences / expectations and they want to tune FFB for each car according to their preferences rather than accepting what car produces.
Sometimes it's necessary out of care for hardware (I'm using fair amount of FFB filtering to prolong the life of my good old G25 ), so there should be such an option, but not necessarily a wizard.