No feeling under Braking through FFB

T

Tom Wallach

Registered
I've just bought RF2 yesterday and tried to get in some clean laps. But I found it very difficult to get any feeling for the car under braking. I played a bit with the FFB settings but nothing changed my experience.
I am not new to SimRacing, I know how to drive the car around a course but with RF2 I have no feeling of what the car is doing.
Especially under Braking there is just no feedback at all. When I approach a corner I start to break but without any idea where the tires are going to lock up. The only thing that indicates that the tires are locked are the rising temperatures.
Is there any option in the FFB settings where you can fix this issue?

(I am using a Fanatec CSl withe the CSL Pedal set)
 
FFB over physics, just a normal day in simracing. Are you certain that particular car that you talk about should really give this feel ?

Perhaps try adjusting sound in such way to get more clue from that. Also perhaps its the car, that has particular features that makes it less suggestive about front lockup.

Perhaps after all you use FFB smoothing setting ? That would probably mask the effect if it indeed should be there.
 
To do that you have to edit the controller.json file, which is in your userdata/player folder.
Edit that file with the notepad and scroll down. In the Force feedback section change the value of brake effects on steer axis from 0 to 1. Then you can play with the strength value in the registry just down below.
Don't forget to make a backup of the file before changing anything.
Cheers.
 
Tom Wallach said:
I've just bought RF2 yesterday and tried to get in some clean laps. But I found it very difficult to get any feeling for the car under braking. I played a bit with the FFB settings but nothing changed my experience.
I am not new to SimRacing, I know how to drive the car around a course but with RF2 I have no feeling of what the car is doing.
Especially under Braking there is just no feedback at all. When I approach a corner I start to break but without any idea where the tires are going to lock up. The only thing that indicates that the tires are locked are the rising temperatures.
Is there any option in the FFB settings where you can fix this issue?

(I am using a Fanatec CSl withe the CSL Pedal set)
Click to expand...

The default FFB settings aren't realistic with most wheels and they're hidden away in the controller.ini files as atomed said. I changed various things in the controller file myself. I have excellent feel of the car under braking and with only a few laps in any car I can consistently threshold brake and trail brake very easily lap after lap, corner after corner much like a real car. I use a VR headset which also helps, but mostly it's in the FFB settings that I use. I don't know if they would help you since I use a Simucube 2 pro, which is a very different wheel from the Fanatec CSL, but I can share them with you if you'd like to try. I don't use the braking on steering effect that Atomed mentions since that's a "canned" effect and I don't find it realistic anyway, at least not with my wheel.

Below are 2 videos of me driving. For both videos, my FFB multi is set to 1.00 and It wasn't close to clipping in either car so it should have been giving me 1:1 feedback; all of the head movement over curbs is the FFB going through my arms and into my body. I have a bit of experience with this first car, but I haven't driven it in over a year. The setup isn't default since the default gearing is way too long for any normal modern circuit, but it's also not an ideal setup for this place either. I got it dialed in just about enough to make this video. I chose the Nurburgring GP since there are many good corners for trail braking.

This next car I only drove once before this at a different circuit and not for very long, it has completely default setup including fuel load. I did a couple of timed laps before returning to the pits for new tires and fuel topped off and that's where the video starts. I'm taking it easy on the outlap because on the previous run I found the rears were completely gone (overheated or worn out) after 4 laps because of the way I was sliding the car into corners and then mashing the throttle. You can see at the very end I outbraked myself, but was still able to hold the car easily and without locking up even the inside tire.
 
Tom Wallach said:
I've just bought RF2 yesterday and tried to get in some clean laps. But I found it very difficult to get any feeling for the car under braking. I played a bit with the FFB settings but nothing changed my experience.
I am not new to SimRacing, I know how to drive the car around a course but with RF2 I have no feeling of what the car is doing.
Especially under Braking there is just no feedback at all. When I approach a corner I start to break but without any idea where the tires are going to lock up. The only thing that indicates that the tires are locked are the rising temperatures.
Is there any option in the FFB settings where you can fix this issue?

(I am using a Fanatec CSl withe the CSL Pedal set)
Click to expand...
Tom, motivated by your question I did some tests on a short oval. I was sure I got ffb indications from front lock up but not sure how. I watch the tyre temps in the HUD always so wanted to discount that.
So I moved brake bias fwds and locked them up a few times.
There is a definite change in the feeling. The resistance of the steering rack changes and I can feel the slide before I see it.
It's so long since I did anything in the JSON file I cant remember what I did but if you want a copy let me know.
I use an OSW wheel but my previous was a Fanatec Clubsport.
 
Front locks can go unnoticed , I think it's a combination of hardware and track surface. As far as I know, RF2 does not rely to effects, all FFB output depend on physics. The problem to my understanding is a combination of few factors:
1) A lot of commercial wheel is not very strong (more on that later)
2) a lot of tracks have a very smooth surface, probably much more even (in term of local grip and surface deviation) than good newly surfaced real tracks.
3) Brake pedals in our consumer wheel is often not enough modulable to easily find the correct limit.

The combination of the 3 points above has the consequence that often when braking , both front tire lock simultaneously because the applied pressure is way beyond thresold and track surface anomalies are not big enough to offset the load on a tire or the other to induce a noticeable FFB output. As a consequence, what we can feel on many hardware is just the wheel turning lighter, but this is a condition I would define "deep lock" , while the limit thresold I think people are looking for, is when each tire stop turning or turn slower just briefly, this happen in real life because load and grip on each tires change continuously and as a consequence the wheel rattle, but this can only happen if braking force is very near the ideal value.

In a simulation, with hardware involved we have to tune for compromises, and we have to learn to overcome those limits. I think your hardware should be good enough to fine tune for the best, but surely you will have to learn to feel RF2 compared to other products.
 
Comante made a very valid point : it all boils down to your hardware. For example I have a simucube 2 with Simtag pedals, I'm pretty sure someone else with Fanatec (any of them) or Logitech / Thrustmaster hardware don't have the same settings as I do.

Then there are some "preferences", for example some ppl want to feel the wheel become a lot heavier while breaking, some others want to feel it a lot less and even some ppl don't want to feel it at all (yeah, ACC drivers for example, dunno...don't get me wrong, I love ACC, it is a very good sim but FFB lacks some important information imho).

You have to find your perfect settings almost by yourself, just check forums for ppl using the same hardware as you do, a Simucube 2 user can't really share his settings with a CSL Elite one, for sure...
 
FFB aka steering wheel forces is very technical subject. Of course different FFB servos makes a difference, but physical features of cars should be considered in the first place.

I think Comante was also right about track surface bumpyness, it might result in instantaneous changes in wheel loads and speeds especially for non-rotating locked tire. Then if car also has some front scrub radius this effect will be magnified.
 
First of all thanks for the many replies to my post.
So, in the end, It was a combination of many Problems:

- my first experience of Rfactor2 was in the Formula e car. So you have a low downforce car with bumpy and dusty street circuits.

- my FFB was clipping. I did not fell the lower forces under turnin, when my tires were locked.

- I should have given the game more time before complaining. I was used to other sims so I needed a bit of time to learn how the tire model is working.

I also tested the hidden Settings in the controller file and this was exactly what I was searching for.
By default there is no difference in feeling between locked and turning tires under Braking with a straight steering.
With the "Brake forces through Steering" enabled the steering feels a bit wonky when the tires are locked.

I know that this is not "realistic", because you would not feel this in a real car. But with those limited senses sim racers have (If you do not have a Motion Platform) I think its a welcome addition to the Feeling of the car.
 
Yeah maybe, but I would also say that those effect that may be helping you at sometime, might also be hindering you at other time. Also I think motion platforms as such wouldn't really work like that too much, but are surely very very entertaining :)
 
Tom Wallach said:
First of all thanks for the many replies to my post.
So, in the end, It was a combination of many Problems:

- my first experience of Rfactor2 was in the Formula e car. So you have a low downforce car with bumpy and dusty street circuits.

- my FFB was clipping. I did not fell the lower forces under turnin, when my tires were locked.

- I should have given the game more time before complaining. I was used to other sims so I needed a bit of time to learn how the tire model is working.

I also tested the hidden Settings in the controller file and this was exactly what I was searching for.
By default there is no difference in feeling between locked and turning tires under Braking with a straight steering.
With the "Brake forces through Steering" enabled the steering feels a bit wonky when the tires are locked.

I know that this is not "realistic", because you would not feel this in a real car. But with those limited senses sim racers have (If you do not have a Motion Platform) I think its a welcome addition to the Feeling of the car.
Click to expand...

Good to hear you've given it another shot and figured it out. I feel like a lot of people try rF2 once, find that they can't control the car and just give up without realizing how much better it can be if you fiddle with the FFB settings a bit.

I'd like to mention though that locking tires in a car IRL can actually be felt through the steering usually. Unless maybe it's only a very slight and momentary lockup, you'll usually be able to tell which tire is locked or if both are locked. What's happening when the tire locks is pretty obvious, the tire stops turning because it becomes unloaded, usually the inside front tire going into a corner will do this.

What that means for the steering feedback is that because you're effectively swinging the car into the corner, the momentum of the rest of the car acting on the tire with more load will effect the behavior of the steering wheel. Usually if you trail brake, even without locking, you'll oversteer, and that oversteer can be felt as the steering pulling away from the corner to try and follow the path of least resistance. The easiest way to think of steering feedback is to think of it in terms of the wheels trying to follow the path of least resistance.

I'm not saying you should drive without the "braking on steering" effects, but I honestly think if you learned to drive without that, you would find it more enjoyable in the long run. Plus it could even help you in a real car some day.
 
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Just my 2 cents is that I found this to be content dependent. Try URD T5 2012/13, URD EGT, and S397 AMG GT3 with ABS off. I can feel lockups very well with those.
 
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