Steering settings

Heimdal

Heimdal

Registered
Now semi-retired and with more time, earlier this year I bought Race07 (virtually given away on Steam) and a budget steering wheel (Thrustmaster Italia) – Bungee spring and no FFB. They worked together great.

In June I discovered rFactor2 and purchased it. It’s a great product, I enjoy the complexity, fidelity and overall feel. Having come from a career in engineering design and software development the problems and issues that the forum is full of, just give the product a realness that appeals to me.

However, I had one major problem, the steering, with the exception of the Clio I seemed to spend more time particularly with the Skippy going backwards onto the grass. I read on the forums that this is normal for that car, just persevere it’s your skill… To a point it was, but I have driven a similar real car at Brands Hatch and whilst it was lively it wasn’t that bad….

I tried adjusting all the settings for the wheel, it helped a bit, but when I could complete a lap I was at least 10 seconds behind the AI.

I then realised my budget wheel has only 240 degrees of movement opposed to at least double that on the ffb wheels. There didn’t seem to be adjustment for that… It then dawned on me to adjust the steering lock in the car setup, which I reduced on a car by car basis to the minimum. Steering is just about perfect now and I am up with the AI in lap times – far more fun.

This raises three questions.

1. I have not seen this mentioned anywhere on the forum. I have noticed that a WIKI was started, I would like to add this to it, but there doesn’t seem to be a way. Also the wiki pages seem to have turned into a general forum of comments which doesn’t really help. With no user manual/guide is there the possibility to set up a proper wiki (I could do it), or I have I not found it?

2. For some cars the minimum lock is still too much. Is there somewhere in the config files that I can adjust minimum a little bit more. I am not into online racing so I am not bothered about compatibility/cheating issues.

3. Finally One for Tim/ISI. This for me is a global parameter. We have a control setting ‘Steering wheel range’, but this only seems to adjusts the visual display of the wheel . This setting I believe should also control the amount of lock I can get on the car. If I can only get 50% of the lock on the steering wheel of the car, I only get 50% of the actual lock on the car. Certainly it’s a bit more complex than this but the idea seems sound.

Your thoughts……
 
Interesting observations and questions Heimdal, hope you get your answers. I have done minimal changes in the config so know very little about what and when things can be changed, but would be interested to learn as well.
 
I know I'm not answering to your questions, but maybe just some food for thought.

This game is starting to be so feel related to drive that without FFB, I'm not sure can there be more improvements coming your way.
Not to sound too obvious, but I do think you should invest into proper FFB wheel.
I personally have played sims since Geoff Crammonds Stunt Car Racer, gp1, etc... and I remember those 180 degrees, no FFB wheels, and they wouldnt cut it with todays sims. I'm not saying that its impossible or cant be fun, but there is a huge element missing that not only improves the overall experience, but also hugely affects your capabilities as a racer.

I upgraded my wheel not that long ago from Logitech driving force GT, which is 900 degree ffb wheel and an excelent wheel especially when taking into consideration that its only 100 bucks, to Thrustmaster T500. I played race07 and rF2 with both of them and the change was totally worth every penny.

I had a long conversation about this with a friend, and the conclusion from both of our combined experiences was that more the sims today keeps developing towards realism, the more the tools that you use, are the ones that makes the difference.

Excelent wheels to consider would be:
Logitech driving force GT ~100€
Logitech G27 ~250€
Thrustmaster T500 ~500€
Fanatec Something ~200-1000€
 
Have to agree with Golanv.

But taking the most out of your current wheel: set steering range to 100% and exaggarate yaw to 0%, speed sensitivity to 0% (I think it was 0)... also make sure that steering help is off.

Lowering steering lock sure helps. I also lower it with my T500RS. Also good setups can make a lot of difference.
 
Try using higher "speed sensivity", about 60% or so.

It will make your wheel turn the car faster when the speed is lower (corners) and slower when the car at high speed (straights).
 
Part of the prob is that you are using a 240 degree controller to simulate a car that in real life has 407 degrees of wheel rotation. Race 07 is a lot more forgiving with controllers- a lot of gamepad players play the Race series with no issue. It may be that you will be limited more by your controller than by your own skill. In sim racing, better equipment will translate to better lap times.
 
Hi Heimdal,

I'm in a similar position as I'm still using my old Momo Black which is also 240 degrees. I currently use it on the settings TIG_green suggests (100% sensitivity) but with the wheel set to 240degrees within the control setup first before I change anything in the garage.


This means that if you sit in the cockpit with the in-game wheel visible the in-game wheel will turn a maximum of 240 degrees and it's position will match your steering wheel's position. This does mean that your maximum lock is reduced compared to real life but it stops me over-correcting so much. I use this for everything apart from Monacco.

I fear this is the important step you have missed! You will need to do either this or run a very low sensitivity in the control settings. Sometimes I run a middle-ground of 360 degrees setting for the steering wheel in control panel (so the in-game steering wheel moves a max of 360 degrees)but then reduce the sensitivity down to 80% (so the correlation to my real life wheel is closer to the in-game wheel near the centre). This means I get more lock but the in-game steering wheel movement only goes so much further than my real life wheel in total. At the moment I think your in-game wheel is moving 500-900 degrees whilst your controller only moves through 240 degrees.


Sometimes I lower the steering lock for the car setup in the garage as well of course, but usually only by a click or two.

I'm away from my rFactor computer at the moment but please let us know if you don't get this fixed :)
 
For question 2 you need to look in ur "installed" folder. Each car has a set of .mas files. One of those .mas files will have all your cars physics files. In the .HDV file, under settings, you can adjust the range for the steering lock. After editing that file ull have to repack the .mas file and most likely make a new vehicle component file. Quite easy to do, I do that to most cars I use for offline play.

Your 3rd question is interesting. I don't have an answer but if you edit the steering lock your effectively doin that exact thing.
 
vali said:
Try using higher "speed sensivity", about 60% or so.

It will make your wheel turn the car faster when the speed is lower (corners) and slower when the car at high speed (straights).
Click to expand...

Good point. Or try changing the sensitivity slider. His inputs should probably be non linear anyway.
 
Cpt_Johann said:
I currently use it on the settings TIG_green suggests (100% sensitivity) but with the wheel set to 240degrees within the control setup first before I change anything in the garage.
Click to expand...

Actually I suggested 0%, anything above 0% feels terrible. And I talked about "speed sensitivity", not the other sensitivity settings which I usually keep at 100% except throttle sensitivity which is 80% with most cars. But I would consider lowering also steering sensitivity under 100% (and maybe braking) with low budget wheels (low steering range, no ffb wheels).
 
TIG_green said:
Actually I suggested 0%, anything above 0% feels terrible. And I talked about "speed sensitivity", not the other sensitivity settings which I usually keep at 100% except throttle sensitivity which is 80% with most cars. But I would consider lowering also steering sensitivity under 100% (and maybe braking) with low budget wheels (low steering range, no ffb wheels).
Click to expand...


Yes. Apologies for misquoting you and being confusing! My Being away from my gaming PC meant I forgot the names to everything it seems...


It is the "Steering Wheel Range" which I have set to 240 degrees to match my pitful 240 degrees ffb wheel. And I have "Sensitivity" set to 100% for steering to give 1:1 steering, but a rather small steering lock.

Well that seems to be what happens to me - let me know if I am wrong. Presumably people with 900 degree wheels have their "Sensitivity" (the thing under the graph) set to 100%? as this means a 1:1 correlation?
 
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If you lived in the US Heimdal, I would have made you a sweet deal on a used Driving Force Pro wheel that the ffb had never been used on, but the shipping would be pretty expensive I am sure.
 
in the ISI car profile I use 540 degrees but on my CSW profile I use 260 so pretty close to yours mate to me turning a wheel much past 90 degrees left or right is just way too much for a racing car, a road car yeah but you don't see racing cars using 900 degrees of rotation :)
 
SMOK3Y said:
in the ISI car profile I use 540 degrees but on my CSW profile I use 260 so pretty close to yours mate to me turning a wheel much past 90 degrees left or right is just way too much for a racing car, a road car yeah but you don't see racing cars using 900 degrees of rotation :)
Click to expand...

Most cars in a decent sim you'll barely use more than 90° lock in all but the slowest corners even when you have 4-500° total wheel lock, using the standard setup lock settings. I've seen videos where F1 drivers are applying 110-120° lock while correcting oversteer at 200kph. You'll probably find that if your setup has a normal steering lock setting, and your controller has 260° lock to lock, you're either using a lot less than a real driver through corners or you're scrubbing the fronts. But even in rF1 it didn't really penalise you for doing that. A lot of drivers moving to rF2 struggle with front tyre heat/wear, and the quickest 'fix' is to basically double their wheel rotation so their habitual 90°+ steering application through corners is doing what it's supposed to instead of scrubbing the crap out of the tyres.
 
Well going by my rF1 replays I'm not scrubbing the fronts by 'over turning' them quite the opposite compared to others I''ve Seen as I use a low steering angle of 14-16 in the SIM when most other people use around 22+ and I haven't done enough to worry (or Care) about tyre wear in rF2 :)
 
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