Flex (and others), if you haven't already read this, i strongly advice you read it all as well: http://isiforums.net/f/showthread.php/17796-Take-a-Bow-ISI?p=247786&viewfull=1#post247786 Keep reading from page 8 onwards as i make more explanations in later posts. In short, i have now improved ALL my personal best laptimes in the megane (also the same for other car) on ALL the tracks i've driven it at (maybe 20+ tracks) by a whopping 1-2 seconds. All my pb's prior to this have been relatively unchanged for a number of months, then suddenly after about a week of using the lower ingame ffb multiplier value the new feel of the ffb in the corners clicked for me and i now understand at a subconscious and fundamental level what the car is really doing at all times on the track (so i dont have a weak spot in braking and cornering anymore...now i can threshold brake the f*** out of the car and i can keep it rock solid stable on all 4 wheels!). I no longer need to think consciously how to drive the car, it's now all subconsciously driven and it's sooooo easy to drive now. Most people i tell this too either ignore me and say "it's too good to be true" or say "it's not the ffb change making your quicker, your a good driver" (basically they have their preconceived ideas of what is true and not true despite the hard evidence i provide them and for their own bleeding benefit!) and it frustrates the hell out of me, lol. I get remarks like "how do you know it's not your monitor, speakers, sound card that's making the difference? There are simply too many variables to say that this ffb multiplier is making the difference" and it confuses the heck out of me because i haven't changed anything else on my system other than the ffb multiplier. And despite it being a subjective experience, i can absolutely feel the difference by using a lower ffb multiplier....you feel so much dynamic ffb in the corners where as before it was just a constant force in one direction. Then there's my favourite one of all...."i know drivers who are faster than the those with ffb, so ffb won't make you faster anyway". This one i love most of all because they don't understand what is happening at a fundamental level. Drivers who don't use ffb have only 1 form of car balance/handling input into their brains....through what they visually see the car doing on screen. This information (so long as you don't have too high input lag) is pure information about the car's handling at any given time. But drivers who use ffb have 2 forms of car balance/handling input into their brains....what they visually see on the screen and what they feel at the wheel through the ffb. The visual (screen) part is pure information about the car and this is the same for both types of drivers (with or without ffb wheel's) but if you have setup your wheel's ffb to have ffb clipping issues in the corners then you have bad information being fed into your brain about the car's handling. In the corners you are getting a constant 100% ffb force in one direction, instead of the dynamic range of ffb forces whilst the car is constantly changing balance in the corner from turn in, apex, exit, all of which are crucial information to understand at a subconcious level what is happening and that then lets you make good and effortless anticipations of what the car needs from you and how it will respond next. If you have bad ffb information (ffb clipping) then there are two distinct problems. Firstly, the ffb information (even though you are likely unaware of it as i was before) is not matching up with the visual information on screen and this causes a disconnect in your brain (at a subconscious level) and it's those moments where the car steps out on you and you couldn't predict it was going to happen when you should be able to, simply because there was no change in the ffb information telling you the car was beginning to oversteer more (because you're already constantly clipped at 100% ffb force!). Secondly, i say that this is bad information and not the same as having no information (e.g. no ffb) because you are receiving a force at the wheel and your brain cannot help but interpret this as supposedly being accurate information about the car's balance/handling.....so it's actually worse than driving with no ffb at all. Even worse is that fact that the sensory information you receive about the cars handling at the wheel is much higher and dominant than what you receive on screen. So not only do the two not match in your brain, but if you use ffb, your brain is automatically dominated by it for car handling information, making bad information at the wheel = worse driving performance. As the saying goes G.I.G.O......Garbage In = Garbage Out I'm am now easily able to pull away from the drivers that use to pull away from me at the start of every race in the past.....that is the significance of this discovery! And it makes me wonder if they have suboptimal ffb setup compared to me now.
Tell you what would be interesting DrR1pper... go back to your previous FFB settings and see what happens to the lap times. Does it slow you down again or can you now lap just as quickly with as with the new settings?
Perhaps would also be an vehicle specific option such as the steering torque sensivity useful. I would appreciate it. edit: perhaps also the horizontal geometry intended as track rods could also make the dead zone car specific controlled by a variable range.
I have and i'm back to my old lap times. I just can't feel the car with it set higher and the ffb clipping in the corners and i have so much less confidence. So i am having to "guess" what is happening to the car balance and it's never going to be as good as perfectly accurate information. That's why i say i can drive completely subconciously now because i'm not having to consciously guess, because with perfect information there is no need to do any guess work.
I showed in the previous page speed what steering torque sensitivity does (makes the ffb response curve no-linear) and why it's not advisable to change it from the default "1.0" value. Your welcome. To some extent i understand why ISI have set the ingame ffb multi to "1.0" as the default value because it increases the strength on the lower end forces dramatically which feels really awesome on straights and over bumps, etc. But in the corners it's a total cluster ***k, lol. If you want pure ffb information you MUST use a car specific ffb multiplier of "0.6-0.7" (and perhaps even a little lower, you have to test for yourself that it isn't clipping....using the pedal plugin tool is useful for this!). It's the corners that make up lap times....not what you do on the straights. We all drive the straights as well as each other, how hard is it to floor the gas pedal? But how well you do in a corner dictates EVERYTHING! So having ffb clipping in the corners is quite frankly criminal! I wish ISI would have it set lower or have some description saying something like "0.6-0.7" gives you the most accurate ffb feel. Using a higher value will makes the ffb feel stronger and in the straights and over bumps (most especially if you have a weaker/older wheel) but it will sacrifice your performance potential in the corners. As a little test guys, go try doing a lap in any car and track with the ffb multiplier set to 3.0-4.0. This causes instantaneous ffb clipping and try to drive like you do usually and it will highlight exactly what i'm talking about.
I could open a whole can of worms here about muscle memory versus driving by feel. But I won't. Oops!
Yes I know but I think it fits better with the emotional and I'm not interested in the theory but flexibility in options.
Race drivers do not drive so much on muscle memory....mostly on feel and anticipation. This is especially the case with ever changing driving characteristics throughout the race itself (tyre degradation, road grip, temp, etc, etc). But in the sims, you have to drive on muscle memory alone (and a lot of guess work) when your ffb is clipping which is always going to be worse than driving on (true and accurate) feel. Your muscle memory is just a regurgitation from your memory banks of how you drove the car at that corner before. You still have to drive on feel to get the muscle memory in the first place and to constantly update your memory bank with each lap, trying to feel the car faster around the corners. If it were just muscle memory, you wouldn't ever progress past the first speed your tried around a corner.
You are misunderstanding, (type less, try reading more) the point is by CHANGING or upgrading other inputs (which you have not done) you can also increase performance. Your delta due to the wheel changes would probably be a lot less if you were to improve e.g. your visual input by using a larger screen. You haven't done any of that yet you know based on changing one varible that it is the key path to performance. If this wasn't an internet forum and you tried to present that as fact without exploring the other input variables you wouldn't get far. BTW - No is arguring with your FFB findings. Just your absolute conclusion that it must be that way for peak performance for all drivers. You are also distorting questions to fit your model, the question is how do you explain some of the quickest sim racers that don't use FFB. It doesn't fit your model because they are obviously keying on other inputs for feedback and thus FFB isn't key to their performance at all. Anyway, done posting on this subject. Cheers.
Panigale, have you even tried what i've suggested for yourself and given yourself sufficient time for the new feel to settle in (took about a week for me)? Also i have a 27" 2D lightboosting monitor which gives me zero motion blur with ultra low 2ms response time to boot. This is as perfect a display for receiving live visual information as anyone could want. The only next improvement is a bigger screen so i can use a higher field of view setting to see more of the world (although triple screen would be better in this regard). But in my opinion, it's not going to come close to making a difference on the scale i've seen from using a lower ffb multiplier (call it an educational guess but i'd be happy to be proven wrong but it's still irrelavent to my point about this lower ffb multi drastically improving driving performance). You've not actually addressed any of my rationalisations/interpretations of the evidence for how/why they are/could be wrong, you've only asked more questions or suggestions for what else it could be causing the improvement. Which is perfectly fine to make suggestions of possible flaws in my observation and testing, but you have to explain why you also think mine are (likely) wrong in the first place. But anyway, if that is your response and how your going to interpret me and the evidence i put forward and my analysis, then that's obviously perfectly your right to do so. But as arrogant as this sounds (it's honestly just confidence after the countless testings and confirmations by others who have test too), i have a lot of confidence (99% now) in saying that i know i am right on the money with this. You ignoring it (after all the compelling evidence I've presented) is no skin off my back anymore. I wish you all the best in whatever it is you want out of rfactor 2 and sim racing in general.
No one is ignoring your findings just your absolute conclusion. And I have tried what you said, .6 or .55 is way to weak for me. Someone else stated in a reply it was too weak for them as well, (although they did improve with a compromise of their settings). Did you not see that reply? Or did that just get thrown out because it didn't fit. 27" is absolutely not an ideal visual reference but you can say this absolutely because your depth of experience with other displays? How are other inputs not relevant to your delta of performance change with the wheel? Maybe your experience on real tracks has led you to know this. You already suspect you are right, even if you haven't tried it. And I can't call it an educational guess btw. That would be a guess based on knowledge and experience, of which you have none in that example. You had this same attitude when you tried to tell everyone input lag couldn't be seen. You took time to investigate and realized you were wrong, I suggest you take some time to investigate how changing other inputs can effect what you think must be your wheel settings. Maybe get some real life experience while you are at it. I would be interested to hear what you find instead of you saying it is irrelavent because frankly it isn't. It couldn't be more relevant. I did say before lowering my multi will probably help me save my tires a bit so there is something to the clipping issue but taking it down to where you suggest feels like I'm steering a bicycle. I guess I'll just have to miss out on my true potential.
In you take issue with me of my absolute statements, then it's best your not use them either. Also i never said 27" was the best, i even said it could be bigger and see some sort of improvement. My comment was on 2D lightboosting and if you've never tried it before then you should have no opinion on the matter. I have tried a great number of monitors and projectors (even full 180 degree dome screens) in numerous configurations, etc, etc. Of course i could always try more, but negating a professional career in monitor/projector reviewing, I trust my judgement and that of the overwhelmingly confirming and agreeing experiences of others in this regard. Go look up 2D lightboosting for yourself and then consider buying one to actually see for yourself why i can say such things with so much conviction. Because for the umteenth time, i have not changed anything else except ffb mutli. And i'm not saying other changes don't have a positive/negative impact. I don't know where your interpreting this from. Yes, and i'm grateful for being challenged and forces to do my own research and found i was indeed wrong and was gratefully corrected. I really don't understand you anymore Panigale. Please tell me how changing the ffb multiplier....back and forth....and seeing a consistent difference in my perforamnce, could be caused by something else? You'll need to explain this to me, i can't get my head around what it is your trying to say. So, what your saying is that's the only advantage to be had in your own singular experience? This is getting tiring....provide some evidence to the contrary (to the specific subjective and objective improvements i have shown and explained in this thread) or please don't say anything more on the matter. Yeah, pretty much. Live long and prosper.
OK, you are right, just like the arrogant post about input lag being invisible, that was fairly one-dimensional and easy to understand and test, hence you were able to get your head around it but that didn't keep you from being very clear about something you knew nothing about when you made you postings. This discussion however requires consideration of a few more things and thus isn't relevant because well I dunno but you said it isn't so there it is. Rock on internet expert.
I think our little "discussion" has turned futile and you've quite frankly turned a little hostile, so enjoy racing however it is that you like to.
Thank you DrR1pper for all the useful informations, could you share your other settings in Thrustmaster's control panel (Constant/Periodic etc) ? Also does your settings applied to the other sims you play and satisfies you? Thanks
Your welcome antgen. I only play rf2. Here are my t500 settings: You don't want spring or damper and centering because these are only going to filter the real ffb information (if they are working at all) from rfactor 2. Any and all simulated spring ,damper and centering effects you feel at the wheel should only come from the physics engine. Beware, i use 100% overall effects strength which means you have to use 0.55 (or less) ingame ffb multiplier.
Very interesting thread! I'm conciously going to ignore it for another two weeks until after the last races in my league It's much appreciated that you take your time and find stuff like this! Also, isolating changes one by one is the way to do it... There might be other stuff as well that improves ones driving, but that's a different story. I'm really happy to see you coming to a result, doing a rollback and see result changing back as you do.
Thanks DrR1pper, I tried with 100 overall and 0.55 in game but it's too weak, nowhere near clipping so I had to set ffb multi at 0.70-0.75(tried with megane as you did).With 0.75 clipping is occurs only if I ride a curb very hard or hit a wall. What I recall is when I had my T500 new it was plugged to an internal pci usb3 hub and it was working fine, after some months I did clean my pc case with a blower and I removed all the usb. After I connected the t500 to an other usb from my motherboard this time(not the pci one) I immediately found a big difference to how stronger it was with the same settings in TM control panel. So, is there a possibility with the same settings-car-track to result to different feeling/power between 2 different pc?
