PC1 bManic's FFB experiment - Thrustmaster TX / T300

[bmanic]

UPDATE! I changed Relative Adjust Bleed to 0.3 instead of 0.45 (which could cause some oddities)

UPDATE2!: More and more people with other wheel brands have tried the settings and it's starting to look as if these may work for quite a few wheels. T500 is confirmed as working pretty well, Fanatec GT2/GT3RS v2 also confirmed as working better than defaults and one Fanatec CSW v2 also happy.

UPDATE3!: There seems to be some confusion about Steering Arm Angle and what it is. It is NOT the same as Steering Ratio, which is a VEHICLE SETUP parameter. Arm Angle can be found in the car garage menu, under the Force Feedback Tab (it's the middle tab, between Vehicle and Summary tabs), the last option on the first page is called Arm Angle. This is the one I mean. Everything in this thread is about Force Feedback, not about vehicle setups!

Update4!: Brandon Wright noticed quite a bit of spikes and odd behavior which seems to be related to the Relative Adjust Bleed parameter. It is possible that my value of 0.3 is still too large so if any of you guys are suffering from these spikes then try a lower setting. You can go as low as 0.05 until you lose the benefit of the Relative Adjust processing block.


Hi guys,

So I finally had some time to play the game and I've spent the whole day experimenting with a new way to squeeze the massive FFB dynamic range into a range that our consumer wheels can tolerate while getting as much information as possible from the FFB (meaning: no hard clipping).

I would love it if you Thrustmaster TX and T300 owners would try these settings. NOTE: You must follow these instructions TO THE LETTER or the experience will be different to mine. Feedback that is provided without following every single point to the letter will be useless and thus ignored.

Why? Because the FFB system in pCars is extremely flexible and thus complex. It is also highly dynamic which means that a single tiny tweak of a crucial parameter (like tire force / master scale multiplier, spindle arm angle or the ratio of Fx, Fy, Fz and Mz) will alter the system. Thus, if you want stronger or weaker forces, use your Thrustmaster Control Panel program to control this! Do NOT change the in-game settings to achieve this!

These are my Thrustmaster Control Panel gain settings:

Overall strength of all forces = 75%
Constant = 100%
Periodic = 0%
Spring = 0%
Damper = 0%

Auto-center settings = by the game (recommended)

Step 1)

Set your Thrustmaster Control Panel settings. You can use my settings to start with. These result in fairly heavy forces. A good workout but not impossible to drive with. If you are a masochist, set the strength to 100%. I often drive longer races with the strength set to 60%.

Step 2)

Start Project CARS and reset your wheel then do the wheel calibration again as follows:

a) turn wheel FULLY LEFT AND RIGHT.. all the way! My TX wheel requires me to truly wrestle the wheel to get it 100%, otherwise it stops at 96%.

b) follow the 90 degree rotation to the letter.. this means you set your wheel so that it is physically pointing exactly 90 degrees to either left or right. Do NOT set it so that you get perfectly 900 or 1080 degrees here. Set it so that it is truly pointing 90 degrees to either side. For example, my wheel when set so that it is physically pointing 90 degrees results in a steering rotation of 882 degrees.

c) calibrate your pedals

d) configure your buttons

Step 3)

Make sure your FFB Strength in-game is set to 100/maximum! This is very important! It defaults to 75. Also make sure the FFB damping saturation setting is set to ZERO. It defaults to 25. (you find these options under the CONFIGURATION tab in the controls preferences)

Step 4)

Go into the "calibrate FFB" menu and set the following (parameters not mentioned should be left at default!):

Tire Force = 100

Deadzone Removal Range = 0.03
Deadzone Removal Falloff = 0.02

Relative Adjust Gain = 1.37 (sometimes it shows 137 and leaves the " . " out)
Relative Adjust Bleed = 0.30
Relative Adjust Clamp = 1.33 (sometimes it shows 133 and leaves the " . " out)

Scoop Knee = 0.12
Scoop Reduction = 0.08

Soft Clipping (Half Input) = 0.60
Soft Clipping (Full Output) = 1.79

Step 5)

Individual car setup FFB settings! I've only had time to test 3 cars but from these you can quickly extrapolate and get the general idea. The main idea is to have a Mz heavy setup and to set a good spindle arm angle and then to set a good Master Scale value so that the FFB "pushes" into the Relative Gain and Soft Clipping at proper levels. These usually end up in the 26 to 36 range, depending on how much down force the car produces or how heavy it is. Here are the settings for the 3 cars that tried:

<--- CAR SETUP - FFB TAB - --->

Lykan Hypersport:

Master Scale = 32

Fx = 68
Fy = 36
Fz = 74
Mz = 100

(note!! set all Fx, Fy, Fz, Mz smoothing to zero!!)

Steering Arm Angle = 2200

BMW Z4 GT3:

Master Scale = 28

Fx = 66
Fy = 44
Fz = 82
Mz = 100

(note!! set all Fx, Fy, Fz, Mz smoothing to zero!!)

Steering Arm Angle = 2000

Formula B:

Master Scale = 30

Fx = 68
Fy = 36
Fz = 74
Mz = 100

(note!! set all Fx, Fy, Fz, Mz smoothing to zero!!)

Steering Arm Angle = 2500
----------------------------------------------------------------------

That's it. You are done. Go into the game and enjoy pretty detailed FFB. To appreciate the full range of FFB I highly recommend turning off all driving aids. I'll add more cars to this thread once I have a chance to test some more.

NOTE!: I will NOT be providing FFB .xml files because they do not seem to work as expected. This is a complete system where every individual setting feeds into one another and thus becomes a quite complex thing. The general signal flow is like this (at least it used to be like this right before release):

Tire Force * Master Scale -> Fx, Fy, Fz, Mz -> Spindle Arm Angle -> Relative Gain -> Soft Clipping -> Scoop -> Tighten Center

As I've understood it, Relative Gain and Soft Clipping are non-linear functions and thus quite complex in nature. Even small input variations can cause quite a different feel in the wheel. Because there are two of these functions after one another and they feed an inherently non-linear device (your consumer wheel) you can probably appreciate how quickly things get complicated. You'll easily notice this by simply tweaking the Master Scale of each car or change the Fx, Fy, Fz, Mz relative ratios. Like I said in the beginning of the post, the main point is to squeeze as much "useful" information into the limited dynamic range of our consumer wheels and this means compressing the heck out of it.


You lucky s.o.b's with direct drive wheels can ignore all this and simply set pCars as fully linear and have a ridiculously awesome experience. You may still want to adjust the Fx, Fy, Fz and Mz settings like I have them above but disregard everything else (remove all soft clip and all relative gain and scoop stuff. Heck, I'd even remove tighten center).

Cheers!
bManic

 

[Brandon Wright]

Well, for the most part I figured it out. Per the instructions in the OP of this thread I had turned my Periodic down to 0% in the profiler and this is what was causing the test functions to not work correctly (one of them worked, the others did nothing). Apparently it saves this setting for each rim, on the F1 rim I had not turned this setting down so when that rim was on everything worked fine. But once I put the T300 rim back on it would go back to 0% and things would get wonky.

I also discovered that when I fired up R3E or GSCE the wheel literally had no force at all (I could turn the wheel to 90 degrees, floor the throttle and bounce of every wall on the track and the wheel would never move). By turning Periodic back up to 100% it fixed these issues. I still have the limp-wheel syndrome with the open-wheel cars in GSCE (though the Aussie SuperV8 is the best thing I've ever felt in sim racing ) but that's for another thread.

 

[elvislad69]

This is a ridiculously over complicated way to set ffb,these settings seem like there the developer ones...well they are arnt they. They need to simplify them so that the casual racer or just racer,like me can get a decent feeling of grip loss from the wheel. Same with the car suspension settings,im not a friggin race engineer and so am never going to be able to get a different set up for any car cos i dont know or want to know what affect camber etc will have. The ffb settings should have basic strength settings and then a few profiles with easy plain descriptions so we can easily select one.

 

[xnorb]

I think it's great to have so much control over the FFB.

But of course when launching up pCars and selecting my G27 in the options i should get an FFB that feels great and just if i specifically want something changed those options have to be touched.

 

[Metzger82]

I dont like that much per car setups.. I dont understand very much setup system in pCars but everytime I drive with a new car or new track I have to setup the ffb per car setup which is very annoying because it is not just 1 slider....

 

[elvislad69]

I dont like that much per car setups.. I dont understand very much setup system in pCars but everytime I drive with a new car or new track I have to setup the ffb per car setup which is very annoying because it is not just 1 slider....

Exactly,they should have it set up as good as possible,the concensus is that every one has a different perception of how it should feel but thats bollox,if we both got in the same car it would feel the same to both of us so thats that. But obviously they need to exaggerate the things us gamers need to drive the car on the limit,which isbasically grip feel n loss and weight transfer. If iracing doesnt need this amount of setti gs nor does pcars. I want to learn the track and cars not **** about with the mechanics of the game!!!

 

[Globespy]

Are all these settings still relevant after the many game patch updates and learnings since last year?

 

[Adam#81]

No, a lot has changed since then, since patch 8.0 the FFB has been tamed a lot. You can drive pretty well with the "classic" preset, and the appropriate deadzone removal. If you are following bManic's way of car tuning, you can still apply them, the car balance has changed a little, but it shouldn't be completely irrelevant. I just use JackSpade tweek files and be done with it. So, car settings can still be valid, however the wheel FFB settings have changed since.

 

[Globespy]

No, a lot has changed since then, since patch 8.0 the FFB has been tamed a lot. You can drive pretty well with the "classic" preset, and the appropriate deadzone removal. If you are following bManic's way of car tuning, you can still apply them, the car balance has changed a little, but it shouldn't be completely irrelevant. I just use JackSpade tweek files and be done with it. So, car settings can still be valid, however the wheel FFB settings have changed since.

Thanks for your reply.

 

[Jake Fangio]

The line about setting the ffb for personal preference is bullcrap.They were probably going to miss another deadline for release,and just decided to stick all those dev settings in,and then call it personal creativity.

 

[Adam#81]

No, you are wrong. They set out to create a system that gives almost complete control over shaping the FFB force curve. That was the goal and that's what they delivered. If you get to know the system, it is amazing the kind of tool they have created, if you know anything about sound signal shaping, you will drool. If that's not your thing, then yea... The fact is, you can tailor your wheel's response curve and make it output the forces that you want. Where SMS failed though, was to provide a preset per wheel make (they re not that many wheels, really) that will be a failsafe when things go wrong when calibrating.

It's easy to see how you think they just threw a bunch of equations at us, if you don't take the time and read the forum about what each setting does. We agree though, that the FFB settings lack a clear presentation and they need you to read a small book's amount of information to be able to start understanding.

Having said all that, the classic preset is pretty much your starting point. You just need to enter Deadzone Removal Range and Falloff and you could drive fine like this (I would lower TireForce at 75-80 too with my wheel). The rest of the settings, especially Soft Clipping, you really need to have a good grasp of what the tool does and how your wheel force curve looks like.

 

[Daohaus]

I just want to post and thank you for this. It's changed the way this wheel feels in PCars. I've tried the tweaks other settings and have always left me wanting more. Ever since I picked up AC during the Steam sale I just notice how much more lively the FFB was on that sim vs pcars. Now it's so much better.

I do have a question though, is there a way to turn up the feel of going over the rumble strips? It seems muted.

 

[Globespy]

I just want to post and thank you for this. It's changed the way this wheel feels in PCars. I've tried the tweaks other settings and have always left me wanting more. Ever since I picked up AC during the Steam sale I just notice how much more lively the FFB was on that sim vs pcars. Now it's so much better.

I do have a question though, is there a way to turn up the feel of going over the rumble strips? It seems muted.

Pretty sure the FX slider is for bumps and ripple strips. Turn that up to your liking

 

[Adam#81]

I just want to post and thank you for this. It's changed the way this wheel feels in PCars. I've tried the tweaks other settings and have always left me wanting more. Ever since I picked up AC during the Steam sale I just notice how much more lively the FFB was on that sim vs pcars. Now it's so much better.

I do have a question though, is there a way to turn up the feel of going over the rumble strips? It seems muted.

No you cannot amplify rumble strip through the general FFB options. You can increase them through the Fz force in the per-car FFB options. But before you do anything like this, you should know that not all rumble strips are the same. Some are very smooth and you probably can't feel them at all, they are just painted on the tarmac. Some are strong and rugged, like a few in BrandsHatch and you will feel them really harshly sometimes (depending also on the wheel's mechanisms, gear driven wheels make rattling sounds, belt driven are more rubbery and natural). So if you are expecting all kurbs to feel the same, this will not be the case. So if you already know this but you still like to feel the forces anyway, increase Fz in the car FFB.

Note that this will also raise all the forces calculated from Fz. This is not only a "kurb-slider". The kurbs are coded into the game and the smooth ones will still feel smooth in comparison to the rough ones. They will just be a little more pronounced.

 

[Globespy]

Meant to clarify one other thing.
In the windows PC control panel, should everything be left stock in the gain settings part?
I saw that the OP reduced both spring and damper to zero (default is 100), but wondered if this is really necessary/will make any difference in pcars on Xbox?
I think I recall these settings were needed for Assetto Corsa, which is coming out on Xbox in just over 3 weeks.
I'm planning to just run pcars in game FFB at 100 and tire force somewhere between 50-65, then just use the individual car setups from: pcars.oscaralim.pt (think they are Jack spade tweakers anyway).
Appreciate the feedback.

No, you are wrong. They set out to create a system that gives almost complete control over shaping the FFB force curve. That was the goal and that's what they delivered. If you get to know the system, it is amazing the kind of tool they have created, if you know anything about sound signal shaping, you will drool. If that's not your thing, then yea... The fact is, you can tailor your wheel's response curve and make it output the forces that you want. Where SMS failed though, was to provide a preset per wheel make (they re not that many wheels, really) that will be a failsafe when things go wrong when calibrating.

It's easy to see how you think they just threw a bunch of equations at us, if you don't take the time and read the forum about what each setting does. We agree though, that the FFB settings lack a clear presentation and they need you to read a small book's amount of information to be able to start understanding.

Having said all that, the classic preset is pretty much your starting point. You just need to enter Deadzone Removal Range and Falloff and you could drive fine like this (I would lower TireForce at 75-80 too with my wheel). The rest of the settings, especially Soft Clipping, you really need to have a good grasp of what the tool does and how your wheel force curve looks like.

 

[Adam#81]

I think these settings are recommended to be left at zero and only the constant force at 100. I think damper doesn't do anything for PCars and only spring can be used at low speeds under 15mph or so. Which is also what Slow Spring in the FFB options does, so you don't need that either.

 

[Peter Stefani]

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