PC1 bManic's FFB experiment - Thrustmaster TX / T300

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
 
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Any chance that those settings are similar on T500rs?

They could work yes. I think the T500 is perhaps a bit less detailed compared to the TX and T300 so you may want to tweak some of the Fx, Fy, Fz and Mz ratios.. and perhaps mess around with the Scoop setting (basically it exaggerates forces above the set knee and minimizes forces below the knee) to get some detail back. But yeah, definitely give these settings a go on a T500. Start by first following the instructions to the letter.. then go from there.
 
bmanic - off topic question for you. What is your background within racing/simracing/real racing?
Just wondering, as you seem to know your stuff and I noticed from a few forums/videos that people take your opinion very seriously :) You don't have to answer, but it would be nice to know who we are dealing with :) Thanks
 
I was pretty happy with settings I'd dialed in from various forum posts but these suggestions here have taken the experience with my T300RS to a whole new level, outstanding.
Thanks for sharing your obvious knowledge and sharing the effort you have put in bmanic, much appreciated.
 
@bmanic, I was pretty satisfied with my TX in pCARS but I followed your suggestions anyway. After testing with the Z4 GT3 and Formula B at Laguna Seca and Watkins Glen Short I have to say your settings are working pretty good, seems to have added some additional feedback that I was accustom to feeling in GSCE or rFactor 2. I'm not saying its as good as those as FFB is very subjective but I'm satisfied. With that said, a lot also comes down to car and track, some tracks are very smooth at least of feedback goes, not sure what the IRL track would be like.
Watkins Glen in Project CARS is fairly bumpy and with pretty substantial curbs, the Formula B will give the wheel a work out (no clipping either).
Thanks for testing/tweaking, over time I think everyone will find their sweet spot. I also believe in the coming months SMS will tweak some cars and tracks as some feel better than others, most likely based on how much time they focused on fine-turning the content.
 
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What a great settings !!! Thank you very much bmanic !!! Much better than Jack files !!! Now I have a good ffb !

But next week I change T300 by an Fanatec CSW v2 and I don't know setting like yours for this wheel :(
 
Yes. FFB .xml files always over write any settings you have set in the game. Move them to some other location and delete the FFB folder just in case.
Sounds good. I will give them a try when I get home from work tonight. Thanks for putting in the work to get these settings figured out for us
 
Ok just done a few laps at Brno after work. It's lighter than I'm used to plus I need to get used to 900 degrees rotation. It feels a lot more balanced than my own settings. Also, do you do anything with steering ratio or the linkage settings and also periodic has been standard 100 in tm control panel for most people I've spoken to. This is now 0? It does feel nice though. Thanks
 
Thanks again for all this info!!!
when you have time could you do one clio and a fwd street car?
Ive taken what have provided and broken them into categories which i applied to the cars and it seems to work very well :)
Street Rwd, Gt rwd, GT rear engine, open wheel etc

@bmanic whats your take on sop lateral and differential? i personally like having a little bit of feel of whats going on in the rear.

Cheers
 
Steering Arm Angle - no such parametr in car FFB!?

Yes there is, but you can only access it from your garage in the main menu, not when you're on track. It's all the way at the bottom.

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%.

A few questions: First, when you say "reset your wheel" what do you mean? Also, you say you have to wrestle the wheel to get it to 100%, do you mean when you're in the calibration screen? My wheel has no force to it in the calibration screen, I just rotate it to 100% with no resistance. Finally, do you have your Thrustmaster profiler open or closed while playing the game? I've seen that Logitech users have better results with the profiler running but I don't know if that applies to TM users.

Thanks for the effort, I'll try these when I get home from work. :thumbsup:
 
Yes there is, but you can only access it from your garage in the main menu, not when you're on track. It's all the way at the bottom.



A few questions: First, when you say "reset your wheel" what do you mean? Also, you say you have to wrestle the wheel to get it to 100%, do you mean when you're in the calibration screen? My wheel has no force to it in the calibration screen, I just rotate it to 100% with no resistance. Finally, do you have your Thrustmaster profiler open or closed while playing the game? I've seen that Logitech users have better results with the profiler running but I don't know if that applies to TM users.

Thanks for the effort, I'll try these when I get home from work. :thumbsup:
The steering arm angle is accessible in the garage settings on the track...if you use your d-pad on your wheel to scroll down it will be there
 

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