GSC Force Feedback for Thrustmaster T500

[Rick Malm]

How much FFB setting do you use for a T500? In the control panel and in the game.
What other settings might you make in the control files or plugin files related to FFB. Just need a simple cookbook of how to optimize this feeling for the T500.
I will put a summary in the attached PDF as people respond. Thanks.

I just read one of
Niels Heusinkveld's post old post on reducing the ffb value
http://www.racedepartment.com/forum/threads/like-your-ffb-strong-think-again.30763/

and saw his new video talk on it wheel force calculations

http://www.racedepartment.tv/pc-racing/niels-heusinkveld-talk-drive-12-released/

I changed my settings down from 100%. Started with 20% and then 25% and even 50% felt like is clearly too little with FFB effections at full. Now at 80% strength and using the attached PDF Thrustmaster recommendations control panel gain settings.
Someone created an unsigned PDF in an rar that I will attach and it has settings and an .ini but Thrustmasters says the recommendations are not theirs but someones from the game community: Rotation 270 deg, overall strength 45 Constant 100 Periodic 70 Spring 100 Damper 20 They did respond with the definitions of the Thrustmaster Control Panels items. I will attach the rar file and here are Thrustmasters definitions.

We would like to inform you that the PDF number were provided by the community, not created by Thrustmaster and serve only as a guideline.
The Force Feedback descriptions are as following:
CONSTANT:
A constant force will keep the same level in time. When a game decides to apply a force of x% of what the wheel can do, the "Constant" will keep that force at the same level.
Example: A driving simulator game will usually use the constant force to simulate the G-Force. It will create a constant force at 0% but, depending on the speed and the wheel angle, the force will be increased accordingly.
PERIODIC:
A periodic force will vary in time according to the type of periodic effect, amplitude and frequency. Because a periodic force includes an offset that has the same behavior as a constant force, some games will create a periodic force and merge an effect they would render for a constant force (like the G-Force) and a periodic effect (bumping road).
Example: A periodic effect gives the shaking effect on the wheel. At high frequency, you will feel it rumble... but in some cases very low frequency are used to create crash effects where the wheel first turns fully to the left, then to the right and then to the left again, before stopping. Of course, that depends on what the game developers decide.
SPRING:
A spring force is a force that increases according to how far you are from a specific position on the wheel. The basic spring force we could think of is a default spring center where the wheel goes back to its center position when you release it. But the force can be set to negative, which will make the wheel go further away from the center position.
Example: Basic spring force where the wheel goes back to its center position.
DAMPER:
A damper force controls how the wheel will react when it's moving. It is usually used as a (dynamic) friction or if you use it while the wheel gets back to its center position (spring effect), then it will behave like controlling the damping on a spring-mass system. A game will usually use the damper force in order to make it harder for the player to turn the wheel while in other circumstance make it feel like if it's very smooth and easy.
Example: Controlling the force you need to apply on the wheel to rotate it.
The SPRING and DAMPER effects are what we call Dynamic Effects, because they rely on information which depends on the wheel (position for spring or speed for damper). The Dynamic Effects are those effects which benefit the most from hardware force-feedback implementation (compare to software) - like in the T500RS - because you want a fast response based on how the player will turn his wheel.
The CONSTANT and PERIODIC effects are what we call Static Effects. Once the game sets them, they act according to the parameters set or modified through time by the game regardless of how the user turns the wheel. The game might adjust them accordingly, but they are not linked directly to the wheel position, speed or acceleration.

Niels says to find the place that feedback waveform clipping might be happening that is the max point where where you beging to clip the dynamic range of the feedback and see if the feedback reduces at the apex. He also says to check with MoTeC and setup RealFeelPlugin.ini and set MaxForceAtSteeringRack=-4000.0 to match the MoTeC 'Steering Arm Force' average on a tight corner which I did.
Do you need other file settings to make this optimum? Thanks to
Does GSC have a track that one could use as a skidpad like I have seen in rFactor for this testing. Would be night to hold a tight circle and feel the ffb as the slip angle changes with increasing speed.
Could use some expert advice vs trial and error?

 

[Jebus]

Here's mine:
Rotation degrees for rs=540, for f1=360
Overall strenght 60
Constant 100
Periodic 100
Spring 0
Damper 0

In game ffb strenght 100
Ffb effects low

 

[Rick Malm]

Thanks for the input. I tried them all. Dont really feel the texture variation as much as I feel in my IS-F.
Maybe this is the best one can due with a simulator. The T500 ffb its pretty black and white with your settings and the Basilia rumble strips are pretty rough while the corner force feels pretty light. I can feel it taper off as the slip angle increases. Niels says that in the real world the force should get up about 15ft/lb-25ft/lb. Maybe thats just to much for my T500 to create without damage or wear.

 

[Warren Schembri]

Here's mine:
Rotation degrees for rs=540, for f1=360
Overall strenght 60
Constant 100
Periodic 100
Spring 0
Damper 0
(Actually copied this from Jebus in an earlier post)

In game
FFB strenght 65
FFB effects medium

 

[Rick Malm]

Thanks to both Warren and Jebus. I updated the 1st post with info from Thrustmasters.
I forgot to reduce effects.
I updated the 1st post with info from Thrustmasters.

 

[Warren Schembri]

Rick,
I hope to try your settings tonight or tomorrow but I'm quite busy at the minute.
If I do test them out, I will respond and let you know what I think

 

[Warren Schembri]

I quickly tried the following settings with a Stock Car:
overall strength 45 Constant 100 Periodic 70 Spring 100 Damper 20
and I found it too loose. I then set the overall strength to 60 which was better but I guess I prefer the settings that I and Jebus use.

I didn't try any other car. Maybe it works for the open wheelers but I cant say.

 

[Rick Malm]

Warren, Thanks taking time to doing an review of the recommendations. I will add this to my knowledge base.

 

[Paddler]

Hi Rickmalm

I like your setting! But i use 70 overall strenght. Perfect!

Great sim this is! Amazing!

 

[Rick Malm]

Thanks for the input, will post a summary of what people liked and did not like later when I get more input.

 

[Rick Malm]

Summary of settings attached. I will update if people post their values or make corrections.
Paddler made and update 3/16/14, thanks.

 

[Paddler]

Thx rickmalm for the overview! Good job!

I checked my settings. I have 60 ovoerall and 70 in Game FFB at my best settings. At medium. 540/360. Sorry for the confusion.

BUT: i cannot drive with the karts. Very bad ffb.

 

[Rick Malm]

The following is just FYI as I search for good settings.

Given the FFB settings people posted, I decided to try my settings and just change the in game ffb strength from 20 to 100 while doing a hard turn on the skidpad that Troy Barman posted in my thread on brake bias. I tried this 2 ways. 1st I holding the steering angle near max and increasing speed and 2nd test start by holding the ground speed and increasing the steering angle.

1st test: I started few degrees from full steering lock and starting in a circle slowly, and slowly increase speed. I was looking for a test that would let me see the difference in MoTeC and feel it. But at At 20-50 ffb strength and wheel FFB was too weak and did not feel like my real racing car. At the high FFB settings, around 80, I notice early in the circle at low speeds the wheel was turning INTO the turn and especially at 100 FFB setting, which was not reflected in the Steering Arm Force graph. So I thought maybe this is another reason to not use FFB=100 besides the clipping issue that Niels had reported. Still I did not feeling a clear clipping point or the reduction in steering force as I increased speed but you can see it in the plots.

I attach a PDF of the MoTeC curves and my T500 control panel gain setting and the test track runs on the skidpad. The Steering Arm Force is the bottom curve in the images.
You can see where the Steering Arm force peaks and starts to decrease quickly, not sure this is realistic since one would expect a slower transition. Notice, at this point the G Force Lat stops increasing and does not change as the speed increases and the steering Arm force decreases as you would expect. But bottom line the plot show more change than I can feel at any setting.

The 2nd test style, was to try to feel the ffb as the angle changes holding the throttle steady. This time i did feel the decrease in Steering Arm Force but only on the higher FFB settings and it clearly was not a 30% decrease in the force feeling. I did noticed in my last test the FFB strength was at 100 and the Steering force went up too over 5000.
And by the way, in the RealFeelPlugin.ini
I has set the
[Stock]
MaxForceAtSteeringRack=-4000.000000

Bottom line: I still have not found the clipping threshold for a T500.
Can you feel where it starts clipping and where the decrease is force starts?
Maybe my hand "feel" sensors are dead from all the golf swings resulting in thick skin on my hands or my age.....
Seems the game authors should know this value for the T500 as well as the other "best" values for the 5 Thrustmaster control panel gain settings.

 

[Paddler]

how about the Karts? Very bad feeling here with my T500.

 

[Rick Malm]

I have not tried them and my computer PSU just died so I will try when I get back running my game system. Its been awhile since I have driven real karts but I dont remember very high intense feeback in the wheel.

Bye the way, I was watching an Inside Sim Racing review video yesterday and they said many of the top simRacers turn FFB way down or off (ala iRacing guys like Ray Alfallow (spelling), Tyler Hudson). And for real drivers, Darin Gangi said that Dale Ernhart Jr told him that they dont feel much. See this quote in this video is about 7min into it. http://www.insidesimracing.tv/reviews/nascar-14-full-review/
Maybe Darin is right about simRacers not being able to feel the road so they turning it FFB up, and its because most simRacers do not have real seat movement feedback.

When I track my real IS-F I dont get as much road to wheel feedback as I get with simRacing FFB settings that I show in the summary PDF attached above, so I am going to try to turn it down and maybe turn my simVibe up.

 

[Troy Barman]

From what ive heard most Oval iracers hardly use any ffb, im sure the iracers on the road side like having good ffb feel.

 

[Rick Malm]

how about the Karts? Very bad feeling here with my T500.

I got my system back up and tried Karts per your request. Your right with FFB in game above 50 its unrealistic.

I did the following testing. I have a USB connected hand dynamometer so I can plot the foce vs time.

So I took the V12 and V8 to the skidpad. Put the sensor under my right hand as far out on the F1 wheel as I could. In the garage I did a 180 deg turn measuring the force and then drove the 2 cars in on a 250meter diameter circle increasing speed but adjusting the wheel to stay on the line and that after a little time held the steering angle and just increases the throttle slowly until I ran out of spidpad track. You can see in the attached pdf that the force to turn the wheel while the car was stopped was 64N. In the circle 10N to 25N for the v12 and 10 to 35 for the v8. Both with FFB at 70. Then I got a Kart. Can not go to the skidpad for some reason so I picked the 1st track and turn it 180deg at standstill (60N again) but on the track it was terrible like 50-70N on every turn and was a fight to drive and no fun. I then lowered the FFB in game to 20. Just not enough. Then tried 50 (too much?) and settled on 40. I think one might fine turn the effects, maybe medium vs high (my setting for all of these above).
Let me know what you finally pick for your values and I put them in the table.

I also took my dynamometer out to the home garage and did the 180 deg stopped test on my Lexus IS-F that I track. Peak was 50N. Plot attached.

 

[Rick Malm]

I found this on the InSideSimRacing forum member sonic_blue. Clearly not for T500 but this is why I did my standstill turn and then on the track turning testing.
He said
"Here is my basic calibration procedure that I use for each car.
1. Start with a baseline setting of FFB strength at half (=30), damper and min force to 0, linear checked. In logitech profiler settings, as default: overall 100%, damper 100%, spring 100%, spring box unchecked.
2. Park the car on a totally flat surface with no bumps on it. Turn the steering wheel left and right, feeling for how much resistance there is. Adjust FFB strength until turning the wheel left and right feels not too heavy and not too light, like a real car with power steering would. Take into account that some cars in the game do not have power steering and should feel much heavier when doing this.
3. Drive down a flat straight at moderate speed and weave left and right slightly, feeling for any vagueness or lightness around the center. Increase Min Force until the vagueness is reduced to an acceptable level.
4. Finally go for a few laps and feel how much variance there is between strong and light effects, such as excessive rattling/twitching of the steering over bumps, or the wheel going too light when locking up the front wheels. Add damping until these kinds of effects are at an acceptable level. Lime Rock is a good track for testing this as it's quite bumpy.
Since adding damping increases the heaviness of the steering , you may need to decrease FFB strength to compensate. You may also need to go back and re-adjust Minimum Force.
The benefit of having center spring high but unchecked means center spring will do nothing in game but when you are outside of the game it will always center, it also normally means your wheel will be centered when you start instead of driving straight into pit wall. This is not always the case as your wheel will move when you adjust things in garage. Do not have it checked though as you don't want center spring in iRacing, it will feel terrible."