AC issue - Can't stop locking my brakes!

Having read a few books on driving quickly, including Drive to Win and Going Faster, I've always thought threshold braking began with an emphatic brake input before easing off as necessary, but in AC I have to gingerly tap the brake to avoid completely locking my front wheels. This is most pronounced in non-ABS cars like the E30 M3, but in ABS cars, the red ABS indicator fires with a dab of brakes.

I have an excellent pedal set, so I can't blame the hardware, but I haven't moved the brake bias rearward, as I feel like I should be able to brake with the default setups (and the only time I did adjust the bias rearward, I spun the Cobra out at T1 (Mugello)).

I adjusted brake gamma all the way to 3, and that helped, but I can't help thinking that's a cheat (or if not, that I shouldn't need to set it so high). I don't recall a brake pressure setting in AC, but if I'm mistaken, I assume it's at default.

I understand that dedicated practice, with one car on the same track, is the best means to drop laptime, but without proper technique, practice is only going to solidify bad habits.

Anyone care to enlighten me on proper brake technique (with as much emphasis on the physical foot/brake pedal interaction as possible)? Given my threshold braking incompetence, I should probably ignore trailbraking for now.

Henk
 
If you dont mind i like to suggest choose a track that has a long straight road to practice the threshold braking until you get use to the signal from ffb about when the locking going to happen and how much you should lift & press the brake again without losing or still carry too much speed or something like that.

Just in case you dont know; The wheel will start to shake and tire sound (dont know how to say that) can be heard before the locking. Meaning if you found your wheel shaking & tire sound come out its time to lift at least abit the brake. Use replay to check how is the result.

Thats all i can share so far. I use stock DFGT wheel and brake gamma set to 1 and manage to deal with threshold braking without front wheel locking at least like 70% of the time ...
 
@LazyBug
I wasn't specifically aware that steering wheel forces precede lockups, so I will definitely try to parse the various sensations during braking. I've never been very good at translating ffb sensations, but at least that's something to work on.

@Hany Alsabti

HPP pedals. I'm very familiar with Mugello, so that's where I practice, and I love the e30 M3, so I plan to stick with it for now.

I am still concerned, however, about how little pedal deflection is required to lockup the fronts.

Increasing Brake Gamma seems to be analagous to a linearity adjustment, which is why I feel uncomfortable using it, but if it's an adjustment required by hydraulic brakes, then I'll get over it. I know it specifically mentions load cell brakes in the tooltips, but I'm not sure if that means "anything other than linear potentiometer", or exclusively load cell. Increasing it to 3 is also unsettling, as large adjustments are usually unnecessary.

Anyone else feel like their brakes are a hair trigger?

Henk
 
Yeah for sure you will get the signal from ffb & audio effect when the tire is about to lock, try use as strong ffb as you can to get the signal as soon as possible & practice until you get use to it.

Good luck.
 
I find I have plenty of movement on my brake pedal. Are you sure yours is set up right on the first page of the Wheel/Custom controls page?

I can press mine and watch the brake amount move over from 0% to 100% with quite a bit of brake pedal travel. I have to actually push pretty hard on the G25 pedal to get it to 100% and can have a gentle touch on the brakes when trail braking whenever I need it - even mid corner corrections are workable.

My Brake Gamma is set to 1.5 at the moment, it probably belongs at 1,0 but I just never changed it since I reduced it from the standard 2.5 a while back.
 
I think I'm going to spend some time looking at replays to see exactly how hard I'm initially pressing the pedal. I do have plenty of travel between 0 and 100%, and also have to give it some oomph to hit 100%. I set up it that way in DiView.

Just to be clear, I too am able to "brake-steer" mid corner; it's the initial press that's going wrong.

What percentage, ballpark, should I strive for, to avoid locking up (if answerable)?
 
If you dont mind i suggest to practice this threshold braking without locking thing with a car that you can see your front whee like Lotus 49 ..

Say practice in Monza the long straight road before the first turn; So you go full hard brake and then before the tire go fully lock you should hear tire making some kind of eee sound (dont know how to name that) & wheel shaking like hell (wont realize it if ffb set too low) and if that 2 thing happen its time to release the brake abit & abit more (need practice to know how much to release)

Use car like Lotus 49 to practice this so you no need to spend another few more time watching the replay.

Good luck.

# By the way i can upload a video for how i doing it using my stock DFGT wheel with 1.0 brake gamma with pedal app & all that if you like.
 
those pedals are great man. talking about brake gamma, use 1.

the way I do it with my csr elite pedals is jump in and drive, the first 3 corners ill lock up my brakes until I get the feeling for it. After that ill never lockup again because I know exactly how much pressure I need to apply.
 
I was away during the last couple of updates and came back to the RC1. I can brake hard and haven't really felt it was off for any reason. What I have noticed though is that since there is tyre damage modelling enabled now once the tyres have been damaged I'm far more likely to lock up than when I treat them right and bring them to temperature properly.

Of course I can brake far harder in cars with more speed and downforce and lighter construction in that initial hit, which I think is all relative anyway. I'll give the E30 a spin tomorrow but imagine it wouldn't be at the top of the list for super hard braking given it's age.

I don't have abs enabled in any of the cars and I'm using CSPs with a hard ass pedal and can and do hit 100% regularly enough but braking that hard is not always required in every car at every corner.

I'd have a go with tyre wear turned off (although I don't know if this stops all tyre damage like the graining etc) and run some laps on an optimal track surface and good temperature and see if there's a difference.
 
You have probably solved your problem by now but I was having same problem and I thought I was going mad. I found that setting Brake Gamma to 1.0 (i.e. no alteration) solved the problem. I suspect that increasing Brake Gamma makes brakes MORE sensitive not less don't ask me why I only know that 1.0 was more realistic, still not easy at the end of a long straight going into a hairpin but then that's where the skill comes in I suppose and why I am many seconds off the pace hahaha. I drive G25 with all assists off btw.
 
This problem concerns some cars but not every car ... especially with Logitech wheels and original unmodded pedals.

I only found one solution for this and it seems to work perfectly.
As G27, my wheel, is unmodded and I mainly use trail braking, and the G27 unmodded brake pedal isn't the perfection ( although much better than the DFGT ), I searched a trick to use more of the pedal course, else said use longer pedal range in place of modulating power on pedal, less easy on an unmodded brake pedal.

The solution was, using Logitech Profiler, change one value of the brake pedal for AC: not the sensivity or dead zone without real improvement but well its range: from 100% down to 60 or 70% or more for other cars. .... in order to use more brake pedal range with perfect braking without blocking wheels except at its top range.
This allowed more precision in braking .... taking profit of the pedal range in place of the power of the foot on this pedal..
Only problem: this setting needs to be changed for different cars or different platforms, as it isn't part of the special settings for one game only.

I'm sure it might help only those who are using stock unmodified G27 pedals. Nixim, Loadcell or other pedal mods don't need this.

did someone else try this system yet ?
 
I have the same issue on my DFGT pedals, the first time I drive after launching the game the brake pedal needs to be pushed to 100% to calibrate, otherwise the first time I brake it gives 100% on the pedal app at whatever movement I make.
 
you have hpp pedals you say
i had trouble with locking my brakes as well in the beginning (HE pro pedals)
till i found out (way too late) that i have to max out my maximum values for the brake pedal
in a calibration program specifically for these pedals (it has nothing to o with the sim you're playing)
maybe you have sthing like that as well:

 

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