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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1) Is it possible that the infamous "setup bug" is still present? What happened is that car setups would randomly shuffle around some values (usually springs and dampers) causing some cars to behave very strange. The reason it is/was so infamous during alpha/beta testing was that nobody really nailed down a way to reproduce it. It was seemingly random and could happen during any time.

2nd possibility is that you had damaged your tires in the first corner and they went wonky.. but I doubt that's possible as the current damage amount / tire wear is really low (too low).

2) The rim makes a HUGE difference in how the FFB motor works. It's diameter and weight play a significant role in the performance of a consumer FFB wheel.

2nd possibility is that thrustmaster driver/wheel firmware is bugged (or the detection in pCars gets messed up when you change the rim). None the less, it's an interesting find. Keep investigating!

It was very strange. I was at Brands Hatch, no real damage to the tires in that first turn there. But there was a very noticeable difference in the FFB after I made my stop.

I didn't realize the rim would make that much difference. I notice a similar, but lesser, effect in AC so it's probably not directly related to pCARS. I'm thinking about getting the F1 rim, I presume the situation would be the same with that one.

I like how you numbered you observations: A and then 2. lol

A. I will have to watch for this again but I could have sworn that early on after the release I experienced something similar. Not 100% sure.

2. When I switch from my Formaula add-on rim to the GTE rim (TX wheel) I always make sure to recalibrate. I obviously have to reassign the button mapping as well. Did you recalibrate? I assume you didn't. Slight variations in wheel weight could be throwing things off.

Gotta keep people on their toes! :laugh:

I did not recalibrate, I just paused the game when I was on track, switched the rim, and then resumed driving. I will try recalibrating it with the T500 rim and see if that makes a difference. Kind of a pain though, sucks that we can't save multiple wheel profiles like in AC.

Off-topic, how do you like the F1 rim? I got to try one at the Indy500 last weekend (it was actually mounted in an old IndyCar, see below) and I really liked the way it felt and think it would add to the immersion factor when driving open-wheel and touring cars. It seems to be hard to find though, Amazon is out of stock and eBay has them at ridiculous prices. BestBuy has them for $199, but they will price match Amazon's price of $149.

IMG_5250.PNG
 
I love the formula rim. Much better feel than the GTE and plenty of buttons to set up. I rarely use the GTE. I mostly drive the GT3 and Formula Cars anyway but occasionally I switch for some of the cars like the F Rookie.
 
Hey Brandon, check this video (before they move it). I am using the F1 rim and driving the Formula B at Catalunya. Forgive me for the camera going out of focus. I need to work on my recording technique with this little camera I'm using.
 
I'm thinking of getting the Formula rim as well. I'm looking forward to a few days of vacation and would really like to get into Project CARS and AC again. I'll also mainly be focusing on open wheelers so the F1 rim would make sense. Then again, I still have the crap stock pedals and no shifter. So perhaps I should save my money and get the shifter and club sport pedals.

So many options.. so little time.
 
I'm thinking of getting the Formula rim as well. I'm looking forward to a few days of vacation and would really like to get into Project CARS and AC again. I'll also mainly be focusing on open wheelers so the F1 rim would make sense. Then again, I still have the crap stock pedals and no shifter. So perhaps I should save my money and get the shifter and club sport pedals.

So many options.. so little time.

Getting the CSR Elite's was the single best upgrade I've ever made to my rig, it made a big improvement to the driving experience and also made me faster/more consistent. I highly, highly, highly recommend them, it will take a week or two to break them in and adapt to the stiff brake pedal but you'll never regret it. The TH8RS is also one of the best upgrades I've ever made, I usually use it in sequential mode but it's a fine bit of kit and also ups the immersion level.

I'm also considering a simvibe setup or a whole new cockpit (mine is hand-made with wood and a modified office chair, works fine but leaves a bit to be desired). I can only do one of the three............so many tough choices!

EDIT: I don't want to derail the thread, but I have a few questions about SimVibe that I'm not finding answers to. Could someone who uses it PM me? :)
 
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Getting the CSR Elite's was the single best upgrade I've ever made to my rig, it made a big improvement to the driving experience and also made me faster/more consistent. I highly, highly, highly recommend them, it will take a week or two to break them in and adapt to the stiff brake pedal but you'll never regret it. The TH8RS is also one of the best upgrades I've ever made, I usually use it in sequential mode but it's a fine bit of kit and also ups the immersion level.

I'm also considering a simvibe setup or a whole new cockpit (mine is hand-made with wood and a modified office chair, works fine but leaves a bit to be desired). I can only do one of the three............so many tough choices!

EDIT: I don't want to derail the thread, but I have a few questions about SimVibe that I'm not finding answers to. Could someone who uses it PM me? :)
Same here...I don't want to get the thread off topic but I don't want to start a whole new thread. I just bought a T300rs right before Christmas last year so I haven't had it very long. But I'm thinking about upgrading to a Fanatec clubsport wheel but didn't know if it was worth the upgrade. If someone who has one or has maybe used both could tell me if it's worth the upgrade. Thanks
 
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I need help with ffb on Nordschleife with the Radical. It's too heavy, lumpy and not very nice at the moment. I've tried for an hour but I can';t do anymore. Anyone tried this car yet? I don't know the car but I'm guessing it is a hard ride but it feels really hard. Going over every bump feels too hard.
 
My set up, I highly recommend:
Thrustmaster TX
Thrustmaster T3PA Pro Pedals (yes, i have Fanatec CSP V2s but I like the Thrustmaster pedals better, conical break mod feels just as good as load cell, plus they are $100 cheaper)
TH8RS Shifter
GTE and F1 Wheel rims
Fanatec Classic Wheel rim mounted to DSD wheel hub adapter;)
 
My set up, I highly recommend:
Thrustmaster TX
Thrustmaster T3PA Pro Pedals (yes, i have Fanatec CSP V2s but I like the Thrustmaster pedals better, conical break mod feels just as good as load cell, plus they are $100 cheaper)
TH8RS Shifter
GTE and F1 Wheel rims
Fanatec Classic Wheel rim mounted to DSD wheel hub adapter;)
You have an adapter that hooks up a fanatec wheel to the thrustmaster base?
 
It's a Derek Speare Designs wheel hub adapter that I use. I then purchased a Fanatec wheel rim, just the rim. Put them together and...viola. For example, you could take this:

http://www.fanatec.com/us-en/steering-wheel-accessories/clubsport-wheel-rim-gt-us.html

and then connect to this (the one at the bottom of the page):

http://www.**********************/wheel-adapters.html

..and you get a custom wheel rim. Major drawback is that you have no buttons on your wheel and no shifter paddles. You will need a shifter and your keyboard/button box. Maybe I should post a pic.
 

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