Community Question | FFB or No FFB?

[LibranRabbit]

In regards to Esports, all competitors should be in motion rigs with, vibration and FFB.

 

[Mr Deap]

It's sad nobody has something positive to say about esports. You know, it's all about acceptance.

I'm against trolling people. Turning it off is acceptable, if the game feedback is too garbage, There's nothing wrong to value performance.

Simracing Esport is arcade. It's dumb to enforce the electronic athlete to be trolled by the game.

FFB is best for drifting. Cause, it takes more skill.

 

[RaceNut]

We all vary somewhat, in how we interpret feedback through our senses ((( all six of them ))).
Some are more visually in tune, aurally, tactilely, etc. Other factors such as muscle "twitch" factor, brain response function, etc., all play a part in making the "aliens" who they are, and they can do so with less effort and feedback than others.

Another factor may be in regard to methods vs. goals. Some players play for immersion, others purely for competition, others for domination of the game, recreation, etc.

In my case, I like competing but, only up to a certain point. I still want to be immersed, either in the race, the driving, or both. FFB makes a big difference for me - even now, when we have so much more feedback available (VR, tactile systems, motion systems, etc.). The more I have to draw from, the more it all works in concert, the better.

 

[VinillaIce82]

what - why is this even a poll?

For the 95% of us who race from time to time, casually, or just run laps by ourselves...building outrageous rigs or even using our desk, the main point is to simulate racing...ie getting the pleasure of driving cars that we otherwise would never be able to drive irl at places we could only imagine. It's possible, but would be very expensive to even drive your dream car at your dream track (GT3RS on the Nords?) for a day. So to be able to experience a fraction, however small, of the real thing for a fraction of the cost is no question! The advances that have been made in computing and gaming have allowed us to achieve this, so why on earth would i turn it off??

For those competing in esports, the goal is no longer the same. It's no longer trying to simulate real driving. It's trying to eke out every last advantage to win within the allowed rules by whatever means.

 

[metalnwood]

For those competing in esports, the goal is no longer the same. It's no longer trying to simulate real driving. It's trying to eke out every last advantage to win within the allowed rules by whatever means.

I agree with this, any sport governed by rules where you are competing at the top level will have competitors doing all they can within the rules to get an advantage.

It's up to the body that governs the sport to adjust the rules when they see that the product being delivered is no longer what they want.. The thing is, do they want a product that is essentially beat saber on wheels or do they want to simulate more what they set out to simulate?

 

[dajdosta]

Those who don't use ffb because it doesn't make them faster or don't want to use something that is not 100% realistic do they also turn off all trackside objects as these are not realistic anyway and not needed to go fast? And do they turn off sounds because anyone can hear these are not real too and don't make you faster?

 

[Gate Voltage]

I am still puzzled by how many people in this thread claim that FFB is part of the simulation. Most of the forces the game asks the FFB wheel to excert ARE NOT REAL. If FFB were only the true steering forces, I'd be happy to turn them on. However, FFB creates resistance where there is next to none in most modern racing categories. It is a tool, a help for those who cannot gauge the grip level by the visual speed sensation and an added layer of immersion to others. That's cool. But where is the "it is more real life with FFB" idea coming from? If anything, I think the simulation gets more accurate and the racing harder if FFB is turned off. Why then would one want to force esport racers to turn it on? Does not make sense to me.

 

[CrimsonEminence]

You mean the csw 2.5 motor firmware 22?
I remember reading about it in the fanatec forums.

Or do you really mean there was a motor firmware update for thrustmaster ts-pc?

Oh sorry, i thought, you meant the Fanatec wheel, because it's such a damn annoying and known issue for the CSW and CSL, didn't expected it to be also a thing with Thrustmaster wheels actually!

 

[guidofoc]

.. where is the "it is more real life with FFB" idea coming from?

I hope you're trolling. Turning off the simulated self-centering forces of the wheel makes you totally blind about the car inertia and rotation. FFB is not only "gimmick" kerb vibrations. When you drive at speed the car may react by shifting its weight center, rotating, altering its pitch, over- or under-steering, and the related forces make the wheel move. Those movements are real, in that they happen in real life and if you learn how to use them, they help you recover the car. Check any video of people drifting in AC or other sims: you will see how they let the wheel rotate and grab it at the right moment to keep it on the balance. I make the drifting example because it is very self-evident, but the same principle applies to any car driven at speed. So honestly this whole thread is a bit funny but go ahead please.

 

[Gate Voltage]

I hope you're trolling.

I am not actually (since I have it turned off for the reason I explained in detail -- possibly since I only have < $500 h/w as others explained). I agree that there is a centering force from the twist of the tires etc. and I'd be fine with it. That is why I said MOST forces. But the centering forces are nowhere near as strong as they are in the current sims. A GT3 cars steering wheel does not rattle and oscillate like the game wants me to believe. The powersteering in a 911 does not create the resistance the game creates during a slow turn. Thus I excluded steering forces (I counted the centering force into that) from those I called unrealistic.
My point was that some people here demand that FFB be mandated for competitions when as I said most FFB forces are actually a driving aid. But I admit I wrote my opinion a bit too absolute.

 

[guidofoc]

@Gate Voltage If you're not trolling then I get you did not understand my answer, which is clearly that FFB is not a driving aid but simulates the real behavior of a car shifting its weight, rotating, sliding etc. Having said that, whatever floats your boat. Of course you can set overall forces values separately so you can disable additional forces (like "road effects" in AC / ACC), but the fact remains that FFB is linked to car physics and that's it.

 

[Gate Voltage]

@guidofoc Well lets at least agree on that MI1 was a great game!

 

[metalnwood]

I dont demand they have FFB, I just think it's a joke and they may as well be doing pole position with a gamepad if thats faster as well.

I run my SC2, I dont get the oscillations you are talking about, that kind of thing is much better than it used to be with higher end hardware. Hardware they could have access to at the 'highest end of the "sport"'

I know that with my motion and my SC2 FFB wheel I am either slow at parts or I am more physically pushed if I take the same lines asI could/would with no ffb/motion.

For example, there are some kerbs that people with no FFB will go over and they will go faster. The FFB wheel is not moving from a huge kerb so when they hit the ground the wheels are still centered and they dont have any corrections from the wheel that FFB would induce. They dont get shoved in their seat. All this stuff happens in real cars when you take lines like that.

If they had all that stuff it would be closer to the physical experience that racing is, it no doubt would change how they race and then I might be closer to being able to call them an 'athlete'. Thats just my thoughts, not demands, on where I think any pinnacle of an esport whould be.

 

[Patrik Marek]

even really toned down FFB is better then no FFB, even on controller

 

[guidofoc]

@guidofoc Well lets at least agree on that MI1 was a great game!

I realized I may sound a bit aggressive, apologies, and of course I will agree that no FFB is better than bad FFB.
But it is clear as the sun to me. Maybe it's because i like driving road cars in AC and without the FFB the experience would be boring to say the least. If you drive AC, take the Ferrari 458 Italia on the LA Canyons roads for a spin, turn TC off and try to drive fast on those windy roads, left foot braking to make the car turn in. The rear will step out at every corner, the wheel will start following the rotation, you let it go and then catch it right on the edge, then bang on the gas pedal and you exit in power oversteer, perfectly balanced, and it's in that "dance" of pedals and wheel that I enjoy sim-driving. Without FFB it would feel like some game on a smartphone. FFB makes all the difference, any time you want to simulate a real car. It may be superfluous if you keep running in circles and you don't need to understand what the car wants to do. But only then.

 

[BP]

I am still puzzled by how many people in this thread claim that FFB is part of the simulation. Most of the forces the game asks the FFB wheel to excert ARE NOT REAL. If FFB were only the true steering forces, I'd be happy to turn them on. However, FFB creates resistance where there is next to none in most modern racing categories. It is a tool, a help for those who cannot gauge the grip level by the visual speed sensation and an added layer of immersion to others. That's cool. But where is the "it is more real life with FFB" idea coming from? If anything, I think the simulation gets more accurate and the racing harder if FFB is turned off. Why then would one want to force esport racers to turn it on? Does not make sense to me.

You don't gauge grip levels in racing visually, any real life racer worth their salt will tell you that...it is but one element, but they feel it mostly in the seat. If an F1 driver decides to drive a Fiat to the limit strictly from visual cues he will spin, because the slip angles are totally different...but they don't do that, they use their body to gauge how far they can push the tyres. Now, we don't have that luxury (short of motion rigs), so developers add cues in the wheel (and the pedals in the case of Fanatec pedals' vibration motors) to give more of a sensation of inertia and grip. That "extra, unrealistic" thing you are feeling is signals as to the grip levels and inertia of the car.

Our muscles do not remember angles as well as they could without resistance. I'm not a real life racing driver but I am a professional musician for 30+ years now. I know this from learning musical instruments and it holds true in sim racing: You can practice scales "air guitar style" using the right fingers all day long but, although it's not useless, your body won't remember it as well as if you add resistance to fight against (a real guitar). Same with brakes (which is why we use load cells, hydraulics or even just a progressive spring in pedals) and the same with the FFB in the wheel.

Is it 100% realistic? No.
Is having 0% FFB in a wheel realistic? Also No.
Is having semi-realistic FFB in the wheel with additional cues to gauge tyre grip more realistic than absolutely no interactive resistance? Most definitely in the opinion of most of us.

We haven't even gone down the possibility that those who hate FFB as being unrealistic may have it setup wrong (too strong or too weak, clipping FFB in the sim, inverted FFB, etc). This can also skew your view of a particular sim feeling bad, or FFB in general. I've talked to several people who would say XYZ sim feels bad, I give them a few settings and they report back saying it feels much better...some would even report that it's a night and day difference.

 

[Frank]

Silliest question ever!

Funny thing is, it's not that silly. A lot of professional sim racers drive without FFB or dialed down FFB because it distracts them. As they feel the FFB doesn't really tell them anything significant and only distracts or makes you do wrong movement with the wheel.

 

[Ghoults]

I used to race quite late with non-ffb wheels. And back maybe even 10 years ago I'd still would have said that no-ffb has some benefits over commonly used ffb wheels. We are talking about time when nobody had servo wheels and the high end was fanatec's and thrustmaster's plastic wheels. The super higher end was the ecci 7000 and frex belt and ballscrew wheels. At that point I think the 911 turbo from fanatec and the tr500s from thrustmaster were already superior to non-ffb wheels. But that was the high end at the time! And non-ffn wheels have not developed at all since 2008 or so. No innovation or even new products as far as I remember. It is outdated and abandoned tech pretty much. But at the same time the ffb wheels before them were just too slow and there were places and situations where non-ffb was quicker. I know I was quicker and had more fun with a microsoft non-ffb wheel than logitech dfp for example.

I have not tried a modern mid range wheel like t300 but I'd imagine it is fast enough at 600 degrees of rotation. Probably not yet at 900. Of course it is not the amount of rotation but the used steering lock in the sim cars. On older ffb wheels at least my experience is that anything set at 900 deg and slower steering ratio than 1:10 is just slowing you down because the wheel can't keep up. Same with drifting. At 900 degrees I doubt the wheel can rotate quick enough. I don't drift so I can just speculate. Something like a dfp could not do that even when set to 200 degs of rotation iirc.

Correcting a slide with those early ffb wheels was going against the ffb in both directions. First the countersteer and then regaining of grip. Maybe you got immersion but making those quick corrections felt more like turning a sand mixer than wrestling a race car. In comparison a modern dd wheel the wheel can sometimes even correct a slide for you. Personally I felt even in chicanes the wheel was holding you back with dfp. We have come along way.

Of course it is important to notice that no-ffb does not mean totally sloppy wheel. Nobody can drive like that. The wheel has a center spring of some kind. That center spring is not completely unrealistic because in a slide if you let go of the wheel the ffb should turn and counter for you. That is the result of the suspension geometry (caster, scrub radius, kingping angle and some minor things like kpi offset, toe settings and ackerman etc..). Non-ffn wheel of course does not countersteer for you. Not at all. But when you then correct that slide the same ffb and steering geometry wants to straighten the steering. In non-ffb wheel the wheel will also straighten in that situation (and in every other situation). I think that re-centering is the more important part of catching slides as that happens a lot quicker. That is the place where non-ffn wheels can shine. Because of the steering geometry the wheel also wants to stay straight as you drive, same as non-ffb wheels. Of course those are just feel things. As far as realism goes, non-ffb has nothing more to offer than having a steering wheel.

Obviously no-ffb is not good enough anymore today. As long as you don't buy some super bad second plastic ffb wheel I think all ffb wheels are superior to any non-ffb wheels you can get nowadays. I don't know if anyone else makes non-ffb wheels anymore except thomas superwheels. At 750$ they do come with a genuine garage built feel but at that price I would never go without ffb anymore. At 15 years ago I almost got a 1500 ecci tho so times definitely change. Maybe I'd be the holdout had I gone with that. Those wheels were built like tanks and quality was as far as I can tell top notch. Only item to wear were the potentiometer.

The only issue modern plastic ffb wheels have left is that at the cheaper end they still need to get little quicker. Other than that they are pretty great considering what we had just 10 years ago. That being said I can imagine being just as quick on something like ecci or tsw non-ffb wheel as dd wheel, csw or the like. But never quicker. Biggest issue is not ffb but the steering lock. Due to technological limitations non-ffb wheels are typically just 240deg or 360deg with 720 being the maximum. Of course my situation is special. Having that long experience with non-ffb wheels makes my senses compatible with them. I doubt a person who has learned to drive with good ffb can genuinely feel at home with no-ffb. And I'd not switch back either for any reason.

 

[kondor999]

Depends on the sim of course.

With very early ACC, for instance, the FFB was terrible and largely misleading. So, I was far quicker without it.

I think it goes without saying that, if people are faster in a sim without FFB, then the sim itself has quite a bit of work to do. It generally indicates something is quite wrong with the information the FFB is providing.

In a properly sorted sim, FFB will always be useful, as it provides additional information. But Yes, there have been plenty of sims where that information is not merely useless, but actively detrimental to understanding what the car is doing.

 

[metalnwood]

Funny thing is, it's not that silly. A lot of professional sim racers drive without FFB or dialed down FFB because it distracts them. As they feel the FFB doesn't really tell them anything significant and only distracts or makes you do wrong movement with the wheel.

Yeah, just like a real V8 supercar driver will go over a big sausage kerb and the car unsettles and the wheel wants to turn as the fronts smash on the ground.. They wish they could turn off all that as well.. Again, it comes back to what would you want them to be simulating because they want to simulate nothing in the interest of being faster.