Community Question | FFB or No FFB?

[Dan ONeill]

“Professional esports” gamers wouldn’t be very good at Karting with its over the top FFB!

 

[Gate Voltage]

... 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.

And that is exactly the problem, but I am grateful for someone agreeing that such forces from the wheel are not simulating reality. Rather, as you say FFB is the packing of otherwise unavailable sensations and information into extra forces on the wheel. I think any real life racer who drives modern power-steered cars would hate to have extra forces acting on the most important input device that lets him control where his car goes. I feel the same way. I want precision and control and do not want some extra info that mimicks what my head, torso, or the whole of the car or the tires themselves etc. would feel in a real car overlaid onto the steering wheel. Just a matter of preference.

 

[Sigmar Bomar]

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.

Can you please state the names then? For no FFB I mean. Dialed down FFB is still using FFB anyway.
From what I know all the top iRacing Pro road drivers use FFB and some of them also are in F1 pro series.

 

[Ghoults]

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.

I disagree totally. Turning off ffb does not make you blind at all. Driving a race car is not reacting. It is about prediction. And ffb is mostly a reactive tool. It only gives you the information what is happening now. It can tell you about a slide only when the car is sliding. Of course it can be used a little bit as predictive tool but it is very limited in that aspect. Ffb now does not tell tell anything what the ffb will be 5 seconds later.

Visuals is the tool for gauging car rotation. Visuals is where you get the information how much the car is sliding and where you are going. It is the best and only real predictive tool imho. Ffb is good but it doesn't tell you anything about "inertia and rotation". Ffb can tell you when you are sliding, it can tell when the tires are gripping. But one should use the visuals to predict when those things will happen and not use ffb to react when they happen. Even our brain uses most of its processing power to analyze what is happening at the screen. Not what we feel through our hands. Reactions are reflexes, intelligence is predicting.

I think people have a bit too strong views about ffb. Like driving fast is all about ffb. Ffb is just one part of it. And optional because you can turn it off. Same with audio. It won't make you quicker but you can turn it off and still do it. Not the same with visuals. A quadriplegic can drive a real race car fine. A blind person super athlete can not. It is a difference of can or can not. Can't drive without seeing. If someone thinks turning off ffb is the same as turning off your monitor(s) or vr then please tell me so I can ignore you! (seriously)

But there are many different parts of sim driving. The audio which I think is super super important for braking and also but less so for acceleration. You can hear a tire squeel before you can feel it in ffb or see it on screen. You can hear the revs change before the rear steps out. But visuals are the most important aspect and give you the sense of speed, direction, position and prediction. Rotation, road camber, road bumpiness, kerbs, runoffs, car on 2 wheels, car in the air, suspension loadings, car yaw, pitch, rotation, tire flex etc.. Visuals is 90% of everything.

Even in real life the motion and g-forces is not all good. Drive a ground effect f1 car and you shake so much that you have hard to seeing where you are going. Go over kerbs and you are not feeling the tires and suspension. You are being thrown around in the seat. Jackie Stewart I think said that going through Adenauer Forst he could not move his foot from accelerator to brake because of the vertical g forces at the bottom of the elevation was too much to move his foot. So g-forces for example do help in real race car but they also hurt and are unhelpful at times and slow you down (not just because you get tired).

Same is true for ffb. While good and useful there are situations where it can get in the way. And I'm not saying I prefer ffb off or that turning it off would be advisable or anything like that. Ffb is not perfect. I prefer having it but it does get in the way sometimes. As it should as it does so in real life as well. But I think ffb is a realism tool. It adds things to the steering that make it more real but not always quicker. Same with Jackie and g-forces, going through esses at monza it probably helped alot to be able to feel the tires through g-forces. Going through adenauer forst without being able to move your feet not so much same. Or going through variante alta chicane at imola. Hit those kerbs hard and the g-forces are unpleasant, your vision is disturbed, your feel is overloaded with g-forces, your head bobs around, you have to hold to the steering wheel just keep a hold of it. None of that is faster or more feel. But it is realistic.

 

[Jason Mullin]

I like the ffb light and subtle.

 

[joemendel]

I use an ECCI 7K FFB wheel and maybe it is a bit dated, but I find it to be a joy to use. Until a year ago, I was using an even older ECCI Trackstar 6K and pedals, with great pleasure and not too bad of results. Again, these are older units, (2014 and 1998), and they are built to last and either type is more than welcome in my 80/20 rig. To me it all about fun.

 

[opmike]

I'm slow and will probably always be slow. No one is paying me to race, so what do I care if I'm a few tenths off my potential absolute best when I'm racing terrible AI in rFactor 2, R3E, ACC, etc.

I'll take the potential performance hit to have more immersion. Yeah, sim wheels are probably transmitting more than an actual wheel depending on your settings, but I'm also completely isolated from all the other forces I'd otherwise be getting in a real car.

Anyone that's taken a fast car or fast motorcycle around the track quickly realizes that there can be a significant physical component to all this. Oh, hitting that sausage curb is "messing" with your steering angle input costing you half a tenth in turn 9? Perhaps, if realism is at all the goal, it should?

Anyway, as long as there's OPTIONS for everyone, you won't hear a peep out of me.

 

[whip]

anyone who says esports drivers are faster without ffb is lying to you

 

[JimLee]

My philosophy is similar as @2112 above:, strong enough for countersteer to help correct the car, weak enough to not be overpowered when turning...which is a pretty narrow range so I need to start lifting weights lol. No FFB is not an option.

Paul must be typing up some other stories and needed a silly article to "keep us busy" and buy him time, as we all know we'll argue over ANYTHING

Yes, Paul what are you doing here ...we are up to 8 pages of ?????

 

[Case_]

(Love how half the discussion here is basically just people not even being able to comprehend someone might prefer to do things differently than them and even perhaps ending up being better at it than them, with some even openly laughing at the mere suggestion, unwilling to even consider the possibility. Paints a pretty dire picture if you ask me. Not that it's that surprising, but still.)

 

[Icky427]

i can see being able to drive normally without ffb, but you cant drift without it. and regarding the kind of cars i generally enjoy racing, theres gonna be some sliding, so ya, i need ffb.

 

[RasmusP]

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!

Ah okay hehe.
I remember when I first tried the csw 2.5 that some coil whine was there when the wheel had no load on it.
When perfectly driving straight or when having the wheel on and not driving.
But it wasn't loud.. And got fixed pretty soon after I got it.

The ts-pc was about 2-3x as loud and, while making some noise when just being on, it gave a really bad whine as soon as you worked against the ffb.

Also, the csw has a button.. Just switch it off when not using it for longer than 5 minutes. Easy...
The ts-pc is like Logitech: plug in or not plug in...
With the same brutal initial calibration where you think the wheelbase is gonna break itself.

I was so amazed when I saw the csw just nicely calibrating without any sound.
I actually made a fun little video with clips from friends with wheels, lol:

 

[Deleted member 197115]

Next poll - Wheel or No Wheel?

 

[MeltFire]

With AC, ACC and PCars2 Anywhere between 40% - 80% FFB strength depends on car class. Higher settings for slower low downforce cars. Lower settings for faster quick response cars.

 

[Raging Beard]

Seriously? What's next... Do you prefer breathing or not breathing?

 

[Wilko Jones]

I can understand that some one would both prefer no FFB and be much faster than I am with FFB. I just like what FFB adds to the experience. It's something I would rather have. If not, then a competent wheel with a good centering force/spring/bungee would work. I cannot go with a dead fish, DIY alignment like the old Pole Position Arcade games. But I suspect that there are some who can.

 

[Stereo]

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.

I'd say that a t300 is not fast enough to simulate a real car, but it's the wrong kind of slow (too much damping) rather than lack of force, it's not like a real car where you let it spin and it keeps spinning cause inertia lets it coast around, it'll drag itself down to the speed it wants to be at.

It's enough to drift smoothly, you just can't do a snap to angle and expect it to keep up. (I do run mine at 1080 but I drift with modified knuckle cars that have a faster ratio)


I've got a pretty in depth understanding of Assetto Corsa's ffb so I can say confidently that any 'extra' effects are presented as effects. If you run those sliders at 0%, you're only getting things a real car's steering rack is able to do. That's not to say it's completely perfect; just that there's nothing unrealistic in it. There's always room for new data or research to prove more forces get to the steering wheel. ACC is by the same people so it's pretty likely they kept up that MO; core ffb strength is physics based, sliders let you add to it.


My 2 cents is that games are more realistic simulations with FFB on, front end geometry is there to keep the car stable and that only works if the front wheels are able to rotate on their own, FFB puts your physical wheel in this loop and allows it to happen. Taking it out is unrealistic whether or not it's faster, same as disabling ABS makes it behave less like the actual car, whether or not you get faster laptimes with ABS on.

 

[BP]

(Love how half the discussion here is basically just people not even being able to comprehend someone might prefer to do things differently than them and even perhaps ending up being better at it than them, with some even openly laughing at the mere suggestion, unwilling to even consider the possibility. Paints a pretty dire picture if you ask me. Not that it's that surprising, but still.)

Some would say that's how change ultimately starts...by having an open discussion about conflicting views and laying all the cards on the table, despite how it might make the other party feel (kinda like what's happening here and now ).

Only then can people find either a solution, whether it's compromise, or accepting the other's view, or agreeing to disagree but respect the other's opinion...pulling your punches only adds endless posturing and nothing being resolved.

 

[Tony 93]

Accuforce V2 its all about the immersion

 

[Zoltan76]

who?

Some robots.
I think without FF it"s not simulation but playing robot.
They only use their eyes knowing every inch of the track and knowing at what cm they have to brake and at what point they have to turn the wheel pointing to an other certain blade of grass.
They rely on their vision without anything else.
IMHO at this point it stops being a simulation or anything which can be enojoyed.