Did you know? GTR2 is hard-wired to 240 degrees ffb wheel rotation (and why it matters)

[Shovas]

GTR2 is hard-wired for a force feedback wheel set to 240 degrees of wheel rotation. This was likely done to accommodate old wheels that had very low wheel rotations. Newer wheels with 900+ degrees rotation still work but you can feel that you have to turn your wheel much more than you should to turn at the angle you expect (you probably compensate for this by raising the Steer Lock in-in-game.

This actually matters for a number of areas of the game.

Firstly, the in-game cockpit wheel animation is limited to 240 degrees and it won't rotate at the same rate unless your ffb wheel is set to 240.

Steer Lock also begins to make much more sense in the game. The default Steer Locks now feel like they're steering the car at the proper angle for your physical wheel's angle.

Force Feedback is also affected because ffb calculations in-game assume 240 degrees of rotation and output a signal best suited to a 240degree wheel. When you use a 540/900/1080 wheel those signals are no longer best suited and the feel will be different. This isn't so bad, normally, usually it just means things feel less sharp the more degrees you have on your ffb wheel. Up until recently, I had been using and tuning ffb to 540degrees. This said, my SHO Competition FFB mod feels decent enough without any changes at 240degrees.

I'm guessing here, but it seems plausible that general car handling was presumably also tuned to 240degrees during development meaning cars likely feel closest to what the developer intended on a wheel set to 240 degrees. And being closer to what they intended is also presumably closer to reality.

There's actually not much downside to setting your ffb wheel to 240degrees for GTR2. It feels just about as enjoyable to me.

One downside is less fine control in rotation through your ffb wheel. A 900degree wheel, like a G27, would have 3x+ degrees for fine control, and vice versa, 240degree wheels have 3x less degrees. In theory, more degrees gives you more control by having less dramatic steering effect per input. In practice, though, you may not notice a difference. Give it a try, it's still just as fun.

Another downside is lock-to-lock bump stops come up quickly. You can't rotate much past 90 degrees before you're hitting them. It feels strange at the beginning but it also has taught me to appreciate my cornering speed vs steering angle more and, instead of scrubbing so much through a corner (having steered past 240 degrees), I'm attempting to slow down but keep maximum grip and speed through the corner.

Give it a try. You might find you enjoy it. You can probably set a game profile to 240 degrees specifically for GTR2 in your ffb wheel's software. That's what I do.

Edit 7/15/22: Two years later and I'm still using 240degrees for the old SimBin games. I just got used to it and I love that my on-screen wheel matches my physical wheel.

 

[Durge Driven]

I looking forward to testing GTR2 on new rig soon ( CSW v2.5 / CSP v3.0 )

I can't believe Jimmy goes races GTR2 " as is "
Someone needs to send him latest version of GTR2 Essentials @ 4K

Bog stock ....jimmers jimmers !!!

Serious though the difference between stock and modded these days is humongous
Easy as much as Stock Assetto Corsa vs AC with best mods .... CSP etc etc

Especially so with modded night and rain you can easily forget it's GTR2

 

[Shovas]

Absolutely. GTR2 is looking and feeling great these days.

Jimmy *and* Paul (RD) both tried a super early version of my ffb mod that didn't have the most important change (Steer Force Output Max tuning), not to mention the latest AMS1 inspired crowd-sourced ffb files.

Still wish they'd try it again

 

[PiotrGT]

Personally I just stick to 240 degrees, I like to have in game animation sync with my own wheel. I've also decided to limit wheel usage to my stock Anniversary install as modded cars can be hit or miss (one car I tried had crazy strong FFB, I don't have patience to try them all\fix them). Personally I just use my trusty Xbox One gamepad in GTR2 most of the time.

 

[Eric Rowland]

Give it a try. You might find you enjoy it.

I did and I do!
Thanks Sho!
I'm amazed at what you guys keep coming up with.

 

[GP STONER]

Absolutely. GTR2 is looking and feeling great these days.

Oh yess GTR2 is still the best racing game for offline racing. I totally agree on that.. no other game these days are you allowed to save progress during race or even during other moments in a race weekend.

That 240 degrees thing.. i really did not know because i use oldskool logitech momo (black one) for pc being handy to quickly remove to do other things behind the pc..
But nice to know shovas thx.

 

[Kenny Paton]

I use it for GTR2 and GTL and (Race07 which was an accident because I'd forgotten to change my settings.)
For everything else I've always left my wheel at 900 until recently on advice for WRC 9 I lowered it to 540 and I'm now using that for everything else. Seems you can teach an old dog new tricks.

 

[Jempy]

Even if GTR2 was meant for 240° rotation ... I couldn't drive with so short a rotation nowadays even for GTR2 .... there's a too big difference in the moves to do between 240 and 900 ( or even 1080° ).

Anyway, I decided to often have my hands in the Thrustmaster Control panel to change my usual 900° for AC - ACC and all other newer sims for a 540° one for GTR2.
( G27 profiler was better done in that meaning with different profiles possible but T300RS is better anyway for the rest )

For GTR2 it's finally rather difficult to drive with such a high rotation ... as it's rather difficult to find a perfect FFB and steering lock....
I had to do it as all proto cars at Le Mans ( the ones I'm mostly driving in GTR2 ) as most cars seemed to be much too understeering. I first tried it for a check and cannot go backwards now that I concluded that this understeer feel and no perfect FFB results ( Shovas ones as before the Freers ones were very fine for the G27 ) were mainly caused by this too high rotation degree.

NB: finally the same that I felt for AC at the beginning: 720° better than 900° to make the difference between modern and older cars tinier in handling when changing from a car for other ones.

 

[Shovas]

For GTR2 it's finally rather difficult to drive with such a high rotation ... as it's rather difficult to find a perfect FFB and steering lock....
I had to do it as all proto cars at Le Mans ( the ones I'm mostly driving in GTR2 ) as most cars seemed to be much too understeering. I first tried it for a check and cannot go backwards now that I concluded that this understeer feel and no perfect FFB results ( Shovas ones as before the Freers ones were very fine for the G27 ) were mainly caused by this too high rotation degree.

I agree, that's why I recommend at least trying to get used to 240degrees. A number of things "click" and start to work as you expect including the steering lock settings in the garage. Virtual wheel rotation lines up perfectly, as well.

One side effect I didn't expect at all is that it teaches you to approach apexing at the correct speed. If you use maximum steering lock and you're still understeering you have no more steering to use up - that means you either slow down and let your fronts grab or you throttle and induce oversteer from the rears. This works at any rotation but having such a limited rotation really highlighted it and forced me to learn how to do it on demand.

 

[Kenny Paton]

A number of things "click" and start to work as you expect including the steering lock settings in the garage. Virtual wheel rotation lines up perfectly, as well.

I completely agree, I was surprised however to find out how good it also feels in Race 07.
I also think that dropping to 540° in other sims has made the rest of your driving points for me.

 

[Shovas]

I completely agree, I was surprised however to find out how good it also feels in Race 07.
I also think that dropping to 540° in other sims has made the rest of your driving points for me.

Yes, you're right, sims that don't do automatic rotation properly can benefit from using a different fixed rotation.

iRacing, R3E, AC, ACC, rF2, they all do automatic rotation now, I think, and they feel good, I feel.

But old games especially were designed for lower rotations, it seems.

540 is a decent compromise. I used that on Race 07, GTR2, GTL, etc. for a long time.

 

[Kenny Paton]

R3E, AC, ACC, rF2, they all do automatic rotation now, I think, and they feel good, I feel.

I used 540° when testing the new DTM's in Raceroom and found them much easier than when I used 900°.

 

[GP STONER]

Anyway, I decided to often have my hands in the Thrustmaster Control panel to change my usual 900° for AC - ACC and all other newer sims for a 540° one for GTR2.

Question do you use forcefeedback clipper app for AC?

 

[Jempy]

I'm using Sidekick and there's one included .... and reducing FFB when too strong is always the 1st setting I'm doing during the 1st lap with a car I never drove.

 

[GPracer56]

I gave this a try and after getting used to it, I like it very much. I've found that not only does it make you learn proper approach speed, as Shovas stated, but also helps you develop good trail braking techniques. I can't believe I never thought to try it before. You just might be a genius Shovas.