Fanatec CSL Elite + and BMW GT2 wheel

Anyone recommend some good settings for this wheel and base please? currently only using an AC setup, but prefer options , so if somone has a tried and testing group of setting would appreciate it
 
I have a csw 2.5 but a friend has a csl elite and the only difference there is a higher in game multiplier.

Copying my actual settings to the top for quicker access for people just dropping in:

My GT3 car example settings for better overview:

Wheel base:
- SEN: aut
- FF: 100
- Sho: whatever you like
- ABS: whatever you like
- Dri: -1
- For: 100
- Spr: 100 (spring is not always on! It's an effect used by the games so don't believe in the myth!)
- Dpr: 100 (it's only used for the standing still car in most sims. I like it at 100!)
- FEI: 90-70 (depending on how flatspotted my tyres are)

Game:
- per car multiplier:
0.4-0.45 (depending on which GT3 car. I guess 0.6-0.7 should be good for your CSL!)
- FFB smoothing: 4
- FFB minimum torque: 0.5-1.5 depending on how much straight line noise you like

Controller.json located at:
\\Steam\steamapps\common\rFactor 2\UserData\player\

- "Jolt magnitude": 0.1,
- "Off-road multiplier": 0.1,
- "Rumble strip magnitude": 0.0, (changed it back to 0!)
- "Steering torque extrap blend": 0.1,


In rf2 there's not that much to tweak. You basically have only these few things:

- "sen": put that to auto. RF2 will sync the wheel automatically and use the realistic steering lock for each car. If yoh set a fixed value the ingame wheel will not by in sync!

- in car multiplier: set to your liking. Keep the base at 100% "FF", second setting, to have as much headroom and dynamic as possible. Tweak the car strengths to your liking. I'd say 0.6 for the gt3 cars should be a good setting. I use 0.4 with the csw.

- min force: basically gives some straight line "noise". I use 1% as 0% feels a bit dead on straights. Above 3% will create a notch at the center. Not nice or realistic.

- smoothing: I use as low as possible. 4% is the lowest I can go before it feels too rough. No need to make flatspots feel like grinding your teeth.

Not these were the basics. Now it becomes a bit more specific:
- drift mode: I use - 3 to - 1 depending on the car I drive. Go as close to 0 as possible but when the wheel feels unrealistically "fluffy" go lower (higher negative).

- "fei": it's basically the same as the in game smoothing but... Different. I use 70-90 depending on the car. Last race in the btcc mod I used 0 in the end because the tyres gave some massive vibration from my flat spots. Use the highest possible before it feels too brutal!

And not it goes into details:
In the controls.json you can change a few settings and I highly recommend to do that with powerful wheels. The csl just dips into "being powerful".

- "jolt magnitude": due to the headroom you have for the dynamic of the ffb at 100% FF in the base, hitting a wall will be way too brutal! I use 0.1!

- kerb multiplier "rumble strip magnitude": same.. 0.1 is fine. It's an artificial vibration. If a kerb is actually 3d you'll feel it via the tyre physics anyway!

- "off-road multiplier": how strong the rumbling is when going on the grass or gravel etc. as the other settings, I keep it low! 0.1

- "Steering torque extrap blend": 0.1 ,a setting that compresses the ffb when it would clip so the ffb gets lighter for a short moment to allow for details to be felt. Very sensitive setting and the default is no compression at all. I use a very mild setting of 0.1 . I'd recommend doing the same.

Everything else in the json you don't need to think about. Many settings are outdated and not longer even have any effect. Like brake effect on the wheel. It's dead.

Problem: These settings get overwritten quite frequently for me.. Not sure if I only feel placebo or not. Defaults are fine anyway for them. :p

So my GT3 car example settings for better overview:

Wheel base:
- SEN: aut
- FF: 100
- Sho: whatever you like
- ABS: whatever you like
- Dri: -1
- For: 100
- Spr: 100 (spring is not always on! It's an effect used by the games so don't believe in the myth!)
- Dpr: 100 (it's only used for the standing still car in most sims. I like it at 100!)
- FEI: 90-70 (depending on how flatspotted my tyres are)

Game:
- per car multiplier: 0.4-0.45 depending on which GT3 car. I guess 0.6-0.7 should be good for your CSL!
- FFB smoothing: 4
- FFB minimum torque: 0.5-1.5 depending on how much straight line noise you like

controller.json located at:
\\Steam\steamapps\common\rFactor 2\UserData\player\
- "Jolt magnitude":0.1,
- "Off-road multiplier":0.1,
- "Rumble strip magnitude":0.1,
- "Steering torque extrap blend":0.1,

Additional values in my controller.json you don't really need to think about:
"Steering torque zero-speed mult":0.45, (that should be default?!)
"Use thread":true, (should be default but isn't for me somehow... Frees up the CPU. Not a big difference anway... may break the FFB though in some rare cases!)

-------------------------- Useful Stuff ends here! ------------------------------

"Steering torque capability":8.0, (for my CSW of course. You should put in "6.0" I guess.)
This settings is a bit more complicated...

The max capability settings is meant to limit the force output for cars that won't use the full force capability of the wheel in real life!

Imagine you drive a standard Fiat 500 in parking power steering mode in the sim. So basically no resistance at all, you can navigate the car with the little finger!
Now you'd use a ingame multiplier of 1.0 and 100% at the base. If you'd use a OSW with 30Nm capability it would now give you up to the full 30Nm of FFB strength! Completely unrealistic!
Now the "real FFB output" from the physics engine would be for example 0.5 Nm for this little Fiat and now if you put in the "Steering torque capability" to 30 in this case, rF2 would scale down the FFB internally before sending it to the Wheel Driver.
A bit complicated as I said, let's do the example with numbers!

Fiat 500 parking mode:
0.5 Nm -> ingame x1.0 -> 100% in the wheel software -> 0.5 Nm = 100% so 30 Nm final output!
"Steering torque capability":30.0 --->>>
0.5 Nm -> ingame x1.0 -> 100% in the wheel software -> rF2 capability calculation: "0.5 Nm shall be 0.5 Nm output".
-> 30 * X = 0.5 -> X= 0.0167

0.5 Nm -> x1.0 -> x100% -> x0.0167 -> x30 Nm = 0.5 Nm

So rF2 knows that the wheel would output 30 Nm at 100% but also knows that the Fiat only outputs 0.5 Nm in the internal physics calculation. So it scales the FFB output with 0.067 to give you only 0.5 Nm no matter how powerful your wheel is!

The crux with this setting is that the higher you set this value, the lower the FFB output will be that you get into your hands!

Example: Default value is 2.5 Nm!

0.5 -> ingame x1.0 -> 100% wheel software --->>>
-> 2.5 * X= 0.5 -> X= 0.2
-> 0.5 Nm -> x1.0 -> x100% -> x0.2 -> x30 Nm = 3 Nm

Summary: Again, the max capability settings is meant to limit the force output for cars that won't use the full force capability of the wheel in real life!
With a wheel like the Logitech G27 basically all cars would have stronger forces in real life than your PC wheel can replicate (and so have in the internal physics calculation of rF2!).
So with a Logitech wheel you would not need this setting. But if a car would become stronger on your PC than it would be in real life, things get complicated and that setting helps it.

I know that my CSW is stronger than some road cars so I set this setting for the first time after upgrading from the Logitech. I would love for other sims to have this setting too. Of course the sims try to replicate different steering wheel forces with different cars but to be fine for the masses, the differences have to be subtle!
Otherwise Logitech users would feel nothing at all with a Fiat 500 and would have a wheel permanently clipping at 100% of its capability when jumping into a 50's F1 car.


Well, you asked for "40 views and not reply" so I gave you the full answer :D

PS: for "reference" of my trustability:
- Did a driver training with my real life MB w202 C class. Including spinning, drifting, snow and rain simulation pads.
- Did a few Karting sessions over the last years
- created the G27 LUT files to alternate the Assetto Corsa FFB to be more realistic:
https://www.racedepartment.com/downloads/rasmusps-lut-guide-for-g27-29-and-dfgt.16799/
- Studying mechatronical engineering and therefore I am very interested in the electrics etc and how FFB simulation of real car physics works.

Of course I always like to learn new things. Like the "capability" setting I just learnt about 2 months ago or maybe someone tested which lines are making a difference in the controller.json and which do not.. I couldn't be bothered to test them all one by one...
 
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So the short answer is that I should set this value to my wheel's maximum output in Nm then?
So, if I do an internet search for that value on my TS-PC Racer I see a couple of references to a figure of "around 6Nm" (but I don't see this on Thrustmaster's specs page). The wheel allegedly has a 400W PSU but that figure will only translate to Nm/s.
So it's all very interesting, but... well I guess I could try changing that value to 6.0?
Anyway, I had often wondered about how different sims deal with very powerful DD wheels. I mean in the sense of offering a realistic force for each vehicle. The answer to that question seems to be, that most sims don't deal with it, but rF2 does. :)
 
So the short answer is that I should set this value to my wheel's maximum output in Nm then?
So, if I do an internet search for that value on my TS-PC Racer I see a couple of references to a figure of "around 6Nm" (but I don't see this on Thrustmaster's specs page). The wheel allegedly has a 400W PSU but that figure will only translate to Nm/s.
So it's all very interesting, but... well I guess I could try changing that value to 6.0?
Anyway, I had often wondered about how different sims deal with very powerful DD wheels. I mean in the sense of offering a realistic force for each vehicle. The answer to that question seems to be, that most sims don't deal with it, but rF2 does. :)
Exactly :)
Another phrasing for this setting would be that it prevents the game giving you more steering forces than the real car would actually have.
It's very straight forward to just put in your maximum torque but at the same time it's incredibly difficult to understand what it does from the description in the json...

For the ts-pc I'd say 6 Nm should be realistic, yep!

Important to note is that this setting won't set a maximum torque limiter or anything. It only kicks in if the game would give you higher forces than it should.
Which is why with a g27 it doesn't matter at all. All real cars would have higher forces :roflmao:

And of course you could also just set the ingame multiplier to a lower value if you think "well that car should not break my wrists, lol".

In theory though you put in your max torque, set the multiplier to 1.0 and the wheelbase to 100%.
And then you'll see that most cars in rf2 definitely don't match the real steering forces in the rF2 physics engine since every car will still break your wrists :roflmao::thumbsup:
 
So the short answer is that I should set this value to my wheel's maximum output in Nm then?
So, if I do an internet search for that value on my TS-PC Racer I. :)
Hi Denis...i have the TS-XW Racer and this article's suggested settings from a pro real-life race teacher is also for your wheel. Many settings are suggested toward AC but found the main Thrustmaster settings suggested works great also in rF2. These settings are so good it transformed AC into a new game for me!
https://boxthislap.org/thrustmaster-ts-pc-ts-xw-assetto-corsa-settings/
 
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Hi Denis...i have the TS-XW Racer and this article's suggested settings from a pro real-life race teacher is also for your wheel. Many settings are suggested toward AC but found the main Thrustmaster settings suggested works great also in rF2. These settings are so good it transformed AC into a new game for me!
https://boxthislap.org/thrustmaster-ts-pc-ts-xw-assetto-corsa-settings/
The part about damper min value being only related to the gyro effect is nice. You can't find that very often. I don't get why he sets the damper in the driver to 0 though... So he talks about wanting it the most realistic as possible and then has no resistance at all while standing still (only situation the damper from the driver is used in assetto corsa).

I would always suggest to keep spring and damper at 100% in all games and rather adjust the wheel weight or damper settings for the games. In dirt rally spring is not used but damper is! You have a separate weight setting for it so it makes sense to keep it activated.

Also he puts every car to around 70%. Why doesn't he put the global ffb in assetto to 70% and uses 90-110% per car? Way less "crap default" and key hitting for new cars...

Overall a good guide but the two points I criticise are some flaws...
I just don't like it when people act like "I drive real race cars so my settings are the best" while they do mistakes on the pc/electronic side of things.
They often lack the motivation and time to test every little setting until they really know what's what.
And I don't blame them!

I invested about 80 hours in my logitech lut files for assetto. Had Flipcharts full of testing procedures to really get behind each setting etc.
So while I'm sure he's right about gyro 1 with a gyro level (damper min value) of 0.3 feels the most real, deactivating all damper effects in the driver and adjusting every car by 30% instead of +/- 5% shows that you shouldn't take his words for the absolute statement.

Sorry, the two points triggered me a little as soooo many people believe in the spring/damper myth and do unnecessary complicated things because someone they trust says so.
 
I believe the "steering torque capability" setting really does nothing outside of direct drive wheels, so unless you have one, it should be safe to ignore the value completely. As far as I know, that setting should only be relevant in case your wheel is capable of producing more torque than what the nominal steering torque of the car in question is, and I believe pretty much all cars exceed this even for a CSW/CSL wheel.

I also don't agree with some of the suggestions on how to set the wheel and the game, specifically to set the wheel at 100 % and adjust the multiplier to get the FFB strength where you like it, I am of the opinion that you should always go the other way around about it, set the multiplier as high as it will go without clipping (which should be the same value for all wheels, with slight adjustments for personal preference regarding the amount of clipping) in the game to make it always output a signal with a dynamic range as high as possible and then adjust the strength in hardware if you find it too strong, but I guess we can think of it as a different school of thought.
 
Using his settings i stand by his suggestions 100% and it made a HUGE difference compared with previous settings. Afterall he is a driving instructor on racing/drifting cars in real life, collecting much feedback from real cars and then try to get the closest experience so if anyone knows how these cars should feel in real-life it's him compared to most of us couch potato racers trying to guess how a particular race car should feel when racing it's limits. lol

We are talking about Thrustmaster so settings could very well be different for other type wheels. Also, until you try the settings on either the Thrustmaster TS-XW or TS-PC your just guessing theories.
 
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But that's the problem with consulting real life racers about how the FFB should feel, isn't it? They tend to go for replicating how the steering feels in real life, which usually leaves out various things "the couch racers" (as you so nicely call us) expect/need from a good FFB. See the Dirt Rally 2 discussions where many people consider the FFB "completely broken", while I still believe what CM did was simply to create FFB according to the suggestions of the real drivers.

There's obviously a lot of value in direct real life experience, but real life experience alone is no guarantee of good FFB, and it doesn't make you an expert on setting one up, similar to how say being a great painter doesn't make you an expert on using Photoshop. They are somewhat different things, serving somewhat similar purposes and catering to different needs. And it's good to keep that in mind.
 
The part about damper min value being only related to the gyro effect is nice. You can't find that very often. I don't get why he sets the damper in the driver to 0 though... So he talks about wanting it the most realistic as possible and then has no resistance at all while standing still (only situation the damper from the driver is used in assetto corsa).


I would always suggest to keep spring and damper at 100% in all games and rather adjust the wheel weight or damper settings for the games. In dirt rally spring is not used but damper is! You have a separate weight setting for it so it makes sense to keep it activated.

Also he puts every car to around 70%. Why doesn't he put the global ffb in assetto to 70% and uses 90-110% per car? Way less "crap default" and key hitting for new cars...

Overall a good guide but the two points I criticise are some flaws...
I just don't like it when people act like "I drive real race cars so my settings are the best" while they do mistakes on the pc/electronic side of things.
They often lack the motivation and time to test every little setting until they really know what's what.
And I don't blame them!

I invested about 80 hours in my logitech lut files for assetto. Had Flipcharts full of testing procedures to really get behind each setting etc.
So while I'm sure he's right about gyro 1 with a gyro level (damper min value) of 0.3 feels the most real, deactivating all damper effects in the driver and adjusting every car by 30% instead of +/- 5% shows that you shouldn't take his words for the absolute statement.

Sorry, the two points triggered me a little as soooo many people believe in the spring/damper myth and do unnecessary complicated things because someone they trust says so.
I got more than enough "resistance" while sitting still with my Damper set at "0"

The idea of putting Global at 100% is so you can increase your FFB strength ingame on the fly as much as you want up to that 100% but if set globally at 70% then you can't get more FFB until you reset the Global setting again. Plus, you might need the extra FFB with some 3rd party cars that lack FFB.
 
I believe the "steering torque capability" setting really does nothing outside of direct drive wheels, so unless you have one, it should be safe to ignore the value completely. As far as I know, that setting should only be relevant in case your wheel is capable of producing more torque than what the nominal steering torque of the car in question is, and I believe pretty much all cars exceed this even for a CSW/CSL wheel.

I also don't agree with some of the suggestions on how to set the wheel and the game, specifically to set the wheel at 100 % and adjust the multiplier to get the FFB strength where you like it, I am of the opinion that you should always go the other way around about it, set the multiplier as high as it will go without clipping (which should be the same value for all wheels, with slight adjustments for personal preference regarding the amount of clipping) in the game to make it always output a signal with a dynamic range as high as possible and then adjust the strength in hardware if you find it too strong, but I guess we can think of it as a different school of thought.
But the most dynamic range will be with the base at 100 and the multiplier adjusted?
If you pick just 100 steps with 1%-100% output then a ingame multiplier of 0.5 in rf2 will make the 1% be 0.5% and 100% be 50%. Still the same range. But everything that was clipping before will now come through.
I think rF2 has enough steps to still keep all details even with a multiplier of 0.2 and therefore the 100 steps not being 1% steps but 0.2% steps then.
I only use the ffb logging via damplugin and Motec and with the mclaren 720s gt3 at 0.45 in the game I still reach 100% and therefore get some clipping. Sure, only every few laps when I hit a sausage kerb in a bad angle but it's still there.

Also I know for sure that my real car definitely has less steering forces than my csw 2.5 has at 100%. You're correct though that it doesn't really matter since I don't really drive shabby road cars in rf2..
Anyway I mentioned that the setting is pretty much to be ignored. I just wrote all that stuff about it to make it complete :)
Using his settings i stand by his suggestions 100% and it made a HUGE difference compared with previous settings. Afterall he is a driving instructor on racing/drifting cars in real life, collecting much feedback from real cars and then try to get the closest experience on AC so if anyone knows how these cars should feel in real-life it's him compared to most of us couch potato racers! lol

We are talking about Thrustmaster so could very well be different for others. Also, until you try the settings on either the ThrustmasterTS-XW or TS-PC your just guessing theories how it should feel.
As I said the important settings make the difference and the part about the gyro and min force is to take 100% above any opinion from the forums!
I had a ts-pc at my place for a week. Tested assetto with these settings and it felt great. Also feels great (and better) with the csw now. I didn't like the coil whine from both ts-pc I had.

Anyway, while I totally agree that you should trust his settings over mine when it comes to feel, I can 100% confidently tell you that disabling damper in the driver only kills the standing still friction simulation and that it is totally unnecessary.
He probably does so because everyone told him to do it.
And I can also 100% confidently tell you that 70% global ingame ffb + 100% in car ffb is exactly the same as 100% global ingame and 70% in car ffb and that he could save himself 90% of his fiddling in every car by doing it like I said.

Just because someone is an absolute expert in the most important field of knowledge for a certain thing it doesn't mean that he knows better for every little details for the whole thing.

So he definitely knows better that his gyro setting and overall ffb strength is closer to reality than I will ever know.
But I still know more about ffb multiplier algorithms and the damper slider in the driver.

Who do you trust more with game algorithms and ffb electronics?
The driver who knows how it should feel or an ongoing electrical/mechanical engineer?
Trusting the driver is the easy way for sure as his references for knowledge is more impressive for a simracer.
Doesn't mean he's always right though.
 
I got more than enough "resistance" while sitting still with my Damper set at "0"

The idea of putting Global at 100% is so you can increase your FFB strength ingame on the fly as much as you want up to that 100% but if set globally at 70% then you can't get more FFB until you reset the Global setting again. Plus, you might need the extra FFB with some 3rd party cars that lack FFB.
You need to determine between driver ffb strength and global assetto ffb strength.
The driver will indeed limit the maximum force output to your hands at 70%.
The assetto "global" slider gets overwritten or simply is identical/the same to the in car ffb!

So 100% driver + 50% assetto global + 200% in car will result in 100% of what the wheel can give to your hands.
100% driver + 200% assetto global + 50% in car will also result in 100% to your hands.

However 70% in the driver + 200% assetto global + 200% in car will result in 70% of the wheel capability being sent to you hands.
And it will clip like crap ofc, lol
 
Do you run FFB strength at 100% in the Thrustmaster software Martin? I prefer it at 60-70% and then I think I run 100% gain in the sim and adjust each car to suit.
I generally run 85 % overall gain nowadays, with the partial settings (periodic, static, damper, spring) at 95 %, which generally gives me the FFB strength I like. Except Dirt Rally 2, which I run at 95 % overall.

Then I do what I described - I set the game so that it outputs a signal with as high dynamic range as possible, obviously starting with the overall strength (for example ACC needs lowering the overall strength in-game to around 70 % to stop clipping so much) to get a solid general setting that works for most cars. And then, if the game allows it, I finetune the car multiplier to compensate if needed. But I always tweak the in-game settings according to the FFB indicator to maximize the dynamic range of the output FFB signal, never based on how strong it feels. If the end result felt too strong, I would lower my wheel's gain, if it felt too weak, I would set it higher. My opinion is that this is how it should be done (on a traditional consumer wheel that doesn't have enough torque to match the actual steering torque of the cars, at least). Kinda like you do it with audio - you first make sure the signal entering your amp is of the best quality and at the best levels possible without clipping, and then you simply adjust the volume on the amp according to your listening preference.
 
I generally run 85 % overall gain nowadays, with the partial settings (periodic, static, damper, spring) at 95 %, which generally gives me the FFB strength I like. Except Dirt Rally 2, which I run at 95 % overall.

Then I do what I described - I set the game so that it outputs a signal with as high dynamic range as possible, obviously starting with the overall strength (for example ACC needs lowering the overall strength in-game to around 70 % to stop clipping so much) to get a solid general setting that works for most cars. And then, if the game allows it, I finetune the car multiplier to compensate if needed. But I always tweak the in-game settings according to the FFB indicator to maximize the dynamic range of the output FFB signal, never based on how strong it feels. If the end result felt too strong, I would lower my wheel's gain, if it felt too weak, I would set it higher. My opinion is that this is how it should be done (on a traditional consumer wheel that doesn't have enough torque to match the actual steering torque of the cars, at least). Kinda like you do it with audio - you first make sure the signal entering your amp is of the best quality and at the best levels possible without clipping, and then you simply adjust the volume on the amp according to your listening preference.
I really like the sound analogy but you only have to set your input to the Amp as high as possible to get the biggest difference in dB between the actual sounds and the noise.
I doubt that rF2/AC etc have issues with ffb noise if you turn them too low and re-amplify them afterwards?
What I read from your two posts is that if you put the ingame ffb too low you would lose details? That would only happen if the internal ffb steps are not fine enough.
Which is actually a great topic to discuss!
Does anybody know how fine the ffb steps for the Sims are? It's clear that there is some standard that reaches from 0 to 100 but how many steps are in between?

BTW I do what you say in dirt rally 2.0. Using your settings and lowering the overall ffb on my base. But I do so to limit the dynamic range of the ffb!
Like with music. Uncompressed signals often sound like crap :p
Who doesn't know the joy to watch a blu-ray with its dynamic sound levels like in a cinema? I always love to have to raise the TVs volume during dialogues and lower it a lot for action scenes.
Other than in a cinema, my neighbors don't enjoy feeling the explosions in their butts :roflmao:
 

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