Ferrari 458 GT2 @ Spa-Francorchamps

[Colin O Callaghan]

Is there an app like this for Game Stock Car??

 

[Chadd]

I presume the mild clipping is fine in blue at 0.38% not green

Yeah that's plenty good. It starts as blue then changes to green one ur driving. But that's Good and glad I could help

 

[Matheus Machado]

Very nice. My best so far is a low 2:18. What changes do you make on ur setup?

Set 77% gain with zero damping, using a g27. The rest is coenwulf default. Also set brake balance .5% to the front.

 

[Dux]

I haven't driven AC in a month and when i came back i noticed a lot of difference for example with the Ferrari at Spa.
Couldn't get under 2:19 and i have done 2:15.7 once.
Some setups are no longer okay with the car and i am asking if there is some new setup which is equally good as they were then ?

 

[Laurent Resende]

I haven't driven AC in a month and when i came back i noticed a lot of difference for example with the Ferrari at Spa.
Couldn't get under 2:19 and i have done 2:15.7 once.
Some setups are no longer okay with the car and i am asking if there is some new setup which can is equally good as they were then ?

this is what I personally consider to be a problem with Kunos! it was in the same with netKar, as and measurement updates, cars are becoming slower and easier to drive, and of course all are setup to do again !!!!! I never quite understood what it rationalized.

 

[TheBloke]

this is what I personally consider to be a problem with Kunos! it was in the same with netKar, as and measurement updates, cars are becoming slower and easier to drive, and of course all are setup to do again !!!!! I never quite understood what it rationalized.

I can't speak for netKar, but do remember that until December, AC was not fully released - it was in Early Access. It's expected that games change significantly during Early Access.

Since release (version 1.0), I believe there have been no further changes to physics, only minor bug fixes. Version 1.1 will be here soon and there are some more major changes, but nothing related to physics (at least that we know of.)

My guess is that from now on, during 1.x at least, there will be few or no physics changes that cause cars to get faster/slower. But I never played netKar, so maybe they did do such changes after 1.0 release of that game?

I can understand it being frustrating if car setups change and if lap times get slower. Then again, I personally would prefer that they keep updating and improving the physics. I would rather have new, better physics and so have to go update my setups / re-do my laps, rather than the physics never changing and not getting new benefits. That's my preference anyway.

 

[TheBloke]

Quick question for you guys - at what RPM do you upshift in the Ferrari 458 GT2?

I ask because the car info page says "although the limiter is at 8500, it doesn't make sense to push the engine above 7500rpm" This is backed up by the power graph, showing that BHP drops after 7000 RPM.

From the file content/cars/ferrari_458_gt2/ui/ui_cars.json, I see these power values:

• RPM - BHP
• 7000 - 483
• 7500 - 466
• 8000 - 463
• 8500 - 452

So for max BHP, it seems one should shift up around 7000. So far I have always been shifting around 7500, as otherwise I am shifting very rapidly.

Do you guys do the same? Of course, the BHP drop is quite small - 30 BHP less from 7000 to 8500 (7% drop.) So it is probably not all that important. But every BHP counts, right?

Put another way: is there any disadvantage to shifting at 7000 or 7500 versus 8000-8500?

And does this unusual power distribution result in any suggested changes in gear setup?

Thanks!

 

[PhilS13]

Shift right when the steering wheel LEDs start to flash. Below is a spreadsheet to find out the ideal shift points for the latest Coenwulf's setup in this thread and the flashing LEDs match it perfectly. Getting it right vs over shooting by 500 rpm is worth at least a couple tenths.

 

[TheBloke]

Awesome, thanks @PhilS13 !

I had never seen the 458 GT2 shift lights, because I always have the virtual steering wheel turned off (I figured there was no point because I have a real steering wheel here in front of me.)

I turned the virtual wheel back on for a while and did some tests, and I can see that it starts flashing around 7150 RPM.

So wow, that's way lower than I had been shifting! I am now trying to always shift between 7100 and 7200.

That's really helpful, thanks!

Can I ask how you made that graph? Is that something I/we should be doing for each car and each set of gear ratios? In all other cars I tend to shift at red line, because most cars have max BHP at redline (but not max torque.) Is that sub-optimal?

Would you mind uploading your Excel spreadsheet itself? I'd be really interested to see what calculations you're doing.

 

[JoelGL]

Clarification pls. Isn't Power more important, than the Torque in the curve? Also, my leds flash at 8000rpm, not 7150. And in the graph, it shows shift to 7th... doesn't this only have up to 6th? Thanks.

 

[TheBloke]

Re Power vs Torque - I'm no expert, but my basic understanding is that Torque = acceleration, Power = top speed. So certainly in the lower gears, I think that Torque is more important. But like you, I thought that power was also important, hence why I shift at red line in cars where redline = max RPM.

Regarding the LEDs flashing - are you using @Coenwulf 's setup from earlier in this thread? The setup you are using will, I think, vary the shift lights (that's what @PhilS13 indicated.) I am using Coenwulf's Spa setup and I see the shift lights start flashing around 7150.

Re 7th gear - if you look at PhilS' spreadsheet, you'll see that for 7th he has put 0.001 for the ratio, and there is no 7th gear line on the graph (the legend says 7th, but there are only 6 lines on the graph.) So this data is only showing 6 gears, but he has a spreadsheet that can handle up to 7 gears for cars that have that many. So it seems he has a generic spreadsheet in which he can put Torque values and Gear Ratios, and it tells him where to shift - that is why I would love to get a copy of the spreadsheet!

 

[PhilS13]

That whole power does this and torque does that is just wrong and it keeps being repeated over and over.

Maximizing power output is exactly like maximizing torque output at the wheels and will give same results. I have included both methods in my spreadsheet to prove it to myself and they do give the same ideal shift points. Yes I do have a provision for 7th gear but I input data far enough to disregard it when the car has less.

LEDs are "smart". They will start flashing at different RPMs for each gear depending on how the gear ratios are spaced out. The bigger the gap to next gear the higher in RPM it will start to flash.

Redlining is optimal for most cars. They are a few other cars in AC that would require attention just like the 458 does though. @TheBloke the sheet is pretty rough but I can send it to you in private and I might release it when I get it polished enough

 

[JoelGL]

That's weird @TheBloke. Yes I'm using Coen's last setup, and my LED's flash at 8000 though I shift at around 7,200.

Just to clarify, in PhilS13's spreadsheet, I see max torque at 5500RPM, so does that mean that's the ideal shift point (not 7000RPM)?

 

[Gary Hutchison]

whats the plugin you lads are using to alter the feedback, cheers

 

[TheBloke]

whats the plugin you lads are using to alter the feedback, cheers

Primarily, FFBClip (FYI: Assetto Corsa forum link, requires registration & linking Steam.)

It's pretty awesome. It monitors the FFB being sent by the game to your wheel, detecting when clipping occurs. It thereby suggests the maximum level of FFB you can configure without having too much clipping.

It can work on both the main game level of FFB (Controls -> Advanced -> FFB Gain), and the in-game Car Setup (per car/track combo) level of FFB. The idea being that you find a main menu level that works in the majority of situations, and then tweak it on car/track combos when a certain track or car (or both) can handle more FFB, or requires less to avoid clipping,

The Car Setup tweaking is important because there can be quite a big difference between different cars, e.g. the race cars, like the 458 GT2, often have quite a bit stronger FFB than many road cars. And the same for certain courses, especially those with high speed corners: Eau Rouge in Spa in particular is a very high FFB corner, which on its own can require a 10% or 20% drop in FFB Gain.

Then there's a second tool that you may also want to run, and in fact run first, before FFBClip: iRacing Force Feedback Test (also known as Wheel Check).

Spoiler: iRacing WheelCheck screenshot

That's a small tool originally written by a modder/fan, for iRacing. It's a standalone .exe, run outside of any game, and its results are therefore applicable to all games that use FFB.

It's quite a sophisticated tool, that works by detecting your FFB wheel and then sending sequences of FFB commands to it. Like "Turn left, force 100; turn left, force 200; turn left..", and after each one, monitoring the wheel to see how far it actually turned.

There's a whole bunch of different tests, but the two that you usually run are:

a) Minimum Force - a quick test that checks the wheel to see the lowest amount of force that the wheel actually responds to. Many wheels tend to not respond well, or at all, at the very lowest levels of force. AC, and iRacing, therefore support a Minimum Force FFB setting, which allows you to tell the game not to bother sending forces below X% because the wheel will do nothing with them (instead I guess it sends those same commands with an appropriately higher level of force.)

This varies greatly by model of wheel. For example, my first wheel was a Fanatec Porsche 911 Turbo S - now about 5 years old. That responded to absolutely nothing below 9% force, and was very unlinear until about 15-20%, so I set its Minimum Force in AC to 15%.

I recently upgraded to a Thrustmaster 500RS . That is much better, it responds to nearly all levels of FFB force - WheelCheck reports its Minimum Force as 0.5%. However, although it responds at nearly all levels, it's still not linear at the lower end (see next section re linearity), so I've ended up setting its Minimum Force in AC to 9%. Although that's not vastly less than I had set the Porsche Tubso S, subjectively speaking there does seem to be a noticeable difference, with new forces apparent once I had set the Min Force right, which I hadn't noticed with the Turbo S.

b) Linear Force Test - this is the main test, which operates in the way I described earlier (apply FFB force 100, check wheel position; apply FFB force 200, etc.) It then outputs the results in CSV format, which you can load into Excel and make a graph of.

The purpose of this is to see how linear your wheel's response to FFB is, and particularly to see how this alters at different FFB settings on the wheel. For example, my Thrustmaster 500RS is most linear when the Feedback Gain (in the Thrustmaster drivers) is set to 60%. In other words for my wheel, at 60% FFB Gain, the graph of FFB forces sent to the wheel, compared to the actual resulting wheel movement, is closest to a diagonal line. Therefore the ideal driver gain setting for my wheel is 60% (which is actually the default now anyway) - at lower levels, FFB forces are never maxed out, and at higher levels, they max out too soon, resulting in a line that starts diagonal but then curves and flat-lines at the end.

WheelCheck is described in much more detail, with lots of example graphs, in this AC forum thread: Calibrating your force feedback wheel using wheelcheck and ffbclip .

In summary: one tends to run WheelCheck once, to confirm the ideal setting for FFB in the driver (or on-wheel configuration menu, e.g. on Fanatec) Then one runs FFBClip repeatedly, first to set the AC main menu FFB level, and then ideally once or more for each car/track combo to set the suitable Car Setup FFB level.

You probably already have, but just in case: you're well advised to check the AC forums Controllers & Peripherals forum for the appropriate Official Thread for your make of wheel - Fanatec, Logitech, Thrustmaster, etc - as each has lots of detailed discussion about all this, and how it all inter-relates, including suggested settings for the other FFB params available, both in-driver and in-game (such as Dampening, Spring, etc.) Those other settings are usually more subjective, and aren't much affected (or monitored) by Wheel Check and FFBClip, so more experimentation is required.

I've been through this with two makes of wheel now and it can take a bit of time to research and experiment, but as others have said in this thread and elsewhere : it's well worth it, and can make a big difference to how you drive. Actually there's an old thread (recently re-bumped) in Sim Racing Hardware here, which also talks a lot about the importance of getting FFB Gain right - well worth a read: Like your FFB strong? Think again..

(This has ended up answering rather more than you asked, so apologies if you knew all that and literally just needed the link to the app.. Maybe useful in general for others..!)

 

[Gary Hutchison]

thanks for the explanation

 

[paracletus]

This car is a lot slower around spa than it used to be, but as far as I see kunos haven't said so in their release notes.
2:15s were easily possible at one stage, whereas now a 2:18 is a decent lap.
is there any way to clear the previous best times and ghost car? the old times are meaningless now, yet they are still displayed within the game.

 

[Ace King]

2:16's is now the norm with very fast drivers so only about 1 second slower from before!

 

[JoelGL]

2:16's is now the norm with very fast drivers so only about 1 second slower from before!

Ace should know!

 

[paracletus]

also noticed - when setting a time in "practice" mode, first lap leaving the pits quickly is much faster than a proper lap crossing the start/finish line in hotlap mode.
Kunos need to fix that.