FM4 Forza Motorsport CSR Wheel

[Stephen Spackman]

Is the Forza Motorsport CSR Wheel any good??

 

[Tom Moreno]

I tested this weekend with my steering wheel and didn't find an option to map a button to look left/right.
Did anyone of you find this in the menus?
Because I would hate to loose that option when using my steeringwheel.

I use button layout 7 (I think it's 7 at least) and this has the look left and right set to your x and b buttons, so yes it is possible.

 

[Peter Vermeulen]

oooh,that would be splendid. Will have a look at it this evening.

 

[Ryan Sylvester]

I use button layout 7 (I think it's 7 at least) and this has the look left and right set to your x and b buttons, so yes it is possible.

That would be nice, hate driving down the straights not having a clue what is going on either side of me! lol

 

[Jim Smith]

I stand corrected then Tom, I didn't think it was doable, I'll be having a look at that later myself

 

[Jim Smith]

I use button layout 7 (I think it's 7 at least) and this has the look left and right set to your x and b buttons, so yes it is possible.

Well i've had a look and I can't seem to see it. When I choose the controller option with my wheel connected there are only 5 presets for the button layout ( I think theres 10 when you connect with a joypad ) and none of them map the x and b buttons to look left and right

 

[Peter Vermeulen]

yiiihaaaaaaaaa found it although i got only 5 layouts with my steering wheel.
But layout 4 does the trick.
If you select that one you'll see that X and B are refered to "switch camera". With that they want to say "look left, look right" odd way to phrase this. I only found out by simply selecting that layout and test what the buttons did. As there are only 2 that use the flappy pedals to switch gears. (the other one is layout 1)

 

[Jim Smith]

yiiihaaaaaaaaa found it although i got only 5 layouts with my steering wheel.
But layout 4 does the trick.
If you select that one you'll see that X and B are refered to "switch camera". With that they want to say "look left, look right" odd way to phrase this. I only found out by simply selecting that layout and test what the buttons did. As there are only 2 that use the flappy pedals to switch gears. (the other one is layout 1)

Right thanks, I never tried them when it just said switch camera I thought that is what it would do. I think I was expecting to find the words “look left" and “look right" assigned to the buttons on one of the layouts

 

[Peter Vermeulen]

yup jim same as me very confusing from turn 10 to quote it like that

 

[Wayne Thomas]

yup jim same as me very confusing from turn 10 to quote it like that

It's because Americans can't speak English properly!

 

[Tom Moreno]

There ya go! I told ya I wasn't sure of the exact number, and now that I think of it I remember that I was a bit confused by the naming as well. I think it's because when you "look left" and "look right" with the right stick on the joypad it does it from the driver's perspective but this is more of a switch to an exterior camera mounted on the door of the car.

 

[Peter Vermeulen]

Guys I need some help here.
I finally decided on buying a csr wheel and csr elite pedals.
Wich i got delivered on thursday last week.
So feeling a happy chap with this nice piece of kit.
But it doesn't improve my racing in forza. Even worse I'm 2 seconds slower than with my pad. O.o
No matter what track or car I use i can't beat my own ghost.
That's tested with the civic from cws, R8 LMS for gt2 and the 911 GT3.
The settings i'm using are in game:
- all deadzones to 0 for inside and 100 for outside.
- only the clutch is unchanged to the standard default setting.
- Vibration 100
- Force feedback 75
Tried sim and normal steering but don't really feel a difference.
Maybe because i've always been using sim steering with my pad.
On the steering wheel i'm using:
SENS - 270
FF - 100
Sho - 100
Dri - OFF
Abs - 80
Lin - 000
Dea - 000
Spr - 1
Dpr - 1
For every car the rumble of curbs and locking brakes is perfect.
I feel a good snap in the steering wheel and rumble effects.
But on steering in on a corner there's suddenly no power needed from my arms and it all feels very fluttery on the steering.
So that's very faint corner-in steering i'm having.
In fact it's similar to the power i need to steer with the stick on my pad.
I though hmmm maybe somethings wrong with the wheel.
So i booted project cars and made a second profile on the wheel.
there i set all deadzones to 0 inside and 100 outside.
Force feedback 75
On the steering wheel there i'm using
SENS - OFF
FF - 100
Sho - 0
Dri - 0
Abs - 85
Lin - 000
Dea - 000
Spr - 0
Dpr - 0
But there i do need power to steer into a corner and perfectly feel the tires working.
Even feel the difference between the cars i'm using.
I can drive onto the edge of the grip of the tire in there and feel it go off.
I must say they do have an extra in-game setting "tire resistance/friction" and that's set to 100.
So i think it's fair to say that at this point i don't see the advantage off the wheel over a pad for forza.
In cars i was after 5 laps already 1.5 to 2 seconds faster on catalunya than what i clocked with a pad.
Guess it's either me,maybe a setting that you guys know for the wheel or the difference between a simcade and a real sim.
I'm clueless here anyway will keep on using the pad unless someone knows the ideal setting for forza.

 

[Tom Moreno]

Peter, one thing I've found is that ffb on the wheel between Xbox games and pc/ps3 is night and day. There's a lot more information going on on the pc side and the Xbox games always feel a bit dialed down. One thing I've found helped, especially when using sim steering, is instead of setting the SENS to 270 to set it to off. This essentially sets it to 270° (the Xbox default) but does it without running the signal through any sort of scaling in the wheel's firmware and I find that you get tangibly better response out of the wheel. I also run FFB level in the game at 100%. Anything less than that and the wheel is just too light on Xbox. Also try setting Spring and Damper to 0.

 

[Jim Smith]

Peter when I first got my csr which I upgraded to from an MS wheel I was a bit disappointed at first. I just couldn't get to grips with at first. I was 2 seconds a lap slower than with my other wheel. But after a few days and finding some settings I liked I've never looked back. It's a great wheel and once you get used to it you'll be knocking loads of time off your laps.
These are the settings I use:
Sen 540
FF 100
Sho 100
DRI off
ABS 100
LIN 000
DEA 000
SPR 0
DPR 0


Firmware 737

 

[Peter Vermeulen]

thx tom and jim.
I'll give it another few tests with your suggestions and i'll see what the results are then.

 

[Peter Vermeulen]

oki tested a bit more with the settings you guys suggested and got me a better feeling with Sen set to OFF. I left the spring and damper to 1. Then I cranked up the FFB and the car felt more heavy to steer. Felt way better.
But still on the civic (cws) i'm 1 second of my personal best time.

But now as I'm posting this I just realize I was doing these tests while the steering was set to simulation.
I always switch that around as i use it on my pad but the normal steering seems to be the way to go for a fanatec. So will have to test that again.

So will test it again and see where it leads me.

 

[Alexander Macdonald]

Peter when I first got my csr which I upgraded to from an MS wheel I was a bit disappointed at first. I just couldn't get to grips with at first. I was 2 seconds a lap slower than with my other wheel. But after a few days and finding some settings I liked I've never looked back. It's a great wheel and once you get used to it you'll be knocking loads of time off your laps.
These are the settings I use:
Sen 540
FF 100
Sho 100
DRI off
ABS 100
LIN 000
DEA 000
SPR 0
DPR 0


Firmware 737

That's an odd setting for the ABS. The number for the ABS is the angle of the brake pedal at which the Steering wheel vibrates, not the strength of the motor. So if the settings at 100, you'll only feel the vibration if you're pressing the brake right down. Likewise if you're setting is at 1 you're feel the vibration practically as soon as you press the brake, which would become really obnoxius.

On another note, I've been having some strange problems with my CSR. I mostly notice this in F1 2011, but if I'm travelling slowly, it becomes really hard to turn because the FF at the centre angle of the wheel feels like it's set to 500 million. Also when my FF is set to a high number I can hear this disconcerting squeaking noise. The wheel just feels a bit different in the centre, when it's off I notice it's slightly harder to turn past the centre of the wheel. Since every reviewer I've seen so far has talked about how it has no centre deadzone, I'm starting to wonder If I have a small problem with my wheel. I'm wondering if anyone else has noticed these things?

 

[Peter Vermeulen]

haven't tested if yet on the F1 2010 and 2011 titles.
That will be something fro the weekend.
On other titles I've tested (Forza4,Project cars,rFactor2, Race Pro) i haven't noticed this phenomenon.

 

[Tom Moreno]

That's an odd setting for the ABS. The number for the ABS is the angle of the brake pedal at which the Steering wheel vibrates, not the strength of the motor. So if the settings at 100, you'll only feel the vibration if you're pressing the brake right down. Likewise if you're setting is at 1 you're feel the vibration practically as soon as you press the brake, which would become really obnoxius.

On another note, I've been having some strange problems with my CSR. I mostly notice this in F1 2011, but if I'm travelling slowly, it becomes really hard to turn because the FF at the centre angle of the wheel feels like it's set to 500 million. Also when my FF is set to a high number I can hear this disconcerting squeaking noise. The wheel just feels a bit different in the centre, when it's off I notice it's slightly harder to turn past the centre of the wheel. Since every reviewer I've seen so far has talked about how it has no centre deadzone, I'm starting to wonder If I have a small problem with my wheel. I'm wondering if anyone else has noticed these things?

That heaviness is the spring setting. This is why I set it to 0 as it means that it allows the game to return the wheel to centre when needed. Most games do this and having the wheel set to do it as well can compound the return to centre force.

 

[Ryan Sylvester]

Can anbody provide me with their CSR wheel settings, I don't know why, but I turned it on Sunday, to give it a go before the Lemans race, and the thing feels completely off, Im locking brakes constantly, and the steering is really twitchy, I don't know if one of my kids has changed the settings by mistake, but its not right at all now!

any help would be greatly appreciated gents!

 

[Jim Smith]

Mine are further up the thread. ABS should be at 90 though and not 100