Good Xbox 360 Controller Setup?

[Ryan Hamilton]

Hello everyone!

Right, I'm a newbie when it comes to hardcore sim racing. I have a racing team on Forza 3 and race regularly with touring cars with an Xbox 360 controller.

I am a good driver and usually race with no assist and manual gears with clutch.

So I have some good experience when it comes to racing games. My only issue with the game (Race 07) is that I can't get smooth steering with my Xbox 360 controller.

Can anyone please recommend me a good controller setup that might replicate smooth steering or better yet Forza 3?

This help will be muchly appreciated!
Thanks!

 

[Jeremy Loveland]

Dude i would just recomend getting a wheel.
I know you seem to have put alot of effort into getting used to the controller while playing foroza but if you realy want a smooth drive it would be easyer to obtain with a wheel, most the people that play race probably use a wheel for this pupose.
Foroza on the other hand may be designed more around the controller set as its made for and to my knowledge only on the X-box.

However if you have ur heart set on using a controller you could probably play with sensativity and dead zones to get it to be less sensative to your movement but this may be very difficalt to achive as the controller analogue has very little movement to play with...

good luck all the same.

 

[Ryan Hamilton]

I have thought about getting a steering wheel in the future but current restraints (bedroom size, wanting a racing seat) are quiet far away. I've noticed that when driving the SEAT TDI on Race 07 the steering becomes jerky because the analogue stick snaps straight back to center rather than easing down to center. I played Race On last night, racing the Lister Storm (awesome car and sound btw) and it seemed less jerky and alot smoother, almost resembling Forza. Is it something to do with tunning the steering lock?

Thanks for the reply!

 

[UMC 22]

Is it something to do with tunning the steering lock?

That could help, yes. The higher the lock, the more 'jerky' it will seem on a pad. This is because the entire lock is squeezed into the axis between the sticks upright position and 45°. On a wheel it is spread out between the centre point and up to 900° of rotation, making it considerably smoother.

 

[Ryan Hamilton]

Oh! I see! I can see that reducing the lock yields a more smooth steering. I'll try and post my Joypad settings up and what Steering lock I'm running on the SEAT and Lister as a comparison. Could the difference be also down to different games? or does the RACE series use the same Engine?

 

[Ryan Callan]

Steering lock should be no higher than 12 or 13. MAke sure Speed Sensitive steering is 50%+ and Steering Sensitivity is 0%. With Throttle at 5 and Brake at 10.

IIRC those are the settings I used last year and the year before - won plenty of race with them, so I must have done something right. And RACE is nothing like Forza's engine, it is much more realistic and difficult.

 

[Ryan Hamilton]

Thanks for the setup! I'll try it after work.

When I said different games I meant Race 07 compared to Race On. Its a stupid question I know, should have guessed they use the same engine. But I guess requesting a steering setup on a diferent game engine to the one you want wont work. It's like asking can I have the same steering In Burnout Paradise on rFactor! XD

Thanks for all the help guys, feeling totally welcomed to Racedepartment!

 

[Ryan Callan]

RACE On and RACE 07 are the same game. RACE 07 is the base package - RACE On, STCC and GTR Evo have all been add-ons.

 

[Jeremy Loveland]

I have thought about getting a steering wheel in the future but current restraints (bedroom size, wanting a racing seat) are quiet far away. I've noticed that when driving the SEAT TDI on Race 07 the steering becomes jerky because the analogue stick snaps straight back to center rather than easing down to center. I played Race On last night, racing the Lister Storm (awesome car and sound btw) and it seemed less jerky and alot smoother, almost resembling Forza. Is it something to do with tunning the steering lock?

Thanks for the reply!

another option that could be a bit cheaper is a joystick/flight stick, obviosly wont be as comfy as a gaming controller or as nice to drive as a wheel but as far a a small cheaper option goes that will posible give you a less jerky driving experiance its an option.....tho i will admit ive tried a racing game (YEARS AGO) with a joystick and didnt like it much, but its upto u i guess

 

[Ryan Hamilton]

Apart from dipping my toes in War sim's such as ARMA 2, I wouldn't want a Joystick unless I actually bought a proper flight sim. But I'm not a big fan of flight sim's. I'll just stick with the xbox controller until I can get a racing seat and wheel.

Thanks for the help!

 

[Ryan Callan]

You can do perfectly well with a controller, I was more successful with that than I am with my wheel currently, although there are other factors at play there.

Although my pace seemed to be the exception, looking at others. That could just be because of the low numbers of controller users of course.

 

[UMC 22]

another option that could be a bit cheaper is a joystick/flight stick...

I think control pads are the better option, myself. On a joystick your steering, throttle and brakes are all on the same stick. Maybe its just me, but back in my pre-wheel days I used to find it quite hard to hold one input steady while increasing/decreasing others. (Have the same issue in motorbike games now.) The result was jerky inputs, which is exactly what the OP is trying to avoid. :tongue:

 

[Jim Cole]

Hope you get the setup sorted out. As one responder posted it is all about the steering lock settings as that determines how much turn you get while moving the stick on the controller.

As for the joystick for racing it is all in what you get used to. I have seen great drivers using keyboards, great drivers using a gamepad and great drivers using joystick. When I say great I mean so good that they were typically a podium finish against pretty much everyone and they were so smooth you could not tell they were using something other than a wheel.

If you have a joystick laying about though, they can be very good for motorcycle games as they kind of give the feeling of leaning into a turn When you setup a joystick you set the steering for left right. Most of the joysticks out there have a separate throttle control on them so you can set that up for throttle/brake. You can't brake while cornering too well, but you can still get some serious runs out of the joystick.

 

[UMC 22]

Most of the joysticks out there have a separate throttle control on them so you can set that up for throttle/brake.

Never tried that for cars (regular joysticks didn't have a throttle back then), but I have tried it for bikes. Just couldn't get the hang of it though. The main issue was finding the centre point where no throttle/brake was applied, because joystick throttles don't have a centre spring. Pads are ok though, as you're still using a stick to corner which gives at least some sensation of 'leaning'.

 

[bpbill]

Did you get your controller sorted?

I'm new to Race Sims and Race 07 having been into arcade racing and am trying to get mine set up to as it seems to be needed much more here. How do you change the Steering Lock?

 

[Caramidaru Andrei Bogdan]

Steering lock should be no higher than 12 or 13. MAke sure Speed Sensitive steering is 50%+ and Steering Sensitivity is 0%. With Throttle at 5 and Brake at 10.

IIRC those are the settings I used last year and the year before - won plenty of race with them, so I must have done something right. And RACE is nothing like Forza's engine, it is much more realistic and difficult.

well ive done something stupd

first reinstaled windows,so kinda lost all setup for my x360 joystick for race07,and now it feels like crap,same as keybord
i did the above settings and steel i get the steering like from keybord pads,0.1milisec full lock,it is horible

but i also did a good thing,manage to instal a proper driver for xbox360(xbcd360 2.7) so i can have vibration(on win7 and race07) also i can use both brake and acc at the same time (trail braking),but now i searsched the internet for steering setup and tryied them all,from higher Speed Sensitive Steering (between 50-85)to change lock in setup 8-18, nothing seems to work,any ideea anyone?

 

[Dave Flower]

Analogue sectors? Try different settings for the three sectors, including 'off', different people favour different settings, if not set to off try to keep them all the same or at least very close to each other, as vastly different settings for each sector cause very jumpy responses to stick movements, I personally favour off, but I use a wheel and the 360 controller is for friends on my laptop.

Also ensure the controller is properly calibrated and is centering properly in game controllers.

This is in addition to the great advice of others above. Hope you get it sorted - oh and back up your controller and car setup files next time.

 

[Caramidaru Andrei Bogdan]

done it,ty
the problem was from XBCD drivers,even do they alow me to do "trail braking" and stuff..i did not manage to find a whey to calibrate them,the stick and buttons,did not understand the maping so i gone back to microsoft drivers,all good now pfeu..