Have Your Say: Can You Sim Race Competitively With a Controller?

[Simon Gardner]

A guy used to race here in the RACE07 club events using keyboard and mouse - we couldn't believe it when we found out as he was seriously quick.

 

[DreadNaughT-7]

I think there should be controller only servers in sims

You may be competitive but I dare say the 'sim' part is almost non existent with a game pad.

It's definitely possible if there are controller only servers

 

[DreadNaughT-7]

I'm playing Assetto Corsa for 650 hours with a XBox 360 controller and I can say that I suck at driving fast. But Assetto Corsa is great and I enjoy it.

If only these wheel elites could understand, my friend

 

[Andy_J]

My answer to the OP's question is NO. But then again I can't race competitively with a wheel either.

 

[omanrak]

In arcade racers, yes, otherwise no.

 

[paracletus]

Some of the best racing games to date -- Grammond with the keyboard. Didn't have a wheel, was one even available.

 

[Paul Glover]

With a keyboard back in the day steering, acceleration and braking was on off - not exactly accurate. Controllers have more control these days, they used to be very much on/off but you can now control the accuracy better with analogue sticks and using trigger buttons for acceleration and braking.

Controllers will not be as smooth as a wheel, but with practice I don't see why it's not possible to race with a controller as long as the driver is gentle with their inputs. I raced online for many years in Project Gotham racing and Forza we had close battles, racing with a wheel is preferred and I won't go back!

 

[bertiesparty]

I have a wheel but tbh I don't use it much. Need to rearrange the furniture. I can still have plenty of fun with a pad.

 

[smeisinger]

I'm playing Assetto Corsa for 650 hours with a XBox 360 controller and I can say that I suck at driving fast. But Assetto Corsa is great and I enjoy it.

Read my post on reddit about racing AC with a controller:
https://www.reddit.com/r/assettocorsa/comments/66hrx2/being_smooth_with_a_controller/

I'm doing fine on SRS with a controller and some of those guys there are Aliens.

 

[Butzemann]

To be honest there are some real crude statements like gamepad racers prone to crash earlier or provoke crashes. Because a gamepad is not that precise?

Sounds weird maybe, but also a gamepad has to be configured properly. Regrettably there are no files provided by jack spade for that task.

It is not only about assigning meaningful values for gamma, steering filter, speed sensivity etc. Also the virtual steering wheel rotation limit has a significant impact on the steering precision and steering immersion. In AC you can adjust that parameter under options/video/view. Per default, AC takes the turning angle from the calibration - that is for non xbox controllers or presets something around 180 degree. That is a way to small, I set a value equal or greater than 360 degree and that makes a great difference.



Cheers

 

[dud]

I think we should dissect "controller" a bit more.

The first bit is whether you can steer with a joystick. I think the key here is to have a consistent, non-linear curve mapping joystick movements to steering input, aka very fine around the center but still able to reach the maximum required rotation. Another issue is control of the deadzone. You can't have a real deadzone with a racing game. If your joystick hardware requires a deadzone because it sends random data around center then, no, you cannot competitively race with it.

Gas and brake come down to a couple of factors. Deadzone again, it needs to be just right. You cannot brake and use gas at the same time. Which I don't do anyway.

Then there is the x-versus-y movement. You need to be able to mechanically move the joystick evenly over the entire x-y plane. That is not the case with many spring-controlled joysticks that have resistance increase on a simple basis of geometric distance from center position. That means if you open up gas then it will pull the steering plane to the center. I suppose this is a matter of muscle memory. It could even be put to good use. The joystick also needs to not lose data precision, e.g. if you didn't mechanically change the y (steering) position as you add x (gas) the y data shouldn't change. This can be an issue.

Obviously there isn't a real clutch unless you do something about it.

Myself I miss the joystick sometimes. I started AC with a joystick and it didn't work right. I bought a wheel. Didn't work either until I had it correctly configured and had muscle memory. I think I could do reasonably well with a well-configure joystick and practice, at least for straightforward cars like modern GT3.

The thing about the joystick is travel. I spend significant time away from home. I can bring a joystick. I can't bring a wheel and pedals. Now that I have the Rift it would be entirely possible to have a hotel room setup around a small screen (or the hotel TV), the Rift and a joystick.

 

[Hiroshi Awazu]

My upmost respect to those who can be competitive in sims using a controller

 

[Raig Strehlow]

Read my post on reddit about racing AC with a controller:
https://www.reddit.com/r/assettocorsa/comments/66hrx2/being_smooth_with_a_controller/

I'm doing fine on SRS with a controller and some of those guys there are Aliens.

compared to my driving with xbox 360 gamepad, this is still unsmooth:

you use just false values and need such help with this things fiddled around the sticks

PS: man why i didnt saw it earlier...