Suggested settings for G27 are all crazy... here's what I recommend.

[alligatorlizard]

Not to ruffle feathers, but I've noticed a of of really bad advice regarding setting up the G27 for this game (and others) - so here are my conclusions after several days setting things up to feel as real as possible. As I own an actual MX5, I have set the wheel up while using this in-game car.

The worst advice I see is to set "gain" (i.e. overall ffb strength, set in game) at around 100 (or some people say 80-ish). IMO this needs to be pretty low (around 35%) or it's WAY stiffer to turn than any actual car. Nevermind if the ffb effects feel weak this low, this setting also affects how stiff the wheel is, and if the you have to struggle to turn the wheel, it's not going to feel real! In fact you're going to have real trouble controlling slides, or even just going round tight corners. I think a lot of people whack up the ffb strength to try and eliminate the floppy feeling around the centre of the wheel of the G27, but in AC there's a good solution for this: turn up minimum force to max (30). Even at 30, the wheel still feels a little unresponsive around the centre, so I keep this as high as possible - really helps give the wheel a more linear feel.

I went in depth into the other settings too. So in the logitech profiler, the standard advice for years now (e.g. for Race07 etc) is:
Overall force 100 (some say increase this to eliminate wheel's deadzone, BUT this will result in "clipping" or "spikes" in ffb (audio engineers will see a parallel here in boosting volume past 0 db)
Spring fx: 0
Damp fx: 0
Centre spring enabled but at 0
Allow game to change settings.

My conclusions: Leave overall force at 100. Don't want "clipping", and AC's in-game minimum force setting much better for minimizing floppy centre in wheel.
Spring fx: 100 - if anyone can give a good reason to put this at 0, please let me know! It certainly doesn't mess with the real physics ffb, and as far as I can tell just allows the game to use spring fx for collisions etc.
Damp fx : around 30 - in this game, this just adds some resistance to wheel when car stationary. You don't need much, I like 20. Again, no reason I can see to put this down to 0.
Definitely leave centre-spring at 0 though (and if you do this I'm not sure it makes any difference whether the "allow centre spring" box is checked or not)

Other in game settings: - don't seem to need any filter. All "canned" fx (road feel/slip fx curbs etc) all seem good around 25, though here I do think this really is a matter of taste - and as is pointed out elsewhere these are kind of "amplifiers", as these forces are already represented by the main ffb even if these sliders are at 0 - increasing past 0 basically gives extra shakes and rumbles when you go over a curb etc. Definitely helps feel more realistic with some of these extra fx dialled up a bit (a curb WILL shake the car!) but you don't need much.

So in brief:

Logitech profiler:
Main: 100
Spring fx: 100
Damp fx: 30-ish
Centre-spring strength: 0
Allow game to adjust: yes

In game:
Gain: around 35
Minimum force: 30
Curbs/roadfeel etc: around 25

Let me know if this helps anyone who's been struggling with an overly stiff wheel!

Of course, if you prefer an overly stiff wheel (presumably because you also want stronger road feedback) then that's fine - but bear in mind that you'll have far more trouble controlling the car if the wheel is overly stiff to turn, so you're really not adding realism.

Fact is, the ffb is far from perfect, and the floppy centre of the G27 is a real problem - but using this low "gain" setting, coupled with the high "minimum force setting", is the closest I've got the in game MX5 to feeling like driving an actual MX5. I'm also familiar with the Fiat 500, which also feels about right at these settings, so I'm presuming it'll translate to the other cars too.

 

[slim.kac]

Interesting perspective, I am around 80% thanks to FFBclip and forum reading so I pick up your idea of softening the Gain and you're right about that ! I can use more rotation, like if the hard (80%) setup is misleading me on how much I can rotate the car. However on gutter and curbs I feel nothing, so I put 100% to curb but it only fix...curbs, attacking hard on a very high gutter does nothing.

Logitech profiler Spring and Damp setup is killing my wheel, having massive and powerful jerks even with 5% percent. Maybe this setup is conflicting with those properties. Maybe I have to consider going from scratch setup :/

 

[RasmusP]

Interesting perspective, I am around 80% thanks to FFBclip and forum reading so I pick up your idea of softening the Gain and you're right about that ! I can use more rotation, like if the hard (80%) setup is misleading me on how much I can rotate the car. However on gutter and curbs I feel nothing, so I put 100% to curb but it only fix...curbs, attacking hard on a very high gutter does nothing.

Logitech profiler Spring and Damp setup is killing my wheel, having massive and powerful jerks even with 5% percent. Maybe this setup is conflicting with those properties. Maybe I have to consider going from scratch setup :/

Since my thread got linked

Do you use my LUT config or the one with "gamma"?
Spring shouldn't do anything and damper shouldn't do anything other than giving a bit of friction at very very low speeds but depending on what exactly you have set, maybe something is off.

I'm happy to help with questions!

To alligatorlizard:
It makes total sense what you describe and I guess your settings feel nicely balanced too.
However depending on what you want to achieve with the ffb you need different settings.
Your post reads like a very strong approach so I'll kind of "defend" my settings now

So you say that your settings pretty much replicate your mx5 and I believe you! I did the same at the beginning with the real cars I know.
The problem is from a perspective of "being as fast as possible" and therefore competitive, you need the maximum range of the g27.
Also a big point is the rotation speed. If you deactivate all ffb and "throw" the wheel, it will come to stand still quite quickly.
That means that you not only need the highest force possible for recreating a real car (like old F1) but also need high forces to turn the wheel quickly enough. Examples are drifting, counter steering etc where a real wheel would just turn itself more or less instantly.

Also for feeling as many details as possible, to feel when you lose grip, are on the edge etc, you need the full range of the g27 too.

So what I did with my current settings (the link above but in that thread the first link again, or click on my downloads):
I tested the highest force that the g27 can produce (ffb with a lut to 1000% amplified) and tried to remember this force.
What I found out:
If you put the profiler above 100%, nothing happens.
If you put the profiler to below 100%, the totally clipping ffb from assetto corsa gets lowered (clipping stays).
So 100%, not more, not less, is the setting to go as long as you have good in game options like for AC

Then I lowered the ffb slider in AC until the force in my hands got lower too. So that was the maximum.
Problem: the clipping app still showed clipping and I felt that details were still getting lost.
What I then tried was setting the ingame ffb lower until I didn't get any clipping and then amplified this ffb with a look up table (lut) until details got lost again (cut out by the logitech driver) and then stayed slightly below that.

That's how I set my g27, ac and profiler up for the highest possible force output without clipping (well a little little bit but that's actually recommended for the g27).

Then I raised the minimum force in a curved way (I don't like the notch you get from the min force slider) until the deadzone was gone but I didn't get an oscillating wheel on the straights.


I don't say that you have to use my settings, I just wanted to lay open what I did and why I did it. Of course it doesn't replicate an mx5 feeling. But it does give you more or less the most detailed ffb with the g27 possible.

With a direct drive wheel you won't have these problems I mentioned so you could go for very low ffb settings and still have no deadzone, a fast spinning wheel and all details.

With your settings (low overall gain, high min force) you kind of compress the full range of ffb into 30% to 40% for example. So 10% difference of forces, instead of around 85% with my settings.

Can feel nice, I don't say it won't! I just say that it won't make you as fast as you could be when racing.

If you just wanna cruise: hell yeah, your settings probably feel a lot better than mine with road cars!

Cheers guys! If you have any questions I'll try to answer them!

 

[slim.kac]

I first tried Audi TT where low gain fits very well. I just tested McLaren F1 GTR on the same track and you are right, it needs strong gain on counter steering but also to feel the limit.
I will consider tuning the gain for each car based on your setup. Thank you @RasmusP for sharing your knowledge !!

Anyway 'got a race in 1 hour so I will not try too many things right now

 

[alligatorlizard]

@RasmusP - thanks for the detailed feedback (no pun intended... I totally agree that lowering ffb gain loses a lot of ffb details that help you feel what the car's doing: grip, weight transfer etc. - thing is, there's currently no way of adjusting the strength of these ffb effects independently of the strength the simulated centering forces. For me, I can drive with low ffb effects, but not with a wheel that just feels stiffer than any car since maybe the Model-T!

Again, it's down to personal taste, if ffb is more important, crank it up and enjoy - but there's no way this feels realistic, because of how stiff it makes the wheel.

I also see what you mean about my setting compressing the ffb range - however, I'd presumed the 30% setting for the minimum force was 30% of whatever you'd chosen for the overall force - if that is indeed the case, it's not quite as compressed as you said, just turned down in volume, and then this low volume compressed by 30%.

But it is like having to turn a nice piece of music down because there's an annoying cowbell or something far too high in the mix! The cowbell here being wheel stiffness. Surely it's possible to implement ffb in such a way that you don't have to make this compromise?

Now as for your settings, I did see that thread before, and I have to confess I couldn't make head nor tail of it... I've no idea what a LUT is, and google thinks it's something to do with images...

That's not to say your tips aren't good, in fact I'm sure they are, but it's just not the sort of thing most people want to get into, changing .ini files etc. I remember doing various things like this with Race 07, but they never seemed to improve anything, and in the end I decided to trust the games developers that they'd already set up good options. However, as I said above re. not being able to get decent ffb levels without making wheel too stiff, they obviously haven't quite provided enough tweakability! So I will take another look at your thread when I've got more time and see if it helps.

One quick question, with the changes you've described, does it help at all with the problem I'm mainly concerned with here, i.e. allowing more ffb forces without wheel getting too stiff?

 

[Dave_6]

Other than the FFB Clip app, I've never used anything else for my G27. I keep the in-game gain at 75% and everything else is off with the Clip app set at 100% (think it needs to be turned down some). I've been happy with that for the most part but I guess after reading this thread I need to experiment more.

 

[RasmusP]

@RasmusP - thanks for the detailed feedback (no pun intended... I totally agree that lowering ffb gain loses a lot of ffb details that help you feel what the car's doing: grip, weight transfer etc. - thing is, there's currently no way of adjusting the strength of these ffb effects independently of the strength the simulated centering forces. For me, I can drive with low ffb effects, but not with a wheel that just feels stiffer than any car since maybe the Model-T!

Again, it's down to personal taste, if ffb is more important, crank it up and enjoy - but there's no way this feels realistic, because of how stiff it makes the wheel.

I also see what you mean about my setting compressing the ffb range - however, I'd presumed the 30% setting for the minimum force was 30% of whatever you'd chosen for the overall force - if that is indeed the case, it's not quite as compressed as you said, just turned down in volume, and then this low volume compressed by 30%.

But it is like having to turn a nice piece of music down because there's an annoying cowbell or something far too high in the mix! The cowbell here being wheel stiffness. Surely it's possible to implement ffb in such a way that you don't have to make this compromise?

Now as for your settings, I did see that thread before, and I have to confess I couldn't make head nor tail of it... I've no idea what a LUT is, and google thinks it's something to do with images...

That's not to say your tips aren't good, in fact I'm sure they are, but it's just not the sort of thing most people want to get into, changing .ini files etc. I remember doing various things like this with Race 07, but they never seemed to improve anything, and in the end I decided to trust the games developers that they'd already set up good options. However, as I said above re. not being able to get decent ffb levels without making wheel too stiff, they obviously haven't quite provided enough tweakability! So I will take another look at your thread when I've got more time and see if it helps.

One quick question, with the changes you've described, does it help at all with the problem I'm mainly concerned with here, i.e. allowing more ffb forces without wheel getting too stiff?

I don't really know what you mean by "stiff". The "weight" of the wheel as the initial force you need to start turning or do you mean the overall resistance and forces while already turned in?
Anyway: yeah, it highly depends on the car you drive! I read about the fact that you literally need strong and trained arms for driving an Indy Car for example. The forces of a modern street car are of course only a small percentage of that!
The problem lies in the G27 because it can't reproduce these high Indy Car forces, nor can it really work detailed with very low forces.
If you lower the FFB on a "per car basis", you will change the minimum force and therefore get a deadzone again or get a wild oscillating wheel.

So my "workaround" is to get the maximum range of forces, in every car.
Not realistic at all, I agree. But at least it feels very nice for me and the cars still feel different because of their different physics.

Also I have to apologize to you!
Of course 30% min force with 30% overall gain will result in around "10% absolute min force" and therefore be pretty much the same as my minimum force! Thanks for giving me the hint

What is a LUT: (Look Up Table)
Well that's easy and complicated at the same time.
You have a sheet with a table of two columns. LUTs are used for a lot of things! It's simply a "I have X, give me Y".
In AC X is the ffb output from AC and Y is the ffb that gets sent to the Logitech Driver.
It sits between the game and the wheel!
So what I did with it is putting the min force to 0% and then adjust the minimum in a CURVE, instead of.. Yeah I don't know how the min force slider really works to be honest... But it feels like just doing a straight line!

So you get something like this with my LUT:

X -> Y

0% ffb -> 9% ffb (this line is working like a "pillow of ffb noise" at the center position!

1% ffb -> 10% ffb
2% ffb -> 11% ffb
3% ffb -> 11.5% ffb
4% ffb -> 12% ffb
5% ffb -> 12.33% ffb
6% ffb -> 12.66% ffb
7% ffb -> 13% ffb
8% ffb -> 13.2% ffb
9% ffb -> 13.4% ffb

So as you can see It flattens until it gets a straight line again.

For my understanding, the min force slider works like that:
15% min force:
0% ffb -> 0% ffb
1% ffb -> 15% ffb
2% ffb -> 16% ffb

etc.

I really like your audio analogies! I have some experience with mixing Songs too (rock/metal/pop) and play guitar/bass/drums for about 10 years now

To answer your question: I have no idea if you would like my ffb settings.
For me they still feel too low sometimes and way too high on other days...
But if you want to try them you would just have to backup your "controls.ini" in the AC documents folder, adjust the ingame sliders (overall 50%, min force 0%, slips+abs around 20%, kerbs and road below 10%) and throw in the *.lut and ff_post_process.ini from my download and you are ready!
Also Profiler global at 100%, 900° and damper and spring don't do anything above 10 kp/h

I drive a 1995 Mercedes C-Class that I got from my Grandpa. Did a driver safety training with some heavy drifts etc. too and although it has some good amount of power steering (wobbly wobbly, I'm a Benz, lol):
The G27 has not enough power to be realistic!

One thing to keep in mind: I'm only cornering with my car at 70 kp/h max! Above that the turn radii are not as tight as on a track on normal roads.

So I never did a sharp turn at the limit with 160 kp/h+ and have no clue how strong a normal road car pulls on your arms then.
But when I go 60 kp/h in AC my G27 is definitely too light in comparison.

I really like how this thread is going No heavy argumentation about why each one is 100% right but instead a nice sharing of information and opinions with respect!

PS: my trust in the game developers is not that high. Yes, the G27 is a mainstream wheel, but somehow only very few people really care for it's problems...
The Dirt and F1 games don't even have really useful settings to get rid of the deadzone!

Other than the FFB Clip app, I've never used anything else for my G27. I keep the in-game gain at 75% and everything else is off with the Clip app set at 100% (think it needs to be turned down some). I've been happy with that for the most part but I guess after reading this thread I need to experiment more.

Not necessarily!
FFB Clip is nice if you want the same amount of forces for each car (like I do, always full range for me!).

Do you use any minimum force? And what is your rotation setting and profiler global strength?
If you set your rotation to 450° instead of 900°, the FFB will be compressed into that lower range. So your deadzone problem (min force) will go away, kind of. Also the 75% would fit to that...

If you have 900° set, I think you have a massive deadzone in the center position, right?

For me the center position is the absolute most important thing to drive! A real car has some nice resistance there, feeling nicely tight but easy to turn a few degrees left and right!
Too high min force: you'll get a notch when beginning to turn
Too low min force: it won't feel tight

That's why I always use the same forces etc for all cars. To always have the same feeling in the center.

But if you are happy, stay happy and don't change anything!
Otherwise you end like me: not really enjoying any other sim (ffb wise) because no other sim gives me this realistic and nice center feeling

 

[Dave_6]

I just posted in your dedicated thread but thanks for the reply! My Profiler settings were already the same as your recommended ones. In-game was pretty much the same minus Gain and I was running 5% minimum force.

 

[Kek700]

You cannot exaggerate what see, that leaves exaggerating what you feel thought the steering,
because you have zero feeling though the seat
of your pants.

 

[alligatorlizard]

I don't really know what you mean by "stiff". The "weight" of the wheel as the initial force you need to start turning or do you mean the overall resistance and forces while already turned in?

Simplest way I can put it is the wheel gets harder to turn the higher the ffb gain setting! Not sure what's going on technically, but past around 40% the wheel starts to feel harder to turn than any car I've ever driven. At this point, it just becomes physically harder to drive than a real car, hence why I'm keeping the forces low.

Totally understand that there's not much ffb at all with gain settings this low, and that - if you don't mind the extra physical workout - it may be useful to have higher levels of ffb to help gauge e.g. when the grip's about to go etc. But for me, having the wheel inordinately difficult to turn is more of a realism-killer and more of a hindrance to smoothly controlling the car than having weak ffb fx.

If I could find a way of getting more ffb fx, without the wheel becoming to difficult to turn, then that would be ideal. Anyway, will definitely check out your settings at some point, if they can help with deadzone like you say, then sounds like an improvement!

And thanks again for all the info!! As you say, I don't think there's really any right or wrong way of doing things here, just different approaches - is good to exchange ideas.

btw - someone pointed out to me on another forum that you can adjust the ffb level while on-track with the + and - keys on the numpad - did not know this! So am now leaving the options-menu "Gain" setting at 100%, and adjusting while on track - as I'm still ending up with around 35% while using +/- on-track I'm presuming this is basically just a modifier on the options-menu setting (e.g. 35% gain in options menu and 100% on-track adjustment is same as 100% gain in options menu and 35% using on-track adjustment)

 

[alligatorlizard]

EDIT: I am finding different cars seem to need different values - 35% felt way too loose on the BMW M3 - around 50 worked here. And yes, having tried a few laps with ffb up around 100, it is nice to have the higher ffb, but still say the hard-to-turn wheel at these levels is not worth it. Controlling slides where you need to quickly give opposite lock is the biggest problem I think when the wheel gets this hard to turn.

 

[RasmusP]

Hehe, you even do more than just hitting "+" and "-" on the numpad!
Move your mouse to the very right and activate the "ffb" app. It's the one with the little steering wheel as it's icon.

You then have the car specific gain slider plus the effect sliders! Slides, Kerbs, Road, ABS and can adjust them on the fly too (with the mouse only though afaik).

Regarding the ffb:
Yeah, I totally get now what you are feeling! It's a bit funny that I drive a '60 F1 with the same ffb force as a road car. But since I'm bothered so easily by a lot of things other people don't even notice when concentration on it:
I totally get that this is a realism-killer for you!

I would like to write you a custom LUT that ends at about 50% ffb but the problem would be that it doesn't scale with the ffb gain. At least not really!

Did you adjust the min ffb slider when changing the gain? I ask because normally you get a bigger deadzone when lowering gain and an oscillating wheel when raising it.

 

[alligatorlizard]

Yes you're right, as I put the gain up, I found less min force was needed to control the deadzone. I'd say it's probably only below 40-ish overall gain that it needs to be as high as 30.

Found those in-race menus now, thanks! (would have saved me a lot of time exiting out to the main menus if there'd been a basic manual with this game to explain these features up front...) Shame you can't adjust "min force" etc sliders from in-race though.

 

[RasmusP]

Or write luts for each car separately