The RaceDepartment Podcast | S2, E4 Now Available

[Paul Jeffrey]

The latest episode of the RaceDepartment Podcast is live and available to download.

The three amigos are back, once again kept in line with your podcast host of choice, Mr. @Paul Glover.

In this episode, @Paul Glover, @Davide Nativo, @Daniel Monteiro and @Paul Jeffrey take up the task of discussing their favourite sim racing apps, giving some thought to how additional game plugins and tools can help sim racers get the most out of our hobby.

Some diverse opinions, and the shock of Paul Glover not knowing about a fundamental aspect of our virtual sport, all await the eager listener in this latest episode - with a YouTube version of the show available a few days after the podcast goes live.

Stay inside, save lives everyone!

To help you access the various locations of this latest podcast, you can check out the useful list below of just some of the places you can listen to and download the new episode. Of course, if you missed the RD Podcast excitement last time out, you can still catch up with all our broadcasts too…

Podcast Links:

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Please do feel free to leave us a review on your podcast service - help spread the word!

Do you have any special requests for future episodes? Do you want to share your thoughts, comments and feedback on what direction the show could take going forward? Please do let us know in the comments section, and at the RD Podcast sub forum location.

As always, our thanks to @RasmusP for his audio editing goodness.

 

[Alex Harkett]

Thanks once again guys.

You guys crack me up. I mean, yesterday I was painting my fence (despite the fact the BMW 320i super touring mod had been early released for AC) and your banter had me laughing out loud. I expect my neighbours thought I was a bit mad.

I was interested to hear of some of these apps. I’m not generally very adventurous with apps for games, other then for AC, but off the back of this I think I’ll take a look at simhub and defo Helicorsa.

Thanks again for another great podcast

 

[Davide Nativo]

Thanks again for another great podcast

Thank you for your continued support!

 

[Paul Jeffrey]

despite the fact the BMW 320i super touring mod had been early released for AC

Say what now? Holy smokes... that's, that's, bloody good news that I totally missed! Damn, time to fire up AC for another round of testing!

#supertouringcarsmakemehappy

 

[PickledAvenger]

Awesome pod, off to look at the FFB clipping immediately

 

[Paul Glover]

Awesome pod, off to look at the FFB clipping immediately

Not got round to do that yet! Let us know what you find.

 

[Jack Lloyd]

I recently discovered UFLT, Ultimate Fastest Lap Time. www.simracingdata.com on a forum I follow. I am definitely NOT fast, but being a strictly offline driver, I have absolutely no idea how competitive my times in any car track combination are. This program logs all my laps and telemetry, shows how many laps done in each car, how many laps at each track and keeps track of my best times for every car/track combo. But critically from my point of view, I can look at what times others have done in car/track combinations I'm interested in, to gauge how competitive my times are. In some cases I have no hope of being competitive, but in others it has led to far better lap times from me as I chase down other people's times. This has added a whole new dimension to my sim' racing.

 

[eSEA One]

SimHub is the Best, it has so much and a fantastic hardware interface.
It is so awesome that you can not take it for free!!! you just have to make a donation or otherwise you are just a "cheap plonker!!"

 

[Daniel Monteiro]

Get ready for knowledge to be dropped by the man himself...

 

[RasmusP]

Hey guys,
Davide and Daniel, you don't really know me but I know your voices inside out, lol

Today I listened to the latest Podcast about apps and I really enjoyed it! Thanks for spending the time and energy for creating the podcasts

Very good input, great podcast! Nothing really to "criticize" so please don't take my long text in a wrong way!.
I couldn't stop myself from taking notes after some point though and I thought I'd share them with you. I'm no developer but I think I know quite some stuff about all this.
I will throw in a very unpopular opinion though:
FFB clipping as something that "shouldn't happen" and all the fuzz about the clipping meters is one of the most unnecessary things in simracing and it's causing loads of wrong assumption and bad energy in the community.

The most simple summary would be:
Don't go above the default ffb levels from the devs (100% in every games/sims I know) and if you have a strong wheel don't go above the motor strength you can handle without risking injuries, then lower the ffb until it feels good for you.

Now the extremely long text:

I had lots of discussions with Matteo Caruso (BhZ) and Andy Dixey (Rainhamiron) who both race in VEC and who raced a lot in the clubraces. Andy went from G25 to Simucube 1 and Matteo went from DFGT to T500 and is now racing with a simucube 2 since it came out.
I myself went from an old Thrustmaster 180° belt ffb wheel (2000-2007) to G27 (2014-2019) and to a CSW 2.5, just for some reference, maybe you know these chaps

I also had a lot of Motec analysis going on, spent lots of hours with Neil (neilski) talking about Assetto Corsa physics, algorithms for the grip levels etc.

If you look at my downloads you'll find the Logitech AC LUT guide and somewhere you'll find lots of flowcharts about ffb in different sims hehe.

I'm not writing all this to brag or anything! I just don't want you to think that some random stranger is telling you what's what although he doesn't know sh*t. Sadly that's a common thing happening in simracing or in general with PC stuff.

Anyway, let's start with my notes

Clipping:
Paul J you mentioned the audio/music comparison a few times. I'm mixing your podcasts as you know so I'm quite familiar with soundwaves and clipping there. For example everytime you guys have a laugh and your mics are clipping
Just kidding, the quality made some nice leaps forward over the years! I really enjoyed listening to the last podcast

Anyway, there's a HUGE difference between audio clipping and ffb clipping.

This is due to two things:
1. Audio = sine wave, FFB = strength + direction.
Audio is a sine wave. Or at least some sort of sine wave and if you're clipping, you're flattening the curve at the ends, resulting in distorted sounds. FFB however is a constant force, containing STRENGTH and DIRECTION. There are no alternating wave forms at all. At least no waves that are creating a nice sound out of overlaying frequencies. More like the rubber of the tyre scrubbing or a kerb creating rumble if at all.

2. "Clean calculation", then direction is kept, strength is "cut off above a limit".
So ffb clipping isn't distorting the "sound" like audio clipping is. Instead FFB is first calculated from the sim and as a result you get strength and direction.
The direction gets sent to the wheel motor, while the strength gets filtered by the clipping meter before getting sent to the wheel motor.

Different perspective: Audio is "read" by the ears as a wave containing amplitude and frequency. Clipping audio changes the wave form, resulting in a different sound.
FFB is a 2 entry list containing direction and strength and is "read" by the hands/arms as direction and strength. So if you cut off the nuances in strength, the direction is still read cleanly by humans and the strength only loses accuracy but not the general information about the category of force you're at.

What I wanna say: if you get FFB clipping, you still get 100% accuracy of the DIRECTION. But the STRENGTH gets cut off.
So while you won't feel the total amount of grip, since the ffb doesn't become stronger the further you get to the limit or the more grip the aerodynamics of the car create, you will definitely feel the grip loss, when the direction of the ffb changes.
You're right though about that you can feel the grip loss a little bit earlier without clipping, as you'll feel that the ffb becomes lighter before it changes the direction.
You will also feel little details in the ffb with any amounts of clipping. But you will feel them a lot less pronounced if they are just bumps in the strength, not in direction (going over a sausage kerb at perfect 90° won't really turn the front wheels but without clipping you will get like 1° wheel turn and a 5 Nm spike in strength on a DD wheel).

There's one thing though: You won't feel understeer with too much clipping. You also won't feel pronounced understeer with low Nm wheels like a G27 as the difference between max grip and understeering isn't big enough for the human body to perceive accurately.
Good thing: understeer is pretty easy to detect by the eyes when the car won't turn tighter when you steer more.

Overall the problem of clipping is way too over exaggerated in my opinion. The devs will code their ffb to be "fine" at default. Giving you enough difference in strength and direction. AC at 100% for example is definitely okay. So is rF2 at the default settings.

With my CSW 2.5 I use 60-100% motor strength, depending on how brutal I want to feel sausage kerbs etc and how pronounced I like the difference between mechanical grip and additional aerodynamic grip or how strongly I wanna feel the "load" on the front when braking or accelerating (awesomely coded in rF2 btw and a day/night difference between the G27 and CSW!).
For AC I'm using 50% gain and 100% motor strength. That's about 8.5 Nm maximum.
At the Nordschleife I could shave off a full second through the fast right corner before the Schwalbenschwanz.
I could feel the grip a lot better, feel the aero working through this 200 kp/h corner.

With my G27 I always had to get some clipping. If I'd lower the ffb so far that I won't get clipping, I wouldn't feel the difference anyway. My muscles aren't sensitive enough to tell the difference... But I won't get other problems, like a not quick enough self-correcting wheel when the rear would start to slip. The raw resistance of the G27 would be too much compared to the low FFB force.

Here's a Screenshot of rF2 with the LMP3 mod and a multiplier of 2.5 or something.. Don't really remember it. It was a LOT though!

This is a lap of Road Atlanta. You can see the peaks being clipped off through most corners. But you still see the dynamic going up and down, it's not a flat line. I definitely felt a difference between the corners, you still see different "shapes" for each corner.
You have to put the clipping into ridiculous spheres (300% gain or something) to get indistinguishable graphs between corners.

The other thing you can see in the screenshot though: The G27 has a deadzone of about 15%. You see on the "straight" I have forces between 20-30%. This is with a min force of 13 in rF2 and a car multi beyond 2.0. So the little bumps etc were there. If I'd lower the ffb to NOT clip, I would either won't feel details on straights and slight corners at all or I would have to use such high min force that there wouldn't be a difference between little bumps and normal cornering forces.
Also the drop off during understeer would drop into the "straight line min force".
Which would feel pretty weird...

Overall I think this graph looks rather nicely balanced for a consumer wheel.
Sadly I don't have the road atlanta graphs with my CSW but I did some comparison for Silverstone!

G27 Hangar Straight and Stowe, McLaren 720s GT3, 13% min force, multi of 2.5:

CSW 2.5 Hangar Straight and Stowe, 720s, 0% min force, multi at 0.45:

Of course there's a massive difference. But do you see massive clipping? Looks still like pretty clear information for me.
Only the peaks are cut off and the difference between the bumps on the straight and the cornering ffb is massively different between the screenshots. But I could still feel the grip level very well.
You would've seen the clipping meter going red about 6x though.

To get back to the music comparison:
Too low dynamic isn't great. When everything has the same loudness, you won't get the energy kick of a loud refrain/hook when everything kicks in. Apart from clipping you can use compression, limiters, maximizers to push everything to the same loudness without clipping/distortion (or very low amounts that still sound "clean").
But if you have too much dynamic, like every raw recording has, it's way worse. You won't understand the vocals when they are quiet and then you'll feel screamed in your face in the chorus/hook.
You need to find a good dynamic range for the song that sounds well and fits.
A too high max Nm output of a ffb wheel would be like too loud speakers on concerts. Scientifically the sound is still "clean" but your ears can't process it anymore.

Same for FFB. There's no advantage in beyond the needed dynamic range or exceeding what your body can process. I for example set my FFB gain so I won't get clipping in any corner while driving cleanly. But every sausage kerb will peak straight into the clipping range and will get cut off in strength. Same for wall hits etc. No need to hurt my hands during simracing.

Now there's often the argument of indy cars that would have 30 Nm during some corners due to no powersteering and massive downforce. I have to say I really doubt that this is correctly measured...
But even if that would be correct, I doubt that the current sims are replicating such massive force differences correctly. They are not programmed for this, it's outside of what the physics engine is designed for.

This has to do with the difference between an electric motor and the caster (pneumatic and mechanical trails) in reality.
Electric motors can do strength and direction. A real car has 2 spinning disks (tyres) self aligning themselves. So you'd need 4 electric motors, 2 being connected to each other, pushing against each other and then 2x2 connected to the steering gear with 2 electric motors keeping themselves in position by force.
You see that this is pretty obscure, lol.
All I wanna say is: For replicated extreme stuff on simracing hardware, there are simply limits that can't be overcome without special coding for exactly these scenarios.
To replicate a 30Nm indycar you'd need a lot of ffb around the center too but every wheel will start to shake violently then due to the difference between a real car and simracing hardware.

This now leads to the center feel, or the lack of it compared between low friction DD wheels or wheels like the CSW 2.5 and wheels like the TS-PC, T300 etc.
The TS-PC I had for 2 weeks felt way better when driving straight due to high initial resistance of the belt which went away once the wheel started turning.

What I wanna say: driving on a perfect road in a straight line will give you a constant, massive self aligning force from the spinning tyres and caster. The steering wheel in reality is clamped to the middle and you get a force the moment you start turning in any direction.
But there's no shaking at all so it's extremely tight in reality.
Low friction ffb wheels are awesome but they just can't replicate this (yet).

With ffb motors you have 0 force in this scenario. You get a force as soon as you turn but you'll have to have some very slight dead spot. The best solution I could think of is some friction/dampening going on at 0% ffb.

In my Logitech LUTs I created "white ffb noise" for this. Normally ffb or LUTs go like this:
0 | 0
0.1 | 0.1
etc.
My LUTs go like this:
0 | 0.01
0.1 | 0.1

This creates a rumble while you're standing still. It's pretty weird at first and if you put a too high value in this first row, the wheel will randomly shake itself!
It really is "nothing" = "some ffb". No idea what it is exactly in AC but I call it "white ffb noise".

But when you nail the value, this little "jittering" when there's no ffb will pretty much generate the friction you need to fill the gap completely.
Sadly with "almost no deadzone" wheel like CSW or DD wheels, the value has to be lower than the accuracy of the LUT function in AC/ACC and it would also only work for these sims, not for the rest.. So I didn't bother much with my csw and tried to enjoy the upside about low friction.

I'm waiting for the simucube 2 to get something similar with a firmware update though. "Center friction when FFB gets below XY percent".


Aaaaanyway, sorry for the MASSIVE talk here!

Summary:
FFB clipping isn't bad. You just shouldn't get too much of it for normal cornering but you should rather get some clipping instead of too low forces to feel what's going on at all (on Logitech wheels especially).
So Davide, leaving the ffb at default is pretty okay. It's not "that hard" to set it up and defaults on consumer wheels are definitely better than a controller for anything else than hotlapping alone.
I agree though that you can set faster hotlaps on a gamepad than on a wheel that shakes like crazy without giving usable informations.
I tried for quite some time to race with my xbox one elite controller. And I could do some nice hotlapping with it (AMG GT3 top 10 in the Nordschleife Leaderboard in Pcars 1) but every time I started to do an online race, I crashed. You just can't do a dodge mid corner while being on the limit with a controller. Heck, often it's almost impossible with a wheel!

Last point: I never saw someone using very low ffb apart from some top leaderboard hotlapping stuff. Matteo is in the "SNG, singularity" esports team. Dennis Lind (cousin of F1 driver Magnussen and real GT3 Blancpain driver) is the team leader and they know a lot of other people, very fast people etc etc.
They all use ffb wheels with rather high forces. No one they know is using these very low forces.
But they aren't doing leaderboard challenges, they are doing endurance racing so they probably sacrifice some "gaming speed" for actually racing well.
I definitely see why hotlap leaderboard challengers would use low ffb! It doesn't matter if you spin or not, endless tries and definitely less tiring etc. But that's not driving a car for me. That's nailing perfection in an algorithm, nothing more.

Now that was a long talk about FFB... let's get swiftly to the other points

Pro tyres:
It's not used as much as it might should. That's sadly down to how AC's Grip algorithm works. The most important parts in the equation are PSI and camber. Temperature barely changes with any setting... maximum toe, softest pressure, maximum camber
-->> barely any influence...

Since I know this I always just go for perfect psi and perfect camber.
For PSI I use Sidekick and the "show ideal pressure as delta" setting. It will show you directly and super straight forward what you need to do.
When it shows "-1.2" for the front left tyre, you just go into the garage and give the front left minus 1 click. It doesn't even bother showing you the psi. It tells you what you need to click. Perfect for idiots like me
You do this until these 4 delta values in sidekick stay as close to 0.0 as possible. You mostly get a range like -0.7 to +0.4 psi over a full lap.
If the tyre is too cold, you set the range to be more below the ideal pressure instead of more above. If the tyre is rather too hot, you keep the pressure rather above the ideal pressure.
And ofc you set some preference for the important corners and not for straights. Only need maximum grip when actually reaching the limit.

That's the display setup for qualy. When going into the race I flip the right section of sidekick to "degradation" instead of delta-psi so I can see what to expect over the duration of the race.

I also have the standard tyre app open all the time to see in real time when I get a red or dark blue tyre to know what to expect at the next corner.
The combination of sidekick and the standard tyre app does everything that's needed. I use sidekick either way so no need to "replace" sidekick with protyres.
On the other hand I also need the temperatures as a coloured-image in my view to see hot tyres at a glimpse so I could replace the standard tyre app with protyres but honestly I find the standard app, just for what I'm using it for, easier to see at a glance.
And it's prettier in my opinion.

So that's my input on protyres. Great app, sadly not needed to go fast and consistent in AC due to "bad" temperature coding.

For camber I'm using Camber Extravaganza. It simply puts the grip algorithm into a coloured graph so you can see how close you are to the "perfect" camber in real time. When I've found the perfect camber I disable the app to not clutter my view.


Last point from me:
Motec!

You might've seen my threads but anyway, here's a thread I created because I found a lot of setup talk-time would be better spent talking about the driving itself. Best setup in the world is still not giving the same amount of progression that "correct" driving will give you.

Matteo is an unbelievably fast driver! When he took part in the clubraces he won them all easily.. It was ridiculous...
Gladly I got him as a good friend over the last years so I can benefit from his natural skill

A story I love to tell about setups vs driving:
I tried to create a perfect setup for the MX-5 Cup in AC. I used Magione. I used sidekick, camber extravaganza etc and I gained 2.5 seconds over a week. Tested the different setups every day and I was convinced that it's really good.
I asked Matteo to do some laps for me and test it. And he really liked it. Balanced, fast, stable.
He was 0.2s quicker than me and couldn't get faster with it.
He said I really nailed my best laps. We looked into Motec and yep, that was pretty much identical.

Then he took the default setup and after 10 laps he was 1.5s faster. F*ck my life guys...

We took a look in Motec again, overlayed the laps and we figured out why the "imperfect" default setup was so much quicker:

The rear camber was too low, the car almost had positive camber mid corner when starting to go back on the throttle.
This resulted in a drift, the slip angles where all over the place... But the longitudinal acceleration was higher. Basically the setup sacrificed lateral grip for longitudinal grip.
The car over-rotated at the apex, going on a tighter and shorter line while getting more power on the tarmac for increased acceleration.
The mid corner speed was a bit lower than compared with my optimized setup but the exit with the higher acceleration gained enough to be faster overall.

This showed that there isn't really a perfect setup or a perfect line. At least not something that you can create in your head or on paper. You can for sure calculate it with a supercomputer and AI learning but overall it's what we call skill and talent.
Matteo is someone who just drives and is fast. He knows with his instincts when to take a "wrong" line to gain time or how to use a "bad setup" to be faster with it.

This was when Motec became my Nr. 1 tool for progress. I luckily can simply ask Matteo to do some laps for me, compare them to my own laps and see what to do.
His teammates are even faster than him so he gets the Motec files from them.

If you guys ever need some benchmark laps, just ask
There's no more efficient way to get faster than learning how to drive like a faster driver!

And also like you guys mentioned in the Podcast: You can also create a "super fast theoretical best lap" from multiple laps. I for example was faster through 3 corners around the Nordschleife than Matteo. But he was faster through the other over 9k corners and straights, lol.
He gained another 2 tenths by analyzing my Motec data.

Here's the thread I created and a second link where I start my analysis at Post 19. Sadly I never got to continue the work after some pages.. I'm still sorry for the guys who waited or might still be waiting for it. Anyway up to the end I think it's a cool thread!

Maybe you'll enjoy a little read there

https://www.racedepartment.com/threads/driver-telemetry-talk-instead-of-setup-talk-at-rd-example-thread.168826/

- first analysis:

https://www.racedepartment.com/threads/driver-telemetry-talk-instead-of-setup-talk-at-rd-example-thread.168826/#post-2978552

Additional stuff:
Raceroom ffb flowchart by me. Maybe of interest for you guys. Did a lot of testing for each setting until I figured it out. Not 100% guaranteed that it's correct but I'm very sure about it.

Cannot find a decent G27 setup.

HI guys, im looking to get into R3E mainly for the SRS setup but really struggling to find a half decent setup for my G27. Ive spent the whole morning googling same but nothing as of yet has given me a relatively smooth feel ,all im getting is constant clipping and unrealistic effects. Note i...

www.racedepartment.com

Or just the picture:

 

[Daniel Monteiro]

Wow... don't even know where to start lol probably by saying thank you firstly for engineering the post-processing of our sound, and secondly for having taken the time to write this feedback.

I think I remember your thread at the time, and followed it for a while as I really like to read everything that people have to say about ffb, setups, etc... which are not just based on their opinion, but based on hard technical facts (my engineer mind is to blame for this). Ultimately it is down to enjoying the driving to the fullest, and "enjoying" can also mean different things to different people so the settings will be subjective; but for those who want to be fast, no matter the ffb or setup, the stopwatch doesn't lie and that's what matters in that case

I remember how Matteo was unbeatable back in AMS1 club races, very fast guy and made it sound easy on TS when he explained how to take some corners. We actually both started on the VEC at the same time, but needless to say that he went straight to Division 1 in a team with Matt Le Gallez and some other fast guys, and soon enough Dennis Lind's Nitor Velox (later Hydr eSports) picked him up, to be in what is now one of the most serious sim-racing teams out there. And that means he will be fast, no matter the game or car and how its coding is done. All are different approaches to replicate something we will always be far from replicating properly, especially when we talk about games produced to be sold as entertainment and when we talk about the nuances of getting everything programmed sensibly, but again all real cars and tyres are different from each other, and the best drivers adapt and are quick on all of them.

Ok, all this rambling just to say that I agree with you: in order to be a better/faster driver, the only way is to learn how to drive the cars and the tracks, developing the driving technique. That's why I don't bother with setups (apart from fundamental basics like tyres on AC, and fuel and aero/gear ratios if applicable), because I know that faster times are possible just with stock setup, like Matteo and other fast guys can prove.

About the ffb clipping, it really did make a difference to me because I was coming from the old-fashioned and very stupid way of thinking that higher ffb meant better because it's harder to control... I know, I know so when I first used the pedal overlay plugin on rF2 back in DX9 with my G25, my settings were so wrong that I was fully clipping already at the entry of corners, and with the wheel trying to shake itself loose I had never thought that something was not giving me a good signal of what should be happening since I was too busy wrestling it. But if your wheel already feels good Paul Glover, then you might not have the revelation I had, simply because you are already set in good territory


Thank you so much Rasmus, these discussions always put my faith back in simracers - I know that people that know their stuff are out there but since I have not been active in proper high level simracing almost ever, I rarely get to feel it - except when you write articles

 

[Davide Nativo]

Thanks Rasmus for your in-depth explanation! I wanted to be sure I had enough time to give it a proper read hence why my delay in answering.

Very interesting review about FFB, clipping, strenght, direction and intensity (and waves shape! Most importantly). Never looked at it that way but it absolutely makes total sense, even for someone with very low engineering and physics knowledge such as myself. Thank you, it’s been eye opening, and I wish you would have posted it in the pod thread for others to see too!

About proTyres and Camber XtraVaganza: without knowing much, I already understood the flaws you are describing about AC tyre physics and, in fact, I do the exact same thing you do, care more about PSI than temp, and lowering it when I need more temp, and raising it when I need cooling; or, raising PSIs when I need less rolling resistance for high speed tracks, or lowering them when I need more friction for tighter tracks.
I never used XtraVaganza though, and from your message I don’t understand whether you recommend it or not. It seems like you do, but then your MoTec story seems to negate it? If you could please explain

 

[JimLee]

Great Podcast , I need to look back into FFB clipping in ACC . It was never problem getting it set properly in AC with FFB app.

 

[RasmusP]

Great Podcast , I need to look back into FFB clipping in ACC . It was never problem getting it set properly in AC with FFB app.

Nah you don't, read through my loooong post for the explanation or simply trust me:
At 100% ACC is a bit "stronger" than AC so it's probably clipping a bit more.
However that is the default so it's a good, drivable mix from the very talented and good devs of kunos.
So simply adjust the gain to your liking, just don't go above the default of 100%.

I'd say at 75% you're definitely not clipping too much to feel every nuance during cornering.
But as I said even 100% is totally fine!

I'm using 60% with my csw 2.5 but only using 75% for the wheel base.
ACC is rough, raw and awesome but if I use 45% gain and 100% in the base... That's some brutal workout, lol.

 

[RasmusP]

Thank you both for the awesome replies!

don't even know where to start lol

I had a full page of messy notes and writing the post took about 90 minutes... I can tell you, I didn't know where to start either and I think I edited the finished post about 12 times before going to bed, hoping none of you started reading before the last edit haha.

which are not just based on their opinion, but based on hard technical facts (my engineer mind is to blame for this).

Absolutely agree! I'm studying "Mechatronical Engineering", basically electric/mechanical/software-engineering. So I tried to get behind everything in simracing. From the mechanical and electrical internals of my G27 to the ffb coding in the sims.
Glad you liked my post. I'm always open to get crushed by people who know better, lol!

Dennis Lind's Nitor Velox (later Hydr eSports) picked him up

*and now SNG Singularity Hydr is some... co-existing team or something... Anyway, doesn't really matter, these guys are awesome

Ok, all this rambling just to say that I agree with you

Haha that's nice to hear

because I know that faster times are possible just with stock setup

Have to say something about this:
In Assetto Corsa and luckily most of the times in other sims too but especially in Assetto und ACC, the stock setups are created by a simracing software engineer like Aris from Kunos.
But sometimes they are really bad and need some fixes.
My best known example is the 650s GT3 in AC. The rear springs are incredibly stiff and the whole balance is off.
In my threads I linked the Mugello GT3 Setup Pack from PhilS13. He's an experienced simracer and engineer. He gave me lots of hints into the right direction regarding "perfect camber" in AC and the equations for the grip levels.
When you look at his setups for Mugello, you'll see that most of the values are very very similar to the stock setup but sometimes it's totally different, like the rear spring rate for the 650s GT3. Not "Car character" changing like what I did with the mx-5 cup at Magione though.
Here's the link again:

GT3 Car Pack @Mugello

Been thinking of doing this for a while so here it is. Base setups for the current relevant GT3 field. I used Mugello. The track has everything, big braking zone, slow corners, direction changes, fast corners, off camber corners...the setups that work well here should work well everywhere. The...

www.racedepartment.com

About the ffb clipping, it really did make a difference to me because I was coming from the old-fashioned and very stupid way of thinking that higher ffb meant better because it's harder to control... I know, I know so when I first used the pedal overlay plugin on rF2 back in DX9 with my G25, my settings were so wrong that I was fully clipping already at the entry of corners, and with the wheel trying to shake itself loose I had never thought that something was not giving me a good signal of what should be happening since I was too busy wrestling it. But if your wheel already feels good Paul Glover, then you might not have the revelation I had, simply because you are already set in good territory

Hehe yeah fair enough. I guess you did go beyond the default values though then?
Another point are mods.. some rF2 mods are so weak in the ffb that they might feel as nimble and light as in real life on DD wheel but with the Logitech wheels you have such a limited dynamic range from the hardware side, that you need the car to be set to use all of what's available.
This results in every car having the same strength (they all have a different character and curves for when what strength will happen ofc).
I always tell the people in my LUT thread that they should set the per-car-gain while driving to the value where the center position feels the smoothest. The value is different for each car but in the end all cars will maximize the dynamic range of the Logitech wheels.

When you try to press lots of different cars into a dynamic range of about 2.5Nm you sadly have to sacrifice the "reality" to at least be able to feel as much as possible. If you won't and would scale everything like real life but lower it into 2.5Nm range, you'd end up with a Abarth 500 having lower cornering forces than the motor resistance of the Logitech wheels, lol

Thank you so much Rasmus, these discussions always put my faith back in simracers - I know that people that know their stuff are out there but since I have not been active in proper high level simracing almost ever, I rarely get to feel it - except when you write articles

Hehe I know what you mean! I sadly put a screenshot of my Logitech Software in my LUT guide where I still had spring and damper set to 0% although Martin Fiala and I are basically the "don't do this police" of the simracing internet.
Wanted to change it for a looong time but you can only open the Logitech software with a connected Logitech wheel and I have my G27 stored on the attic at my parents...
I kid you not: I couldn't find a "correct" image of the software anywhere on the internet. One thing was always wrong.

Shows how many misconceptions from past days are still in most people's minds.

Little info about spring and damper:
No modern sim is using the spring channel anyway so it doesn't matter where you set it. But why putting it to 0% and change it from default and tell people that you need to do so if it's simply not needed?
Damper is also only used for some effects and you might lose out on them if you kill that ffb channel. Dirt Rally is using it for the weight simulation, AC/ACC are using it for the standing still tyre scrubbing simulation which fades away at 3-5 kp/h.
Sure, this tyre scrubbing vibrations are awful on Logitech wheels in AC and ACC and I don't really get why Kunos patched out the slider for it.
But on my CSW 2.5 and the TS-PC racer it feels pretty damn close to reality and I like it!

Today I finally got someone to send me the "corrected" screenshot though, whoop whoop

Thank you, it’s been eye opening

Wow, thanks for the compliment!

I do the exact same thing you do, care more about PSI than temp, and lowering it when I need more temp, and raising it when I need cooling; or, raising PSIs when I need less rolling resistance for high speed tracks, or lowering them when I need more friction for tighter tracks.

About this:
in AC it's really faster to basically not care at all about cooling or rolling resistance. Like really just ignore that it's existing, lol
The "fast" psi range goes from -1 to +1 (depending on the track it might be fluctuating more though but mostly it won't).
Only in this range I do 1 single click into the direction of the temperature influence I need.
Basically it won't matter. Just get it as close as you can to 0.0 for the important corners. That +/- 0.5 psi away from 0.0 won't influence the temperature or rolling resistance anyway but it's nicer to have some reason to choose between being slightly too high or too low with the psi hehe.

I never used XtraVaganza though, and from your message I don’t understand whether you recommend it or not. It seems like you do, but then your MoTec story seems to negate it? If you could please explain

Yes, use it. It's awesome!

The MoTec story is a bit special, it's definitely not something to apply for every car.
With the mx-5 we're talking about a very light car with basically no aero but pretty wide tyres for its size. And also Magione is an extremely tight track.
I bet for a track like the Nordschleife of maybe also full Brands Hatch my setup would be better due to the higher cornering speeds.
I never bothered testing this though..

But for non special cases like a GT3 on a standard GT3 track like the Nürburgring, camber extravaganza is awesome. The default camber is okay but when you're adjusting the setup, the camber changes. And there's no way to see mid corner camber in AC, sadly.
So this little app gives a nice overview about what's your camber actually is when camber is needed.
A good example is when you're experiencing weird oversteer on corner exits and can't really find out why.
You can look into this app and you might find out that your outside rear Tyre is going red in the camber range. Meaning you'll experience positive camber in this moment and the Tyre will slip away.

So I always set the camber to a compromise of little spikes into the red area when going over kerbs (inside Tyre gets lifted from the kerb so the outside Tyre will spike into positive camber in the frequency of the kerb stones) but on the other hand I try to keep the camber as low as possible to have the biggest contact patch.

I don't really like the "beating a dead algorithm" way of setting up a car though. But there's no other way in ac to find a good value... I O M Temps are useless in AC, so are the live readings from most apps.
Only camber extravaganza takes the grip equation and the current camber angle and gives you a usable information about it.

I definitely prefer rF2 where I'm having a filter in motec for the camber.
It shows me straight forward when the camber is going positive.
I make sure that it's not happening too much and that's it

 

[JimLee]

@RasmusP

Okay, follow your meaning. For ACC, I currently have a "comfort driving level" for my DD2 of 20% (approximates CSW v2.5) wheel base and 90% gain with a 320mm wheel (Forza GT w/UH).

I was looking back on a post you made about wheel size/mass inertia affecting FFB settings (https://www.racedepartment.com/thre...e-affects-force-feedback.156237/#post-2784211) and built a spreadsheet to facilitate starting points for other rims that I have based on setting for the largest & heaviest wheel (the Forza mentioned above). If I factor in the mass(weight??) I get the following values:

Rim Model	Rim Size	Rim Thickness	Rim Mass	Inertia	Delta %	FFB Setting
Forza	320	25	2080	1970		20
Club Sport Round	270	25	1735	1153	1.71%*	6*
F1 Carbon	270	25	1200	798	1.44%**	3**

* based Forza vs Round ** based Round vs F1 *** If I do Forza vs F1 = 2.46% (I am lost on how to get to a logical delta, since it is greater 1.99)

Any help you could shed on this would be appreciated. Just trying to get similar FFB resistance? due to Old Age Wrists.

TIA

 

[RasmusP]

@RasmusP

Okay, follow your meaning. For ACC, I currently have a "comfort driving level" for my DD2 of 20% (approximates CSW v2.5) wheel base and 90% gain with a 320mm wheel (Forza GT w/UH).

I was looking back on a post you made about wheel size/mass inertia affecting FFB settings (https://www.racedepartment.com/thre...e-affects-force-feedback.156237/#post-2784211) and built a spreadsheet to facilitate starting points for other rims that I have based on setting for the largest & heaviest wheel (the Forza mentioned above). If I factor in the mass(weight??) I get the following values:

Rim Model	Rim Size	Rim Thickness	Rim Mass	Inertia	Delta %	FFB Setting
Forza	320	25	2080	1970		20
Club Sport Round	270	25	1735	1153	1.71%*	6*
F1 Carbon	270	25	1200	798	1.44%**	3**

* based Forza vs Round ** based Round vs F1 *** If I do Forza vs F1 = 2.46% (I am lost on how to get to a logical delta, since it is greater 1.99)

Any help you could shed on this would be appreciated. Just trying to get similar FFB resistance? due to Old Age Wrists.

TIA

Hi,

wow that post is old haha. I've learnt quite a thing or two in the meantime.

Too long didn't read:
for the same strength of FFB for your wrists, you only need the leverage, not the inertia!
That would mean:
WheelMotor Force * 0.2 * 0.32m = WheelMotor * 0.064m for the Forza wheel
WheelMotor Force * 0.2 * 0.27m = WheelMotor * 0.054m for the other rims

What you see is that the factor between the rims is directly linear to the leverage.
It's just 0.32/0.27 = 1.185

Meaning you need 20% / 1.185 = 16.88% to have the same "force in your hands" with the smaller rims.

However this difference is smaller than the difference in inertia so although being weaker, the ffb might still feel crisper.

Longer read:
This play of thoughts about "sluggish" ffb compared to "crisp" ffb was only about how quickly a wheelbase is able to start rotating the wheel.
For little punches only though, it wasn't about the strength you will have once the inertia has "overcome".

One thing isn't taken into consideration there though:
How much does a higher ffb setting (game or base) really influences the acceleration speed difference due to inertia of the rims.
Does the acceleration of the wheel motor really become quicker in a linear way with ffb levels or is there something else to consider, mechanically and regarding the electric motor(s).

So you have inertia for details and leverage for the bigger forces like cornering force, feeling the grip level.

Since these two things don't scale linearly to each other, different rim sizes and forms will simply feel "different".

Hope this helps

Btw my own personal opinion would be: when the rim diameter is smaller, lower the ffb a bit and simply test and trust your hands. Better than any calculation!

 

[JimLee]

Hi,

wow that post is old haha. I've learnt quite a thing or two in the meantime.

Too long didn't read:
for the same strength of FFB for your wrists, you only need the leverage, not the inertia!
That would mean:
WheelMotor Force * 0.2 * 0.32m = WheelMotor * 0.064m for the Forza wheel
WheelMotor Force * 0.2 * 0.27m = WheelMotor * 0.054m for the other rims

What you see is that the factor between the rims is directly linear to the leverage.
It's just 0.32/0.27 = 1.185

Meaning you need 20% / 1.185 = 16.88% to have the same "force in your hands" with the smaller rims.

However this difference is smaller than the difference in inertia so although being weaker, the ffb might still feel crisper.

Longer read:
This play of thoughts about "sluggish" ffb compared to "crisp" ffb was only about how quickly a wheelbase is able to start rotating the wheel.
For little punches only though, it wasn't about the strength you will have once the inertia has "overcome".

One thing isn't taken into consideration there though:
How much does a higher ffb setting (game or base) really influences the acceleration speed difference due to inertia of the rims.
Does the acceleration of the wheel motor really become quicker in a linear way with ffb levels or is there something else to consider, mechanically and regarding the electric motor(s).

So you have inertia for details and leverage for the bigger forces like cornering force, feeling the grip level.

Since these two things don't scale linearly to each other, different rim sizes and forms will simply feel "different".

Hope this helps

Btw my own personal opinion would be: when the rim diameter is smaller, lower the ffb a bit and simply test and trust your hands. Better than any calculation!

Thank You,

For your quick reply, that was sort of what I was leaning towards since my DD2 ( previously had CSW v2) has so much more potential/actual?? "strength" to rotate "heavier" wheels.

Two more questions regarding settings to maximize FFB nuances:

1. Would you still say that for ACC overall starting point to keep in game gain to 90-95% and adjust wheel final desired FFB strength? (I do not believe ACC has a per car setting)
2. And would the same apply for AC to use the in game FFB App to set in game gain (per car) and set the wheel to 100% FFB strength?

Thanks again for your input on this topic.

 

[RasmusP]

For your quick reply, that was sort of what I was leaning towards since my DD2 ( previously had CSW v2) has so much more potential/actual?? "strength" to rotate "heavier" wheels.

That would depend on how the motor outputs the ffb. If it's "rotating speed" related, it would push strong against the inertia but drop off once it's "up to speed" to not go above the set maximum force output.
When it's just force output based, it would be basically the same as the csw, if set to the same maximum strength as it would never output more force than the csw.

But afaik it's a mix of force and "rotating speed" which is why DD wheels feel a bit more alive.

1. Would you still say that for ACC overall starting point to keep in game gain to 90-95% and adjust wheel final desired FFB strength? (I do not believe ACC has a per car setting)

With ingame gain vs wheel motor strength you're setting the "dynamic" between low forces and high forces. At 90-95% you're not having much dynamic, which can be good for your wrists and also still be enough dynamic for a Logitech wheel.
Personally I'm using 60-70% gain as that's the dynamic range I like between low cornering forces and hitting sausage kerbs for example.
using less ingame gain and more wheel motor force vs high ingame gain and low wheel motor force you'll have the same force while doing normal corners but the peaks will be a lot stronger with low ingame gain+high wheel force.

Numbers:
50% ingame + 20 Nm wheelbase = 7 Nm while cornering and 20 Nm when hitting a tree ;
100% ingame + 10 Nm wheelbase = 7 Nm while cornering and 10 Nm when hitting a tree ;

The 7 Nm while cornering are just an example. But it shows what I mean with "dynamic range".

So overall you just need to find a good mix for your wrists. I'd recommend between 60% and 90% ingame gain, wheel motor to your liking

2. And would the same apply for AC to use the in game FFB App to set in game gain (per car) and set the wheel to 100% FFB strength?

what do you mean? With a dd wheel I wouldn't use the per car gain at all as you want to feel the difference between different cars. Just set the standard ingame gain in the menu to 50-90% (spikes are a bit less heavy in AC imo so you can go lower with the gain and higher with the wheel motor).

I only used the per-car gain in AC when dialing in the ffb with my G27 and my LUT to make the center position as smooth as possible, which required to have the same ffb level for every car.
Now with my CSW I only use the per car gain when I really don't like the standard level of 100% for per-car gain.

Hope that answers everything? Feel free to ask further

 

[JimLee]

That would depend on how the motor outputs the ffb. If it's "rotating speed" related, it would push strong against the inertia but drop off once it's "up to speed" to not go above the set maximum force output.
When it's just force output based, it would be basically the same as the csw, if set to the same maximum strength as it would never output more force than the csw.

But afaik it's a mix of force and "rotating speed" which is why DD wheels feel a bit more alive.

With ingame gain vs wheel motor strength you're setting the "dynamic" between low forces and high forces. At 90-95% you're not having much dynamic, which can be good for your wrists and also still be enough dynamic for a Logitech wheel.
Personally I'm using 60-70% gain as that's the dynamic range I like between low cornering forces and hitting sausage kerbs for example.
using less ingame gain and more wheel motor force vs high ingame gain and low wheel motor force you'll have the same force while doing normal corners but the peaks will be a lot stronger with low ingame gain+high wheel force.

Numbers:
50% ingame + 20 Nm wheelbase = 7 Nm while cornering and 20 Nm when hitting a tree ;
100% ingame + 10 Nm wheelbase = 7 Nm while cornering and 10 Nm when hitting a tree ;

The 7 Nm while cornering are just an example. But it shows what I mean with "dynamic range".

So overall you just need to find a good mix for your wrists. I'd recommend between 60% and 90% ingame gain, wheel motor to your liking

what do you mean? With a dd wheel I wouldn't use the per car gain at all as you want to feel the difference between different cars. Just set the standard ingame gain in the menu to 50-90% (spikes are a bit less heavy in AC imo so you can go lower with the gain and higher with the wheel motor).

I only used the per-car gain in AC when dialing in the ffb with my G27 and my LUT to make the center position as smooth as possible, which required to have the same ffb level for every car.
Now with my CSW I only use the per car gain when I really don't like the standard level of 100% for per-car gain.

Hope that answers everything? Feel free to ask further

Thanks again for your help... this makes a bit more sense to me now. I will play with info for a bit.