ForthRight
4 April 11, 11:21
I bought Shift 2 on Friday and i've been fiddling around with it since then so I thought i would post my findings (mainly because the game feels very good to me now and i can drive consistent laps). I'm a long time sim racer who normally plays GTR2, rFactor and Grand Prix Legends - i don't like driving games that feel 'wrong' and i stopped playing the first Shift after a few days due to the handling. I am using the G25 wheel.
Side note - a lot of my settings came about after reading NismoGTR123's posts so i'm grateful to him for those. It was actually his videos that made me buy the game in the first place, as i could see the game being driven accurately and fast with a wheel.
Shift 2 loads the Logitech Profiler software automatically when you run the game - originally i didn't like this because i never use Profiler and i normally use the same global settings for every game. However it seems to be necessary so I created a new profile for Shift 2.
Here are my findings,
If I use 0% strength on the Spring and Damper settings (in Profiler) the FFB feels a lot more natural. I originally had them set to 50% Spring and 20% Damper but those settings didn't feel right to me - it was hard to judge what the car was doing through the wheel. I have Overall Effects strength at 100% but that should be lowered or increased depending on how soft or hard you want the overall FFB to be. I don't enable the Centering Spring and i don't allow the game to adjust settings (those settings seem to be accepted as standard).
In the game I use similar settings to what i use in many other driving games - 0% deadzone, 50% sensitivity (linear) and 0% Speed Sensitivity.
I use 360 degrees of lock on my wheel. Juls recommended this as all the cars are set up for 360 degrees lock by default - if i were to use a lot more or a lot less the steering would not be linear, at least not until i changed the steering lock on each individual car setup. I don't want to be messing around with steering lock at the moment so i decided just to stick with 360 degrees wheel lock to make sure i have linear steering.
I've adjusted my graphics settings so i have 60fps. I originally had around 35fps and the FFB simply wasn't as smooth. With higher fps the FFB definitely feels better to me.
I don't use Juls minimod (more on this in a minute).
I am using the updated DLL that Juls included with the minimod. I didn't really notice much difference when I dropped the DLL into my Shift 2 folder, but that's probably because it is mainly to help with steering lag when you have low fps - my framerate is quite high so it probably isn't doing much but i decided that "it can't hurt" etc.
After much testing I have decided that the game feels better without the two .bff Pakfiles from Juls minimod - this is just my opinion though. With those two files installed the handling did feel better at first (quicker to respond etc) but after a lot of testing i noticed that i couldn't accurately correct oversteer - i was always over correcting it and running off the track. I was also having to try hard to force the car into oversteer as it wasn't happening normally. Then i noticed that my lap times were faster too - i know the mod isn't supposed to be adjusting the grip levels of the tyres but somehow (or for some strange reason) the tyres do seem to have more grip when using the mod.
Once i realised this i decided to go back to the original .bff packfiles and these settings suddenly felt a lot better to me - oversteer was happening slightly easier and it was much more natural to correct. I adjusted the car through tuning to have more oversteer (using the basic slider) and it actually worked - the car did have more oversteer but it was possible to correct it, and more than anything it felt fun.
It's worth remembering that a lot of the cars have very soft suspension to begin with - i'm not sure if we should be modding the game to make the cars more responsive. This should happen naturally with stiffer springs and lower ride heights, and even further with car upgrades to stiffen the overal suspension etc.
Now the annoying bit - all my testing was done with the bumper cam as i wanted to do my testing with the highest possible framerate. When i switch to the standard cockpit view the game doesn't feel quite as realistic. I can't quite figure out what the reason is but the handling feels slightly more natural and accurate from the bumper or bonnet cam than it does from the cockpit. This is a shame because i normally play all my driving games from the cockpit view.
Could it be that the car is 'steering' from the camera position that we're looking through? So when you use the cockpit view the car is steering from the middle (not realistic) but when you use the bumper or bonnet cam the car is steering from the front where it's supposed to? I don't know if that is the case, but it would make sense.
That's pretty much it for my settings - I just thought I would post them as they might help others get a similar 'feel' from the game... or they might not, but it's worth a try. :-P
Side note - a lot of my settings came about after reading NismoGTR123's posts so i'm grateful to him for those. It was actually his videos that made me buy the game in the first place, as i could see the game being driven accurately and fast with a wheel.
Shift 2 loads the Logitech Profiler software automatically when you run the game - originally i didn't like this because i never use Profiler and i normally use the same global settings for every game. However it seems to be necessary so I created a new profile for Shift 2.
Here are my findings,
If I use 0% strength on the Spring and Damper settings (in Profiler) the FFB feels a lot more natural. I originally had them set to 50% Spring and 20% Damper but those settings didn't feel right to me - it was hard to judge what the car was doing through the wheel. I have Overall Effects strength at 100% but that should be lowered or increased depending on how soft or hard you want the overall FFB to be. I don't enable the Centering Spring and i don't allow the game to adjust settings (those settings seem to be accepted as standard).
In the game I use similar settings to what i use in many other driving games - 0% deadzone, 50% sensitivity (linear) and 0% Speed Sensitivity.
I use 360 degrees of lock on my wheel. Juls recommended this as all the cars are set up for 360 degrees lock by default - if i were to use a lot more or a lot less the steering would not be linear, at least not until i changed the steering lock on each individual car setup. I don't want to be messing around with steering lock at the moment so i decided just to stick with 360 degrees wheel lock to make sure i have linear steering.
I've adjusted my graphics settings so i have 60fps. I originally had around 35fps and the FFB simply wasn't as smooth. With higher fps the FFB definitely feels better to me.
I don't use Juls minimod (more on this in a minute).
I am using the updated DLL that Juls included with the minimod. I didn't really notice much difference when I dropped the DLL into my Shift 2 folder, but that's probably because it is mainly to help with steering lag when you have low fps - my framerate is quite high so it probably isn't doing much but i decided that "it can't hurt" etc.
After much testing I have decided that the game feels better without the two .bff Pakfiles from Juls minimod - this is just my opinion though. With those two files installed the handling did feel better at first (quicker to respond etc) but after a lot of testing i noticed that i couldn't accurately correct oversteer - i was always over correcting it and running off the track. I was also having to try hard to force the car into oversteer as it wasn't happening normally. Then i noticed that my lap times were faster too - i know the mod isn't supposed to be adjusting the grip levels of the tyres but somehow (or for some strange reason) the tyres do seem to have more grip when using the mod.
Once i realised this i decided to go back to the original .bff packfiles and these settings suddenly felt a lot better to me - oversteer was happening slightly easier and it was much more natural to correct. I adjusted the car through tuning to have more oversteer (using the basic slider) and it actually worked - the car did have more oversteer but it was possible to correct it, and more than anything it felt fun.
It's worth remembering that a lot of the cars have very soft suspension to begin with - i'm not sure if we should be modding the game to make the cars more responsive. This should happen naturally with stiffer springs and lower ride heights, and even further with car upgrades to stiffen the overal suspension etc.
Now the annoying bit - all my testing was done with the bumper cam as i wanted to do my testing with the highest possible framerate. When i switch to the standard cockpit view the game doesn't feel quite as realistic. I can't quite figure out what the reason is but the handling feels slightly more natural and accurate from the bumper or bonnet cam than it does from the cockpit. This is a shame because i normally play all my driving games from the cockpit view.
Could it be that the car is 'steering' from the camera position that we're looking through? So when you use the cockpit view the car is steering from the middle (not realistic) but when you use the bumper or bonnet cam the car is steering from the front where it's supposed to? I don't know if that is the case, but it would make sense.
That's pretty much it for my settings - I just thought I would post them as they might help others get a similar 'feel' from the game... or they might not, but it's worth a try. :-P