FFB setting: BaseOffset

darock · 27 July 12, 23:07

OK, I've been trying to figure out what the new FFB settings do. There were 3 of them and so far I've sorted out what one of them seems to do for my Logitech G27 wheel.

The 3 parameters are in the app.ini file. The one that got the first test is the steeringFFBBaseOffset parameter. The reason I jumped in to test these was what happened earlier today.

I tried to run one of my old standby favorites: the Trucks at Texas. I've finally worked out a decent setup that I can race. It's not as fast as the top guys in my splits but it doesn't have "the curse". What is the curse? It's a deadly loose-on-exit that comes and goes with iRacing releases. Well, it came back with this one. Since day one, I've figured it had something to do with my wheel or was related to the FFB settings for something akin to the way iRacing decides that you're steering. I've figured iRacing thinks you're steering when you're not and kicks your rears out from under you.

So when iRacing started kicking the rears out from under the truck at Texas and I was running a setup I knew didn't spin on it's own out of T2 and T4, I decided to check out what iRacing had changed in this release that had to do with steering or FFB more exactly.

darock · 27 July 12, 23:11

I'm going to cut to my findings.

I tried setting the steering FFBBaseOffset parameter. The release notes suggest success would be found probably somewhere from 0.05 to 0.15.

So I tried 0.15 first.
Wow.... turns out there were some pretty sharp bumps down Texas' backstraight and the same setup that couldn't get out of T2 or T4 alive motored right through without a wiggle. Dang it's nice to see results, and very good ones at that right off.

darock · 27 July 12, 23:14

So then I tried 0.05 and the bumps were barely there. But they were there and they hadn't been with 0.00 set in the parameter.

And the truck lost it's rear even when I breathed the throttle out of T2 and out of T4. Just like it did earlier in the day with the 0.00 setting.

darock · 27 July 12, 23:19

So then I put my head down and ran off a bunch of tests around 0.10.

Those tests showed there is a sweet spot a little above 0.10 where the steering that I'm holding as rock steady as I can does not steer the truck into a slide. OK, that's as much an interpretation of the solution as a description of what I was doing.

Bottom line is the game thinks something is happening that definitely isn't coming from my wheel when the setting is too low, and thinks I'm doing fine with the steering when the setting is high enough.

It's a relief to have discovered a way to fight this gremlin that's been showing up for almost 2 years now.

darock · 27 July 12, 23:25

The kewl thing about Texas is that coming out of T2 is enough different than coming out of T4 that I could actually see a difference in the steeringFFBBaseOffset setting when it was almost good for both.

And I could be very confident that I was repeating a valid test and getting the same results every time. At least while I was just under the sweet spot that is.

BTW, while testing the parameter I also changed the FFB strength that has always been touted as the solution to FFB deadzone. Changed it a couple of times to see if it altered the sweet spot feel. My jury is still out on whether or not it did anything. I'm guessing it just might undermine the iRating setting. Of course, all 3 of the iRating parameters just might undermine each other.

whatever.........

time to go check out the other parameters

brabham67 · 27 July 12, 23:27

Hopefully you'll have this all worked out for us by Sunday, the next time I'll be able to drive...

AllanGP · 28 July 12, 08:26

I take it you took out the 107 in the Logitech Profiler first?

That's a pre-requisite otherwise it will fight the bse setting.

AllanGP · 28 July 12, 09:13

Great post here basically saying if you ran low FFB before you will see less improvement than if you run high FFB before.

http://members.iracing.com/jforum/po...t/2021536.page

This probably explains why I have not seen a night & day difference as others have seen.

darock · 28 July 12, 13:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by AllanGP

I take it you took out the 107 in the Logitech Profiler first?

That's a pre-requisite otherwise it will fight the bse setting.

Want to know if it's important? Try it both ways.

BTW, the steeringFFBSmooth parameter will also fight it. And the steeringFFBLinear setting does indirectly.

Whatever.... thanks for the reminder. Things get sorted faster the more eyes there are on the target.

darock · 28 July 12, 16:09

Interestingly, a couple of tests run as an afterthought showed the possibility of "collateral improvement" beyond the curing of the mystery spins.

Running fixed setup races have always been a puzzle. While fighting to get the car around the turns with some remnant of speed thanks to the huge push, others would motor by while turning under me. How do they do that? was what I always came away with. No amount of testing ever resulted in an answer.

So I ran some tests to see what a couple of the fixed do now.

AllanGP · 28 July 12, 16:32

Well, I did a bit more testing in the HPD today.

First I realised the Fixed set I was using for Watkins, probably was a poor choice as in some corners the car goes very loose.

So I switched to Road Atlanta and the Fixed set for there as a better base.

To cut a long story short I worked down to a better number for my G25;

steeringFFBBaseOffset=0.060000

but I still had that "extra" resistance I did not like beyond 45 degree steering input.

So I tried reducing the BumpStop number to 10, that improved things a lot, for me.

Then I went back to Watkins and the car still felt good.

Then back to the Skip Barber at Brands Hatch Indy, ditto, still felt good.

Thank you David, great job.

Here are my settings now:

steeringBumpStop_Deg=10.000000
steeringFFBBaseOffset=0.060000
steeringFFBLinearForce=1
steeringFFBSmooth=1.000000

darock · 28 July 12, 18:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by AllanGP

So I tried reducing the BumpStop number to 10, that improved things a lot, for me.

What would you say the BumpStop improves?

I've yet to play with that parameter and wonder what to look for.

darock · 28 July 12, 18:36

lol ... Wonder what to feel for.

AllanGP · 28 July 12, 19:40

David Tucker has said he's put in a "software" stop to restrict each wheel to the same rotation as the real car has it. The 15 starts to resist further movement as you get within 15 degrees of the end of the wheel rotation limit.

By going to 10 I've opened up the window before the wheel gets this resistance to stop it's rotation.

That's how I have understood it anyway.

AllanGP · 28 July 12, 19:52

Here is David Tuckers description:

Bumpstop may not be the right term. This effect kicks in when you turn your wheel all the way to the left and the virtual cars wheel stops turning (hits the bump stop). Previously, your real wheel would keep turning with no resistance, but now I apply a force on the motors to stop the wheel from turning any farther than the virtual wheel turns.

So if you are in the skippy car with only 450 degree of steering (virtual) and you have a 900 deg wheel, we will kick in the bumpstops when you have turned the wheel 225 deg to the left or right. And if your bump stop is set to 15 deg, then when you get to 240 deg the motors will be pushing back with full force.

I called it a bump stop because on a VW bug, the suspension bump stop is also the steering lock limiter. Maybe I should call it steering lockLimitFirmness or something.

AllanGP · 28 July 12, 20:30

Reading his description, it shouldn't have the effect it did to the feel of my wheel............. but it did!

darock · 29 July 12, 01:12

Thanks for the interpretations. That's pretty much what I'd thought. And was convinced that it wouldn't have a chance of ever being in play.

But if you felt something, then it's worth seeing if it does more than advertised. It most certainly won't be the first time iRacing's description is, how can it be said... not exactly what it really does.

AllanGP · 29 July 12, 20:18

Upped my FFB for the Skip to 22 now, this new build is pretty damn good now. Skip is even better than before, most of the rear end twichyness is gone, beautiful to drive and easy to place it on the tarmac accurately, lovely.

Hotsocks · 29 July 12, 20:59

You know where the 'soft lock' (i.e. software limited full wheel lock as opposed to hard lock from the wheel hardware) should be if you turn on the virtual wheel. When that stops moving you should feel a firm-ish (depending on setting) resistance. Very useful catching big slides as it stops you going too far and having to take up the slack first when the car snaps back...which ain't going to work out well! LFS had this already and so should have iracing. Least it's there now.

From what I gather, at low ffb settings in the iracing setup menu ffb was fairly linear anyway. But for higher settings then tweaking the file would be beneficial . I use low settings using FFB more for immersion these days, as I think it's not very reliable and can have you reacting to things you shouldn't be bothered with.

Unless i'm bonkers (quite possible), the skips completely different now. Seems to me you can catch almost anything with counterseering, and drive on the grass - which now feels perfect. To try and check for placebo, I tried inducing nasties e.g. going wide at T1 Mid Ohio, which used to shoot you across the track unless you reacted fast, and the left-hander that leads up to the Corkscrew at Laguna, again going wide there would rotate you fast. Both now can be corrected with a causal countersteer. I must be bonkers because a couple of fast drivers seem to be saying no difference and I think it's got completely different levels of grip (or something) over the limit.

AllanGP · 29 July 12, 21:08

I agree with you!

Car is much easier to catch now and drive whilst sideways, there are still one or two corners that seem odd. Turning into the Bus Stop at WGB can still be tricky but overall much more driveable.

I was using low FFB before so what it has done for me is not so much improved the "feel" but made my actions more consistent. I feel now when I steer to get to a position on the road my natural actions create the result I want, whereby before sometimes you had to steer more or less than you thought you should.

Hope that makes some sort of sense.

darock · 29 July 12, 21:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hotsocks

I must be bonkers because a couple of fast drivers seem to be saying no difference and I think it's got completely different levels of grip (or something) over the limit.

Those couple of drivers may or may not have the considerable number of adjustments available set in the same combination you have... or I have... or Alan has.

When there are a number of conflicting adjustments, there is no way to tell what one of them does or doesn't do by comparing what your test results are to what my test results are.

Fast drivers often are fast because they have a combination of settings that work in spite of the changing settings, or the cues they drive by aren't affected by the settings at all.

darock · 29 July 12, 21:23

Of course, the settings that just changed actually caused my truck to go bad yet the Skippy got better. That would suggest whatever they did affected the two vehicles in opposite directions. Quite a believable result actually.

Hotsocks · 29 July 12, 21:25

"Hope that makes some sort of sense."

Yep, I understand.

I don't really like editing files much. Spoils the illusion.

But may give the linearity thing a go at some point.

AllanGP · 29 July 12, 22:01

Well one of the attractions, to me, of iRacing (and one of the key reason's I joined) was to avoid the problem of having to fiddle with files for on-line racing.

However this is one file and after a couple of hours work I seem to have settled on a nice setting for my wheel and me. Well worth the effort.

Posted 3 new PB's on three tracks and two car combo's - win!

AllanGP · 30 July 12, 08:40

Good post explaining this by Ron McMahon at iRacing;

I didn't get my hopes up too high with the addition of linear FFB, it sounded too good to be true....

But I've spent the last 2-3 hours playing with various cars and this is EXACTLY what was wrong with the NTM! I can catch slides that were previously completely impossible, everything just feels right! Great update

EDIT:

Okay I should have done this a lot sooner, but I'm going to break it down for the simple folks, and also try to include information for the analytical/genius types to help grasp the difference as well.

There are 3 new key settings in the app.ini file which pertain to this thread. The biggest one being:
steeringFFBLinearForce=1

NOTE: This setting changes the way FFB is calculated and is not dependent on the type of wheel you are using. This setting will be a matter of personal preference, however, the general consensus is that anyone who has tried it, prefers it over the old style.

This setting is like a digital Boolean/non-zero value... 0 is off (old style FFB) 1 is on (new, linear FFB.) I do believe some confusion came from this setting as some users thought that the amount of linearity could be dialed in by setting this between 0-10 or 0-1 in decimals. As far as I can tell this will do nothing. The sim only checks to see if it is set to 0 for old style or anything else (1, preferably) for the new linear feedback.

Why linear feedback?

Previously, 80% of forces sent to our wheels were magnified to enhance their feel, and the other 20% (on the high end of force) were compressed, to fit in the remainder of the available torque your wheel could output. This is desirable as long as you aren't repeatedly crossing that threshold, as you would feel a much more responsive car for 80% of the time. The downfall is whenever you crossed into that 20% of compressed forces, you weren't getting a linear response from the car... as the load on the wheel increased further in the sim, your physical wheel would only respond at about 1/5 the rate.

(I realize this is a laymens explanation, and if you wish to read more about it, check out this link: http://members.iracing.com/jforum/po...t/2021536.page )

NOTE: Using linear feedback means that 80% of the forces you were used to feeling will no longer be boosted, because of this, you will most likely have to increase your in-sim force feedback strength. Doubling the numbers is not uncommon, I went from 8 to 17 in the star mazda with my wheel. This is completely dependent on your personal preference and the specific wheel you are using.

The second setting pertains to my second favorite bit of the recent release notes:

FFB wheels now use FFB effect to limit wheels rotation to the rotation of the virtual car.

With this setting:
steeringBumpStopDeg=10

Our physical wheels will now output maximum force to resist rotation beyond that of what the sim car is capable of. If the real car only has 370 degrees of rotation, your wheel will stop at 370 as well (providing it is capable of something beyond that, and calibrated correctly.) If you have a 900 degree wheel and had previously short calibrated it, it would be best to recalibrate it accordingly now. To disable this setting you can use -1 and you will get the old behavior from the cars. Numbers 1 through infinity are the amount of degrees you need to turn PAST the maximum rotation before the sim will output maximum resistance. A staff member referred to it as how stiff of a piece of rubber is at the end of the bump stop. Personally I like 10. The stronger your wheel is, the higher you may want to set this to stop from being slammed around when you reach max rotation.

Finally, the confusing one:

steeringFFBBaseOffset=0.05

From the release notes:
forces the FFB motors to output a minimum force. This can help tighten up a wheel around neutral, when the drivers have a lot of FFB dead zone. Settings in the 0.05 to 0.15 range are typical (5% to 15%).

I have emphasized what I think is important about that setting. This setting (in percentages where 1= 100%) forces the sim to output a constant amount of force to your wheel. Those of you seeing oscillations at a dead stop who wish to see them cease will want to LOWER this setting if not completely set it to 0. The wheel is oscillating because the sim is sending it a force even when it is not necessary. It is my belief that this is for lower end/weaker/slower wheels to help tighten them up. Much like tightening the screw on an old worm gear steering box, while it improves the feel, it's actually pretty detrimental to the system. The higher you set this, the less linear your feedback will be due to the fact you are forcing the sim to send forces to your wheel regardless of what's happening in the physics.

I may add more to this later, but hopefully this little bit will help save people from having to dig through 7 pages of thread to get the basics down.

Chronus · 30 July 12, 17:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by AllanGP

But I've spent the last 2-3 hours playing with various cars and this is EXACTLY what was wrong with the NTM! I can catch slides that were previously completely impossible, everything just feels right! Great update

The FFB is what was wrong with the NTM?

Why? FFB is not the physics engine, FFB is not the tire model. So, why?

I bet a lot of people have been simracing in the last 10 years and judging the physics in each sim without any need for FFB. Even today, some wheels don't provide good enough feedback to be of significant use; some people turn it off because it spoils the immersion for them, others turn if off to save the wheel, others turn it off because the rotors within the wheel are damaged. I'd say any of these simracers are still able to race hard and well, and know if the physics are good or not good.

But reading such comments makes me wonder, do people need good FFB to catch slides? I don't, bet many others don't too.

It really seems (for some) as if turning the FFB off or having a bad FFB will dictate if the physics in a sim is good or bad. This I find odd...

brabham67 · 30 July 12, 17:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chronus

It really seems (for some) as if turning the FFB off or having a bad FFB will dictate if the physics in a sim is good or bad. This I find odd...

Aside from audio/visual stimuli, the FFB in a wheel is the only way we can tell what a car is doing. So, odd as it may sound, FFB does, or can, give an impression regarding the physics of the simulation, imo.

AllanGP · 30 July 12, 17:58

That was a quote by Ron McMahon not me.

Part of the solution not all of it!

Chronus · 30 July 12, 20:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by brabham67

Aside from audio/visual stimuli, the FFB in a wheel is the only way we can tell what a car is doing. So, odd as it may sound, FFB does, or can, give an impression regarding the physics of the simulation, imo.

As you said, "aside from". Hence what I said, we don't really need FFB to judge whether a sim is (physics wise, mind you) good or not. I agree that it can help; however, it's not the main means to getting a good impression of the "physics of the simulation". And certainly it is not the best means to achieve that, given the limitations in hardware/drivers some wheels sport.

Quote:

Originally Posted by AllanGP

That was a quote by Ron McMahon not me.

Part of the solution not all of it!

Never said it was from you...if I gave that impression it was not intentional. I remember a few posts at iRacing forums similar to the one you quote, never really made much sense though.

AllanGP · 30 July 12, 21:02

I think we are getting first week euphoria on the Forum's, it's a good step forward but the tyre still needs work.

However, it's good enough to be great fun and more drivable. I believe we can now see the NTM will be a major step forward within a couple of builds. (Must find that old post where I predicted it might take two years of development

).

AllanGP · 30 July 12, 21:09

Here's a post from David Tucker;

There where thousands of changes made in the last 3 months. We have a detailed database of all the changes, but it would take a week to investigate every one of them. With that said, I doubt that we have secretly updated the tires across the board. (Just for reference, 80% of our updates are usually in the graphics models)

We did improve the diff, and the clutch (launch/shift). And tweaked the car physics on several vehicles. What ones of those overlap with your vehicle I do not know.

I would like to think the FFB updates can account for everything, but I don't think so. However, I did notice that the new steering lock helps a lot when catching a slide. Without it the wheel tends to over-rotate so it takes the FFB motors (and your hands) longer to reverse directions when it is time to counter-steer.

The same can be said for the min force setting (eating up the slop around zero). The wheel tended to jump from no FFB to overreacting before, and now it gives a more smooth application of force. That helps keep the wheel pointed in the right direction in a slide. And the linear force does a good job of keeping the wheel from getting overly exited with the small forces (minimizes the oscillations).

Chronus · 30 July 12, 21:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by AllanGP

Here's a post from David Tucker;

There where thousands of changes made in the last 3 months. We have a detailed database of all the changes, but it would take a week to investigate every one of them. With that said, I doubt that we have secretly updated the tires across the board. (Just for reference, 80% of our updates are usually in the graphics models)

That last bit is interesting, because people who experience handling fluctuations from build to build scratch their heads and hypothesize that it may be due to tire physics updates.

Clever bit, cleverly put.

Quote:

I would like to think the FFB updates can account for everything, but I don't think so. However, I did notice that the new steering lock helps a lot when catching a slide. Without it the wheel tends to over-rotate so it takes the FFB motors (and your hands) longer to reverse directions when it is time to counter-steer.

Makes perfect sense, this explanation. It's not in the physics, he is saying, it's in what is "communicated" over to the wheel.

Quote:

The same can be said for the min force setting (eating up the slop around zero). The wheel tended to jump from no FFB to overreacting before, and now it gives a more smooth application of force. That helps keep the wheel pointed in the right direction in a slide. And the linear force does a good job of keeping the wheel from getting overly exited with the small forces (minimizes the oscillations).

More of the same. Unless proven wrong, I believe this post you quote is not only clear but honest. Hat off to iRacing and Herr Tucker in particular.

Quote:

Originally Posted by AllanGP

I think we are getting first week euphoria on the Forum's, it's a good step forward but the tyre still needs work.

[...] (Must find that old post where I predicted it might take two years of development ).

And...more euphoria indeed.

Anyway, I have said all along, give DK enough time and he'll release a few most welcome "surprises".

I envy you lot. You can play with the new toys.

AllanGP · 30 July 12, 21:29

Take the 6 month free promo under a different e-mail and you can try it for free!

Chronus · 30 July 12, 21:34

No, money iz not zee problemmm.

I still don't have my rig and stuff with me. So, simracing is...reading about simracing. How depressing...

AllanGP · 30 July 12, 21:36

Ah, okay, shame, it's really good!

Chronus · 30 July 12, 21:40

Nah, no probs. It is also great to be able to read and discuss things with the lot of you right here. So, keep novelties coming, they're most welcome.

Hotsocks · 31 July 12, 16:25

I've tried the linear FFB setting and it feels miles better IMO, and that's on top of the improvements in catchability for the skip. I held a slide on full lock thanks to the new 'soft full lock' feature. I used to do this at one time by setting the wheel rotation in the Logitech panel per car. But it was a bit of a pain every time you changed car. I've not changed anything else and still have 107% ffb in Logitech panel.

Mx-5 feels quite different with linear FFB. It used to react to steering in installments a bit for me. But it's as Allan described now with the Skip, it goes where you direct it, proportionally. What were they thinking?

Doesn't seem to be a general tire fix because the V8, for me anyway, is still on ice. Did a double 360 yesterday after touching grass, the second one beginning at around 40mph. I don't get this car at all. I've given up. And If you were bouncing up and down as in real life, good luck with maintaining the degree of throttle control precision the iRacing version requires. Unless it's all about setup. BTW, I did watch some SVG in the V8 from in cockpit at a practice before it had the NTM, and his steering wheel was a blur! Hmmm...

Don't know what they've done to the skip, but on the grass, if you spin the wheels up at low speed and then come off the throttle, they grip again almost immediately, whereas before they'd keep wizzing around as though you were still hard on the pedal. I had some amusement drifting it around one of the huts. It used to just spin on me.

I'm intrigued to see how it'll effect times. You now don't seem to need to use throttle and excess steering to over-budget the front ties the way a lot of fast drivers did to balance out oversteer. I'd guess it'd be faster to driver properly now.

notwithstanding places where in real life it'd help doing a bit of brake + throttle e.g. to minimize weight transfer when just slowing slightly on a fast sweeper.

AllanGP · 31 July 12, 16:52

If you are using the base offset above 0.0000 you should have the profiler at 100% otherwise you are controlling the dead centre effect twice.

Hotsocks · 31 July 12, 19:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by AllanGP

If you are using the base offset above 0.0000 you should have the profiler at 100% otherwise you are controlling the dead centre effect twice.

OK, thanks, I'll check that out.

BTW, I was using very low FFB before (found it confused me), but still noticed a big difference with the change to linear + increased FFB.

AllanGP · 31 July 12, 19:56

Should be even better if you reduce your profiler to 0.0000. You will then need to up your in Sim FFB, I found about double the old setting did it but in the Skip it was a bit more than double.

107% in Profiler and Offset 0.07000 are the same thing 7% removal of the Logitech "dead Zone" around the centre. With both on your doing the same job twice!

AllanGP · 1 August 12, 09:44

27 July 12, 23:07	#1
darock Moderator Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: North Carolina	FFB setting: BaseOffset OK, I've been trying to figure out what the new FFB settings do. There were 3 of them and so far I've sorted out what one of them seems to do for my Logitech G27 wheel. The 3 parameters are in the app.ini file. The one that got the first test is the steeringFFBBaseOffset parameter. The reason I jumped in to test these was what happened earlier today. I tried to run one of my old standby favorites: the Trucks at Texas. I've finally worked out a decent setup that I can race. It's not as fast as the top guys in my splits but it doesn't have "the curse". What is the curse? It's a deadly loose-on-exit that comes and goes with iRacing releases. Well, it came back with this one. Since day one, I've figured it had something to do with my wheel or was related to the FFB settings for something akin to the way iRacing decides that you're steering. I've figured iRacing thinks you're steering when you're not and kicks your rears out from under you. So when iRacing started kicking the rears out from under the truck at Texas and I was running a setup I knew didn't spin on it's own out of T2 and T4, I decided to check out what iRacing had changed in this release that had to do with steering or FFB more exactly.

1 August 12, 09:44	#41
AllanGP Donated Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Wrexham, North Wales, 25 mins from Oulton Park Age: 51	You might like this!

16 August 12, 12:38	#43
Kneegrow Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Indiana	You guys should really use the wheelcheck utility to set the new FF properly. Here is a small write up I did for another iracing site. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Grab the WheelCheck utility here: http://members.iracing.com/jforum/po...t/1473510.page Rename the exe so the last word is gone. IE> should look like this WheelCheck.exe Now run the WheelCheck.exe Dont touch anything on your wheel. Under the Spring force dropdown menu select StepLog2 Your wheel will go back and forth with force, keep hands away. Once that is done, close the utility and go to your documents folder. Look for a file that says this "log2 2012-07-29 20-21-40.csv" Open it with wordpad or notepad and look for the first line of values. Should look like this: Look for the top non 0 DeltaX output.Then look at the force value on that same line. That is what you set your steeringFFBBaseOffset= Mine is 400, so I set my steeringFFBBaseOffset= 0.04 force, startX, endX, deltaX 0, 0, 0, 0 200, -42, -42, 0 400, -42, -39, 3 600, -43, -36, 7 800, -44, -27, 17 1000, -44, -7, 37 1200, -44, 58, 102 1400, -46, 87, 133 1600, -46, 124, 170 1800, -43, 163, 206 2000, -43, 285, 328 2200, -44, 367, 411 2400, -34, 461, 495 2600, -28, 633, 661 2800, -26, 724, 750 3000, -26, 845, 871 3200, -21, 934, 955 3400, -24, 1171, 1195 3600, -22, 1259, 1281 3800, -23, 1379, 1402 4000, -23, 1459, 1482 4200, -35, 1675, 1710 4400, -26, 1782, 1808 4600, -35, 1861, 1896 4800, -33, 2138, 2171 5000, -44, 2319, 2363 5200, -31, 2448, 2479 5400, -44, 2550, 2594 5600, -44, 2832, 2876 5800, -44, 2943, 2987 6000, -44, 3031, 3075 6200, -44, 3249, 3293 6400, -39, 3389, 3428 6600, -44, 3493, 3537 6800, -46, 3546, 3592 7000, -48, 3703, 3751 7200, -47, 3880, 3927 7400, -46, 4003, 4049 7600, -51, 4056, 4107 7800, -55, 4170, 4225 8000, -45, 4249, 4294 8200, -46, 4333, 4379 8400, -54, 4609, 4663 8600, -56, 4570, 4626 8800, -47, 4752, 4799 9000, -47, 4750, 4797 9200, -47, 4871, 4918 9400, -60, 4887, 4947 9600, -51, 4881, 4932 9800, -47, 4930, 4977 10000, -46, 4872, 4918

16 August 12, 16:49	#44
darock Moderator Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: North Carolina	The link takes us to a huge thread that starts off with two different downloads. There is some explanation that doesn't exactly fit what you've shown. The first download really doesn't seem to matter if we read what you've explained. The second download has the Wheelcheck.exe already named properly. It appears we could simply download only the 2nd file from the iRacing thread, unzip it, and run it as is.

16 August 12, 17:03	#45
darock Moderator Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: North Carolina	BTW, while working my way through that iRacing thread, I noticed Tucker dropped a hint that apparently would be good information FOR EVERYONE. He mentions in passing that you should "(always turn off driver hands when driving)." No explanation why, just the parenthetical in passing. Damn, I'm glad to have noticed that and somewhat happy that I happened by that thread. It's the type thread very few of the average members are going to be reading every word. Being 31 pages so far, it's also little chance many are going to see that nugget.

27 July 12, 23:11	#2
darock Moderator Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: North Carolina	I'm going to cut to my findings. I tried setting the steering FFBBaseOffset parameter. The release notes suggest success would be found probably somewhere from 0.05 to 0.15. So I tried 0.15 first. Wow.... turns out there were some pretty sharp bumps down Texas' backstraight and the same setup that couldn't get out of T2 or T4 alive motored right through without a wiggle. Dang it's nice to see results, and very good ones at that right off.

27 July 12, 23:14	#3
darock Moderator Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: North Carolina	So then I tried 0.05 and the bumps were barely there. But they were there and they hadn't been with 0.00 set in the parameter. And the truck lost it's rear even when I breathed the throttle out of T2 and out of T4. Just like it did earlier in the day with the 0.00 setting.

27 July 12, 23:19	#4
darock Moderator Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: North Carolina	So then I put my head down and ran off a bunch of tests around 0.10. Those tests showed there is a sweet spot a little above 0.10 where the steering that I'm holding as rock steady as I can does not steer the truck into a slide. OK, that's as much an interpretation of the solution as a description of what I was doing. Bottom line is the game thinks something is happening that definitely isn't coming from my wheel when the setting is too low, and thinks I'm doing fine with the steering when the setting is high enough. It's a relief to have discovered a way to fight this gremlin that's been showing up for almost 2 years now.

27 July 12, 23:25	#5
darock Moderator Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: North Carolina	The kewl thing about Texas is that coming out of T2 is enough different than coming out of T4 that I could actually see a difference in the steeringFFBBaseOffset setting when it was almost good for both. And I could be very confident that I was repeating a valid test and getting the same results every time. At least while I was just under the sweet spot that is. BTW, while testing the parameter I also changed the FFB strength that has always been touted as the solution to FFB deadzone. Changed it a couple of times to see if it altered the sweet spot feel. My jury is still out on whether or not it did anything. I'm guessing it just might undermine the iRating setting. Of course, all 3 of the iRating parameters just might undermine each other. whatever......... time to go check out the other parameters

27 July 12, 23:27	#6
brabham67 Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Kent, Washington, USA Age: 37	Hopefully you'll have this all worked out for us by Sunday, the next time I'll be able to drive...

28 July 12, 08:26	#7
AllanGP Donated Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Wrexham, North Wales, 25 mins from Oulton Park Age: 51	I take it you took out the 107 in the Logitech Profiler first? That's a pre-requisite otherwise it will fight the bse setting.

28 July 12, 09:13	#8
AllanGP Donated Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Wrexham, North Wales, 25 mins from Oulton Park Age: 51	Great post here basically saying if you ran low FFB before you will see less improvement than if you run high FFB before. http://members.iracing.com/jforum/po...t/2021536.page This probably explains why I have not seen a night & day difference as others have seen.

28 July 12, 16:09	#10
darock Moderator Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: North Carolina	Interestingly, a couple of tests run as an afterthought showed the possibility of "collateral improvement" beyond the curing of the mystery spins. Running fixed setup races have always been a puzzle. While fighting to get the car around the turns with some remnant of speed thanks to the huge push, others would motor by while turning under me. How do they do that? was what I always came away with. No amount of testing ever resulted in an answer. So I ran some tests to see what a couple of the fixed do now.

28 July 12, 16:32	#11
AllanGP Donated Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Wrexham, North Wales, 25 mins from Oulton Park Age: 51	Well, I did a bit more testing in the HPD today. First I realised the Fixed set I was using for Watkins, probably was a poor choice as in some corners the car goes very loose. So I switched to Road Atlanta and the Fixed set for there as a better base. To cut a long story short I worked down to a better number for my G25; steeringFFBBaseOffset=0.060000 but I still had that "extra" resistance I did not like beyond 45 degree steering input. So I tried reducing the BumpStop number to 10, that improved things a lot, for me. Then I went back to Watkins and the car still felt good. Then back to the Skip Barber at Brands Hatch Indy, ditto, still felt good. Thank you David, great job. Here are my settings now: steeringBumpStop_Deg=10.000000 steeringFFBBaseOffset=0.060000 steeringFFBLinearForce=1 steeringFFBSmooth=1.000000

28 July 12, 18:36	#13
darock Moderator Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: North Carolina	lol ... Wonder what to feel for.

28 July 12, 19:40	#14
AllanGP Donated Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Wrexham, North Wales, 25 mins from Oulton Park Age: 51	David Tucker has said he's put in a "software" stop to restrict each wheel to the same rotation as the real car has it. The 15 starts to resist further movement as you get within 15 degrees of the end of the wheel rotation limit. By going to 10 I've opened up the window before the wheel gets this resistance to stop it's rotation. That's how I have understood it anyway.

28 July 12, 19:52	#15
AllanGP Donated Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Wrexham, North Wales, 25 mins from Oulton Park Age: 51	Here is David Tuckers description: Bumpstop may not be the right term. This effect kicks in when you turn your wheel all the way to the left and the virtual cars wheel stops turning (hits the bump stop). Previously, your real wheel would keep turning with no resistance, but now I apply a force on the motors to stop the wheel from turning any farther than the virtual wheel turns. So if you are in the skippy car with only 450 degree of steering (virtual) and you have a 900 deg wheel, we will kick in the bumpstops when you have turned the wheel 225 deg to the left or right. And if your bump stop is set to 15 deg, then when you get to 240 deg the motors will be pushing back with full force. I called it a bump stop because on a VW bug, the suspension bump stop is also the steering lock limiter. Maybe I should call it steering lockLimitFirmness or something.

28 July 12, 20:30	#16
AllanGP Donated Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Wrexham, North Wales, 25 mins from Oulton Park Age: 51	Reading his description, it shouldn't have the effect it did to the feel of my wheel............. but it did!

29 July 12, 01:12	#17
darock Moderator Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: North Carolina	Thanks for the interpretations. That's pretty much what I'd thought. And was convinced that it wouldn't have a chance of ever being in play. But if you felt something, then it's worth seeing if it does more than advertised. It most certainly won't be the first time iRacing's description is, how can it be said... not exactly what it really does.

29 July 12, 20:18	#18
AllanGP Donated Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Wrexham, North Wales, 25 mins from Oulton Park Age: 51	Upped my FFB for the Skip to 22 now, this new build is pretty damn good now. Skip is even better than before, most of the rear end twichyness is gone, beautiful to drive and easy to place it on the tarmac accurately, lovely.

29 July 12, 20:59	#19
Hotsocks Join Date: Mar 2007	You know where the 'soft lock' (i.e. software limited full wheel lock as opposed to hard lock from the wheel hardware) should be if you turn on the virtual wheel. When that stops moving you should feel a firm-ish (depending on setting) resistance. Very useful catching big slides as it stops you going too far and having to take up the slack first when the car snaps back...which ain't going to work out well! LFS had this already and so should have iracing. Least it's there now. From what I gather, at low ffb settings in the iracing setup menu ffb was fairly linear anyway. But for higher settings then tweaking the file would be beneficial . I use low settings using FFB more for immersion these days, as I think it's not very reliable and can have you reacting to things you shouldn't be bothered with. Unless i'm bonkers (quite possible), the skips completely different now. Seems to me you can catch almost anything with counterseering, and drive on the grass - which now feels perfect. To try and check for placebo, I tried inducing nasties e.g. going wide at T1 Mid Ohio, which used to shoot you across the track unless you reacted fast, and the left-hander that leads up to the Corkscrew at Laguna, again going wide there would rotate you fast. Both now can be corrected with a causal countersteer. I must be bonkers because a couple of fast drivers seem to be saying no difference and I think it's got completely different levels of grip (or something) over the limit.

29 July 12, 21:08	#20
AllanGP Donated Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Wrexham, North Wales, 25 mins from Oulton Park Age: 51	I agree with you! Car is much easier to catch now and drive whilst sideways, there are still one or two corners that seem odd. Turning into the Bus Stop at WGB can still be tricky but overall much more driveable. I was using low FFB before so what it has done for me is not so much improved the "feel" but made my actions more consistent. I feel now when I steer to get to a position on the road my natural actions create the result I want, whereby before sometimes you had to steer more or less than you thought you should. Hope that makes some sort of sense.

29 July 12, 21:23	#22
darock Moderator Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: North Carolina	Of course, the settings that just changed actually caused my truck to go bad yet the Skippy got better. That would suggest whatever they did affected the two vehicles in opposite directions. Quite a believable result actually.

29 July 12, 21:25	#23
Hotsocks Join Date: Mar 2007	"Hope that makes some sort of sense." Yep, I understand. I don't really like editing files much. Spoils the illusion. But may give the linearity thing a go at some point.

29 July 12, 22:01	#24
AllanGP Donated Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Wrexham, North Wales, 25 mins from Oulton Park Age: 51	Well one of the attractions, to me, of iRacing (and one of the key reason's I joined) was to avoid the problem of having to fiddle with files for on-line racing. However this is one file and after a couple of hours work I seem to have settled on a nice setting for my wheel and me. Well worth the effort. Posted 3 new PB's on three tracks and two car combo's - win!

30 July 12, 08:40	#25
AllanGP Donated Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Wrexham, North Wales, 25 mins from Oulton Park Age: 51	Good post explaining this by Ron McMahon at iRacing; I didn't get my hopes up too high with the addition of linear FFB, it sounded too good to be true.... But I've spent the last 2-3 hours playing with various cars and this is EXACTLY what was wrong with the NTM! I can catch slides that were previously completely impossible, everything just feels right! Great update EDIT: Okay I should have done this a lot sooner, but I'm going to break it down for the simple folks, and also try to include information for the analytical/genius types to help grasp the difference as well. There are 3 new key settings in the app.ini file which pertain to this thread. The biggest one being: steeringFFBLinearForce=1 NOTE: This setting changes the way FFB is calculated and is not dependent on the type of wheel you are using. This setting will be a matter of personal preference, however, the general consensus is that anyone who has tried it, prefers it over the old style. This setting is like a digital Boolean/non-zero value... 0 is off (old style FFB) 1 is on (new, linear FFB.) I do believe some confusion came from this setting as some users thought that the amount of linearity could be dialed in by setting this between 0-10 or 0-1 in decimals. As far as I can tell this will do nothing. The sim only checks to see if it is set to 0 for old style or anything else (1, preferably) for the new linear feedback. Why linear feedback? Previously, 80% of forces sent to our wheels were magnified to enhance their feel, and the other 20% (on the high end of force) were compressed, to fit in the remainder of the available torque your wheel could output. This is desirable as long as you aren't repeatedly crossing that threshold, as you would feel a much more responsive car for 80% of the time. The downfall is whenever you crossed into that 20% of compressed forces, you weren't getting a linear response from the car... as the load on the wheel increased further in the sim, your physical wheel would only respond at about 1/5 the rate. (I realize this is a laymens explanation, and if you wish to read more about it, check out this link: http://members.iracing.com/jforum/po...t/2021536.page ) NOTE: Using linear feedback means that 80% of the forces you were used to feeling will no longer be boosted, because of this, you will most likely have to increase your in-sim force feedback strength. Doubling the numbers is not uncommon, I went from 8 to 17 in the star mazda with my wheel. This is completely dependent on your personal preference and the specific wheel you are using. The second setting pertains to my second favorite bit of the recent release notes: FFB wheels now use FFB effect to limit wheels rotation to the rotation of the virtual car. With this setting: steeringBumpStopDeg=10 Our physical wheels will now output maximum force to resist rotation beyond that of what the sim car is capable of. If the real car only has 370 degrees of rotation, your wheel will stop at 370 as well (providing it is capable of something beyond that, and calibrated correctly.) If you have a 900 degree wheel and had previously short calibrated it, it would be best to recalibrate it accordingly now. To disable this setting you can use -1 and you will get the old behavior from the cars. Numbers 1 through infinity are the amount of degrees you need to turn PAST the maximum rotation before the sim will output maximum resistance. A staff member referred to it as how stiff of a piece of rubber is at the end of the bump stop. Personally I like 10. The stronger your wheel is, the higher you may want to set this to stop from being slammed around when you reach max rotation. Finally, the confusing one: steeringFFBBaseOffset=0.05 From the release notes: forces the FFB motors to output a minimum force. This can help tighten up a wheel around neutral, when the drivers have a lot of FFB dead zone. Settings in the 0.05 to 0.15 range are typical (5% to 15%). I have emphasized what I think is important about that setting. This setting (in percentages where 1= 100%) forces the sim to output a constant amount of force to your wheel. Those of you seeing oscillations at a dead stop who wish to see them cease will want to LOWER this setting if not completely set it to 0. The wheel is oscillating because the sim is sending it a force even when it is not necessary. It is my belief that this is for lower end/weaker/slower wheels to help tighten them up. Much like tightening the screw on an old worm gear steering box, while it improves the feel, it's actually pretty detrimental to the system. The higher you set this, the less linear your feedback will be due to the fact you are forcing the sim to send forces to your wheel regardless of what's happening in the physics. I may add more to this later, but hopefully this little bit will help save people from having to dig through 7 pages of thread to get the basics down.

30 July 12, 17:58	#28
AllanGP Donated Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Wrexham, North Wales, 25 mins from Oulton Park Age: 51	That was a quote by Ron McMahon not me. Part of the solution not all of it!

30 July 12, 21:02	#30
AllanGP Donated Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Wrexham, North Wales, 25 mins from Oulton Park Age: 51	I think we are getting first week euphoria on the Forum's, it's a good step forward but the tyre still needs work. However, it's good enough to be great fun and more drivable. I believe we can now see the NTM will be a major step forward within a couple of builds. (Must find that old post where I predicted it might take two years of development ).

30 July 12, 21:09	#31
AllanGP Donated Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Wrexham, North Wales, 25 mins from Oulton Park Age: 51	Here's a post from David Tucker; There where thousands of changes made in the last 3 months. We have a detailed database of all the changes, but it would take a week to investigate every one of them. With that said, I doubt that we have secretly updated the tires across the board. (Just for reference, 80% of our updates are usually in the graphics models) We did improve the diff, and the clutch (launch/shift). And tweaked the car physics on several vehicles. What ones of those overlap with your vehicle I do not know. I would like to think the FFB updates can account for everything, but I don't think so. However, I did notice that the new steering lock helps a lot when catching a slide. Without it the wheel tends to over-rotate so it takes the FFB motors (and your hands) longer to reverse directions when it is time to counter-steer. The same can be said for the min force setting (eating up the slop around zero). The wheel tended to jump from no FFB to overreacting before, and now it gives a more smooth application of force. That helps keep the wheel pointed in the right direction in a slide. And the linear force does a good job of keeping the wheel from getting overly exited with the small forces (minimizes the oscillations).

30 July 12, 21:29	#33
AllanGP Donated Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Wrexham, North Wales, 25 mins from Oulton Park Age: 51	Take the 6 month free promo under a different e-mail and you can try it for free!

30 July 12, 21:34	#34
Chronus Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Local Group-Milky Way-Sun-Earth Age: 44	No, money iz not zee problemmm. I still don't have my rig and stuff with me. So, simracing is...reading about simracing. How depressing...

30 July 12, 21:36	#35
AllanGP Donated Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Wrexham, North Wales, 25 mins from Oulton Park Age: 51	Ah, okay, shame, it's really good!

30 July 12, 21:40	#36
Chronus Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Local Group-Milky Way-Sun-Earth Age: 44	Nah, no probs. It is also great to be able to read and discuss things with the lot of you right here. So, keep novelties coming, they're most welcome.

31 July 12, 16:25	#37
Hotsocks Join Date: Mar 2007	I've tried the linear FFB setting and it feels miles better IMO, and that's on top of the improvements in catchability for the skip. I held a slide on full lock thanks to the new 'soft full lock' feature. I used to do this at one time by setting the wheel rotation in the Logitech panel per car. But it was a bit of a pain every time you changed car. I've not changed anything else and still have 107% ffb in Logitech panel. Mx-5 feels quite different with linear FFB. It used to react to steering in installments a bit for me. But it's as Allan described now with the Skip, it goes where you direct it, proportionally. What were they thinking? Doesn't seem to be a general tire fix because the V8, for me anyway, is still on ice. Did a double 360 yesterday after touching grass, the second one beginning at around 40mph. I don't get this car at all. I've given up. And If you were bouncing up and down as in real life, good luck with maintaining the degree of throttle control precision the iRacing version requires. Unless it's all about setup. BTW, I did watch some SVG in the V8 from in cockpit at a practice before it had the NTM, and his steering wheel was a blur! Hmmm... Don't know what they've done to the skip, but on the grass, if you spin the wheels up at low speed and then come off the throttle, they grip again almost immediately, whereas before they'd keep wizzing around as though you were still hard on the pedal. I had some amusement drifting it around one of the huts. It used to just spin on me. I'm intrigued to see how it'll effect times. You now don't seem to need to use throttle and excess steering to over-budget the front ties the way a lot of fast drivers did to balance out oversteer. I'd guess it'd be faster to driver properly now. notwithstanding places where in real life it'd help doing a bit of brake + throttle e.g. to minimize weight transfer when just slowing slightly on a fast sweeper.

31 July 12, 16:52	#38
AllanGP Donated Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Wrexham, North Wales, 25 mins from Oulton Park Age: 51	If you are using the base offset above 0.0000 you should have the profiler at 100% otherwise you are controlling the dead centre effect twice.