(1) The Sim Wheel's Effect On Car Control...(Fanatec Example)

[Jump_Ace]

I won't say it again, stop with the off-topic taunting and offensive comments toward the OP. It's one thing to ask for proof, but another when taking personal stabs.


Jerome

 

[Lucas Moreira]

Ok fine - No personal "stabs"

Where is the proof?

Lets see if I got this right

1- Low drag = WIN!!!
2- Super crazy specialized mods everywhere that require a Phd to develop.
3- Such crazy proprietary mods that no one here would ever even understand
4- Cannot even show a picture of said mods because that would be revealing too much even though we already established on number 3 that no one here is smart enough to replicate them in the first place.
5- repeat low drag = win and provide some bogus data.

So now back on topic RacerXX, How would one even go about doing this mod? And at what point does the time and money invested become so high that I may as well invest the money into a Bodnar wheel? heck if all you need is low drag = win why not just buy a CSW and remove the springs that thing must have pretty much ZERO drag.


And for the record your Gifs hardly prove anything. Have you seen any videos out there where ppl demonstrate stuff? Look up ProtoSimTech pedals.. check out what those guys are doing.. and they are planning on selling that stuff!!!

 

[LogiForce]

Low drag is win, because it slows down the spool up and return speed of the FFB motors. This causes a delayed response and initial FFB deadzone.
This delay means that the steering wheel position, and with that virtual tyre position which is directly related to your wheel's position sensor, is behind the position where it should be in that point of time.
In other words, because of the delay the wheel is not responding linear anymore to the Physics going on inside the game. When this linearity is out of sync with the Physics you are unable to react in time to what the car is doing or wants to do.

Go watch this Leo Bodnar steering wheel review. The guy is impressed by just how linear and thus direct the wheel responds to the game's Physics.

Only embedded the last part, as it is only that which is relevant.





Talking about linearity, here is why I dislike weight transfer effects being added to the FFB signal. Or actually any 'canned effect'.

I wrote this just now at WMD in reply to a member, but I thought I would share.

He asked me why games like AC and others felt more heavier with his G25 and why pCARS doesn't.

That is because other games often add or completely base their FFB on the car's weight transfer. A fake force that counteracts the direction you are supposed to steer in.
With a G25 it seems to feel 'okay' but once you have a better more powerful wheel than it feels horrible and works against you instead of with you. This because the more powerful wheel makes it harder to overcome the weight transfer effect for you as a driver, as the effect is too powerful. This in contrast with a G25 where you could still easily overcome this force and point the wheels in the correct direction, with a T500 it would work so much against you that you are constantly one step behind the Physics.
This effect can be enabled and adjusted in the FFBTweakers though. It is in the FFBTweaker documentation.

Then he wondered why I couldn't just turn down the global FFB strength of my wheel to counter the strength of the weight transfer effect. Here was my reply.

Yeah, but that's just a general volume dial. One general dial that controls two things at once, strength/torque and rotational speed.
Let's say the car wants the tyres to be at a certain angle and this corresponds to 90 degrees wheel rotation, within 1 second. The car Physics expect that the tyres are always at their center of steering.
Now let's say for example that with full linear force to the left (let's say +100%), the steering wheel rotates 90 degrees in 1 second. This steering position is feedback to the game and is directly related to tyre position/angle.
If we do the same but add weight transfer the counter. If the weight transfer counts as 50% because we drive a tail heavy car, than the force that turns the wheel to the left is only 50%. Which means that at our 1 second mark the wheel will only he at 45 degrees, halfway of where it should be.
In other words, we would need 2 seconds to get to 90 degrees steering wheel angle. That's a delay of 1 second in which the Physics could require a completely different steering wheel and thus tyre angle.
Now if we would turn that general volume dial down to 50% general volume, if at 100% it would be perfectly linear. We would get 50% strength and results in just 45 degrees in 1 second, because not only did we turn down the strength but also the rotational speed.
Now with weight transfer and half the general volume we would have a turning strength of 25% that results in turning just 22.5 degrees angle on the steering wheel.
In other words we would need 4 seconds to get to 90 degrees steering angle, while the Physics wants you to be there in 1 second
So with stronger wheels we either would need to use more muscle to counter intuitively fight the fake weight transfer effect, or make it easier on the muscles but have a huge delay behind the Physics.
All in all, the wheel would feel out of sync with what is going on Physics wise.

Hope this was of interest to some of you guys.
Basically the answer was that if you want more strength from a wheel, get a stronger wheel. But keep the FFB signal as pure as possible so that it doesn't cause a delay and odd effects, amking everything feel out of sync.

Linearity is the key, and buy strength with your dollars (unfortunately as I crave a Bodnar wheel).

 

[eKretz]

OMG where is the forehead slapping smiley when you need it, lol. You guys crack me up.

RXX great job, keep up the awesome tips. I'm glad to see you posting some pics a bit at least and describing some of your thoughts a little more. 👍

 

[fatkrakr]

Its getting deep in hear. Next time I enter this thread Ill be wearing my boots.

 

[eKretz]

With a G25 it seems to feel 'okay' but once you have a better more powerful wheel than it feels horrible and works against you instead of with you. This because the more powerful wheel makes it harder to overcome the weight transfer effect for you as a driver, as the effect is too powerful. This in contrast with a G25 where you could still easily overcome this force and point the wheels in the correct direction, with a T500 it would work so much against you that you are constantly one step behind the Physics.

Forgot to say earlier - the bolded part here is what I was talking about a while back when I mentioned that same subject in the mod thread. The current state of FFB is that they have tuned the effects to be correct for weak wheels - which boosts a lot of smaller effects. With a strong wheel these are much too strong as-is. A lot of PC sims let you adjust the strength of many of the individual effects though so sometimes you can dial it in pretty decent. On the consoles though you're pretty much stuck with what they give you.

As far as linearity, this is tuneable in most PC sims also, by tweaking the settings. The in-wheel tuning menu also has significant effect on linearity. Once 'drag' friction is reduced to a certain level there is no further merit to reducing it more, IMO. It's basically just chasing the dragon on a personal crusade. Kind of like the stuff about the rotation limiting nut RXX mentioned. There's no reason to worry about a little added friction at the end of travel. That reaches the point of modding for modding's sake, as it was put in another forum. There are many other things to work on that would be more beneficial in Fanatec wheels, such as reducing rotating inertia, (think of all the comments from people who feel the difference switching from the F1 rim to the GT rim) improving cooling in stock motored wheels, etc.

 

[LogiForce]

Forgot to say earlier - the bolded part here is what I was talking about a while back when I mentioned that same subject in the mod thread. The current state of FFB is that they have tuned the effects to be correct for weak wheels - which boosts a lot of smaller effects. With a strong wheel these are much too strong as-is. A lot of PC sims let you adjust the strength of many of the individual effects though so sometimes you can dial it in pretty decent. On the consoles though you're pretty much stuck with what they give you.

As far as linearity, this is tuneable in most PC sims also, by tweaking the settings. The in-wheel tuning menu also has significant effect on linearity. Once 'drag' friction is reduced to a certain level there is no further merit to reducing it more, IMO. It's basically just chasing the dragon on a personal crusade. Kind of like the stuff about the rotation limiting nut RXX mentioned. There's no reason to worry about a little added friction at the end of travel. That reaches the point of modding for modding's sake, as it was put in another forum. There are many other things to work on that would be more beneficial in Fanatec wheels, such as reducing rotating inertia, (think of all the comments from people who feel the difference switching from the F1 rim to the GT rim) improving cooling in stock motored wheels, etc.

Full heartedly agree with this.
What you bolded out and are saying about effects is also what I talked about in the quoted parts (of something I said at WMD/pCARS forum) of my previous post on this page.
The weight transfer effect that I talked about there (easy example as it counteracts the rotation), that one often used in sims feels good on weak wheels but ends up working against you the more powerful the wheel becomes. In fact it starts to become counterintuitive and/or will throw the FFB out of sync with the Physics going on in the game.
Hence I am pro-linear uncanned/not faked FFB effects that are calculated directly from the Physics engine and went through actual suspension and steering geometry figures. It might feel weak and 'not fun' but it does feel a whole lot more intuitive once you adapt to it, and with a more powerful wheel it feels that much better.

Drag does play a roll, but at some point it is negligible like you say eKretz. Like in a car with the brakes applied it doesn't accelerate well, but it doesn't matter if the brake pad lightly presses or leans against the brake disc. Same case here.

 

[RacerXX]

Okay a little on-topic update. I've been running my new zero drag mechanical end stops for a few days now. They have very slightly lower drag around center than stock (~ zero now versus miniscule stock). The stock limiter is not too bad there of course. The new arrangement has basically zero drag at the ends of travel which is way lower than stock and why I designed and built them. This is because stock necessarily runs into some thread-bind friction. I played with clocking the plastic piece, shimming, flipping it so that Fanatec faces the other way and so forth. That plastic part to shaft thread behavior is the weak link there IMO. I dispensed with those pieces to good effect, I like devices with very simple but functional designs.

I can now do <= 15 grams at the Formula Rim outside diameter which means on the (larger diameter) GT rim I will be lower than that. But I can't say that I feel it per se as drag is now so low in the first place. I'll keep monitoring it.

The new mechanical end stop design has basically zero drag when it is mechanically stopping travel and this is very apparent in-hand. The wheel now quietly and immediately bounces off of the end stops and two effects are apparent.

The first is that startup is compromised at the moment. It seems that what the firmware is doing is waiting for a period of zero RPMs after it sends the wheel clockwise towards the mechanical stop. My new stops have such low drag and the accompanying immediate bounce back action that this occasionally confuses the startup process which was tuned for high drag and end stops with some stiction lol. If that happens I have to reach over and just hold the wheel perfectly still at the RH limit and then it will continue the process. When the wheel heads back the other way it then physically bounces off off the LH limiter after drive is cut just past centered/straight ahead. I may tweak firmware or just come up with a different startup procedure.

The other thing I am noticing is that my Wheelcheck results have improved. Whereas before I was clacking the end stops if I had the wheel set aggressively, now it is quiet by comparison and the wheel gets back up to speed more rapidly than with the stock travel limiter in place. The traces are squarer and less rounded at their leading edge. This is likely due to the lower drag at the ends of travel no longer consuming drive torque first in order to overcome that friction. Instead the motor's output goes to work moving the wheel just as intended.

I'll check drag and linearity some more, they are pretty much optimized at this point. That's why I can come to some of the on-track conclusions I've noted earlier in this thread. I've done a fair amount of 240 FPS video recording of racing and so I can say what I've said about it being faster with some confidence. You can just compare low drag and high drag setups and when the video is examined you can see what is happening when on-track speed is being found.

Some of you may recall an old video I did where I flung the wheel from the LH stop and it traveled the 900º, bounced off the stock end stop and then came back some amount. This was from when I first started getting the drag down where I wanted it. IIRC the total travel was around 1200-1300º. But end stop drag was consuming some of the wheel's energy when the end limits were hit. With basic drag mods but stock stops, the end stops were consuming energy that could have been used to keep the wheel moving. With this addressed the wheel can bounce back and forth between the stop several times before finally stopping lol. So that would be a few thousand degrees of travel when flung from the LH stop. That is quite a change from stock.

Since my stops are now adjustable, I can set it up for say 700º or 1080º (three turns lock to lock) or more and I will play with that as time allows. Some side effects or odd behavior may be found such as I noted above about the startup process requiring some end stop drag.

EDIT: Tweaked my new stops for a "Startup Mode"...has a slight delay but it's acceptable. No more need to hand hold the rig at the RH stop.

 

[eKretz]

I would love to see the evidence (not a video showing just a steering wheel).

 

[RacerXX]

Until the teflon shows up, this umbilical cable wrap has less drag than the stock soft/grippy clear vinyl hose. And it can be laid out more effectively.

 

[fatkrakr]

Until the teflon shows up, this umbilical cable wrap has less drag than the stock soft/grippy clear vinyl hose. And it can be laid out more effectively.

Ill agree reducing drag can have benefits, IF its enough drag to be significant. I can blow on the wheel rim and produce more drag than that piece of hose is causing.

 

[oqvist]

my simraceway s1 wheel has zero drag

 

[RacerXX]

Ill agree reducing drag can have benefits, IF its enough drag to be significant. I can blow on the wheel rim and produce more drag than that piece of hose is causing.

I agree it does not create much drag, especially on a wheel with stock or near-stock levels of drag. When I did my Zero Drag End Stop™ install I had the umbilical cable out and so I simply could not resist doing the swap out. ;-) It takes maybe one minute once you are there and used about 12 cents worth of material. My overall drag is now so low that the Formula Wheel tends to stop upside down if wheel centering is not used. This is due to the top of the wheel being heavier than the bottom relative to the center of rotation.

As I test my wheel in different positions, there are spots here and there that have more or less drag than others. There are also some spots where the wheel more frequently stops indicating something => a clue for the attentive. Part of this is related to things like belt and motor aspects. Those can be isolated by shifting belt and motor position and then retesting. Things like the soft vinyl umbilical scraping on the ID of the main axle and the wires it contains contribute to drag. Do many little things like this over a long period of time and you wind up in better shape drag-wise. You also lay out the wiring so that when headed straight ahead there is no tendency to twist in either direction.

If you take a piece of smooth aluminum (like the axle) and slide the stock vinyl across it (it's important to match materials and finish when testing surface to surface friction), you can feel the stiction. Do it again with the convoluted tubing and it just slides by comparison. I may line the ID of the axle with teflon as I have some split tubing that would simply pop into place and just sit there nice and secure.

 

[Lucas Moreira]

I don't think RacerXX can actually see any of our posts.. It seems like he is basically just talking to himself.

Never adresses any of the questions posted here...

Sure the CSW has mechanical drag but who really cares? I am strong enough to overcome it and don't have problems correcting slides.

I guess what we are trying to say here is that sure Low Drag = Win. But I don't think anyone here actually believes the CLAIMS you are making about how LOW of a drag you have been able to achieve.

All you do is talk, you don't show any evidence, any actual numbers or any way to acertain that your numbers aren't just made up.

 

[MartyU]

I don't think RacerXX can actually see any of our posts.. It seems like he is basically just talking to himself.

Never adresses any of the questions posted here...

Sure the CSW has mechanical drag but who really cares? I am strong enough to overcome it and don't have problems correcting slides.

I guess what we are trying to say here is that sure Low Drag = Win. But I don't think anyone here actually believes the CLAIMS you are making about how LOW of a drag you have been able to achieve.

All you do is talk, you don't show any evidence, any actual numbers or any way to acertain that your numbers aren't just made up.

It appears he has blocked seeing posts from ppl who either question his posts or ask for him to share what he's doing

 

[eKretz]

I think he has done mods and decreased drag, I'm just not entirely convinced some of the results aren't a little fudged by using methods you couldn't actually race with. Or that there's not such extensive "modding" done that it's more a completely different wheel than one using stock parts that are slightly tweaked. (Think $$$$).

On an unrelated note, the TM stuff seems to be wearing a little thin - on me at least. It's starting to make you sound a bit pretentious.

 

[mrbasher]

It's Space Butter™

 

[Cote Dazur]

I am following this thread because it is interesting to me, even though Racer is not sharing as much as other, no one is forced to read this particular thread, it is choice to answer or not.
I must admit that I got a smile from: => a clue for the attentive, on post #73.
In any case, the concept is sound, less drag is better, whatever tip or info we get is good to know.

Who knows, one day Racer will show something that will amaze us and we can all beneficiate from, like other have already done by sharing their (hard) work and ingenuity.

 

[Paul33993]

I am following this thread because it is interesting to me, even though Racer is not sharing as much as other, no one is forced to read this particular thread, it is choice to answer or not.
I must admit that I got a smile from: => a clue for the attentive, on post #73.
In any case, the concept is sound, less drag is better, whatever tip or info we get is good to know.

Who knows, one day Racer will show something that will amaze us and we can all beneficiate from, like other have already done by sharing their (hard) work and ingenuity.

I think it's interesting too, but I can see why people have had short fuses. The OP continually posted long blocks of text, but when asked what he was doing, replied that it would take months for him to explain everything he'd done.

At the risk of offending people with my bluntness, surely a single photograph of the interior would have been a lot quicker than a single block of text that was constantly being posted (without any hints whatsoever what was being done to accomplish this low drag). And I think that's why some attitude formed. Especially when honest attempts at understanding what OP was talking about were routinely ignored completely.

 

[Cote Dazur]

All true Paul, but then why do they keep reading? Racer has been the way he his since I have been reading his post.
I have a fairly long ignored list, as if someone's post do not interest me for any reason, I do not get frustrated reading it, I do not tell them how I would like them to post, I choose my camp and live with the consequence.
This thread is not mendatory reading, especialy if it is frustrating for anyone.

 

[Lucas Moreira]

I think it's interesting too, but I can see why people have had short fuses. The OP continually posted long blocks of text, but when asked what he was doing, replied that it would take months for him to explain everything he'd done.

At the risk of offending people with my bluntness, surely a single photograph of the interior would have been a lot quicker than a single block of text that was constantly being posted (without any hints whatsoever what was being done to accomplish this low drag). And I think that's why some attitude formed. Especially when honest attempts at understanding what OP was talking about were routinely ignored completely.

Could not have said it better myself. I will grant that yes the concept is sound.. less drag = win. That is not the issue here. The issue is that he is making some pretty outlandish claims and his "evidence" gifs could easily be doctored or achieved without ACTUALLY making a usable mod.

The thing is I don't believe his claims and I am not the only one. I could also claim that my CSW has been extensivelly modded and that now it has NEGATIVE drag.. can you imagine. Just like mr.Basher is saying, I patented and trademarked Space Butter ( Over at iRacing forum) and I have been applying it liberally on my CSW and now I have negative drag. But I am not going to show any pictures or explain how I made the butter because it takes months to explain..

See what I am getting at? I just wish the OP would EVER release any information that makese sense. I can go on and on about the BENEFITS of reducing drag or as Eric mentioned earlier, the benefits of reducing weight on the rim but that doesn't really help anyone achieve that goal.

What really yanks my chain tho is that he clearly thinks of himself as some sort of superior god of sim racing modding but yet shares absolutely NO USABLE INFORMATION.

To me it all sounds very bogus. I have only been coming back to this thread in the hopes that he would either post proof or be unmasked as a fraud once and for all so we can all move on.


Sure I could just stop reading this thread and completely ignore this but something about liars just irks me and he doesn't contain his diatribes to just this thread.

 

[novadave]

Sorry guys but this has become just too funny - Space Butter - really

 

[eKretz]

Honestly guys I'm starting to think he feeds on this. Some kind of weird desire for adulation or something maybe. Very odd duck. As far as the clue for the attentive - you need to be attentive to read any of his posts because there is so much chaff in with the wheat. Half the time I fall asleep at least 3 times reading one of his posts, lol.

 

[mrbasher]

I'd simply put him on ignore if I weren't worried about him subtly slandering me as he has in the past. That is the only reason I read his posts. I feel I have to. Maybe that's unique to me given I offer products and services.

So, this is my last post on this topic and if the above occurs, I'll simply handle it outside the topic/forum.

Good luck to you guys. I hope you get the info you are looking for at some point.

basherman - out!

 

[Lucas Moreira]

I think you guys might be right. I remember reading one of his posts a little further back in which he made it sound like his hobby is to post on forums more so than to actually race.

I don't know what sim this guy is into but over at iRacing he hasn't even turned a lap as far as I can tell. It almost seems to me like he doesn't even sim race at all and all he does is go on and on about low drag = win.

Also, if he thinks that people calling ******** is adulation he might need some professional help here.

 

[Paul33993]

All true Paul, but then why do they keep reading? Racer has been the way he his since I have been reading his post.
I have a fairly long ignored list, as if someone's post do not interest me for any reason, I do not get frustrated reading it, I do not tell them how I would like them to post, I choose my camp and live with the consequence.
This thread is not mendatory reading, especialy if it is frustrating for anyone.

I read it when it first came out, and then recently read through it again to see if there was any useful info added since that time. Can't blame a person for wanting to know if super cool info has been posted. Isn't that why many of us post here? We're serial modders?

 

[eKretz]

I feel much the same as Basher honestly. I still feel like this thread would never have even been here at all (nor posted in the mod thread) if he had gotten his way in the mod thread. He has been promising to show his "awesome mods" "when he gets time" for over a year now. Every single time someone gets after him about posting a simple pic he responds with the same spiel. "After some of the things Mr. X has done (not all have been publicly shared) I find it extremely easy to believe the sole purpose of starting this thread was to take a subtle dig at my mod. Though certainly as we all know that will be denied.

Of course everyone still reads - our human nature drives us all to look for the good in anyone. Everyone who comes back to read this guy's posts always has it in the back of their head -"Maybe this time he might actually post something worth a sh@t." And I guess adulation is probably the wrong word. He just enjoys keeping everyone hanging. Teasing a little something and never delivering so people DO keep reading. Maybe a need to feel important? I dunno. Needs professional help? Probably. Love to act like a ****-tease but with info instead? Definitely.

 

[MartyU]

Glad I'm not the only one annoyed by those who talk the talk but fail to walk the walk as in show what you've done. Its just intellectual self gratification...if you know what I mean...wink wink, nudge nudge.

 

[JohnBodin]

Sorry, haven't bothered to read any of this thread, but every time I see the thread title ("The Sim Wheel's Effect On Car Control") it makes me chuckle, because the first thought that pops into my mind is, "You turn the wheel, the car turns -- what else is there to discuss?"

 

[LeMansAid]

..... surely a single photograph of the interior would have been a lot quicker than a single block of text that was constantly being posted

Clearly he's massively reduced drag levels in his fingers and can type incredibly fast though. It's obvious really.