Mr Latte
Premium
- 5,079
- N Ireland
Alright,
I just did a good 1.5 hrs of testing this Auto Center Spring tweak on my CSR and did a whack of laps on Forza 4 and GT5. I'll start by recanting some of my original observations posted a couple pages ago.
First off the increase in FFB is not as dramatic as I originally thought and that's my fault. When I tested this tweak quickly this afternoon I did so before doing a test run before changing the ACS (auto center spring) and for that I apologize.....it's a cardinal sin to do so in hindsight. It had been a few days since I drove F4 so I assumed I would remember how it felt with little doubt and I was wrong. What I did tonight was revert the wheel back to having ACS turned off and then ran a good 15 laps on a track with a car I know very well and made observations. I then paused the game, powered down the wheel and then proceeded to use the interface on the PC and turn ACS on, power up the wheel and carry on in the game from where I left off piling up another 15 laps.
Comparing ACS on vs off
With F4 the increase in overall FFB was only slight really. On many parts of the track I drove on there was no difference in FFB strength. There were sections of the track that did seem to exert more at given times but the difference wasn't dramatic. It did seem to make the wheel feel a little tighter at center so that change was good. What I didn't like though was that the wheel fights you a bit when quick reflex inputs are required to catch a rearend slide. You could alleviate that by adding DRI in the wheel menu settings but it comes at the price of decreasing the overall FFB strength. I also found that having ACS on dulled or nullified some of the twitch FFB effects.....stuff like grazing the curbing, small bumps, etc. all things that were easily felt with ACS turned off just weren't the same or were gone altogether with it turned on. I also found it effected the feel of under steer as well. F4 does a nice job with FFB as one can feel the grip go away and come back as a car understeers and the wheel goes light on FFB to reflect that to the driver. Again.....it was still there with ACS turned on but the effect was dulled.
In short I prefer ACS off and I'm going to leave it off. My lap times reflected as much as I was faster without it.
Now see thats what I like, honesty and having no problems correcting your previous thoughts before more extended testing. I can relate to what you mean trying to compare from memory rather than immediate or almost instant comparisons. Well done, hopefully others can add to your testing.
I think we will find on the forums some like yourself will find advantages and disadvantages in enableing this feature. The great thing with Fanatec wheels is having the options available for people to personalise how they want the wheel. However we no doubt have raised a point and congrats to "plato" for his obvservations. Im sure more testing might bring more on the subject but I do not think this is a "wonder" feature that makes the wheel much better for all users. It makes the wheel perform different but indeed may have some drawbacks in other ways.
It would be nice to have it available within the menus to turn it on/off
So I hope Thomas responds and gives some input on the matter.