Fanatec CSL Elite Racing Wheel Thread- officially licensed for PS4

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YES!! Firmware update gave me tha feelz! My V3 Pedals don't seem to be vibrating now though, and they did before.... Updated the firmware on them as well.
 
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PhilipsR
Hi Laserbeak43 what firmware are you talking about
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The one labeled *new* here. Once I installed it, it told me that my firmware was outdated. The last time I updated it was when I just got my wheel a few days before or after GTSport's launch.
 
These firmware and compatibity are stacking up against this officially ps4 licensed wheel. From my understanding:
Assetto Corsa: ps4 mode (blue)you can’t map some functions like TC

PC2: Apparantly broken compatibility in ps4(blue), Logitech (purple) and csw (yellow) modes. Even recommending rolling back to older drivers/firmware. Which will rollback GTsport compatibility.
People on the PCars forum can’t seem to agree it needs fixing on the developers side.

GT sport: only in purple mode in new firmware and not in native ps4 mode. Support will be added...eventually

Also how come a very popular and long available formula rim is backordered a few weeks now till 29-12-2017? What the hell they really need 3 months to get new stock?

Asked a few questions via mail, Facebook and referring me to telephone during very select hours (when I’m at work!) or live chat?!?! Where you have to fill in a product code to progress to the chat. I’m a new client I don’t own a fanatec product yet! Eventually I got 2 different answers for the same question from 2 different people. All I wanted to know why it was backordered such a long time (update, revision or refresh). No update, revision or refresh and no explanation.

These where signs for me that there is something wrong there at Fanatec. They produce nice and well thought out high end products for a reasonable price. But they definitely fail in after sales support.
 
Fanatec seems to be confident about the future of the CSL Elite and they even give advices about how to tune it :

In game settings:
The most important is to avoid force feedback clipping. This means the game sends out signals which are to high for the motor to reproduce. You will lose fine signals from the road. If the ff is very active on straights but in corners you only feel the full power but no more details then you probably have clipping. Lower the ff strength in the game (not the wheel) to avoid clipping.

I also suggest to add some small dead zone on the pedal axis which will avoid that you accidentally press a pedal if your foot rests on it.

Tuning parameters on the wheel:

FEI Force Effects Intensity
Always start at 100% and if the effects are too sharp or there is a strong and noisy rattle which you do not like then turn it down to a lower value.

FF Force Feedback
Some games like GTS do not have the option to adjust overall force feedback strength. Therefore you can reduce the strength in wheel. Otherwise I would always suggest to keep this value at 100 and adjust the ff strength in game.

SPR Spring
Very few games use spring effects instead of force effects. This value controls the signal coming from the game. Keep it at 100 unless you notice dull force feedback because there is a permanent spring over all other force effects.

DPR Damper
This option controls only the damper effect signals coming from the game. It really makes sense to keep it at 100 unless an effect really annoys you. Usually a damper makes sense for example when the car is standing and you try to turn the wheel.

DRI Drift
The default is -5 but all values from -5 to 0 will add a damper over all other effects. A natural damper will avoid shaking on straights and also make the car feel more realistic but you might want to choose a higher value if you prefer a faster response from the wheel. Values above 0 will use motor power to artificially accelerate the steering wheel. Please note that this can cause the wheel to shake heavily if you release it. Those higher values are recommended for heavy steering wheels or for drifting in games.
 
poumpoum
Fanatec seems to be confident about the future of the CSL Elite and they even give advices about how to tune it :

In game settings:
The most important is to avoid force feedback clipping. This means the game sends out signals which are to high for the motor to reproduce. You will lose fine signals from the road. If the ff is very active on straights but in corners you only feel the full power but no more details then you probably have clipping. Lower the ff strength in the game (not the wheel) to avoid clipping.

I also suggest to add some small dead zone on the pedal axis which will avoid that you accidentally press a pedal if your foot rests on it.

Tuning parameters on the wheel:

FEI Force Effects Intensity
Always start at 100% and if the effects are too sharp or there is a strong and noisy rattle which you do not like then turn it down to a lower value.

FF Force Feedback
Some games like GTS do not have the option to adjust overall force feedback strength. Therefore you can reduce the strength in wheel. Otherwise I would always suggest to keep this value at 100 and adjust the ff strength in game.

SPR Spring
Very few games use spring effects instead of force effects. This value controls the signal coming from the game. Keep it at 100 unless you notice dull force feedback because there is a permanent spring over all other force effects.

DPR Damper
This option controls only the damper effect signals coming from the game. It really makes sense to keep it at 100 unless an effect really annoys you. Usually a damper makes sense for example when the car is standing and you try to turn the wheel.

DRI Drift
The default is -5 but all values from -5 to 0 will add a damper over all other effects. A natural damper will avoid shaking on straights and also make the car feel more realistic but you might want to choose a higher value if you prefer a faster response from the wheel. Values above 0 will use motor power to artificially accelerate the steering wheel. Please note that this can cause the wheel to shake heavily if you release it. Those higher values are recommended for heavy steering wheels or for drifting in games.
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The issues are still there though. Good thing the CEO is reaching out. But only because technical support was bombarded with complaints and no satisfying answer has been given. If I don’t like the T-GT or if it is a bad batch. I might get a CSL elite if all these issues are fixed. The only racing games I play are gt sport (no native support) and PCars 2 (broken)
 
PocketZeven
The issues are still there though. Good thing the CEO is reaching out. But only because technical support was bombarded with complaints and no satisfying answer has been given. If I don’t like the T-GT or if it is a bad batch. I might get a CSL elite if all these issues are fixed. The only racing games I play are gt sport (no native support) and PCars 2 (broken)
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I also think that those will be my 2 main titles but for Project Cars I will play on both computer AND PS4 but both are "broken" right now and it seems that it is on SMS side.

"SMS changed something fundamental in the communication to our wheels and the intention was to improve ff. Unfortunately this went wrong. But we are in daily contact with them and they work hard on a solution. They love our wheels. AC has great ff on PS 4 and GT Sport works as good as with other wheels. Just the button mapping feels strange as you cannot see our CSL wheel in the options menu. It does work fine though."

So waiting it is :D
 
Thomas has just commented on the blog :

"GT Sports works well in compatibility mode so please go ahead and enjoy this game. No need to wait for anything. They are working on the implementation of advanced features which are not needed to play the game but will add to the experience. Kazunori Yamauchi himself assured me that this implementation will happen within this year."

That's ok for me. I just want a good patch from SMS for Project Cars 2 support and I will buy the wheel :)
 
Interesting! In light of these anouncements I might just well cancel my order for the T-GT. These 2 are the games i primarily play. And the CSLE was my first choice till all these problem arised with PCars2 and no native support for GTsport. I’ll now patiently wait for an update. And then decide to buy.
 
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PocketZeven
Interesting! In light of these anouncements I might just well cancel my order for the T-GT. These 2 are the games i primarily play. And the CSLE was my first choice till all these problem arised with PCars2 and no native support for GTsport. I’ll now patiently wait for an update. And then decide to buy.
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You should not base your decision on issues which will be solved very in a few weeks as you will have fun for many years with such a wheel.
 
Fanatec...
You should not base your decision on issues which will be solved very in a few weeks as you will have fun for many years with such a wheel.
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I disagree with your demeaning remark. I do intensive research before making a decision. Compatibility is very important if one is deciding to pay a fairly large sum of money. The CSLE ps4 is not a new product. Instead of telling me I shouldn’t base my decision on issues which might be solved in a “few” weeks... you should be concentrating on setting a deadline for the updates and apologize for the compatibility issues. Issues like this should be solved a lot quicker in this day and age. I’m not the only one who has gripes, maybe I’ll buy a fanatec product in the future. But please don’t criticize a possible customer for making “wrong” decisions and downplaying compatibility issues as a small thing.
 
You are giving advice to other users and I am giving some advice. You can consider or ignore it. Your choice.

Project Cars 2 as well as GTS work very well in the compatibility mode. Please understand that the other wheel you mentioned also needs a compatibility mode to work with all games.
This is pretty normal on PlayStation.

Although it is certainly not in our hand to make the game developers work on our peripherals you can be assured that they regret that they are not meeting the expectations of our/their customers.

We all work hard on getting the best experience for you and the CSL Elite ist still the most compatible wheel out there even without the Xbox One compatibility as our special features are already supported by several games and not just one. ;)
 
Fanatec...
You are giving advice to other users and I am giving some advice. You can consider or ignore it. Your choice.

Project Cars 2 as well as GTS work very well in the compatibility mode. Please understand that the other wheel you mentioned also needs a compatibility mode to work with all games.
This is pretty normal on PlayStation.

Although it is certainly not in our hand to make the game developers work on our peripherals you can be assured that they regret that they are not meeting the expectations of our/their customers.

We all work hard on getting the best experience for you and the CSL Elite ist still the most compatible wheel out there even without the Xbox One compatibility as our special features are already supported by several games and not just one. ;)
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That’s a much better comment! I may well be a future customer down the line , but for the short term I’ll just have to be patient. I’d recommend posting some recommended “reference” settings for each game (in game settings, not wheel settings) in the future. And yes I read the blogpost of your ceo and it is well appreciated! But some reference settings would help a lot of people out!
 
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PocketZeven
That’s a much better comment! I may well be a future customer down the line , but for the short term I’ll just have to be patient. I’d recommend posting some recommended “reference” settings for each game (in game settings, not wheel settings) in the future. And yes I read the blogpost of your ceo and it is well appreciated! But some reference settings would help a lot of people out!
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Reference settings aren't always useful though as a lot of people use widely different ones to get the FFB feeling how they want.

What I use someone else might consider dead and lifeless because I turn off all the fake FFB effects but lots of people love those and need them to feel what the car is doing. Once you know what you like it's much easier to adjust to what you want and have a baseline profile and/or wheel settings before then adjusting in-game.
 
Fanatec...
Project Cars 2 as well as GTS work very well in the compatibility mode. Please understand that the other wheel you mentioned also needs a compatibility mode to work with all games.
This is pretty normal on PlayStation.

Although it is certainly not in our hand to make the game developers work on our peripherals you can be assured that they regret that they are not meeting the expectations of our/their customers.

We all work hard on getting the best experience for you and the CSL Elite ist still the most compatible wheel out there even without the Xbox One compatibility as our special features are already supported by several games and not just one. ;)
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This is all just silly though. How much did you have to pay Sony for that "Officially Licensed" logo on your box? Seems like a pretty bad deal for peripheral manufacturers from where I'm sitting. As a software engineer I would expect that to mean that your product meets certain reliability/quality and functionality requirements set by Sony to work with a certain set of capabilities that they dictate. How can there not be a common API from Sony being used by device drivers on one side and the games on the other to ensure that core functionality is available in "Officially Licensed" Sony games using "Officially Licensed" peripherals without a bunch of extra special support coded on top of both sides?

Regardless of how that is actually being handled, what's the point of getting "Officially Licensed" if the game developers (of flagship Sony exclusive titles no less) apparently aren't even required to support your device before they can go to market? You are certainly right that it's not in your hands to make the game devs work on your peripherals. It's in Sony's hands. You paid them a lot of money to do that.

To be clear, I don't blame Fanatec or any of the other device manufacturers, at least as I currently understand the environment, but I think releasing a bunch of hacky firmware updates to make the devices sort of work (and apparently creating other problems in the process) in the meantime is counter-productive when the pressure should really be on Sony to provide the capabilities that your licensing fees are paying for. Some of the tempers in the thread might not want to hear it when they are harassing your support staff but every one of them should be referred to someone at Sony to help scream and shout on your behalf.

I have $1000 worth of brand new Fanatec equipment that I've used for about an hour since I received it at the beginning of the month. I'm not gonna sit here compulsively updating firmware and trying different settings just to realize a barely acceptable experience so I wait. But I don't blame you, or PD, or any of the other individual game developers. They shouldn't have to create special, individual support for every possible device Sony slaps a stamp on (whether they want to add extra support for brand specific features on top or later down the road is for them to work out with you all).
 
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it is actually really strange that Sony handles it more like a PC and Microsoft (the company making Windows!) handles it like it should be on a console.

On the Xbox One you have guaranteed compatibility for all games but limited possibilities when it comes to advanced features and innovations and on the PlayStation it is the other way round.

It is a matter of taste I guess.

I would be interested on what is the preference of console wheel users. It seems that there are more wheel users on PS4.
 
GTFraker
I am thinking of buying this set, but I keep hearing about the belt driven system getting loose and lowering FFB, is it true?
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Probably referring to the servobase overheating? This happened a lot with the t300. Because of an internal power supply and insufficient cooling. Never heard about this with a CSL elite.
 
PocketZeven
Probably referring to the servobase overheating? This happened a lot with the t300. Because of an internal power supply and insufficient cooling. Never heard about this with a CSL elite.
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Good to know. There is a big price gap, between a Logtiech or Thrustmaster budget set and a Fanatec bundle, which is why I'm trying to make sure it is warranted.
 
The th8a in usb doesn’t work with the csl on GT Sports.

It works in usb with my t150 but when i unplugged the t150 during a race and plugged the csl, the th8a is disabled.

Is there a solution ? :(
 
FeGabriel
The th8a in usb doesn’t work with the csl on GT Sports.

It works in usb with my t150 but when i unplugged the t150 during a race and plugged the csl, the th8a is disabled.

Is there a solution ? :(
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You have to buy a Fanatec shifter.. Don't think it is possible to mix and match different makes on consoles.
 
I've got a CSL Elite PS4 being delivered Saturday. While I do have a pretty beefy gaming PC, I'm likely going to be using it primarily on a PS4 Pro. Seems like there are some issues currently with the Elite and Project CARS 2? I'm not clear what mode I should be using and/or what happens if I'm in the wrong mode. Could some give the the executive summary?
 
Anyone already checked if the latest GT Sports update adds support the CSL Elite wheel?

EDIT: nm, it's not :(
 
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I posted over in the Assetto Corsa forum as well, but figured it was worth a shot here too. Is Assetto Corsa supposed to recognize the CSL Elite automatically? I don't see a profile for it, only the G29. Base is in blue PS4 mode and I'm running the most recent firmware.

If we're supposed to just create a custom profile, anyone got any good settings they're using in-game and on the wheel for Assetto Corsa on the PS4?
 
Stiggosaurus
I posted over in the Assetto Corsa forum as well, but figured it was worth a shot here too. Is Assetto Corsa supposed to recognize the CSL Elite automatically? I don't see a profile for it, only the G29. Base is in blue PS4 mode and I'm running the most recent firmware.

If we're supposed to just create a custom profile, anyone got any good settings they're using in-game and on the wheel for Assetto Corsa on the PS4?
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There's no profile for it.

Don't remember the names of the settings but just set the overal ffb strength to your liking, I'm using 100, and the other effects and settings to 0/off.
 

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