Learning to race with the G923/steering lock problems

  • Thread starter dcalde78
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dcalde78
I decided to treat myself recently and bought a G923 after years of wanting a wheel and pedal setup. I'm a relatively decent racer with the DS4, managing to hang about in the mid A/S rating for the most part.

Now I did expect for there to be a learning curve when swapping to a wheel, it would be stupid of me to expect that I'd match my times on controller straight away, but I seem to be having sever issues with managing to control cars properly with my wheel. Regardless of settings, I can never seem to get enough steering lock put on to make turns comfortably, and if I start to slide, I am never able to catch it and I inevitably spin.

I fully understand the difference between the steering capability of an analog stick which allows for full lock very quickly and a 900 degree rotation wheel. But when I'm having trouble beating the standard difficulty AI with my wheel when I can walk all over the hard AI with a controller, this seems like more than just a personal skill issue.
 
I decided to treat myself recently and bought a G923 after years of wanting a wheel and pedal setup. I'm a relatively decent racer with the DS4, managing to hang about in the mid A/S rating for the most part.

Now I did expect for there to be a learning curve when swapping to a wheel, it would be stupid of me to expect that I'd match my times on controller straight away, but I seem to be having sever issues with managing to control cars properly with my wheel. Regardless of settings, I can never seem to get enough steering lock put on to make turns comfortably, and if I start to slide, I am never able to catch it and I inevitably spin.

I fully understand the difference between the steering capability of an analog stick which allows for full lock very quickly and a 900 degree rotation wheel. But when I'm having trouble beating the standard difficulty AI with my wheel when I can walk all over the hard AI with a controller, this seems like more than just a personal skill issue.
When transitioning from pad to wheel its worth going back and redoing all the driving school challenges as you need to relearn basic car control. It seems like a lot of people when moving to a wheel are too jerky with the steering, so you need to practice smooth motion and not being too aggressive with your inputs.

Stick at it though as it's worth it in the end. Took me a couple of months by the way!
 
I decided to treat myself recently and bought a G923 after years of wanting a wheel and pedal setup. I'm a relatively decent racer with the DS4, managing to hang about in the mid A/S rating for the most part.

Now I did expect for there to be a learning curve when swapping to a wheel, it would be stupid of me to expect that I'd match my times on controller straight away, but I seem to be having sever issues with managing to control cars properly with my wheel. Regardless of settings, I can never seem to get enough steering lock put on to make turns comfortably, and if I start to slide, I am never able to catch it and I inevitably spin.

I fully understand the difference between the steering capability of an analog stick which allows for full lock very quickly and a 900 degree rotation wheel. But when I'm having trouble beating the standard difficulty AI with my wheel when I can walk all over the hard AI with a controller, this seems like more than just a personal skill issue.
How far are you rotating the wheel in tight corners? Also what steering sensitivity, FFB and FFS settings are you using?
 
How far are you rotating the wheel in tight corners? Also what steering sensitivity, FFB and FFS settings are you using?
I've been trying a multitude of different settings, gooogling to find out what settings are best (though it is obviously a subjective thing). I've just been trying to make the car as responsive as possible, but I can just never seem to get enough lock on quickly enough to be able to save slides. Seems a bit of a missed trick to not have a setting for that in the menus somewhere along with the FFB settings. At the moment I'm running 5/5/10 and trying to get my eye on with slower cars in single player events but any time I get sideways, it turns to a full spin
 
I'm on the same journey as you right now. Had a wheel just before Christmas. It takes time. I'm still around 1 to .5 seconds off my pad times right now but I am seeing me match them on the odd lap. So I'm getting there.

It learning the throttle control more for me at the moment. I'm a little heavy with the right foot so the back end always wants to over take the front. Group 4s and the Porsche I can manage right now. Other Gr3s and its a struggle
 
It just takes practice man. Don't get discouraged. What I did was get into the slowest car I had and go for a lap around the ring. You will feel the limits better with more time to react. It comes down to muscle memory for the most part and that takes a day or two at least. As for the steering lock, you really have to physically turn the wheel. I never have to cross hands or anything but you have to be quick and precise while turning the wheel. That's why I feel a controller is ridiculous in sport mode.
 
Unlike a real car you can't have any brake input and turn wheel the car will just go straight.
 
I started out gt7 on controller and I'm probably about even in terms of pace at the moment with wheel since getting one, but still feel like I can do some things better on controller and some better on wheel.

I agree with you on the slides. I still have a hard time catching a slide on a wheel compared to on controller. The only way I manage to deal with it is by being ultra aware and trying to catch it super early and lift off the accelerator and slam the breaks, but I therefore feel like I lose more time on wheel than controller. I just have no control under loss of traction, which is why drifting is impossible for me as well.

The steering lock issue I don't really have. In fact I feel tight turns are a lot easier on wheel, particularly for grade 2 and up. That said I rarely/never lock out the wheel (at 540 degrees one way for a total 900 rotation). On controller when you move the analogue stick as far left or right as it goes you're not actually locking out the steering. The game applies an algorithm which gradually increases the steering angle. With a wheel you can reach the required steering angles quicker. I have also been meaning to reduce the range of motion of the wheel as well to test that and make it 360 or 540 degrees, since I never turn it the full 900 anyway, but not sure if that will be better or worse. The game automatically adjusts the rotation possible to the car though, e.g. the superformula car locks out at 360 or something.

Another benefit with wheel and pedals is that I find it much easier to trail brake and give partial throttle down to say 10-15% accuracy with actual pedals.
 
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Re-running license tests and grinding them for as quick time as possible is a good way to learn the wheel.

I use FFB 8/6 (G29) , gives enought detail to catch slides & overall feel of the car's movements.
 
Practice, practice and more practice.
As for in game settings 5 & 1 (FFB & Sens) seems to be the most recommended, anything over 5 results in clipping supposedly.
 
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It just takes practice man. Don't get discouraged. What I did was get into the slowest car I had and go for a lap around the ring. You will feel the limits better with more time to react. It comes down to muscle memory for the most part and that takes a day or two at least. As for the steering lock, you really have to physically turn the wheel. I never have to cross hands or anything but you have to be quick and precise while turning the wheel. That's why I feel a controller is ridiculous in sport mode.
It's pretty hard not to be discouraged when I go from being a decent racer to being unable to beat regular difficulty AI, let alone compete properly in Sport. I really don't understand the lack of a rotation limit in the menus, it seems to be a pretty glaring omission and there a good few posts on this forum saying that one of the updates made it so that there was more steering input needed.
 
It's pretty hard not to be discouraged when I go from being a decent racer to being unable to beat regular difficulty AI, let alone compete properly in Sport. I really don't understand the lack of a rotation limit in the menus, it seems to be a pretty glaring omission and there a good few posts on this forum saying that one of the updates made it so that there was more steering input needed.
The game adjusts the rotation limit depending on the car. But you can manually adjust it in Logitech g hub as well.
 
Try to get a feel how far you can turn. If you turn too much, you will have severe understeer slowing you down massively. More is not always better. I haven't played GT7 with a Logitech wheel so I'm not 100% sure, but you should get some feedback from the wheel (vibrations) when you start to have understeer.
Also, even with a pad, you don't have the full steering lock immediately. Even if you put the stick to either side quickly, the game will do the turning more progressively.
 
Whatever you do.... don't have racing tires equipped and drive slow... It feels like your wheel will destroy itself.

Even going forwards and backwards slowly is enough to cause insane vibrations.

It's the worst with racing tires and driving at really low-speeds lower than 30km/h

Turning off vibration does nothing. Turning the FFB settings lower also do nothing.

Been using a wheel across a few games and on PC but using a wheel for drifting or cruising online in this game is off-putting to say the least. As long as you don't slow down its okay I guess...

Why is it so messed up while using the wheel with GT7?

I guess we shouldn't be driving slow or something? 🤷‍♂️
 
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Do changes made in GHub carry across to when the wheel is used on a Playstation?

I'm pretty sure they do. I got that info and the settings I use from a sim racing site I visited that I can't recall but, it was like the 5th Google result.

Make sure your FFB is no more than 4 and sensitivity is 1 or 2. The wheel can't physically handle anything more than that and when it tries to, it gives you bad info. Also update the firmware if you haven't.

I was mad when I first got my wheel. I'm sure most of us that have one went through some self doubt, anger and regret about blowing hundreds of dollars on what amounts to disappointment. Keep at it though and soon you'll see the benefits of it and then it will feel weird driving in GTA with a controller.
 
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