New FFB WIP!! Forza 7 PC wheel impressions/settings guide UPDATED

  • Thread starter Blue028
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Ialyrn
You are not been realistic at all, you are been rather closed minded to what is currently going on. Wheel setups matter immensely, not everyone has the same devices. When it comes to wheel setups on PC, then you are very naive. When you think about all the different setups people can have on PC, the different parts people mix and match; the differing driver settings. Everyone has a different personal opinion on what the FFB should feel like as well, so we all use different settings. Giving the dev that is talking to us the relevant information will help more than I think you realise it will, it means that dev can input those settings on his end, it means he can use the wheel setups we have. If they do not have a particular wheel, well its a company owned by microsoft; so I would hope they would buy in the kit they needed to do the relevant testing with. On top of that you also have to contend with varying motherboards when it comes to PC, all with their own USB setups. So you have USB 2.0, USB 3.1 and USB 3.1, and unlike the xbox one; they are not set drivers across the board for it. There are so many variables when it comes to this stuff, that there is always something new to find out, to investigate, and to fix.

So as I asked you already, drop the chip you clearly have on your shoulders for the time being, provide some constructive information for the dev who is asking for it, give him the benefit of the doubt; be part of the solution and not part of the problem. Being abrasive over this isnt going to help anyone. If nothing changes, then fair enough; distrust T10 all you want. But for once we seem to have someone at T10 who does want to get to the bottom of this.
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Are you honestly trying to blame it on USB 3.1 vs 2.0 :odd:.

I have no grudges about anything, I just know how marketing these things works and am being realistic, if you are expecting a big change I can assure you, you will only be left disappointed. Given the resources T10 command the fact they can't get close to teams who have one guy doing all the physics and FFB is just embarrassing and I don't blame that on this guy, it is all on Greenawalt for not caring about important things like proper FFB.
 
F Inferno
Are you honestly trying to blame it on USB 3.1 vs 2.0
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A PC is an open platform, a platform where devices and drivers are not strictly controlled by Microsoft like on the xbox one console. They micromanage everything that is on the console, they can not do that for PC. So everyone has different devices, different driver versions, so on and so forth. This alone adds in a ton more variables, and brings a lot of new headaches to the table for a dev that has made only really made console games for the past decade. Only in the last couple of years have T10 ventured into the PC scape.

If it is a marketing ploy that they are doing via this dev that is posting, then it is a deviation from how T10 have worked in the past. Normally we get zero interaction over these things, let alone asking for us to provide information to help them ascertain what is going on. Fair enough, if it turns out to be as you suspect; then just say "I told you so" if nothing changes in the full game or shortly after release.

Its not like this is my first forza game, I have played them all. It isnt even my first racing franchise. I have been playing them since 1989, I have played them on everything from a keyboard (amstrad cpc and windows), game pads (consoles and windows), joysticks and racing wheels. Hell, sat right here with me I have a T300 RS-GT, a G27, a G920, and a Microsoft wireless racing wheel. Back at my mums I have an old Microsoft sidewinder force feedback wheel. I even used to spend my weekends playing Sega Rally, Ridge racer and countless other racing games at the local gaming arcades. So it isnt like I do not get how bad the FFB is in forza, or how it is better in other racing games; both old and new.

At least give the guy and T10 a chance while they are asking for community feedback, because it is something they normally never do. Much better to provide the requested information, than to just sulk in a corner acting like the Question from the DCU trying to make countless conspiracy theories.
 
Ialyrn
A PC is an open platform, a platform where devices and drivers are not strictly controlled by Microsoft like on the xbox one console. They micromanage everything that is on the console, they can not do that for PC. So everyone has different devices, different driver versions, so on and so forth. This alone adds in a ton more variables, and brings a lot of new headaches to the table for a dev that has made only really made console games for the past decade. Only in the last couple of years have T10 ventured into the PC scape.

If it is a marketing ploy that they are doing via this dev that is posting, then it is a deviation from how T10 have worked in the past. Normally we get zero interaction over these things, let alone asking for us to provide information to help them ascertain what is going on. Fair enough, if it turns out to be as you suspect; then just say "I told you so" if nothing changes in the full game or shortly after release.

Its not like this is my first forza game, I have played them all. It isnt even my first racing franchise. I have been playing them since 1989, I have played them on everything from a keyboard (amstrad cpc and windows), game pads (consoles and windows), joysticks and racing wheels. Hell, sat right here with me I have a T300 RS-GT, a G27, a G920, and a Microsoft wireless racing wheel. Back at my mums I have an old Microsoft sidewinder force feedback wheel. I even used to spend my weekends playing Sega Rally, Ridge racer and countless other racing games at the local gaming arcades. So it isnt like I do not get how bad the FFB is in forza, or how it is better in other racing games; both old and new.

At least give the guy and T10 a chance while they are asking for community feedback, because it is something they normally never do. Much better to provide the requested information, than to just sulk in a corner acting like the Question from the DCU trying to make countless conspiracy theories.
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You're acting like I went in there throwing insults at the guy when all I said was if he can't fix it take a leaf out of Codemasters book a find someone in the community who can and happily will because they want to play the game with a wheel.

I've kept my opinions/theories to this thread and if he does manage to fix it then I will leave positive feedback there too.

I have a lot of nostalgia for FM1 & 2 but I don't really agree with the direction Greenawalt has taken the game in and his lack of interest in racing and complaining about not liking getting beaten online and being at the back of the grid is painful to hear but I'm willing to give it one more try with the PC release as there isn't anything else like it on PC. My enjoyment would just be higher with proper wheel FFB, I'm not expecting best in class but something useable as Apex was undriveable trying to race on the limit.

Given sales numbers have been steadily declining I think a good majority of the community who keep quiet are also burnt out/not liking it's direction though, why is there still no qualifying?! Anyway I'm going off topic now so once I've tried it myself to get an in depth feel of it I'll return with my thoughts.
 
I've only driven the 911 and GT-R so far and my feelings are mixed. The 911 wasn't exactly pleasant to drive but the GT-R was a little better.

These are just first impressions though and I plan to play the demo some more in the future and test some settings. But based on this first experience, I'm considering if I should just use the controller for FM7 and my wheel for PCARS 2 when I eventually get it.
 
I would love to know why there is no option to change the degrees of rotation on PC. I've even tried going into the Thrustmaster control panel and changing it manually but it makes no difference at all, pretty disappointing to be honest. :banghead:
 
MajorPayne32
I would love to know why there is no option to change the degrees of rotation on PC. I've even tried going into the Thrustmaster control panel and changing it manually but it makes no difference at all, pretty disappointing to be honest. :banghead:
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My assumption is that you need to set it in the driver for your particular wheel, much like you would do for almost all other racing games on the PC.
 
Ialyrn
My assumption is that you need to set it in the driver for your particular wheel, much like you would do for almost all other racing games on the PC.
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I've tried that, I have a T300rs and in the control panel settings my wheel is set to 720 degrees but it makes no difference. It feels like I only have about 180 degrees of rotation when I'm playing Forza. But it's all good, I'll just have to get used to it.
 
MajorPayne32
I've tried that, I have a T300rs and in the control panel settings my wheel is set to 720 degrees but it makes no difference. It feels like I only have about 180 degrees of rotation when I'm playing Forza. But it's all good, I'll just have to get used to it.
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Using the same wheel myself, not having this issue personally. It may pay you to pop along to this thread on the Forza Forums, as a T10 dev is taking note of the issues people are having. They are asking for as much information from people as possible regarding their wheel setups and if they are on windows 10 pc or xbox one.

https://forums.forzamotorsport.net/..._FFB--is-it-fixed--UP--Nope--Still-Broke.aspx
 
Ialyrn
Using the same wheel myself, not having this issue personally. It may pay you to pop along to this thread on the Forza Forums, as a T10 dev is taking note of the issues people are having. They are asking for as much information from people as possible regarding their wheel setups and if they are on windows 10 pc or xbox one.

https://forums.forzamotorsport.net/..._FFB--is-it-fixed--UP--Nope--Still-Broke.aspx
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Well I must be doing something wrong then lol thank you, i'll have to check it out and see if anyone else is having the same problem. 👍
 
I can't really say how the FFB compares to FM6 as I was reduced to a non FFB wheel for that one.
I can confirm that USB 3 is an issue with at least some wheels and it has nothing to do with FM7.
I first discovered the USB 3 issue when trying to load firmware on a Fanatec wheel, Both my brother and I ran into issues him with a GT2 and me with a CSR Elite. both were fine once plugged into a USB2 port. While the wheel seemed to work in the USB 3 port it did not work well at all.

I can also confirm the simulation steering mode in Forza has had problems since back in FM4.
I'm not quite sure what the issue is but when FM4 first came out myself and a few friends were doing a bit of drifting in muscle cars with steering set to simulation. We were doing fairly well with it but then they patched the game to fix some other steering issues and the sim mode went down the tubes. I do not know what range it is messed up in. It seemed ok if I dropped the wheel to 270 but at 480 and 600 it was horrible but seemingly only when counter steering it felt to me like when in simulation mode the counter steering was/is at a different ratio that what it should be or at least at those two settings, at 270 it felt correct, maybe it does at 900 or higher, can't say as I generally want to use something less than 900 but more then 270.

As far as the game goes, I am a bit rusty and just getting back to the Elite wheel but after a little tweaking on the FFB settings it felt pretty good in normal mode. Keep in mind I have only spent about an hour or so playing so far so that opinion may change ;)
 
To all those having problems with the wheel, check out this vid. It's from @Blue028 the thread starter who has been speaking with a T10 dev in a FFB thread over on the official forums. He's using close to the same settings as me, namely reduce centre force and dampening to 0, reduce under steer to minimum and use normal steering. Feels much better than stock.



Edit: Thanks @Ialyrn !
 
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PzR Slim
To all those having problems with the wheel, check out this vid. It's from an Aussie guy who has been speaking with a T10 dev in a FFB thread over on the official forums. He's using close to the same settings as me, namely reduce centre force and dampening to 0, reduce under steer to minimum and use normal steering. Feels much better than stock.

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Rofl, that is @Blue028 this threads original poster :P
 
PzR Slim
To all those having problems with the wheel, check out this vid. It's from an Aussie guy who has been speaking with a T10 dev in a FFB thread over on the official forums. He's using close to the same settings as me, namely reduce centre force and dampening to 0, reduce under steer to minimum and use normal steering. Feels much better than stock.

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Well I used those settings and it feels a lot better now. I did another go with the Porsche at Dubai, and I could pretty much drift on the faster turns and not spin out.
 
That video certainly makes it look a lot better than the previous one, actually driveable. The fact he can drift at all with FFB on and full wheel rotation is a major improvement over Apex.
 
Sorry I have neglected the thread, I was more focused on the discussion happening on the forza bards, here is what I have learned so far;

  • Previous Forzas had poor ffb as the result of not including mechanical trail in their equation, and only conveyed pnumatic trail
  • Mechanical trail is in the equation in fm7
  • Ffb understeer setting scales the mechanical trail feedback
  • Min force setting scales the pnumatic trail feedback
  • Mechanical trail and pnumatic trail are combined before they are turned into steering torque
  • Spring is a seperate centering force that does come from physics based equations but this force is overcome by trail feedback at racing speeds

Aaron (the t10 dev) knows what he is doing, he is putting in long hours at the office investigating issues and giving us valuable information. I trust that things are going to improve for the better.
 
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One day I'll be able to buy a sim, plug the wheel in and not visit forums for opinions on how to make it feel like an actual car....one day.
 
mekonrider
One day I'll be able to buy a sim, plug the wheel in and not visit forums for opinions on how to make it feel like an actual car....one day.
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Automobilista is plug and play from what I remember, don't think I changed a single setting in that.
 
mekonrider
One day I'll be able to buy a sim, plug the wheel in and not visit forums for opinions on how to make it feel like an actual car....one day.
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Some games do offer pretty good feedback out of the box, but Forza is definitely not one of them unfortunately. Project Cars 2 has been pretty good for me so far.
 
Live for speed was the only game I've played that I instantly gelled with. Sadly it's pretty much dead, actually it's more of a zombie, has been for many years now.
 
F Inferno
That video certainly makes it look a lot better than the previous one, actually driveable
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I can´t drive the porsche with wheel. It behaves wrong and the ffb does weird things. Honestly i don´t want to get used to this to be able to drive it like him. Just all feels wrong.
 
tonight for the last couple hours I have been doing tests with the aligning torque forces, mechanical trail (FFB understeer) and pneumatic trail (min FFB) these are the two critical components for making the FFB feel connected with the car as this is where steering torque is calculated from. mechanical trail is fixed and does not change (it is the trailing distance of the wheel to the steering axis), pneumatic trail varies with speed and tyre load (it is the contact patch of the tyre trailing behind the center of the wheel as the tyre is twisting/deforming around its rotating axis). typically mechanical trail is a greater value than pneumatic trail, so in theory reducing the pneumatic trail portion on the FFB should have very little impact on the aligning torque (we should only loose subtle feel for the front tyres grip level) but this isn't the case and center feel is greatly reduced even when amplifying the mechanical trail FFB to its maximum which leads me to believe there is something wrong with the mechanical trail calculations.

pneumatic trail has too much of an impact on center aligning torque feel, and is very deceiving to call this setting the FFB minimum force (normally a Minimum force setting in all other sims is mearly a low end signal clip so that as the forces are applied to the wheel they start at a greater value) this needs to be changed, and a PROPER minimum force setting need to be added.

I like how they have made it so we can tune the balance of oversteer and understeer FFB but in its current form its just not very good
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And here I was, thinking that I didn't know what I was doing! I was right, setting all that stuff to minimum! That's what made FH3 playable, and the demo too. I will increase the FFB bits by bits to see how that affects the feel.
 
I actually tried this on FH3 and it had some interesting results. However, setting the spring to 0 makes the wheel lock itself to the left. What I hate is not being able to get rid of the stiffness when turning the wheel from lock to lock. It's so unrealistic. Feels like a rubber band progressively getting tighter as you turn the wheel.

EDIT: So sorry for the DP
 
Just quoting a post I made in a different thread on this forum, as it is fairly important information for wheel users to know.

Ialyrn
Well.... we finally have an official word from T10 in regards to using normal/sim steering on a wheel. When the game detects a wheel, all the hidden assists that are present on a controller are automatically turned off. This should mean that there is no difference between normal/sim steering while using a racing wheel, and having sim steering turned on should only give the wheel user the bonus credits. Considering that using sim steering on a wheel makes things rather twitchy around the wheels centre, which makes it very hard to counter-steer; I now have to assume that they have a bug in the system. According to what we where told by this dev last night on the forza forums, there shouldn't be any difference between the steering mode when using a wheel.



See post number #1108 (page45) in this thread - https://forums.forzamotorsport.net/..._FFB--is-it-fixed--UP--Nope--Still-Broke.aspx

I figured this was pretty important information for everyone to know, regardless of whether you use a wheel or a gamepad; which is why I am posting it in here and not in a specific wheel thread.
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I definitely feel a difference between sim and normal. This just reinforces my decision to use normal.
 
Interesting info there on Sim vs normal.
Since I haven't tried 7 yet and only briefly played the demo I don't know if it will still be the same as the previous titles but there was definitely something up in those.

I do remember that early on in Forza 4 I could not tell a difference but after the patch there was a noticeable problem when set to sim that was not there in normal. That problem is still there in 4 and also in 6
 

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