Automobilista 2 Custom Force Feedback - Overview & Recommendations

Two hours ago, i had no idea what i wanted, to be honest. All i knew was that i used to be able to manhandle Formula V12 cars and P3s around my favorite tracks, that i was able to push them to the limit (at least that's how it felt), and that i was in total control of the car. Once i upgraded to Simagic Alpha, like 3 months ago, cars felt totally different, and i started to spin and lose control in places where that never happened before. Handling the cars became a struggle. Instead of the cars responding to my hands, my hands were responding to what the car was doing. Cars also felt floaty, and the transition between grip and understeer felt abrupt. My times became slower, i'd barely get a top 5 place against 100% AI, whereas i was able to get to 1st place in just 3-4 laps before, starting from last. I was so damn frustrated after trying tons of settings, both with custom ffb files or with default/default+, that i lost all my interest in sim racing, considering that AMS 2 is by far my go to sim.

I did try Kuku Maddog's ffb file, and then, it clicked. It was the smoothness that i was missing. AMS 2's default settings were too brutal, i think, for my taste. With Kuku's ffb, i got all my confidence back in barely a couple of laps, and i feel once again that i am in total control. I genuinely felt like my old self, and man, it felt good!

Your FFB file feels better than anything i've tried, and it suits me almost perfectly! I tried both files, and used the recommended settings for them.

There is one kind of tiny, but annoying drawback, though...
Even when driving on a straight, on a smooth track, there's this vibration, like a rattling. And i can almost feel it driving my blood pressure up )))
It becomes more accentuated when driving over curbs or while steering (i think?). Anyway, lowering the FX in AMS 2 to a 5-10 does get rid of most of those vibrations, but this also detracts a lot from the curbs feel, which i'd like to have. As far as i can tell, those vibrations that bother me are coming from something like the road surface, or some engine vibrations, or something like that.

Are there any settings in the ffb file that sound familiar to you, that i could play around with, to try to lessen that rattling? If i manage to tweak this, this ffb file is gonna be absolutely perfect for me!

 

Yes.

On a more serious note now Out of curiosity, what would you do to have a smooth steering, and reduce that heavy reaction / giroscope effect?

Also, using Kuku's file and your settings, is there any chance you can recommend a car or a car setup where slip angle is noticeable? I am relatively new to sim racing, and I have absolutely no idea about how slip angle should feel like.

 

1. Believe higher dampening
2. Believe you don’t fully notice it in FFB

 

You have a stronger Wheel base than me , so the scrub and road texture is probably coming through clearer .
first step would be to reduce lfb if you have any on.

failing that , you can try lowering road_texture_scale .

but it’s more likely the scrub effects as they are part of the tyre feel focus of this tune and also important for feeling the tyre grip.

there’s two ways to adjust it .
you could lower the scrub_scale down incrementally , but that might effect the overall balance of tire feel.

or you can lower them in a sub scale down in the scrub coding .

# Scrub FX
#

(scrub_scale_front 0.42)
(scrub_scale_rear 0.32)

here you can even change how much rear tire influences the scrub vibes , as it more what you feel down straights as the tire strives for traction .
but this will come down to personal preference as it’s handy information to have in traction loss situations.
Just make small adjustments down and see how it feels .

 

Share your settings (alpha manager and ingame) so we can tell you what you have to change.
You don't want to look for the same sensations as with a belt wheel.

 

Sorry if this seems a simple question but this is all very new to me.

I notice some custom files report none to very little loss of grip, you still slide but dont feel it, others report lots of information, can these custom files change the level of grip you have or is it just the feel.

 

Just what you feel and how much

 

Thanks, thats as i thought.

 

Turns out, it is the road texture_scale. I turned it off, and noticed none of those very quick and very short vibrations. That's awesome! Also turned down the engine vibrations when stopped. I popped into a quick P3 cars race on Velopark, and i was able to put down race laps faster that the World Record for this car / track combo in Time Trial. This FFB is incredibly good when it comes to the info that it gives you, at least imo.

I would like to tweak a couple of things, but that's a matter of personal taste. So, i got a couple more questions for you, if you don't mind.

For the road texture_scale feel, the engine vibrations and tire scrub when cornering, i noticed that for all of these, the FFB feedback is made of pretty intense and very very short vibrations (at least with no smoothing set in SimPro manager software). Is there a global setting, or some individual settings that would make those vibrations longer / have a longer frequency / not happen so quickly one after another? I'm interested the most in the tire scrub when cornering, to be honest.

And the 2nd question... I noticed that when standing still, the steering is very very light, when in reality, it should feel heavier than when driving forward. This makes it feel unrealistic. It's not a deal-breaker, cause it doesn't really matter when racing, but is there any setting to make this heavier?

Also, a big thank you for the amazing work you've done, man.

Ah, and another thing Can you edit and load the ffb file without exiting and restarting the game?

 

Well, several people were mentioning that the default SimPro settings work pretty great (feels like 95% of the simagic users have the mini, though) out of the box for AMS 2, so i started with that.

Total force: 50%
Smooth level: 4
Wheel return speed: 4
Vehicle Suspension: 8
Mechanical spring: 0
Mechanical damper: 30%
Mechanical friction: 30%
Dynamic damper: 0
Interpolation level: 1

In AMS 2, i used Gain at 70%, 0 LFB, FX at 25-ish, and 0 Dampen.

What i was looking to get out of the default or the default+ profile was something relatively similar to what Kuku's file feels. A car that's smooth to drive, and doesn't overpower you, isn't snappy, but still gives you enough info to catch slides and stuff like that.

I will most likely use Kuku's file, with some personal tweaks, but i'd love to understand how to set up my Alpha in order to get a smoother, less snappy and abrupt changes feel of the car, even without a custom profile. I am kinda overwhelmed by all the SimPro manager + Ams 2 settings combined.

 

Total force: 100%
Smooth level: 0
Wheel return speed: max
Vehicle Suspension: 0
Mechanical spring: 0
Mechanical damper: 5-10%
Mechanical friction: 5-10%
Dynamic damper: 0
Interpolation level: 0-1

Default/default+ : Gain 30-40, fx 10-30, damping 40-50.
Kuku file: gain 40, fx 30 or less, damping 30-40.

Start gain at my lower recomendation, and fx at higher recomendation first. Then, if you find too light or too heavy (depending on the radius and kg of your wheel) adjust that. Adjust FX to get more or less reactive sensations.

After that, just change damping to your taste.

 

Glad your making progress.
you can alter the frequency of the vibe’s by lowering the associated scrub and tear frequency, just try scrub first.
(scrub_frq_scale 0.86)
(tear_frq_scale 1.6)

it’s possible you may need to lower the scales for each after changing., but that will have a flow on effect to strength of other turning forces. and you might end up chasing your tail.

with wheel weight at standstill you can try just adding 5-10 friction and damper in simpro software.

or failing that you can mess around with the velocity resistance scales
(velocity_res_scale 0.4) #How much velocity affects resistance
(velocity_res_offset 0.6) #How much resistance at velocity 0

Unfortunately you will have to restart game after altering file , but at least it’s fast to load .

 

Hello everyone.
I am using DaneilKart file V50 2-5nm for a t300base.
File feels great but just wondering how to get that vibrating rumble effect when i spin the tires by pressing on the throttle to hard or lock up the breaks.

On a side note. I have the logitech DD coming in a few days. That wheel tops out at 11nm. Really hyped for that.

 

Hello dmand! You will get a completely different feedback with your new Base 11Nm. The higher a base force becomes, the more feedback you will feel. But it is also becoming increasingly difficult to sort and reconcile these high forces. Anyway, I wish you a lot of fun with your new base

 

Thanks a lot, Kuku! Gonna give these a try as soon as i get the chance.

 

which file is best for g27

 

Had some catch up to do, just tried @Danielkart 's v46 and it feels great as always. Going to give v50 a go later on. Thanks for all your efforts!

 

Hei Ricxx! Nice to hear from you and that you are on the road again in AMS2. In Ttotw we are almost in the same place. I wish you a good time. Many greetings from Daniel

 

Just had a look, dani68 is you then, didn't realise ^^ Good job, the Corvette is awesome, one of my favourite cars in the game for sure!

 

I do miss some front suspension load feeling when turning (like in rF2), particularly at low speeds. At high speeds the downforce makes it perceptible but not that much at low speeds. It seems braking really improves that load feeling correctly but is almost non-existent without applying brakes.

May I ask @Kuku Maddog and @Danielkart how to provide more force when turning, in your respective files?
Maybe a log curve can improve the existing formulas at low speed.