Thoughts on Le Mans Ultimate

Boring mainstream title just like ACC is with many, many, many problems, not just in the FFB. Sure, the rf2 fanboys will love it and defend it

 

Strongly disagree with FFB for the LMP2 and GT3. In fact, I'm trying to replicate that feeling in AMS2, but so far I've failed to. Would be cool if anyone could link me to a nice AMS2 custom FFB that feels like the LMP2, GT3 or the IR18 (from rF2). Logitech G29 user.

On the other hand, hypercar is really weird, definitely feels wrong.

Regarding LMU being an rF2 re-skin, that claim coming from AMS2 users is funny, to say the least lol

 

As I said in this thread, the lower the performance of a base, the better the feeling in rf2 and Le Mans. With a G29 you don't have the opportunity to feel and simulate the dynamic range of a strong base. That's why your statement is funny to say the least

 

Oh sorry, didnt know I wasnt allowed to disagree with a generic statement that LMU ffb is worse than AMS2's.

It seems like you took the re-skin dig personally. If you dont recall, when AMS2 was launched many claimed it was just a pCars re-skin, exactly the same way some are doing now with LMU.

It does feel like a re-skin, but it is funny reading it from inside the AMS2 community due to the context I gave above.

 

I don't care what kind of simulation it is. I'm not a fanboy of anyone, I also say my opinion if something isn't right for me in Ams2. I still know rf2 with a belt base and know the difference to dds. These are facts, nothing more and nothing less and that's why your statement is irrelevant to me because you don't know the difference

 

Ok, whatever mate.

If someone has an AMS2 custom ffb file for belt wheels that is similar to rF2/LMU, I still would like a link, even if I'm not allowed to prefer rF2's ffb for my low end wheel. Been digging the custom FFB thread, but no luck so far.

 

Thanks, but I have no oscillaltion in Le Mans Ultimate, without any filters set up , except ingame I set the smoothing to 2 - but not for the oscillation, I use it to smooth the little grinding feel of the FFB.

In AMS2 I always get oscillation, with Default, with Default+ or with custom FFB files (I also tried yours & they are really nice!). I could not get rid of this problem and I don‘t know how to fix it.

 

Then you've definitely set something wrong because I have absolutely no problems with swinging on the wheel. Check your in-game settings and your base settings. Of course I don't know what kind of base you have, but if it's a dd with high powers there shouldn't be any swinging. There are a lot of good customs from people in the custom thread where there is no wheel swing. You also have to differentiate between swinging on the wheel and vibrations felt on the wheel.

 

Don’t get angry over useless things and AMS2 FFB will never be RF2 FFB even when using custom files. If you like that FFB so much, play it

 

Sounds like exactly a certain kind of FFB is very urgent.
I dont really bother
And as a thought then just like you get accustomed to your prefered sims certain physics after a short while then you probably also can/will get accustomed to a certain FFB.
Hehe even the FFB in iRacing I guess

 

Pardon my Internets ignorance, but what does "DOA argument" means? I only know DOA as in Dead or Alive, and by that I can only imagine hot girls fighting each other.

 

Dead on arrival.
I prefer playing Dead or Alive games than playing dead on arrival games, though.

 

If there were only iracing and ACC then I would switch to flight simulations to get more feeling

 

Word. Those sims make me feel like the famed record producer, Bruce D*ckinson, always calling for “More cowbell!”

 

Hehe if you guys check my specs then you will know why the different FFB solutions dont bother me much

 

Have you ever thought about buying an ffb wheel and using paddles as the throttle and brake? I know you can with Fanatec

 

Yes, I know that you don't use FFB and of course it changes a lot

 

You can be sure I have thought about it a lot of times.
And actually I have a 2nd hand T500 up on the attic with this advanced throttle/brake adon.
Advanced and expensive
But beside oval racing where you dont have to constantly make corrections then its unuseable for disabled people. Because your fingers finer tactile perception (in german fingerspitz) does completely disappear when the wheel constantly make small/large FFB corrections by itself.

ByTheWay: Its very hitech without pots but hall electronics instead

 

Interesting discussion regarding FFB on different bases and simulations, regardless of talking about LMU or not. This is going to be a VERY long post: if you intend to read it, grab a large mug of coffee, otherwise skip it to the very last paragraph.


I have not played this new game so far, and I have a couple reasons why...

1. Steam does not work with regional currency here anymore, and as I get older, I grow more weary of how I spend money.
2. The parent company. They are now trying to wash their face, but unfortunately I have a memory that can be too good sometimes, and I don't forget past offences easily.
3. Early Access. The fact that it is EA, and that it was hastily changed as one to meet a rushed deadline they were in no condition to.
4. No native VR support.
5. It's based on rFactor 2. More about this below.

In the past, I was willing to tag along with the development journey of a game, because I could enjoy said journey. Today, I'm not in the same mood, specially for some of the reasons stated above. I'm also enjoying and loving AMS2 a lot, even with its flaws (that's what love is).

Now, about my wheelbase (and some history about DD systems). I have what it's now an old granddaddy of Direct Drives: a IONICUBE OSW, controlled by a Discovery Board with the MMoS 2014 FFB firmware. This was the second generation of DIY projects of the type, as the first ones used an older and bigger Argon Drive. It took advantage of Granite Devices's new development, the IONI boards, which were very compact boards with a PCIe format that could originally drive around 7A. But then Beano, a mad scientist of DIY projects for simracing (do the DD owners around the globe know how much do we owe to this single person?) asked them to improve the IONI design so it could drive higher currents, and the PRO and HC variations were born, being able to take 18 and 25A respectively, which made them suitable to high powered servos, specially for the holy grail of high performance DIY servos: the venerable "Small" Mige, a 20 Nm torque peak unit at just 13A (an incredibly effective rate compared to other options) which had mighty speed and responsiveness, had a regular incremental encoder (the only ones that Discovery boards could read) and came as a complete servo for slightly above 200 USD, and was therefor very popular for this kind of builds (its capabilities remain relevant: jump ahead in time to the present day, and you will find out that the highly rated VRS wheelbases use this very servo, with some required small modifications for being a commercial product). Bear in mind that at this point in time (around 2015) the commercial options for DDs were the AccuForce at about 1800 USD, and a Simsteering from Leo Bodnar went for +3k euros! Back to the IONI boards, GD also designed the IONICUBE, a motherboard for inserting these compact drives, and that's where my build is based on.

This was before the SimuCUBE (whose concept and first sketch was also an idea that Beano passed to Granite Devices) was released, which was basically the concept of a DIY motherboard for sim projects with the shape of a cube (that's where its name comes from!) that could take a IONI for driving servos, had its own propietary firmware (but used a STM processor so it could initially work with the MMoS firmware), had expansion ports for connecting your own pedals or shifters, and could accept advanced encoders like a SinCos or a Resolver, which would drive up the ppr count from thousends to millions! Something very convenient for a detailed signal feeding the inner PID loop which controls a servo. This is where DD builds took a massive leap. While the hardware has kept on improving, the firmwares became both more advanced and user friendly at the same time, the size footprints became smaller, the installations less complicated, etc., the performance capabilities of DD bases have not improved dramatically since the SimuCUBE, specially when those bases were paired with higher quality servos. This is perhaps where GD made its final critical move: they created a separate Simucube division of the company, and created dedicated units with high quality servos paired to a compact, yet overengineered electronics unit (Beano himself examined the inner parts and said that the power electronics were rated to take double the current of what it actually used for maximum torque!). This meant that now a relatively affordable unit could deliver the performance of the best DIY projects that would cost you more than double to build them yourself. This is why the SC2 lineup of servos has been the golden standard of quality FFB hardware in all fronts for almost 5 years now.

It's my opinion that after SC released, there was needed evolution in several aspects of DD units, but the outright performance evolution of them has, more or less, halted. My reasoning (and I'm not saying anything that experts on this matters have not stated years before) is that it's now up to the software that we use to get the best out of our hardware. With the hardware that we have, the capabilities of the firmware that drives it, and a community that incessantly tweaks everything to maximize performance, it's on the devs programming the games to deliver good FFB that integrates well on the cycles. Which is a very tough asking, considering that they have to cater to a very broad range of hardware, from this very high capable DD bases, all the way down to very old gear-coupled bases that are what the majority still uses AFAIK.


There are times where I often consider to sell my unit and buy something newer, that will offer better capabilities and an easier time as an end user. But besides having some budget problems with that, thanks to import taxes of the country, there is another reason I like to keep my base: it's a very powerful tool for evaluating quality of FFB from different racing titles.

Now, we know that FFB is a very subjective thing for many reasons. At DD levels, it becomes even more subjective. Not only because the possibility of magnifying every single detail in the signals to a large degree, but also because of how every part of the system plays an important role. The inertia of the system can dramatically change thanks to the mass of each part and its relative position towards the longitudinal axis of the main shaft. Diameter and weight of your wheel of choice matter a lot. Type of Quick Release system, or even the absence of one, matters a lot. Inner flex of your rim of choice matters a lot. Method and materials of construction which determine how vibrations are transferred to your hands, again, matter a lot. How you exert force on the steering wheel matters a lot. Even the use of glove matters! This complexity increases exponentially when you throw in firmware tweaking. This is why people with these systems should dedicate a lot of time testing lots of possible changes before arriving to their ideal setup. Of course you can bet on Plug & Play and off you go, and you can be perfectly happy with that. But for discerning about the FFB capabilities of each game and coming up with the best experience possible at each one, you need to spend a lot of time tuning it. Again, if you don't want to, you can discard a game completely if it just doesn't work out of the box, and that's OK: life is short and you should make the most out of it. If you don't enjoy the tweaking, you are not obliged to do it, just bear in mind that you may lose out on some experiences. And I say this as somebody who has more than once went down that route

But back to the tool thing: why do I think my wheelbase has this capability, even with all I've just said about the relativeness of FFB? Because my servo is very fast, very responsive, very torquey (I have it set to max all the time and just dial it down in games), has a by-now coarse encoder, and very limited tweaking options. New firmware can reconstruct, correct, and stabilize signals; interpret what the game is trying to do, and following parameters the user set, tweak the signal to fill out voids, increase or flatten spikes, etc. All fancy stuff that I don't have. This means that if the signal coming from the game is not responsive yet controlled, I'm in for a bad time, always.

And here is where rFactor 2 comes in. There is an awful variation of quality of FFB signals from ISI/S397 cars. From a studio that always stated that the sim was not as updated as it could be to keep backwards compatibility with its older content, the consistency of experience is the worst I have experienced in any simracing title (even counting Assetto Corsa and its rainforest of a modding scene). It's wild, swinging, inversing (the absolute worst that an FFB signal can do) and puts my arms in a twist immediately. It does not deliver a hint of a consistent rubbery feeling, which is what most simracers are in the look of when tweaking their rigs. Bringing the FFB multiplier down just mellows the overall intensity of the experience, but it does not change one thing. In fact, there is no parameter in game that can do a thing to solve this, and no parameter from the inis that also can do it; if whoever developed a given car for rF2 did not do the homework regarding FFB, the experience can be absolutely terrible on my end. Only some select works from modders who got things right, either by actually knowing what they are doing (not easy on a game with some very intricate models, like its tyre building system) or by sheer chance, are the ones that can give me an enjoyable experience. But as there are many other parts of rF2 that I simply don't like, I don't have the will to test cars one by one, knowing that most will suck, and even risking an injury. Which goes back to what I said earlier about not wanting to go down the path of testing everything to find the right experience for you.

Having said a lot of stuff: there is the chance that LMU, being a more focused use of rF2 engine without having to worry about backwards compatibility, plus only having to recreate a handful of cars and tracks, can actually exploit all the potential rF2 has unused, and be a great title with a very polished experience featuring WEC content, something I could totally get behind of. But as things stand, I will just wait for more releases and a big discount on a Steam Sale, while gauging the opinions of other users.

 

Fantastically some of the best I've ever read about FFB and personal experiences. I agree with you on very, very many things. It's not for nothing that I chose Simucube. Your assessment of rf2 and LMU is also 1:1 identical for me. Today, a lot depends on the FFB software of the bases. There are bases that process the signals in a very unique way, for me these include Moza 1st Generation Thrustmaster and partly also Logitech. That was also a reason why I stopped making customs for various bases. I now only do this for myself and have unrivaled options with Ams2. Thanks again for your great contribution