Automobilista 2 Force Feedback - Overview & Recommendations

I have been lurking on these forums for ages but it finally came time to signup so I could add my 2 cents

Its not just different wheels that make this all subjective, but also because so many real world stimuli are missing when sitting at the computer. Things like various aural cues, chassis movement/vibration, g-forces just to name a few and we are all different in the way we process and prioritise these cues in real life. An important cue for one person may be completely disregarded by another as they place emphasis on chassis vibration as opposed to aural input or g-force. (just an illustrative example).

Its all very sub-conscious and something we don't think about or analyse in the real world. We just do. (race / drive). However, once all of these different stimuli are completely removed, your natural ability to process what's happening around you is seriously impacted. As a result, you need the missing stimuli to be substituted somehow and what we rely on mostly these days is for that stimuli to be represented at the wheel via FFB. This is why you can stick a pro driver into a sim and have them look pretty average.

I may have relied heavily on chassis vibration to tell me what's going on with the car (sub-consciously) in reality and if that is substituted nicely in the FFB, I become happy and can race accordingly (and somewhat naturally). However, you may rely on something completely different in the real world to me and even though chassis vibration is represented nicely in the FFB, to you, its of no use whatsoever in making up the difference (or at least not as beneficial in substituting for the loss of real world phenomena).

So, its not just hardware, but even personal brain stimuli processing that makes a difference. The substituted chassis vibration may even be counter representative and interfere with your ability to process the other cues naturally because it is different and you don't process it as a natural substitution.

This is why you will never have a perfect FFB solution for everyone even if we all had the exact same wheel and PC. This is why I too would like options. But those options should be relatable to the real world. What frustrates me with some options is when they are somewhat obscure to your real world experience like Mx / My, ratio this, brute force that. If you can't understand the option or its impact, you and up just playing a random numbers game , never finding that nirvana of the best FFB representation for your personal preference.

TL;DR: No really, please read

 

Funny Thread is Funny ... One or two 10 year olds here with no supervision... maybe !?

 

I can remember my very first wheel, which had a "joystick plug", the kind of plug you had only on your SoundBlaster audio card (game/midi). I was really happy with it and had a lot of fun, and it didn't have any force feedback at all

 

And a valuable 2 cents it was. Thanks for taking the time to provide such a detailed post on just why FFB is so subjective and personal, and why there is no "magic bullet" which can please everybody. Very good post mate.

Ah, those were the days, when things were simple and all this complicated nonsense wasn't a "thing".

 

Without going into much detail, I love the current "new" FFB and made a short post here but wanted to ask if its right that most formula cars have really light center at low speed? A lot of other cars are OK and I have added some friction to my DD1 too. But in comparison the formulas feel really light, its fine at speed. I will test drive an F4 later this year but until then I have no way of telling whats right

 

figured out how to get the telemetry showing (duh) and my suspicions were confirmed. No matter how hard i pushed the car, the FFB never even got close to maximum output, much less any clipping.
G920 with Gain at 100. All of the meters were just showing about 1/4-1/3 output at all points. Even when slamming a formula car into a concrete wall, there ws no higher force produced.

 

I agree, I'd have thought the formulas would have heavier steering than they do, raising lfb helped for me.

 

Have you deleted your AMS2 folder in your Documents folder since any of the recent patches? On the Formula Classic G1M1 with gain 100 and lfb 5 I can see that it will clip when weaving left and right on a straight at Interlagos. The in game clipping histogram is agnostic to the wheel you have, so if you have the gain set to 100 and you can't get it to clip there is a problem. There was a bug in one of the older FFB versions where it would not show clipping. Are you using New Default?

 

I had this problem straight from a clean install of the game, so not sure what deleting the folder will do but I will try it. fingers crossed.
I've tested both the new and the old default profile and tbh the old one delivers slightly more force. But still nowhere near full output.

 

Open ffb_custom_settings.txt, and look for:

Code:

(max_overall_force 11500.0)
(recip_force ( / 1.0 max_overall_force))

Raising 1.0 to higher values increases the strength of the overall FFB.

 

And how can we use that information in a minimally helpfull way???

 

Umm... raise the value just like said perhaps? Is something being lost in translation or are you just being deliberately rude?

 

Tested this just now. Set it to 2, which should have doubled it? Made no noticable difference at all.

I took an F3 around Brands. This is what the telemetry looks like for me. As you can see, almost no high force at all going out. it's all in the mids. and even there it is realy realy low.

Going offtrack and hitting a wall made this:
Still no high force. no clipping and a small bump in mids.


I tested the Formula V aswll and thatone ONLY got data on the middle two bars. Nothing on the lows or the highs. That's supposed to be a car with no powersteering!

 

@Ashaz Try this custom ffb file, it has boosted gain and fixed bump stops to use full power.

 

Of course not! (for either of those kinda numb options...

There are 2 numeric values shown!
.
- max_overall_force 11500.0
- (recip_force ( / 1.0 max_overall_force))

Which one were you refering to?? or altering both??

 

Nice!

You defined 1st the variable "custom_gain" and the apply it in *(2) to boost gain!

And you ´ve added a condition here: *(3)!! What is it supposed to change?

"##lock_stops
*(3) (wheel_dir ( if output 1.0 -1.0))
(stops (bumpstop wheel_dir 0.1 2.0 0.1 0.1))
*(4) (output (+ output (* stops device_lock_stop)))

####################################################

#boost gain
*(2) (gain (* gain custom_gain))"

Is there a way to find some tutorial, or guide line for the variables and pseudo-language code, used in the custom txt file??

Another question:
- Here: *(4) "(output (+ output (* stops device_lock_stop)))" , you´re using a new variable, which has no previous defined value... (I believe... ) "device_lock_stop" should nt it be "Custom_lock_stop" instead??

 

Sorry. I said "Raising 1.0 to higher values..." so thought it was clear. You raise the recip_force number.

Are you sure you're using the "Custom" FFB profile in the game? Raising this to 2.0 on my T300 made the road noise feel like an earthquake, and introduced crazy clipping whenever I turned the wheel.

 

If so.. instead o 2 one may use 1.2 to increase 20% or 1.xx to increase XX%... 2 should be like increasing 200%!!

Goff. sorry I did nt see that 1st "1.0) on your post .. up there..)

 

According to the above pictures, you are clipping. The bit of red in the 6th vertical bar means your clipping. Or if the horizontal bar fills your clipping which it must have to create the red in the vertical bar.