FFB clipping app/mod?
- Thread starter Alex72
- Start date
Well, i hear there is a pretty tight line between clipping and dying motors in the T300RS so i just wanted to be 100% sure i stay away from the clipping. Basically if you leave T300 at 75% overall strength then its pretty weak, but raising it to 100% which gives great FFB feeling also is a killer if its clipping too much, and it was really hard to try and feel where the clipping is.
I guess i have to keep it low in AMS. Cheers, Martin.
You'll feel the clipping...it's like a plateau where the forces suddenly flat line at a strong setting. If you are nervous, just use a lower %. The worst that will happen is you miss a few subtle lower-strength effects as a result.
This is a fairly complicated subject with many misconceptions (which I'm actually thinking about addressing in a video or something because it seems quite a few people don't really understand how it all works).
First of all, many people confuse clipping on the software side of things and clipping on the hardware side, while these two are pretty much separate. You can be clipping on the software side with your wheel strength set at 20 % in the control panel if you don't set your FFB gain in the sim correctly, and on the other hand, you can be nowhere near clipping with your wheel strength set to 100 % (or higher, in case of Logitech wheels which can go above 100 %) if you set your in-game gain low enough.
Basically think of the FFB strength setting in your wheel's control panel and the in-game gain settings as two completely separate things, because they more or less are exactly that. The FFB strength set in the control panel affects the hardware side clipping. With the T300, you should be perfectly safe from hardware side clipping even at 100 % strength (despite the default being 75 %). And generally, unless the drivers are not made correctly, no wheel should be clipping on the hardware level at 100 % strength (so it's possible with some wheels, I guess, but quite unlikely I would say). I'm running my T300 at 90 % strength and I can safely say I don't get any hardware clipping.
With that out of the way, there's the clipping that people usually mean when they talk about clipping, and that's clipping on the software side. This depends entirely on how you set up your sim, and should be more or less wheel independent due to how it all works. The in-game gain and the ffb clipping apps that some of the sims offer have no real feedback from the actual wheel - they don't know what is happening at the wheel. If you see that your ffb meter is showing you that you're outputting 80 % force, it doesn't mean the wheel is currently outputting 80 % of the maximum force it's able to produce - it's outputting 80 % of what you set your FFB strength to in your wheel's control panel (see above). So if you're outputting 80 % in-game and your wheel is set to 50 % strength, what you will feel on the wheel is actually just 40 % of the maximum strength your wheel is able to produce. And the important thing here is that even if you are outputting 120 % in-game, in reality, the wheel is still only outputting 100 % of what you set your FFB strength in your wheel's control panel - that's because everything above 100 % in-game is ignored, the sim can never send more than 100 % to the wheel. That's what clipping is - everything above 100 % is "clipped off". Doesn't matter how strong your wheel actually is (the sim doesn't know that, it has no way of knowing), it always outputs 100 % maximum. It's all relative on the sim side, nothing is absolute - based on the specific wheel and its strength settings, 100 % might produce 2 Nm or 5 Nm or 15 Nm of force at the wheel, but regardless of that, you'll get software side clipping as soon as the sim's FFB exceeds 100 %.
And as for clipping killing wheels...it doesn't, really. What is killing some wheels is heat. As suggested above, that really doesn't mean clipping. T300 in particular has some design issues that make it overheat. That overheating might happen regardless of clipping, but clipping will likely make the matters worse, yes. Not because clipping itself would damage your wheel (again, the sim can never produce more than 100 % of what you set the wheel's strength to, and the drivers shouldn't allow you to set the strength to levels that would damage the wheels, except for Logitech wheels I guess), but because since the wheel produces 100 % force for longer periods of time, which obviously produces more heat. And if the cooling is not designed properly, your wheel might eventually overheat. One way to fight this on the T300 is to enable the forced fan mode, which means the fan is spinning constantly instead of only when the wheel is already quite warm. Again, I'm running the wheel at 90 % strength instead of the default 75 %, I'm using it almost daily for well over a year, sometimes for several hours, and I never had any overheating issues. I firmly believe that most of the T300 wheels dying is due to not running the forced fan mode and using a strong FFB, and the resulting high temperatures is what kills the wheels.
So, yeah. Sorry about the novel...
First of all, many people confuse clipping on the software side of things and clipping on the hardware side, while these two are pretty much separate. You can be clipping on the software side with your wheel strength set at 20 % in the control panel if you don't set your FFB gain in the sim correctly, and on the other hand, you can be nowhere near clipping with your wheel strength set to 100 % (or higher, in case of Logitech wheels which can go above 100 %) if you set your in-game gain low enough.
Basically think of the FFB strength setting in your wheel's control panel and the in-game gain settings as two completely separate things, because they more or less are exactly that. The FFB strength set in the control panel affects the hardware side clipping. With the T300, you should be perfectly safe from hardware side clipping even at 100 % strength (despite the default being 75 %). And generally, unless the drivers are not made correctly, no wheel should be clipping on the hardware level at 100 % strength (so it's possible with some wheels, I guess, but quite unlikely I would say). I'm running my T300 at 90 % strength and I can safely say I don't get any hardware clipping.
With that out of the way, there's the clipping that people usually mean when they talk about clipping, and that's clipping on the software side. This depends entirely on how you set up your sim, and should be more or less wheel independent due to how it all works. The in-game gain and the ffb clipping apps that some of the sims offer have no real feedback from the actual wheel - they don't know what is happening at the wheel. If you see that your ffb meter is showing you that you're outputting 80 % force, it doesn't mean the wheel is currently outputting 80 % of the maximum force it's able to produce - it's outputting 80 % of what you set your FFB strength to in your wheel's control panel (see above). So if you're outputting 80 % in-game and your wheel is set to 50 % strength, what you will feel on the wheel is actually just 40 % of the maximum strength your wheel is able to produce. And the important thing here is that even if you are outputting 120 % in-game, in reality, the wheel is still only outputting 100 % of what you set your FFB strength in your wheel's control panel - that's because everything above 100 % in-game is ignored, the sim can never send more than 100 % to the wheel. That's what clipping is - everything above 100 % is "clipped off". Doesn't matter how strong your wheel actually is (the sim doesn't know that, it has no way of knowing), it always outputs 100 % maximum. It's all relative on the sim side, nothing is absolute - based on the specific wheel and its strength settings, 100 % might produce 2 Nm or 5 Nm or 15 Nm of force at the wheel, but regardless of that, you'll get software side clipping as soon as the sim's FFB exceeds 100 %.
And as for clipping killing wheels...it doesn't, really. What is killing some wheels is heat. As suggested above, that really doesn't mean clipping. T300 in particular has some design issues that make it overheat. That overheating might happen regardless of clipping, but clipping will likely make the matters worse, yes. Not because clipping itself would damage your wheel (again, the sim can never produce more than 100 % of what you set the wheel's strength to, and the drivers shouldn't allow you to set the strength to levels that would damage the wheels, except for Logitech wheels I guess), but because since the wheel produces 100 % force for longer periods of time, which obviously produces more heat. And if the cooling is not designed properly, your wheel might eventually overheat. One way to fight this on the T300 is to enable the forced fan mode, which means the fan is spinning constantly instead of only when the wheel is already quite warm. Again, I'm running the wheel at 90 % strength instead of the default 75 %, I'm using it almost daily for well over a year, sometimes for several hours, and I never had any overheating issues. I firmly believe that most of the T300 wheels dying is due to not running the forced fan mode and using a strong FFB, and the resulting high temperatures is what kills the wheels.
So, yeah. Sorry about the novel...
Cheers man. I saw someone adding 2 extra fans on the outside blowing in as well. Looked pretty neat. I run the fan always on when driving now and i try to keep the FFB at a moderate level that feels good but not too strong.This is a fairly complicated subject with many misconceptions (which I'm actually thinking about addressing in a video or something because it seems quite a few people don't really understand how it all works).
First of all, many people confuse clipping on the software side of things and clipping on the hardware side, while these two are pretty much separate. You can be clipping on the software side with your wheel strength set at 20 % in the control panel if you don't set your FFB gain in the sim correctly, and on the other hand, you can be nowhere near clipping with your wheel strength set to 100 % (or higher, in case of Logitech wheels which can go above 100 %) if you set your in-game gain low enough.
Basically think of the FFB strength setting in your wheel's control panel and the in-game gain settings as two completely separate things, because they more or less are exactly that. The FFB strength set in the control panel affects the hardware side clipping. With the T300, you should be perfectly safe from hardware side clipping even at 100 % strength (despite the default being 75 %). And generally, unless the drivers are not made correctly, no wheel should be clipping on the hardware level at 100 % strength (so it's possible with some wheels, I guess, but quite unlikely I would say). I'm running my T300 at 90 % strength and I can safely say I don't get any hardware clipping.
With that out of the way, there's the clipping that people usually mean when they talk about clipping, and that's clipping on the software side. This depends entirely on how you set up your sim, and should be more or less wheel independent due to how it all works. The in-game gain and the ffb clipping apps that some of the sims offer have no real feedback from the actual wheel - they don't know what is happening at the wheel. If you see that your ffb meter is showing you that you're outputting 80 % force, it doesn't mean the wheel is currently outputting 80 % of the maximum force it's able to produce - it's outputting 80 % of what you set your FFB strength to in your wheel's control panel (see above). So if you're outputting 80 % in-game and your wheel is set to 50 % strength, what you will feel on the wheel is actually just 40 % of the maximum strength your wheel is able to produce. And the important thing here is that even if you are outputting 120 % in-game, in reality, the wheel is still only outputting 100 % of what you set your FFB strength in your wheel's control panel - that's because everything above 100 % in-game is ignored, the sim can never send more than 100 % to the wheel. That's what clipping is - everything above 100 % is "clipped off". Doesn't matter how strong your wheel actually is (the sim doesn't know that, it has no way of knowing), it always outputs 100 % maximum. It's all relative on the sim side, nothing is absolute - based on the specific wheel and its strength settings, 100 % might produce 2 Nm or 5 Nm or 15 Nm of force at the wheel, but regardless of that, you'll get software side clipping as soon as the sim's FFB exceeds 100 %.
And as for clipping killing wheels...it doesn't, really. What is killing some wheels is heat. As suggested above, that really doesn't mean clipping. T300 in particular has some design issues that make it overheat. That overheating might happen regardless of clipping, but clipping will likely make the matters worse, yes. Not because clipping itself would damage your wheel (again, the sim can never produce more than 100 % of what you set the wheel's strength to, and the drivers shouldn't allow you to set the strength to levels that would damage the wheels, except for Logitech wheels I guess), but because since the wheel produces 100 % force for longer periods of time, which obviously produces more heat. And if the cooling is not designed properly, your wheel might eventually overheat. One way to fight this on the T300 is to enable the forced fan mode, which means the fan is spinning constantly instead of only when the wheel is already quite warm. Again, I'm running the wheel at 90 % strength instead of the default 75 %, I'm using it almost daily for well over a year, sometimes for several hours, and I never had any overheating issues. I firmly believe that most of the T300 wheels dying is due to not running the forced fan mode and using a strong FFB, and the resulting high temperatures is what kills the wheels.
So, yeah. Sorry about the novel...
You are also correct on the differences on control panel and in-sim FFB levels. I could bring out more strength in details on the DFGT by raising the control panel FFB strength and lower it in the sim for example. With lower in control panel and higher in the sim it didnt feel as good.
that was a very decent novel, thank youThis is a fairly complicated subject with many misconceptions (which I'm actually thinking about addressing in a video or something because it seems quite a few people don't really understand how it all works).
First of all, many people confuse clipping on the software side of things and clipping on the hardware side, while these two are pretty much separate. You can be clipping on the software side with your wheel strength set at 20 % in the control panel if you don't set your FFB gain in the sim correctly, and on the other hand, you can be nowhere near clipping with your wheel strength set to 100 % (or higher, in case of Logitech wheels which can go above 100 %) if you set your in-game gain low enough.
Basically think of the FFB strength setting in your wheel's control panel and the in-game gain settings as two completely separate things, because they more or less are exactly that. The FFB strength set in the control panel affects the hardware side clipping. With the T300, you should be perfectly safe from hardware side clipping even at 100 % strength (despite the default being 75 %). And generally, unless the drivers are not made correctly, no wheel should be clipping on the hardware level at 100 % strength (so it's possible with some wheels, I guess, but quite unlikely I would say). I'm running my T300 at 90 % strength and I can safely say I don't get any hardware clipping.
With that out of the way, there's the clipping that people usually mean when they talk about clipping, and that's clipping on the software side. This depends entirely on how you set up your sim, and should be more or less wheel independent due to how it all works. The in-game gain and the ffb clipping apps that some of the sims offer have no real feedback from the actual wheel - they don't know what is happening at the wheel. If you see that your ffb meter is showing you that you're outputting 80 % force, it doesn't mean the wheel is currently outputting 80 % of the maximum force it's able to produce - it's outputting 80 % of what you set your FFB strength to in your wheel's control panel (see above). So if you're outputting 80 % in-game and your wheel is set to 50 % strength, what you will feel on the wheel is actually just 40 % of the maximum strength your wheel is able to produce. And the important thing here is that even if you are outputting 120 % in-game, in reality, the wheel is still only outputting 100 % of what you set your FFB strength in your wheel's control panel - that's because everything above 100 % in-game is ignored, the sim can never send more than 100 % to the wheel. That's what clipping is - everything above 100 % is "clipped off". Doesn't matter how strong your wheel actually is (the sim doesn't know that, it has no way of knowing), it always outputs 100 % maximum. It's all relative on the sim side, nothing is absolute - based on the specific wheel and its strength settings, 100 % might produce 2 Nm or 5 Nm or 15 Nm of force at the wheel, but regardless of that, you'll get software side clipping as soon as the sim's FFB exceeds 100 %.
And as for clipping killing wheels...it doesn't, really. What is killing some wheels is heat. As suggested above, that really doesn't mean clipping. T300 in particular has some design issues that make it overheat. That overheating might happen regardless of clipping, but clipping will likely make the matters worse, yes. Not because clipping itself would damage your wheel (again, the sim can never produce more than 100 % of what you set the wheel's strength to, and the drivers shouldn't allow you to set the strength to levels that would damage the wheels, except for Logitech wheels I guess), but because since the wheel produces 100 % force for longer periods of time, which obviously produces more heat. And if the cooling is not designed properly, your wheel might eventually overheat. One way to fight this on the T300 is to enable the forced fan mode, which means the fan is spinning constantly instead of only when the wheel is already quite warm. Again, I'm running the wheel at 90 % strength instead of the default 75 %, I'm using it almost daily for well over a year, sometimes for several hours, and I never had any overheating issues. I firmly believe that most of the T300 wheels dying is due to not running the forced fan mode and using a strong FFB, and the resulting high temperatures is what kills the wheels.
So, yeah. Sorry about the novel...
