FM7 FFB settings in FM7 Demo

[Shiimis]

Hey, just wanted to suggest that you never set Centering spring in advanced options to 0. It actually DOES NOT refer to SPRING effect on your wheel, but controls the self aligning force. You can safely disable spring in your control panel though.
I've determined it by sampling data that is sent your wheel by FM7 demo. Here you can see what parameters for SPRING Forza is sending to wheel when centering spring is set to max:

As you see Positive Coefficient and Negative coefficient is always 0, which means that wheel won't autocenter.
Now just to experiment, I added 0.3 positive and negative coefficient each time the game sends SPRING effect to wheel:

Surely enough, the wheel now centers constantly, when i turn it soon I feel a resistance and it wants to turn back to center. As you can see in the picture Positive and Negative Coefficient is now 0.3.

Conclusion: NEVER EVER set centering string to 0 in advanced settings as it does not control SPRING effect on your wheel, but rather it controls the self aligning force. Even if you disable centering spring in control panel of your wheel, centering string parameter in Forza will still have an effect on FFB.

 

[William Wester]

Hey, just wanted to suggest that you never set Centering spring in advanced options to 0. It actually DOES NOT refer to SPRING effect on your wheel, but controls the self aligning force. You can safely disable spring in your control panel though.
...
...
Surely enough, the wheel now centers constantly, when i turn it soon I feel a resistance and it wants to turn back to center. As you can see in the picture Positive and Negative Coefficient is now 0.3.

Conclusion: NEVER EVER set centering string to 0 in advanced settings as it does not control SPRING effect on your wheel, but rather it controls the self aligning force. Even if you disable centering spring in control panel of your wheel, centering string parameter in Forza will still have an effect on FFB.

I can't refute your findings, all I can comment on is my experience. I still have the self-aligning force even with SPRING at 0. Actually, I can't feel much difference between 0 and 100 (Forza spring setting). I believe to use the Forza setting you need to set the TM control panel spring setting to something other than 0 but even setting that to 100 and Forza to 100 I get maybe a very small increase to self-centering. 0 or 100 I'm getting self-aligning FFB, your mileage may vary.
I actually have my wheel feeling OK, passible, and can put the Porsche into controlled drifts (NORMAL steering). FM7 physics and FFB not at up to sim standards, didn't expect it to be, but FM7 might be a fun game.
Thrustmaster TX, T3PA pedals, TH8A shifter, 5880x1080 triple-screen

 

[Shiimis]

I can't refute your findings, all I can comment on is my experience. I still have the self-aligning force even with SPRING at 0. Actually, I can't feel much difference between 0 and 100 (Forza spring setting). I believe to use the Forza setting you need to set the TM control panel spring setting to something other than 0 but even setting that to 100 and Forza to 100 I get maybe a very small increase to self-centering. 0 or 100 I'm getting self-aligning FFB, your mileage may vary.
I actually have my wheel feeling OK, passible, and can put the Porsche into controlled drifts (NORMAL steering). FM7 physics and FFB not at up to sim standards, didn't expect it to be, but FM7 might be a fun game.
Thrustmaster TX, T3PA pedals, TH8A shifter, 5880x1080 triple-screen

The problem is that centering spring does not seem to be affected by slider on PC and it is entirely separate from what you have set in Thrustmaster TX control panel. However on xbox the centering spring slider acts a self aligning torque force and it has noticable effect on how FFB feels.
I'm also using Thrustmaster TX, T3PA Pro and TH8A.

 

[William Wester]

@Shiimis, ahh, so your findings were related to the console? Have you tried the demo on a PC?

 

[Shiimis]

@William Wester well both actually. I can sample FFB data only on PC so I don't know what the FFB data looks like on xbox, but I can safely say that on xbox centering spring is not centering spring, but rather self aligning torque which is not the same. On PC though, the FFB is different. Upon anlalyzing the data that arrives for FFB effect SPRING, I can say that centering spring in no way affects it (regardless of what you have set in control panel of your wheel). It means that on PC it either does nothing (a bug) or it actually adds some effect other than spring. My best guess is , it adds the wheel behavior when the car has lost grip and it slides. At least it seems to be so on xbox. On PC need more testing , results are not conclusive yet.

 

[kondor999]

I can't refute your findings, all I can comment on is my experience. I still have the self-aligning force even with SPRING at 0. Actually, I can't feel much difference between 0 and 100 (Forza spring setting). I believe to use the Forza setting you need to set the TM control panel spring setting to something other than 0 but even setting that to 100 and Forza to 100 I get maybe a very small increase to self-centering. 0 or 100 I'm getting self-aligning FFB, your mileage may vary.
I actually have my wheel feeling OK, passible, and can put the Porsche into controlled drifts (NORMAL steering). FM7 physics and FFB not at up to sim standards, didn't expect it to be, but FM7 might be a fun game.
Thrustmaster TX, T3PA pedals, TH8A shifter, 5880x1080 triple-screen

I've got your same wheel, can you share your FFB settings?

 

[Rupe Wilson]

I must admit i was pleasantly surprised how good it felt straight out the box.
ok it may lack the finer detail in the ffb of rf2, but all being said, the Nissan in the wet and my wheel came alive.
really nice feel, I may end up with it on my other pc sat upstairs and a controller for those late night blasts when i rig is overkill.

I don't need a new driving game right now but im sure in the sales it may be purchased over another well known release.

 

[William Wester]

I've got your same wheel, can you share your FFB settings?

With these settings FM7 feels pretty good - not PC sim level (PC2, AC, rF2, R3E, AMS) but not bad.

TM TX/T3PA/TH8A, i7 - 16GB - GTX 1070 (1080 Ti on the way)

EDIT: I use NORMAL steering, I have no idea what SIMULATION steering simulates, surely not real life.

Thrustmaster Control Panel (I don't change these for any of my sims):
Overall strength: 75
Constant: 100
Periodic: 100
Spring: 0
Damper: 0

FM7:
Steering/Accel/Brake/Hand Brake min/max usually the full range (0-100), clutch 0-40.
Vibration scale: 0
FFB scale: 100
Steering Sensitivity: 100
Steering Linearity: 50
FFB understeer: 5
FFB min force: 100
Wheel damper scale: 0
Center spring scale: 0

Hope this helps...

 

[kondor999]

With these settings FM7 feels pretty good - not PC sim level (PC2, AC, rF2, R3E, AMS) but not bad.

TM TX/T3PA/TH8A, i7 - 16GB - GTX 1070 (1080 Ti on the way)

EDIT: I use NORMAL steering, I have no idea what SIMULATION steering simulates, surely not real life.

Thrustmaster Control Panel (I don't change these for any of my sims):
Overall strength: 75
Constant: 100
Periodic: 100
Spring: 0
Damper: 0

FM7:
Steering/Accel/Brake/Hand Brake min/max usually the full range (0-100), clutch 0-40.
Vibration scale: 0
FFB scale: 100
Steering Sensitivity: 100
Steering Linearity: 50
FFB understeer: 5
FFB min force: 100
Wheel damper scale: 0
Center spring scale: 0

Hope this helps...

Oh, those are some...interesting settings

Center Spring needs to be 100. Why? Because it's not really "Center Spring" like you think. It's actually "Self-Aligning Torque", and it's absolutely critical for proper FFB.

Also, you don't have to zero out the Wheel damper and center spring in the TM control panel. Almost nothing made since 2010 uses anything but the "Constant" force. Personally, I like to keep it all set to 100% in the Thrustmaster control panel, then adjust in-game. Then again, I like to add just a touch of damper (feels more like real tires in many games, some don't need it).

Anyway, here are my settings. With these, the FFB for the full FM7 game feels great:

Wheel degrees of rotation = 780 for most cars. This is critical. Each car type in FM7 has a "sweet spot" for DOR. DOR is too high if you've got a big "numb" FFB zone with the wheel centered.

Examples:
Trophy Trucks = 540deg
GT3 cars = 780deg
GTP/Group C = 540 or so.

You just have to experiment. I keep a notepad document open and jot down what works best for each car type. You can also play around with Steering Sensitivity once you've got it dialed in. For instance, DOR = 780 with Sens= 100 feels similar to DOR= 720 with Sense = 80.

In-game FFB:
Vibration 50
FFB scale 60 (also has to be adjusted per-car)
Sensitivity 100
Linearity 50
Understeer 100
Min force 100
Damper 10
Center spring 100 (critical - this is actually self-aligning torque, not a "spring" at all)

 

[William Wester]

As I've said before, I get self-aligning torque even with center spring at 0. Just saying... I'm fine with 0, I'm not going to disagree with your assessment.