Greater forces than IRL? Why?

[markie44]

I purchased a direct drive wheel and hydraulic pedals, to replicate real world forces for immersion and muscle memory. Turns out they can exceed them by a country mile. Even using about 50% power on the wheel and the softest rubbers on the pedals, exceeds what I've experienced on track cars with no power steering or servo assisted brakes IRL.

Having seen people using ultra high torque settings and huge kg load cells my question is genuinely - Why?

I'm not trying to rub anyone up the wrong way, but it seems completely unnecessary. Am I missing something?

 

[Tom_Hampton]

I'm not trying to rub anyone up the wrong way, but it seems completely unnecessary. Am I missing something?

Yes. Forces vary quite a bit from car to car. I drive a race-prepped Spec Miata with racing slicks, and 5 degrees of caster, and full-race brake pads, and manual steering. The steering forces in that configuration are quite high---I get sore arms and shoulders from a day of driving that---very similar to my 20 NM DD wheel. Brake pedal force in that car at full-threshold (2g) is ~100 lbs.

Braking forces in purpose build race cars, F1, NASCAR, Indy, etc....are considerably higher than any street car. F1 has been documented at up to 220 lbs...iirc.

So, you may not need 20 NM wheel and 100kg brake pedal for every car...but, there are cars that DO require those forces in real life.

 

[Clover11]

Why make a car with a V8 when a four banger can get you to the speed limit? Why good booze when you cay buy a gallon in a plastic bottle for less? Why more cowbell? Who can really say?

 

[R8pilot]

It's clear that many people with the means prefer the he-man high-torque wheelbases, and the reasons vary.

Some do so because "more power!" is always a bit seductive. Some like fighting the wheel (I kind of do). Some fall back on the old "but clipping!" saw, even though the 25+ Nm he-man rigs would have to be set pretty insanely high for clipping to ever be an issue.

Mine is 17 Nm, and it's way more than enough. I typically run it at about 10 Nm with a small-diameter wheel. It's fun, as I find wrestling it a bit adds to the engagement. Could I get by with 5-8 Nm? Probably, and I might even be faster if I did!

But it's also clear that the next big wave for direct drive is bringing them down in price and power for a much wider audience. That's great news for the sport.

 

[Michael Krone]

Why more cowbell?

You ask this as if its not rhetorical.

 

[mechsicko]

I think it's mainly so there is enough overhead in the torque budget to be able to replicate the endstops and large effects even while delivering full torque of the car/track/conditions it's doing.

I love my 8Nm CSL DD but already want more torque because the end stops feel soft/undefined when I'm driving cars with high forces and sometimes lose track of the wheel in VR. Never used to lose track of my CSW2.5 this way because the endstops really bang even when full tilt.

 

[Cote Dazur]

Am I missing something?

No you are not, you will read a lot of very funny justifications, trust yourself in what your like. High force wheels can be fun for a brief moment but long term if you prefer a smooth and communicative wheel, you are not the only one.
Of course if you just spent over a couple of thousand dollar on a megaton nm wheel, it is tough to realize and admit that too much is overkill and counter productive.

 

[NeoGrotesk]

No you are not, you will read a lot of very funny justifications, trust yourself in what your like. High force wheels can be fun for a brief moment but long term if you prefer a smooth and communicative wheel, you are not the only one.
Of course if you just spent over a couple of thousand dollar on a megaton nm wheel, it is tough to realize and admit that too much is overkill and counter productive.

I think it depends what you're after. If you want to be the best sim racer then yeah, having high force feedback is counter productive, because it will slow you down. However if you want your sim rig to try and emulate the forces involved in driving a real race car as best as they can with the restraints that we have, then in some circumstances the extra power is definitely needed.

As a rule I don't like using youtubers as examples, but Jimmy Broadbent has spent this season racing in a Praga (slightly quicker than a gt3 car for reference). As part of his training for that Niels Heusinkveld created a modified version of the Praga in AMS for him to train on. He used a simucube 2 wheel base, and I'm fairly certain he said to get the realistic feeling he had in the car he had to have the FFB maxed out.

So yes, not all cars need a high torque wheel, and yes, having high FFB will slow you down. But if you're more interested in trying to replicate the feeling of certain cars then there definitely is a benefit to the higher power wheel bases.

That said, you don't 'need' a dd wheel to either be a good sim racer or to have fun. But I wouldn't disregard them as pointless.

 

[Clover11]

Higher forces also makes it easier to feel difference. Makes it easier to tell the difference between effects and allows everything to react as quick as possible. Also, smooth and communitive don't go together. The more you smooth things, the less communitive you are making it. Just as some want to justify their decision to buy more powerful bases, some want to justify their decision not to buy those more powerful bases. That goes both ways.

 

[RasmusP]

Also, smooth and communitive don't go together. The more you smooth things, the less communitive you are making it.

While I agree with the rest, I don't agree with this.
In theory that's true but our sims don't really output perfect ffb. If I put the smoothing to 0 in rf2, driving over race tarmac vibrates like I would be dragged around behind the car on my teeth, grinding across the surface.

We all know track tarmac is pretty smooth so that's definitely not realistic...
But apart from that you're right, ofc. At some point it will become sluggish instead of smooth.

 

[hotak]

If you find forces to be too high, you should reduce them in the game, not on the wheelbase, to get the best possible signal.
For smoothing is the other way around: wheel drivers operate at a much higher frequency than ingame FFB, so you should add damping (or whatever) in wheel drivers and have no ingame smoothing

 

[RasmusP]

If you find forces to be too high, you should reduce them in the game, not on the wheelbase, to get the best possible signal.

I agree but I'd like to extend this. There are reasonable limits:
Do you want no clipping while going through turns like Eau Rouge to perfectly feel the changing grip levels during the compression and the crest? Yes, absolutely.
Do you really need a sausage kerb to have the full dynamic? Maybe, depending on whether you're practicing for taking it in real life or not.

Do you want "hitting the wall" to have full dynamic? Nope... (looking at you, Bathurst ).

So what I do for rfactor 2: put the gain to 30%, wheelbase to whatever won't hurt your wrists (like 5 Nm).
Do some clean, fast laps and record telemetry.
Then look into that telemetry and check the FFB levels. Search for the strongest point that isn't a sausage kerb and then scale the FFB gain so that this point will be 95-100%.

So the information for the driving will have full dynamic, while anything "potentially harmful" will only contain the "direction" part of the FFB but won't increase in strength.

Then dial in the wheelbase strength to your liking.


However I have to that for some games and cars I don't follow this rule.
If the dynamic is simply too much (peaks are too strong for my liking but the average force is way too weak), then I simply increase the game gain and lower the wheelbase strength. Yes, I'll get clipping and won't feel the limit as perfectly. But if it's more fun, who cares.

 

[hotak]

I agree but I'd like to extend this. There are reasonable limits:
Do you want no clipping while going through turns like Eau Rouge to perfectly feel the changing grip levels during the compression and the crest? Yes, absolutely.
Do you really need a sausage kerb to have the full dynamic? Maybe, depending on whether you're practicing for taking it in real life or not.

Do you want "hitting the wall" to have full dynamic? Nope... (looking at you, Bathurst ).

So what I do for rfactor 2: put the gain to 30%, wheelbase to whatever won't hurt your wrists (like 5 Nm).
Do some clean, fast laps and record telemetry.
Then look into that telemetry and check the FFB levels. Search for the strongest point that isn't a sausage kerb and then scale the FFB gain so that this point will be 95-100%.

So the information for the driving will have full dynamic, while anything "potentially harmful" will only contain the "direction" part of the FFB but won't increase in strength.

Then dial in the wheelbase strength to your liking.


However I have to that for some games and cars I don't follow this rule.
If the dynamic is simply too much (peaks are too strong for my liking but the average force is way too weak), then I simply increase the game gain and lower the wheelbase strength. Yes, I'll get clipping and won't feel the limit as perfectly. But if it's more fun, who cares.

I agree this is a very valid way to set it, but what i noticed is that in the games/cars i like most, with rough surfaces and/or unpredictable handling, sometimes i also get the clipping sound from my simucube during "transition" phases because of very low-duration FFB peaks that don't actually feel like clipping because they are so brief and the FFB before and after them is weak.
I only have 17Nm on my base, so it may feel different on more powerful ones, but my suggestion on how to set FFB was because i wouldn't want to loose those peaks, and they won't risk to hurt me when they happen.

 

[thygreyt]

in my case i run high FFB because i am lazy... sounds counter intuitive.
if you run low FFB you have to learn to feel... is like talking while only whispering. In reality, it kinda is the way it should be... but i am lazy, and i dont want to whisper, so i tell my wheel/motor to YELL to my hands in order for me know whats going on.

Makes sense?

 

[markie44]

Do some clean, fast laps and record telemetry.
Then look into that telemetry and check the FFB levels. Search for the strongest point that isn't a sausage kerb and then scale the FFB gain so that this point will be 95-100%.

Interesting. Sounds like a sensible technique. Is it possible to view the FFB levels in AC overlaid to this telemetry data?

I generally keep FFB at 100% and arbitrarily reduce per car in-game. Bit of a pain to have to remember to reduce every time you use a new mod - but not the end of the world.

 

[RasmusP]

Interesting. Sounds like a sensible technique. Is it possible to view the FFB levels in AC overlaid to this telemetry data?

I generally keep FFB at 100% and arbitrarily reduce per car in-game. Bit of a pain to have to remember to reduce every time you use a new mod - but not the end of the world.

Sadly not.. I thought it was possible with ACTI and motec but it's only a thing for rfactor 2...
Didn't look for acc yet.
But once you set that certain level for one car in rf2, you basically know what ffb strength is "correct" from simply your hands/arms.

Of course the FFB "shape" is different for each car but it's not that important to be +/- 10% correct.
It's more about the 40-50% when setting it up the first time!

For AC, you would need to record your screen and have the pedals app open so you can see the output.
Or install ffb clip, which draws a graph iirc!

For raceroom, you have a "clipping metre" selectable in the HUD settings.

 

[Callsign BH]

My SC2 Pro offers 25nM, I drive GT3 exclusively. I leave the True Drive force at 100% but set to 40% in game — effectively 10nm with headroom for spikes without clipping.

Believe GT3 cars run around 8-12nM, but hard to get exact data. This setup for me offers what I would call “firm”, but not really where I am ever “fighting the wheel” with a lot of strength…but it gives very solid feedback.

It feels realistic to me, and I guess that’s all that matter in the end…

My Wave Italy pedals have the firmest rubber setup possible, no spring, and it’s probably firmer than GT3’s…but again, it feels good to me, so good enough.

In most cars a driver can have engineers tune the force in wheel and pedals to their liking, so sim racers should do the same. Do what you like and what makes you happy.

 

[RasmusP]

My SC2 Pro offers 25nM, I drive GT3 exclusively. I leave the True Drive force at 100% but set to 40% in game — effectively 10nm with headroom for spikes without clipping.

Believe GT3 cars run around 8-12nM, but hard to get exact data. This setup for me offers what I would call “firm”, but not really where I am ever “fighting the wheel” with a lot of strength…but it gives very solid feedback.

It feels realistic to me, and I guess that’s all that matter in the end…

My Wave Italy pedals have the firmest rubber setup possible, no spring, and it’s probably firmer than GT3’s…but again, it feels good to me, so good enough.

In most cars a driver can have engineers tune the force in wheel and pedals to their liking, so sim racers should do the same. Do what you like and what makes you happy.

What size is your wheel btw?
With a 28cm wheel I ran about 60% base strength, with a 32cm wheel I ran about 90% base strength of my csw 2.5 (8 Nm)

 

[Callsign BH]

What size is your wheel btw?
With a 28cm wheel I ran about 60% base strength, with a 32cm wheel I ran about 90% base strength of my csw 2.5 (8 Nm)

I believe it’s 285mm, but whatever a Ascher F-28 is.

 

[RasmusP]

I believe it’s 285mm, but whatever a Ascher F-28 is.

Oh wow, so not really a big wheel!
I have to say I'm not the strongest man regarding forearms and hands, but not super weak either. I probably couldn't even do one corner with that high torque without grippy gloves.
With grippy gloves, it would be quite the workout, but doable hehe