I recently purchased a hardware handbrake and found it yieleded no response within Assetto Corsa. Through lengthy tested I discovered some interesting information that I wanted to share with others as many have experienced this behavior.
Change AC to use keyboard only and then map your handbrake to a key. Then you can test if the handbrake is actually working in a car. This is a much smarter path than to mess with hardware before knowing if it will work in the car. This method takes all hardware (sans the keyboard) out of the equation to confirm what is going on.
Scenario A. Handbrake is present in a car. This is the case for many Japanese cars, namely Subaru, Supra, Toyota. Whilst driving press and hold the assigned button for the handbrake and the rear wheels lock and the car comes to a screeching halt. This is the proper expected result and means the handbrake has been "modded" into the car
Scenario B. Handbrake NOT present. You are driving along and press the handbrake button and nothing happens. If you have the "pedal" display overlay you can see the button is indeed engaging the handbrake but the car has zero response. The vast majority of cars in AC will present like this. What you need to do is stop accelerating and then press/hold the handbrake button. You will find that the car slows down to a complete stop or stops rather quickly. In these cars it is imperative that you first release the throttle (acceleration) for the handbrake to "engage". Whilst accelerating the "handbrake" will NEVER engage. You must come off throttle.
Scenario C. Handbrake NOT present. Similar with Scenario B but in this scenario even when you release the throttle, depressing the handbrake key yields no result. In this scenario is means the data\brakes.ini file has a HANDBRAKE_TORQUE=0 value. Navigate to the car folder in question, to the data folder, and into the brakes.ini file. If the data folder is not present, use Content Manager. Select Content, Cars, select your car, then select "unpack data" at the "bottom right". There is no specific value to recommend as each car comes with different torque mappings. Values of 1000 or 2000 are good to start with. Recommend you initially set this and then continue to adjust it until you obtain the response you want.
Through testing I have found that all cars in AC can respond to handbrake usage. In Scenarios' B and C the rear will not initially lock up and therefore the use of a linear hardware handbrake has no bearing as these cars will only understand "on" or "off". In Scenario A a linear hardware handbrake would work quite properly after being calibrated. In some cars "without a handbrake" I was able to come off the throttle, engage the handbrake, the car began to skid a bit and the rear actually locked up. You can use the F5 key to observe the behavior of the rear. Or simply try some things and watch a replay.
Once you have tested that your cars do respond to a keyboard based handbrake you should move on to assigning your hardware. In Content Manage change your inputs from Keyboard/mouse to Wheel. After initially assigning your hardware handbrake to an axis you must switch over to the BUTTONS tab and be sure "combine with keyboard" is checked at the top. Under the Miscellaneous section be sure to map a keyboard button in the second of the "click to assign" fields. This way your hardware handbrake is mapped to a hardware axis and your keyboard command is additionally mapped. Some have found handbrake issues when not correctly assigning both of these relevant fields.
**For clarification, under the Miscellaneous section the first "click to assign" should be blank, as this setting has already been properly configured in the AXIS tab.
Hopefully people find this information helpful! I was initially at a loss as to why handbrakes were not working in AC. Looking over dozens of forum posts and was still left very confused.
Change AC to use keyboard only and then map your handbrake to a key. Then you can test if the handbrake is actually working in a car. This is a much smarter path than to mess with hardware before knowing if it will work in the car. This method takes all hardware (sans the keyboard) out of the equation to confirm what is going on.
Scenario A. Handbrake is present in a car. This is the case for many Japanese cars, namely Subaru, Supra, Toyota. Whilst driving press and hold the assigned button for the handbrake and the rear wheels lock and the car comes to a screeching halt. This is the proper expected result and means the handbrake has been "modded" into the car
Scenario B. Handbrake NOT present. You are driving along and press the handbrake button and nothing happens. If you have the "pedal" display overlay you can see the button is indeed engaging the handbrake but the car has zero response. The vast majority of cars in AC will present like this. What you need to do is stop accelerating and then press/hold the handbrake button. You will find that the car slows down to a complete stop or stops rather quickly. In these cars it is imperative that you first release the throttle (acceleration) for the handbrake to "engage". Whilst accelerating the "handbrake" will NEVER engage. You must come off throttle.
Scenario C. Handbrake NOT present. Similar with Scenario B but in this scenario even when you release the throttle, depressing the handbrake key yields no result. In this scenario is means the data\brakes.ini file has a HANDBRAKE_TORQUE=0 value. Navigate to the car folder in question, to the data folder, and into the brakes.ini file. If the data folder is not present, use Content Manager. Select Content, Cars, select your car, then select "unpack data" at the "bottom right". There is no specific value to recommend as each car comes with different torque mappings. Values of 1000 or 2000 are good to start with. Recommend you initially set this and then continue to adjust it until you obtain the response you want.
Through testing I have found that all cars in AC can respond to handbrake usage. In Scenarios' B and C the rear will not initially lock up and therefore the use of a linear hardware handbrake has no bearing as these cars will only understand "on" or "off". In Scenario A a linear hardware handbrake would work quite properly after being calibrated. In some cars "without a handbrake" I was able to come off the throttle, engage the handbrake, the car began to skid a bit and the rear actually locked up. You can use the F5 key to observe the behavior of the rear. Or simply try some things and watch a replay.
Once you have tested that your cars do respond to a keyboard based handbrake you should move on to assigning your hardware. In Content Manage change your inputs from Keyboard/mouse to Wheel. After initially assigning your hardware handbrake to an axis you must switch over to the BUTTONS tab and be sure "combine with keyboard" is checked at the top. Under the Miscellaneous section be sure to map a keyboard button in the second of the "click to assign" fields. This way your hardware handbrake is mapped to a hardware axis and your keyboard command is additionally mapped. Some have found handbrake issues when not correctly assigning both of these relevant fields.
**For clarification, under the Miscellaneous section the first "click to assign" should be blank, as this setting has already been properly configured in the AXIS tab.
Hopefully people find this information helpful! I was initially at a loss as to why handbrakes were not working in AC. Looking over dozens of forum posts and was still left very confused.
