DiRT Rally Logitech Profiler - Damper Effect Strength

[TemplarGFX]

Hi All,

Alot of people say you should turn off Damper and Spring strength in the Logitech Profiler. This is incorrect for Dirt Rally!
For those that don't know, Damper Strength controls the Wheel Friction and Tyre Friction effects in Dirt Rally, and if you have it turned off, you are missing out on almost a 1/3rd of all the Force Feedback effects in the game! The Spring controls some damage effects on the wheel, which you are also missing out on!

Spring and Damper effects on the wheel are "programmable" effects. In other words, they are controlled by the game you are running, and not predefined by the Logitech Driver. If the game does not use these features, it does not matter if they are at 150% or 0%. They are not used.
Dirt Rally most certainly does use these functions, so if you have them disabled, you might want to try them turned back on again!

Here is an explanation of the settings, In brackets is the Logitech option that controls it :

Self Aligning Torque (Over-All) - The effect of the wheels of the car centering themselves to the direction you are travelling while the car is in motion. Also simulates the effect of wheels pulling in the direction of a dip/angle on the road surface

Wheel Friction (Damper, Spring) - The effect of the weight of the steering column, and the friction (constant) it creates on the wheel. Also controls the feedback from wheel / steering damage to the car (wheel pull (spring), added friction (damper), etc)

Tyre Friction (Damper) - The effect of the tyres grip on the road surface causing friction when turning the wheel. Applies while moving very slowly and while skidding and turning.

Suspension (Over-All) - The effect of suspension hits pushing/vibrating the wheel

Tyre Slip (Over-All) - The effect of the wheel skidding over the surface, or spinning (burnout)

Collision (Over-All) - The effect of pushing/shock from impacts

Soft Lock (Over-All) - The amount of strength applied to prevent you turning the wheel past the soft-lock rotation

Steering Center Force (Over-All) - The speed/strength at which the wheel will automatically return to center at race start/car reset


For those that are interested, here are my settings : (SOFTLOCK disabled)

If your not sure, just go into the game, set everything to 0 except Wheel and Tyre Friction and set Spring and Damper strength to 0. Give a car a bit of a drive, then alt-tab out to the Logitech Profiler and put Spring and Damper at 150% and go back in game. You will immediately notice you now have feedback on the wheel which was not there before.

 

[mo86]

Great that you figured this out, thanks a lot! I've tested it and it feels way better!

Are your ingame ffb settings made with your impact mod or the regular ffb file?

By the way: i'm a big fan of your work!

 

[TemplarGFX]

Great that you figured this out, thanks a lot! I've tested it and it feels way better!

Are your ingame ffb settings made with your impact mod or the regular ffb file?

By the way: i'm a big fan of your work!

I always use my Impact mod personally. however Impact V6 is designed to be the same "strength" as default, so these settings should work without the mod just the same
and thanks!

 

[MaXyM]

It's not true what you wrote about spring and damper. At least you are wrong at some point. There are some facts:

1. I have spring and damper settings set to 0 (zero). If you were right I shouldn't feel centring forces in D:R. But I do.
2. if you enable "Allow game to adjust settings" the game can make use of those features in some way. This way it's also allowed to change settings you set in drivers, including spring/damper effects strength (the same way it can change predefined steering lock). So what's the point setting it in drivers since we have the same settings in the game?
3. And the last one: if the game drives the whole FFB with simulated effects calculated by physics engine, why to not simulate also spring/damping effects the same way but rely on hardware specific drivers, various for different devices?

By this post I'm not going to say, that using spring/damper effects is bad idea or doesn't make the wheel feel better. It's matter of taste. But IMO, it doesn't make any more than adds canned, predefined by logitech effects over FFB generated by the game.

And why you not se Soft Lock? I proved in some another post that it changes nothing to steering lock. It's only adds turn limiter generated by in-game FFB.

 

[function9]

I don't have either of those enabled in the Logitech driver. And I had no problem feeling the affect of a damaged wheel when using your latest damage mod (and default FFB).

If the game does not use these features, it does not matter if they are at 150% or 0%. They are not used.

I'm sorry, but I have to disagree. Those settings will be used regardless if the game recognizes them or not. Same as centering spring (Logitech driver setting). I can't imagine an old game like Rally Trophy was simulating these things. Yet, if you have them enabled in the driver, you'll get the effects in game. Same thing with CMR 2005.

 

[TemplarGFX]

It's not true what you wrote about spring and damper. At least you are wrong at some point. There are some facts:
I have spring and damper settings set to 0 (zero). If you were right I shouldn't feel centring forces in D:R. But I do.

Centering Forces come from "Self Aligning Torque" which uses the "over-all" strength. not either of these.

if you enable "Allow game to adjust settings" the game can make use of those features in some way. This way it's also allowed to change settings you set in drivers, including spring/damper effects strength (the same way it can change predefined steering lock). So what's the point setting it in drivers since we have the same settings in the game?

Because even though I have "allow game to adjust settings" if I set damper and spring to 0% I lose some feedback

And the last one: if the game drives the whole FFB with simulated effects calculated by physics engine, why to not simulate also spring/damping effects the same way but rely on hardware specific drivers, various for different devices?

I have absolutely no idea what you mean by this. they are controlled by the game, then scaled by the driver.

By this post I'm not going to say, that using spring/damper effects is bad idea or doesn't make the wheel feel better. It's matter of taste. But IMO, it doesn't make any more than adds canned, predefined by logitech effects over FFB generated by the game.

These effects are generated by the game and not the driver. otherwise putting up to 100% would do something out of the game.

And why you not se Soft Lock? I proved in some another post that it changes nothing to steering lock. It's only adds turn limiter generated by in-game FFB.

Sorry but again I have no idea what you are on about. Are you asking me why I have soft-lock off? Because I want all the cars to have the same rotation

I don't have either of those enabled in the Logitech driver. And I had no problem feeling the affect of a damaged wheel when using your latest damage mod (and default FFB).
I'm sorry, but I have to disagree. Those settings will be used regardless if the game recognizes them or not. Same as centering spring (Logitech driver setting). I can't imagine an old game like Rally Trophy was simulating these things. Yet, if you have them enabled in the driver, you'll get the effects in game. Same thing with CMR 2005.

Just give it a try. turn everything off but wheel friction and tyre friction and give the game a play. put spring and damper at 0% and see what FFB effects you can feel (there should be NONE at all if you set didnt leave something enabled by accident). then set spring and damper to 100% and see what you feel. Do you now feel FFB effects on the wheel which were not there when it was at 0%?

 

[TemplarGFX]

So lets finally put this to bed. I have downloaded the Logitech Wheel Software Development Kit and looked through the reference material, as well as had a play with the demo code.

There are 3 primary functions on a Logitech wheel :

Constant Force (uses the two motors)
Spring Force (uses the position-able spring)
Damper Force (uses the two motors)

These are dynamic effects that should be linked to a pyhsics vector. in other words they are not "canned" effects but simply additional FFB effects for a game to use. Only the below effects are marked as not needed should you have Constant Force linked to a physics vector. Constant Force does not create the effects Spring and Damper force does when it is linked to a physics vector. They are to be used in tandem

The canned effects are :
FrontCollision Force
SideCollision Force
DirtRoadEffect Force
BumpyRoadEffect Force
SlipperyRoadEffect Force
PlaySurfaceEffect Force
CarAirborne Force

All of these actual canned effects are controlled by "Over-All Strength" and not related to Spring and Damper in any way.

 

[MaXyM]

Thank you for deep analysis. It really looks you are right.
So if game is designed to generate damping forces data separate from other forces, it can be controlled in steering driver as you described. lesson taken.

I also performed the test which confirmed that tyre and wheel friction amount is controlled by damping slider in drivers.
On the other hand I had expected tire friction to be more variable, for example due to load chnges. But very likely I didn't test enough

regards

 

[TemplarGFX]

Thank you for deep analysis. It really looks you are right.
So if game is designed to generate damping forces data separate from other forces, it can be controlled in steering driver as you described. lesson taken.

I also performed the test which confirmed that tyre and wheel friction amount is controlled by damping slider in drivers.
On the other hand I had expected tire friction to be more variable, for example due to load chnges. But it's possible I didn't test enough

regards

Tyre Friction in its default setup is terrible! I don't know why the values are the way they are
By default, Surface Friction scale is at 10x, Grip Friction scale is at 60x, Velocity Factor is 0.03 and an overall scale of 0.125x

Impact V7 (should be out tomorrow) focus' specifically on this setting to bring V5's Lateral functions back over.
Im currently running Surface Friction of 0.5x, Grip Friction of 0.13x, Velocity Factor at 0.0007 and an overall scale of 0.4x

As you can see my settings are starkly different to Codemasters! Velocity Factor is a big one. This setting controls how rapidly the effect fades with speed. With their setup it disappears completely at about 10kph, where with my setup it tapers from about 2kph-20kph, and is still subtly noticable at 20-60kph. Because its slowly tapers off over such a wide range of speed, it creates alot more variation in Tyre Friction feedback when your turning and sliding, as speed plays a bigger factor compared to default. This in turn increases the "feel" of losing grip during turns and slides

 

[mikeuk737]

can anyone help im a bit of a newby i have installed TemplarGFX force feedback mod i have a g920 wheel and the software does
not allow me to access global settings to set overall,spring and damper. the old logitech profiler did but this new software doesn t!

Or am i being dense??