Using Wheel damper?

Msportdan · Jan 17, 2016

Has anyone tried this?I know its a forsaken rule to use damper in sims. But ive been messing wiht about 30% damper (json resistance coefficent) (100% profiler) and it feels much more like a real car it takes away the springey feel to the wheel, and also makes it feel like your on rubber. Also with a min force about 3% I still feel details and not clip.

Has anyone tried this?

Gijs van Elderen · Jan 17, 2016

Depends on your wheel, i guess.

What do you have?

Msportdan · Jan 17, 2016

t300 gte

Msportdan · Jan 19, 2016

quick question?

if I have damper on in profiler to 100% for another sim cough raceroom.

will it be on in rf2 if I don't touch the controller json? Don't u have to set the coefficient higher to enable it ?

cheers

Msportdan · Jan 19, 2016

ah interesting answer here

http://isiforums.net/f/showthread.p...-for-rFactor-2-The-key-to-being-in-the-Zone-D

in main post and update 11

realism alsi mentioned

William Wester · Jan 20, 2016

Msportdan said:
quick question?

if I have damper on in profiler to 100% for another sim cough raceroom.

will it be on in rf2 if I don't touch the controller json? Don't u have to set the coefficient higher to enable it ?

cheers

Damper at 100% for a TM wheel, in R3E, why? Most every thread I ever read on TM FFB recommended Spring and Damper at 0 in the control panel. Actually, I believe most sims will control the damper anyway (seems so to me when testing) even if you set it to 100% but if it is working it will deaden the FFB.

Msportdan · Jan 20, 2016

In rre i need damper (i set 20% actually in game). But with it enabled it does feel more like a real steering rack, No rack is loose and raw like a sim rack. To me it just dampens it all down and makes it feel like your on rubber rather than wood.

You don't loose that much detail, zandvoort in rre is still as bumpy with damper on as it is off.

Having said that rf. does have better feel of dampener built it in, but imo i think feels more realistic with a tad more dampening.

BUT my question is if i don't touch the json dampening values, i don't think its asking to add any more dampener. its at 0.1 at default. (so maybe this is 10% activated with dampener) it doesn't feel vastly different to me tbh.

Robin · Jan 20, 2016

I have no TM wheel, but the way I always assumed the Damper setting worked in a wheel control panel was just to tell the software on what scale it will use damper effects on the wheel if selected to use them inside the game.

So if you have 20 damper in your control panel, max damper in the wheel will be 20% of the value of dampening inside the game's settings .

I might be talking BS, though , but its just how I always thought it worked.

Hence leaving it on 100% in control panel, but not damper in game still gets rid of dampening.

Msportdan · Jan 20, 2016

Yes i think thats right, although maybe the over way round.. I though 100% in CP would be 100% dampening from the wheel. But 20% in game would scale the wheels software back.

So 100% in game would be using the whole 100% of the wheels damper effect. Or set it at 20% in profile and 100% in game. Meaning its at 20% of the wheel.

William Wester · Jan 20, 2016

Robin said:
I have no TM wheel, but the way I always assumed the Damper setting worked in a wheel control panel was just to tell the software on what scale it will use damper effects on the wheel if selected to use them inside the game.

So if you have 20 damper in your control panel, max damper in the wheel will be 20% of the value of dampening inside the game's settings .

I might be talking BS, though , but its just how I always thought it worked.

Hence leaving it on 100% in control panel, but not damper in game still gets rid of dampening.

I think you may be correct. I tried setting damper to 100% in the TM control panel just for kicks but I didn't notice any difference in R3E or rF2. But I have damper off in every game I play so I shouldn't notice a difference if you are correct.

Msportdan · Jan 21, 2016

William you have enabled the damper in game of course?

William Wester · Jan 21, 2016

Msportdan said:
William you have enabled the damper in game of course?

Yes, I understand the need to enable damper "in game", I was just commenting that TM control panel alone doesn't make a difference. As you know I like rF2's FFB, I wouldn't want to use damper. I've tried out of curiosity but I didn't notice much difference and it surely didn't improve anything for me. Maybe there is a bigger difference with other wheels (TM TX here).

Emery · Jan 24, 2016

Let's be clear about some things:
1) controller.JSON damping/friction is a calculated value output to the wheel, requires no extra energy from wheel's motor. It merely dampens the output signal, but doesn't give you any extra stiffness when the car is parked or barely rolling.
2) Wheel damping & spring are physical and the energy required are removed from the power the wheel has available for FFB. Wheel damping & spring give you the feeling of stiffness even when the game is providing zero FFB.
3) Wheel and controller.json damper/spring settings are independent and they don't know what each other are doing. Adjusting the damper in controller.JSON to 30% in hopes that it will only use 30% of the wheel's damper is not possible.

So if you have 100% damping enabled at the wheel, you either have to turn down the FFB on the wheel or you suffer hardware clipping(*). The hardware clipping occurs regardless of what the game is sending to the wheel. Damping/spring at the wheel also hides the FFB signal the game is providing at low/medium levels; in rF2, increasing "Steering torque sensitivity" in the controller.JSON file will magnify the midrange without changing the low & high levels.

Therefore, if you like the feel of damping/spring that the wheel provides when, say, the car is going slowly in a straight line or is parked, you should use as little as possible at the wheel, like only 10%-30%.

(*) On my CSWv2 there is a clutch or current override that brutally disengages FFB when hardware clipping occurs, so it really helped in understanding hardware clipping. On this wheel, if I use 100% spring & damper at the wheel, I can only use 50% FFB at the wheel. 10% spring & damper at the wheel allows 80% FFB at the wheel. Other wheels, like the Logitech, just limit the power the motor uses when the hardware clips.

Msportdan · Jan 25, 2016

I was interested in your reply, so I gave it a test in RF2.
I have found that no matter what value I have in the json "Steering resistance coefficient", I have to have damper on in wheel (to some percentage) to get any damper feel in rf2. WIth 100% damper in wheel, I could vary the strength by adjust the above value up/down. At 1.0 its very damped which I wouldn't recommend, is settled for 0.3. However rf2 does have some sort of built in damper in the very good physics engine, but I dont think it truly represents the feeling of a steering rack on my wheel.....Can get to loose with over turning.

I still believe the games value is a scale of what is set in the wheel.

Just tried the same thing on RRE, 100% damper in game wont be felt with no damper in control panel. The thrustmaster does not have a "game override settings" option, so where some wheels may, for thrustmaster you HAVE to enable damper on wheel first,.

David Cordell · Jan 25, 2016

In the Fanatac driver software, I leave damping at 100% because that just means that it has the ability now for a sim to use up to 100% of the wheel damping if/when the settings of the sim call for damping of whatever percentage.

The Fanatec wheel also has a setting on the wheel itself called "dri" which is short for drift which acts as a static damping of the wheel independent of any software. Setting to "off" gives a very heavy, damped feeling and setting to the highest which I think is "5" gives almost a power steering effect so I leave it at the setting "3" which gives the wheel an almost non-damped feeling that basically overcomes the overall friction of the motor, bushings, etc. With the wheel set like this, most sims by default give the wheel a pretty decent damped feeling that prevents any tank slap at speed except for PCARS in which I have to turn the dri setting to off because I have found no way to add some damping in game to do away with the tank slap effect. I no longer find PCARS useful for anything other than disgust and laughter so I don't play it anymore and just leave my "dri" setting at 3.

Emery · Jan 25, 2016

David Cordell said:
In the Fanatac driver software, I leave damping at 100% because that just means that it has the ability now for a sim to use up to 100% of the wheel damping if/when the settings of the sim call for damping of whatever percentage.

Tell me, how does the sim call for the wheel to apply damping when the sim only sends a signal to apply X% of available force in Y direction?

David Cordell · Jan 25, 2016

Emery said:
Tell me, how does the sim call for the wheel to apply damping when the sim only sends a signal to apply X% of available force in Y direction?

No idea. Like I said, most sims give a decent amount of damping to my wheel except for Pcars which gives none.

Like MsportDan said, I can go into RRE and the damping settings to increase or decrease damping. If I set damping in the driver to 0% and then tried changing the damping in game in R3E, I would get no damping at all.

Emery · Jan 26, 2016

David Cordell said:
No idea. Like I said, most sims give a decent amount of damping to my wheel except for Pcars which gives none.

Like MsportDan said, I can go into RRE and the damping settings to increase or decrease damping. If I set damping in the driver to 0% and then tried changing the damping in game in R3E, I would get no damping at all.

Right, if the wheel has 0% damping and the sim is not providing any damping in the calculations it sends to the wheel, then you won't feel any. However, by turning up the wheel damping to 100% to compensate for something you're not experiencing from the sim takes power away from the level available to FFB.

That 100% damping you've enabled at the wheel is always on and takes about 25% of the available torque in a Fanatec CSWv2. Turn damping down and you'll have more torque available for FFB.

"A force feedback wheel is truly clipped when the motor has reached it's torque limit and can give no more. A games force feedback meter shows what force feedback level the game is requesting. This is represented as a range of torque between 0 and 100% in either direction.

"However, most game force feedback meters do NOT account for the motor torque used by dampening, friction, inertia and spring effects and therefore can cause you to believe that you are not clipping when in fact you are."

http://simxperience.com/Community/S...rce-Feedback-Myths-and-Misunderstandings.aspx

David Cordell · Jan 26, 2016

Emery said:
That 100% damping you've enabled at the wheel is always on and takes about 25% of the available torque in a Fanatec CSWv2. Turn damping down and you'll have more torque available for FFB.

So tell me, why is none of this 100% damping enabled at the wheel felt at all in Pcars?

Robin · Jan 26, 2016

This is starting to get confusing.

Damping is a software governed thing isn't it?
So that tells me that the damping process is managed by the game we play. That would leave my theory intact about the Damping slider in the drivers just being a slider to tell the wheel how much of the damping input received from the game should be used.

@Emery are you telling that it is actually the wheel's driver suite that can create damping in a wheel regardless of game?