rec.autos.simulators

I've just bought the new Thrustmaster F1 Force Feedback wheel (the Ferrari
replica one) but am having some dificulty getting GPL force feedback
settings right. In F1 2002 it is absolutely brilliant. You can actually feel
when the back end of the car is starting to slip away and correct it whereas
with my old non-force feedback wheel it would have spun. However, in GPL, I
have tried various settings based on posts I've read in this newsgroup but
most of those are based on the MOMO wheel or others.
The problem is, I've been driving GPL for four odd years now but never using
force feedback, so I dont really know what to expect. I've got the latency
setting about right but the wheel is constantly juddering. If I adjust the
settings to get rid of the juddering, I get very little force feedback
effects.
Also, in the windows control panel for the wheel, there are settings for
Master, Dynamic, Static and Spring with sliders that range from 0% - 100%.
Should I be adjusting these sliders or not.

Many thanks for any help

Russell

greetz,
buchinski

The first thing you need to do is determine whether you should be using
spring and damper gain or not.  My old Ferrari wheel and my new MOMO both
require the spring and damper to be 0.  Of course, centring spring is always
0, master or overall gain will always be 100%.  Once you get the overall
settings working (and by the way, F12002 also needed those settings on my
wheels, but most games are the opposite, with all 3 at 100% and the centring
at 0, which is only used for non-FFB games)...

Then, you have to play with the 3 settings in the core.ini.  For my old
Ferrari wheel, the settings that gave the most realistic feedback were
approximately 180 damping/0 latency/150 torque.  If you have a high-end
system, set the latency to 0 at least until you get the other two set-up.
Start with something (the above if you have nothing better) and then test
and test and test.  The last number is the torque...the lower the number,
the more force it takes to turn the wheel and fight against the forces the
game produces.  The first number is the damping, which essentially controls
all the feedback.  Try turning it down or up in notches of 10 or 15 and see
whether the return to centre (when pulling away from a stop with the wheels
***ed to one side), hitting a curb, losing the back-end a bit, etc. all
feel as natural as possible.  If there is a weird time-shift between when
you see something happening on screen and when you feel it through the
wheel, then adjust the latency...but you likely won't have to unless your
system is relatively slow.

The FFB in GPL is quite different from GTR2002/F12002, so compare it to
itself, not another title.  Tweak until it feels better than at any of the
other settings.

The internals of your wheel are basically the same as my old wheel, as far
as I know...but drivers, etc. can all make a difference.  Have fun!

Marc

Thanks for the responses. At least I now have a better understanding of what
the settings do and a more structured procedure for getting to the correct
settings rather than just aimlessly changing settings in the vain hope of
getting it right.

Many thanks once again,

Russell