GPL FF and Ferrari racing wheel

I've had a few people ask me what I'm using now for FF settings with the Ferrari wheel. Before I write them down, I'd better explain a couple things or nowbody will believe me. These settings may also work for other FF wheels, I don't know for sure. If you're using a LWFF and try them, let me know if they product stronger effects for you. Okay, there are 2 ways of programming FF into a game, using a Spring effect, which is quite simple and smooth, or using Constant Forces (Vector Forces in I-Force). GPL uses Constant forces. Most people are setting the damping in GPL's core.ini to 0, or some other small number. What this does, in effect, is turn off some of the Vector forces GPL uses. The settings I use will send every blade of grass to the wheel and bumping a guard rail at 5 mph will shake the wheel from your hand. Joystick properties: Overall gain: 100% Spring gain: 0% Damping gain: 0% (increase this for more wheel resistance) Default spring: off Core.ini: [ Joy ] allow_force_feedback = 1 force_feedback_damping = 1200 force_feedback_latency = 0.00450 max_steering_torque = 275. *steering torque should be lowered until you wheel starts to shake going down a straight at high speeds. At this setting, mine will oscillate slightly when induced. *Damping can be lowered if you want a smoother steering feel at the expense of feeling every blade of grass or maybe in a race (500 works good). I've also had it as high as 2500, but my table was shaking so much that my beer foamed over. At these settings, running the F3 Brahbam with Ron's setup on Monza, the car actually steers itself through some of the corners. So Ferrari wheel owners (and others), try these settings and let me know if there is enough FF for you. Then make adjustments from here to your own tastes. It's late, I'm not proof reading this or checking it for spelling. Slot

It's amazing what a little sleep will do. Let me first say that I didn't post my settings to start a debate about my theory of damping in GPL (or any game using Constant Force to simulate feedback), I posted it because I was asked for my settings. Also, I play around with the settings quite a bit and may eventually settle on a steering torque of 300 to allow more headroom (less clipping) on stronger forces. I may also end up eventually using a damping setting of 500 or so because 'feeling every blade of grass' may become distracting (although it is fun). I may even end up using the posted core.ini settings but with a lower joystick Overall Gain setting of 85% or so to force clipping of stronger forces, such as running over curbs and such. Also, keep in mind that my Ferrari wheel is well used by now, so I'm not getting as much notchiness at high force settings as some of you are. It does where off. Later I'll take the wheel apart again and try to see if it uses a 3 pole or 5 pole motor. A motor with more than 7 poles would be real nice, but expensive, and would really make a wheel smooth at high forces. Anyone coming out with a new FF wheel should take note of this. These settings will, at the least, show that the Ferrari wheel is capable of producing very high subtle forces. They, or some variation of them, work for me. I know its not the conventional theory of damping so please don't email me telling me this. To me, these forces produce natural effects. Slot

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> It's amazing what a little sleep will do. Let me first say that I didn't > post my settings to start a debate about my theory of damping in GPL (or any > game using Constant Force to simulate feedback), I posted it because I was > asked for my settings. Also, I play around with the settings quite a bit and > may eventually settle on a steering torque of 300 to allow more headroom > (less clipping) on stronger forces. I may also end up eventually using a > damping setting of 500 or so because 'feeling every blade of grass' may > become distracting (although it is fun). I may even end up using the posted > core.ini settings but with a lower joystick Overall Gain setting of 85% or > so to force clipping of stronger forces, such as running over curbs and > such. Also, keep in mind that my Ferrari wheel is well used by now, so I'm > not getting as much notchiness at high force settings as some of you are. It > does where off. Later I'll take the wheel apart again and try to see if it > uses a 3 pole or 5 pole motor. A motor with more than 7 poles would be real > nice, but expensive, and would really make a wheel smooth at high forces. > Anyone coming out with a new FF wheel should take note of this. > These settings will, at the least, show that the Ferrari wheel is capable of > producing very high subtle forces. They, or some variation of them, work for > me. I know its not the conventional theory of damping so please don't email > me telling me this. To me, these forces produce natural effects. > Slot

Thanks for sharing this, I doubt I had ever tried higher 'damping' values without this information since everywhere it is described as higher values are only good for damping spikes in the output (I have little problem with spikes since I use rather low delay values). My conclusion is that either GPL is behaving really strange with the Ferrari wheel, or more likely the so called 'damping' value in core.ini really have nothing at all to do with damping in the usual meaning of the word. In my setup, it is quite obvious that the value really affects the gain curve for the forces generated: with higher values weak forces are amplified relative strong forces and vice versa. A quick guess is that a value of 1 means fully linear forces, which would be ok if the wheel had no inherent friction at all. With the rather high friction in at least the Ferrari wheel, much larger values are needed. After a quick try with really large 'damping' values I have been driving with a value of 100 for a couple of hours, and the difference compared to my previous 5 is huge. That I now can feel some weaker forces like having a wheel outside the track makes the immersion better, but more important is that all forces seem much more natural making driving a great deal easier. The latter shows up in lap times, in less than an hour I got new lotus and ferrari lap records at watkins glen in addition to reducing the gap to my pre-FF lap record at monza from two seconds to four tenths :-) _ Mats Lofkvist Current setup: GPL max torque 250 latency 0.025 damping 100 IForce overall gain 100% spring 0% damping 0%

I received an email from someone with a fairly new wheel who tried my settings and then played around with them. He said that for him a damping of 1500 and steering torque of 600 had good effects and was smooth even on his new wheel. I tried the settings and also found them quite rewarding, very smooth (even smoother than I need), and with a great deal of road feel and dynamic range (no clipping). To all of you who have tried these types of settings and emailed me, I applaud the fact that you didn't snicker at my unconvetional theories and actually took the time to try it. Maybe instead of calling the core.ini settings 'steering torque' and 'damping', we should call them 'positive force' and 'negative force' ;) Slot

Kind of a whole new world, eh Mats. I hope your new settings give you more pleasure with your wheel and GPL. You got it. At the very least it could be called anti-damping or the values could be reversed. Or maybe it should even be called Force Strength. I also think of Steering Torque as more of a compression, or because the values are inverted, maybe decompression would be more accurate. I haven't taken the time to think it through all the way, fine tuning it yet (because the theory worked) but I think of core.ini's damping as a vertical spring with a possible max. value of, maybe, 10000 (larger settings don't seem to have any effect). Then a smaller spring with a value of 3000 would be less powerful. So core.ini's steering force may set a threshold, or compress the spring from the bottom (with decending values) making it harder. Sort of a square wave effect. And as I'm writing this and thinking about it again, I now think it may be even simpler than this. How's this one: force_feedback_damping, damping should be called strength. Now the values make sense. As for max_steering_torque, it effects only the steering wheel (but the values are still inverted). So a high 'damping' value sends stronger forces to the car, and a low steering_torque value lets you feel them more (laterally) in the wheel. Gee, I could swear that increasing the damping value made the 'tire roll' noise louder :) Regardless of how you look at it, it seems obvious that actually damping forces in Constant Force programming simply weakens the amplitude of the forces, which, of course, lead me to try these settings in the first place. A tired Slot

Glad to see you discovered Mats 0% spring revelation. (You see now why I had no FFB in N3/NL and pathetic FFB in GPL??--I was using the obvious settings that a sane person would use, not the reverse, which turns out to be what you need to use!!!!!) Too bad it doesn't work as well for other titles. We desperately need a Logi-style profiler that permits different force and damping settings for different games. Of course, if it crashes as much as the current profiler, it would be a nightmare, but let's hope they do it right. stuff and your wishes for wheel and driver improvements. Marc.

Actually, the real shake when driving across the grass in GPL is not present with your settings. Unless I turn the damping up to some ridiculous number like 1500 or 2000, I can't feel the vibration from the grass (just coasting along in a straight line on the grass at Silverstone or Mopsport, e.g.) which is quite apparent in other wheels. When you turn the damping "up" enough to feel this, you get all sorts of spurious vibrations and false readings from the regular road surface (note to Slot: that shaking on the regular road surface is not the feedback from the asphalt because that is not modelled in GPL, it is not supposed to be there and is not "regular" enough to provide a reliable effect...it is somewhat random and definitely spurious). Silverstone is a great place tp test this as there are strips of asphalt amongs the grass--you should be able to clearly feel the grass vibrartion, then smoothness when you hit the tarmac and then back to vibration on the grass. I can't and at leat with my wheel, even using these new settings I cannot feel a lot of the subtle effects in GPL--the real subltle effects that are programmed-in that is, I can feel lots of subtle twitches and vibratiions that shouldn't be there.

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> Joystick properties: > Overall gain: 100% > Spring gain: 0% > Damping gain: 0% (increase this for more wheel resistance) > Default spring: off > Core.ini: > [ Joy ] > allow_force_feedback = 1 > force_feedback_damping = 1200 > force_feedback_latency = 0.00450 > max_steering_torque = 275. > * latency setting depends on your wheel and computer. I'm running a

Celeron > *steering torque should be lowered until you wheel starts to shake going > down a straight at high speeds. At this setting, mine will oscillate > slightly when induced. Everyone else in GPL-land is trying to eliminate the oscillations...that's what the damping value is supposed to be for. That would be a bad thing if realism is a goal. These are great suggestions to try out as it helps us learn about how the Ferrari wheel works counter to every other wheel on the market. For realism and smoothness, though, Mats' settings or something close to them are the way to go. Marc.

Mats, I have been experimenting, too, and I think you will be interested in this issue as it relates to your IForce tests. Try cranking the damping way up so that you can feel every transition or effect with an almost *** effect. Then try driving across the grass at Mosport or Silverstone. I cannot feel the significant but muted vibration that is supposed to accompany this--the nicely done effect I could feel distinctly with my Saitek. But if I turn the wheel while I am traversing the grass, all of a sudden I can feel the proper effect. Straighten out the wheel and it's gone. Of course at lower levels, it's completely missing. Doesn't this remind you of your conclusions about the lack of subtle effects from your test? It mirrors my test results where the sine wave could be felt while turning the wheel far, far below the level it could be felt when the wheel was stationary. Marc.

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> Thanks for sharing this, I doubt I had ever tried higher 'damping' > values without this information since everywhere it is described > as higher values are only good for damping spikes in the output > (I have little problem with spikes since I use rather low delay > values). > My conclusion is that either GPL is behaving really strange with > the Ferrari wheel, or more likely the so called 'damping' value > in core.ini really have nothing at all to do with damping in the > usual meaning of the word. In my setup, it is quite obvious that > the value really affects the gain curve for the forces generated: > with higher values weak forces are amplified relative strong forces > and vice versa. A quick guess is that a value of 1 means fully > linear forces, which would be ok if the wheel had no inherent > friction at all. With the rather high friction in at least the > Ferrari wheel, much larger values are needed. > After a quick try with really large 'damping' values I have been > driving with a value of 100 for a couple of hours, and the difference > compared to my previous 5 is huge. That I now can feel some weaker > forces like having a wheel outside the track makes the immersion > better, but more important is that all forces seem much more natural > making driving a great deal easier. The latter shows up in lap times, > in less than an hour I got new lotus and ferrari lap records at > watkins glen in addition to reducing the gap to my pre-FF lap record > at monza from two seconds to four tenths :-) > _ > Mats Lofkvist > Current setup: > GPL > max torque 250 > latency 0.025 > damping 100 > IForce > overall gain 100% > spring 0% > damping 0%

I just ran the grass at Mosport. It felt like, well - grass. Some places on the grass gave more of an effect, but I suspect its the smoothness of the ground in those places. I'm sure if I drove across my lawn the ride would be quite smooth. My neighbor's lawn, on the other hand, would probably wreck my suspension. I'm not really sure why I even bothered to do this. I really only care about road feel, not grass feel. And if (ok, when) I go onto the grass in GPL I'd rather it were smooth because its easier to steer. Slot

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> Mats, > I have been experimenting, too, and I think you will be interested in this > issue as it relates to your IForce tests. > Try cranking the damping way up so that you can feel every transition or > effect with an almost *** effect. Then try driving across the grass

at > Mosport or Silverstone. I cannot feel the significant but muted vibration > that is supposed to accompany this--the nicely done effect I could feel > distinctly with my Saitek. But if I turn the wheel while I am traversing > the grass, all of a sudden I can feel the proper effect. Straighten out the > wheel and it's gone. Of course at lower levels, it's completely missing. > Doesn't this remind you of your conclusions about the lack of subtle effects > from your test? It mirrors my test results where the sine wave could be > felt while turning the wheel far, far below the level it could be felt when

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> the wheel was stationary. > Marc. > > Thanks for sharing this, I doubt I had ever tried higher 'damping' > > values without this information since everywhere it is described > > as higher values are only good for damping spikes in the output > > (I have little problem with spikes since I use rather low delay > > values). > > My conclusion is that either GPL is behaving really strange with > > the Ferrari wheel, or more likely the so called 'damping' value > > in core.ini really have nothing at all to do with damping in the > > usual meaning of the word. In my setup, it is quite obvious that > > the value really affects the gain curve for the forces generated: > > with higher values weak forces are amplified relative strong forces > > and vice versa. A quick guess is that a value of 1 means fully > > linear forces, which would be ok if the wheel had no inherent > > friction at all. With the rather high friction in at least the > > Ferrari wheel, much larger values are needed. > > After a quick try with really large 'damping' values I have been > > driving with a value of 100 for a couple of hours, and the difference > > compared to my previous 5 is huge. That I now can feel some weaker > > forces like having a wheel outside the track makes the immersion > > better, but more important is that all forces seem much more natural > > making driving a great deal easier. The latter shows up in lap times, > > in less than an hour I got new lotus and ferrari lap records at > > watkins glen in addition to reducing the gap to my pre-FF lap record > > at monza from two seconds to four tenths :-) > > _ > > Mats Lofkvist > > Current setup: > > GPL > > max torque 250 > > latency 0.025 > > damping 100 > > IForce > > overall gain 100% > > spring 0% > > damping 0%

What's "GPL"?Can anybody answer to me. > I just ran the grass at Mosport. It felt like, well - grass. Some places on > the grass gave more of an effect, but I suspect its the smoothness of the > ground in those places. I'm sure if I drove across my lawn the ride would > be quite smooth. My neighbor's lawn, on the other hand, would probably wreck > my suspension. I'm not really sure why I even bothered to do this. I really > only care about road feel, not grass feel. And if (ok, when) I go onto the

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> grass in GPL I'd rather it were smooth because its easier to steer. > Slot > > Mats, > > I have been experimenting, too, and I think you will be interested in

this > > issue as it relates to your IForce tests. > > Try cranking the damping way up so that you can feel every transition or > > effect with an almost *** effect. Then try driving across the grass > at > > Mosport or Silverstone. I cannot feel the significant but muted vibration > > that is supposed to accompany this--the nicely done effect I could feel > > distinctly with my Saitek. But if I turn the wheel while I am traversing > > the grass, all of a sudden I can feel the proper effect. Straighten out > the > > wheel and it's gone. Of course at lower levels, it's completely missing. > > Doesn't this remind you of your conclusions about the lack of subtle > effects > > from your test? It mirrors my test results where the sine wave could be

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> > felt while turning the wheel far, far below the level it could be felt > when > > the wheel was stationary. > > Marc. > > > Thanks for sharing this, I doubt I had ever tried higher 'damping' > > > values without this information since everywhere it is described > > > as higher values are only good for damping spikes in the output > > > (I have little problem with spikes since I use rather low delay > > > values). > > > My conclusion is that either GPL is behaving really strange with > > > the Ferrari wheel, or more likely the so called 'damping' value > > > in core.ini really have nothing at all to do with damping in the > > > usual meaning of the word. In my setup, it is quite obvious that > > > the value really affects the gain curve for the forces generated: > > > with higher values weak forces are amplified relative strong forces > > > and vice versa. A quick guess is that a value of 1 means fully > > > linear forces, which would be ok if the wheel had no inherent > > > friction at all. With the rather high friction in at least the > > > Ferrari wheel, much larger values are needed. > > > After a quick try with really large 'damping' values I have been > > > driving with a value of 100 for a couple of hours, and the difference > > > compared to my previous 5 is huge. That I now can feel some weaker > > > forces like having a wheel outside the track makes the immersion > > > better, but more important is that all forces seem much more natural > > > making driving a great deal easier. The latter shows up in lap times, > > > in less than an hour I got new lotus and ferrari lap records at > > > watkins glen in addition to reducing the gap to my pre-FF lap record > > > at monza from two seconds to four tenths :-) > > > _ > > > Mats Lofkvist > > > Current setup: > > > GPL > > > max torque 250 > > > latency 0.025 > > > damping 100 > > > IForce > > > overall gain 100% > > > spring 0% > > > damping 0%

GPL = Grand Prix Legends, a racing sim which many of us really, really, REALLY like! Andre

Wow, we have a candidate for the BER-Newbie competition!