1. Should the wheel have the same resistance in the wheel when turning at 5 % and at 200 %? Mine does this. However the resistance isn't the same when used, sometimes it's light, sometimes it's heavy.
2. When getting oversteer, should the wheel lose nearly all resistance when trying to correct the oversteer? Mine does this too.
3. When reversing should the wheel go to full lock when only slightly turning the wheel? Seen the pattern? Yeah, mine does this too.
And a final question:
How would I go about to clean my wheel without canned air?
Oh and before I forget,
Is it reasonable for a car to lose all revs when braking without locking the wheels and still going 70 kph+?
You contradict yourself there. I am not sure what you are asking. The FFB will react to the drivers' input and the physics affecting the car. You will feel differences in resistance throughout the spectrum depending on what is happening.
Depends a bit on the car and the settings, but generally, yes. The steering should get a bit lighter when you are understeering.
Probably not. What are your settings? Typically, in LFS you should set the FFB overall amont to where you like it, both in the wheel settings and in LFS. Set the spring effect and damping to 0. Most people say to leave the centering spring on, but set to 0.
Uh, just point and spray?
This has nothing to do with FFB. It seems that the brakes can completely lock the drivetrain without locking the wheels, or there is a bug where the wheels are locked, but not squeeling, I am not sure which it is. Anyway, try reducing the brake amount you have set for the car or moving the brake bias further forward (or rearward on a FWD car). This seems to mostly happen with the LSD diff on the higher powered cars, so you might try the locked diff.
Yes, I know Hallen already answered, but I have my own points to add
The game generates a variety of forces depending on in-game conditions, however, I'm quite sure you should still notice a diffrence when between those settings. I know I do. If I turn my FFB too high, my wheel often kicks so hard that it almost yanks out of my hand, where-as on a more normal 60-100% range, it is manageable.
However, I think the effect you're describing is dampening (meaning, the FFB level wouldn't matter as much as the dampening level)... What wheel do you have?
Hallen talked about understeer. In oversteer, yes, you should lose resistance, and here is why: When you oversteer, your front tires want to point in the direction inertia is carrying the car. That happens to be the same direction you're countersteering into (usually ). Now, if your FFB motor is turning the wheel left (to simulate this pull), and so are you (to save your car from crashing) you'll feel a lot less resistance when turning.
If you're in a Rear-wheel Drive car, going at moderate-high (above twenty Miles per hour) speeds makes the car VERY touchy. The slight turn of the wheel will more than likely cause the car to 'snap' into a full turn, often winding up in a 180 degree turn (which is why J-turns are so easy to perform). Try going in reverse at, say, 5 miles per hour. The 'snap' to full lock should go away (but it will still tug. How much depends on your FFB setting).
Without canned air? I use an air compressor for all my cleaning needs, but without that either, I would take a static free dust rag of some sort (I think they make them for moniters) and give it a wipe down.
Thats a... moderatly complex physics issue. Actually, your drive wheels are slipping under brakage. They haven't 'locked up' yet, as in they're still turning, but they're turning slower than the car is moving (thus a sharp drop in revs). This is because the engine and driveshaft keep the wheels spinning, but braking has slowed them down enough that they're actually sliding across the pavement. However, that being said, -all- your revs shouldn't go away. It should be a slow, steady, decrease in revs, and if you're downshifting as well as braking, the revs shouldn't drop that low.
Oh, and a note on the slipage while braking, I hear that its the most efficient way to apply stopping power... Someone might correct me on that, but it might not be a bad thing!
I'm using a Microsoft Sidewinder Force Feedback Wheel which is 6 (7?) years old (don't remember if I bought it before or after the computer I bought in early 2000, think it was before).
I'm using the Sidewinder software to control some of the wheel stuff, tried with centering spring set to off, FFB set to off, either on, or both on, all of these give the same result: the force required to turn the wheel ingame is the same when FFB ingame is set to 5 % as 200 %, turing the wheel at the same speed.
As for this resistance, it isn't the same from time to time (still the same for 5 % and 200 %), say should I try the wheel now, I wouldn't have to use the same force as the last time I used it. This could change while using the wheel in a session (have to take a corner as it were the first time).
It loses resistance in both directions, and sometimes it is as the FFB-motor dies, meaning no resistance what so ever (or a big difference in resistance).
I've had this happen to every car, no matter what settings used. The effects aren't exactly the same strength depending on car/set, but it's still quite strong, and this happens at speeds around 8-12 MPH.
Without canned air.
Will try that.
This only started happening while tweaking my controls using the ingame menu settings, braking at the same point as before, getting full power, letting go of brakes at the correct time, and I lose revs. Before changing the control settings this didn't happen, in fact I was unable to do this at will.
DanneDA.... to make this easier and not just keep reading quotes and finding out what your wheel does.... just post your settings that you see in the controller's properities window of the Control Panel.
We can then suggest what you should set your wheel to.
Okay, my settings (haven't used this computer that much so I haven't had time to post in this thread before).
From config file:
FF Steps 256 FF Strength 25.00 Turn Compensation 0.54 Combined Non Linear 1.00 Steer Smooth 0.0
And seperate axis on throttle/brake, removed deadzones set ingame.
In the Wheel Settings in Windows I use these settings (Microsoft Sidewinder Force Feedback Wheel):
Dead Zone: Small
Sensitivity: Low
Force Feedback level: Off
Return to Center Tension: Off
Map front-back forces to wheel enabled
And a little update with the stuff above:
1. I think the FFB motor is dying (for lack of a better term), I can also feel minor "vibrations" in wheel while turning it and the FFB motor is somewhat noisy when the wheel is not centered (= when there are forces acting on the wheel).
2. See above, probably the same error.
3. With a little more testing I can now say that the wheel will go to full lock when turning the wheel slightly when not moving, or moving very slowly (<5 kph).
4. Haven't cleaned the wheel yet.
5. Found something odd about it: When throttle / brake center reduction is set to 0.6 the car looses revs and begin to lock wheels at about 80 kph when braking, when this setting is set to 1.0, the car doesn't lose revs and will not lock brakes. Both of the settings give full power to the brakes when reaching this speed. Will do some more testing to see exactly why this would happen.
We've stepped out of the area where I can answer questions, but I have one more that deals with clairification...
3. When reversing should the wheel go to full lock when only slightly turning the wheel? Seen the pattern? Yeah, mine does this too.
Curious, when you say this, what do you mean?
I see a few ways this can be taken. One of which is bad, one of which should happen...
Situation A -
Lets assume you've a 270º wheel (although it doesn't matter if its 270 or 900). You turn the physical wheel, say, 10 degrees, and in game the wheels are full lock. This is, weird...
Situation B -
Same assumption. You apply gas (in reverse), turn the wheel 5º, let go of the wheel. As the car rolls, the wheel continues to rotate until it reaches full lock.
This -should- happen. It happens in real life with real cars too. The front tires want to continue in a straight line, so they continue to turn to produce that straight line until they reach full lock, where they can't turn anymore and they have to deal with it.
Sorry about the point and spray comment I guess I should read more carefully.
A lot of the older FFB wheels use a belt between the motor and the steering wheel. Your belt could be just plain worn out so it slips causing this strange lack of FFB consistency. If you are running some Sidewinder application to control the wheel settings, try turning it off and only use the control panel settings and LFS settings... just an idea, it might not help.
The brake locking thing is something I struggle with on several cars. It is worse on the GTR type cars than the street cars. Basically, the wheels stop turning because of the amount of brake pressure, you don't really hear the lockup, but since you don't have the clutch in, it basically kills the engine. Since the engine doesn't really shut off, the affect is your RPMs drop considerably. When you release the brake , the RPMs are still low for the speed you are going, so the rear wheels stay locked for a while because of engine braking. It can be very hard to deal with. Again, try reducing the amount of rear brake bias and overall braking amount. It should clear it up mostly.
If if helps I've got a MSFF and my Force Feedback and Return to Center Tension settings are on full on Windows and I use like 40-45% FF in-game depending on the car, works flawlessly, although I get that vibration you talk about sometimes mostly when I'm countersteering, but that's because my FF motor sometimes doesn't get all the power it needs due to some weird reasons I can't remember.
Did you turn it lock to lock and then check if this still happens? Probably you already knew that but most of the times that solves that problem for me.
I've experienced many situations (IRL) where the inside rear locks under aggressive corner entry, even if the brakes are not super heavy - but moderate. Just a few weeks ago this happened and the only reason I knew was because the windows were all open and I could hear the tire scrubbing against the pavement, but not shreiking - because it was so unloaded. We're putting the weight foward and outside! If my car was RWD, and had the locked (or nearly)diffs most people drive with in LFS, the same thing would happen! In LFS under those conditions, the scrub sound is there it's just hard to localize.
Try using less coast lock (not sure if braking at the wheels forces the diff to it's power setting since the drag is no longer comming from the input side, but the output side just like under acceleration )...
I guess I should read more carefully.
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