Hi,
I think LFS does not support that because I do not see it listed on the Logitech website.
I am unsure what Trueforce is: Is it just about the refresh rate or it about pre-programmed effects?
Logitech writes:
As far I understand, LFS has never used a "library of haptic effects" for FFB anyway.
Instead it calculates the amount of torque at the steering column. Since the tires, suspension movement etc is simulated anyway, the steering force is basically calculated as some kind of by-product. Then that is send to the FFB wheel.
I think no somewhat serious sim uses such "canned effects" anymore, the Logitech text seems a bit wrong there. (well, it is an ad afterall)
You can try with the demo if the FFB works in general. I would assume yes.
AC, ACC and rF2 all have canned efects as an option (enabled by default.) iRacing and AMS2 are the only other "sims" that don't have such a thing.
Trueforce is basically a bass shaker in the steering wheel. It supplants, not replaces, the traditional DirectInput FFB mechanism (although the LogiAPI does enable a higher refresh rate for FFB that DI can't).
Bassshakers have become fairly popular (with iRacing having native support for it, most use SimHub to add it for other sims) to add haptic feedback for going over kerbs/road noise/sliding/etc. I quite enjoy mine even though I have one of the cheaper setups (just a single Buttkicker Plus under my simrig).
Thrustmaster has a similar system to Trueforce in their GTII wheels but unfortunately it's locked to console only (and more specifically, Gran Turismo).
Unfortunately Trueforce isn't as simple as just driving another audio device (like Basskickers and other Bassshakers), you need to use Logitech's API to drive data to it.
Scawen may be able to get access to an updated version of the logitech library, but it would be nice if he were to focus on that to also support "generic" bass shakers. iRacing is a great example of implementation in this space as it also has access to physics info directly for generating effects where most others are forced to derive effects from the telemetry data.
Logitech's trueforce has 4kHz ffb refresh rate, which is revolutionary in it self. This opens up many possibilites, but unfortunately not many games utilize it. With such a high update rate the bandwith of ffb signal is increased from tens of Hz to 2kHz. Vibrations mainly fall under the 100Hz range and everything above that falls into the audible range, so what games do is just relay part of the audio signal into ffb signal. This is in my opinion useless as we already use our ears to sense it, but it makes a great marketing.
Another thing is, to be able to reproduce 2kHz signals with an electric motor (bare in mind it is not a speaker), it has to be extremely sensitive and with a tiny rotor inertia. This can be done only with a powerful 3 phase AC servo motor, like the ones found in direct drive wheels. Normal brushed DC motor like the RS570 found in logi G25, G27, G29, G920, G923 has no chance at reproducing such high frequencies.
DirectInput API is old indeed (developed in 1999) but it's widely used. It consists of 12 ffb effects and some more flexibility like fade in, fade out, durration, delay and so on (borrowed from MIDI). Again, rarely any game uses more than 1 or 2 ffb effects. It is always the easiest for developer to use the game engine and calculate all the relevant forces internally, sum them up and send to ffb device through 1 ffb effect - constant force, a single value of force with additional details like magnitude and direction in case device supports more than 1 ffb axis. This effect is then called many times per second like in LFS 100Hz, to give an illusion of dynamic forces. This rate is crucial for correctly reproducing all relevant details. The remaining 11 ffb effects usually refered as canned effects are the periodic effects like sine, square, triangle, sawtoothup and sawtoothdown. In principle with a linear combination of these one can produce an arbitrary wave, but it's a hard way and games simply just use a triangle for curb effects. This is quite robotic as amplitude and frequency are fixed throughout effect durration. There are also effects that depend on (steering) axis position like spring, on axis speed or 1st derivative of position like damper and friction and finaly on 2nd derivative or acceleration of axis like inertia. There are also some more time dependent effects like ramp and custom force where one can play a predefined force sample. It is quite a versatile API but games mainly use only constant force effect.
Ok, not to make long story even longer, I think this gives some overall idea of how ffb works to anyone who was wondering about it Once Scawen release updated LFS with 1000Hz physics and ffb refresh rate, it's gonna be better than trueforce. At the moment, ACC holds a record for highest ffb update rate of up to 400Hz.
So it's interesting because even DD wheels aren't suited to giving this kind of feedback. It's why the G923 and G Pro wheels have a separate device (a bass shaker) inside the wheel to produce these forces. And a DD with high enough slew rate with low inertia feels bad. It's why the fanatic DD1/2 has had so many firmware updates trying to correct the wheel feeling weightless.
Also don't get fooled by Logitech's marketing. All the true force stuff is on top of the normal DirectInput FFB (unless you're using the 360hz API, but that's still the same data as DI, just faster). The motor driving the wheel also can't attain the Hz claimed, it's all provided by a secondary device.
And ultimately I still think having a proper bass shaker setup in the cockpit is better than just the wheel. Feeling the kerbs under your butt is a great sensation to remind you how far you're pushing.
Options=Controls-wheel/joystick-Axes/FF
Force feedback yes
FF Rate 100hz
FF Steps 200 or 400 (Logi wheels are low-res, 8 bits or kind of)
Remove deadzones no
Then go to Options-Display
Show pedals yes
Go drive-search for FF clipping indicator at the bottom of the screen
If indicator become red use "<" key
Drive and enjoy LFS
All good, except I would set FF steps to 10000 and let logi wheel firmware deal with it and use as much as PWM resolution available. I believe that the motor is powered by an H-bridge driven with a PWM signal at 20kHz with 400 steps of resolution, but I didn't measure it, I just saw someone mentioned maybe Scawen himself that no more than 400 steps is available, due to low res PWM signal.
Not familar with ffb wheel firmware and hardware too lol, but im pretty sure its not a good idea to rely on DSP inside cheap Logi gaming wheel. Bit reduction(truncate) always provide a bunch of unwanted artifacts when it comes to digital signal processing.
Is there a real competitive difference between 200 and 10000 FF steps on a g27-29 and etc? Who knows
On my G29, it's a bit smoother. In old lfs ffb was 25Hz with 200 steps, once I set 100Hz and anything => 400 steps it was noticeable and better. In my T300, up to about 1000 steps you can feel that ffb is smoother, above that there is no difference, probably they have somewhat higher pwm resolution, but the frequency is lower, one can even hear the squicky noises comming out at 8kHz.
You shouldn't be worried about how 10000 steps will be scaled down to 400 or what ever is pwm signal resolution in logi wheels. Those are a very simple operations with integer numbers, no overflow or truncating will occur. Their firmware will handle it just fine.
Yes, digital resolution of ffb is just a part of the story. The actual motor and mechanism are the other part. They all play together to result in the final ffb feel. If the motor is crapy and meshanism is very heavy and with quite some friction, it will eat away and dampen ffb details. This is the limitation in all non-direct drive wheels.
Bottom line, both G29, T300 and similair are good enough ffb wheels for the guys who want to feel ffb for the first time and who can aford it (by money and free time).
I really wouldn't put the Logitech G wheels (bar G Pro) in the same category as the T300. The T300 is quite a significant upgrade in force + smoothness compared to Logitech's offering.
Entry level would definitely be Logitech or something like the T148, but then the "mid tier" is definitely T248/T300.
Of course, the explosion of inexpensive DD wheels has definitely pushed the mid tier towards far better hardware than it ever used to be for a relatively minor cost increase. Not that I'd ever buy Fanatec, but a CSL DD is barely more expensive than a T300 with the added fidelity of a DD motor.
I've owned both the Logitech G29 and Thrustmaster T300 and the FF quality of the T300 is in a superior league over the G29 which feels dull, weaker and muted in comparison.
I would have to dissagree with you guys. I like the feel of XFG and FOX more on G29, but everything else on T300 felt like a XRG, heavy and dumped due to belts. Overall T300 has better ffb, due to it's brushless motor which gives it smothness and less friction and somewhat better resolution of motor driver circuit, but it's still quite far from what DD wheels bring to the table.
On G29, generaly stiff cars felt better due to more quick reaction of helical gear system. If G29 had a brushless motor and a 3 phase motor driver from T300 it would be comparable, but like this it's not even fair to compare them. Both have pros and cons and it's about what suits different people more.
Its not even the motor, it's just being belt driven gives it good smoothness and a good level of dampening, not to mention an increased slew rate making it a bit easier to catch slides/drift (again, nowhere near a DD, but still 6/10 rather than 2/10)
Nobody's saying it's as good as a DD, but it's still far superior to the non-DD Logitech G wheels which are still using gears driving the wheel shaft which just feels notchy.
Back when I sold my Logitech wheel (after using my T300 for a year), I gave it a test drive just to make sure it worked and I couldn't believe I used it at all. It wasn't a great experience.
This year I was gonna make the step to a DD, but based on iR increasing VRAM requirements and impending rain, GPU upgrade seems to be next on the table to keep me running smooth in VR.
What I'm trying to say is that it's not about gear or belt system, It's about the motor which makes the wheel feel smooth or not. Brushless motor is allways much smoother, because there are no brushess that cause friction, plus motor poles on DC brusshed motor are much stronger than on any brushless.
Why do you think all car transmission systems use helical gears and not belts and pulleys? Helical gears are much smoother than a timing belt and pulley system. The only downside with any gears is a tiny bit of a backlash they have, compared with belt system where there isn't any backlash.
Woren out belts change their length - just an another point from car world, but its more about cam timing precision not transmission.
Absolutely agree with u Rane, but mostly about constantly fixed ratio of geared elements such as encoder-to-motor and etc.
Speaking about wheels in general, well just wanna say that i had a DFGT back in the days, and still consider it as a bang for a buck even compared with t300
In the other hand, Logi wheels use 2ms usb polling(confirmed for g27 and momo which is even 10ms) while t300 is as fast as a decent gaming mice(1ms), and lets be honest 12 bits provides x16 more resolution than 8 bits
I dont say u guys are all wrong, but all those hardware and software details must be understood correct, and then u probably will decide to just stay on mouse or g27
P.S. Dude who started the topic asking nothing except of trueforce™ in LFS is now like "WTF..."
Once Scawen release updated LFS with 1000Hz physics and ffb refresh rate, it's gonna be better than trueforce. At the moment, ACC holds a record for highest ffb update rate of up to 400Hz.
