900 degrees for me everytime, IIRC you can lock the DFP into a girly mode with a few button presses and it gives you around 200 degrees?

if you are pink and have enough flowers in your hair to handle it

people that cant catch slides in 900degree mode, cant drive for shit in real life

Using a DFP at 900 degrees mode and thinking it is a good wheel scares me! Its great at 900 degrees celcius though; most of it will have melted by then..

Quote from Niels Heusinkveld :

Using a DFP at 900 degrees mode and thinking it is a good wheel scares me! Its great at 900 degrees celcius though; most of it will have melted by then..

seriously your staerting to go into broken record mode aka james mode
the dfp certainly isnt the greatest wheel for 720/900 driving but its not all that bad if you use it just for racing and are a smooth driver that doesnt need massive corrections all the time its great fun at high rotations

Yeah I don't hessitate to mention my DFP dislikings whenever an opportunity arises.. For me though its a bit like playing NFS Underground: it might be fun but has no place in simracing.. Anyway .. nuff said..

Quote from Niels Heusinkveld :

Its a slippery slope though. I would say LFS is a bit too easy over the limit at the current state of physics, so it might very well be drivable with a DFP at 720 or 900 degrees. I think its wrong however if you call it realistic with LFS *trying* to turn the wheel FAST which the wheel can't do coz of its poor mechanics...

You see I'd say realism is only when the wheel can turn approximately as fast as the sim wants it to. Wether or not it is drivable with 'too slow' wheels like the DFP is not the issue! I wouldn't call it more realistic in that case.. LFS is just fairly easy to catch slide after slide..

You say this but I assume you run an old style wheel with 270-300ish lock. Don't care what it is red momo, ms FFB etc they all suffer the same fault of not enough lock to be near realistic.

You might not like the DFP and think its slow BUT its no less realistic than using an old style wheel with tiny lock to control the cars with 720deg lock.

You wheel might move fast BUT you have to move such a tiny unrealistic amount to get full lock on cars that require 720degs of wheel movement to go lock to lock.

So with all you have said, how is that ANY more realistic than using a DFP?

I prefer 720deg lock over feeling like every car is an MRT every time

Its all a matter of tradeoffs for sure. I have a homemade non FF wheel which turns as fast as I can manage myself. I can just about use 720 although it needs some practise as right now the wheel has no return spring at all. I did have a DFP and compared to that, I much prefer the non FF 720degrees to the DFP's but that won't surprise you considering my anti DFP / regular FF wheel ramblings..

why would you want a wheel that you can spin around far to easy?

the steering on my road car is not "light and fluffy"

i can catch slides fine on 900 degrees, with ingame force feedback set to 200% and 150% in the wingman controls. its not that heavy, yes its a bit stiffer then your regular shopping car, but its not extreme.

Quote from Sticky-Micky :

i can catch slides fine on 900 degrees, with ingame force feedback set to 200% and 150% in the wingman controls. its not that heavy, yes its a bit stiffer then your regular shopping car, but its not extreme.

its not so much about catching small slides for which you dont need to leave the 3-9 position its about drifting and how the dfp is incapeable of countersteering fast enough by itself and slows you down if you try to countersteer fast

put in crude terms the dfp is utterly rubbish for 720 drifting
that said i have to add the g25 is properly fast and well suited for 720 drifting ... if youre deaf (if you arent yet you will be soon enough)

Quote from ALPA1981 :

hi dear community

iam interestet in buying an Logitech G25 Steering wheel.
The G25 has 900° Modus, and i want to know how it is to drive LFS with this modus

Thx ALPA

Yes, it is good having 900 degress available in LFS because you can set the range to suit any car in LFS. There isn't much point setting the wheel at 900 (720 is more suitable for LFS), but the amount of rotation that these wheels allow gives you the freedom to set up your wheel for all of the cars in the sim. Compared to a standard wheel @ 270, the 900 degree wheels offer a better experience and more refined steering control.
There are no apparent disadvantages using these wheels in LFS.

Quote from ALPA1981 :

hi dear community

iam interestet in buying an Logitech G25 Steering wheel.
The G25 has 900° Modus, and i want to know how it is to drive LFS with this modus

Thx ALPA

I`m a forklift driver, and I are used to much more than 900° - In Lfs there are no use for it

Quote from Shotglass :

its not so much about catching small slides for which you dont need to leave the 3-9 position its about drifting and how the dfp is incapeable of countersteering fast enough by itself and slows you down if you try to countersteer fast

put in crude terms the dfp is utterly rubbish for 720 drifting
that said i have to add the g25 is properly fast and well suited for 720 drifting ... if youre deaf (if you arent yet you will be soon enough)

Ok, I have a Momo, and don't have experience with a DFP. I'm just trying to figure out all this "harder to catch slides" stuff with the DFP.

My experience with more rotation than a Momo is in my real truck. I can kick the thing sideways and break the back end out all I want with no problems in the real truck. I let go with one hand to whip the wheel around completely in control of where I want the back to go. This is all having fun in the winter with cold tires and road, dirt roads, and snow covered roads.

My momo, due to the 270 degree rotation, I just don't have as much precision turning the wheel. I end up turning it too much and when bringing it back to center, overshooting because of turning the wheel too fast. I don't use a lot of force feedback. Only 60 in windows and 35-50 in LFS. Is the arguement that it is more difficult with the DFP's higher rotation due to folks using heavier force feedback than I do? I see videos of people drifting and breaking the rear out using a DFP and it just looks like you would have much more control. What does the DFP feel like if the force feedback wasn't 100/100 windows/LFS? Is there still a lot of resistance through the motor? Because with my Momo, there is not a ton of resistance when you turn the FF down. I can turn it to 0 in LFS and have absolutely no resistance whatsoever.

My Momo is plugged in right now with LFS not running. I definitely feel resistance turning it. I can see, due to no feedback from a game, that it would be very difficult to turn quickly enough if it felt this way in the game. I just openned up LFS, and it took all resistance off of the wheel. I can flick my fingers and spin the wheel lock to lock. Is the DFP this way, or can you always feel resistance no matter what FF setting you have?

That is why I'm having trouble understanding the difficulty folks say about the DFP. I think the precision of larger rotation would be an asset to catching and controlling the car in a slide as you wouldn't be slamming completely to lock and back to center with just a slight movement in the wheel as I do at 270 rotation.

Ok, back to the original question listed in the subject of this thread. Is 900 degrees useful in LFS? No it is not useful as none of the cars available have 900 degree rotation. But the DFP/G25 is not an LFS wheel, but a PC controller for any game that can use it. Other games may just have 900 degree rotation, especially since the DFP was originally for the PS2 and Grand Turismo 3/4. I don't have a PS2, but I'm thinking GT3/4 does have 900 degrees in their vehicles. That is why the wheels are made with 900.

If you stick to LFS then you'd say most cars have 720 degrees of lock. I read that a real Porsche 911 (dunno what year) has 1080.. Most road cars seem to have at least 900. I like that LFS actually shows the graphical wheel turning more than a tiny bit (as in most other sims, they don't turn enough!) but I wouldn't say that 'realistic' is to copy the rotation you get in graphically in the sim. I'd more look at what their real life counterparts would use. GPL and N2003 have wheels turn about 320 degrees, where in real life a GPL car might even turn ~600+.. In RBR for instance the graphical wheel turns only about 30 degrees..

The problem with a DFP type wheel is that they have roughly the same gearing (wheel to motor) as a MOMO, hence they have about the same 'top speed' when the motor tries to turn the wheel. Now you go max left to max right, the wheel with more rotation will take a longer time. So MOMO type wheels with say 240 degs of lock go lock to lock 3.75 times quicker than a DFP at 900 degrees..

From various videos, even 'road cars', it is obvious that due to caster, once the back steps out, the driver can simply let go of the steering wheel as the front wheels will keep pointed in the direction the car is going. This can be some seriously quick turning of the wheel. If the wheel can't do this quickly enough, this 'driving aid' (well its 'real' but it helps greatly) becomes an obstacle as it doesn't steer quickly enough..

So instead of what you'd do in real life, i.e. let the wheel slide through your hands, ready to grip it and adjust it slightly, you'd have to try and force the opposite lock. You then encouter a good amount of resistance as you try to spin the motor at a few 1000rpm faster than it can.

The gearing from wheel to motor is about 1:40 .. so for each rotation of the wheel the motor turns 40. The max speed of the motor is ~2400rpm, although that is hard to say with a load on it, might be quite a bit less. In 'free air' its probably faster than 2400. Logitech use 40:1 gearing because that also increases wheel force by 40 times so they don't need a big motor to develop big forces. They don't care about speed..

If you steer very quickly you can certainly reach a speed (not constant but a quick 180 degree correction, keeping your hands on the wheel) of about 3 or 4 revolutions per second. that is 240 per minute. Times 40 is 9600RPM on the FF motor! The motor does NOT like this and that is the resistance you feel trying to steer fast with a current day FF wheel.*

So realism would be letting go of the wheel as it automatically applies opposite lock. With a DFP at 720 or 900 degrees, especially with 'snappy cars' like the lx6, you can TOTALLY not get force feedback the way it would be in real life. The wheel can't keep up.. You end up doing the opposite of what is realistic: you try to force the wheel where it should go by itself! Of course opposite lock / powersliding is far more than just letting go of the steeringwheel but its a good example to point out where big rotation big gearing wheels like the DFP are so bad.

In 240 degrees mode the problem is less but then again it is unrealistic to keep your hands on the wheel wich such a small amount of lock..

*SHould be better with the G25..

Quote from mrodgers :

My momo, due to the 270 degree rotation, I just don't have as much precision turning the wheel. I end up turning it too much and when bringing it back to center, overshooting because of turning the wheel too fast.

believe me thats just a matter of expeirence drifting with 270 or even with only 200 degrees of rotation is ridiculously easy compared to 720

Quote :

What does the DFP feel like if the force feedback wasn't 100/100 windows/LFS? Is there still a lot of resistance through the motor? Because with my Momo, there is not a ton of resistance when you turn the FF down. I can turn it to 0 in LFS and have absolutely no resistance whatsoever.

note of warning: the following data is probably vastly inaccurate but the general scheme is
the dfp has a 2 staged gearin with a rduction ratio somwhere in the 1:30 regime and a cheap 540 type electric motor that isnt built for fast rotations (probably maxes out somwhere in the 10k rpm range) and probably the driver for the motor wasnt designed for high currents either
because of that the dfp will slow itself down if you try to turn it fast which greatly limits your abilities to countersteer fast enough
the fastest yu can turn a dfp through a full 720 is probably about 3 seconds and that requires very good hand coordination

Quote :

That is why I'm having trouble understanding the difficulty folks say about the DFP. I think the precision of larger rotation would be an asset to catching and controlling the car in a slide as you wouldn't be slamming completely to lock and back to center with just a slight movement in the wheel as I do at 270 rotation.

sawing at the wheels going thorugh a large amount of steering lock while sideways is often easier than hitting just the right amount of opposite lock

I agree that the gearing in the DFP does create a max rotational speed. This is not a "hard" limit but you are fighting against the motor even when the forces are with you when trying to rotate it faster. This is why some find it harder to drift, I guess I just adapted to this so it was not an issue.

The other effect that comes in with the DFP on high force settings is a notchiness, almost like you can feel the steps of a stepper motor. I found I had to run high forces as the DFP didnt give the forces I wanted unless I wound it up high, so I had to live with those.

For me though the realistic lock more than made up for those short comings, its another mental translation removed from playing a sim.

With the G25 the desighn changed and they use twin smaller motors. These operate far faster and the gearing is such that the G25 is at least twice as fast as the DFP. You can also run it at lower forces and then you don't feel the motors but still get very stong forces.

For me the DFP was still far better than the MS FF or the Saitek R440 I had before. It added far more to LFS than it took away and so I still rate it very highly. I could drift with 720lock without ANY issues but I guess you just learn to adapt to the wheel you have.

That said its pedals are poor so I used the ActLabs pedals instead.

I absolutely don't mind what wheels people use but with the limitations in mind I find it really scary when people judge a simulations force feedback quality. Some make claims about the FF being good / bad / realisitc...

It is very very easy to proof that most of the time the FF wheel simply can not produce the force or speed the sim tells it to. And when it can, you are not using a realistic amount of steering lock. So you can't really say wether the FF is 'good' or not, plus you are allowing 'unrealism' into the SIM experience which is meant to have no compromises..

I know though, it IS about compromises and wheels are one of them. I prefer not to use force feedback because IF I have a feedback wheel I want it to be giving me the exact or at least +-25% feedback during normal racing / sliding conditions. With current wheels it I know I can't listen to the feedback as I can easily testify that its inadequate and incapable.

I do find it strange, with the above in mind, that people use force feedback wheels as from my purist opinion they are more of a gimmick that just get in the way of objective judgement of a sim. I'm a bit of a strange man though, I realize people like the immersion an FF wheel gives them even though its a compromise. Most of my ramblings are based on some frustration regarding race simulations NOT having structurally improved since 1998. People often don't seem like they care whereas I really want a new revolution in simracing realism. One of the things that will certainly have to go in the bin is the current logitech type FF wheels.

Anyway that explains where I'm coming from.. I've got my pedals sorted with a true force sensitive brake but I don't see a real FF wheel coming soon

Quote from Niels Heusinkveld :

I absolutely don't mind what wheels people use but with the limitations in mind I find it really scary when people judge a simulations force feedback quality. Some make claims about the FF being good / bad / realisitc...

It is very very easy to proof that most of the time the FF wheel simply can not produce the force or speed the sim tells it to. And when it can, you are not using a realistic amount of steering lock. So you can't really say wether the FF is 'good' or not, plus you are allowing 'unrealism' into the SIM experience which is meant to have no compromises..

I know though, it IS about compromises and wheels are one of them. I prefer not to use force feedback because IF I have a feedback wheel I want it to be giving me the exact or at least +-25% feedback during normal racing / sliding conditions. With current wheels it I know I can't listen to the feedback as I can easily testify that its inadequate and incapable.

I do find it strange, with the above in mind, that people use force feedback wheels as from my purist opinion they are more of a gimmick that just get in the way of objective judgement of a sim. I'm a bit of a strange man though, I realize people like the immersion an FF wheel gives them even though its a compromise. Most of my ramblings are based on some frustration regarding race simulations NOT having structurally improved since 1998. People often don't seem like they care whereas I really want a new revolution in simracing realism. One of the things that will certainly have to go in the bin is the current logitech type FF wheels.

Anyway that explains where I'm coming from.. I've got my pedals sorted with a true force sensitive brake but I don't see a real FF wheel coming soon

I have to ask though.. when was the last time you spent a real amount of time with a FF wheel and what wheel in what sim. Was it over a prolonged period without switching back to your old wheel?

I do believe you can judge the quality of a sims FF. Most of us here drive cars and know what should happen and when. I have played most sims from GPL onwards and I think LFS, RBR and NKP are the sims that have lifted FF above other sims. You can feel the state of the car with more detail than you might expect, something that is not really the case with ISI sims as their FF is effects based.

The G25 is a big leap over the DFP. Even old school sim hardware companies like BRD are working on FF now with their speed 7 wheel. Something that would not happen unless FF sources were not up to the level to make very high end wheels worth making.

Frex are working on something VERY interesting that I think you should watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5JjdKeThoA. From what I know this is using powerful motors and belt drive.

No you cant really create the sort of forces you can experieence IRL and if you could I would not want to use the wheel as it would be dangerous. All sim racing is as you say about compromises so each to their own

Quote :

I prefer not to use force feedback because IF I have a feedback wheel I want it to be giving me the exact or at least +-25% feedback during normal racing / sliding conditions. With current wheels it I know I can't listen to the feedback as I can easily testify that its inadequate and incapable.

You ought to try the G25 before making sweeping proclamations about "current wheels". It's about three times faster than the DFP, and has far less internal resistance to rapid steering inputs.

Quote :

So instead of what you'd do in real life, i.e. let the wheel slide through your hands, ready to grip it and adjust it slightly, you'd have to try and force the opposite lock.

That's exactly how you drive the G25. It turns faster than I would want to have to spin a wheel on my own. Clearly it's not completely realistic, but it's a huge step up from the DFP.

Quote :

I do find it strange, with the above in mind, that people use force feedback wheels as from my purist opinion they are more of a gimmick that just get in the way of objective judgement of a sim.

Quote :

realism would be letting go of the wheel as it automatically applies opposite lock. With a DFP at 720 or 900 degrees [...] The wheel can't keep up.. You end up doing the opposite of what is realistic: you try to force the wheel where it should go by itself!

You have to force it there anyway, with your non-FF wheel. You've just chosen one form of unrealism over another.

Letting the wheel slide through your hand is unrealistic (with most modern FF wheels) because it's too slow, but at least it's an approximation of the real thing. Tossing a non-FF wheel around like you're playing Super Sprint seems to me just as great a compromise -- making the "sim" feel like an arcade game, no resistance, no weight, no sense that the wheel is attached to an actual vehicle, with your steering inputs totally not reflecting what you would be doing in a real car.

The compromise I chose when using the DFP was to greatly reduce the steering lock compared to the actual vehicle. With the G25 I use up to 720 degrees and it feels great. I accept that it's not 100% realistic, but IMO the alternative is even less realistic.

In short, I don't see how you're being any more of a purist by choosing to drive a wheel that you can toss around like it's attached to nothing. We're both choosing compromises; which is preferable is a matter of taste.

Quote from Woz :

I agree that the gearing in the DFP does create a max rotational speed. This is not a "hard" limit but you are fighting against the motor even when the forces are with you when trying to rotate it faster. This is why some find it harder to drift, I guess I just adapted to this so it was not an issue.

The other effect that comes in with the DFP on high force settings is a notchiness, almost like you can feel the steps of a stepper motor. I found I had to run high forces as the DFP didnt give the forces I wanted unless I wound it up high, so I had to live with those.

For me though the realistic lock more than made up for those short comings, its another mental translation removed from playing a sim.

With the G25 the desighn changed and they use twin smaller motors. These operate far faster and the gearing is such that the G25 is at least twice as fast as the DFP. You can also run it at lower forces and then you don't feel the motors but still get very stong forces.

For me the DFP was still far better than the MS FF or the Saitek R440 I had before. It added far more to LFS than it took away and so I still rate it very highly. I could drift with 720lock without ANY issues but I guess you just learn to adapt to the wheel you have.

That said its pedals are poor so I used the ActLabs pedals instead.

I own a Microsoft FF wheel, and have owned a Dfp. I use a MOMO untill my G25 arrives on the first of december (Hopefully)

I did like the Microsoft FF wheel, but it don`t allways work with Lfs. Microsoft has stopped updating the software, to this piece of hardware, years ago. Also i owned a red cheap Logitech FF wheel. The Momo is the best wheel, no doubt about that. But my wheel, tends to lock a little in the mid position. That is not good. And the pedals ???

They really stink. If I wiggle my foot a little to the left, the thrust goes down 5 - 7 %. If I remember to wiggle to the rigth I have full power

I can`t wait for the G25 now, to get a clutch pedal

Well, don't get me wrong.. I don't judge the G25 and I don't think my non ff approach is realistic! Its all a compromise as I said. I prefer a wheel to not tell me anything rather than having a wheel that often tells me the wrong thing.

I used to be like you Niels. I used to hate FFB, and I was confident that what it 'told' me was a lie. Back in S1 I never used it, and I thought people who did were at a disadvantage to me.

Then one day, I decided that I would see how it felt for a bit. Back then I was a pretty quick MRT driver, especially at South City Classic. At the time I was doing mid to high 51's (the WR was a low 51) in racing conditions (albeit with no fuel or tyre wear).

When I turned it on I was slower straight away, as the new information was overloading my brain compared to before. But within a week I was faster, and in the end I got within 0.03 of the WR (but Kirves always found that little bit of extra speed than me, so I never actually got it).

I'm now confident that the addition of FFB to my 'feel' is worth around 0.5 seconds per lap (or per minute), and I'll never buy a wheel without it. As FFB improves (e.g. the G25) then it's probably worth more to a non-FFB person than with a Momo's FFB.

But I do recommend you try it for a couple of weeks and see how you get on. Learn to trust it, and you will be quicker.

Quote from Niels Heusinkveld :

Well, don't get me wrong.. I don't judge the G25 and I don't think my non ff approach is realistic! Its all a compromise as I said. I prefer a wheel to not tell me anything rather than having a wheel that often tells me the wrong thing.

It's not "telling you the wrong thing". It's telling the right things, but just not always at realistic speeds.

ok..ivè gone true every post and i think i have a saying in this..

i used mmffb for 1 year..couse i didnt afford a more expensive wheel..it has 270 deg of wheel turn and it was enough..then.

now i got the G25 and tryed to run it with 720 deg turn..
well..it was like being a n00b again..u turned the wheel but soon find out that it wasnt enough illepall
so..with some practise with it, i now run smooth at 540deg,correcting slides..drifting..and dont do so bad anymore..this after 4 days training.

i did build a raceframe when i orderd my wheel so i have nice place to play racesims.and with the g25 shifter sidemounted its so much fun..

i think u can use the full 720(that LFS support) and be realy good with it..but it needs some practice..but 900 deg is just overkill.

(yup..i might spell some thing wrong..but u got to live with it )

uhmm, i just use whatever degree the car is supposed to turn, like for instance the XFR lets jut say it turns xx amount of degrees, so i program the wheel to turn xx amount of degrees, but now in u30 its easier if you look under steering in the garage menu and lfs does it for you