I'll try that when I have time. I'm also using a gamepad and was wondering why all of a sudden I became even worse at LFS. Now I know.

Quote from dungbeetle :

CSU1

Try reducing the steering lock (in the pits setup menu) to spread the stick movement over fewer steering degrees, e.g. from 30 to 20 or from 20 to 15, depending on the car.

You rarely, if ever, use full lock while racing.

This will result in 'slower' steering.

It's not a fix for the increased sensitivity, but it should help to compensate and maybe get you back where you were before.

I use an XBox 360 pad b.t.w.

being as obvious as that is it's not good enough as some tracks have slow corners where all of the .set steering lock needs to be used.

in the .cfg file there's the option to limit the steering lock depending how fast the car is travelling in m/s, which helps but it leaves for a very poor driving experience as the 'feel' of the steering changes so much.

Quote from CSU1 :

being as obvious as that is it's not good enough as some tracks have slow corners where all of the .set steering lock needs to be used

Yeah, I know what you mean and I take your point.

The problem is, its the only way I've been able to reduce the twitchyness with my gamepad controller since Patch X

Perhapse its only affecting certain brands of controllers?

I have Original Sony PS2 Dual Shock with USB converter : No change in Patch X with regards to sensitivity on 0.8 smoothing.
I checked smooth 0.9 and didn't notice much change, if any at all.

My brother has Logitech Dual Action or something, (PS2 pad USB cabled version clone) and it works fine as well, he noticed no change, however he uses Smooth 0.8.

CSU: Do you use the Saitek still?

dungbeetle: could you post your brand of controller?

Quote from JasonJ :

Perhapse its only affecting certain brands of controllers? ... dungbeetle: could you post your brand of controller?

Sure.

An XBox 360 controller using XBCD drivers (v1.07) on Windows XP SP2.

I use a Logitech Rumblepad 2 and I'm also noticing this...

yes jason I still using that same brand.

btw, are you setting paralell steer to 0% in the pits so steering is non-linear?

My current settings:

Steer lock 90 degrees.
turn compression .92
steer smooth .90
paralell steer 0%

Quote from CSU1 :

yes jason I still using that same brand.

btw, are you setting paralell steer to 0% in the pits so steering is non-linear?

My current settings:

Steer lock 90 degrees.
turn compression .92
steer smooth .90
paralell steer 0%

Hey CSU1,

Can you explain what 'turn compression' does?

Quote from dungbeetle :

Hey CSU1,

Can you explain what 'turn compression' does?

Technically no, but phisically a high turn compression value removes some of the 'twitcheyness' at the start of the two axis left and right; it's more accurate and easyer to hold a straight line through an apex imo.

It's Wheel Turn Compensation isn't it?

I find the paralell steer makes the car respond differently, as in oversteer or understeer. It's a bit like changing the differential, I'd say the car handles differently, not the steering response.

But anyway, my settings:

Wheel turn : 90º
Wheel Turn Compensation : 1.00
Analog Steer Smoothing : 0.7
If I use those settings and go from LFS patch W to X, I hardly notice any difference cause its pretty sensitive/twitchy anyway. I run two instances of LFS side by side to compare.

Parallel Steer : 0% or 100%, I have different setups. Either 0-50-100% does not make the steering WHEEL more or less twitchy, just the car handling physics changes.


If I try your settings:

Wheel turn : 90º
Wheel Turn Compensation : 0.92
Analog Steer Smoothing : 0.9
And my XRT at 0% parallel...

And compare W patch to X is can see the differnce now. Patch X is about 30% less smooth imo.

All I can suggetst to CSU1 and othes, is to try change Wheel Turn Compensation : 0.92 up to 1.00. It makes mine less twitchy when I do that.

___
In summary, I notice the smoothing is quite different when I use 0.9 Smoothing between Patch W and X.But I use smoothing 0.7 so I don't notice the difference as much. So I guess the brand of PS2 pad type controller is irrelevent as well after this latest round of testing I have done. Sorry for the false alarm about brands.

The Xbox 360 pad I once tried how ever was too sensitve with any settings.

Ahh, so it seems us 'high-setting-gamepad-twitchers' (or HSGTs for short?) are not imagining things then!

Well that's something I guess

Thanks for checking it out Jason.

so its confirmed, thanks for testing jason.

...that effect you saw using full .9 smooth and the ~30% difference, how would you describe the diffenence(phisically)...is it analogue steer smooth has been lowered or reduced in patch X or something different?

Just watching the steering wheel model and throwing the stick from left to right quickly. You can see the wheel turns slower in W patch and faster in X patch. So the smoothing is noticibly less in patch X. The "wheel winding" rate is another way to describe it I guess. Is this what you mean? I didnt really try driving with it much, it just seemed a little quicker at turning the wheel on 0.9 smoothing in patch X. I cant "drive" steer smooth 0.9 normally anyway to really give a reasonable judgement about the cars handling differences in Patch X, @ steer smooth 0.9.

Take note: running two patches W and X in the same folder resets many settings, so you have to check everything is exactly the same after you start LFS in each instance you run if your trying to compare things.

But CSU1,... If you always had Wheel Turn Compensation at 0.92 before, have you tried putting that up to 1.0 to counter-act the less steering smooth available? You might get about 10% more smoothing back.

I do wish there was more flexibilty with the controls. It seems you can't reduce sensitivity nearly enough. The controllers need much more adjustment control in the LFS menus. Now even more so in Patch X with the unexplained changes.

Dont tell me to use a wheel, I just dont like wheels...period. Not my cup of tea TBH. I have nothing against wheel players however. I enjoy playing LFS & Car games with a Analog Pad and Chase view the most. Heaps fun IMO.

Quote from JasonJ :

The "wheel winding" rate is another way to describe it I guess. Is this what you mean?

Yes, if you drive LFS pre patch X with full steer smooth(it takes a bit of getting used to) it gives the effect of 'wheel winding', winding on and off steer lock rather then having the orientation of the front wheels directley relate to the position of the pad stick. As I said it does take a bit of getting used to and a visual aid is needed(yellow noob line on the wheel).

However I've had no choice but to get used to the new patch, and still do use full .9 steer smooth, but as you confirmed with testing it's no where near the old patch; ~30% less smooth.

Here are the bits I don't understand:

Front wheels-(?)->Graphical game wheel-(?)->Input device.

How does LFS tell the front wheels to turn?....does the input device tell the graphical wheel to turn, or does the input device directley tell the front wheels to turn- if so is the graphical wheel just purely graphical?

If the answer is yes(LFS tells the graphical game wheel to turn, and the input device has no direct relation to the front wheels) where do the options Analogue steer smooth + Wheel turn compression come in.
Above I have placed two question marks; I assume at qustion mark #1 there must be some sort of modelled steering collumn, is this where the options play there role??? or do they reside at question mark #2???

I would really really really like to know exactly what analogue steer smooth and wheel turn compression are and how they relate to the steering system.

Quote from JasonJ :

Dont tell me to use a wheel, I just dont like wheels...period. Not my cup of tea TBH. I have nothing against wheel players however. I enjoy playing LFS & Car games with a Analog Pad and Chase view the most. Heaps fun IMO.

I like pads too. I changed from the PS2 type to the XBox 360 pad a while ago 'cos I wanted separate analogue controls for throttle and brakes and I found I enjoyed the game even more after that .

I even tried a wheel with Gran Turismo once and I consistently got better lap times with the pad than with the wheel, although I do appreciate that GT doesn't have the same sophisticated level of control that LFS does.

I just hope that if Scawen gets the chance, he might take another look at sensitivity tuning for gamepads.

CSU 1

Just as a thought, apart from parallel steer, what other adjustments could we make to the car setup to slow the steering down a little?

Y'know, things like toe-in/out etc.

I take your point on the disadvantages of reducing steering lock but maybe altering steering geometry somehow could improve things.

It would be a bit like just tuning the car to suit your own style of driving in a way.

Quote from dungbeetle :

I just hope that if Scawen gets the chance, he might take another look at sensitivity tuning for gamepads.

Probably would'nt be worth worth his time to dungbeatle, how many people use a pad with the sim? maybe a dozen...tis a sim, and real drivers dont use pads lmao!....no really how can Scawen be expected to work on an area that we as gamepad users don't even understand for the lack of information the 'two options' thus lack of propper testing

Tis a trickey one; he might not want to touch this whole gamepad area as at the moment they don't work with the sim, and he probably feels they have no place within the sim.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Quote from dungbeatle :

CSU 1

Just as a thought, apart from parallel steer, what other adjustments could we make to the car setup to slow the steering down a little?

Y'know, things like toe-in/out etc.

I take your point on the disadvantages of reducing steering lock but maybe altering steering geometry somehow could improve things.

It would be a bit like just tuning the car to suit your own style of driving in a way.

toe in and toe out are not going to effect the fundimental lack of control...
Why don't you play around with the .cfg file "speed steer reduction". What it does is limit the lock of the front wheels depending on how fast the car is travelling in m/s, I've tried it and don't like it as the feel of the car changes so much...but everyone to his own, you might find it helpfull.

Quote from CSU1 :

Probably would'nt be worth worth his time to dungbeatle, how many people use a pad with the sim? maybe a dozen...tis a sim, and real drivers dont use pads lmao!....no really how can Scawen be expected to work on an area that we as gamepad users don't even understand for the lack of information the 'two options' thus lack of propper testing

Tis a trickey one; he might not want to touch this whole gamepad area as at the moment they don't work with the sim, and he probably feels they have no place within the sim.

Yes, this is a good point, but ...

Don't forget that a lot of newcomers who try out the demo won't necessarily have a wheel. The first thing they'll do is plug in a gamepad just like they do with their console racing games, to give it a try - that's exactly what I did.

Wouldn't it be nice if these players could realise how great the game is just by using a correctly calibrated gamepad?

If the gamepad control sucks, they'll probably become frustrated and annoyed with the game instead of becoming totally hooked like they should!

So it could still be in Scawen's interests to maybe tweak the gamepad compatibility a little.

Quote from dungbeetle :

So it could still be in Scawen's interests to maybe tweak the gamepad compatibility a little.

fair point. But the problem still exists, and I don't have the know how to get answers to these question

Quote from csu :

Front wheels-(?)->Graphical game wheel-(?)->Input device.

How does LFS tell the front wheels to turn?....does the input device tell the graphical wheel to turn, or does the input device directley tell the front wheels to turn- if so is the graphical wheel just purely graphical?

If the answer is yes(LFS tells the graphical game wheel to turn, and the input device has no direct relation to the front wheels) where do the options Analogue steer smooth + Wheel turn compression come in.
Above I have placed two question marks; I assume at qustion mark #1 there must be some sort of modelled steering collumn, is this where the options play there role??? or do they reside at question mark #2???

I would really really really like to know exactly what analogue steer smooth and wheel turn compression are and how they relate to the steering system.

Ok, I believe that those settings affect the control system in this way.

The effect the cotroller pad has on the steering wheel model is adjusted by steer smooth, steering compensation and steer lock. The steering wheel model connects directly to the front wheels......

Front wheels-->Graphical game wheel-(user settings)->Input device.

This is easy to prove and also demonstrates the way these settings affect the turn amount of the the wheel:

Sit in the car cockpit and make the wheel visible. Next use one had on the controller and hold it 45º and bring up the options>>controller menu. Use the other hand with the mouse and move the Steering lock menu slider. You can see the steering wheel turn more as you adjust steering lock setting higher.


This shows you how much effect the setting is having on the turning of the wheel. Do the same for wheel turn compensation. You can see that as the "Wheel Turn Compensation" is decreased the wheel turns more with the same input ammount. So to get less twitchines the compensation slider should be as high as possible.

I can only see what happens when these setting are adjusted. I can't tell what sort of steering curve, (formula for increasing steer amount as the input increases) is used or if it even remains linear as these setting are adjusted.

As for it being worth Scawens time... I can only guess, but I imagine it would only require changing on number in the code. Surely it's just some number that is used to multiply out the steering amount based on the steering input. TBH I think the Wheel Turn Compensation formula has a bug and is not actually doing what it is supposed to do, if not a bug then the multiplier is not low enough. If I had put in a setting like that I would think it would work more like "Steer Centre Reduction" in the mouse control setup. Or if not like that then make it reduce the amount of steer much much more. It doesnt seem to carry enough weight in the control system and IMO it should make the turning rate much much less. It would probably take less time to fix then the time it took me to write this sentance. Sorry if I'm wrong Scawen. But the controls seems very over sensitive and it is very frustrating to drive sometimes with such little margin for error.

I want to look at analogue steer smooth again as I think it is a very important area to discuss.


Most wheel users use no or very little steer smooth because of the sheer size of the axis zones they have to work with, and it is so easy to hold the wheel at degrees of lock with ease.
With a gamepad however this is impossible; the physical size of the zones inside the pad make it extreemley difficult to hold the 'graphical wheel' at degrees of lock.
In esscence for a wheel user G25, momo etc; analogue streer smooth(if wheel turn compensation is 0.00(linear)) set to zero will give very quick and accurate movement of the steering system in-game having the graphical wheel almost mimicing what the G25 is doing; directley translating input degrees to the graphical wheel.
If a gamepad user where to use the same 0.00 steer smooth...well, you can imagine how hard it would be to directley input each degree of rotation through a medium as small as the zones in a gamepad.

Analogue Steer Smooth set to full .90
This setting allows for smooth input and mainley can be noticed when you hold/push the stick on the pad ever so lightly; the graphical wheel responds with smooth accurate movements 'smoothing through' the degrees of input rater than directley translating input. Any ther setting then full .90 steer smooth does not feel right imo.

Wheel Turn Compensation

Quote from AndroidXP :

If you have a wheel with 240° rotation driving a car with 540° rotation ingame that means
at 0.0 wheel turn compensation, 1° of rotating your wheel always rotates 2.25° ingame (linear steering)
at 1.0 wheel turn compensation, 1° of rotating your wheel at the centre is roughly 1° ingame, while near the end of rotation it starts to get more and more sensitive, so 1° on your wheel could mean like 4° ingame (non-linear steering)

As Android pointed out a wheel turn compensation setting of full 1.00 is the best setting we can use as gamepad users as it helps with sensitivity issues at the beginning of each axis left and right.

All in all I fell steer smooth has been reduced, why I don't know and its very difficult to drive any of the rwd cars in LFS because of this

So ...

... based on what Android said, the more we s-t-r-e-t-c-h and smooth things out near the centre, the more gets bunched up at the extreme R and L ends.

The total steering travel has gotta go somewhere, right, so the smoother the centre, the more compressed and twitchy the extreme L and R positions? Bad news!

So, with that setting in place, if you swing between extreme R and L in an attempt to correct a slide for example, you end up flaying around in the 'compressed' R and L ends. Bad news!

Have I understood that correctly?

If I have, then maybe just a little reduction in steering lock (nothing too drastic so it messes up the lock-to-lock in a big way), might take away the tank-slapper effect of over correction at the extreme ends?

Phew, my brain hurts now - I need to lie down!

Quote from dungbeetle :

So ...

... based on what Android said, the more we s-t-r-e-t-c-h and smooth things out near the centre, the more gets bunched up at the extreme R and L ends.

The total steering travel has gotta go somewhere, right, so the smoother the centre, the more compressed and twitchy the extreme L and R positions? Bad news!

So, with that setting in place, if you swing between extreme R and L in an attempt to correct a slide for example, you end up flaying around in the 'compressed' R and L ends. Bad news!

Have I understood that correctly?

Yep, counter steering can be a problem...I guess one needs to find a balance between the .cfg setting "speed steer reduction" and wheel turn compensation....I know its all very niggley...we need a user friendly way of setting these different variables with a nice gui AND MORE STEER SMOTH imo

Quote from CSU1 :

Yep, counter steering can be a problem...I guess one needs to find a balance between the .cfg setting "speed steer reduction" and wheel turn compensation....I know its all very niggley...we need a user friendly way of setting these different variables with a nice gui AND MORE STEER SMOTH imo

Yeah. Plus, when a bend tightens and you need more lock for example, that could induce a spin 'cos the more you turn with the stick, the faster it turns as well!

Just want to say thanks for discussing this and posting control improvement suggestions. I'm also a gamepad user (I have my reasons to not use a wheel as well) and yes, even if it's weird, I like to play LFS with just that.
Because my old pad was worn I went through a variety of different ones recently to find something good again. All the details aside, I ended up with using a Dreamcast pad with a DC->PC pad converter. I found these have the best accuracy (perfect centering for one) and I kind of like using triggers for gas/brake nowadays instead of the dual-stick setup. However, trying to drive the Raceabout with a pad is still....