I was actually refering to "that" drop-off effect when understeering - anyone who has ever driven a car, especialy without power steering knows how this feels. JTBo i respect you, your experience so I suppose that you know how understeering feels on the steering wheel - it suddenly becomes "light".... I was thinking of those effects.
Hmmm. So by this it means that if a car is lifted up - tires aren't touching road - but yet you may feel some force on the steering wheel? How is that possible? I mean, aren't the tires those that generate all the force acting on suspension??? We should feel THEM also.
Effect in my 'fun' car is quite subtle on steering wheel, I feel it pretty much with my body, but some cars seem to have stronger such effect. I haven't tested that with LFS too much, it has been rather easy to feel/know(/guess?) understeer in LFS so I have had not much reason to test it.
Generally effects seem to be really nice and good, I feel most of missing things are because FFB is limited to only that steering forces.
What puzzled me once was that when I had wheel steered there was lot more what I could feel, I know that if tire would go over let's say kerb from taller side there should be quite violent yank to wheel even wheel would be straight, that is if one wheel touches tall wall of kerb before another.
Some of such things are what in my opinion could be improved, but only if it should cause wheel to turn.
I did drove recently 780km in quite bad conditions, steering wheel constantly yanked to left and right because of:
-over 10cm of snow
-5 to 10cm of wet snow
-ice that had kind of potholes
1-2cm sudden rise (like a wall) in surface did cause that pull, also many other effects.
But, now we come to interesting part, how can you make such surface in computer simulation?
I don't believe that what you see in lower part of attachment can be made yet (collision physics and 3d models limiting perhaps, does in other titles at least) and kerb for example is that what is drawn at upper part, that of course does feel different.
Sorry if all above is impossible to read, I'm bit tired and I should be in bed already
Agree. Just try to decrease caster on LX4 and on track... Almost no force.
I agree totally.
Me also ... Will "read" rest of your post tommorw
EDIT: cant wait tomorrow
hmm i think RBR does it this way, 3D modeling and then "onto" wheel...If u go over small "bump", which could be anything, wheel yanks really hard... And also I remeber interview with some i think Russian guy, about his simulation (which isn't finished), he said main difference is 3D surface moddeling - and he compared it to LFS... I will find it tommorw post pics here...
Actually that is NOT what happens IRL. What happens to the steering actually depends on what caused the understeer and what you do when it happens.
If you enter a corner "too hot" but are off the gas braking into the corner you will feel very different effects through the wheel than when you are in a corner and you feed too much power/steering and step outside the "circle of traction". Where the drive wheels are also effect the feel as well.
LFS does give you that "light" feeling through the wheel if you push a FWD car too hard and spin the wheels, as it should and other causes do feel different as well.
On the whole the steering should not just go light, like an ISI sim. That is just so far off the mark its just funny.
It is more the pressure you feel build as you dial in more turn stops building as the tyres give out. It is a gradual thing not a sudden wheel becomes loose. That is unless you normally overcook so much that you are well into slip.
The thing is, as JTbo has pointed out, most of the feeling you get while driving is through your body and ears (Ears being your balance )
Upper is how some kerbs are IRL, lower is how commonly kerbs are behaving in games at best. Polycount, collision modelling and detection, cpu resources. engine capabilities etc etc affect to that.
I did try to make worn road to rFactor once (well few times and trying about anything possible), I got just some weird effects with realfeel or not anything at all depending bit from how deep 'rails' I made to road, got then tired experimenting with that as clearly it was not possible to make effect I was looking for.
Well, that is one biggest issues that I'm having with FFB, it seem not to work yet quite like I except with kerbs and stuff like that.
If you set low caster you will get less feedback in real car too, for example old M3 had 3 times caster than basic model, I'm sure one of reasons why it was like that was steering feedback.
Car manufacturers do stupid things with normal cars, like set low caster so that 'car feels more stable', that actually kills steering feel.
I think my 'fun' car had 8-9 degrees, can't remember now and I'm too tired to check, but it was quite lot for car like that, that is why it is fun to drive as it is not dumbed down so that sheeps won't panic because steering wheel turns itself on some situations
Kerbs, in LFS, have to be like the ones on the bottom because all tracks except drag strip have the reverse direction. Yes the upper one is more like the real ones but they would be to harsh on the tires in the reverse direction.
When I was refering to how understeering feels I was not thinking about ISI sims (I hate ISI FFB, i use RealFeel in rF), i was thinkig about '95 Škoda Felicia 1.3
Yes, there are differnet types of doing it, and I am sure that power-under lightens the wheel much more then the others. Maybe we should refine expressions used in this thread. Not drop off, rather "loss of grip" - when you are in a corner you feel that "wall", and you feel through a steering wheel when the tire is about to lose grip, aren't you? I wasn't only reffering to understeer. again, decrease caster on lx4. Go onto any track. Maybe the best place is car park. Pick up some speed. Turn your wheel to full lock. See? Nothing happens with force. It just INCREASES - no information from what the front tires are doin. Just what is happenig with the suspension.
Sports cars which "filter" tire informations aren't appreciated much... Example is my '05 Renault Megane with its electric power steering... OK it isn't sport version... But anyway it's steering is dead... Škoda was better on that. Plenty of information.
Regarding nK namie, I have to say, while its FFB was a godsend compared to anything ISI had, I did and still do loathe the vanishing forces once you understeer or oversteer. It is so friggin awful, going into a slight oversteer and suddenly the FFB resistance is gone and you slide around without being able to do anything. As long as you stay below the limit it feels fine, but it's absolute pants when going over it.
As others already said, probably something is not right with the way your wheel is set. Do you use "Centering spring" FFB setting in wheel control panel - if it is too strong it could kill all FFB coming from game, and also it shouldn't be used other then set to 0.
I've experienced this what you are describing, but only if I was setting FFB to low values
Of course, but what I'm trying to say all this time is: shouldn't we feel "more tires", I'll try to explain myself like this: current FFB + MORE FEEDBACK FROM THE TIRES!
That caster example was mentioned just to point out that when understeering heavy it just isn't felt via FFB, only way to know that you are understeering is to see that your car is about to go straight instead of turn in!
I know that there are RL cars out there which also behave like this (my '05 Megane for example) - but that is whole different story, here (simulations) we are able to "feel" the car ONLY through a FFB. I'm not saying "Scawen, give us crappy ISI predefined effects", just make somehow tires feed more feedback into steering column!
EDIT: All of this which I have said isn't coming from someone unpleased - I DON'T dislike LFS FFB. I think it is great. But why not make it even better?
If you are turning and lock up the fronts, I believe that you can feel it. If your steering wheel is straight (as in 99,5 % of the situations when the brakes would lock up), there are no forces that would make the steering wheel move left or right.
What I think is sort of missing is the feel of the tyres "microgripping/slipping" when losing traction and regaining it at the limit - right now it's very smooth, there's no edge to it and there's a lack of the tendency to snap when it suddenly regains traction - it more or less slides back into traction smoothly.
I've never felt any under steer or wheel lockup though the wheel, and I don't know how anyone cay say its there, when it is clearly not. I've owned every FF wheel though the last 5 years, and they all feel the same in LFS, dead, slow and un-responsive and sluggish (especially the RWD cars) . Don't get me wrong I love LFS, its just needs to get with the times when it comes to FF and what can be done. At least have "options" for more forces
If the car understeers under power, the steering feels lighter than normal. Take the XFR to BL car park with the default hard track set, turn your wheel from 12 to clock 7 or 8. Drive on second gear while keeping the wheel stationary with light grip, revs at 5000 rpm. close your eyes and floor the gas pedal. You can't miss the feel! For reference you can try few with eyes open
I'm pretty much in agreement with that. I love LFS, but it just doesn't have the fidelity of feedback that NetKar does.
I get used to LFS then after 10 mins with nKpro LFS feels completely dead.
Netkar is, as i understand it, using a very similar method for calculating forces as LFS, so what is it that's making the difference?
Maybe it's settings somewhere? Because I don't get that feel in nK that I get in LFS. nK feels dead. Now admittedly I've only used nK for about 10 minutes with the G25, so I can't say I've tried recently to improve it, but I cannot make nK feel nice.
Not flaming nK as such - I would like to improve it and try it with this supposedly good feel (and if it happens I'm not going to pretend it didn't) - so don't get too cross with me. No point asking on RSC, because they're all to busy mourning Stefanos obvious (but unconfirmed) tragic washing machine accident that took not only his life but also he decency [what was left of it].
Random "noise" blended in with the actual force calculations perhaps? However for me the difference between NKpro and LFS currently is that I have LFS and for the life of me I can never find a working mirror for NKpro to finally take it for a whirl. In namie, which luckily can be found - probably because it's community-supported instead of developer-ignored - the FFB did feel like it had some randomness thrown in.
I'm not going to get cross :
If people say they are not getting the feel in nKPro then i believe it.
It is without a shadow of a doubt the best FF I've ever felt with my old Sidewinder. I've not tried with a G25 so i have no idea how it feels with that. (though i know many DFP/G25 owners who completely agree that its the best)
Still, seeing as nKPro is as good as dead it's not worth worrying about really. I love it for what it is, but Stefano is obviously not going to do anything with it.
Considering i had a 1.03 beta in my hands 6 months ago but he's come up with nothing since, even i can admit it's all over.
It's the biggest waste of potential in Sim Racing.
A few cars in LFS when set up in a specific way feel ok (The FBM for instance) The big GT's are just a dead weight.
If i got the nKpro feedback in LFS i would truly be in sim heaven.
... Will "read" rest of your post tommorw 
