The online racing simulator
Quote from colcob :Just to try and clarify a couple of things, firstly understeer is when the slip angle of the front tyres is greater than the slip angle of the rear tyres. Doesnt matter if its above optimum or not.

OK my bad.
Quote from AndroidXP :It is indeed a canned effect, a simple constant centering force, where the force is set by your spring strength. This force is added to the forces created by LFS, so it does alter them quite considerably.

Nope it isn't. I am not talking about the centering spring. Do you have a Logitech DFP? EDIT- I ask because if you do you could run some very scientific tests to see what the spring does, and what it does not do. The centering spring should always be unchecked, that is true.
Oh well, ok then. I rest my case

I have an MS FF wheel and that ignores any settings regarding centering spring and effect strength as soon as LFS runs. And if your DFP has a different behaviour on those spring settings I'd blame it on a faulty/buggy driver because that spring setting shouldn't touch the forces generated by LFS.

I thought about getting a DFP but I always hear that the pedals are crap and that the FF is better on the Sidewinder. Also the drivers seem to always interfere with the FF so I dunno . But then again... 900° and a myriad of buttons... arrggh decisions.
I did some tests today, in my real car.

It was wet, and I do have a fwd. Fairly wide, sticky tires. And all tests are done by feel. That means I did not actually measure any forces on the wheel. But I did concentrate on the forces, trying to exclude my seat-of-the-pants input.

Anyways:

Going straight, I had the normal centering forces, as well as doing a constant radius turn. The force required to keep the turn was increasing slightly as the radius got smaller.
Accelerating, I got a little bit of torque steer, and violent bucking if I got a little wheelspin. If I had a lot of wheelspin, the wheel went very light, and I lost all steering. These are all effects easily seen in LFS.

going straight, pressing the clutch so I was coasting, and the turning the wheel a fair amount resulted in the wheel getting harder and harder to turn, as per the constant radius turn, but at the point where wheelslip started to occur, the force stayed constant. However much more the wheel was turned, the force needed was constant.
During fwd power-on understeer, I got a fair bit of feedback as long as only the inner wheel was slipping (open diff), but once both wheels were slipping I had a very light wheel.

The surprising thing here is the fact that in a wheel-slip situation, the wheel-force was constant. In the beginning I thought the wheel got lighter, but then I started thinking about actual forces vs expected forces. I think the term 'the wheel goes light' is not the actualt fact, but the fact that the force needed increases up to a point, and then stays constant when you expect it to keep increasing.

Disclaimer: It could also be the wet surface, or my power-steering could mask out the effects, but I'm pretty certain my observations are correct under the prevailing conditions.

I'll get the flamesuit ready now, I think.
Quote from AndroidXP :Oh well, ok then. I rest my case

I have an MS FF wheel and that ignores any settings regarding centering spring and effect strength as soon as LFS runs. And if your DFP has a different behaviour on those spring settings I'd blame it on a faulty/buggy driver because that spring setting shouldn't touch the forces generated by LFS.

I thought about getting a DFP but I always hear that the pedals are crap and that the FF is better on the Sidewinder. Also the drivers seem to always interfere with the FF so I dunno But then again... 900° and a myriad of buttons... arrggh decisions.

..
Well since this forum LOCKS IE6 if I quote or insert a link or anything. I will quote then write the message.. illepall

No the driver is not buggy at all...

The guy who writes the drivers explains exactly why the spring and damper forces are there, it has to do with how game devs used to write code for FF and how different manufacturers FF wheels interpret those signals.


The spring setting should and does affect the forces generated by LFS...


Yeah the older pedals are crap, at least some of them. They have a significant probability of being defective- it is a design flaw. The new Rev. B00 has metal POTS and for me they work flawlessly. I can compare them to my Momo force pedals which have the touchy plastic POTS.. The new DFP pedals work perfect. Smooth as they could possibly be.

Get the DFP, it is far superior to your MS Wheel in many ways. The place where you see if it is a rev B00 or later is on the inside of the box though, on the plastic bad that holds the manual.
Quote from atledreier :...

You just showed that LFS does it right. No flamesuit needed
Quote from AndroidXP :You just showed that LFS does it right. No flamesuit needed

But it is not simulating 1 important 'feeling'
Which is?

It's simulating the forces acting through the steeering column, and it does that pretty accurately, it seems.
The feeling when the wheel go's light from massive understeer.
Did you even read my post?
It doesn't. Either in real life or in LFS.
Quote from tristancliffe :It doesn't. Either in real life or in LFS.

LOL is that right? I cant believe some people, wow. Im just gonna assume none of you have driven a real car hard in your life.
Yes. Lots. Today in fact. My wheel goes a bit light as I start to understeer, a bit more light if I understeer more, then stays about constant after that, until the wheel starts juddering cos the road wheels are hopping along the road surface rather than rolling.
I thought you just said the wheel doesnt go light? make up your mind
Of course it goes light, and that's been said in real life. But you said

"The feeling when the wheel go's light from massive understeer", and this DOES NOT HAPPEN.

LFS gets this right.
Now im confused :S

Of course that doesnt happen in LFS, but it should cause it happens in a REAL car.
No no no

LFS models the steering going light at moderate levels of understeer, as explained in posts (not just mine) above. This is correct and realistic.

It does not model the steering going REALLY light at EXTREME understeer, because this DOES NOT happen in a real car. If anything, at EXTREME levels of understeer, when so much lock has been wound on to make the tyres skip rather than rotate, the wheel forces tend to go up. The steering going really light IS NOT modelled in LFS, and it is REALISTIC because of it.

Apart from the bucking wheel when the wheels skip, LFS get's it pretty right.

No offence, but I think you need to go for a drive in a decent car, preferably without power steering (although difficult as all cars have it now new, which just goes to show that modern people are generally a bit girly. Thats why they want/demand Traction Control :P). I do this on an almost daily basis, and part of my job at work is to assess handling. They might not be the most modern cars, but they run on Radials, are either FWD or RWD, handle well, and use the same laws of physics.
And like I said, our brains expect the forces to increase. When they don't, it's interpreted as less force. We're easily fooled by our own expectations.
Actually there is another factor in this that I don't think anyone has mentioned yet, and that's the road itself. My own experience of the steering going light when understeering is when there has been something on the road that causes a serious loss of grip, like ice or spilt diesel. In those situations, you get understeer and the resistance through the steering wheel is virtually zero. This isn't modelled in LFS because low grip surfaces aren't modelled in LFS, so I was probably wrong to use this as my own experience.

The steering going light due to excessive speed is a different matter, and I think this is where the confusion has crept in.

Quote :I think you need to go for a drive in a decent car, preferably without power steering (although difficult as all cars have it now new, which just goes to show that modern people are generally a bit girly.

Well, that wouldn't really be much use since the real equivalents of all the cars in LFS (excluding the MRT?) would almost certainly have power steering. Girly? No, I'd say it's more to do with the fact that engineers can do a lot more to improve the feel of a car with power steering than without it.
Actually, one of the main reasons they fit PAS to most hatchbacks/shopping trolleys is because the manufacturers fit wheels and tyres that are far too big for general city driving, because grip sells.

Saying 'Our car is shit slow round a track, but at least you can park it, and you save £200 in the process' isn't as good as saying 'our car has loads of grip, despite Mrs Granny never ever using 10% of it'.

Of course, a slightly more aggressive wheel setup can also be used, with faster racks, more caster, wider wheels/tyres etc etc. But there is no NEED really, and if they engineered the cars without it only about 4 people would ever notice the difference on a day to day basic.
Actually my old Prelude had torque sensitive power steering- It felt like NO power steering until you really needed it, like in a parking lot. I also had 2 other cars w/o Power steering, one a RWD and one FWD... They were both great handling cars, and a blast to drive- but a pain in the A.. errr Arms.. in the parking lots.

At the that time I was benching 250LBS though, so it wasn't too much work. It felt like I was ripping to wheel off the car all the time though, similar to what the DFP feels like in LFS without any spring adjustment set.
Quote from durbster :Actually

Quote from tristancliffe :Actually

Quote from BWX232 :Actually

LOL.....
Actually, it's a very normal way to start a sentence :P

FGED GREDG RDFGDR GSFDG