What information should the wheel be sending me in LFS?

G25 here. This is what I get (XRG):

Stationary, there's hardly any resistance. Building speed the wheel gets stiffer. Tail slides cause the wheel to counter spin on it's own. Some slight vibrations on some curby bits. Otherwise it's just a fairly consistent resistance that's proportional to speed.

I get no real discernable lightening of force from any actual events (other than being stationary). And I find it impossible to detect the rear end letting go until it's too late - by the world rotating and sound. Experimenting in circles in the car park, I can maybe just about convince myself of a minuscule change in resistance to break induced understeer.

I think I was getting more information than this more from a previous patch.

I have the recommended profiler settings.

Perhaps it's the car's setup's fault, as it can have a huge impact on FF and steering stiffness. Also, make sure the centering spring is set to 0 and deactivated in the profiler.

Quote from Postman Pat :

What information should the wheel be sending me in LFS?

G25 here. This is what I get (XRG):

Stationary, there's hardly any resistance. Building speed the wheel gets stiffer. Tail slides cause the wheel to counter spin on it's own. Some slight vibrations on some curby bits. Otherwise it's just a fairly consistent resistance that's proportional to speed.

I get no real discernable lightening of force from any actual events (other than being stationary). And I find it impossible to detect the rear end letting go until it's too late - by the world rotating and sound. Experimenting in circles in the car park, I can maybe just about convince myself of a minuscule change in resistance to break induced understeer.

I think I was getting more information than this more from a previous patch.

I have the recommended profiler settings.

This is the set that i use on an XRG, find it nice and responsive, although i dont have a FF wheel, i find it a lot more driveable like this, as the XRG is a bit of a boat on wheels TBH!

I have a Driving Force GT and I can feel the back end come out instantly. You should be able to feel the same, if not better then I. You should adjust your settings in your profiler and then turn it off. On the Driving Force GT I have overall effects in the 90s, spring effect at 0 and damping around 40. I found the wheel too easy to turn otherwise with damping on 0. I did use 0 on damping with the Driving Force Pro though.

Good luck.

Jay

I have the profiler settings recommended in the LFS manual. Which also apply to GTL successfully.

I've ended up turning the *in game* FF down to 40 because it was so strong it was ridiculous. I normally have these sort of things set high.

I also uninstalled the logitech gaming software and reinstalled the recent, newest version. No difference.

Something's wrong somewhere.

I use 21% in-game FF, fwiw.

FFB depends on the car for me. I like 22% for most of them though. For the FBM in the G25 I like to crank it to 37 for some odd reason though

Quote from Postman Pat :

Tail slides cause the wheel to counter spin on it's own. Some slight vibrations on some curby bits. Otherwise it's just a fairly consistent resistance that's proportional to speed.

This is what it should do. You should get countersteering from the forces automatically. The front wheels will want to track in the direction of the car, so when the tail slides, the forces will cause the steering to countersteer. As for the vibrations, there are very little vibrations in LFS because the FF is being directly transfered from the forces acted upon the front wheels/tires. When hitting the curbs, you are not feeling side forces in the wheel because there isn't that much side force. In a real car, you feel the vibrations in the seat not the wheel.

Quote :

I get no real discernable lightening of force from any actual events (other than being stationary).

You should not feel any lightening of the wheel except in extreme understeering situations. I don't think you get enough understeer in RWD in LFS to feel the wheel 'go light'. In the XFG front wheel drive, you do feel it. Only, the wheel doesn't actually 'go light' in understeer situations. It just kind of goes neutral. There are still forces acting upon the wheels causing them to want to track the direction of the car. Only in extreme tractionless situations, such as driving in snow, does the steering wheel become completely free of forces, thus feels 'light' to the driver. On drive pavement, there are still forces acting upon your wheels, thus keeping the force on the steering wheel.

The forces 'going light' in other sims that you may be use to are simply wrong.

Quote from mrodgers :

...*snip* the FF is being directly transfered from the forces acted upon the front wheels/tires. *snip*...

Actually the FF is from the front end geometry only, LFS doesn't translate the tire friction/forces IIRC. The reason why the steering is really light when stopped is because tire friction is not being translated.

Quote from mrodgers :

You should not feel any lightening of the wheel except in extreme understeering situations. I don't think you get enough understeer in RWD in LFS to feel the wheel 'go light'. In the XFG front wheel drive, you do feel it. Only, the wheel doesn't actually 'go light' in understeer situations. It just kind of goes neutral. There are still forces acting upon the wheels causing them to want to track the direction of the car. Only in extreme tractionless situations, such as driving in snow, does the steering wheel become completely free of forces, thus feels 'light' to the driver. On drive pavement, there are still forces acting upon your wheels, thus keeping the force on the steering wheel.


The forces 'going light' in other sims that you may be use to are simply wrong.

I agree, the steering FFB should not lighten for any reason, unless the wheels are off the ground, or past maximum slip angle while on ice.

The understeer thing is a big discussion. In any real car I've driven and pushed, I can definately feel the wheel get light when understeering. Not too much, but you can feel it very clearly when it happens. In a FWD, if the car understeers due to power this is very noticeable, the wheel usually lightens up so much that if you let it go it will just stay at the angle it was at. But there are many things playing a role in this, and the wheel turning on it's own when oversteering, like the caster angle. And let's not forget torque steer in FWD.

Quote from Kosmo :

The understeer thing is a big discussion. In any real car I've driven and pushed...

This question is not meant to offend. It should have been asked to mrodgers and I, but its the default question that should be asked when someone claims to have authority on any subject.

What cars have you driven and "pushed?"

As mentioned before the light steering is more noticeable in front wheel drive cars. However the aforementioned effect is clearly noticeable if the front tires are locked in most cars.

No offence taken. Nothing too amazing... But too many to list here I think. Lots and lots of slow ones, and some relatively fast ones too, Clio Sport, 106 Rallye/Gti/Citroen Saxo VTS with all types of mods, Civic and CRX VTI, a quite powerful Fiat Coupe 20v, a Daewoo Lanos with a 2.0 Calibra engine , and many others... I should say that many of these had track or hillclimb suspension setups (to an extent - all are daily drives). And my powerless but setup for the track VW Polo.

EDIT: Those were some of the FWD ones since I mostly talked about them. There are also RWDs and 4WDs in my list but not as many as the FWDs

Quote from Whitmore :

Steering feel is a combination of the effects of pneumatic trail and mechanical trail. Its the variation in pneumatic trail which leads to the steering going light. IMO LFS FFB models mechanical trail well but falls down on pneumatic trail.

Exactly, that is because LFS only models Mechanical trail, or in other words, it does not simulate pneumatic trail.

I feel weightless when I go through the uphill S on AS7..r?

Quote from CasseBent :

I feel weightless when I go through the uphill S on AS7..r?

Is that a question or a statement?

I thought it was obvious, but I'm not sure which combo has the uphill S, hence the dots and the questionmark

Quote from legoflamb :

Exactly, that is because LFS only models Mechanical trail, or in other words, it does not simulate pneumatic trail.

Yeah, but why do you say it should only fall off when on ice?
Even without pneumatic trail the cornering force will fall off as you pass optimal slip angle, which means steering feedback should decrease as its just the moment of that force about the steering axis.

You said your using the logitech drivers? Not the wingman drivers? Every time after reformat and what not FF feels like trash till I re-install the wingman drivers and get them set right (I think I usually use overall feed back 101%, 720 deg, and turn everything else off.)

Quote from RedCoupe :

Yeah, but why do you say it should only fall off when on ice?

That is because ice ,or any other surface with similar coefficient of friction, is slick enough to reach that point where you have passed the maximum slip angle far enough to where the trail is ineffective.

*If you try locking the front tires, on the grass, on the side of a race track, after you had already been turning the steering wheel past maximum slip angle, you will feel the steering lighten and re-firm as you release the brake in LFS.*

I have forcefully induced this kind of under-steer In my car (1991 Miata), while on tarmac, and the steering did not "get light," believe it or not.

Quote from RedCoupe :

You said your using the logitech drivers? Not the wingman drivers?

I never said I didn't use the Wingman, It must have been someone else. I have those exact same setting as well for my G25.