Hi, sorry that it took so long to reply!
Had to get enough free time to write the long answer to everything
I used your LUT and set the FFB gain on CM at 65%, as 100% felt a bit too strong for me.
Hehe 100% of the DFGT being too strong is quite a funny statement to be honest. But depending on where you come from, definitely respectable.
I checked your first attached Screenshot with all the ffb settings in CM:
Looks perfect!
I tested FFBClip w/ 50% gain, I observed that the T,S,A values would be at around 130%, from that I took that I have some headroom and can increase the gain up to my previous preferred value of 65%. At some cars and tracks I still experience clipping but not as often and the T,S,A values range from 78 to 103% so I think that I have a pretty decent setup.
Looking at the graph of that screenshot, I'd say there's a lot of headroom.
A word about clipping:
It's NOT comparable to audio signals, where clipping = distorted sound.
FFB works not by the hands interpreting waveforms. Most of the ffb is steady holding force. Like if you'd put your hand against a speaker and it would constantly push against you, instead of playing the waveform.
So FFB contains 2 things:
1. direction
2. strength
When the signal is clipping, you will always still get the direction information. As in 100% left or right.
What you will lose is the detail of strength.
So if you enter a corner and the ffb reaches 100% before the apex, the ffb won't get stronger at the apex anymore.
So you can't feel the limit as precisely as if the strength would vary depending on the grip level and tyre load.
However if the rear starts to slide, the ffb would either get a lot weaker or the direction would change.
So without clipping you can feel the grip and tyre load better.
But this only works if the ffb is still strong enough for you to actually feel the grip detailed enough!
If you can't really feel the car anymore because everything is too weak, the "more detailed strength" won't give you more control.
The only exception is when the ffb signal jumps from 100% left to 100% right multiple times because you're going over kerbs with way too much gain.
Sadly ffb clip doesn't show the ffb with +100 and -100. So you can't really see the direction changes.
Overall it's only important to have the average cornering ffb NOT clipping.
If some ffb spikes clip, it doesn't matter. Having fun driving and feeling the car well enough overall is way more important than not getting maximum details of strength when going over kerbs.
But now, at 65% gain and FFBClip enabled, the FFB feels pretty weak but still stronger than a regular road car.
Yeah ffb clip, if not set to manual, will adjust the per-car-gain. The final ffb gain is the gain from the menu + the car gain.
So if you set it to 100%, ffbclip might set the per-car-gain to 50%. Which means 100%*50% = 50%.
If you set the menu gain to 50%, ffbclip might set the per-car-gain to 100%. Resulting in the same final 50%.
With 65% menu and 70% per-car-gain, you'll end up with 0,65*0,7 = 45,5% final ffb gain.
About the road car comparison:
Did you ever drive a road car at the full limit on dry tarmac?
I did a driver safety training with an old MB C-Class. When driving normally in traffic, the wheel was pretty light. The power steering kept everything easy.
But when the kick-plate pushed the rear axle a meter to the left or right while driving over it with 50 km/h, the wheel became really strong! Almost hurt my hand...
I now drive a Skoda Fabia, which is super easy with massive power steering.
But when pushing it to the limit in the summer, it does become a lot stronger than the DFGT, I'd say..
The only experience I have of driving is with regular road cars and I don't really know how hard I need to strain myself while driving on AC.
No need to strain yourself at all, ofc. It's about fun!
From a realistic point of view, GT3 cars in the dry have around 4-5 Nm torque while cornering normally.
You can't imagine the grip of wide racing slicks!
Your DFGT has about 2 Nm. So racing a GT3 is definitely a bit of a workout. But when you're fixated in a bucket seat and flooded with adrenaline, things won't feel as strong.
Anyway, I'd compare 4-5 Nm corner torque to doing some classic biceps curl with a 6 kg dumbbell.
Should I keep the gain on CM at 100% and let FFBClip deal with the clipping or should I leave it at 65% with FFBClip enabled (which I think is weak for a sim but still harder than a road car) as it is more realistic that way.
Doesn't matter, since ffbclip comes to the same final result for the desired gain either way.
Raise the menu gain and ffbclip will lower the per-car-gain.
The gain values ffbclip tells you are the per-car-gain. So when ffbclip shows close to 100% for most cars, it's the easiest, since ffbclip won't need to adjust every car by a lot.
Instead it just takes the default 100% per-car-gain and adjusts it very slightly.
Can I also try and keep the gain at 65% and toggle the dynamic mode on FFBClip so that the FFB is increased?
I don't like the dynamic mode. It kills muscle memory. Your car will have exactly the same strength through EVERY corner!
So you don't have any idea about grip levels and tyre loads.
It's basically like full on clipping all the time. FFB loses the strength component and becomes only direction information with always 100% strength.
Not really though, since it stay a bit below that level so you get little details like small direction changes etc.
But you get what I mean.. It's really bad imo.
It can feel nice, but from an engineering point of view, it should stay disabled.
Below in the last screenshot is the graph I got at 65% gain after driving 2 laps of RB Ring with the GT3 RS.
I'd say if you want more strength, you can raise the per-car-gain until the bigger peaks get clipped off. The average ffb looks in the lower third of the graph, so lots of headroom.
Kunos programmed everything to be "okay" at 100% menu gain and 100% per-car-gain. It's too much clipping to feel all the details, but it's not too much clipping to still be completely fine.
While it's a very disorganized one, hopefully this post is clear enough. Thanks for your time.
Yeah once split into the single quotes, it became all clear hehe.
Again, sorry for the late reply. Just couldn't get myself behind the keyboard for that long.
Additional info:
If you want something similar to real car powersteering feel (dynamic mode can feel similar!), you can use the ffb tweaks from CSP (custom shaders patch).
No idea if you're using CSP yet?
This is version 0.1.60. Newer versions have more settings, but keeping them at default is fine.
Here's the important setting:
Range compression!
Values ABOVE 100%, will simulate the dynamic strength compression of powersteering. Set it to 150% or even 200%. It keeps the dynamic for muscle memory, unlike the ffbclip dynamic mode.
But it makes stronger ffb peaks softer, which allows lower ffb information to be stronger.
It's similar to audio compression (signal interpretation is completely different (ffb to hands vs audio waves to ears), but how to control dynamics is similar).
Modern music is always "loud", but you still have calm parts in EDM songs and you can hear the dynamic. Looking at the waveforms will almost be a flat line though.
Modern music is massively compressed. Like range compression at 500%.
The opposite would an older orchestra recording on CD.