So you think you know about force feedback?

[mantasisg]

The problem is understeer doesn't really feel like sudden lack of lateral pull on the wheel like many people misinterpret it - very often understeer feels like the whole front end of car starts bouncing and producing very distinctive sounds. I haven't felt/heard it in any game yet tbh. Problem with bouncing that it shouldn't be lateral too, it should be more like those extra vibrating thingys on T-GT wheel.

Example can be found here at 8:04:

I guess that is possibly caused by very stiff low profile tires. My guess is that tire slips on/off sidewall at this certain frequency. Or maybe perhaps there is something wrong with bushings or other stuff ?

 

[KittX]

I guess that is possibly caused by very stiff low profile tires. My guess is that tire slips on/off sidewall at this certain frequency. Or maybe perhaps there is something wrong with bushings or other stuff ?

i had that few times on my road car, couple times on the dry tarmac, and multiple times at wet track, the tires are pretty beefy and tall on my car too.
Sometimes when you turn too agressively in karts you have similar bounce, but well, then you also have crab walking which is a whole different thing, although their nature is quite similar, just one happens longitudinally, another happens laterally. (although you can still argue that the understeer bounce happens laterally to front tires, related to how they are positioned)

 

[RCHeliguy]

If you'd watch the vid with great attention a couple of times you would mostly know And this is not the case when the knowing less is better.

I'm hardly espousing ignorance.

I watched the video and I'm learning as fast as I can. I'm currently reading through Ross Bentley's "Ultimate Speed Secrets" which I'm enjoying quite a bit. I've been practicing daily and comparing my telemetry against known good racers to see where I can improve on the track of the week. Getting my timing right, working on my line, and finding ways to make everything I do smoother. I just got settings for my SC 2 Pro where I like them at least for what I'm racing right now. It's my first direct drive wheel, so I'm adjusting to that as well. I just got my brake profile dialed on on my Heusinkveld Sprints for the car I'm racing right now and it made a world of difference.

Lots of learning curves to climb right now... It's coming, but it's not like I can download everything a professional driver knows instantly.

 

[Richard Wilks]

Well I was probably one of the first guys who noticed this upload by Niels. And sure, I watched it. First of all I want to ask you where did oversteer suddenly come from, because we were specifically talking about SAT drop during understeer.

Also, second thing, caster doesn't hold any force, it is mechanical leverage.

Third I am way aware that self aligning torque peaks earlier before slip curve does, and I knew it before, but it was awesome to learn from Niels the reason for that. Though he didn't explain the reason why pneumatic trail shrinks, or did he ? But I know the reason anyway let me flex about it

I'll try to explain you again about understeer. There are two types of leverage - mechanical and pneumatic. Mechanical trail depends on geometry. Pneumatic trail depends on load and slip, and with slip it gets smaller, till it goes. If there is very little of mechanical trail, then the decrease of pneumatic trail decrease will be very noticeable as understeer happens, because the drop of SAT will be more noticeable as there won't be much permanent leverage that stays the whole time. it is so simple, please.




If you'd watch the vid with great attention a couple of times you would mostly know And this is not the case when the knowing less is better.

This is a clear case of someone deflecting my question by trying to sound articulated and inteligent, but really not adressing the point.

I will ask again, did you see the part where, with just TIRE FORCES ALONE (so indeed the things most closely related with grip) the steering wheel would be totally numb and weighless when we would get to that point?

Let me try to sound smart and articulated too, real drivers use the steering wheel as a way of pointing the car to where they want it to go. They don't go around the track "feeling" nuances in resistance to know where is the front tire grip.

A real driver feels understeer by the attitude of the car around a corner, NOT because the wheel suddenly became light or stiff, because if he is on the limit, the wheel is actually LIGHT ALL THE TIME, due exactly to the fact that the car is riding through in it's optimal slip angle, so all the forces that would make wheel resistance are at , or nearly, zero.

This is also the reason why so many sim racers can't grasp why so many Aliens online drive with minimal FFB and have no problem being super fast like that. In their case, their replaced the sense through the body for visual cues, but their main objective is use the steering to point the car where they want, not to gauge grip levels.

 

[mantasisg]

@Richard Wilks Sounds to me that you mistake slip angle of a tire with yaw angle of vehicle. And something in your descrbing does not align - pun is very intended. I am also not advocating that cars in general should be providing super bright hint about understeer, or that drivers should base their car behavior reading on FFB, I've just said that such effect is technically possible to happen. I have even agreed with one of your first messages, but unfortunately doesn't sound like it was enough to you.

Anyway you sound mocking me so I won't reply more.

@RCHeliguy It is awesome, I just meant that knowing more would result in even more joy, well unless you'd understand an issue in some simulation, then it would bug you out, so I was wrong that it is always feels better to know more

 

[Jivesauce]

The problem is understeer doesn't really feel like sudden lack of lateral pull on the wheel like many people misinterpret it - very often understeer feels like the whole front end of car starts bouncing and producing very distinctive sounds. I haven't felt/heard it in any game yet tbh. Problem with bouncing that it shouldn't be lateral too, it should be more like those extra vibrating thingys on T-GT wheel.

Example can be found here at 8:04:

I agree that extreme understeer is often felt as a vibration through the chassis (and by the attitude of the car of course) more than through the wheel. I have a transducer mounted to my sim chassis that provides a high frequency vibration when the front wheels slip that I feel like does a decent job simulating that feeling.

 

[Marc Collins]

"But how much do we really know about what our sims are telling us?"
Not much. The problem I find is that ALL the sim makers out there leave us, the consumer, with the same problem. We must start from scratch every time a new sim is released and we must keep working on our FFB settings over months and even years to get it just right. It seems their argument is: "Well, it's a matter of taste. Of preference." So there is barely a baseline setting for a particular wheel and base and we must wander aimlessly over months to find a good feel/setting. This should not be the case. I do realize that say Kunos or SMS can't make perfect default settings for every wheel on the market, but they should be doing this for most of the popular wheels. Which really shouldn't be that difficult.
Further, as I've been doing this for years now, I find that studios do not first work on making say a Fanatec CSL Elite when driving a 911 GT3 in ACC, FEEL LIKE A 911 GT3. The feel is in there for that car, somewhere, but I have to dial it in to really find it! What?! Sorry, but when I buy a GT3RS for the road, the reason I buy that car is because of the way it drives. The way it performs. I don't first day start changing parts and making adjustments to make it feel like something. It is what it is! It drives the way it drives. That's what makes it a 911. I don't say to the dealer, "Yeah, my RS sucks right now. Just can't quite get it right. Oh well. I'll find the right settings someday." In my opinion, there need to be way better baseline, out of the box settings for most of the mainstream wheels out there. This in turn will bring more people to the hobby
Now, I get what some may say; "Well even in racecars, guys need to find the right setup for the track/conditions, etc. I get that. But that's not what we're talking about here. Those settings are suspension settings in the game. That's not FFB! FFB should work right out of the box. Just like a brand new 911!

AMS. Never had to adjust anything except strength setting once in a blue moon. Perfect FFB out of the box and all cars feel like they exist in the same universe, not half a dozen different "generations" of FFB like the other "best" sims have.

 

[Isaac Chavira]

I want that servo!

 

[Brandon Wright]

Ahh, and now we've got Brandon in on it. You don't happen to know BrunoB do you? Surely you guys must hang out.

Wasn't specifically directed at you, this applies to pretty much anything; sports, politics, religion, sushi places, video games, internet comment sections, you name it. But whatever. For what it's worth I mostly agree with your premise, I used to be very active in the sim racing community but I've checked out because I can't stand the drama and fighting and whinging and pissing matches. I mainly just drive virtual big rigs now, not nearly as much bickering in the trucker forums. I chose to just remove myself from the toxic situation though, in my experience ranting at strangers never solved anything so I no longer waste the keystrokes. But you do you.

 

[CrimsonEminence]

Quite the contrary, but I only talk from my personal perspective.

Don't take this as an offense, it really isn't, just a little suggestion for the view on FFB

FFB is a good tool, to learn the limit easier, to get more information and immersion from the virtual car and its status of tyres, wheight and track condition, but you shouldn't -totally- rely on reacting, to be fast.
It will give you information about things, the car will do and you can build muscle memory and have an easier learning curve for several things, that can come from weather, temps and it helps to keep the car more safely on track, of course.

BUT:
You have to act and predict before that. Being faster alone is not FFB dependent as soon, as you learned your car and track combo better, because you should already know, what the car is going to do at several points on the track. It helps more with consistency, if you are driving in changing conditions to be more safe, also it gives immersion.
So it makes you safer, therefore faster, but you will probably be able to take a step further as soon you grooved in with a certain car&track combo.^^

------------------
Niels videos are just awesome...i could listen to this guy for hours after hours, it gave me a good understanding of pneumatic trail, for example, that i couldn't articulate quite good, because of lack of knowledge and he has enlightened me

 

[Shovas]

The problem is understeer doesn't really feel like sudden lack of lateral pull on the wheel like many people misinterpret it - very often understeer feels like the whole front end of car starts bouncing and producing very distinctive sounds. I haven't felt/heard it in any game yet tbh. Problem with bouncing that it shouldn't be lateral too, it should be more like those extra vibrating thingys on T-GT wheel.

Example can be found here at 8:04:

YES. This is why I'm a fan of the AC Slip Effect ever since I actually bothered to tune it. Even though it's an effect it's recreating the feeling through the steering rack and chassis based on actual physics. *How* accurate, who knows.

People don't like "canned effects" but they don't know that 100% canned effects are far and few between in sims. Instead, you have effects based in part on canned formulas (eg. sine waves) but also in part informed by actual physics (like tire spin, lateral travel velocity, effective weight, etc.). The trick is to tune it enough to provide you useful information for your wheel.

 

[2stains]

#MDDC
#makeddcheaper

 

[Koen Verlinde]

Don't take this as an offense, it really isn't, just a little suggestion for the view on FFB

FFB is a good tool, to learn the limit easier, to get more information and immersion from the virtual car and its status of tyres, wheight and track condition, but you shouldn't -totally- rely on reacting, to be fast.
It will give you information about things, the car will do and you can build muscle memory and have an easier learning curve for several things, that can come from weather, temps and it helps to keep the car more safely on track, of course.

BUT:
You have to act and predict before that. Being faster alone is not FFB dependent as soon, as you learned your car and track combo better, because you should already know, what the car is going to do at several points on the track. It helps more with consistency, if you are driving in changing conditions to be more safe, also it gives immersion.
So it makes you safer, therefore faster, but you will probably be able to take a step further as soon you grooved in with a certain car&track combo.^^

------------------
Niels videos are just awesome...i could listen to this guy for hours after hours, it gave me a good understanding of pneumatic trail, for example, that i couldn't articulate quite good, because of lack of knowledge and he has enlightened me

Thanks for posting this. However at the time of my post I didn't have the time - nor found the need - to go into that kind of detail.

However, yes, totally I agree with you. Thanks to FFB wheels I have become faster and a better racing driver. And not "noober". I just - at the time - didn't have the time to get so detailed in my response.

EDIT: grammar

 

[mantasisg]

I meant that you'd noob yourself out if you'd use FFB to gain forces that shouldn't be there. Because it is simply avoiding to get used to differences in cars, understanding them. Too many sliders and unreal effects are going to average out the way cars are felt, and do same to your versatility as a driver. Understanding reasons what is laying behind some particular feel can flip the perception 180. Unrealistic outputs also influences for wrong driving techniques, for example if car has proactive FFB for oversteer, then it might help for you, but it also might make it more difficult to steer the car with your footwork. Anyway, FFB is way overrated, way way way way way overrated, vision and sounds are the main effects, so it would probably help the most to get those as natural as possible, no "fake head motion" plugins and so which spoils the way you perceive yaw rotation, pitch rotation and roll rotation of a car.

 

[Koen Verlinde]

I meant that you'd noob yourself out if you'd use FFB to gain forces that shouldn't be there. Because it is simply avoiding to get used to differences in cars, understanding them. Too many sliders and unreal effects are going to average out the way cars are felt, and do same to your versatility as a driver. Understanding reasons what is laying behind some particular feel can flip the perception 180. Unrealistic outputs also influences for wrong driving techniques, for example if car has proactive FFB for oversteer, then it might help for you, but it also might make it more difficult to steer the car with your footwork. Anyway, FFB is way overrated, way way way way way overrated, vision and sounds are the main effects, so it would probably help the most to get those as natural as possible, no "fake head motion" plugins and so which spoils the way you perceive yaw rotation, pitch rotation and roll rotation of a car.

I use none of those, maybe you should point your advice towards people who do though.

 

[mantasisg]

I misunderstood "FFB can "tell/translate" me what I couldn't feel otherwhise" then.

 

[Niels_at_home]

Thanks for picking this up @RD, if there is anything you doubt or don't believe or want to ask, I'll try to reply

 

[Metla]

In the real world, I feel under-steer in my butt.

In that in clenches when my brain realises my wheels are turned sharper then my travel arc.

so yeah, Looking forward to further development in jacksie feedback from the hardware manufacturers.

 

[ShredatorFIN]

I wish certain AAA development studios would watch this video... the likes who make Forza Horizon, NFS and such. Maybe even Codemasters could check it. Okay Slightly Mad studios too

 

[Case_]

I wish certain AAA development studios would watch this video... the likes who make Forza Horizon, NFS and such.

If you think people playing Forza or NFS care, I'd say it's a safe bet you're mistaken.