Poor Wheel Force Feedback?
I've been an avid consumer of CodeMaster's rally games, eg. Dirt, Dirt 2, Dirt 3, Dirt 4, Dirt Rally, Dirt Rally 2. Last racing game I played a lot of, at all, was Dirt Rally 2 and although it took ...
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After the 1.2 update it seems a bit better and after spending some time tweaking, I've been able to get it to a useable/bearable point.
Still very hard to catch a drift. In fact, I was testing some GPU-related stuff w/out my wheel in place and was using the keyboard and I was able to catch a slide with the arrow keys better than the wheel! I know keyboard input is tuned to make it reasonable to drive with digital keys like that, but still crazy.
It's not entirely obvious either, even after spending almost an hour trying to identify exactly how each setting reacts/changes the feel but the first option for wheel centering force is less about caster centering as I thought and more just how the steering wheel follows the wheels, thus you probably actually want that setting quite high as it's what helps the steering wheel follow the wheels actual direction during a drift for example. That's partly why I was struggling.
Even knowing that now, I have to have that setting at around 100 for most cars and 125+ for FWD. Wheel friction at 0 maybe 1 for most cars, maybe max 5 for FWD. Tire friction is like 5-10, maybe 15 max on FWD. Tire grip is usually set to the same as tire friction, maybe slightly higher.
I definitely have to change the settings between most cars and any FWD I've tried recently.
There's still what feels like far too much 'dead zone' on center, where no force happens or it feels sort of mushy as I mentioned previously.
I'll play with the settings some more - I didn't see anything mentioned about it in the patch notes but it did seem a fair bit better after going to 1.2 but that could also just be in my head after making some adjustments if indeed nothing was changed in that regard on 1.2, though I'm sure not everything always makes it into the patch notes.
v1.3 just installed. Will tinker some more. Still not completely satisfied/happy but going from impossible to play and being able to beat myself w/my PC keyboard not even a gamepad to playable and somewhat enjoyable is a good progression. If it was a little less dead/mushy/deadzone feeling on center + little easier to catch a slide, that would be amazing.
Also, if the shifter LEDs worked, that would be nice as well but not holding my breath.
Self signing torque appears exactly as you describe. It doesn't seem to use any tyre force generated from pneumatic trail or surface grip, rather, it's just a very basic spring force proportional to the steer angle relative to the car direction of travel. It is not affected by the road surface or suspension movement, quite easily evident when you turn suspension effects to zero. So force feedback does not appear to use a tyre model, unless that's all lumped in with suspension effect.
Wheel friction is perhaps what you were feeling. It just masks / muddies other effects and resists any wheel movement. I can't see why this would be anything but zero, and having it default to 100 is a terrible decision.
Tyre friction is a weird one. I need to do more testing with it. By itself, with everything else to zero, there is no effect, so it's a multiplier on something else. Too high and it feels like your steering rack is made of rubber. Steering force increases but there's also some weird lag. But at zero the wheel is a bit too loose. I think it needs a little bit.
However I think the fundamental issue is simply a reductive physics model particularly when it comes to tyre modelling, suspension / loading, and surface interaction. It feels like the ffb relies on canned rather than genuine effects because it simply doesn't have the information feeding it.
And that's why especially on tarmac it feels so dead.
Same as most other codies games. Steer more to turn more, more wheel return force, in a very basic and linear way, until you reach the grip limit.
Good explanation. I hope they can fix it.
