Too much of an "arcade game" feel to my DD1
I've been using my sim to prepare for my participation in an actual arrive-and-drive race series in Radical SR1's at Atlanta Motorsports Park, and after having a couple of races and a fair amount of other lapping under my belt, I can now comment on the comparison between the feel of the real car to the sim with some level of credibility. The sim is pretty good overall, but my biggest complaint is with the steering response. While the SR1 is a live wire of a car, the sim is even more hyper-sensitive to steering inputs than the car. It has a bit of an "arcade game" feel, in that a very slight amount of steering input can cause the car to unrealistically swerve off line, requiring an abrupt correction to stay on track. So I've found that good lap times on the sim are rewarded by driving very cautiously and defensively, with the focus being to avoid ever making the slightest mistake. In the real car, while it is of course also beneficial to avoid mistakes, the fastest laps come when driving assertively, keeping the momentum of the car up at all times. If I drove on the sim the way I drive the real car, I would never complete a lap without crashing, and I have very little trouble controlling the real car.
I'm using rFactor2, which I'm told has some of the most realistic physics out there (it's the only game I've used so far, so I don't have anything to compare it to). Is there anything in the Fanatec settings I could adjust to reduce the sensitivity to steering inputs? I don't want it to become numb, but I'd like to tone down the response so it more closely resembles the real car. Thanks.
Comments
Make sure you have wheel rotation set correctly - and the steering rate of the car is adjusted correctly in the sim. Also check the car set up in the sim - there may be rack adjustments there, not to mention caster and camber adjustment, toe - all these affect steering sensitivity. It sounds like you may not have taken the time to do this already, at least you don't mention making any adjustments - none of this will be as you want it to be out the box - you'll need to invest time into sim car set-up, and learn an understanding of how to set up your wheel to work with that sim etc. It takes effort. You know what you want to do - nobody can hold your hand through this process you'll need to invest a bit of time. If you still struggle after you've explored this a bit more then the RF2 forums are probably your best source of advice.
I've been working with a coach, who gave me very detailed recommendations about the car setup within RF2 (spring rates, camber, caster, toe, etc.), which we've tweaked at length in response to my feedback to him about the car' s steering hyper-sensitivity. This has improved things (it was a total mess at the original, default settings), but it still isn't very realistic, which makes the sim of limited use as a training tool, which was my whole goal with it. Having exhausted the car setup options within RF2, I was hoping there might be something within Fanatec's settings that could tune out some of the "arcade game" feel to the steering response. But now that you mention it, I will go back and check the steering rate setting in RF2- there may be some opportunity there. Thanks.
Do the DD units have a steering sensitivity adjustment like the CSL/CSW bases? If you can't get the rack ratio adjusted in the game, you might need to compromise by changing the base's degrees of rotation higher.
With the help of the rFactor2 forum, I've discovered the reason for the hyper-sensitive feel to my steering inputs on my DD1 wheel - there's a HUGE discrepancy between the number of degrees I rotate my DD1 wheel, and the number of degrees wheel in the virtual car rotates. Specifically, turning the DD1 barely to 10:00 o'clock causes the virtual wheel to rotate a full 180 degrees. No wonder the car over-reacts so strongly to small steering inputs! Is this something I can adjust within any of the turning options for my DD1, or is it something I will have to work out through rFactor2 and the car I'm driving in it? Thanks.
I have never used rFactor2 so take my advice below as "diretctional" and I assume you have tried the recommended settings in the following link:
If you have manually set SEN to a low value (like 020) try increasing the value while in a cockpit view. Rotate the wheel, if the on screen wheel rotates more then increase the SEN value, keep doing that until your wheel rotation matches the wheel on the screen. For example in an F1 type of car I set SEN to 032 (320), but in a GT3 type of car it will be closer to 065 (650). Your dialed in setting will depend on the game, car, and the track how much steering input your want or need. I usually have a few degrees less rotation than the on screen wheel (10:00 or 60 degrees = 9:45 or 68 degrees).
I use rf2 a lot & always keep SEN setting at Automatic (AUT) & it always matches inputs