DD soft lock, Why?
This has been bothering me ever since I bought a DD1 last December. And one of the big reasons I'm not satisfied with my purchase. After talking with friends and people in the Assetto Corsa community that also have a DD1, DD2, CSL DD, etc. They can also confirm that this isn’t just happening to my unit and is a flaw in the software. What I’m referring to is the Rotational lock or (Soft Lock) used on all direct drives as there is no hardware limitation on how far they can spin. This is only applicable to people that Drift in games such as Assetto Corsa. But on to describe how it feels, I would say it’s a vague void that doesn’t convey you are at the rotation lock that is set in software. There is about a 20-degree dead zone where nothing happens and there is no resistance in this dead zone. When asking others, they either agree with that statement. Some people have even RMA'd their DDs multiple times thinking that this dead zone was a defect, and ultimately going to other companies when nothing changed. I can’t understand why the soft lock feels the way it feels, it blows my mind on how it's acceptable. I would borderline say it takes away from the drifting experience. This needs to change asap. The point of a soft lock is to prevent you from going further or to let you know that you are past your rotation. The current implementation does not demonstrate either of these things. I would think all this can be solved with some software updates, just look at Simucube, they have a setting for users to adjust the feel of their soft lock. I feel this is where Fanatec is lacking a bit amongst other areas and would be a HUGE benefit to the drifting community.
Comments
I agree. I don't really do much drifting (at least not on purpose!), but I do agree that reaching the rotational limit of the soft lock does feel very vague on my CSL DD. Granted, I've only got the 5Nm version but still. Because the soft lock comes on so gradually, it's sometimes not clear that that's what I'm actually feeling. I think at the very least, it should be a user-defined feature where you have at least some control over the shape of the curve.
I don't drift so very rarely hit the soft lock and I don't play AC but from memory the soft lock on my DD2 feels solid. The soft lock is limited by the max strength of the wheelbase so it will always feel weak on a 5 N m base. And if you have the max force set very low on a Podium DD it will also feel weak. Some games also don't implement the soft lock feature very well leading to a bouncing sensation when hitting it. But on a base with 20 N m available it should be possible to implement an override of the user set max force setting to make it less vague if the force is set low. Whether Fanatec will ever get around to this is doubtful.
See I've seen this very thing mentioned by fanatec about soft-lock being determined by the max force the motor can put out. This does make sense to me, and even had a close friend sell his CSL DD (8nm boost) and buy a DD1 in hopes of having a better soft-lock feel. He does say the DD1 is better, not in feeling, but in the amount of "dead zone" there is as mentioned above. The big reason a lot of us are upset about it is coming from low/mid-range belt drives, we are used to a very strong force met at lock (but can still be overpowered if you force it), and was very clear you are at the limit. Which talking with non-fanatec DD users (SC2, VRS, etc.), is also what theirs feels like.
I agree the soft lock shouldn't be this weak. I previously had a csl dd with the boost kit and it was weak with that base. Dominic Brennan one of the admins here told me I should have bought a dd1/2 if I wanted a strong soft lock so I did. I bought a dd1 and soft lock was only slightly better than the csl dd. You should 100% be able to customize how it feels like you can with simucube. If I knew this ahead of time I probably would of went with them instead. So please fanantec add the option to customize it with a firmware update.
I never really noticed this too much while my DD1 was table clamped (not ideal) because my table swaying made it less noticable but when I set up my full profile rig it was horrendous. I do a lot of sim drifting and it's god awful and makes hitting full lock on the car so much scarier then it should be because my wheel is still rotating while doing nothing in game, you have no idea where full lock is. The fact that there isn't even an option to add more resistance is embarrasing, I will not be referring this DD1 or any fanatec wheel bases till this is fixed. Will probably jump ship to the simucube if nothing is done.
We do plan to offer an adjustable soft lock behaviour in a future update.
Dominic, With this update, will the Soft Lock Behavior change at all? Not a fan of the "indent" feeling when you first hit it, I think it's the motor cutting forces almost? For us drifters, ideally have no dead zone like there currently is and allow how fast the stiffness is applied. I would bring up some other questions I had but it doesn't really apply to this discussion.
I've found that setting Assetto Corsa's wheel rotation to 360, in content manager, then my wheel to 360, 500, 900 or whatever the cars real rotation is creates a soft lock. Doing it this way also means no vibrating from the content manager's soft lock and no sudden drop off when the wheel reaches the cars maximum.
I have a Fanatec DD1 with an F1 wheel and a universal hub. I tend to race classic f1 cars but some times race online. Changing the wheel's rotation works better.
I hope this works for others too
Any update for the DD soft lock?
We need an adjustable soft lock behaviour or else we have huge gap at full steering lock.
We are drifters and we are loosing all the drifting experience.
Any update on this?
It's a very needed feature for Drifters.
Currently, the lock is way too soft and almost feels like the FFB cuts off at the end of the steering range and some games have terrible Soft Lock feature implemented.
Fanatec, please.
Any update on this?