README SHO Competition FFB.txt
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- README for SHO Competition FFB for GTR2 v13-beta1
- There are some details until Tips and Notes that may be valuable to some trying to figure out FFB in old SimBin games like GTR2
SHO Competition FFB for GTR2
GTR2 FFB Improvements With Crowdsourced Wheel Settings
"For God so loved the world that he gave His one and only Son,
that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life."
- John 3:16, Holy Bible. Visit selah.ca/free-gift to learn more.
Overview:
1. Introduction
2. Install/Uninstall
3. Tips
4. Notes
5. Known Issues
6. Open Issues
7. Testing Notes
8. Release Notes
9. Development
10. Plans
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# 1. Introduction
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SHO Competition FFB for GTR2 is a GTR2/PnG3 mod of various UserData User.PLR file force feedback configuration parameters to achieve an improved, more modern force feedback feel. The settings also happen to be a good starting point for GT Legends and Race 07.
*Please see "README SHO Competition FFB.txt" as it contains helpful details on install/uninstall, tips, questions, known/open issues, testing notes, changes, and development notes. You might be reading this file right now: I've included this note here for easy copy&paste to places like Race Department download descriptions.
Important! You will have a better FFB experience the higher your frame rate. This is because GTR2 ties FFB refresh rate to frame rate. The higher your FPS, the better your FFB will feel. See Tips for details.
Some people prefer different versions of SHO Competition FFB. Find these files in the README "Install/Uninstall" section below. See README Section 9 Release Notes below for past changes.
Do NOT replace your entire PLR file with one of these PLR files otherwise you'll lose your own game settings. Instead, copy&paste all the FFB lines from "FFB Device Type" to "FFB jolt magnitude" to your PLR file. See Section 2 "Install/Uninstall" for more details.
Editions:
- AccuForce V1: User - AccuForce V1 by Shovas.PLR [Wheel Software Profile Available]
- CSL Elite: User - CSL Elite by ToddMcDanger.PLR
- CSL DD: User - CSL DD by ToddMcDanger.PLR [Wheel Software Profile Available]
- CSW 2.5: User - CSW 2.5 by Strenski.PLR [Wheel Software Profile Available]
- Driving Force GT: User - Driving Force GT by BlackMarketBlood.PLR
- Fanatec DD1: User - Fanatec DD1 by The Iron Wolf.PLR
- G920: User - G920 by Jean-Paul Sarti.PLR
- Simucube 2 Pro: User - Simucube 2 Pro by Shovas.PLR [Wheel Software Profile details in PLR]
- T300: User - T300 by Paokkerkir.PLR
- TS-PC Racer: User - TS-PC Racer by Machiavelo.PLR
- TS-PC Racer: User - TS-PC Racer by TinMan_JB.PLR
- Thrustmaster T-GT: User - Thrustmaster T-GT by WesBrook77
Latest release notes (see README Release Notes section for older versions):
V13-beta1 (2024-03-04)
- [SimuCube 2 Pro] Default True Drive 2023.10.1 profile with Overall Strength 100%, Slew Rate Limit Off (Unlimited)
- [SimuCube 2 Pro] Disable PLR Friction and Damper to rely on just SimuCube 2 Pro True Drive Friction and Damper
- [All Wheels] Tuned Grip Weight and Grip Factor for optimal feel in both dry and wet. Previously, I had basically given up on rain driving in GTR2 and Grip Weight was tuned primarily for dry driving. Now, dry should feel almost the same but both should be delivering slightly more slip information (wheel going light in low grip conditions). You do need to commit to learning how to drive in the rain. I had to force myself to put in a lot of laps but after a while car behaviour started to make sense to me, especially with tweaked Grip Weight values. I think learning rain driving is worth it for overall driving skill.
^ Authors are encouraged to try driving with these parameter and submit any changes you feel needed.
- [Moza R5] Add new profile: Moza R5 by metalthanos
What does SHO stand for?
SHO is the first three letters of my username (Shovas) but also happens to be an acronym used by Ford, which stands for "Super High Output", so I feel is an appropriately fun acronym for a sim racing mod :)
Why is it called "Competition"?
The aim of my improvements is always to improve the experience for a competition context, like racing real humans or racing AI, as opposed to say just hotlapping. It's hard racing where you really have to have the best simulation to really raise the immersion and experience. That means my changes might feel better or worse for some depending on what you want but I'm always trying to be better in "competition", hence the name.
Credits
Thank you to GTR233, DurgeDriven, ToddMcDanger, Jean-Paul Sarti, BlackMarketBlood, Paokkerkir, WesBrook77, The Iron Wolf, Machiavelo, Strenski, TinMan_JB, Jul's FFB Guide, SimBin, and others for assistance, input, reference, help, encouragement, and inspiration in the making of this mod!
License:
See License.txt for full details.
SHO Competition FFB © 2020 by Shovas is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International. This license requires that users give credit to the creator. It allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, for noncommercial purposes only.
View the full license here: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
You don't have to ask permission for legitimate uses. You just have to give credit.
I think this provides clarity and is a nice compromise that maintains modding freedom while protecting the people that made them from losing credit to their work and against people who would cut out authors from profit from copying it.
Contact
You can reach me, Shovas, on Race Department, European Endurance Center (EEC), F1 Classic, Trackaholics, Sim Racing Mirror Zone, eSport-Racing.de, Festbierbude.de, Koelschbierbude.de, or Altbierbude.de, or @shovas on Twitter, or my website Selah.ca.
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# 2. Install/Uninstall
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Notes:
# Install
1. UserData\User\User.PLR
- Make a backup of your PLR in case you want to uninstall
- Your "User" will be different. Mine is "Shovas" but yours will be different.
2. Replace all lines starting with "FFB ..." in your own PLR with the UserData\User\User*.PLR file of your choice from this mod. Remember, your "User" will be your own username.
^ Note: Copy all lines lines from "FFB Device Type" to "FFB jolt magnitude"
^ See Introduction for how to choose which User*.PLR file to use.
# Install Tips
- Disable anything that caps your framerate: Disable Vsync and any driver frame rate limiters (eg. via NVIDIA Profiles, NVIDIA Inspector, etc.).
- FFB Rate is tied to FPS in GTR2 so the more FPS you have the better your FFB will feel.
- Recommended but not required: Set your wheel rotation to 240 degrees to match game's natural wheel rotation for best experience.
# Uninstall
1. Replace your UserData\User\User.PLR file with your backup. Remember, your "User" will be your own username.
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# 3. Tips
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- Can't find your wheel? It's okay, try using another DD or non-DD wheel's settings. It'll probably be okay.
- Improve FFB with increased FPS by using Bill's Process Manager (freeware), Process Lasso (nagware), or other utility to give GTR2 access to all CPU cores. It can make a big difference, like 2x+ FPS.
- Disable Extra Effects: Don't like some effects I have enabled?
- Option 1: Change "FFB Effects Level" in the PLR according to:
0=No Effects, 1=Low, 2=Medium, 3=High, 4=Full
Explanation:
Low: Steering + Grip
Medium: Adds Friction + Damper + Rumble Strips
High: Adds Brake Vibration
Full: Adds Throttle Vibration + Steering Vibration
- Option 2: Disable individual effects:
- Disable Friction: FFB steer friction coefficient="0.00000"
- Disable Damper: FFB steer damper coefficient="0.00000"
- Disable Rumble Strips: FFB rumble strip magnitude="0.00000"
- Disable Brake Vibration: FFB brake vibe zero magnitude="0.00000"
- Disable Throttle Vibration: FFB throttle vibe zero magnitude="0.00000"
- Disable Steering Vibration: FFB steer vibe zero magnitude="0.00000"
- How to tune these FFB settings yourself?
- Open your PLR file in an editor (Ex. Notepad++) and follow this Question-and-Answer format tool, The GTR2 Force Feedback Engineer: https://selah.ca/secrets-of-gtr2/#The_GTR2_Force_Feedback_Engineer
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# 4. Notes
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# 4.1 Key Tuning Parameters and How to Tune Yourself
The key discovery in my ffb tuning of 2000s SimBin titles was how to resolve hard and soft clipping in default ffb parameter values. When this is resolved, road feeling and bumps come through, even in high speed, high force corners where the wheel might typically go numb. The expression of steering forces and grip is vastly improved, as clipping is removed, and thus ffb information is preserved rather than "clipped".
Hard clipping is when the game requests a higher force than your wheel is capable of: This will feel like a numb wheel in, for example, high-speed, high force corners. Soft clipping occurs when the game calculates a force that exceeds its own maximum limit ("FFB Gain" PLR parameter or "Force Feedback Strength" in-game) and proceeds to "clip" the higher forces that would have provided detailed feeling: This feels, again, like a numb wheel in similar high force situations.
The key parameters involved in resolving hard and soft clipping include "FFB steer force output max", most importantly, but also "FFB steer force exponent", "FFB steer force grip weight" and "FFB steer force grip factor", to greater or lesser degrees. Other parameters change the feeling but have negligible effects concerning hard and soft clipping.
The default value for "FFB steer force output max" is 1.8, which is really "1.8x" or 80% MORE force than natural for the steering forces. When tuning for best feeling, steering forces tend to account for most of the overall force, so at 1.8x it can and does easily exceed 100% of either "FFB Gain" (In-game: Force Feedback Strength), which is soft clipping, or your wheel's maximum strength, which is hard clipping. Thus, lowering Output Max closer to 1.0 reduces these occurrences considerably, allowing road feel to come through. There is still some value in slightly going above 1.0, just as long as it doesn't clip to the point that it causes a negative ffb experience.
The default value for "FFB steer force exponent" may be much less than 1.0 which will tighten up the forces around center. This might be preferable if you have a deadzone around center. The drawback is that more wheel strength is used for small forces and less relative wheel strength is used for big forces, which can feel strange. Less than 1.0 can also lead to clipping by using up available wheel strength on small forces. When this is greater than 1.0, you may get a bigger center deadzone, but it can also provide more relative wheel strength to higher forces, such as cornering, thus providing more detail and force range to better express road feel and grip levels.
The default values for "FFB steer force grip weight" and "FFB steer force grip factor" have a very quick and dramatic drop-off of wheel strength when you lose grip. This may have felt okay on older, less capable wheels, but doesn't feel very good on quick wheels, like even a G27 and up. So, much less Grip Weight is used to provide a subtler, more nuanced, and more gradual, progressive feel that more closely resembles rubber gaining/losing grip on tarmac. Grip Factor defaults to 0.6 which means 60% of grip is calculated from the front tires and 40% from the rear tires. When this is less than 1.0 (100% grip from front wheels) this artificially rotates your wheel with added strength, which isn't really realistic. In a real driving scenario, when the rear slides out, your front tires will rotate but only due to the friction on the road, which the sim already accounts for. That said, some amount of rear grip loss effect does produce improved feeling, so it's closer to 1.0 in this mod but not exactly 1.0.
So, if you'd like to tune yourself, you can try tuning just a few key parameters: "FFB steer force output max", "FFB steer force exponent", "FFB steer force grip weight" and "FFB steer force grip factor". You should probably start tuning in that order. In other words, eliminate hard and soft clipping with Output Max and Force Exponent, then move onto Grip Weight, ensuring the wheel isn't wildly swinging when you just scrub just a little through corners, and then tune Grip Factor if needed to reduce exaggerated wheel rotation in grip loss scenarios. You may be able to increase Output Max, and tune Force Exponent differently, at this point, as you may have freed up some wheel strength by tuning Grip Weight and Grip Factor.
I hope this note will help demystify and simplify ffb tuning in 2000s SimBin games and ideally provide more confidence to people to tune their own wheels if their wheel isn't already available in the sim. I'd be happy to include your PLR in the mod if you do tune for your wheel! Duplicate wheel tunings from different authors are welcome as some may prefer one or the other.
Enjoy!
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# 5. Known Issues
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These are issues which are known to exist in the current version of the mod but are believed to be unfixable due to various reasons, such as hard-wired implementations, etc.
- Original content and mod cars often come with HDC files with SteeringFFBMult > 1.0 which means it's outputting more than 100% ffb and that can cause clipping.
- Workaround if you experience clipping: Open all HDC files using Notepad++ and replace all SteeringFFBMult=... with =1.0
- PnG3 requires Steer Force Output Max = 1.8 (original default) otherwise FFB feels too weak. Appears that PnG tuned cars correctly for the default while avoiding clipping.
- Workaround: Set Steer Force Output Max=1.8 in UserData PLR file when playing PnG3
- [Simucube 2 Pro] Requires FFB Effects Level set to Low. Anything higher has issues with wheel alignment bias in some scenarios such as touching walls or other cars.
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# 6. Open Issues
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These are issues which are known and will be worked on in a future version of the mod.
NA
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# 7. Testing Notes
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NA
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# 8. Release Notes
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See "Release Notes.txt"
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# 9. Development
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See Development.txt
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# 10. Plans
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See Plans.txt