Wheel For American Truck Simulator
Stephanie Dejoode
I think things feel pretty good while driving, but I'd like to try and convey some more "weight" through the wheel when the truck is stationary so that it resists turning a bit more. Any ideas on what I should start tinkering with?
I don't by any means claim these to be the ultimate settings, as a lot of it was just trial and error. Others may hate how this feels. But I feel like it's good enough to get what I expect from the game. Steering feels suitably heavy when the truck is stationary or moving slowly, and lightens up with speed. There's a decent amount of road feel without being too noisy. One thing to note: if you drive very much on unpaved (non-tarmac) roads, you may find that the feedback is a bit violent unless you slow right down to a crawl. I may at some point see if I can dial that down a bit without messing anything else up, but it doesn't bother me enough to want to mess with it atm.
Well, I tried out the new FFB model with the 1.42 update, and...I'm a bit underwhelmed, tbh. It's apparently now using a proper physics-based model as opposed to previously where, if I understand correctly, everything had been a mixture of canned effects and simply increasing wheel resistance the further you turned from center.
The new model is a step in the right direction I feel, for sure, but it's not quite the step up I had hoped it would be. My biggest issue is that there seems to be a sort of dead zone approximately 5 to 10 degrees to each side of center. It's not actually dead, as the wheel does respond, but it's as if the damping within that range of movement is very very low. So you'll be driving straight down the road, and if you turn the wheel slightly one way or the other, there's very little resistance, and then beyond that 5-10 degree range, you can feel that the damping of the wheel all of a sudden will ramp right up...almost like what you might feel when hitting soft lock though not as intense.
I'm open to the possibility that it could be my inability to dial in the proper settings to counteract this issue, but I'm thinking that may not be the case, as I've seen several comments on the developers' blog and forums stating similar issues, among users of various different wheels, so it's not just a Fanatec thing or a CSL DD thing.
(It's nearly impossible to tell from this pic, but Engine Resonance is two tiny clicks up from the minimum value...which I think gives it just enough to be able to feel a nice subtle rumble when the engine is under load. This slider is VERY sensitive. Go much beyond where it is now and it'll feel like your whole truck is going to shake apart!)
I notice from your settings that you are not using higher sensitivity. One of my reasons for wanting a CSL DD is the option of using more truck like steering angles of 1800 modern trucks and 2520 for some of the American classics trucks I have. 1.42 does allow you to set higher sensitivity numbers, but I am not sure if this is just animation or taken from direct user wheel input. I have tied dialing in 1800 with my CSW v2.5 but you just see the on screen wheel turning at 2:1, very unrealistic imo.
I didn't change the sensitivity slider at all... just didn't seem like something I needed to mess with. I chose 900 Degrees of Rotation mainly for two reasons. 1) because it seemed to line up with the in-game wheel animation, and 2) it allows a decent range of movement without being twitchy, but without requiring a whole lot of hand-over-hand steering, which isn't exactly easy given my choice of wheel (McLaren).
Are you saying that when adjusting the sensitivity slider along with your wheel's DOR, the in-game steering wheel animation doesn't match up? Seems like it should. Too bad there's no option to turn off the in-game wheel.
The links toward the top of the thread are broken. They likely got wiped out from a recent forum update. Besides, those settings are for an older version of ATS with a completely different FFB model.
I can't really say for sure what happens when you adjust steering angle in Fanatec cp advanced settings, other than I saw on youtube a guy calbrating his CSL DD wheel in ATS after setting 1800 in Fanatec, his lock to lock in ATS calabration screen was 5 turns lock to lock, but that did not translate to the in game wheel. However, that was in 1.41 which lacked the range of sensitivity adjustment.
Oh ok, thanks for the tip regarding hiding the wheel. I'll have to check that out. I know what you mean though, I do kind of like seeing my wheel in game (most racing games I don't though), but it would be nice to have the option.
I'm sure there must be some kind of .json or .ini file that contains the actual numerical values for FFB settings, I just haven't had time to sit down and figure out where it actually might be. That should make tweaking settings a bit more sensible than clicking on stupid sliders and hoping for the best.
I see that you have opted for the std PSU, I was contemplating getting the 180W PSU. Since I now only drive in ATS, ETS2 and occasionally Assetto Corsa (big fan of the mod maps LA Canyons, and the newly released California Coastal Highway.) I am wondering if the 5nm will give me all I need.
I think you may find the settings answers in your profile folder American Truck Simulator-Steam Profiles (1.42*&^&)-(your profile number)-controls.sii there are several values. Lines 41 - 52 seem to refer to "FF" which I asume is force feedback.
I think whatever you decide for the power supply, you'll be pleased. I thought about the boost kit, but being that my rig is not particularly robust (wheelbase is mounted to a simple Fanatec wheel stand that I bought about 10 years ago), I was a bit worried about having too much resistance and fighting with it and having the whole thing topple over, especially making quick actions and corrections in say DR2.0 for example.
(Btw +1 for those LA Canyon and PCH Assetto Corsa mods! I used to live in LA for about 8 years, so discovering them a few weeks ago has been really enjoyable and has brought back lots of good memories! ??)
[Edit] Also, I think you shouldn't have any trouble whatsoever offloading your old kit on eBay or the like. I've taken a peek a few times over the past few months and most things like CSL Elites or CSW 2.5 are selling either at or usually well above what they were sold for when new. Good luck!
"[Edit] Also, I think you shouldn't have any trouble whatsoever offloading your old kit on eBay or the like. I've taken a peek a few times over the past few months and most things like CSL Elites or CSW 2.5 are selling either at or usually well above what they were sold for when new. Good luck!"
IMO the revisited FF is otherwise OK (not perfect, but usable and in many ways better than the old one) except for the extremely annoying near-center deadzone/wobble and sudden grip of FF where the deadzone ends. Especially noteable on highway speeds in long left or right sweeps, where the wheel is kept at or near the critical point where this behavior occurs. Very unrealistic and personally ruins the driving experience.
I feel much the same, and have complained about what seem to be the exact same issues you're having. One thing that I've found that helps is setting the Steering Sensitivity slider to maximum. Don't ask me why, I know...it sounds totally counterintuitive, but it does seem to reduce the feeling of that center "almost-dead zone". It's almost like it takes that zone, and instead of the obvious areas just off-center where you bump up against the feel of the damping increasing, it's like those bumps get smoothed and spread out over a larger range. I feel like they're still there, but they're a lot less obvious. As far as non-linearity or degrees of rotation, this slider has no effect. In fact, I'm not really sure what it does (or is supposed to do), other than making that center zone feel actually tolerable now.
I feel like this has a good amount of weight in the steering without feeling overly boosted. There's a reasonably strong desire to return to center, but it will do so fairly gradually once you release the wheel, instead of whipping back to zero as it's prone to doing with default settings. I'm still not 100% happy with it, but I've been changing settings so much these past few days, and this is the first time I've actually felt content to do a couple 1000+ mile jobs without changing anything, so I think I'll stick with these for now.
I'm trying to work out some settings to get things feeling decent again, but I'm not having a whole lot of success. Will have to spend some more time with it this weekend. Honestly, at this point, I wish they'd have just left things alone. I feel like FFB was fine for what it was before 1.42. Now it's all over the place, and I feel like I don't know what to expect whenever I launch the game. Hopefully SCS will chill out with the updates now and at least give us some time to get settled before they go changing things again.
Oh also...not sure if you're aware, but when messing around with settings, I came across a slider in Gameplay Settings which apparently allows you to set the degrees of rotation for the wheel animation. I had never seen that before. So if you're looking to go higher than 900, that may be of interest to you.
"Oh also...not sure if you're aware, but when messing around with settings, I came across a slider in Gameplay Settings which apparently allows you to set the degrees of rotation for the wheel animation. I had never seen that before. So if you're looking to go higher than 900, that may be of interest to you."
I had seen this in the 1.42 beta info. From what I have seen in game it is an animation of whatever degress you set the slider too, but the screen wheel turns at X 2 for a setting of 1800 when using 900 on your wheel. Can't see the point!
Hmm. I don't know, I only saw it briefly and didn't mess with it, but it looked like it would accept actual typed numerical input for your desired DoR. In theory, I'd assume that you could type 1800 there as well as setting your wheelbase to 1800, and the in-game animation *should* match up...? ?
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