Most very fast drivers have very low FFB. Just enough to fell the feedback on what the card does but no enough to interfere with anything your hands and arms do.

Some race without any FFB.

None race with strong FFB.

Personally I like weak FFB. However I set it at 100% in game so that the game gives the full amount of information, then tune it down in the windows cpanel so that it doesn't become too strong.

In the end it's personal preference. You can be just as fast with as without...

aceracer

Quote from aceracer :

Most very fast drivers have very low FFB. Just enough to fell the feedback on what the card does but no enough to interfere with anything your hands and arms do.

Some race without any FFB.

None race with strong FFB.

Personally I like weak FFB. However I set it at 100% in game so that the game gives the full amount of information, then tune it down in the windows cpanel so that it doesn't become too strong.

In the end it's personal preference. You can be just as fast with as without...

aceracer

Disagree, i race with 100% set in the cpanel and 200% set ingame. So i can avoid forcing the car. Thus keeping my tires cooler and wear less. While hotlaping/qualifying i use 100% in the cpanel and 5-10% ingame.

I used to use 100% but I turned it down a little to 75%ish just because I'm afraid of wearing out my FFB.

I was very fast in S1 without FFB, but started using it when I switched to S2. Therefore, as other stuff changed at the same time I can't really judge if I'm quicker or slower with it. But I was, on average, a few tenths further from the WRs in S2 than I was in S1.

I'd guess that with practice you'd be just as quick with or without.

Well, it depends really, in the profiler you can make the steering lighter so having a higher forcefeedback would the the same as a guy with stiffer profile settings but lower FFB, i use the 1st which a very well known person gave me, its the best of both, its light, agile, precise, and when the car does start to go, you can feel it which i never could before and i think it might have gained me a tenth or something but thats about it.

I think so because when I was driving without it one time, I totally sucked

Quote from Flame CZE :

I think so because when I was driving without it one time, I totally sucked

See, you've gotten used to how your wheel setup feels and without it, you suck!

It's just like in real life, cars that feel weightless at the wheel are often harder to drive quickly, with the lack of confidence and feedback etc. (Although weight and feedback are different, both fall under the same thing)

Quote from Taavi(EST) :

Disagree, i race with 100% set in the cpanel and 200% set ingame. So i can avoid forcing the car. Thus keeping my tires cooler and wear less. While hotlaping/qualifying i use 100% in the cpanel and 5-10% ingame.

Ok, I amend my statement:

One uses strong feedback

With 100% set in the cpanel and 200% set ingame I couldn'¡t even turn the wheel, I'd need 6 months of muscle training before I could do that!! lol

I think in the end personal preference is the key. BreadC is the fastest driver I've seen race on AS3 and he uses no feedback at all - others use a little - now yo use a LOT - in the end it's what you're comfortable with.

aceracer

Quote from aceracer :

Ok, I amend my statement:

One uses strong feedback

With 100% set in the cpanel and 200% set ingame I couldn'¡t even turn the wheel, I'd need 6 months of muscle training before I could do that!! lol

Try harder! It's hard for 5 or 10 minutes till your muscles have warmed up or whatever, after that it's forgetable. Been using those settings for a year or so and I still have stick-man arms.

Indeed it does, LFS rechannels that kinetic energy produced from FFB and puts it into your car for more HOARSPOWURRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was faster with a mouse, until I got a G25. That was 4 months ago.
I am still approx 0.5s to 1s / minute slower in average.

So FFB does not make me faster. Pratice does. On the other hand I have absolutely no desire to go back to mousing, it feels like drinking a good wine with a cold and eating onions

Quote from Flotch :

microsoft sidewinder precision racing wheel (<= nice name ), bought in 2003 iirc
after 2 weeks, the pedals were broken
some monthes after, the 2 pseudo-paddle used to shift gears were broken too, and I cannot use them anymore

Now u drive with?
Or u use old Microsoft Sidewinder Precision Racing Wheel without pedals and "pseudo-paddles"?

Quote from nesrulz :

Now u drive with?
Or u use old Microsoft Sidewinder Precision Racing Wheel without pedals and "pseudo-paddles"?

Pedals are now very soft (no resistance when pressing them), and for the broken paddles, I use the buttons on the front of the wheel. One word : adaptability

Quote from Flotch :

Pedals are now very soft (no resistance when pressing them), and for the broken paddles, I use the buttons on the front of the wheel. One word : adaptability

Hehe, grats!

I think it makes little difference if you only hotlap, where you just practice to be very consistent lap after lap. But for racing, where the situation changes all the time, FFB could help deal with deviations from a hot lap.

I'd never ever drive rally games (RBR) without FFB, though.

Quote from aceracer :

Ok, I amend my statement:

One uses strong feedback

With 100% set in the cpanel and 200% set ingame I couldn'¡t even turn the wheel, I'd need 6 months of muscle training before I could do that!! lol

I think in the end personal preference is the key. BreadC is the fastest driver I've seen race on AS3 and he uses no feedback at all - others use a little - now yo use a LOT - in the end it's what you're comfortable with.

aceracer

i dont use Force Feedback... period... on any track not just as3

mainly coz it shakes my whole desk and makes a noise and late at night this is not good.. so i drive without FFB. so i prefer it this way

not doing to badly without it

Hi there.

First of all I'd like to say I never saw an accurate FF wheel yet. Always FF seems to be a LOT slower than in RL.
In RL the wheel helps you to correct a drift itself somehow, you just have to correct a bit and let the wheel slide through your hands.

PC Wheels FF (I use a Microsoft Sidewinder Forcefeedback and several Logitech Wheels, mostly my Driving Force Pro) will go in the correct direction, but to slow.
You can tune the force up very high and it is artifically hard to steer, but still it is slow compared to a real life car wheel.
Therefore you have to correct a drift yourself ... it just helps indicating it.

So, I don't like it. It just feels too artifical right now compared to real life.
If you just notice the limit by your force feedback, it is to late already to be fast.
Even in RL it isn't the fastest way to correct the car because you feel the instability.
It is much faster to correct the car BEFORE it gets instable and drifts. Every drift will cost time, every correction will cost time. Therefore you have to KNOW what the car will do and how fast you can go. Feeling the problem with FF doesn't help. Already lost time.

I think it helps to drive without FF, because you get more sensible for the car reactions without the help of feeling it through FF. You have to react quicker and avoid instability even more, because it is more difficult to tell.

I suppose this is why a lot of very fast driver don't use FF. They simply don't need it and trained themself more sensible without the help of it.

In a real car it is a different matter. You feel SO MUCH MORE in the wheel. Every bit of information.

So in future if FF gets much more complex with really fast engines it will propably be a great thing. At the moment I don't like it and I really don't think it makes you faster.
It may be fun for a lot of people though ...

EDIT: btw this is exactly why I think drivers of racing simulations can be great real racing drivers. They learned to react without all the feel for the car. If they can transfer that knowledge to a real car, they will drive more efficient than someone who just depends on the feeling or his bottom
If you know what the car will do and just correct small bits with your feeling, you will be really fast.

As I said, it really can be fun

Quote from aceracer :

With 100% set in the cpanel and 200% set ingame I couldn'¡t even turn the wheel, I'd need 6 months of muscle training before I could do that!! lol

The forces don't really get any stronger after 100% anyway

I think FFB might actually make you slower in some cases, because of the slow motors in the wheels which make you sometimes work against the forces when in real life the wheel would turn really fast on it's own.
What it does instead is make driving easier, because you know more about what is going on.

Force feedback probably doesn't make you physically be able to go faster, but it makes it a lot easier to go faster. Its also much better for things like drifting or controlling slides, if you have a good wheel like the G25 you can almost let go of the wheel and the car will countersteer for you.

How much better is G25 FF compared to the driving force pro? I read it feels a lot better.
But then it's still only almost as fast as in RL. Is there an expensive wheel, which really is as fast as in RL? Some special thing for more than 500 €?

^ Yes. Yes there is.
Behold, the Frex SimWheel.
It will set you back 178,000 yen, 1932 U.S. dollars + shipping, or 1492.6 € + shipping.

Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpC2HB3HK_U
It's still not as fast as RL but it can probably go faster with a few tweaks to the settings and a couple broken fingers.

That's a great wheel, be sure to check out this comparison:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wW-lXxaGUN0&fmt=18

But it comes with no wheel, no pedals, and no shifter, and for the price of the SimWheel alone you could build an X-Sim motion sim with a G25 and three monitors

I have a G25 and I don't use any Force Feedback, just the auto-centering spring to about 30% as it helps to not over-correct in drifts. Does that make me an idiot? I don't think so. Personally, I think the FF effects in games (or at least the wheel's way of reproducing them) has about 0 to do with real life car behaviour. Turning the FF effects on max ingame makes me have to fight my own car and wheel just to maintain a straight line on a normal road, if the car is standing sometimes the wheel just jerks itself left to right constantly. Corners are another story. I don't know the last time I saw a real steering wheel go into a fit... Way too unrealistic now if you ask me and better without it. I've driven a real car many times so I know how road response translates over the steering wheel, it's nothing like what FF does.

Quote from aceracer :

Ok, I
With 100% set in the cpanel and 200% set ingame I couldn'¡t even turn the wheel, I'd need 6 months of muscle training before I could do that!! lol

Try some day an old renting kart (kart de alquiler) after, go to home and try LFS at 200% you will feel too much SOFT