Forza Motorsport 4

Well my Fanatec arrived, absolutely love it. I'm only using Forza 3 at the moment, but I've got a lot to learn. Being new to the whole thing I don't fully understand what the feedback is directly telling me about the car. The steering randomly seems to get super hard to steer into, then suddenly goes loose for example. I'm sure it's replicating the wheels but not sure in what way and so I'm not sure how to counteract it.

I also find that steering, say, to either the right or left can sometimes make the wheel really resistant, but pull through it in the same direction, so the wheel is hard in one direction, and the steering again goes kind of loose. What is it about the wheels that it's replicating?

Need help!
 
The quality of the force feedback often depends on the game you are playing. I haven't played Forza for many months but from what I remember it's decent, if a little light.
The wheel going light through corners is most likely loss of grip at the front tyres.
 
It certainly feels decent, I just think I'll get a lot more out of it by learning what type of feedback relates to which action my car is performing.

All in all it's a fantastic wheel, hitting the side or another car, the shock effect on the wheel itself is a little weak but still far better than on any other wheel I've tried.

I was experimenting with doing certain things with my car to see how it produced the feedback, which is why I asked about heavy turning really. Turn right and sometimes it becomes really hard to turn the wheel, but pull through so you're hard locked righ as far as you can go and it does free up and go loose again. So you're saying that the tyres basically get a certain amount of resistance, but keep turning right through it and you'll lose the grip, hence to sudden looseness? Makes sense.

I'm still awful with the wheel though. Many times I go into a straight and the wheel starts kinda wobbling, with my car wobbling left/right too. Again, a tyre grip issue I suppose.

I haven't had many occasions where the wheel actually fights against me, it seems to just make it harder to turn but it's still amazing. Jamezinho, do you find that in Forza games the wheel properly kicks back at you, or is my wheel not doing something it should?! Hope not!
 
Suuuuupertalk said:
It certainly feels decent, I just think I'll get a lot more out of it by learning what type of feedback relates to which action my car is performing.

All in all it's a fantastic wheel, hitting the side or another car, the shock effect on the wheel itself is a little weak but still far better than on any other wheel I've tried.
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It is a great wheel and you'll appreciate that much more with further use. What I will say is the weak force-feedback is due to Forza rather than the wheel itself. I've used my CSR with GT5 and the FF is very strong in that game (if you want it to be), so that my arms feel tired after a race! Same goes for most of the PC racing sims I play. The CSR can be really strong but it's all dependant on the game.

Have you been into the settings in Forza and increased the FF strength? Also what is FF set to on the wheel itself? Try setting it to maximum in the game and 100 on the wheel.

Suuuuupertalk said:
I was experimenting with doing certain things with my car to see how it produced the feedback, which is why I asked about heavy turning really. Turn right and sometimes it becomes really hard to turn the wheel, but pull through so you're hard locked right as far as you can go and it does free up and go loose again. So you're saying that the tyres basically get a certain amount of resistance, but keep turning right through it and you'll lose the grip, hence to sudden looseness? Makes sense.
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Sounds like you're putting in too much steering input through corners. You shouldn't need to go anywhere near full lock when racing unless you're taking a very, very tight hairpin. What you are doing is steering too much so the front tyres are scrubbing out and losing grip, hence the lightness in steering.

Again, check the wheel to see what the sensitivity (SEN) is set to. This is the steering lock of the wheel. It's 270 degrees by default in Forza whereas the Fanatec wheels can go up to 900. I find with most racing games a SEN setting of 360 to 540 is good for me. Anything too low makes steering too twitchy and too high makes it a bigger task to apply opposite lock to catch a slide.

SEN set to off will apply the game's default setting.

Suuuuupertalk said:
I'm still awful with the wheel though. Many times I go into a straight and the wheel starts kinda wobbling, with my car wobbling left/right too. Again, a tyre grip issue I suppose.
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This is quite common with force feedback wheels. Sounds like you need to increase the deadzone in the centre of the wheel. If you are weaving down the straights then the deadzone may not be big enough and the force feedback motors often create the weaving effect by working against one another as the car moves from side to side.

You can either set the deadzone on the wheel or in the game's settings. The latter is probably the better option. You only need a tiny amount.

But don't worry, wheels do take some getting used to and you will probably be slower than using a pad for a while. Once you get used to it though, you will be quicker and lap more smoothly and consistently. Then there is the immersion of using a good wheel which a pad can't match.

Suuuuupertalk said:
I haven't had many occasions where the wheel actually fights against me, it seems to just make it harder to turn but it's still amazing. Jamezinho, do you find that in Forza games the wheel properly kicks back at you, or is my wheel not doing something it should?! Hope not!
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Like I said, I last played Forza months ago (probably March) so it has been a while. From what I remember the force-feedback is lighter than many games but quite detailed. I certainly remember fighting the wheel but then again I play with all the assists turned off. If you have them all on then the car will feel more civilised. A lairy rear-wheel drive car with no traction control will keep you busy with the wheel!

To get the best from the likes of Forza - and the wheel - gradually learn to race without ABS, traction control, stability control, etc....and learn manual gears. You won't regret it. The game becomes more fun and rewarding as you gain more control over the car.

I guess it's similar to the manual controls argument in football games.
 
Thanks mate, that's sound advice. Biggest control issue I'm having is with the pedals to be honest. I'm either going way too fast into corners or slowing down way too much before taking the bend. Just gotta get used to it though.

I have had a play around with the settings, the FF is at 100 but like I say, though I get a lot of resistance and the wheel does kind of turn and correct by itself, that part doesn't feel massively strong, but maybe like you say it's just the game. I'm only on Forza 3 at the mo, I've heard Forza 4 is designed with the Fanatec in mind and is far superior with the wheel, or so I've heard.
 
Yep, Forza 4 is better for FF but still lighter than many games.

It's worth looking into the other settings on your wheel. Spring and damper settings affect the strength of the wheel's centring force and turning resistance respectively. Linearity can make the wheel less responsive around the centre, although I always leave this at zero.

Try increasing the resistance on the pedals. I set the brake pedal to be rock hard as that feels more realistic to me. The pedals are too light out of the box.

Also try upgrading the firmware to the latest version. This site is where they can be found:

http://www.911wheel.de/?q=node/8947

Recent firmware added the auto-clutch option (ACL) for Forza 4 which increases the speed of gear changes.
 
I presume you can alter the spring tension by keeping the first nut against the the underside of the pedal plate, and turning the other one down towards the springs so that a gap opens up between the two? The instruction manuals are pretty much non existent where the pedals are concerned.

Just one more question Jamez, so thanks for being so patient. I've been mucking about with the wheel settings tonight and tried altering damper and spring settings from one extreme to the other, just to see how it felt. I presumed that +3 is the strongest, -3 weakest. But -3 feels stronger a lot of the time. Any ideas on this? Adjusting the strength on these two settings seems to make the overall feel of the force feedback and shock inputs stronger and more visceral. Oddly though I just can't tell which setting is stronger. Both seem stronger than zero.

Anyways, I also experimented with setting the sensitivity to 900, and I love it. In cockpit view on forza, the movement of the wheel on
-screen is exactly 1-1 with my movements. I won my first race without any in-game assists apart from abs using this. Taking off abs however sees me all over the place though.

It's fantastic fun though.
 
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To be honest I normally leave spring and damper at 0 as I'm on the pc and I'm not sure if these settings apply outside the consoles. It seems to vary from game to game. Best advice is to continue trying different settings and go with what feels best for you. There is no one correct set up.

Regarding the pedals, you adjust the resistance by tightening the lower nut so that the spring compresses more. You can also adjust the throw of each pedal by disconnecting the arm where it connects to pedal and aligning it with a different hole (you'll see a number of holes along the back of the pedal). The pedals can be moved left and right too.

Driving without ABS can be tricky at first but worth learning. Increasing the resistance on the brake pedal helps a lot. Also go into the car setup and try reducing the brake force below 100% so that the brakes become less sensitive. Adding a little more front brake bias will give the car more stability under braking.

Oh, and cockpit view is the way to go for the best immersion. It's very well done in Forza.
 
Jamezinho said:
To be honest I normally leave spring and damper at 0 as I'm on the pc and I'm not sure if these settings apply outside the consoles. It seems to vary from game to game. Best advice is to continue trying different settings and go with what feels best for you. There is no one correct set up.

Regarding the pedals, you adjust the resistance by tightening the lower nut so that the spring compresses more. You can also adjust the throw of each pedal by disconnecting the arm where it connects to pedal and aligning it with a different hole (you'll see a number of holes along the back of the pedal). The pedals can be moved left and right too.

Driving without ABS can be tricky at first but worth learning. Increasing the resistance on the brake pedal helps a lot. Also go into the car setup and try reducing the brake force below 100% so that the brakes become less sensitive. Adding a little more front brake bias will give the car more stability under braking.

Oh, and cockpit view is the way to go for the best immersion. It's very well done in Forza.
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Yeah you're right, the manual says spring and damper are console only. I do like to change these as they add a little more kick, increasing the strength that the wheel centres itself.

I've adjusted the accelerator as I felt I needed to press down too far with my foot before it starts up, hopefully increasing the tension in he springs will do that.

Thanks for the help though, as a beginner setting it up can be a little daunting at first :))
 
I really didn't want to spend the money on it, as at £99, on top of the CSR, it seemed excessive, but I'd recommend it to anyone.

I'm very glad I bought it, all I did was screw the base of the CSR to the plate and I was good to go. I haven't bothered assembling the pedal plate though, I just place the csr pedals on the rubber grips on the wheelstand base and it doesnt move at all. I have a ton of extra plates, bolts, screws that I havent needed to use.

But the stand folds up, is incredibly sturdy and nicely adjustable. Once it's set up, you totally forget it's there which means its doing a great job. No wobble, no flimsiness, it's great.

It is pricey, but stuff like that usually is. I'm a keen photographer and decent tripods are around the same price.

Oh, and mention has to go to the company service. I bought it from their website at 10pm on a Tuesday, by Thursday morning it was on my doorstep all the way from Poland. Top service.
 
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I had the same experience with Wheelstand Pro. It arrived a couple of days after ordering. Pretty impressive considering they are based in Poland. Mine was just before Christmas too. Everyone I know who has one speaks highly of the service.

I wouldn't do without it now. Ok, it seems pricey but it's a well made stand that will no doubt last for many years, so can be considered a bargain if you get the use out of it.

My pedals are fixed down using the bars and screws provided. Much easier to keep everything in place, with all the wires tied-down with cable ties.
 
Jamez, how sturdy do you reckon these wheels are? My mate had a go on mine today, firstly he started spinning and then to correct it he basically wrenched the fucking wheel as hard as he could three or four rotations. He practically wretched the entire stand to one side he did it so hard.

Firstly, I called him out for acting like a twat with my expensive wheel, which he's never using again, but since then the damn thing now feels a little 'loose' in the centre 10 degrees or so. It's still precise but I don't remember either way if the wheel felt loose there or not. It was probably always like that, but I never noticed. There doesn't seem to really be any ffb in that fine tune centre of the wheel where tiny movements can be made, again, I'm sure that was always like it but I'm now paranoid he's done something to it.

Secondly, the ffb when feeling the wheels when you quickly correct steering from right to left now feels a little weak. Again, I don't know if it's me being paranoid and thinking the ffb has been damaged in some way or whether it's the game/car/track combination. But the ffb does feel a little weaker and wheel a little looser to steer with.

I'd imagine if the ffb was broken outright then it would all be screwed, not just have a reduction in strength? I really don't know how much brutality these things can theoretically take.

The idiot's not going near the wheel again though.
 
Firstly, you've done the right thing in calling him a twat, and a massive one at that. While these wheels are pretty tough and well made, they are still essentially toys and must be treated with care. You can't quite go at them like a real car or a Sega Rally cabinet.

I'm sure it's ok though. The wheel is belt-driven so if one of those snapped you'd know about it. If you're still getting strong force feedback then the motors are most likely ok. You could always try recalibrating the centre position of the wheel to see if that helps. Could just be placebo, like you say.

When you run the sensitivity at 900 degrees the steering is less sensitive anyway. Perhaps try switching sensitivity to off so the wheel uses the default 270 degrees of Forza. See how that feels. Has the deadzone setting on the wheel been changed at all, or the linearity setting?

Best advice, don't let anyone else use it! If you do maybe reduce the sensitivity right down so the bell-end can't spin the wheel like he's trying to turn an oil tanker.
 
No settings have been changed, to be honest it's probably placebo. When turning on sweeping bends the motors still create pretty strong resistance against the direction I'm turning so the belts must be okay. It doesn't feel like it 'snaps back' as strongly as before when the ffb forces you into corrective steering but again, I'm probably imagining the wheel feels looser due to the fact that I'm actively looking to see if something broke.

As for the centre alignment, it seems okay, I don't think I had ffb in the first few degrees of turning to start with (I mean barely turning the wheel either direction from dead centre by a few degrees), and at that tiny movement it can feel more loose, as with such minor wheel movement there wouldn't be any resistance anyways. Even lightly turning the wheel 2 degrees either side still corresponds with the hand movements on screen so there's no dead one there. Yep, I agree, no-one's using it from now on though.

Regarding ffb strength, I'm guessing but surely the mechanism works so that if over zealous use broke something, there'd be no ffb at all? My impression that the ffb, while there, is somehow lighter and gentler than before must be placebo. Knackering the ffb would surely just see it not working at all rather than a reduction in strength?

But yeah I've fallen out with my mate over it, he didn't mean any harm but FFS he should respect other people's stuff a bit more.
 
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Suuuuupertalk said:
Knackering the ffb would surely just see it not working at all rather than a reduction in strength?
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Yeah, I'd think so. Either the belt would snap or if the motor is fucked it wouldn't work. Just keep an eye on it. I'm sure these wheels are tested to withstand rough treatment to a certain extent.

jaygrim said:
I'd blame Paul too.
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If in doubt, blame it on Placebo.
 
Hmm, I'm still not convinced. I need to ramp up the sensitivity to 900 before the wheel stops feeling kinda loose in the middle. I've also noticed that when I switch the thing on, whereas before, when I switched on my Xbox 360 button on the wheel it would do this slow auto centre correction. It no longer does that.

Also, though I hadn't noticed as I use headphones, I've noticed that when I turn the wheel in-game it's making a kind of low grinding noise. Doesn't really sound normal to me.
 
Thanks for that.

Okay I did what you said, installed the driver and connected the wheel. First off, the status box says 'OK'.

I then tested the vibration, it seemed okay, gently vibrated in the rim. I then tested force feedback, I presume it was correct because it kind of 'shook' pretty damn hard. The wheel didn't turn or anything, but it just kinda vibrated extremely powerfully.

So I presume it doesn't pick up any faults, though if the ffb motor was indeed knackered, then would the driver program actually pick up on a fault?

Oddly, when I connected it up to my laptop, the wheel centered itself when I switched it on pretty much perfectly. When I switch it on with my 360, it's way off centre initially, then when you press the xbox button on the wheel it used to slowly carry on centering itself more precisely until the wheel was just off-centre. It still no longer does this though.

I presume though that the PC driver test shows it to be okay though?

Does the motor in your wheel make any noise at all when turning? It's hard to tell if there's an issue because like I said before, I've pretty much always had headphones on when using it.
 
Sounds like it's ok then. The most important thing is to check the wheel through it's full rotation lock-to-lock to see if it correlates with the reading in the driver.

Have you tried updating the firmware as well? Probably best to check what firmware is installed on the wheel first (check the manual). The latest is 750B...

http://www.911wheel.de/?q=node/8947

As for the sound, it should be fairly quiet in operation (apart from the fans, which you can turn off if you want). Being belt-driven it should feel and sound smooth. Could just be a case of not using the thing without headphones before.
 
Jamezinho said:
Sounds like it's ok then. The most important thing is to check the wheel through it's full rotation lock-to-lock to see if it correlates with the reading in the driver.

Have you tried updating the firmware as well? Probably best to check what firmware is installed on the wheel first (check the manual). The latest is 750B...

http://www.911wheel.de/?q=node/8947

As for the sound, it should be fairly quiet in operation (apart from the fans, which you can turn off if you want). Being belt-driven it should feel and sound smooth. Could just be a case of not using the thing without headphones before.
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Yeah I think so, it's kind of a gentle noise rather than something that sounds 'wrong' as such, but it is clearly audible. It only does it when turning so I'd imagine it's the sound of the belt/motor that I just never picked up on. I suppose something built like this isn't going to be totally silent. The motor itself does whine quite a lot, but I've read that's nothing to worry about. I've not tried any firmware updates, to be honest I was happy enough with the wheel and didn't want to risk any potential issues. Reading the feedback pages on the Fanatec firmware site, really put me off to be honest.

Right, so the PC settings all seem okay then. As I said, the FFB test kinda violently 'rattled' the wheel, which I presume is correct, and I tested the wheel as you recommended at both right and left until full lock. It seemed to correspond exactly with the readings in the driver.

Bizarrely, though, since doing the tests on my laptop then plugging it back into my 360, it seems to be much better. I don't know if I may have reset something, but I doubt it as the PC settings have nothing to do with using the wheel on the 360. One worry was how the wheel seemed to stop auto centering when switching on the wheel, but when I plug it into my PC and set it to PC mode, the wheel whips into perfect centre alignment so I don't need to worry about the motor not working at angles close to centre. The fact that the 360 fine tuning the auto correct when switching it on used to slowly rotate round, and now doesn't, might be down to it being wireless or something. Certainly, plugged into the PC by USB doesn't seem to have that issue.

Maybe I'm just thinking I'm just remembering the ffb to have been stronger than it actually was and am a bit overly paranoid about it. It did take a good few sudden hard slams (he was pretty much spinning the wheel with one hand trying to correct a spin, then back the other way) but it's not like he totally abused the thing.

Plus, turning long sweeping bends at high speed is very strongly resistant, and going over rumble strips etc give the wheel a nice 'tug' downwards so it can't be broken. The wheel does feel loose in the middle at slower speeds, but then it would do given there won't be any resistance when turning at slower speed anyways.

I'm not sure if plugging the thing into the PC could have done anything positive to it, but situations like feeling the car slide from the rear and the wheel whipping back to correct itself seems a lot more prominent now. Maybe again, I'm remembering this mechanism to have been stronger before than it actually was. It's not really designed to be really 'hard' as such, but more subtle anyways.

Thanks for all your help though mate, trust me it's really appreciated :))

One final question if you don't mind, as I've been bombarding you with them so far, but I think it might say in the manual not to plug it into the 360 via USB, have you ever done this? I'd imagine that using a cable would provide a more stable communication between the two devices, and given how the 360 struggles to auto centre when fine tuning (when you press the 360 button on the wheel) compared to how the wheel just whips perfectly into centre when plugged into my PC, then surely it would be better to plug it into the 360 too as it could be being caused by wireless connection issues perhaps. I'm not sure if this would actually work, or screw it up completely though.
 
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No problem. :))

I'd still do the firmware update at some point though. You'll get the new auto-clutch feature which supposedly works a treat in Forza (allows quicker gear changes when using manual gears with automatic clutch, so can potentially shave some time off your laps). It only takes 5 minutes if you hook it up to a laptop.

As for the feedback being weak, that's just Forza. Best thing to do is max out the FF slider in-game and set it to 100 on the wheel. You should pick up some other racing games to see how much the FF varies from game to game. If you have a PS3 then GT5 is a good example. The FF is nothing special but it is stronger than Forza.
 
Jamezinho said:
No problem. :))

I'd still do the firmware update at some point though. You'll get the new auto-clutch feature which supposedly works a treat in Forza (allows quicker gear changes when using manual gears with automatic clutch, so can potentially shave some time off your laps). It only takes 5 minutes if you hook it up to a laptop.

As for the feedback being weak, that's just Forza. Best thing to do is max out the FF slider in-game and set it to 100 on the wheel. You should pick up some other racing games to see how much the FF varies from game to game. If you have a PS3 then GT5 is a good example. The FF is nothing special but it is stronger than Forza.
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To be honest Forza's the best I've found so far, though im only on 3 and havent tried 4 yet.

The only other games I've tried are Shift 2 (ffb seems far weaker) and the demos of F1 2012 and Forza Horizon, where there was practically no ffb at all unless you went off the track completely. I need to investigate and see what console games offer the best ffb.
 
Shift 2 is a bit of a mess. The game does some things really well but the physics just aren't up to standard for a sim.

If you really want to get into your sim racing then the PC is the place to be.
 
gomito#10 said:
Which games on PC are good?
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I'm playing Game Stock Car 2012 which I find difficult to fault. Also rFactor2 which is still in beta and very rough around the edges at the moment, but promising. Then I also play the older Race 07 and GTR Evo from Simbin, which are good packages with loads of content.

There are so many racing sims on the PC though, such as iRacing, Netkar Pro, GT Legends. You have Auto Club revolution which is a Forza/GT5 style half sim-half arcade game. Then you have the games currently in development due to be released within the next year like Project CARS, Assetto Corsa and rFactor2....all look potentially very good. There is also a new Indy Car game in the works as well as GTR3 from Simbin, which little is known about. Oh and then there is the free-to-play Raceroom Experience from Simbin.
 
Been playing Forza tonight and having an absolute blast. I've turned off all driving assists, set the difficulty to maximum and started a career. First season I spluttered around at the back but I unlocked a Ford Focus RS and it's a nippy little so and so. Gave it a few upgrades here and there and have now won my first career race. Really good fun.

I'm getting to grips with the CSR wheel too, it's a learning curve but a fun one. I've learnt how to react to what the wheel is telling me a lot more, and am understanding what's going on via the force feedback etc now.

Fantastic wheel, fantastic game.
 
I'm late to the party. I got the game for £12 and am really loving it. Here are some photos I took tonight:

GetPhoto.ashx

GetPhoto.ashx
 
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Fabulous game, I have recently got Horizon though and it has now taken over my racing game of choice at the moment.
 
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