The FFB [Force Feed Back] is a success! The FFB is a failure.Not really sure which, if I'm honest. So what now?
This can't be uncommon. I touched on it last post about not being an immediate driving god, but thought after a few days it would become at least a little more clear. What does FFB actually mean? By now I feel that I have a firm grasp of how a car is meant to behave in corners, due to actual driving, things that I've read over the years, but also the Advanced Driving courses that my dad put me through when I was a new driver. This course came with - and this sounds better than it is - 'The Police Drivers' Handbook', at the time I excitedly opened it, anticipating lots of blurb about how to drive safely during pursuits - but no. There was lots of dryness about sight pictures, phases of car control, road position (but all useful), and slightly more interesting things about tyre-grip trade-off, skidding, cornering forces and what-have-you.
For those of who you aren't familiar with that, the upshot is that there's only so much grip available to the 4 little patches of rubber that join your car to the road along with the slightly less surprising revelation that the car weighs down on those same patches. When proceeding in a straight line at a constant speed the car weight is evenly distributed; all grip is available for acceleration and/or braking. When you accelerate, the weight shifts backwards so there is more of the car on 2 of the (rear) patches and transfers forwards when you brake; when cornering, the car's weight migrates to the left or right side (opposite to turning direction) as well as some of that grip being used to turn the car, so there's correspondingly less available for everything else as well. If one were to then brake in a corner, all the car's weight is now one 1 little patch, potentially leaving you in a situation where you might exceed the grip available (and thus have no control over your direction). The idea is that you get all your braking and gear changing done before entering the corner in order to stay well within the grip limit and keep the car balanced. On the road, you shouldn't really be getting near the limit of adhesion under normal conditions. It does happen though - I'll put that down to youthful exuberance leading to a sudden loss of talent. Thankfully no injury.
Those techniques, while handy on the road for 'safe progress', are a lot more useful on the track, as you get much closer to the limit on nearly every corner. It is more secure on a track (to a degree) as there's no oncoming traffic, but a corresponding lure to push the car and thus overcook it and do something expensive. Not to mention being banned from the event for the rest of the day if you can still drive it, cost of potential fluid clean up; worst-case scenario, colliding with someone else's pride and joy. Don't do that, there'll be tears before bedtime. And solicitors' fees.
Ok, so I have some understanding of real world car physics. Can I translate that to a virtual track? Can I chuff. What gives? Have I been fiddling with the wheel settings too much? The G29 rumbled and shuffled in my hands, but I still have no idea how to relate to it. Dirt Rally was getting a little frustrating if I'm honest, so I decided to reset everything to default and it was then that I began to associate the spitting and shoving to what was happening on the screen. It was a bit of a lightbulb moment having not really experienced a wheel up until now - 'Ahah! So THAT'S what it [the FFB] means!'. It was while doing the Dirt Daily, in the Lancia 037 EVO 2 (Group B RWD category) - a tricksy beast. Cresting a rise, the steering went light, landing and it went heavy - THEN is the time to tweak your direction and get a good look at that beautiful bark texture up close, shortly before being obscured by steam.
So yes, is the answer. I had been fiddling with the settings too much before even knowing what the default information it was giving me meant. It's not surprising I was Driving Miss Daisy to stay on the track.
Now to see if I can keep that fupping MX-5 on Laguna Seca.
Tuesday, 12 January 2016
Thursday, 7 January 2016
Toe dipping into Sim Racing.
I've always liked racing games. From Outrun in the arcades, Road Rash around friends' on the Megadrive, Test Drive, Lotus Esprit Challenge, Stunt Car Racer and Super Sprint on the Amiga/ST, the odd bit of MarioCart, Gran Turismo on the PS1... you get the idea. One thing that pervaded them all was that I was never very good at them but loved them just the same. When Forza arrived on the Xbox, I was astounded at the quality, excited at online racing possibilities, inevitably being outclassed by nearly everyone. I let things lapse after that, with the occasional foray into Burnout, Burnout Paradise, Grid 1 and 2, Dirt and Forza series as it incremented... And so on.
Thinking back, the thing that turned me off Forza was the setups. I got into that. REALLY into that. I made a spreadsheet where you could plug the car, surface, track, conditions into it and it would spit out the settings. It got to the point where I enjoyed tweaking that and checking out manufacturers' gear ratios to make the handling 'just so' more than the game itself - which it burned me out so I chucked the lot in.
Fast forward a few years, a few little PC upgrades and then out of nowhere in late April Codemasters released a new Rally game into EA [Early Access]. Their stated goal was to ditch all the flashy razzmatazz that characterised earlier titles in the series and get down to brass tacks, personally something I'd been wanting since playing Richard Burns Rally and Colin McRae on PS1; arguably they have largely succeeded. Reviews were mostly praiseworthy with only PCGamer's write-up slating the cars for feeling very similar - the experienced simracer they'd employed for the piece otherwise seemed to enjoy it however.
Sometimes EA can be a bit of a punt and I have been burned once or twice, but this looked too good to resist especially without the normal fanfare associated with new games these days. I was pretty much instantly sold! Since then I've put about 100 hours in it (for reference, the only other games that have held my attention for that long are Counter Strike, Company of Heroes, Dota2, Eve and TF2, so definitely in some exalted company) and playing it with a joypad. I desperately wanted a FFB [Force Feed Back] steering wheel to play it, but couldn't really justify spending so much on a peripheral that I may use in only one game, and maybe I wouldn't like Dirt.
Dirt was great. Dirt was mighty. Dirt was great fun! These 100 hours have convinced me that it wouldn't be a waste of money - in that I would actually use it, not let it gather dust; let's not get into a discussion about expensive gaming peripherals being a 'real-world' waste of money - so I started looking at getting a wheel more seriously than the dreamy, 'Oo that would be nice' that one occasionally indulges in.
Then there was the choice - whilst not wanting to spend about 50 quid (I have a perceived version of quality below a certain amount, arbitrarily arrived at around £100), the obvious contenders were Logitech's G-series, Thrustmaster T-series and Fanatec. The G-series come in a roughly the middle price bracket of all steering wheels on offer,
slightly higher you have the Thrustmaster T-series and higher still, the Fanatec. The main difference between these is that Logitech's are mechanical and the latter two makes are belt driven; aficionados will tell you that belt drive is the way forward - it's smoother, quieter and more 'detailed'. However, there's a price consideration: the T150
and T300
are fairly reasonably priced but only come with two pedals and no shifter, whereas I'd convinced myself with that impeccable logic you find from somewhere that a 3 pedal system was a minimum consideration. The full-fat experience T500
will set you back ~£350-£380; add in the H-gate shifter, and you're looking at £500.
The Fanatec system is a whole different cricket pitch. Clearly this gear is top notch, with a price tag to go with it, as can be evidenced by the Fanatec site. You don't just buy the 'wheel', it's all modular. By that I mean, you buy the servo (the FFB motor), then a wheel design that you like, then the pedals and finally the shifter. The absolute bottom dollar seems to be €1000 but if you go for the best of everything, and throw in a seat (why wouldn't you at this stage), it will set you back around €3000. Not insignificant. Marriage-destroyingly expensive perhaps.
Not wanting to spend your average month's salary on a peripheral, nor a weekly one for that matter, I looked at buying a Logitech - the latest iteration (designated G29) was £300 new, with shifter £350. One could argue that that was similar to the T500 - and yes, it is, but I still didn't want to spend that much, so with a budget of £150-200 ish I began looking at 2nd hand last generation G-series wheels on ebay. The G25 and G27 are exceptionally highly regarded as a rule, and command a used price to match, roughly £180. Then the usual doubts started to creep in - how hard a life have they had? How reliable will the mechanical innards be after a few years? Should I just get a new one?
After a few failed bids on ebay (including one guy that I suspected was shilling me), I eventually noticed the Currys/PC World sale: a brand-new G29 for £160. It was in the price range that I wanted to pay and was not used. Result. Ok, so the previous iterations come with shifters, and I would have to buy it separately, but even so, it came in only slightly over my budget if the shifter was added. As it happened, in the interests of thrift, I felt that I could get by without the shifter for now. Decision made! Ridiculous peripheral ordered!
The grand day came. It was unwrapped. It was installed. It was plugged in, initially forgetting to turn it on, as the gears and brake worked, but not the wheel. Dirt Rally was played. I was still rubbish.
Fast forward a few years, a few little PC upgrades and then out of nowhere in late April Codemasters released a new Rally game into EA [Early Access]. Their stated goal was to ditch all the flashy razzmatazz that characterised earlier titles in the series and get down to brass tacks, personally something I'd been wanting since playing Richard Burns Rally and Colin McRae on PS1; arguably they have largely succeeded. Reviews were mostly praiseworthy with only PCGamer's write-up slating the cars for feeling very similar - the experienced simracer they'd employed for the piece otherwise seemed to enjoy it however.
Sometimes EA can be a bit of a punt and I have been burned once or twice, but this looked too good to resist especially without the normal fanfare associated with new games these days. I was pretty much instantly sold! Since then I've put about 100 hours in it (for reference, the only other games that have held my attention for that long are Counter Strike, Company of Heroes, Dota2, Eve and TF2, so definitely in some exalted company) and playing it with a joypad. I desperately wanted a FFB [Force Feed Back] steering wheel to play it, but couldn't really justify spending so much on a peripheral that I may use in only one game, and maybe I wouldn't like Dirt.
Dirt was great. Dirt was mighty. Dirt was great fun! These 100 hours have convinced me that it wouldn't be a waste of money - in that I would actually use it, not let it gather dust; let's not get into a discussion about expensive gaming peripherals being a 'real-world' waste of money - so I started looking at getting a wheel more seriously than the dreamy, 'Oo that would be nice' that one occasionally indulges in.
Then there was the choice - whilst not wanting to spend about 50 quid (I have a perceived version of quality below a certain amount, arbitrarily arrived at around £100), the obvious contenders were Logitech's G-series, Thrustmaster T-series and Fanatec. The G-series come in a roughly the middle price bracket of all steering wheels on offer,
slightly higher you have the Thrustmaster T-series and higher still, the Fanatec. The main difference between these is that Logitech's are mechanical and the latter two makes are belt driven; aficionados will tell you that belt drive is the way forward - it's smoother, quieter and more 'detailed'. However, there's a price consideration: the T150
and T300
are fairly reasonably priced but only come with two pedals and no shifter, whereas I'd convinced myself with that impeccable logic you find from somewhere that a 3 pedal system was a minimum consideration. The full-fat experience T500
will set you back ~£350-£380; add in the H-gate shifter, and you're looking at £500.
The Fanatec system is a whole different cricket pitch. Clearly this gear is top notch, with a price tag to go with it, as can be evidenced by the Fanatec site. You don't just buy the 'wheel', it's all modular. By that I mean, you buy the servo (the FFB motor), then a wheel design that you like, then the pedals and finally the shifter. The absolute bottom dollar seems to be €1000 but if you go for the best of everything, and throw in a seat (why wouldn't you at this stage), it will set you back around €3000. Not insignificant. Marriage-destroyingly expensive perhaps.
Not wanting to spend your average month's salary on a peripheral, nor a weekly one for that matter, I looked at buying a Logitech - the latest iteration (designated G29) was £300 new, with shifter £350. One could argue that that was similar to the T500 - and yes, it is, but I still didn't want to spend that much, so with a budget of £150-200 ish I began looking at 2nd hand last generation G-series wheels on ebay. The G25 and G27 are exceptionally highly regarded as a rule, and command a used price to match, roughly £180. Then the usual doubts started to creep in - how hard a life have they had? How reliable will the mechanical innards be after a few years? Should I just get a new one?
After a few failed bids on ebay (including one guy that I suspected was shilling me), I eventually noticed the Currys/PC World sale: a brand-new G29 for £160. It was in the price range that I wanted to pay and was not used. Result. Ok, so the previous iterations come with shifters, and I would have to buy it separately, but even so, it came in only slightly over my budget if the shifter was added. As it happened, in the interests of thrift, I felt that I could get by without the shifter for now. Decision made! Ridiculous peripheral ordered!
The grand day came. It was unwrapped. It was installed. It was plugged in, initially forgetting to turn it on, as the gears and brake worked, but not the wheel. Dirt Rally was played. I was still rubbish.
Clearly this wheel was not going to make me a driving god overnight but surely my times should be better than this? After all, this is like a *real* car, wheel, brakes and whatnot. Well, no. It turns out that joypad muscle memory must be unlearned before wheel muscle memory learned. In addition, a shifter might be the best option, as a handbrake is more or less essential in Dirt Rally and without a shifter one must contort oneself to use a wheel face button or the clutch. Using the clutch turned into a bit of a disaster, as my brain was telling me that turning the wheel with the clutch depressed was all wrong. Brief, probably silly, notions that if I played like this enough, would it hamper real driving leading to real crash-death-horrowshow? Maybe not, but I just couldn't get on with it. Settling for the triangle button on the right group of four, the 'Y' button on 360 pad if you like, seemed the best compromise for now. There are possibilities for using a cheapo joystick as handbrake, maybe a mod for the future.
However! Holy frijoles! The game is alive! A few seating alterations are needed, bringing my monitor closer to bathe in LCD sunshine, a different chair etc. but not as much of a faff as I'd imagined and so, so worth it. The wheel kicks and spits at you as the car crashes into barriers and ditches (ahem), shimmies a little as the tyres scrabble for grip, goes light as the throttle is stamped, goes heavy as the brakes are applied and generally provides all the sort of useful feedback that motoring journalists bang on about when they can 'feel the road'. I'm sure it's not that good, and perhaps the Fanatec system would be, but for the cost? For me, it is a good balance.
Naturally, thoughts are now turning to circuit racing games. Which to try? Assetto Corsa? Raceroom? ProjectCars? Equally as naturally, unwanted, expensive upgrade dreams are arriving with depressing pit-lane regularity - perhaps a proper wheel stand? A seat? A projector? Oculus Rift? Perhaps the HTC Vive. 6 degrees of motion home-built racing set up?
That's for the future. Play it safe. For now.
However! Holy frijoles! The game is alive! A few seating alterations are needed, bringing my monitor closer to bathe in LCD sunshine, a different chair etc. but not as much of a faff as I'd imagined and so, so worth it. The wheel kicks and spits at you as the car crashes into barriers and ditches (ahem), shimmies a little as the tyres scrabble for grip, goes light as the throttle is stamped, goes heavy as the brakes are applied and generally provides all the sort of useful feedback that motoring journalists bang on about when they can 'feel the road'. I'm sure it's not that good, and perhaps the Fanatec system would be, but for the cost? For me, it is a good balance.
Naturally, thoughts are now turning to circuit racing games. Which to try? Assetto Corsa? Raceroom? ProjectCars? Equally as naturally, unwanted, expensive upgrade dreams are arriving with depressing pit-lane regularity - perhaps a proper wheel stand? A seat? A projector? Oculus Rift? Perhaps the HTC Vive. 6 degrees of motion home-built racing set up?
That's for the future. Play it safe. For now.
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