Accuforce pro edition ffb wheel

Another review for the wheel, from race department: http://www.racedepartment.com/threads/simxperience-accuforce-pro-beta-review.99522/

 

and a good one too!

 

Another great review by Ryan!

 

Just want to give a quick update on the AF wheel in AC.

Initially I had a lot of trouble getting a feel for the wheel from the sim. For one, the wheel felt like it had some ridiculous spring effect, and would just jerk the wheel left and right. This made driving pretty much impossible, let alone feel natural. Dialing down the settings helped, but didn't improve the overall feel.

The effects in the controls options are just effects, and they come through in a pretty glaringly obvious way through the wheel. For example, you can be driving very slowly over some curbs, and the wheel would vibrate as if you were driving at 100mph over them.

Luckily, there is a solution for the AF wheel, which seems to highlight a lot of flaws in the current implementation of AC's FFB.
To turn the game's FFB OFF, and override it with SimCommander! This was recommended by another beta tester.

SimCommander lets you do this, and also allows you to create a profile from the data capture from the sim. After doing this, there was a world of difference. Driving actually felt natural and very realistic. When going over curbs, you actually feel like you're driving over them as opposed to some mismatched vibration.

While AC's FFB may be adequate for other wheels, SimCommander's custom FFB is an absolute must for AF!

I really hope that AC's developers recognize this and really address these issues so that users of other DD wheels, such as EC or Bodnar, who don't have the luxury of SimCommander's custom FFB can also enjoy AC equally.

 

The review on Race Department says the opposite, AC FFB works great with that wheel, almost no need for any adjustment.

 

He does say he opted to run Sim Commander on top of AC to enhance the FFB, which is the idea I think. I suspect AC's FFB effects have to be a bit limp to stop the rattling with most consumer wheels.

I am interested in this, but its just so huge, I need something that will fit on a wheelstand. It seems to be one for sim pit owners only

 

The reviewer said "It felt almost perfect right from the getgo," and that was at 100% AC FFB with no Sim Commander, he then decided to run Sim Commander on top to improve even more, this is very different from the other comment saying AC FFB is scrap use only SIM Commander.

 

Try to set your damper high enough. With the servo you can set your damper as high as 100% and its still fast enough with some cars.

At first I too was struggling with the springy feel until I realized that damper is the key for perfect ffb.

I'm aiming for as much damper as possible without losing the countersteering speed.

In my case it means 50% damping from the driver + 25 to 50% in-game depending of the car.

You propably have learned with standard ffb wheels that damper is your enemy number 1 but you have to forget that with the direct drive.
Without proper damping your wheel becomes too fast and reactive so therefore its not very natural feel.

 

Yes, good point Nahkamarakatti, I found this to be very true. While I didn't try adding that much damping, I did go up to 50%, but I felt like I lost something. Most of the whackiness in the AC feedback was from when the wheel returned after say going into a counter steered slide. That damper will probably fix that. However what I was also missing from the AC feedback was the intensity when going over bums and curbs. Like when barreling down a straightaway over a patchy surface. The bumps and curbs from the SC really accentuate that feedback.

 

To be honest, I was a bit surprised by that statement and really wondered if I did anything wrong. My experience from the getco was that the wheel tried to rip my arms out at 100% saturation! Then again, I was fishing for specific things and I had spent quite a bit of time on iRacing beforehand. I would like to learn more about Ryan's settings and what he did to feel this way.

He also mentioned he added curb effects to make it feel good for him, but I found it the opposite. In fact, I'm pretty sure the curb effects are just that, a vibration effect that has little to do with the actual physics of going over a curb.

If you guys want I can make you a video illustrating this. I'll show you how just driving very slowly over a curb causes the wheel to vibrate as if you were going very fast. All AC is doing is playing some vibration wave at a frequency that doesn't seem to match up well to how the actual tire is reacting. This may be acceptable or necessary for other wheels to get the right "effect", but for the AF wheel it makes it feel glaringly wrong.

I suspect that SimCommander is actually capturing what the suspension, tire, or whatever data point they're using (since they do that for their motion simulators) and play that instead, which gives a far more convincing feeling that you're driving over something uneven.

At the end of the day different people have different ways of feeling things, as well as different expectations of what things should feel like. I base my expectations from my track days when I drive over curbs to what the FFB should feel like when that happens. I can't say I've driven all of the exact cars and all of the exact tracks, but generally I have an idea of what feels similar.

 

That is what SimCommander does when bypassing the game FFB, it uses information directly from the suspension to provide the AF FFB. It also has the added benefit of being able to tune various aspects of the FFB that most titles don't have settings for. Even older titles with lacking FFB can benefit and be transformed as long as the physics are properly represented. In other words, SC and the AF aren't going to make the Shift series into rF2 - no matter how hard you try.

RRRE has some unusually high frequencies that cause noise when using the AF but, bypassing the games FFB and using SC FFB will solve that. Most wheels can't take advantage of the ultra high details so FFB may not have been designed for Direct-drive wheels and may have to be bypassed. SimCommander allows users that option and seems to do it quite well.

 

From what I've been reading, I'm thinking of bypassing ac ffb for the sc version when it arrives. I understand that this doesn't affect the physics at all. Their ffb are just the effects for the physics. Where as SC uses the physics for the effects.

 

As I understand it, most titles use some canned effects for FFB. The SC software uses the data from the suspension to create the FFB, thereby providing unique FFB handling characteristics based on track terrain and conditions. With AC FFB, rumble-strips may all feel the same. When using the SC FFB, each rumble-strip will have it's own character and is affected by other variables, speed, angle, compression, etc.

 

per curb! April can't get here soon enough!

 

That's something I haven't noticed at all. With very high damping I can still feel even the smallest textures on the surface.

Spoiler: For example

With damper only things I'm losing are oscillation and springy feel..

Kerbs in AC is like in iRacing. You cant feel inside kerbs when your inner tyre isn't loaded. When going straight line over the kerb or when rumbling over the outside kerb you get proper feedback without any canned effects. Therefore I would be very surprised if the feedback wont be completely linear and reactive to speed or kerb shape differences.

 

What wheel do you use Nahkamarakatti?

 

OpenSimwheel with MiGe servo motor, driven by Argon servo controller. Software is MMOS FFB v.0.99.

 

Can you show me what settings you're using exactly? I will try your settings and see how the AF reacts.

...I'm watching your youtube videos driving. I can't help but notice that the wheel is giving you a lot of oscillation effects especially when coming off of curbs. I don't think this is natural at all. Obviously I'm not there holding the wheel, but if I just mimic the amount of travel you're doing sawing the wheel, can't see how this is right.

If you look at onboard footage of cars, no driver experiences this. As far as I'm familiar with GT3 cars, most of them have powersteering, so you'd never get those kinds of effects anyway, however any bumps, would simply be passed down as vibrations since the whole cockpit is vibrating. However, your wheel wouldn't tug like this. This has been true in my experience with the SLS GT3, even when attacking the curbs. You can certainly feel the car grab, but the wheel wouldn't tug uncontrollably. You would just feel jarring vibrations through the seat and the wheel.

Perhaps we have different expectations of what feels right, and that is fine, but from whatever settings AC offers, I simply can't satisfy my expectation of correctness. If I turn those off and use what SimCommander offers, it's a world of difference better, and feels way more natural.

Anyway, I could be doing something wrong in AC, so please let me know how to setup the controls, car and track to try, as well as any setup changes that could affect this, and I'll get back to you.

I still want to enjoy this game.

 

@masterianvii have you tried any drifting with only ACs ffb.Does the wheel produce any oscilation?

A video of Acs ffb and sc4 ffb comparison would be more than welcomed -like the iR one with the Radical-.

 

Yes, I tried drifting, way before LFS. The reason I didn't make a video was that I found the cars very difficult and next to impossible to control. I attribute this to the settings. When I find proper settings with which I'm fully happy, I'll post it.

I drove around with 50% damper with the AC settings. 70% Gain, and 10% curb, and 10% road effects. 0% slip effect. I had tried dampening that high before, but I didn't dial down the gain to 70%. This is probably what I was missing. I found the cars much more drivable and eliminates oscillation, however made the wheel feel no different than the CSW, heavy, dampened, and slow to react. It doesn't show the true colors of what the AF wheel can do.

The most success I'm having is with SC ffb and turning off AC's game ffb. There is an oscillation problem, but you have to induce it. In other words, if you let go of the wheel when recovering from a slide, no problem. However if you jerk the wheel while going straight, it starts oscillating. Berney is working on a software update where he will add dynamic oscillation control, which hopes to solve this issue. This another advantage of SC, where problems in FFB in games can be solved externally.

With SC, road bumps come in as vibrations as if the cockpit is vibrating, and not the tires getting jerked around left and right (which is what it feels like with the standard AC ffb.)