Force Feedback

[FullMetalGasket]

Hristo is right, if you don't know how the will respond through a corner before you enter it then all you can do is react - G-forces/seat of pants feedback is primarily of use to fine tune your lines and car control, or to save you if you mess up.
To go fast on track you should know how it's going to react all the way through a corner in advance

Ironically though I'd disagree on the rally drivers part, at least to a small degree as I was told by the Higgin's at a rally school (RAC rally winners a few years back, frighteningly fast when they drive you ) that a fair degree of the more flamboyant rally style is actually to allow them to cater for the fact that the course will never be the same as the last time they saw/drove it, in essence a rally driver only know what his/her car is capable of and has no idea of corner conditions from turn to turn even - let alone throughout an entire stage.
Over the top powerslides are very good for changing line mid corner if you're a good mentalist - I mean rally driver 

[Hristo Itchov]

Well, about rallying, I don't mean so much the driving style but the ability to read the road ahead. If you watch tarmac spec rallying it's almost the same as circuit racing, style-wise, and even gravel these days with modern rally cars is driven with much less sliding due to superior differentials and tires. Of course a rally driver would rarely go up to 100%, but if you watch any classic WRC onboards it's frightening how high their 95% actually is. 

[FullMetalGasket]

I've been IN a rally car with said Higgins chappie at the wheel on gravel/mud - I know how scary their 95% is 
I thought I'd done pretty well in the classes tbh (Fastest driver easily out of the participants, despite not really being used to FWD (The Escorts had been crashed )) but the things they were doing with the car and the speeds down single track mud roads with forest on either side were proper  !

[Podkrecony_Ziutek]

You're talking about GPL, not simulators/simulations. There are many other sims who model tire wear, brake fade, track/air surface temperature and so on.

You're right, new titles simulates all those things. But tire and aero models are simplified, not because we don't know how those things works, but because our PC's aren't powerful enough..

The conditions rarely change drastically from corner to corner and from lap to lap, so you adapt all the time. It still has nothing to do to reacting to FF/G-forces.

Conditions are changing, maybe not in dramatic way, but they are changing. For example track temperature may vary in different parts of the track and it also might change during the race. Other situation might be when one car went wide and there's a dirt on race track and in modern racing cars you don't really see track surface

The top racing drivers know in advance how much speed to carry into a corner, especially in rallying. It's experience, knowledge of your's and the car's limit and the ability to read the road up ahead.

Isn't thats obvious?  When going into corner you need to know at what speed you can drive through the corner. From what I know, most real life drivers that starts simracing have problem with lack of feedback from their lower parts

If someone want from simracing just competitive sport(yes, simracing is a sport) that he ton't have to use FF. If that person wants something more, if that pearson want to have this experience as realistic as possible, than FF is the way to go.

[Hristo Itchov]

You don't need feedback to know how much speed to carry into a corner. Feedback is only useful when you're reacting to it and it's already too late if you're finding the limit that way. Feedback's purpose is to learn the car, to help set it up and to correct mistakes, but not to find the limit. As for changing conditions, you observe those changes and adapt to them as they occur.

I don't know if you've seen it, but there was a video of Hening and Peter Solberg playing Richard Burns Rally for the first time and doing exceptionally well. They were flying! Talk about rally drivers level of ability...

[Podkrecony_Ziutek]

You don't need feedback to know how much speed to carry into a corner. Feedback is only useful when you're reacting to it and it's already too late if you're finding the limit that way. Feedback's purpose is to learn the car, to help set it up and to correct mistakes, but not to find the limit. As for changing conditions, you observe those changes and adapt to them as they occur.

I agree with you about that. You don't need to have it to be fast, but if you want to bring your simracing experience little bit closer to the real world, you should use it.

I don't know if you've seen it, but there was a video of Hening and Peter Solberg playing Richard Burns Rally for the first time and doing exceptionally well. They were flying! Talk about rally drivers level of ability...

I know that video, it's great: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0JC5InmOqk&feature=related

[happyal]

I've been IN a rally car with said Higgins chappie at the wheel on gravel/mud

Good Manx lads those Higgins boys, they drove the same in karts too, always sideways.

[Hristo Itchov]

Nothing comes close to McRae' style though. 

It's a shame what rallying has turned into, it's much less spectacular nowadays due to all the technological advancements and safety restrictions. Even onboards aren't as impressive as before.

[karlisss]

i have Logitech Driving Force GT
Enable steering hack   ON
Enable force feedback ON
FFB LAtency              ON  085
FFB Damping              ON  40
FFB Max Force           ON  225

i tried to race without damping and less FFB BUT
last year i first time in my life raced with rent karting, and i remember how steering wheel went mad on straights
also there was a work to do to entering into corner and work to do when car slips out of corner
so i decided to let GPL FFB setings in hard way as it seems most realistic for me. most close as real racing car.
down side of this is, if i want to race other sim, with weeker damps and FFB setings, even if they on max, (but i cant find so realistic setings anyway), there is a harder to race on GPL after while... so i quit other sims for now.

[Hristo Itchov]

I don't think the real cars had heavy steering, because the grip is much lower than what you would get in go-karts which often pull off 3G+ in corners. The F1s of the 60s were not exceeding 2G, if they even reached that, so the steering was definitely not heavy. Don't handicap yourself like that.

[FullMetalGasket]

Oh, they did H - even a Formula Ford will try and pull your arms off when on the Limit <500kgs, no power and treaded tyres or no 
They may not weigh much but you have to remember the racks have been massively modified to enable quicker response and less turns.

That said they won't have been remotely close to as heavy as a go-kart  

Oh, and is the Driving Force GT a 900 degree wheel? If yes them you don't need the steering hack as you'll have plenty of lock available 

[Hristo Itchov]

That's what I meant, they're definintely not as heavy as a go-kart, plus the way you drive these cars puts much less weight on the front wheels, as the car keeps drifting and sliding at the rearend, and you don't use much steering most of the time except at the corner turn-in point.

[karlisss]

Oh, and is the Driving Force GT a 900 degree wheel? If yes them you don't need the steering hack as you'll have plenty of lock available  

yes 900 , but what you mean by that?
i have degrees of rotation 200 atm.

pity thing in FFB is , that there are no GLOBAL SETINGS for GPL or any other sim game -  one standart all over the world.
so everyone can set controller in his taste. and thats is most confusing for me and i believe for some other simers to. So how to get know that your setings are "real"
how to get know that GPL car or F1 car (and there are many mods) feels "real"? Who from us driven F1 car in real life and can say: you must pick up this BRAND steering whel, and set up
it in this way...? it would be nice.
in real car, you cant set physics as you want

[FullMetalGasket]

You are right of course Karliss - none of us have driven a real F1 car.
My own preferences are based on driving cars which are either similar or have similar steering mechanisms to the F1 cars of the 60's 
I have driven Formula Fords and for years had a Westfield 7 which featured numerous components (Including some of the steering mech) from a 1960's Lotus Formula Ford - so I set my wheel up to feel like they did 

For GPL I'm currently using 404 degrees of rotation (I probably can't get it to stop on 400!)
Center spring : disabled
Overall effects : 105%
Spring effect strength : 0%
Damper effect strength : 0% (Should probably play with this to stop the car hitting invisible bumps!)

Then when in game I use a steering ratio of 6:1 and find it works brilliantly - no need for steering hack even at Monaco, Targa etc 

[BadBlood]

Nearest I got to racing was driving my brothers Jag XK8 in a deserted French forest - whoo it could go. Apert from that my car did have 2.3 litres fuel injection! Mind you it was a Galaxy people mover