DBOX Motion & Direct Drive FFB

Hello everyone, its been a long time.

So basically I work at a company called "Vesaro" https://www.vesaro.com/store/pc/Home.asp
We build racing simulators with motion and direct drive FFB.

Was just wondering if DBOX motion would be a future feature as well as custom wheel support such as direct drive wheels i.e Leo Bodnar, MMOS.

Its great fun playing on the sims and id love to try BeamNG on them but of course its missing the main aspects of the simulator. FFB and motion.

 

well to get FFB and motion would take a lot of development for a small group of people to use.

 

While were talking FFB, i dont experience the front wheels (or steering wheel if you like) want to self center/countersteer as in other games/sims. I remember reading others having the same 'issue' and since its a vital part of drifting (and driving normal) i miss it and makes drifting h.a.r.d. Is it a settings thing or is something else lacking?

 

If I was going to spend $70,000 on a gaming setup, I would just buy a used M3 or a Ferrari 360 and rent a track. Much more worth it.

 

Yeah, that would be cool, but a simulator isn't weather or location dependent. Also, you can change what car you're driving at any time, unlike in real life.

 

True, true, but even the best driving simulators can't truly replicate a real car.

 

That Wiki article is a really good writeup! I don't know how I haven't seen that before! I am going to try to apply what I just learned from that the next time I play and see how much that improves what I currently have going on!

Most games kinda 'fake' or amplify steering centering forces on wheels, so that's something you have to keep in mind. You can get really good steering centering forces in real life by playing with your caster (usually tilting the top of the suspension geometry rearward will increase centering forces... but it will also make the car twitchy if you go too far), increasing your steering pivot arm distance on the hubs (lets the front tires apply greater torque back through the system), and using a lower ratio steering rack to increase the torque required to turn the wheel (on your end... less for the car) and lowering the amount of rotations it takes to turn the same distance. Do these things and you will end up with MASSIVE centering forces (perhaps a bit too much depending on just how far you take it)

The plus side of BeamNG is that since everything is physics based (as stenyak stated above) absolutely anything you do to a real car to get better centering forces also applies to a BeamNG car as well. The only drawback is that sometimes our gaming wheels (I am guessing the OP isn't going to run into the issue... but for the rest of us) the amount of torque that our wheels can generate is rather limited, so when it comes time for those centering forces to be generated and start swinging the wheel around, it can actually not be enough to physically spin the wheel fast enough as it would ideally do in real life. This isn't really a fault of the game though as those forces are all calculated correctly, it's more of an issue with just how little the gaming wheels can really push back.

For instance... I have a G920 or whatever the Xbox version of Logitech gaming wheel is. Someone can correct me if I am wrong here, but I believe that the maximum amount of torque it can generate is about 10Nm. That is not a lot.... not a lot at all. As a comparison, to just simply turn the wheel in my car while driving around town (while even moving mind you, and yes my power steering does work the way it should) takes more force than I typically feel through that gaming wheel at full torque, and that's just out for a casual drive. The centering forces in my car are FAR greater than that gaming wheel can even pretend to muster. Granted, my car has rather fat tires, but again, it helps me prove my point.

As far as motion control goes... I know it is possible. I have seen at least 2 other people on this forum post videos of working motion systems that were working with BeamNG...

Here is one of them....


Naturally I have no idea how they did it... I am guessing that the Dev's could help with that one though.

 

Ive gone for the 200BX but also the ETK I-series and tried every trick in my IRL drifting knowledge to get it to self center more. Increased caster assuming its McPherson suspension, adjusted scrub radius increasing track width, more toe in and so on but im starting to think its the wheel setup, although ive used the guide and google my a** off for the numbers i didnt have. Also tried creating a custom correction curve but i n the end i know less about computer steering wheels thatn i do about real ones. I get the wheel to give me fast, good feedback with good self centering in other games but i havent succided yet in BeamNG.

Yeah 10Nm is literally nothing although i would say my wheel has more but shouldnt have since its old. I do have experience in drifting and all its ways of adjustment IRL but although it gets better it just dont get right. As i said to stenyak, im leaning towards my wheel setup in BeamNG, since i get a more correct feeling in other games, although their ohysics is far from BeamNGs, which makes me frustrated and skip em anyways lol. Ill just have to keep fiddeling with the settings for the wheel i guess.

 

Yeah, that makes sense... even though I just went on a big speal about how it replicates real cars (which it does and does so very well) I haven't gotten mine to be able to self center very well either. That has made me do something rather weird. I actually set up my cars for understeer rather then oversteer for BeamNG so that once I get the car sliding, I don't have to fight with the wheel as much to control the car, and instead just slide all 4 tires and control it with the throttle... something that I feel like I would never really try to do in real life but due to my inability to get the wheel to do what I want, I just try to tune the car so that the wheel being at the correct angle doesn't really matter as much. Its kinda weird, but it does seem to work.

 

That is one way to do it, havent thought of that, although shouldnt be needed

Ive been doing some digging around, could be that my wheels centering spring is enabled by default in BeamNG. This could be the issue for several wheels, was a problem in Project CARS 1 for a while too until they seem to have added a possibility to disable it ingame (not sure, only read PC1 forum threads). Im currently trying to figure out what registry key i need to alter/delete to remove it since i dont have any software settings available for it.

 

Thank you, very helpful, ill have a goo at that.
I recall (not gaming atm) my steering wheel return to and stay centered, so that countersteering must be initiated by me, instead of me just letting the wheel spin. When drifting in BGN i keep using an external cam and looking at the front wheels. Basicly i dont feel my wheel communicating with me.

Another thing to add to the story, ive tried different update rates, set to closest to the FPS. 60mhz if screen and fps is 60 and so on. 30 at WCUSA with everything and Reshade on.

One weird problem to that might not have to do with this:
I have a 240° wheel but if ive set Linearity to 1 i have to have the angle at 720° for it to be linear. At 240° its slow to start with and faster the more i turn.

 

So been digging around some more, my wheel flexes back alittle when standing still and turning the wheel all the way in one direction. I experience it as more than irl but not as much as a self centering wheel would do. What ive read there is a spring return value that can have different strength in win drivers but not thinking thats the problem here. Also manually deleted what i thought was that spring value in Win Registry (GUID_spring). As soon as the car moves every so slightly the wheel self centers, faster than a normal wheel would imo. Might be a setting still but i dont know. Maybe could be described as the ffb being either on or off when going straight, also having quite big issues with the wheel moving/shaking when standing still if the filtering isnt set high (which also filteres away the ffb that would communicate with me while driving?). Can be sorted with alittle deadzone but shouldnt be needed. Feels like that when ffb is active its overall strength might 'hide' the actual cars movement/communication.
Simply put its hard as hell to get it to feel and act right, being spoiled with just needing to plug it in and go in say Wreckfest (which i overall rate lower than Beamng so no worries lol) where i feel it communicates way more with me where feeling the countersteer coming, just needing to let go of the wheel and itll do most of the job itself, the cars front wheels will stay in the cars moving direction while the rest of the car will rotate around them as if theyre a pivot point. I realize that i might be tricked into thinking it feels better while its actually cheating to ge that feeling but it does so much.

EDIT:
Ill try raising the smoothing alot after reading you (Stenayk) answer in this thread:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/284160/discussions/0/1473095331489130503/

 

MORE INFO ON MY CASE:

If i turn the strength down to 0% for FFB then my wheels centering spring must be 100% on, wheel centers instantly. The higher the strength the less prone to center itself. Now im still looking for what value in Windows Registry to alter (probably GUID_spring..?) to remove it altogether since the software of my old MSFF dont have that option.
As you said @stenyak BNG forces self centering to be off but this seem to be overwritten. Doesnt seem to happen in other games but i might be mistaken. Googling the issue for me ends up with atleast a few similar issues for ppl with other wheels.
--- Post updated ---
PROBLEM SOLVED

I had 'Update Type: FULL' instead of the default 'FAST' which tuned out to be causing my self centering issues, now im drifting like a BNG pro
Still needed to tweak the smoothing but could be kept at much lower values than before.

 

Good info! Was thinking of a controller or wheel thread to post settings, would be good for more ppl not getting the settings right.

I found that increasing Slow Speed Strength actually decreased my self steering.
Takes alot of fiddling with the smoothing settings to get it right but im using an ancient Microsoft FF wheel.
Intresting that you use Update Type Full, as mine couldnt handle it, only Fast.