Was it really an upgrade?
Michael Yeager
Member
F1 2020 console player
Recently upgraded from thrustmaster t300, open wheel, BT leds. Purchased csl elite w/p1, v3 petals, and carbon F1 wheel. Installed drivers and fanalab software. Fanatec hardware makes thrustmaster look like a toy. But ... fanatec wheel oscillation is highly annoying. Played with all the settings in game and on wheel (including dri -3) for hours. Can lessen the effect but still noticeable. Carbon wheel can only display speed, which is useless. Fanalab as console player, equally as useless. Didn’t even bother with fanaleds. Forums say blame codemasters for not providing sdk for wheel display. Ok, So should I keep my TM led display? So after hours of adjustments and getting as close to comfortable as I can but never achieved, many laps in China (track I know) I can’t even come close to my times set with the TM. So yes the materials and build quality are amazing. But if I can’t get comfortable or the information I need, was it really an upgrade?
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Btw, I have one more day for the 14-day return policy, which I’m seriously considering. Get $1,100 back, buy a TM ts-pc racer and save nearly $800! Hoping someone can change my mind and justify the cost.
Hi Michael,
Aside from the negative DRI values, the in-game 'wheel damper' setting, which is associated directly with the 'DPR' Tuning Menu modifier (so this should be left at 100), should have the biggest impact on reducing oscillation. You may even want to run slightly higher wheel damper, with smaller negative DRI values (-2 or -1)... but it shouldn't be necessary to go into positive DRI values.
You also should avoid going higher than 70 on the in-game FFB strength to avoid clipping (but 100 in the Tuning Menu is fine).
Oscillation shouldn't be that much of a problem though, it's only apparent on the straights, and only if you let go of the wheel, which you shouldn't be doing...
[Fanatec Community Manager]
Switching to those settings now. How high of an in game damper? Also, I’m struggling on feel the grip until it’s to late and in spinning. Making it harder to get to full throttle faster. I can minimize it a bit with a little Throttle Linearty, but I’d rather not have that at all. I’m used to the tp3a which have 0 feeling, so I can be very light footed when needed. The v3 feel amazing in comparison, I just need to be able to feel when I can push it.
In game damper 70, in game FF 70, Dri -2, I’m still 2 seconds off my best time, But thats closest I’ve come. (China, dry) Doing time trials and I lose my ghost coming out of the corners. I just can’t seem to feel when I can get to full throttle quick enough. And I’m doing it from memory, if it was a track I’m less familiar with, it would be a total guess. Also, get a weird bounce or pulling effect when near the center, causing me to fight it a bit in the corner. So not enough feeling coming out of the corner and too much in the corner. If I could fix those 2 things, I’d be golden! I do however run one very weird setting. Most use 360° turning radius, which I feel takes forever to go from lock to lock. So I use 180° (18) on wheel setting. In game I leave it at 360° so I don’t get that soft lock bounce.
The in-game wheel damper shouldn't need to be too high. 70 sounds too high to me. If it's that high then you're adding excessive damping, which will prevent you from being able to make fast steering corrections. It should be just enough to tame the oscillation behaviour - our recommended settings suggest a value of 10. In my opinion, it is better to have a more 'active' wheel (and potentially prone to oscillation), than an excessively damped one.
Using 180 degree lock is likely also contributing to the problem. The in-game wheel should rotate 1-to-1 with your physical wheel. It's ok to go a few degrees either side of 360 if you want a slightly more less responsive input, but to drop it to half is too much. This will mean a very small steering input results in a much larger one in the game, and that will exacerbate the oscillation. You will also end up apply too much steering input in general, causing your car to understeer.
If you reduce the damping then it will be more comfortable to race with 360 degree rotation because it will allow you to be faster with inputs.
It can take a long while to get used to new pedals.
[Fanatec Community Manager]
Beat my time! Lowered the damper. 360° too much, 270° is more realistic, but still to much for my liking. Adjusted to 210° and was comfortable. FEI:0, DRI:-1, in-game Damper:10. Still can’t stand the bounce/pull mid corner, got used to it but highly annoying. CSL base vs TM t300/pcRacer on par with one another, performance wise. Fanatic materials blow away the TM gear! Petals took a few races to get used too and huge improvement over TM. This by far was the biggest upgrade. Enough to justify cost? Matter of opinion which I don’t need to express, not looking to bash. I will however bash the sticker/cap set which is super cheap quality and definitely not worth $30, that’s just insane. Set up one button with sticker, pulled it off immediately and trashed the whole set. That’s an alibaba special! My purchase was made on Black Friday so if/when a decided to sell , I should be able to make a profit. Thanks for your help, greatly appreciated. If the DD1 ever goes on sale I’ll try that, maybe next year. Till then, take care