Mark...

The notchiness is something that should go away once the wheel is broken
in. I've never felt any notchiness with my red Momo, though. Maybe the
black one is different?

As for your less than stellar FF experience, my hunch is that your
settings need tweaking. It took me a lot of hunting around on the
newsgroups and message boards before I found helpful settings from other
racers for the sims I was playing, mainly N2003 at the time. I can tell
you that the right wheel settings can make all the difference as to
whether the FF feels realistic or not, and whether you can sense what
the car is doing well enough to achieve optimum lap times.

Do you have the Logitech Wingman software installed and running? Have
you got the latest version of it from www.wingmanteam.com?

For N2003, I found that the best settings for me were to have the
Overall Effects Strength set to 125% and everything else set to 0%
(Spring Effect, Damper Effect, Centering Spring) and also having the
"Enable Centering Spring..." checked (yes, even though it's value is set
to 0).

Those same settings seem to be working out very nicely in rfactor with
one caveat, and this is really important because most sims built around
the ISI engine will require the same change - you need to REVERSE the
force setting in the game in order for Logitech wheels to properly sense
the forces. In the rfactor demo, this is a change that needs to be made
in an INI file (changing a number to a negative value). In other sims,
like EA NASCAR Sim Racing, there should be a setting somewhere in the
game to reverse the forces. If your wheel is feeling dead on center and
completely wrong when you are steering it, chances are that the force
setting needs to be reversed.

Just that one setting change in rfactor turned the sim into one that I
thought had missed the boat on FF into one of the finest force feedback
experiences I have had.

Hope you get it dialed in to where you like it.

Steve G

I have the same wheel.  its notchy to begin with.  as others have said, it
goes away and gets really smooth and feels good after its broken in.

and like the others, google or ask this mob the right settings for each
game.   most new people to ff are slower to begin with, and it feels
strange.  stick with it.  you'll get used to what the wheel is telling you.

cheers

steve

Try GTR with minimal special effects, it's a lot better
at force feedback than most sims. Force feedback increases
with cornering forces until you reach or exceed the limits,
and then the feedback is reduced, letting you know you've
reached the limits and somewhat realistic.

I agree. FF is rubbish.

The very first wheel/pedal arrangement I ever bought was the Thrustmaster
unit...used it for GP2, ICR2, GPL etc.
No force-feedback on that arrangement.
Then "upgraded" Aussie-built, non-FF unit (Advantage 1) which gave sterling
service for a couple of years.
(At odd times I would still revert to my Gravis Pro joystick....particularly
with GPL as I found it much "quicker"  to use.)

Then I tried an MS FF unit and hated it.
No matter how I tweaked it I just could not accept that this was meant to
replicate real life. I saw no advantage in using it.
So I gave it to my son and since then I've gone back to the good old Gravis
joystick, which pretends to be nothing other than a very reliable joystick.

FF leaves me cold, I'm afraid.

BK

In Live For Speed S1, just enabling force feedback gave
a player the equivalent of a stability assist, which helped
quite due to the poorly implmented and unstable tire and
differential physics that made cars like the LX6 so unstable.

There wasn't any real feel to the force feedback in LFS S1,
but the stability assist effect kept cars like the LX6
facing forwards more often.

I found this a couple of years ago on dejanews and saved it as a text
file.

YMMV....

HTH,
Paul

--------------
For the MOMO people, do this.

Start/Settings/Control Panel/Game Controllers.

Then..

Double Left Click on the MOMO, then click the Settings button (bottom
right).

Then set these options...

Combined - unticked (ie: no checkmark) [this allows your brake and gas
pedals to be on a separate axis, which is important to have]

Enable Force Feedback - ticked (ie: checkmark it) [this allows force
feedback in games duh]

Overall Effects Strength - 97% [the reason for 97% and NOT 100% is a long
and complicated explanation, but in short it helps oscillations from
happening]

Spring Effects Strength - 0% [no Papyrus sims use this setting and oddly
enough, if you set it to anything other than 0% you will get undesirable
effects]

Damper Effects Strength - 0% [very VERY important to set this to 0%, this
is probably THE most important setting, as it will greatly increase
notchiness and wheel twitches, even though the Papyrus sims do not
exactly enable it]

Enable Centering Spring - ticked [you are going to find this strange,
because in the next setting I tell you to set it to 0%, which is odd
because why not just untick it? well, there's a reason and here it is...
if you don't tick this option and also don't have Damping set -which if
your going with these settings you won't- then a strange phenomenon
happens, you will find that if you turn your wheel rather sharply, the
resistance of the wheel just "gives out" which is not something you want
to happen. I will also admit that having this unchecked does appear to
give slightly better forces -SLIGHTLY- but the repercussions just aren't
worth it for the payoff. so in the end check this option]

Centering Spring Strength - 0% [this is IMPORTANT! i know it's weird, but
you must set it to 0% -  read above option for better explanation]

Then in your Logitech Wingman Profiler, create a Nascar 2003 profile and
then set these settings as follows...

Steering Wheel Sensitivity to 33% [the reason you want to go down from
the default 50% to 33% is because at 50% the wheel is too sensitive to
tiny wheel adjustments... which is not realistic. drive your car and
notice how far you have to turn your wheel... the MOMO have a large
radius to turn, it's a shame most people only move it 5 degrees to either
side. this setting should allow more precise driving and overall
smoothness as well - and you can go down even lower if you wish, to say,
25% if you want to have even more movement, but i suggest 33% for
starters at least, get used to that and go more later if you like the
effect]

Steering Wheel Dead Zone - 2% [another long explanation would be needed
and I don't feel like telling, but in short this also helps oscillations
and twitchiness]

Accelerator Sensitivity - 55% [strangely, this option is the exact
opposite of the Steering, INCREASING this option from the default 50% to
55% makes the gas less sensitive to the immediate input, in other words,
you have to push down farther before the car gets more power. the default
50% is a little touchy - when you barely touch the pedal the car can spin
out. 55% helps this from happening and overall gives a more natural and
fine tune approach]

Accelerator Dead Zone - 2% [much the same reasoning as above, this helps
from keeping your car getting to much gas too fast]

Brake Sensitivity - 55% [exact same reasons as accelerator, increasing
this to 55% helps your brakes from locking up to fast. one word of note
though is that I have modified my brake pedal to include the squash ball
instead of the spring, so that may make a difference in your setup. just
note that increasing this gives less immediate braking and can help if
your tires are locking up too easily under braking]

Brake Dead Zone - 2% [same reasons as all the others dead zones]

Now, in Nascar 2003, enable the Force Feedback option under the Controls
tab and you should run this setting in between 35-65 (50 being most
common setting) depending on the track and more importantly, on your
setup for that track. I know this is a pain to have to do at each
individual track, but depending on your setup you will need to adjust the
strength of the forces in game between each track change.

Just start out from 50 and work from there. the key to adjusting strength
is this... if the wheel has a "notchy" feel, lower the setting till it
JUST goes away, if it doesn't have a notchy feel, then raise it till you
feel the notchyness and then lower it till it just goes away again. In
essence giving you the most forces while remaining smooth.

Leave Damping completely off in game... but *IF* and only if you are
oscillating exiting a corner on the straight, then you can slightly and
slowly increase it in game till you stop oscillating, but I doubt many of
you will have oscillation problems because the settings we set up earlier
should rid you of any. This is the only good thing Damping is good for,
so try not to use it unless you have to because it hurts your performance
elsewhere. and again, NEVER EVER EVER use the Damping setting in windows,
the one found in the control panel... and only use the in-game damping if
you absolutely must (as this can mask the real forces and it also
increases notchiness by a factor of 3 fold).

Leave latency off in game (0%). It only provides fake and incorrect
forcesat usually the wrong time anyways and can definitely get in the way
ofthings and effect the overall impressions of the wheel with the rest of
these settings described here. if you honestly feel like forces are
literally coming too late (which I find very hard to believe) and you
feellike you absolutely have to add to this setting, go ahead and
increase it...with 25 being your absolute max (15 the preferred max) and
0% being the optimal.

Thanks for all of the feedback. Certainly seem a lot more promising. I
remembered that there was a lot of talk about tweaking when the force
feedback first came out, but I presumed that this would be less
necessary given that the technology should be a lot more mature now. I
still don't like having to do the tweaking as I wouldn't pretend to know
exactly how car X feels on track Y - this should be something that the
game designers do through testing so that you know that it is realistic.