Credit Soy
https://support.forzamotorsport.net
The December 2018 update to Forza Motorsport 7 adds a totally new force feedback (FFB) system which is completely physically based, allowing the player to feel the road. The force is now calculated using the alignment torque generated at the contact patch of tire and driving surface, combining both mechanical and pneumatic trail to calculate steer torque. As a result, altering the suspension setup results in force feedback changes. For example, increasing caster angle increases the mechanical trail of the contact patch, resulting more steering alignment force in the force feedback.
It’s a cleaner, more simple system than what has come before it, yet results in a far more dynamic and nuanced experience with a wheel, which makes you feel more connected with the car, and the car more connected to the road than ever before. That is, if your wheel is set up properly and if you have a clear understanding of how to use advanced tuning settings in the game.
How you tune your car will also impact your wheel experience. Many players incorrectly assume that FFB systems or settings make a car understeer or oversteer more. This is not possible. Oversteer and understeer happen to the car at physics level and can be tuned by the player through the car’s tuning setup, not through the FFB settings. Force feedback is what you feel through your steering wheel from those physics effects, and is what helps you feel what is going on at a physics level, it does not affect the car’s behavior.
The image below shows what pneumatic (labelled Tire Self Align Torque) and mechanical trail do in the real world, the result of which is what you feel at the wheel. In game, the same thing happens. If you reduce the mechanical trail, the overall alignment torque is reduced, and the “peaky” aspect of the pneumatic trail only will get exposed.
View attachment 784299
We recommend that you always start with default settings in the game and your wheel driver before you start the game, including overall force feedback gain and rotation angle. Wheel settings in FM7 from prior to the December 2018 update will be reset. On the PC you can run 540 degrees from software, but the steering lock in game remains unchanged, so your ratio would differ from the default. You can adjust this in the game's Steering Sensitivity slider in the Advanced Wheel Settings section below. This is a commonly misunderstood setting, so it’s important to give this a read.
Normal vs Simulation Steering
Having the option to choose between “Normal” or “Simulation” steering is the assists menu is one of the reasons so many players of different skill levels can enjoy Forza games, whether using a gamepad or a wheel. Forza is known for being controllable and natural on a gamepad and these systems are a major component of that feeling.
There are multiple systems layered together to create Normal steering. Some of these layers alter inputs where some of these layers alter the vehicle dynamics. Simulation Steering turns these systems off. The input layers of these systems are turned off any time you use a wheel, regardless of the steering setting.
The Normal steering assist may make FFB feel “sharper” because it influences the yaw inertia of the car to help maintain control during rapid lock-to-lock steering situations. This makes the car somewhat less agile than with Simulation steering, but also more stable.
Advanced Wheel Settings
Below are the tunable settings for wheel users. We strongly recommend starting with default settings to get a feel for how your wheel works with the game, then tune for a specific desired outcome, one setting at a time. If you start moving multiple sliders without understanding the effects of each, or how they interact with each other, you may be creating an undesirable experience.
STEERING AXIS DEADZONE INSIDE
This sets the size of the inner deadzone for steering. The larger this deadzone, the more the steering wheel will need to be moved before the car begins to turn. This acts in the center of steering. Usually, any value other than zero will cause a dead area in the center of the wheel travel. Only turn this up if you have trouble traveling in a straight line.
STEERING AXIS DEADZONE OUTSIDE
This sets the size of the outer deadzone for steering. The larger this deadzone, the less the outside steering wheel input will be recognized by the game.
STEERING AXIS INVERT
This reverses the direction you need to move the input axis to steer.
ACCELERATION AXIS DEADZONE INSIDE
This sets the size of the inner deadzone for throttle. The larger this deadzone, the more the throttle will need to be pressed before the car begins to accelerate. Turn this up if the throttle input is registered when the controller throttle is neutral.
ACCELERATION AXIS DEADZONE OUTSIDE
This sets the size of the outer deadzone for throttle. The larger this deadzone, the less the throttle will need to be pressed for the car to accelerate as fast as possible.
ACCELERATION AXIS INVERT
This reverses the direction you need to move the input axis to accelerate.
DECELERATION AXIS DEADZONE INSIDE
This sets the size of the inner deadzone for brakes. The larger this deadzone, the more the brakes will need to be pressed before the car begins to slow. Turn this up if the brake input is registered when the controller brake pedal is in neutral position.
DECELERATION AXIS DEADZONE OUTSIDE
This sets the size of the outer deadzone for brakes. The larger this deadzone, the less the brakes need to be pressed for the car to brake as sharply as possible.
DECELERATION AXIS INVERT
This reverses the direction you need to move the input axis to decelerate.
CLUTCH AXIS DEADZONE INSIDE
This sets the size of the inner deadzone for clutch. The larger this deadzone, the more the clutch will need to be pressed before the car’s clutch will begin to disengage. Turn this up if the clutch input is registered when the controller clutch is neutral.
CLUTCH AXIS DEADZONE OUTSIDE
This sets the size of the outer deadzone for clutch. The larger this deadzone, the less the clutch will need to be pressed for the car’s clutch to be fully disengaged.
CLUTCH AXIS INVERT
This reverses the direction you need to move the input axis to use the clutch.
HANDBRAKE AXIS DEADZONE INSIDE
This sets the size of the inner deadzone for handbrake. The larger this deadzone, the more the handbrake input will need to be actuated before the car’s handbrake will begin to apply. Turn this up if the handbrake input is registered when the controller handbrake is neutral.
HANDBRAKE AXIS DEADZONE OUTSIDE
This sets the size of the outer deadzone for handbrake. The larger this deadzone, the less handbrake input will be recognized by the game. Turn this down of the game registers full handbrake before the input is fully pressed.
HANDBRAKE AXIS INVERT
This reverses the direction you need to move the input axis to use the handbrake.
VIBRATION SCALE
This sets the vibration intensity. In Forza Motorsport 7 vibration is used as a tactile sensation to let you know what is happening with the car. You will feel a vibration when you’re overusing the tires or having a collision. Turning down the vibration scale will not change road feel. Road feel is a physical force coming from the load changes on the tire.
FORCE FEEDBACK SCALE
This sets the level of overall Force Feedback strength on your steering wheel. This changes all forces which are sent to the wheel including the spring and damper. Using this value it is possible to saturate forces and cause your wheel to clip. This does not scale the vibration.
Individual cars will have higher and lower steer torque capabilities depending on their suspension geometry, mass, downforce and cornering forces. The default Force Feedback Scale is set to a neutral value which generally shouldn’t clip. Players can increase force but risk losing fidelity in higher torque situations.
ALIGNING TORQUE SCALE
This sets the overall aligning torque coming from the combined mechanical and pneumatic trail outlined below. This does not scale spring and damper forces.
MECHANICAL TRAIL SCALE
This scales the mechanical trail – the length of the static lever arm from the suspension geometry. Raising this tends to give a smoother force but with less fidelity.
Mechanical trail tends to turn the wheels in the direction of travel and thus is a smoother stronger following force with less tire slip feel. This is excellent for drifters but does tend to overpower feelings like lockup and understeer.
PNEUMATIC TRAIL SCALE
This scales the pneumatic trail – the length of the dynamic lever arm from the moving tire contact patch. Scaling this down will reduce the dynamic effects from the tire deformation.
Pneumatic Trail comes from the deformation of the tire caused by the loads imparted on it. It decreases as the tire slips which allows you to feel the onset of understeer or brake lockup. As it rises and falls through the range of tire slip it can be a peaky force which results in sharp sensation at the edge of traction.
ROAD FEED SCALE
This scales higher frequency load inputs which come from the road surface and bumps.
As this is a full physical system, road feel comes from the individual wheel loads, just the same as the force feeback. To allow adjustability Road Feel Scale amplifies the higher frequency loads while leaving the low frequency loads alone. The allows you to turn up or down rumble strips and cobblestone without affecting aligning torque.
CENTER SPRING SCALE
This sets the Dynamic Centering Force of your steering wheel. Larger values provide a stronger centering force while lower values provide a lighter centering force. Lowering this value too much may cause steering oscillation. Too high a value reduces the dynamic align torque you feel from the car’s tires.
Essentially, the spring is the force pulling the steering wheel toward center; that is to say gravity through caster, KPI and scrub radius (the distance in front view between a car’s king pin axis and the center of the contact patch of the wheel, where both would theoretically touch the road). This force is overcome when static by friction and at speed and cornering load through pneumatic and mechanical trail, the causes of align torque (the torque that a tire creates as it rolls along, which tends to steer it). To ensure full feel of align torque the center spring is dynamic, ramping down with cornering load, slip and speed. The faster you go or the harder you push the tires, the less center spring force you should feel, and the more you feel from the tires steering themselves.
TIP: We recommend that you NOT turn Center Spring Scale up significantly – too high and this effectively cancels dynamic FFB – the only force you feel is your wheel trying to center itself, rather than the dynamic align torque at from the car’s wheels. We recommend you leave it alone or turn it down.
WHEEL DAMPER SCALE
This sets the resistance to the movement of your steering wheel. Larger values provide a heavy feeling while lower values give a light feeling with little to no resistance. Lowering this value too much may cause steering oscillation. Raising it too much may overpower oversteer or understeer feeling.
Damper is specific to the wheel the user owns and is very subjective. Effectively, it adds a resistance force to the steering that may prevent oscillation but at the same time it slows down the steering wheel velocity, making drifting, where you need quick reaction from the steering wheel, more difficult. Many wheel users think that the damper is wrong no matter what it is set to, because is not coming from the alignment physics; in reality every car’s steering has a mechanical friction component slowing movement. The frictional forces and thus damper are dynamic, allowing a stable feeling without a constant resistance to movement.
TIP: Wheels with more torque, such as Thrustmaster and Fanatec wheels, actually benefit from some damper scale; wheels with less built-in torque, such as the Logitech G920 and G29, actually require little to no damper scale. If you have a Logitech G920 or G29 steering wheel, you may want to turn both the Wheel Damper and Center Spring down to get more feel from the tire.
WHEEL ROTATION ANGLE / STEERING SENSITIVITY
This adjusts the ratio of your steering wheel’s degree of rotation (DOR) to the car’s front wheels actual degree of steering rotation with a soft lock. Along with Force Feedback Scale, this is one of the most commonly misunderstood advanced settings.
A point of confusion among wheel users is the fact that the driver’s hand animations in cockpit view don’t turn the steering wheel more than 90 degrees in either direction. This does not represent the actual in game steering wheel rotation, just as the graphical tire steering lock angle is not a 100 percent representation of the actual physics steering lock. This is one of the reasons a dashboard camera view has been added to game camera views.
Altering the sensitivity completely alters the input/output map of the steering, effectively changing the steering ratio of the car. The most common issue is when a user changes the steering wheel rotation degree from the software or hardware in combination with the game, which can result in erratic car steering behavior. Steering ratio defines the ratio between the steering wheel rotation and the turn of the wheels. In other words, how many degrees of steering wheel turn are required to turn the car’s wheels by 1 degree. A steering ratio for a normal passenger car could for example 13:1, which means that 13 degrees of steering rotation are required to turn the wheels by 1 degree.
On PC the wheel driver controls the steering wheel rotation (180 up to 1080 depending on the wheel hardware), but in game and in real life the steering lock is fixed on every car and is different on every car. The steering sensitivity scales the steering input and alters how much the wheels are turned for a certain steering wheel rotation. If you make the sensitivity higher, you make the steering more responsive because the steering ratio decreased. If you set the sensitivity lower the steering ratio increases therefore the steering is less responsive.
STEERING LINEARITY
This sets the mapping between input and steering. Lower values provide more accuracy near the center but less accuracy near full lock. Higher values provide more accuracy near full lock but less accuracy near the center. 50 is a linear mapping.
In either case the full rotation of the wheel and the steered wheels will be reached
