My experience with 1.49 and my G29.
Wednesday night I ran off a Tokyo 600 in my "grind" car, '16 Camaro, lightly massaged to 599.78PP, just to remind myself how it drives around Tokyo, since the last run I had there was the GTWS Manu last weekend. Did the usual 27:10+-min run. Torque and Sensitivity at 5/5. Been using that for some time now, after fiddling around with it last winter from 4/6, then 7/2 etc.
Thursday night I jumped in the Camaro and found, much to my disappointment, PD had boosted its PP by almost 20points.
Ok, reshod with SMs, was running with SS for over 100 races at Tokyo, to get it back below the PP limit and grumbled a bit as I took it to Japan again. Bit of a rough start to the effort, with wheel still at 5/5 and the brake pedal travel set at 75.3%, which I've been running at since I discovered that setting sometime last year. Took me 3 restarts to stay clean past the 3rd lap. Finished that run in 27:19, win + CRB. Wheel felt noticeably weaker in Torque and road/traction feedback. Had me wondering if I'd lost power or the wheel had died somehow.
Had been reading most of the comments about the G-Pro, 923 and caught some comments about the 29 here and there and decided to run another Tokyo last night and set the wheel to 7/3. Much better and ran off a 27:11 which is closer to my usual with SS tires. Slept on that and went to work this morning.
Tonight, after reading more comments about settings for the G29, I decided to run my GTWS 'Vette. I had run off some practice laps at Autopolis, pre 1.49 and figured that might be another comparison to have. I was frankly amazed at the feedback I was getting with RS tires and wheel still at 7/3. I could feel the wheel "unload" most of its torque when attempting to turn it while still under heavy braking. Torque, although not what I've come to expect from race cars on soft tires, returned as I let off the brake, and the car turned in unexpectedly sharply. Ran off about 10 laps and was within .5 of my previous best, 1:46.7xx.
After a short break I decided to try the settings recommended by
@LOGI_Rich , 10/10, found in this or another thread, I don't recall which, and also changing the brake travel limit to 100%. Turn one went off into the grass. Ok. Not liking the increased pedal travel for full brake power much. I worked with it however, for another 10 laps around Autopolis and did manage to shave about .3 off previous best. What I noticed most about this run however was how the "unload" of the wheel torque under braking and turning was gone. Utterly swamped by the torque. I could no longer feel the loss of steering grip. The wheel just wouldn't lighten up when the fronts started losing traction. The torque was at an acceptable level but I found myself over and under steering into turns and was not nearly as precise aiming the car at turn ins and apexes. It just felt, slow and thick. That 100% on the brake travel wasn't helping anything either.
Another short break and went back, set the brake travel to 80.8%, backed the torque off to 7 and left the sensitivity at 10. Wheel unload when traction lost under braking returned satisfactorily and I ran off a 1:46.071 on RS tires there. Don't know if I'll use the RS during any GTWS runs tomorrow, if I get to do any that is, since, from what I've been reading, an RM no stop may be the way to go with tire degradation changes having made the RS fall off considerably by lap 8 or so.
Overall, after fiddling with settings, I feel the G29 has much better feel now than it did pre 1.49. I don't recall ever feeling the wheel unload like this in any prevous version of the game I've played. I may try an 8/2 or perhaps an 8/8 at some point in the future, if PD doesn't change things again and have us all fishing for "the best" settings once more. I'm a little concerned how it will behave when next I find myself on snow or dirt.