Monday, 5 November 2018
Sunday, 4 November 2018
Friday, 2 November 2018
iRacing FOV Calculators
Written by: Benjamin Brook
<script>
/////////////////////////
// calc FOV
// given the monitor width and viewing distance, calculate the correct FOV
// for a single monitor setup
function calcSingleFOV(monitorWidth, viewingDistance)
{
if(viewingDistance > 0 && monitorWidth > 0) {
return (180/Math.PI) * (2 * Math.atan(monitorWidth / (2 * viewingDistance)));
} else {
return 0;
}
}
// given the monitor width and viewing distance, calculate the correct FOV
// for a triple monitor, single renderer setup (alligning monitors flat in a row)
// assumes all three monitors are same width, if not pass total width into calcSingleFOV()
function calcTripleFlatFOV(monitorWidth, viewingDistance)
{
return calcSingleFOV(monitorWidth * 3, viewingDistance);
}
// given the monitor width and viewing distance, calculate the correct FOV
// for a triple monitor, render seperate setup (angling monitors)
function calcTripleAngFOV(monitorWidth, viewingDistance)
{
return 3 * calcSingleFOV(monitorWidth, viewingDistance);
}
// given the monitor width and viewing distance, calculate the correct side monitor angle
// for a triple monitor, render seperate setup (angling monitors)
function calcTripleAngAngle(monitorWidth, viewingDistance)
{
return calcSingleFOV(monitorWidth, viewingDistance);
}
/////////////////////////
// calc distance
// given the FOV you want, calculate the correct viewing distance
// for a single monitor setup
function calcSingleViewingDist(monitorWidth, targetFOV)
{
if(targetFOV > 0 && monitorWidth > 0) {
return monitorWidth / (Math.tan((Math.PI/180) * targetFOV / 2) * 2);
} else {
return 0;
}
}
// given the monitor width and viewing distance, calculate the correct FOV
// for a triple monitor, single renderer setup (alligning monitors flat in a row)
// assumes all three monitors are same width, if not pass total width into calcSingleViewingDist()
function calcTripleFlatViewingDist(monitorWidth, targetFOV)
{
return calcSingleViewingDist(monitorWidth*3, targetFOV);
}
// given the FOV you want, calculate the correct viewing distance
// for a triple monitor, render seperate setup (angling monitors)
function calcTripleAngDist(monitorWidth, targetFOV)
{
if(targetFOV > 0 && monitorWidth > 0) {
return monitorWidth / (Math.tan((Math.PI/180) * targetFOV / 6) * 2);
} else {
return 0;
}
}
// given the FOV you want, calculate the correct side monitor angle
// for a triple monitor, render seperate setup (angling monitors)
function calcTripleAngDistAngle(monitorWidth, targetFOV)
{
return targetFOV/3;
}
</script>
<script>
function handleSingleFOVSubmit(form)
{
form.FOV.value = (calcSingleFOV(form.monWidth.value, form.viewDist.value)).toFixed(2);
}
function handleTripleFOVSubmit(form)
{
form.FOV.value = (calcTripleAngFOV(form.monWidth.value, form.viewDist.value)).toFixed(2);
form.sideAng.value = (calcTripleAngAngle(form.monWidth.value, form.viewDist.value)).toFixed(2);
}
function handleSingleViewDistSubmit(form)
{
form.viewDist.value = (calcSingleViewingDist(form.monWidth.value, form.FOV.value)).toFixed(2);
}
function handleTripleViewDistSubmit(form)
{
form.viewDist.value = (calcTripleAngDist(form.monWidth.value, form.FOV.value)).toFixed(2);
form.sideAng.value = (calcTripleAngDistAngle(form.monWidth.value, form.FOV.value)).toFixed(2);
}
</script>
<!doctype html>
iRacing FOV Calc Sample
- Calculators work in cm or mm or inches.
- Enter your monitors horizontal width and the distance from your eyes to the monitor to calculate the correct field of view for your seating position.
- Reducing the distance form your monitor to your eyes will increase the field of view.
- On games that use a vertical FOV instead of a horizontal one, enter the monitors height to calculate the correct FOV.
- If you have triple monitors configured to render as if they were one large monitor then line the monitors up in a flat row and use the total width of all three monitors to calculate the FOV.
- If you are rendering a separate image to each monitor, then use the triple monitor calculator below.
- On a single monitor you want to use the width of the viewable part of the monitor.
- On a triple monitor, single renderer, setup you want to use the width of the viewable image as well, but include the center bezels.
That is treat it like one large monitor with some annoying black lines on it.
Then in your video card you want to enable bezel correction so the central bezels are taken into account when rendering the image. - If you choose to render each monitor separately (which I do)
then only measure the viewable width on the center monitor and don't apply any bezel correction in your graphics card.
Typically your graphics card will provide two resolutions to you, one with bezel correction turned on and one without it. The smaller horizontal width is the one without bezel correction.
|
Triple Monitor separate renderer FOV:
|
Single Monitor FOV:
|
- David's calculators work in cm or mm or inches.
- Enter your monitors horizontal width and the desired field of view (not over 179) to calculate the correct viewing distance for your seating position.
- Reducing the field of view will increase the seating distance.
- On games that use a vertical FOV instead of a horizontal one, enter the monitors height to calculate the correct distance.
- If you have triple monitors configured to render as if they were one large monitor then line the monitors up in a flat row and use the total desired FOV of all three monitors to calculate the distance.
- If you are rendering a separate image to each monitor, then use the triple monitor calculator below.
- On a single monitor you want to use the width of the viewable part of the monitor
- On a triple monitor, single renderer, setup you want to use the width of the viewable image as well, but include the center bezels
That is treat it like one large monitor with some annoying black lines on it.
Then in your video card you want to enable bezel correction so the central bezels are taken into account when rendering the image. - If you choose to render each monitor seperately (which I do)
then only measure the viewable width on the center monitor and don't apply any bezel correction in your graphics card.
Typically your graphics card will provide two resolutions to you, one with bezel correction turned on and one without it. The smaller horizontal width is the one without bezel correction.
|
Triple Monitor seperate renderer
Viewing Distance: |
Single Monitor Viewing Distance:
|
from Brook Racing Feed http://bit.ly/2Qf6XfJ
via Brook Racing - iRacing Setups, Reviews and Guides
Tuesday, 30 October 2018
iRacing Logitech G27 Settings
Written by: Benjamin Brook
The Logitech G27 steering wheel is still one of the most popular sim steering wheels products being used with iRacing today. There have been quite a few changes to the iRacing Force Feedback settings over the years since the G27's launch and if you haven't had a look at changing the force feedback settings now would be a good time.
Changing iRacing Logitech G27 Settings
Just like the generic iracing force feedback settings guide I have put together which should cover most wheels in the marketplace. You need to first change settings from the Logitech Profiler. By making the following changes:
- Overall Effects Strength: 100%
- Spring Effect Strength: 100%
- Damper Effect Strength: 100%
Spring Effect Strength you leave at its default setting as iRacing does not use any spring effects but other sims could.
You can check the centering spring effect option has it does not have any effect within iRacing but it could be of use in other racing sims.
Change wheel rotation to 900 degrees we will set it up for 1:1 steering ratio when the wheel is calibrated within the iRacing settings.
Setting Up The Logitech G27 Within iRacing
Within the iRacing settings recalibrate your wheel following the instructions, when asked to rotate your wheel 90 degrees to the left, rotate it 90 degrees and don't pay any attention to the numbers that iRacing is telling you as it has been found that the Logitech G27 Wheels don't quite have a full 900 degree wheel rotation it is more in the vicinity of between 860 and 875 degrees. By not paying attention to the numbers in iRacing you will get the proper 1:1 steering ratio. I outlined this in my iRacing Force Feedback settings guide.
- Dampening settings change to: 10%
- Min Force: Try around 10 - 15%
- Strength: Anywhere around 8 to 20 (12 should be a good starting point) it can also be adjusted from the F9 black box and after a couple laps of driving you should see an auto button which when clicked will automatically adjust the strength to where the game thinks the force feedback needs to be set.
How To Check If You Are Oversaturating (Clipping) The Force Feedback
When running laps you want to check the "F Meter" and make sure you are not seeing the bar turn red when cornering. Red indicates oversaturation (clipping) is occuring and you are not receiving the best Force Feedback. Any other color is fine just not red.
Logitech G27 Brake Calibration Issues
Some users have experienced issues with the brakes locking up when running their first session. This can be rectified by giving the brake a depress before leaving the pits, its an issue with the usb not remembering were the start and end points of the brake is. The other solution is to use a Bodnar cable which has a much higher resolution and will remember the start and endpoints of your brake.
Miscellanious Logitech G27 Issues
USER EXPERIENCING DOUBLE BOUNCE WITH SEQUENTIAL SHIFTER
This fix should rectify the issue with most sequential shifters in the market place.
- Close iRacing
- Open //documents/iracing
- Open app.ini
- Look for "debounce" make the following change "debounceSeq_Ms=80 ; Add delay in Milliseconds to sequential shifter to reduce double shifts"
This will add a delay before the shifter will register another shift which should get rid of any double bounce when shifting.
Slipping Encoder
Wheel slowly drifts left/right, eventually, you have to steer 90 deg to the left to go straight.
David refers to taking the wheel apart and applying some glue/whatever to the encoder wheel so it stops slipping.
The wheel can also be dragging against the optical sensor, or the optical sensor could be loose on the motor, or have bits of dirt in the holes in the encoder wheel, all will give you similar results.
Burnt/Gummy Brushes
Blast out the motor with air, do it outside.
After cleaning everything it should start working well. Usually, this shows up as a loss of power.
Broken Gear
Only an expectation that losing even one tooth on a gear would cause the wheel to stop turning all together.
It's possible the wheel will catch occasionally, especially if a gear just split and did not actually lose a tooth.
Flaky Power Supply/Too Much Heat
Usually causing the wheel to fade out over time. Try another power supply, borrow one.
Excessive dust/smoke (animals, smokers, etc) your wheel could be clogged causing heat issues. Blow it out with air.
Let me know of anyother tips or settings work with the Logitech G27.
from Brook Racing Feed http://bit.ly/2AA9Ja0
via Brook Racing - iRacing Setups, Reviews and Guides
Saturday, 27 October 2018
iRacing Force Feedback Settings Tips And Tricks
Written by: Benjamin Brook
With the plethora of racing sim titles out in the market today force feedback or ffb seems to be one of the most contentious issues with various sims having different kinds of luck of replicating the feel of racing on the road.
iRacing’s force feedback is no different with some racers experiencing good levels of feedback while others are struggling with inferior levels of feedback. With this guide, I am going to pull the knowledge from the iracing forums where force feedback and sim steering wheels, in particular, are being discussed and present it in a way in which you the racer can happily go into the iRacing sim and set up your force feedback and have an improved experience.
David Tucker who is one the iRacing staffers that works closely with the force feedback community has stated that 95% of the time the force feedback with the default iRacing settings will work from the get-go. So with that in mind remember that the default settings might be the best that you can get.
Initial iRacing Force Feedback Settings
The first thing that you will want to do is go into your steering wheels configuration and set the following settings if they are present in your configuration panel:
Set your steering wheel rotation to the maximum value as this will give you a 1:1 ratio with iRacing
Set Spring, Damper, Overall force feedback to 100%
Next go into iRacing start a test session and recalibrate your steering wheel as exactly as the game dictates ie: turn the wheel 90 degrees to the left. You will turn the wheel exactly 90 degrees to the left without worrying about the numbers that iRacing displays as some wheels don’t quite have the full rotation that they advertise so this will give the proper 1:1 ratio with iRacing.
Once you have the wheel calibrated you will need to set the following items in the iRacing controls:
Set the damper to off
Linear force unchecked (unless you have a dd drive wheel)
Set the force between 8 and 20 depending on the car and track. David Tucker believes that 12 would be a good starting point. But you need to keep an eye on the F meter in the sim to make sure your not over saturating or the steering wheel is clipping. You can adjust the force feedback on the fly within the sim using the F9 Black Box. This way you can set the force feedback to your ideal level of feel without over-saturating the wheel. If you oversaturate the wheel the force feedback will become lifeless.
Min force attempts to fix issues with some wheels particularly the Logitech G27 were it needs a certain level of feedback around the 10 -20 percent mark for the effects to actually engage the wheel. Best bet with the min force is to play around with settings in the 5 - 20 percent range remember if you set it too high you will get wheel chatter when driving in a straight line.
Playing with the above settings within the iRacing control panel should be enough to improve or enhance the levels of force feedback that you are experiencing.
Diving Deeper Into iRacing Force Feedback With The iRacing App.ini File
You can find the app.ini from the following file path “/documents/iracing/app.ini these settings are not that necessary to create a better force feedback feel for everyone so your mileage may vary but David Tucker provided some information about what these settings do.
[Force Feedback] steeringFFBSmooth=1.0
This applies some smoothing to the FFB output and is the only good way to stop a car that chatters too much from banging your hands to pieces. Damping will only make the problem worse, so use this instead. However, before you apply smoothing make sure you are not overdoing it with the min force slider. The number is an odd one, you want to set it to 1/n where n is the number of samples to smooth, so 1/2 or 0.5 smooths two samples, 1/3 or 0.33 smooths 3 samples, 1/4 or 0.25 smooths 4 samples and so on. Going much past 1/5 or 0.2 is only going to add latency and not improve things at all for you. Oh, and the default of 1/1 or 1 means one sample or no smoothing at all.
[Force Feedback] steeringDampingMaxPercent=0.0
This is an experimental friction damper that I added in a season or two ago. It works really well on the G27 wheel to give it some weight and make it feel less plasticity, however, it does not do much for belt driven wheel since they already have plenty of mechanical damping from the belts. Try a value of 0.2 and go up and down from there as needed.
The Other iRacing Force Feedback Option Auto Mode
There is one other way to optimize your force feedback for iRacing and that is the auto option from the F9 Black Box.
When I say auto it does not change all of the various force feedback settings, it will change the force feedback strength to suit your wheel. How this works start a test session with the F9 Black Box showing drive some normal laps be careful not to have big curb strikes as such (the auto mode will block those out to an extent) after a couple of laps you if you notice an auto button appear it means that iRacing has detected that you may not be using the best force settings for your wheel. This does not replace the min force that you would have set earlier in the guide.
Let me know how you went trying these settings from the guide and if they were helpful or not. Or if you have any other settings that you have tried to improve the iRacing force feedback system.
from Brook Racing Feed http://bit.ly/2Pt09Of
via Brook Racing - iRacing Setups, Reviews and Guides
iRacing Force Feedback Settings Tips And Tricks
Written by: Benjamin Brook
With the plethora of racing sim titles out in the market today force feedback or ffb seems to be one of the most contentious issues with various sims having different kinds of luck of replicating the feel of racing on the road.
iRacing’s force feedback is no different with some racers experiencing good levels of feedback while others are struggling with inferior levels of feedback. With this guide, I am going to pull the knowledge from the iracing forums where force feedback and sim steering wheels, in particular, are being discussed and present it in a way in which you the racer can happily go into the iRacing sim and set up your force feedback and have an improved experience.
David Tucker who is one the iRacing staffers that works closely with the force feedback community has stated that 95% of the time the force feedback with the default iRacing settings will work from the get-go. So with that in mind remember that the default settings might be the best that you can get.
Initial iRacing Force Feedback Settings
The first thing that you will want to do is go into your steering wheels configuration and set the following settings if they are present in your configuration panel:
Set your steering wheel rotation to the maximum value as this will give you a 1:1 ratio with iRacing
Set Spring, Damper, Overall force feedback to 100%
Next go into iRacing start a test session and recalibrate your steering wheel as exactly as the game dictates ie: turn the wheel 90 degrees to the left. You will turn the wheel exactly 90 degrees to the left without worrying about the numbers that iRacing displays as some wheels don’t quite have the full rotation that they advertise so this will give the proper 1:1 ratio with iRacing.
Once you have the wheel calibrated you will need to set the following items in the iRacing controls:
Set the damper to off
Linear force unchecked (unless you have a dd drive wheel)
Set the force between 8 and 20 depending on the car and track. David Tucker believes that 12 would be a good starting point. But you need to keep an eye on the F meter in the sim to make sure your not over saturating or the steering wheel is clipping. You can adjust the force feedback on the fly within the sim using the F9 Black Box. This way you can set the force feedback to your ideal level of feel without over-saturating the wheel. If you oversaturate the wheel the force feedback will become lifeless.
Min force attempts to fix issues with some wheels particularly the Logitech G27 were it needs a certain level of feedback around the 10 -20 percent mark for the effects to actually engage the wheel. Best bet with the min force is to play around with settings in the 5 - 20 percent range remember if you set it too high you will get wheel chatter when driving in a straight line.
Playing with the above settings within the iRacing control panel should be enough to improve or enhance the levels of force feedback that you are experiencing.
Diving Deeper Into iRacing Force Feedback With The iRacing App.ini File
You can find the app.ini from the following file path “/documents/iracing/app.ini these settings are not that necessary to create a better force feedback feel for everyone so your mileage may vary but David Tucker provided some information about what these settings do.
[Force Feedback] steeringFFBSmooth=1.0
This applies some smoothing to the FFB output and is the only good way to stop a car that chatters too much from banging your hands to pieces. Damping will only make the problem worse, so use this instead. However, before you apply smoothing make sure you are not overdoing it with the min force slider. The number is an odd one, you want to set it to 1/n where n is the number of samples to smooth, so 1/2 or 0.5 smooths two samples, 1/3 or 0.33 smooths 3 samples, 1/4 or 0.25 smooths 4 samples and so on. Going much past 1/5 or 0.2 is only going to add latency and not improve things at all for you. Oh, and the default of 1/1 or 1 means one sample or no smoothing at all.
[Force Feedback] steeringDampingMaxPercent=0.0
This is an experimental friction damper that I added in a season or two ago. It works really well on the G27 wheel to give it some weight and make it feel less plasticity, however, it does not do much for belt driven wheel since they already have plenty of mechanical damping from the belts. Try a value of 0.2 and go up and down from there as needed.
The Other iRacing Force Feedback Option Auto Mode
There is one other way to optimize your force feedback for iRacing and that is the auto option from the F9 Black Box.
When I say auto it does not change all of the various force feedback settings, it will change the force feedback strength to suit your wheel. How this works start a test session with the F9 Black Box showing drive some normal laps be careful not to have big curb strikes as such (the auto mode will block those out to an extent) after a couple of laps you if you notice an auto button appear it means that iRacing has detected that you may not be using the best force settings for your wheel. This does not replace the min force that you would have set earlier in the guide.
Let me know how you went trying these settings from the guide and if they were helpful or not. Or if you have any other settings that you have tried to improve the iRacing force feedback system.
from Brook Racing Feed http://bit.ly/2OWwIVh
via Brook Racing - iRacing Setups, Reviews and Guides