maybe a silly question, but do you alt+tab any time you change TD values or you have it on a 4th monitor, or else? I’m asking because I run triples, but anytime I need to change something I am forced to alt+tab to get in TD and then again to return in sim. or there is an alternative way to do it?
Yea you have the basics down on it… as you can tune the output within a certain frequency range… It doesn’t really have so much effect on the other filters directly as it doesn’t DO the same things but I can see where it can feel like a balancing… In a WAY but not exactly it can work a bit like a torque reduction filter for just that frequency range if you use a wide Q Factor… Basically though that filter is one of the hardest AND most specific filters to get correct and it is on a different level than say D, F or I or even TBW. My explanation was a bit more directed toward everyone though and with that 95% of people probably won’t set this particular filter right and then they complain about dead spots in their steering or unusual drops in feedback which in a lot of cases from my helping people have come from an improperly set-up Notch filter.
What it would be good for?
It would a good baseline profile that end users could start from.
A new user could start with this profile and adjust to his feeling.
If I was Granite devices I would still give the end user in advanced mode the opportunity to adjust everything they can now.
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You do not understand why it is a good idea to come up with a baseline for new users.
Many people are posting that they want done a guide that explains exactly what every setting does. I think it is near impossible to explain all of the “if you do this that will happen” there is interaction between the filters also.
Then YOU can adjust whatever you want. You don’t have to use it.
If GD forces you to use it and it only, yes that would be a bad idea.
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In the way I use it , I find that a standard starting point not work because car/track combo. For example with the f3 I use a 3hz x 2.1 @ 7.5db but this setting absolutely not work on 3.5 or Lotus 79.
Yes you are right… 95% of people I think are a little bit lazy to learn how this filter works and how you can find a way to apply when necessary. People want switches ON / OFF.
I don’t know how much computational power is needed to use this filter but if ask me… I add another filter like this with negative value and a x2 over sampling on recon + a macro vibration always present on steering axis.
@SuperMonaco_GP
I use it wide by side with borderless mode ( or ) via iPad with virtual monitor.
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Brion post the guide with all of the explanations of the settings here on the forum.
That was the best and thorough guide anyone ever did.
And GET MY SC2 pro setup at your house and start driving!!!
@Joe… I will search it out… it and post the section… and on the SC2 yea I need to get it running I just want to get the new wheel boxes to market before I distract myself further… lol
OK here is the relevant section - which was written for Granity for use with MMOS, However the SimuCUBE SC1 and SC2 basically use these same parameters from what I understand, unchanged. except that the scaling on TD is 10x what it is with Granity or SC1 Config tool which limits the MAX D, F, and I parameters to effectively 10%.
Tuning Tab
Torque Controller-
TBW - Torque Band Width: (parameter = USER_DEFINED) -
This setting is a filter point for the incoming set point information received by the IONI. It works similar in manner to CIS Smoothing on the goals page but it is more customizable. The lower the setting the more smoothing of the signal and in turn increases latency which result in a more dull subdued feeling at the wheel. There is also a possibility that lower numbers also lose some set point information which can result in inaccurate representation of position for a split second… Generally, you want to set this to as high as possible to allow for the most unfiltered information to get to the IONI. Most people have found that 1000 - 1500Hz is the best location. Some game titles do require MUCH lower TBW settings (480 - 680) due to noisy or sharp feedback signals being implemented in their system.
NFF - Notch Filter Frequency: (parameter = USER_DEFINED) -
The notch filter/peak filter is a filter that works on a specific frequency point in the feedback range. This can be used for many different purposes but is normally used to remove specific oscillatory feedback. This setting tends to need to be done while in sim to be most effective as it is so specific in what it will actually affect.
NFA - Notch Attenuation: (parameter = USER_DEFINED) -
This setting controls how deep the notch is in the filter set by db. The deeper the notch the wider the frequencies are that are effected and the more dramatically diminished the center HFF designated frequency is. If the number used in this location is positive you are now using a peaking filter (raising the signal frequency), negative numbers are notch and what is normally used with the OSW.
NFQ - Quality Factor: (parameter = USER_DEFINED) -
The quality factor determines how quickly the frequency returns after attenuation. A lower number indicates a slower return to normal around the NFF frequency effectively widening the number of frequencies that are affected by the filters notch.
TED - Dampening Filter: (parameter = USER_DEFINED) -
Dampening within the IONI is designed to limit overshoot that the servo itself is inducing due to velocity of the armature. Increasing the % adds dampening. Think of this setting as a shock absorber for the wheel it will not change the feedback but will slow the resulting effect as it reaches it’s destination. The goal of this setting is to cut out unwanted positional errors due to the servo overshooting the intended positioning causing unintended forces to be delivered to the servo. This overshoot error usually will show up as oscillations of the wheel. In the case of the OSW if you turn the dampening up too far and over dampen the system the steering will feel dull but will also exhibit a peaky rough feeling at times when the feedback system tells the wheel there it needs to be in a certain position and it moves abruptly and stops without a ramp up or down in velocity to give a fluid feel. Over Dampening the wheel basically causes it not to return to the position it is supposed to be at fast enough. This phenomenon comes across in the wheel as ticking and knocking. If you are to over dampen the wheel you normally will not have positional errors. It is normally better feel wise to have a small bit of over dampening in the system. This setting is best used to Dull the feel of the wheel it reduces the feel of everything and can make the wheel feel sluggish.
TEF- Friction Filter: (parameter = USER_DEFINED) -
The friction parameter adds artificial weight to the feel of the OSW. The Friction Filter adds resistance across the entire signal bandwidth. Going too far on this parameter can actually override the forces applied by the software to return a wheel to center. In essence this parameter slows the reaction of the wheel. The best use of the friction filter is to overcome some of the inherent non realistic feeling created by force feedback… The biggest being the rubber band effect… This effect comes from the fact that force feedback for the most part is designed to return the steering wheel to the 0 index no matter what you do and to do that it adds progressive power in the opposite direction that you are turning… The rubber band feeling comes from when you quickly turn in the direction that the force is wanting you to go and then back into the force… When you do this with a high speed system, such as the OSW, that can move the wheel faster than you can turn it yourself, you effectively lose all feeling of force making the return to center overly light. if you weave like this around a constant radius corner you will find that you get this heavy feeling and then no feeling, heavy and then none, like stretching and releasing a rubber band. By adding a friction % you will slow the wheels ability to return to center in a more progressive manner allowing you to turn the wheel back toward center and retain some feeling of force in the return motion. Note, that the higher you set the friction the more friction you will have in both directions of movement so by adding friction you can increase the force required to turn the car to a possibly unacceptable level and as well diminish the speed of wheel return which can affect your ability to catch a slide. This should be adjusted to a level that you feel is realistic. This setting would be best used if you feel the forces of the wheel are correct but the steering feels overly light in nature, by increasing it you are not seriously affecting the way the feedback translates to the wheel but you are adding weight to the steering.
TEI - Inertia Filter: (parameter = USER_DEFINED) -
The inertia parameter helps to correct for an excessively high speed armature (this actually differs from my initial thought and testing on this parameter as I always revisit what I do) Initial thoughts were that this worked as a power steering sort of situation and boosted initial movement signals but further testing indicates that this parameter slows down the initial movement of the servo when it is given a signal. The feeling of Power steering comes in later in the nature of the steering as it has a nature to reduce the weight of the wheel as the speed increases after initial movement. The nature of this filter reduces the roughness of a FFB induced Jolt (i.e. road bump). Too much inertia though will cause the wheel to feel as if the FFB is rolling off as the weight increases at initial movement by the FFB and then drops of as the speed increases. This setting is best used to reduce the severity of wheel kickback over road bumps.
NOTE: some of the effects of the filters being too high or low have been diminished on the latest systems because at the time this was written we could ONLY use 10K encoders (with 40K points) where we are now up to 4.2M point encoders so the application of filtering is MUCH more precise than it once was. This has eliminated a lot of the ticking and knocking feelings described.
This of course doesn’t cover the Recon filter, Static Force Reduction. Or Slew Rate as this guide was prior to the introduction… I haven’t had time with the Slew or Force Reduction (will when I get Joes SC2 up and running). but the Recon filter is an input side filter for smoothness and all of these additional filters com in after that point… I guess TD as a slightly revised Recon Filter than the SC1’s but I don’t have any idea about what it might do differently but I am guessing possibly it is faster to allow higher numbers to be more usable.
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Thanks Brion!
There are many people that are on this forum that are not on iRacing.
And people also need to not use to much of certain settings.
Friction, inertia and dampening all work somewhat together and as we have seen if you set these values too high it can really make the wheel feel like SH*T!!
Baseline profile for every popular sim, meaningful one, not the mess that we have now, would be very useful.
But it should not be based on statistical average of profiles from mostly clueless users.
Not meant as an insult, btw, due to shallow documentation consider myself clueless user as well.
I think it’s posted here as well, or some parts of it.
https://boxthislap.org/simucube-setting-and-tunning-guide/
Agreed.
What could make the collection of info very powerful is if they have smart filters so they could choose a group of people at the same time.
For instance in iRacing as an example.
They could have a group of knowledgeable fast SC2 Pro owners login into a practice session which would mean they all would be in the same car on the same track.
Have them run a bunch of Laps
Then they (GD) could analyze the different settings the drivers were using and make a profile that was maybe an averaged setting of the group.
Then have all drivers set their wheel up with that averaged profile and go back on track. Afterwards it could be discussed within that test group what the optimal settings would be.
I think this could be very good for all of us.
I myself always hated screwing around with a bunch of settings. I was fortunate to have a friend who ran alot of laps practice and races. He would share his settings with me.
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Something I found useful when tuning / testing in SimCommander, was having a toggle switch for each effect; this allows for simply disabling various effects without changing the values. It also makes testing combined effects very easy and helps to clarify what the results are.
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Yes I agree, the toggles are nice.
Only bad thing about Simcommander is there are soooooooo many choices and not very good documentation just like all other software.
Agree with this totally. Look at what Raceroom did recently with their profiles. Set up a specific Simucube default controller profile and people can tweak from there. But it was a decent baseline profile. Maybe they were harvesting data from all the their Simucube users?
Hats off to Joe for sending his SC2 Pro to Brion for testing! Looking forward to your findings Brion!
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Thanks for that!
I figured it was time for Brion to truly experience SC2 instead of just theorizing. LOL
He is really good at putting very technical things into words us mere mortals can understand.
Just be ready for a looooooooong response.
Sorry Brion I could not resist! LOL😁
Only problem is Brion has had it for a month and is to worried about making product to get the thing set up!!! SLACKER!
In all seriousness I am just busting his balls!
He is working on some cool stuff for the simracing community.
And while my wife is still going thru her chemo treatment I really have not had the chance to get my sim room set back up. So the SC2 Has been sitting there for months.
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Very valid points regarding SimCommander Joe. It’s clear that users would like much more documentation regarding what those settings do and the entire tuning scheme can benefit by improved organization, just as any well organized program, article, teaching class, etc.
Having a solid baseline setup to begin with is first. Then guide new users through a few fundamental tuning parameters, leave the advanced stuff for later or those that like to tweak things. Toggles are a nice tool for experimenting and testing because some people will always learn better by “feeling” the difference and when results are better isolated, the effects are more clearly felt.
The entire ffb setup and settings scheme should serve as a sort of “flow-chart” for users to follow and it doesn’t have to be complicated at all. Good organization and effective prioritization are key. When things get a bit too complex, break it down into smaller pieces and the seemingly impossible becomes quite manageable.
BTW, I understand that SimCommander5 is (and has been) under development and they are said to be working on these very things. Also keep in mind that they offer users access to a library of user-created profiles (with ratings) for testing and reference. They also utilize some “wizards” and “Auto-Tune” features (based on game telemetry) which have recently been improved and I’ve heard good things about the results. So there is much that can be done to make things more effective for the average users, as well as beginners without limiting options for advanced users.
I’m definitely one of “those people” that loves what SimCommander offers in terms advanced features but, I do prefer the servo over the stepper-motor. Still, I really miss not having some of those advanced features with the SC1 system. I just have the advanced settings organized in my mind in such a way that tuning has become very easy but, admit that a significant time investment was involved.
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Yes Dean you are correct, the Simcommander software is quite nice.
They have some smart programmers at Simxperience. I think Berney is actually the main programmer( not positive).
The boys at Sim X have a passion for sim racing, and racing in general. I know they have several secret projects in progress. I talk to a couple guys who are connected to Simx from time to time.
You can forget about them telling you any secrets. They have that place locked down like Lockheed Skunk works!! LOL
Yes there hardware is not quite as good as the servo systems, but you can not sell at their price point with same hardware we used for SC1.
Don’t get me wrong the Accuforce is a nice product. I have 2 of them.
Regarding software I think it would be nice if all software provided good documentation. I know the task would just be daunting to explain every little nuance.
It would be nice if Granite could do the toggles or a little check box to enable disable a certain filter.
I think it will be a big mistake if they dumb down the software. If they or us the users can come up with some decent profiles and share them, I think they will not remove settings.
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We actually added template profiles, “decent profiles” and then people are still spamming forums about their own profiles. FFB is very subjective and one can’t please all…
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