Steering Effects

Screenshot

Overview

The steering effects feature adds some force feedback effects to your wheel, to alert you whenever your car is approaching an understeer or an oversteer condition. The use of this feature requires some careful configuration to get it working correctly.

Please read the section near the bottom of this page titled “Configuration and Tuning” for the all-important configuration details!

The understeer effect works very well in wet weather conditions – give it a try in the rain!

The oversteer effect works very well on dirt oval tracks.

Enable and Disable

The steering effects tab has a checkbox in the tab header to turn on and off this feature. Be aware that if the force feedback feature is turned off, then the steering effects feature will naturally be disabled as well.

Understeer vs. Oversteer

The steering effects are split into two distinct sections. One for understeer, and one for oversteer. Understeer is when you turn your wheel, and the car turns less than expected (or wants to go straight). This is the result of the front tires not having enough grip. Oversteer is when you turn your wheel, and the car wants to turn more than you intended (or spin out). This is the result of the rear tires not having enough grip.

You can have completely different effect settings for understeer and for oversteer. For example, you can have the wheel vibrate when the car understeers, and the wheel steadily pushing against you (go heavy) when the car oversteers.

Some effect controls work the same way for understeer and oversteer.

Common Effect Controls

Fx Style

There are a few styles to choose from.

  • Sine Wave Buzz
  • Sawtooth Wave Buzz
  • Reduce Force
  • Increase Force

Each effect has a distinct feel. Choose the one that feels best to you.

Both the sine wave buzz and the sawtooth wave buzz effects are oscillating effects. The reduce force effect reduces forces on your wheel (makes it go light), and the increase force effect pushes back against you (makes it go heavy).

Fx Strength

This controls the strength of the selected effect. These are my recommendations:

  • Sine Wave Buzz – 10% Fx Strength
  • Sawtooth Wave Buzz – At least 25% Fx Strength
  • Reduce Force – 25% to 50% Fx Strength
  • Increase Force – At least 30% Fx Strength

A note about the reduce force effect: 50% means to make the wheel go half-slack. 100% means to make the wheel go fully slack.

Fx Curve

You can control the curve of the effect. The curve is how slowly or how quickly the effect ramps up. The curve number is basically the exponent value. Below you can see how the different values look when the curve is drawn.

Curve = 0.5 (effect ramps in quickly)
Curve = 1.0 (effect is linear)
Curve = 2.0 (effect ramps in slowly)

Understeer Effect

YR Factors

You need to set the correct YR (short for Yaw Rate) factors for the car you are driving, for MAIRA to accurately determine how close the car is to an understeer condition. These factors will be different for each car you drive.

Nerd info: The YR Factor is calculated as SteeringAngle x CarSpeed / YawRate

There are two separate yaw rate factor settings, one for when your car is turning left, and one for when your car is turning right. This is because some cars (mainly oval cars) may behave differently turning left and turning right due to different tire pressures on the left and right sides of the car, caster / camber, suspension settings, and so on.

There are two numbers to set for the left turning yaw rate factors, and two numbers to set for the right turning yaw rate factors. The two numbers form a range, and can be thought of as the “starting” and the “ending” yaw rate factors. While you are driving around, whenever the calculated yaw rate factor is within this range, that is when you would feel the steering effect.

Oversteer Effect

Y Velocity

You need to set the correct Y velocity range for the car you are driving, for MAIRA to accurately determine how close the car is to an oversteer condition. This Y velocity range can be different for each car you drive.

Nerd info: The Y velocity is given directly by iRacing telemetry, and is a measure of how fast your car is moving sideways.

There are two numbers to set for the Y velocity, and these numbers form a range. The numbers can be thought of as the “starting” and “ending” Y velocity. While you are driving around, whenever the Y velocity of the car is within this range, that is when you would feel the steering effect.

For example, if you set the Y velocity range to be from 2 m/s to 6 m/s, what this means is that the oversteer effect would start at 0% when your car is moving sideways at 2 m/s and ramp up to 100% when your car is moving sideways at 6 m/s.

Softness

The softness is how much to fade the effect when you are counter-steering into the direction the car is sliding. The default of 90 degrees means to fade the effect completely out when your steering wheel is 90 degrees turned into the slide. So if you have this set to 90 degrees, and your steering wheel is turned 45 degrees into the slide, the effect will be at half-strength.

Button Mappings

Understeer Effect Auto-Set [U]

Mapping the understeer effect auto-set button makes it easy to set the YR Factor L and YR Factor R values while you are driving, without having to take your eyes off the road. If you press this button while you are turning left, the YR Factor L values are set. If you press it while you are turning right, the YR Factor R values are set.

Configuration and Tuning (Dirt Cars)

This is a special section about configuring the steering effect for dirt cars. Dirt cars are very easy to set up – all you need to do is to configure the oversteer effect as follows:

  1. Set the understeer Fx Strength to 0% (you don’t want to use the understeer effect for dirt cars)
  2. Set the oversteer effect Y velocity starting value to 0 m/s
  3. Set the oversteer effect Y velocity ending value to 10 m/s
  4. Set the Fx Style to increase force
  5. Set the Fx Strength to approximately 30%
  6. Set the Fx Curve to 1.5

That’s pretty much it, these are good starting values for any dirt car. When you drive around the dirt track, you might want to tune this effect by adjusting the Y velocity values and Fx Strength. You may also want to increase the softness.

Configuration and Tuning (Asphalt Cars)

Here are some instructions to get the steering effects properly set up and working well for your car. You might want to have the understeer effect auto-set control mapped to buttons on your wheel or on your button box before you begin.

Important – Make sure the steering effects are turned off! To turn off the steering effects, you can either disable the checkbox in the steering effects tab header, or set both of the Fx Strength sliders to 0.

For the oversteer effect, just:

  1. Set the oversteer effect range ending value to 8 m/s
  2. Set the oversteer effect range starting value to 3 m/s

Now, follow these steps to calibrate the understeer effect:

  1. Run the iRacing UI, and click on the “Test Drive” button
  2. Select the car you want to set up the steering effects for
  3. Select the Centripetal Circuit track
  4. Launch the iRacing simulator by clicking on the Test Drive button
  5. Wait for the iRacing simulator to load
  6. Click on the “Test” button to hop into the car and get on the track
  7. Turn on the ignition and start the car, and shift into gear
  8. Drive out to the 100 meter line and start following it, turning left
  9. Stay exactly on the 100 meter line while very slowly accelerating, shifting gears as necessary
  10. The moment the car starts to understeer, press the understeer effect auto-set button
  11. Now, turn the car around and drive in the other direction, repeating steps 8 to 10, but while turning the car to the right this time

And finally turn on the steering effects:

  1. Enable the steering effects by putting a checkmark inside the checkbox in the steering effect tab header.
  2. Set both of the Fx Styles to the sine wave buzz option
  3. Set both of the Fx Strength sliders to 10%
  4. Set both of the Curve sliders to 1.0
  5. Now drive around the centripetal circuit, and you’ll notice a new force feedback sensation come alive whenever your car is approaching the understeer condition or the oversteer condition.

Dialing in the steering effects:

While driving around, try to gradually force your car into either an oversteer or understeer condition.

Understeer

  1. If you feel the understeer steering effect is coming in too late:
    • Lower the starting YR factor value
  2. If you feel the understeer steering effect is coming in too early:
    • Raise the starting YR factor value
  3. If you feel the understeer steering effect ramps up too slowly proportionally to the amount the car is sliding:
    • Lower the ending YR factor value
  4. If you feel the understeer steering effect ramps up too quickly proportionally to the amount the car is sliding:
    • Raise the ending YR factor value

Oversteer

  1. If you feel the oversteer steering effect is coming in too late:
    • Lower the starting Y velocity value
  2. If you feel the oversteer steering effect is coming in too early:
    • Raise the starting Y velocity value
  3. If you feel the oversteer steering effect ramps up too slowly proportionally to the amount the car is sliding:
    • Lower the ending Y velocity value
  4. If you feel the oversteer steering effect ramps up too quickly proportionally to the amount the car is sliding:
    • Raise the ending Y velocity value

Once the effects are dialed in, you can now:

  1. Switch the Fx Style to the one you actually want to use.
    • Many people choose “reduce force” for the understeer effect. I personally prefer sine wave buzz.
    • Most people choose “increase force” for the oversteer effect. I do too.

Skid Pad

The skid pad tab give you information that can be very useful when configuring and tuning the steering effects.

The Y velocity value and yaw rate (YR) factor value are available here, and are updated in real time while you are driving your car. You can watch these numbers to get an idea of what the Y velocity and yaw rate ranges should be.

There are also two graphs at the bottom – they show how strong the oversteer and understeer steering effects being sent to your wheel are. When the red ball is at the bottom of the graph, the effect is at 0%. When the red ball rises to the top of the graph, the effect is at 100%. Also, at the bottom of the graphs are the numbers that you have set up in the steering effects tab.

Next: LFE ⮕ FFB