First, you have no feedback of lateral or longitudinal G Forces to your inner ear. This "seat feel" or the ability to use G Force feedback to the inner ear is what most real life "fast" drivers have and develop to a high level.
When you are racing in a simulator, your primary feedback is through your eyes and to some extent through your hearing. Let's say you get VISUAL and AUDIO feedback, just like real life.
But, even with a motion seat or motion cockpit that moves around, that "seat feel" is just not there. (More on this in a separate article as there are some refinements that can be made to a motion cockpit that can get close to real seat feel, but many motion cockpits provide so much "noise" that the important G force feedback is lost.)
In real life, I would place the relative importance of feedback as:
Seat Feel (G Forces)
Visual
Audio
So on the typical simulator, you are missing the most important feedback.
The human mind is pretty good at adapting. So, very quickly, one learns to use visual feedback for steering input. (It helps to use settings in the .ini file for DriverRotateHead in the range of 0.75 to 1. IRACING ARTICLE With practice ,this provides a very good visual indication of yaw, allowing an accurate indication of understeering/oversteering and enables the driver to "catch" a slide reasonably well.) Then one uses the sound of the engine as feedback for throttle input.
IRACING allows you to adjust the various audio output to increase tire sound, while decreasing wind noise. On some cars with street tires, the tire squeel is a decent feedback for cornering force. But on cars with slicks, all you hear for tire noise is sort of a whoosh.
There is a great deal of controversy regarding Force Feedback of the steering. I find that you can tell when the front tires loose traction, but generally, I already know that from visual feedback regarding the car's direction compared to my steering input. Some drivers claim to be able to get more out of it, but I remain skeptical.
The most important input of all is braking. Correct braking technique is the key to driving fast on a road course. And here you have very little feedback.
Your first set of pedals are likely to be the potentiometer type where movement determines brake force. Push the pedal more distance and get greater force. IRACING allows you to change the relationship a bit to make it less linear, but there is no force feedback. Some drivers adapt to this quite well and seem to sense the position of their foot. Others find that they need brake force and muscle memory to tell them how much braking input they are introducing. So, the next step for these folks (me included) is to a load cell brake where the force you push is measured rather than the position.
Load cell brakes tend to be a bit too abrupt, so there are all kinds of mechanical tricks applied to provide "feel" by using springs, rubber bumpers etc. in the quest to provide a pedal that has BOTH position and force feedback.
Then, there are those that believe that the only way to simulate a hydraulic braking system is to use a hydraulic braking system, where the force is measured with a pressure transducer. Still, the "feel" boils down again generally to the use of elastomer bumpers or discs that are compressed by the hydraulics.
One unappreciated feedback provided by IRACING is the "UI" or user interface box with a little red bar that rises and falls in proportion to braking input. The default setting for this is quite small and hardly noticeable when driving. But, they provide methods to double the size of the box, with Control Page Up or a 200% setting in graphic "Options".
With the command Alt K, the box can be moved with a mouse to the location of the driver's choice. A side benefit is the box also indicates the transmission gear and provides a green bar for throttle.
So, by enlarging the box and positioning it strategically, it serves almost like a HUD or heads up display and the driver can see the red braking bar rise and fall in his peripheral vision.
All of a sudden, trailbraking and general brake input modulation feedback is not only possible--it is convenient and easy! So is the use of "maintenance" throttle while braking or "rolling thru" a corner.
So, once you enlarge and reposition the UI box, you have good visual feedback for steering, good audio feedback for throttle, and good feedback for braking modulation.
Driving fast is all about using, brakes, throttle and steering in the correct combination with precision timing. (As well as having the car setup to optimize those inputs.) The driver is the "brain" that collects the information (feedback) and with a developed physical coordination makes the appropriate inputs. Improve the quality and speed of feedback to the driver and he will be more precise; he will be better able to judge required changes to the setup; and with practice he will be fast.
On most ovals, the use of the brakes is less important than in road racing, but throttle modulation is often the critical determinant of speed. The enlargement and repositioning of the UI box's green throttle bar provides excellent feedback for that slight amount of throttle release necessary during corner entry as well as on corner exit with a loose set-up.
One last word about feedback---your input and output electronic devices will all suffer to some degree from 'lag" or "delay" between what you do and what the sim sees as well as what you see as feedback. These cannot be eliminated, but they can be minimized.
Mock Racing Article on Lag
The first "lag" is from the ping or milliseconds it takes for the internet to send a round trip signal from you to the sim servers and back--ranges from 50 to 150 milliseconds. The second lag is from the display. A really good one has about 10-15 milliseconds of input lag; a LED TV might have 40-50 milliseconds. Then there is the "refresh rate" that varies from 60hz (16 milliseconds) to 144hz (7 milliseconds.) The third is the frequency that the sim "reads" your input--typically 60 times a second or 16 millisecond intervals. The fourth is the rendering of the GPU--a combination of Frames per Second or FPS as well as "buffering" or "stabilization" or "synching" that creates output lag. Finally the steering wheel typically has input/output lag or latency that varies from a very low 5 milliseconds to up to 30 milliseconds.
Wow, you can see that the driver might actually be responding to visual cues or FFB cues with a lag or delay of 100 to 200 milliseconds. A car moving at 120 mph travels 18 feet in 100 milliseconds! Almost like driving looking out the rear view mirror. Reducing lag will make the driver more competitive.
I am convinced that over time, many drivers adapts to this "alternative reality" by both optimizing their hardware and adapting to the hardware and system so that this lag no matter affects their "normal" lap.
On most ovals, the use of the brakes is less important than in road racing, but throttle modulation is often the critical determinant of speed. The enlargement and repositioning of the UI box's green throttle bar provides excellent feedback for that slight amount of throttle release necessary during corner entry as well as on corner exit with a loose set-up.
One last word about feedback---your input and output electronic devices will all suffer to some degree from 'lag" or "delay" between what you do and what the sim sees as well as what you see as feedback. These cannot be eliminated, but they can be minimized.
Mock Racing Article on Lag
The first "lag" is from the ping or milliseconds it takes for the internet to send a round trip signal from you to the sim servers and back--ranges from 50 to 150 milliseconds. The second lag is from the display. A really good one has about 10-15 milliseconds of input lag; a LED TV might have 40-50 milliseconds. Then there is the "refresh rate" that varies from 60hz (16 milliseconds) to 144hz (7 milliseconds.) The third is the frequency that the sim "reads" your input--typically 60 times a second or 16 millisecond intervals. The fourth is the rendering of the GPU--a combination of Frames per Second or FPS as well as "buffering" or "stabilization" or "synching" that creates output lag. Finally the steering wheel typically has input/output lag or latency that varies from a very low 5 milliseconds to up to 30 milliseconds.
Wow, you can see that the driver might actually be responding to visual cues or FFB cues with a lag or delay of 100 to 200 milliseconds. A car moving at 120 mph travels 18 feet in 100 milliseconds! Almost like driving looking out the rear view mirror. Reducing lag will make the driver more competitive.
I am convinced that over time, many drivers adapts to this "alternative reality" by both optimizing their hardware and adapting to the hardware and system so that this lag no matter affects their "normal" lap.
