I race rFactor, mostly FormulaT, but some others as well. I'm having some real trouble controlling my braking...I can't seem to get anywhere near the threshold...either I have to brake extremely early and just about coast into the turn-in point and through the apex, or I lock up and slide off the track. I've played with suspension setups, but I've come to thinks that maybe what I need is a an adjustment to my controller profiles. I use a Logitech Driving Force Pro, and have made no adjustments to any of the controller settings, either in the system driver, or in the game...I don't understand what most of the settings do, so felt it was better to simply leave them alone...if it ain't broke, don't try to fix it...well, maybe it's time to learn what those settings do...any suggestions/advice/comments?

Thanks,
Dennis

I don't consider myself an expert on this by any means so please take what I say with a large pinch of salt. This is the method that I use, and whilst I'm still yet to get REALLY quick... it's enabled me to get up with the front runners on a couple of ocassions.

I'm pretty sure that to help you find "your spot" you need to have a combination of factors sussed out:

1. The line you are going to take decided and consistent.
2. The braking point picked. You can move it forward as you gain confidence.
3. The Braking efficiency set so that you are comfortable (I tend to run 100% in most cars)
4. The last thing is to fiddle with the brake bias. Personally, I try to set mine so that my front wheels are just about locking up as I enter the slowest corner with the heaviest braking on the circuit. I would suggest that the more advanced guys are tweaking their bias as they go around the lap. Maximising their braking efficiency for each corner.

These are just my suggestions.

Sounds like you need some way to know when your tires are starting to lockup so you will know when to back off the brake pedal. The quickest and easiest way to do that with rFactor is by opening your .PLR file in notepad and increasing the skidding volume:

Vehicle Skidding VolMult="0.0006103520" // was .0001220703

You might want to make that number larger or smaller depending on your sound system...there's also some other sound variables to tweak to clue you into your tire grip.

I don't mess with brake bias after I'm on the track. But, it's something I work on a lot during practice. I look at my braking at the fastest straight. My driving style is such that I don't downshift until I am ready to punch the accelerator...I don't use the gears to slow me down...downshifting makes the rear more prone to slip out under braking.

I adjust the brake bias backward until my rear end is locking up...then I adjust it forward until my front is locking up. There is usually about 4º difference between them...I normally back off from the front about 1º so that if my wheels do lock up then it's the fronts that lockup first. But that is all straight line braking at full 100% pressure. If after I adjust the brake bias my fronts are still locking up right away I back off on pressure...usually stopping at around 85%.

Then I look for corners with trail braking or where there's braking when the road isn't exactly straight. I adjust these corners by determining what pedal input works best...normally it's a full 100% pedal punch then back off to about 50%. The tire skid volume can clue you into how far to back off. And, the last thing you want to do just before a dangerous corner is be twiddling with buttons to adjust bias.

DFP pedals are really sensitive. Set the brake pressure in your car setup so that you can only lock the brakes by pressing the pedal all the way down. Then you can use the full range of brake pedal travel instead of just the first half or so.

Thanks for the advice guys...I'm going to try most of them in one way or the other...the biggest issue I have is being unable to tell when to back off the brakes, so adjusting the skid volume will probably help quite a bit ( wasn't aware that sort of adjustment was available)...and you're right, the DF Pro pedals are really sensitive...I've tried adjusting the brake% for the slowest corner, where I'm going to be hardest on the brakes, and it's worked really well for that corner...but only that corner...I still have trouble wit hthe other corners. I'm wondering if there's a way to reduce the sensitivity of the brake pedal...just a little bit...or change the sensitivity "curve" a bit so that the first half of the pedal travel is more responsive than the second half...basically get about 75% of the braking force applied within the first half of the pedal movement, and then the last 25% gets applied with the last half of the pedal movement...that would reduce the perceived pedal sensitivity, without reducing the amount of work the pedal can do...any thoughts? I'm seriously thinking of getting Todd's instructions on building a three pedal set with a load cell based braking pedal...Using the amount of force you're applying to the pedal to gauge how much force you're applying in-game seems a lot more intuitive than trying to figure out how much force you're applying in-game by gauging how much you've moved the pedal. I just don't want to be one of those guys that goes out and buys the most expensive controller, thinking it will solve his problems, when the problem isn't the controller, but the way it's being used. So I'm hoping to find a solution without going that route.

Dennis

You've sort of explained how the in-game sensitivity sliders work.

A 50% slider sensitivity means a linear response. 50% brake travel equals 50% brake pressure (assuming garage brake-pressure is 100%).

Other that at 50%, it's exponentially shifted, so that 100% sensitivity would apply more braking force earlier than before, 0% less than before. Of course 100% travel is still 100% brake pressure, 0% is 0%, like you mentioned.

I personally find a braking sensitivity from 0 to 25% works best for me. High-powered cars I'll also drop the throttle sensitivity too to make up for my inability to control the power out of corners.

You might alternatively like to calibrate it so that where you think is 50% travel leads to 50% brake pressure.

Thanks for the info..I'll try playing with the sliders and see what happens. I already turned up the skid sounds as suggested and was able to cut almost 2.5 seconds off my time at Toban (reverse)...it's still a ways away from what I can do with anti-lock brakes turned on, but that's a crutch I need to learn to do without...I'm still about 1-3 seconds off the race paces I've seen posted here (depending on the track), so there's certainly room for improvement...

Dennis

Very low brake sensitivity also works best for me. I use around 0-20% for the in-game sliders