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How to deal with trouble.

CONTROLLERS

NOTE: If you're still using v0.5.0, either upgrade (highly recommended) or take a look at an older controller setup document.

To use your controller, the later (beta) versions have a built-in controller setup screen. Just select 'Setup' and then 'Controls'. There, click on a control of your choice and type a key, click a button or move an axis of your choice to define the control. After all controls have been defined to your satisfaction, click 'Save'.

AVOIDING LEFT/RIGHT SWINGING OF FORCE-FEEDBACK WHEELS AT HIGH SPEED

Often, at high speed, steering wheels can go and swing back & forth on their own. This is due to delays in force feedback to the wheel. There are a few variables to deal with this, which are already set to counter this, but can be tuned. Check racer.ini:

• controls.center_squeeze (try 10); On-center reduction of oscilattion (shimmy). Reduces steering wheel back and forth motion at higher speeds. The idea is to cut down force near zero steering. The higher the number, the smaller the steering range where force is reduced. Values ranging roughly from 1 to 20.
• controls.center_minfactor (try 0.4); Center minfactor; makes sure that at zero steering, there is still some force left. Mathematically, Mz will not be reduced further than the original Mz times center_minfactor.
• controls.center_velocity_threshold (try 50); Minimal car velocity before on-center reduction becomes active (m/s).

USING A DIRECT SHIFTER

RS Labs (RS Shifter) and Logitech (the G25 wheel) have created gearbox shifters with which you can directly shift to any gear. Racer supports these, but not through the control setup screen yet; use the following procedure:

• Setup your controllers as usual (select Setup, then Controls from the menu). Make sure to use Advanced mode so you can see and define the Shift_1 etc controls.
• Exit Racer.
• Find the file data/controls/default.ini and open it (with Notepad or Wordpad for example).
• Set global.free_shifting to 1.
• Close the file and restart Racer.

HARDCORE CONTROL EDITING

While racing, press Ctrl-4 to get a list of controls and their raw and processed values. Raw is what is coming from the controllers, and the processed value displays the value after linearity/negate and such have been applied. With this list it is possible to check whether your controls seem to be working ok.

The control definition can be found in data/controls/default.ini (actually, the file used is specified in racer.ini's ini.controls). Here, you can find the results of the controller setup screen.

MAC/APPLE JOYSTICKS AND WHEELS

For the Mac, you'll need to find out the product and vendor id's from your wheel. Hopefully it behaves like a HID device, in which case you might get it to work. There's a section in the older document on how to use Mac wheels and joystick with Racer.

(last updated November 13, 2012 )