Help/Advice badly needed from Thrustmaster TX wheel drivers.

Forza Motorsport Legacy Motorsport FM5 Discussion
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Greetings My Fellow Forza’s,

This thread is me seeking advice from players whom play sim style with the Thrustmaster TX racing wheel.

Several months back I picked up the Playseat Challenge

Thrustmaster TX Wheel, and the heavier version driving rim for the TX. Basically, I have a mini racing rig setup. I haven’t raced in months do to life matters (nothing bad).

Now that I am back, I do worse with the wheel than I did with the controller and I drive every where in real life. I thought that knowledge alone would account for something - it does, but on a very small scale.

Sim Racing, I love it, I want it, I suck at it :frowning:

Here is my dilemma.

The settings on the wheel are fine, I watched Darrin Gangi’s video (From InsideSimRacing YouTube channel) everything setup without a problem and firmware is updated. The video: Forza Motorsport 5 / Thrustmaster TX Wheel Setup Tips by Inside Sim Racing - YouTube

The very first track of career mode. I pass it no problem. The second, which is the top gear with all the stuff littered about, should be easier, since it requires slower navigation - but it’s not. I crash constantly, my curving sucks.

My vehicle is wondeful! @WarChief2013 from here in the forums blessed me with a kit awhile back - handling, braking, acceleration, everything on point. Also, I recently picked up the Forza 5 iOS app which will handle my tuning needs wonderfully in the future - so no problems there.

The issue here is ME

Unfortunately, for the life of me, I can’t figure out the areas where I am messing up so I may correct them. I cannot seem to identify them.

I am a noob to sim racing with mild casual experiences within arcade style racers. Nothing major.

My only serious car racing days were for Super Nintendo when I would play Top Gear all day every day. I was 13-15 then. I am 36 years of age now, so that does not count for much now. Lol. That knowledge I once had is gone.

My personal settings/assists as follows:

Sim Wheel steering

No ABS (maybe I should turn this back on)

Sim Damage

Manual Shift (w/o clutch - waiting till I pick up the gear shifter and clutch pedals to go all the way)

WHEEL SETTINGS:
DOR: 900
FFB: 100

The only assists I recently turned back on was the lane highlighter and I brought the AI down from the hardest difficulty to average. I only did this because the top gear track is literally wiping the floor with me, no idea where I am going, no idea how fast can I go without braking and crashing. The AI on the hardest difficulty leaves me behind forcing me to look for the track path.

So my problems are:

I have no idea why. Usually when I approach a long curve, I tap them, I do not change the current gear I am on. Maybe I should? Usually though, this approach works on the long curves.

Short curves or weird off angle curves like the top gear track (second track in career) I have no idea how or why my braking/shifting is off. When it’s a weird curve I hit the brakes, my car comes to a full stop and all the other cars pass me and my car has to start back up again from zero. Maybe some tracks I should stick to the 3rd gear for the whole race so I won’t have to slow to a screeching halt when anticipating that weird off angle curve.

<Gears/Shifting> I am at a loss even though I understand the basic science. Lower gear accelerates your vehicle to move faster when starting up or coming off of a slowdown juncture. Higher gears get you moving faster when you reach uninterrupted speeds.

However, braking and knowing when to downshift & up shift is severely kicking my ass! I watch many YouTube videos so I have no real excuse as to why I am not applying the principles I’ve learned.

Curves have apex’s within turns. You brake then downshift, then ride the wave, when you hit the apex when coming out of a curve, smash the pedal and shift upwards. Cool, great, however, none of this knowledge activates within my muscle memory while I am in the heat of it all. Concerning indeed to say the least. Especially when @MoneyMan300 preached it so well: Forza 5 (and Forza 6) Tips and Tricks - The Racing Line - Cornering - YouTube

My reason for opening this thread is to see what other wheel drivers have done to get better, hopefully I will come to acknowledge my weaknesses by reading your experiences and maybe learn good racing form techniques along the way that can help me mature better.

  1. What did you acknowledge you were doing wrong?

  2. How did you acknowledge it? (Sometimes replays do not reveal, what you do not know enough of, to see)

  3. How did you fix it when you practiced? (What was your way of ironing out the kinks)

  4. Now at your higher level of understanding do you feel you could you had shortened your learning time by developing certain positive habits during your incubation (noob) stage that could had sharpened your racing style, but you did not acknowledge such nuances at first?

Please share. I went all out for this game. Lol. Right now, I feel disheartened with all my failed attempts at trying to get better. I know practice is needed, and I do practice, but my failing to identify my weaknesses is what prevents me from becoming better. My hopes is that by me reading some experiences on here I will come to an acknowledgement of what they are.

I am trying my damnedest to not develop bad habits and end up being a SirSmile: Forza 5 griefing- no speeding. - YouTube
(Not saying I will be trolling, just crashing)

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For me it was, and has been practice, practice and more practice. I do find I do better with a smaller turning angle. I started on 900 wanting true realism, but soon realised how hard it was to catch the car if I started to lose the the back end, I would always end up in a tank slapper. I dropped the angle to 360* and this improved massively. I have been slowly increasing the angle since. I also had to drop the FFB setting to 50%, I am now at 70% and find that comfortable for me.
Other than that it’s just following simple rules like braking in a straight line. Smoothly on the brakes applying little pressure to start with and increase steadily until the speed has been scrubbed, then let it off just as steadily. Stamping on or off just unsettles the car.
Same with the throttle. Gradually increase pressure. Throttle control is key.
I also have all assists off except breaking line and no clutch.
I hadn’t played FM for about a month prior to the other day and it was like I was back at square one! So consistent practice is best way to keep improving it would seem.
I’ll be interested to see other tips on here as I’m still learning and striving to go faster.
Good luck

1 Like
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One thing I would say right off the bat is there is no shortcut. How long did it take you master controller? Years and years of playing, so you have to realise that you’re not gonna master wheel in a weekend. It takes quite a while. Like months. It’s just a case of practice practice practice. Real life is no comparison either. In a real car you have so many feedback mechanisms you don’t even realise you’re using. Your weight shifting, the cars weight shifting. Feed back from the pedals as well as the wheel. Etc etc. There’s a lot you take for granted in a real car without realising it.
Old games like Top Gear on the Snes (One of my fav games!) were very simple anyway, so it doesn’t matter that you don’t remember it too much. Forza is very in depth compared to those old racing games when it comes to the games physics engine. Especially the new engine in Forza 5 which for me is harder to keep grip. I’d say feathering your brake/gas inputs when you’re playing to start with. Just so you can see the difference. Most people are gas/brake=on/off. You really need to get used to working those controls properly just as you do with steering. When coming out of corners i have a habit of giving it too much juice and sliding. I’m getting better at that, but it’s still a work in progress. I mostly play controller anyway, only go on the wheel at my friends. (Only have a 360 wheel here).
But mostly it’s just down to practice, as i’m sure many others will confirm. Practice, then practice a little bit more, then to be sure, practice for another couple of months, followed by a bit more practice. If that doesn’t work, practice some more!
You can’t expect to master it over a weekend, and that’s what most people forget. You’ll get there, just have a little patience.
As for tunes, be aware that tunes can behave very differently for controller and wheel. Search/ask in the tuning section for some specific wheel tunes if you’re really struggling.

2 Likes
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Thank you fellas,

Absolutely I know it’s practice and more practice! And then more! :slight_smile: I also play Killer Instinct and spend much time in the lab learning the character I main, thus, I am fully aware practice is a must with anything. My issue is not being able to recognize my faults so I may correct them.

Both excellent responses. I appreciate the detail you guys went into describing certain things. One thing I am catching on to by you both making statements is the lightly applying/releasing both brakes & throttle. I think I may have an issue there.

As mentioned by @BBTD MitchyK7 there are no mechanisms like real life in place that appropriate the correct level of awareness. That said, the pedals may seem to be where I will have to figure out via muscle memory the correct levels of pressure. (I wish the pedals for the Thrustmaster TX get such a treatment one day where there tactile responses)

@FormulaFatty I think I may have to tone down that degrees of rotation as well. I think you alerted me to something. I too have it at 900. To my initial understanding, I thought boosting it to that level helped the wheel turn better. By your response, I guess I mistook the information. Degrees of rotation is something else entirely.

I will have to google it and see what exactly does degrees of rotation on a Thrustmaster TX exactly do.

Much appreciated gentleman both insights helped a lot.

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Im on the thrustmaster TX and i followed ISR video for teh wheel also, i find the 540 to be quite a good starter for degree on wheel, in terms of the settings i used exactly his prompts and it works well for me.

As he states you will want to adjust for YOU, as what works for one may not for another.

Now while i think i do pretty swell at staying on trackand and keeping speed, a big factor is knowing the tracks and knowing them well.

If you can remember your bends and speeds, breaking points and accel etc your good to go (with that said).

Struggles for cornering and keeping up with the pack if you find your in last a lot, dont threat your not alone i am also…

But my focus is on getting to grips with the wheel learning to push the cars at a comfortable limit, one thing im at a loss on is how do people have the same car and push them so fast on the corners.

If i try to put my foot down in say aston R class or BMw M3 r class race cars i could be in 3rd gear and still initiate a drift from take off with revs that are low.

So i am forced to be easy on throttle and slower than pack ?

Also a hint with 540 to 900 you might find as i did AWD cars handle a LOT better than with a controller as long as you slow enough at the right points second gear for the most will get you round…

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Thank you for the input sir.

Regarding degrees of rotation, this is one of the things where I am still lost with its concept.

For I have noticed no matter the degree of rotation I adjust the wheel to, the wheel still spins around all the way. Which baffles me, because, in my mind, I am understating degrees of rotation as a point to where you can spin the wheel to, then it stops you from spinning it further? (Am I correct with this understanding)

If not, then what exactly does degrees of rotation accomish? Why does it matter?

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DOR determines how far the wheel moves from lock to lock. At 900 degrees you will be able to turn the wheel 1-1/2 turns to the left and 1-1/2 turns to the right. At 540 you’ll be able to turn the wheel 3/4 turn to the left and 3/4 turn to the right. If you’re on 540 degrees and you can turn the wheel a full turn - there’s something wrong with your wheel.

As others have said - practice, practice, practice. Practice makes perfect.

You seem to know how to find the information you need. You’ve already linked a bunch of good YT videos and, well, you’re here. Now it’s just a matter of putting all this information you gathered into action!

My advice - try out rivals mode. Based on your OP it seems like your biggest problem is struggling to learn the courses. Instead of the 1-3-lap career mode races - try running some rivals events where you’re doing lap after lap in immediate succession. I think you’ll find that this will accelerate your learning. To start - take the car you’re using on that Top Gear track and go run it in Rivals. After a few laps you’ll have the turns down better and I’ll bet you’ll be able to go back and complete the career mode race no problem.

Good luck!

2 Likes
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@crunchy1X

I have not brought the DOR down to 540. The farthest I have brought it down to was 720.

Thanks for the breakdown, extremely informative.

Regarding your advice. I guess, the best thing to do is play all the tracks from career mode in rivals first, Then go into career and play it all the way through.

I honestly did not think about that. Though, I have played rivals several times prior to my hiatus. I badly want to play career, but true, learning the car and tracks is important. Career can wait. Will do.

Thanks again fellas.

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I’m ready to get the TX but the only thing holding me back is having the ability to download the firmware.

I’m on a mac as is the rest of my family and the only windows person I know that I could bother to help me is running windows XP and isn’t interested in upgrading.

My question is it absolutely necessary to install the latest firmware before using the wheel or is it possible to use the wheel out of the box.

I understand that by not installing the latest firmware I’ll be missing some improvements.

If the wheel works right out of the box I could use it until I figure out how to get the firmware.

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Hi guys.

Iv just ordered a tx wheel for the use on my xbox one.

Regarding the firmware does this have to be done via a PC or can I upgrade directly via my xbox? Been a console device you would think this was the case.

I have a full mac household and have not owned a PC in over 10 years - do you know if Thrustmaster are going to deliver mas drivers anytime soon?
If I was however to run Parallels on my mac would this windows set up allow me to update and install to the wheel hassle free? Has anyone else tried this?

I can’t be the only mac user out there with these questions.

Any advice would be a great help to lower stress levels as I wait for my wheel to arrive.

Cheers

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It does work right out the box.

I was playing with the TX without updating since I purchased it back in June. Never once did I notice anything out of the norm - everything worked fine.

Matter fact, I was not able to download the firmware until the day before yesterday because I had forgotten there was a firmware update. Which I still don’t recognize what it did, because the wheel works the same as before the update.

So yea, no worries there. Go ahead and purchase.

I am surprised Thrustmaster does not offer this download in Macs. Very weird of them not to resolve that.