Problems controlling most cars using a direct drive wheel (Thrustmaster T598)

[RacerDude]

I've been playing this game for over 100h using a keyboard and I have no problem controlling any car and even winning some races against humans.
Recently I got a Thrustmaster T598 direct drive wheel and found it impossible to control most cars with it.
I tried several recommendations for changing the settings in the game but no luck so far.

With the wheel I have no control over most cars when trying to turn a bit sharper: the cars seem unresponsive, I oversteer and then lose control of the car completely.
It feels like there is a delay in the response of the car which makes it impossible to correct when the car turns too much in any direction.

This is what it looks like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0S27ZjYdr0&t=1260s

The driver in the video above is Jimmy Broadbent who has a lot of experience with hardcore sims (ACC, IRacing) and he has a hard time controlling the car with a wheel.
He even says "I can't keep it straight" while driving at a very modest (for this game) ~160kph (100mph).

In Assetto Corsa and AC Evo I have a much easier time driving the cars with the wheel so I'm thinking it might be something related to FH5.

Any help will be highly appreciated.

[timothy_gammey]

I gave up on using my wheel in FH5 for the same reason. it was impossible to "stay in front of" the car, you always felt like you were continually having to catch up with what the car seemingly decided to do on its own.

[RacerDude]

In the video above, go to
time = 21 minutes
in order to see him losing control.

I tried to post a link that starts playing at t=21m but didn't work.

You can add
&t=21m

to the link above to start playing at the right time.

[ttower]

Being an "Arcade Sim", a wheel is not the strong suit for this game. It was designed to be played on controller primarily. Other games like Assetto Corsa are built for proper sim racing and work much better with a good wheel. I have noticed myself how twitchy the cars can be while driving straight. It feels like there is no weight in the middle, which I think is related to controller joysticks providing no input when going straight. The game does not produce any "feedback" while driving straight which makes it easy for oscillation to happen. Controllers are also able to input steering movements much faster than a wheel, and I feel like Horizon is built on that idea, with tweaks made to work with a wheel, which leads to a lack of control you might expect.

[TheHuskyGT]

Originally posted by ttower:

Being an "Arcade Sim", a wheel is not the strong suit for this game. It was designed to be played on controller primarily. Other games like Assetto Corsa are built for proper sim racing and work much better with a good wheel. I have noticed myself how twitchy the cars can be while driving straight. It feels like there is no weight in the middle, which I think is related to controller joysticks providing no input when going straight. The game does not produce any "feedback" while driving straight which makes it easy for oscillation to happen. Controllers are also able to input steering movements much faster than a wheel, and I feel like Horizon is built on that idea, with tweaks made to work with a wheel, which leads to a lack of control you might expect.

I've played FH3, FH4 and FH5 exclusively with a Logitech and a Thrustmaster wheel. The game is perfectly playable, specially FH5. Wheels have never been a plug-and-play experience, even more if you're a controller player. It takes months to get used to, and even more to master.

[RacerDude]

Thanks for the replies, guys.

After playing more with the wheel settings and comparing the driving experience in FH5 with that of Assetto Corsa and AC Evo,
I'm getting quite convinced that there is problem with FH5's handling of the wheel.

My current guess is that the game
-applies a smoothing algorithm to the controller/keyboard inputs which works well
-it applies a similar smoothing to the wheel inputs which works poorly

The input smoothing works well for the keyboard and controller and makes the driving experience enjoyable.
The keyboard inputs are all or nothing so smoothing is definitely required.
Most of the time, the controller inputs are also "bang/bang" or "end to end" inputs so a similar smoothing works well.

But a wheel doesn't need smoothing or it should only be very slight (to eliminate small noise for example).

If the FH5 devs apply heavy smoothing to the wheel inputs the effects will be very similar to what we're seeing.
It could be perceived as a delay (in my case).

Ttower seems to have a similar idea/perception:

Originally posted by ttower:

Controllers are also able to input steering movements much faster than a wheel, and I feel like Horizon is built on that idea, with tweaks made to work with a wheel, which leads to a lack of control you might expect.

Guess, I'll keep fiddling with the settings, but if my guess is true, it should be corrected by the devs.