MAJOR steering wheel issues in F1 2017 - updated

[WellyPL]

UPDATE2: I made a video comparing three types of 'wheel recognitions': Controller, Wheel and Steering Wheel. Only the last offers full racing experience and I was able to achieve that by plugging my wheel to my laptop, in which the game apparently recognized the wheel as an actual Steering Wheel, though the game on my PC still can't do this.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K23PdtNm_ig

UPDATE: I've found a potential fix! Not sure if it will work for you, but it works for me fine!
After unplugging and plugging the wheel a couple of times while the game is running, the wheel sometimes gets recognized as a Ferrari 458 Italia Wheel instead of Xbox Controller. If that happens, all the issues I described below are gone and the gameplay is fully enjoyable!

Edit: Well, not quite fully enjoyable as there is still some kind of steering lock limit, when you try to turn more, the driver's hands with the wheel just shake left and right not turning the wheel any further. The issue isn't present with other wheels as far as I am concerned, so the problem is still there.

If you aren't sure if your wheel is detected as an actual wheel, download my custom control scheme from here: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1137616316
Just follow the instructions in the description and don't forget to let me know whether it worked for you or not.

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Hey there, I think we've found a major issue in this game with unsupported wheels which must be fixed as soon as possible.

Long story short, the game detects some wheels as gamepads and though automatically assigns special "pad-like" assists to the steering.

Wheels which we found affected by this issue:
Thrustmaster Ferrari 458 Italia (detected by the game as Xbox Controller) - may be fixed
iSmart Suzuka SW 5050 - fix unknown


Be sure to check comments as well as I post any updates about the issue there.

Basically we found 3 major problems with the steering:

1. Big deadzone (about 15-25 degrees of wheel rotation)
This problem is different for different people, but basically many people have the deadzone which makes the game unplayable. We are sure that it is the game's issue, because it may be fixed in some circumstances. You can see the deadzone in your preset settings in the "Calibration" tab, third slider from the bottom called Steering. Moving the wheel slightly left and right doesn't move the Steering slider.
We found 2 fixes so far, which don't work for everyone (why it doesn't affect everyone with the same wheel is not known).
The first solution is to download a custom scheme made by Snack Miller, available here. You can also try fixing it yourself by changing the default keyboard setup and assigning your wheel buttons to it and saving as a new preset. However it doesn't work for everyone (including me)
The second fix is to make a custom scheme using the default xbox controller scheme and overwriting the buttons as you please but not using any keyboard buttons. This way, after saving it as a new preset and enabling, you will have both keyboard default scheme and your new custom one scheme active, the deadzone should be gone, which you can check in "Calibration" tab, slider "Steering" in the scheme settings. However this fix doesn't work for everyone with the same wheel as well.

We are 97% sure that this is an ingame feature to make driving using pad easier and more predictable, however it shouldn't be active while using a wheel.

2. Low response time
The principle is similar to the first issue, but can't be fixed in any way as far as we are concerned. Turning the wheel quickly makes the wheel ingame follow our movements really lazily/slowly, especially in high speeds. It looks like a feature to also help pad users with steering predictability as pads have much less steering precision and are harder to control the car with in high speed corners, but this "pad assist" is just a killer for wheel users, because the steering isn't responsive (feels like driving a truck or bus, you have to turn into corner way before you normally should as it takes some time for the ingame wheel to turn)

3. Limited steering angle at higher speeds
While turning the wheel a big angle, the wheel ingame seems to have some kind of a limit that you can't pass, depending on the car speed (the faster, the lower the limited angle is). It is especially annoying while correcting oversteer as you can't go opposite lock because the game lets you turn the wheel only about 30-40 degrees (further wheel movement doesn't affect the ingame wheel). It also looks like a pad-assist.
A good analogy would be comparing it to playing using keyboard. As turning with a keyboard is binary (either the button is pressed or not) that would mean that the ingame steering wheel may only be turned either 0 or about 180 degrees in either side making any turn almost impossible to be driven smoothly. Thus the game automatically limits the steering wheel angle to make the car stable according to the speed, and this is exactly what we are experiencing right now with the wheel. It is only more annoying as it also takes some time to turn your wheel to the desired position, so the overall turning angle is way smaller than it should be, let alone you can't turn the wheel as far as you would like to.

Note: None of these issues can be corrected by calibration sliders (saturation, linearity, dead zone) as it probably is hard-coded feature to improve driving performance using gamepads. We are almost certain that this is the game's fault as it reads every steering value in the "Calibration" tab, slider "Steering" correctly and with almost no response time.
Also, none of these issues exist in F1 2015, using exact same wheel and settings. Other people told me that in other games everything works fine for them as well (same wheel).

The simple solution would be to just have an option to disable those "pad assists" at any time, because we believe this is the only issue making the game using our wheels impossible to play.

We would also appreciate if the linearity slider could have negative values as well, because some people can't make the steering more sensitive in any way (especially those with wheels with small maximum turning angles who can't increase the Saturation slider as it would limit already small turning angle limit).

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If you are experiencing any of these issues yourself, please contact me via steam as I am gathering all possible information about these problems in order to give Codemasters good feedback to fix them as soon as possible!

Also don't forget to post your issues with the steering under this topic as well. The more information, the better!

[WellyPL]

Originally posted by Olofmeister:

Issue is very simple to fix. Put yohr steering wheel on Xinput and change the deadzone from 0.2 (20%) tot 0.0 (0%) in your game files. Your steering wheel now has no deadzone. For more info feel free to PM me.

This is the first thing I tried back in September and no, it didn't work ;D

[Fisiek_PL]

WellyPL. Ktoś już rozgryzł jak wyłączyć ten cholerny deadzone? Mam słabą kierownice bo Tracer sierra xd. We wcześniejsze F1 dało się na niej przyjemnie pograć. Kupiłem Dzisiaj 2017 i nie mogę się pozbyć martwej strefy na kierownicy. Próbowałem tych 2 rozwiązań i nie działa. Masz jeszcze jakiś pomysł?

[WellyPL]

Another progress with this case!

Today I plugged my wheel into my laptop and ran F1 2017 on it, and guess what? The wheel was detected as a Steering Wheel and worked just as it should, though never did. No deadzone, no response lag, no steering lock limits and also a bit more sensitive brake and gas pedals.

I have no idea why it just works on my laptop and not my PC. Is it because PC is Windows 7 while laptop is Windows 10? Or is it something else? I still have no idea.

However I did record all three wheel 'recognition types' in action and made a video comparing those characteristics, those are:
1. Steering Wheel (from my laptop) - wheel working as it is supposed to, no pad-like assists etc
2. Wheel (from my PC) - wheel detected as a Wheel, though there is steering lock limit and a tiny response lag along with driver "shaking the wheel" at bigger wheel rotation angles
3. Xbox Controller (from my PC)- wheel basically detected as a gamepad, hard-coded deadzone which can't be turned off, awful response time and steering lock limit, non-linear wheel characteristics (almost no wheel movement at lower angles, super sensitive at higher)

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K23PdtNm_ig

I'd like to remind that both Wheel and Xbox Controller recognitions are totally random with my PC, that is when I unplug and plug the wheel I get one of those randomly.

If you experience similar issues please feel free to describe them here and/or contact me for additional information.

[Snowjix]

I have this exact issue in F1 2018. Using a Thrustmaster T300.
I only have the problem with high speed turning angle. its evident that the game thinks my wheel is a controller as its adding the visual shaking effect on the ingame wheel that you only get with a controller. and ofcourse the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ turning angle controller assist.

When i go into the controller setting my wheel is clearly supported as its showing up in the settings, but it doesnt help much.
frustrating stuff.

EDIT
To be a bit more clear. in the settings my wheel is shown and detected as the exact wheel i have, no sign of it detected as a controller, but the controller assist is still there.

[WellyPL]

Originally posted by Snowjix:

I have this exact issue in F1 2018. Using a Thrustmaster T300.
I only have the problem with high speed turning angle. its evident that the game thinks my wheel is a controller as its adding the visual shaking effect on the ingame wheel that you only get with a controller. and ofcourse the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ turning angle controller assist.

When i go into the controller setting my wheel is clearly supported as its showing up in the settings, but it doesnt help much.
frustrating stuff.

EDIT
To be a bit more clear. in the settings my wheel is shown and detected as the exact wheel i have, no sign of it detected as a controller, but the controller assist is still there.

Yes, the wheel is recognized as itself but still the gamepad-like assists are present. This is what I have after plugging and unplugging the wheel a couple of times on my PC.

It's sad to hear that this issue i still present in F1 2018 though. If you happen to gather any new information about the issue please let me know.

[Tillo]

I have this problem on F1 2018, the steering wheel 458 starts to detect the first movements only after 15 degrees... it is not possible to drive this way..

I know that even the old versions of the game had the same problem, do you know if there is a solution?

deadzone on game setting is to 0 but I think it's not a problem of settings but maybe how the game receives information from the steering wheel

thank you!

[Tillo]

SOLVED!!!

The wheel IS an xbox one controller !!! It just has a different "coat". I found no way to recognize it as a wheel.

The 5th answer is nearly there.

1.: Make a backup of the actionmap file
2.: Open it with notepad
3.: Find & Replace
4.: Replace all 0.2 values to 0.0

[azjarosz]

I know it is an old thread, but now I have f1 2019 and had the same issue with a dead zone. No of the fixes above worked for me but I have found one, that works in both f1 2017 and 2019 (I don't have 2018 so can't say anything about it). So here it is:

1. Go to your game library and right-click on the F1 201x game on the list and choose "Edit steam controller configuration"
2. Click on the "JOYSTICK MOVE / LS CLICK" field just below the controller.
3. On the next screen click "Additional settings" on the right-hand side.
4. Here magic happens. Play with slider "Output anti-dead zone". For me, 0.061 was the magic value.
The dead zone in my Ferarri 458 Italia XBOX version is gone! Try to play with it with your game open on steering setting/calibrations screen so you can see the effect. That's it. I hope that will help you all. Works for me like a charm. :)