Best Dakar Desert Rally Settings for Thrustmaster T248

Dakar Desert Rally, the sequel to Dakar 18, is a big improvement in many ways. The Dakar rally comes with a steep learning curve, but Dakar Desert Rally makes it possible to ease yourself into the full experience. It has modes that play like a traditional rally game, letting you get used to the unique terminology and navigation methods necessary in the Dakar rally.

It works very well with the Thrustmaster T248. The force feedback is very good, once you get the settings right. The terrain is rough and the vibrations can be completely overwhelming with the default settings.

In this guide, I will show you what you need to set on the wheel and in-game to improve the force feedback.

Thrustmaster Settings

Dakar Desert Rally does have a Soft Lock feature, but it's not very good, so I prefer to set it directly on the wheel.

FORCE at 4 bars with FFB at 1 creates a perfectly linear force feedback response with no clipping, which is the ideal for any racing game.

Rotation and Overall Strength are identical to the ROT and FORCE wheel settings, respectively. Changing it in one place overwrites the other. I recommend changing these on the wheel and ignoring the values in the Thrustmaster Control Panel.

Spring and Damper are not used by Dakar Desert Rally, so can be set to any value without issue. As a general rule, I leave them at 100% since there are some games that require them.

BOOST should always be turned off. For an in-depth look as to why, see my BOOST Force Feedback Analysis.

Dakar Desert Rally Settings

In Options > Controls > Device Configuration > Device Calibration:

Make sure to Calibrate the wheel in the game. This will correctly set the steering angle and bind all the pedal inputs.

In Options > Controls > Device Configuration > Feedback Options:

FFB Strength controls the overall strength of all the forces.

Collision is the vibration when you hit something.

Counter Steering is the main force that you feel. This is very strong and will shake the wheel a lot, so you don't want to set this too high.

Surface vibrates the wheel based on the type of surface the car is on. Grassy areas will feel different than the smooth sand. This needs to be quite low as it is a strong force.

Surface Damping is a simple damping force that is based on the softness of the surface the tires are on. The wheel will be harder to turn on sand than on pavement.

Suspension is the vibration from the suspension of the car. Mostly felt in the large bumps of the terrain.

Wheel Centering Force pulls the wheel to the center when the car is in motion.

Tire Slip vibrates the wheel when the car is sliding. This is an artificial effect, so you may want to turn this off completely based on your personal preference. Setting it too high gets annoying since you feel it every time the car slides.

In Options > Controls > Device Configuration > Input Settings:

Maximum Wheel Rotation needs to be set to the same value as what you set on the wheel.

Steering Sensitivity, Linearity, Deadzone and Saturation are left at their defaults, which makes the steering perfectly linear.

Conclusion

I think Dakar Desert Rally is a big improvement over Dakar 18. The learning curve is much more manageable now, with so many more ways to play the game. You are free to play it more like a traditional racing game and ease yourself into the full Dakar experience over time.

Let me know if you have any comments or questions.