Best F1 2019 Settings for Thrustmaster T248

F1 2019, like its predecessors, plays great with a wheel, but has terrible default settings. For the Thrustmaster T248, the steering angle is completely wrong for an F1 car and the force feedback is too strong, making the wheel too heavy and lifeless.

When you are trying to push the limits of grip, you need as much information as you can get through the wheel. A wheel that just feels heavy isn't giving much useful information. In this guide, we will look at the settings you need to set in-game, on the wheel and in the Thrustmaster Control Panel, when playing on PC, to improve the force feedback.

Thrustmaster Settings

The first thing that needs to be fixed is the steering angle. By default, F1 2019 uses the full rotation of your wheel, which is far too much for an F1 car. The steering angle should be 360°, meaning you can turn it 180° to the left and 180° to the right.

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 is not used by F1 2019, so the value actually doesn't matter. Some games require Spring to be on for their force feedback to work, so I keep it at 100% as a general rule.

Damper is used for the in-game Wheel Damper setting. This adds weight to the wheel when the car is moving slowly. Without this, the wheel feels very light in slow corners, which is quite unnatural. Since it is commonly suggested to set Damper to 0, make sure this is on.

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

F1 2019 Settings

The T248 is recognized by F1 2019 as the TS-PC F1 Advanced. The T248 was designed this way to allow for compatibility with older games. All the button bindings work fine like this.

In Game Options > Settings > Controls, Vibration & Force Feedback > Thrustmaster T248 > Calibration:

You can raise the Steering Linearity to make the wheel slightly less sensitive when the wheel is centered, but this is up to personal preference.

In Game Options > Settings > Controls, Vibration & Force Feedback > Thrustmaster T248 > Vibration & Force Feedback:

Vibration & Force Feedback Strength is the overall strength of the force feedback. Raising it too much starts to overwhelm the wheel, making the wheel feel heavy and lifeless. This also scales the vibration effects, so if you change this too much, you will have to raise or lower the vibration effects to compensate.

On Track Effects is the vibrations felt based on the track surface. This is a strong effect, so this needs to be kept quite low. This can vary a little by track.

Rumblestrip Effects is the vibration felt when running over a kerb. This is fairly light, so needs to be a little stronger than the other vibration effects.

Off Track Effects is the vibration felt when you leave the track. This is fairly strong. Raising this too high will make the wheel quite violent if you go off the track.

Wheel Damper gives weight to the wheel when the car is slow. This is most notable in slow-speed corners. Without this, the wheel goes weightless, which feels strange. Even a small amount of damper gives enough weight to feel more natural, without being too strong.

Understeer Enhance drastically lightens the wheel when you start to understeer. I find this more distracting than anything. The wheel lightens so much when you start to understeer that it feels more like the wheel is broken rather than something that is happening to the car.

Conclusion

Once you get the steering angle set and the force feedback turned down, the game feels really good on these wheels. If you have a VR headset, you may be interested to know that F1 2019 works surprisingly well in VR using VorpX.

Let me know if you have any questions or comments.