Best NASCAR '15 Victory Edition Settings for Thrustmaster T248
NASCAR '15 Victory Edition plays well with a wheel and pedals, but it does take some getting used to. It models the fact that these cars are built primarily to turn left, so much so that you have to turn right to make the car drive in a straight line. This fact alone surprises a lot of people and makes the game feel strange if you're not expecting it.
For the Thrustmaster T248, there are some awkward default steering settings that make the game unnecessarily hard to control, feeling as if your wheel isn't working properly. Happily, all it takes is some pretty small adjustments to make it feel more natural.
In this guide, I will show how to correct these issues by setting the proper values in-game, on the wheel and in the Thrustmaster Control Panel, when playing on PC.
Thrustmaster Settings
NASCAR '15 Victory Edition doesn't have a way to set the steering angle in-game, so we will set it directly on the wheel. These cars have a very small steering angle, usually about 270°, so that is what I use. The steering animation won't line up with the actual wheel inputs, but it still feels better.
| On-Wheel Setting | Value |
|---|---|
| ROT | 270° |
| FORCE | 4 |
| FFB | 1 |
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.
| TM Control Panel Setting | Value |
|---|---|
| Rotation | 270° |
| Overall Strength of all forces | 65% |
| Constant | 100% |
| Periodic | 100% |
| Spring | 100% |
| Damper | 100% |
| BOOST | Off |
| Auto-Center | by the 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 NASCAR '15 Victory Edition, so the value actually doesn't matter. Some games require these to be on for their force feedback to work, so I keep them at 100% as a general rule.
BOOST should always be turned off. For an in-depth look as to why, see my BOOST Force Feedback Analysis.
NASCAR '15 Victory Edition Settings
In Options > Controls > Driving Controls:
The first time you open the settings, make sure to center the wheel when it asks you to. It uses this calibration to set the center point of the wheel.
Unusually for a game like this, when I opened the game for the first time, I had to manually bind all of the controls. Take care when binding the pedals to also calibrate them properly when prompted.
In Options > Controls > Advanced Settings:
| Setting | Value |
|---|---|
| Force Feedback | 65% |
| Road Feedback Strength | 25% |
| Vibration | 0% |
| Steering Deadzone | 0% |
| Steering Sensitivity | 10% |
| Steering Linearity | 50% |
Force Feedback controls all the main forces you feel in the wheel. This includes tire grip, bumps in the track and collisions.
Road Feedback Strength controls the vibrations you feel when you drive over grass or kerbs. These are very strong, so need to be turned down a lot.
Vibration has no effect, as far as I can tell.
Steering Sensitivity makes the wheel a little less sensitive when it is centered. Setting this too high will create a large range in the center of the wheel where your inputs have very little effect.
Steering Linearity is set to make a neutral steering input. Raising this too high will make the wheel input accelerate towards the far ends of the wheel range.
Conclusion
Even with these settings, I still find the steering a little strange. It might be because I'm more used to the less realistic physics of the NASCAR Heat games or that the steering animation doesn't match the actual steering input. Whatever the case, after spending enough time with it, I've gotten used to it. Admittedly, I'm not an expert at NASCAR racing, but it's still good fun, even if I'm not the greatest at it.
Let me know if you have any comments or questions.