Best Wreckfest Settings for Thrustmaster T248

Wreckfest is an arcade racing game first and foremost. While probably best played with a controller, it works quite well with a wheel, though you do need to tweak some settings to get the most out of it.

The default settings for the Thrustmaster T248 make the wheel very heavy and hard to turn. The game plays better if you lower the steering angle and reduce the force feedback strength. Otherwise, you end up fighting the wheel for control of the car much of the time.

Oddly enough, the in-game force feedback setting has no noticeable effect on these wheels. It's either at full strength or nothing at all with no in-between. Thankfully, we can change the FORCE setting on the wheel itself to set the force feedback strength. This works perfectly fine, since the only control available in the game is to change the overall strength.

In this guide, we will look at the settings you need to set on the wheel and in-game to improve the force feedback and correct some button bindings.

Thrustmaster Settings

Wreckfest doesn't provide a good way to change the steering angle or change the strength of the force feedback, so we will have to use the settings on the wheel instead. For the wheel rotation, 540° works very well and matches the on-screen wheel closely.

For the force feedback strength, FORCE at 2 or 3 works very well, depending on the car. Some are noticeably lighter than others, so you will have to change it accordingly.

FORCE at 2 for the heavier cars and 3 for the lighter cars tends to work well. There is a degree of personal preference as well. At 4, it feels like the wheel is maxing out a lot of the time on the heavier cars, so I wouldn't recommend going that high.

FFB at 1 creates a perfectly linear force feedback response, 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 Wreckfest, 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, on the other hand, is used by Wreckfest, adding some weight to the wheel, especially at low speeds.

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

Wreckfest Settings

In Settings > Controls:

By default, the accelerator and brake pedals are reversed, so you will need to correct it by manually binding the pedals. Additionally, to navigate the menus using the buttons on the wheel, you need to bind Generic OK and Cancel, Menu Up, Down, Left, Right, Next and Previous.

In Settings > Advanced:

Force Feedback is supposed to be the strength of all forces and vibrations. On these wheels, this has no noticeable effect. It is either at 0% or 100%. Instead, you have to use the FORCE setting to control the strength of the force feedback.

It's also important to set the Accelerator and Brake Saturation to 100% to use the full range of your pedals.

Conclusion

The force feedback is not the greatest in Wreckfest. Certain events are better than others; the traditional races work quite well, but the demolition derbies are much more difficult. Overall, I prefer playing with a controller, but it's been fun seeing how well I can do with a wheel.

Let me know if you have any comments or questions.