My new Forza 4 wheel, pedals, setup updates, and complete review on Forza cars handling

1) added one more shacker under the seat, now I have one on each side. I can feel both left and right side of bumping on the road...eng sound and vibrations are better. I feel far more realistic at every gear and RPM level...

2) added two transducers powered by a cheap digital amp mounted on both sides of my seat frame to pick high pich sounds from eng and trans....

3) added "suspsion", homemade (HomeDeport) ..much better now! This feature is huge plus. Since both Xbox360 (Forza) and PSs (GT5) do not offer open interfaces of g-forces so making a 2DoF or 3DoF motion seat is impossible. This simple feature is cheap, but makes a huge difference.

4) added a 10" sub-woofer on the back, great eng and exhaustsystem sounds!

5) replaced MS wheel and pedal with Fanatec Porsche 911 turbo S wheel and Clubsport Pedals and gear shifter. The feedback force, ABS, and rotational senstivty of the wheel can be adjusted. I set to 540 degree of rotational although it can go up to 900 degree. The ABS vibration on the wheel and brake petal is great! The pedals' pressure can be adjusted too!

9/24/2011 updates:
Added two floor stand speakers and a Tube amp DV-6C from: http://Dared.us

Here are demos for Forza 4:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XI2UT1Xfefw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gntulBeVZF0

Here are demos, I raced against real ones:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsDacxYHrv4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=na8_9tsqOc4

Here are demos, racing against gamers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J11zINH3bVM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m3S3FwUkwM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhLeOtFDBhQ

In terms of handling for Forza 3 and 4 cars, my conclusion would be:
Forza cars' handling is still questionable. A car handling characteristics commonly consist of Instability, Response, Understeer and Oversteer.

• The Instability refers to Straight line driving instability under 4 aspects: general, under hard acceleration, over bumps, and under brakes. I found in general most Foza cars at high speed are a little too easy to drift and at a moment of launching (hard acceleration) it is a little hard to steer in line, but I would say FM4 improved a lot in comparing with FM3, though. See FM3 I had: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0poS9wNDIl0

• The unresponsive usually means a car feels generally heavy and unresponsive or sloppy and too slow to take a set in corners or rolls a lot or feels responds too quickly with little feel and slides. I found many of Forza 3 cars are somewhat a little unresponsive. Typical examples are the Bugatti and Audio R8 in Forza 3. See:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTpDmPamCnA
This could be biased due to the fact that my setup is lack of g-force feel. It seems Forza 4 physics is better. I tested a few cars so far, all works well.

• The Understeer usually refers to a case of Corner entry understeering such as: car would not point in and gets progressively worse or initially point in and then washes out or point in but then wave and dart. This is biggest short come of Forza 3. Driving with a wheel (not with a controller), I feel almost all the cars are somewhat easily understeering at a relatively low entry speed. See example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDT_dmsy4gc
I think this is a major problem. From the Nurburgring lap run, this is a main reason I lost lap time (in comparison with real life run in the track). The conclusion is not just from that run. I did many tests on different cars and tracks. The conclusion is consistent. I indeed did a set of tests for some production super cars:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5_eoFsJdqY
However, such claim might be purely due to the fact that I am using a system that is totally lack of g-force so I have to drive by watching on the speedometer instead of physical feeling. Therefore, maybe not fair to blame "physics" of Forza. if I had enough trained the way driving Forza cars, I will overcome this, but surely will be totally different experience from diving real cars.I have tested a few Forza 4 cars now, they run better.

• The Oversteer usually refers to a case of Corner exit oversteering such as: progressively gets worse or suddenly oversteering and then breaks loose or spin off. Forza cars are pretty good in line from oversteer prospect. See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJiBmm5pUDM

Forza Eng sound is good enough, but NOT close to the real eng sound. FM4 engine sound is lack of inner details:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o18a4VMUtvg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XI2UT1Xfefw

The eng vibration at diff RPM and gear level and road bumping on both sides feel just right too. My seat base was mounted with two shakers (left and right) powered by two sub amps. Forza 4 also improved on visual that I can see my car shaking on screen, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yYQw75JH1w

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Forza
• Forza 3
• Forza 4 setup
• Forza 3 screens
• forza multi screens
• multi-screen
• triplescreen
• racing
• car race
• Fanatec
• playseat
• Dared audio
• GT5
• xbox 360
• xbox360
• china century
• xbox wheel
• 21st century
• Ferrari
• porsche
• audi
• China top cities
• Chinese best cities
• Forza 4 vs GT5
• simrace
• superpower
• China's revival
• fanatec
• Kinect
• porsche fanatec
• logitech G27
• Racing Simulator

[GunsandRacing]

@jpzhouutube why do people do all these modifications to their computer game steering wheels, when you could just get one and save yourself loads bucks, without doing stuff to it which isn't really necessary. go and spend your money on something that is actually useful.

[jpzhouutube]

@GunsandRacing Cost of the setup is less than one of Ferrari's tires/wheels. Not every one can afford a Ferrari or Porseche, etc. Your question is fair but not understood well. Are you saying I shall get a regular car? I have many of cars, why I need another one? Here is analogy may answer your question: why do poeple play Ping-Pong (table tennis) on the table instead of playing Tennis on the ground?

[SimD777]

another thing. how do you heel-toe with that bar in between your legs? I do a lot of heel-toe and switching left foot braking. That bar would rack my shins.

[jpzhouutube]

@SimD777 doing heel-toe is OK, but left-foot braking seems bother me by this mid bar, but still can-do.

[SimD777]

Sounds like you are still learning how to setup suspension. You can apply real world suspension configuration and get 90% true results (10% for weather, turrain, etc) I built my own sim racing/drifting/rallying cabinet modifying the Microsoft Xbox Wheel to have a handbrake, clutch, and seq shifter.

also how is it that your talking about forza 4 and you posted this video in Dec29th 2010?

[jpzhouutube]

@SimD777 Can you shed some lights on your "You can apply real world suspension configuration and get 90% true results (10% for weather, turrain, etc)" or do you have video showing how....? very interesting, though. thanks

[danoconnellw]

What do you drive in real life?

[Chuckq1]

no hand-break?

[itsChaldean]

i wanna make fun of you for having no life, but i just cant... this is so sick

[Mightytiger123]

3 xboxs no life

[MrDJC2468]

@GunsandRacing probably because they enjoy. Thats kinda obviouse dont ya think

[billlsammm]

mate u only need one xbox to play the game

[879blank]

for real wheres the handbreak bro

[Puzzoozoo]

Impressive.

[machinimareflex]

you know if he brought a girl in their and she saw that her next step would be out the door... lol

[cgymafia]

U need a seperate lisence for that too?!?!? Lol amazing set up