Fanatec Wheel Settings Explained

“Starting with a Fanatec wheel? Wondering ‘How do these settings work?’ Master Fanatec Tuning Menu Settings, rev up your racing experience!”

Sensitivity – SENSIT - SEN

This setting is defaulted to the car when the steering wheel is used for the first time. But what exactly does it mean?

If we want to put it as simply as possible, it sets the sensitivity of the steering wheel to movement. So if we drive a car with a maximum steering wheel rotation of 540 degrees in the game, we have to adjust the steering wheel to 540 degrees in order to get as direct a reaction as possible from the steering wheel itself and match in-game and real-life movements.

Of course you can adjust it to your own personal preference but recommended settings are set to AUTO.

Force Feedback – F.FEEDB. - FFB

Force feedback represents the mechanical resistance you feel when turning the car. In a simple way, we can say that it replicates the feeling that would be obtained in a real car under the same conditions.

It varies from 0%-100%.

Our recommendation would be to set it at 100% and fine tune the feeling in-game for best possible feel.

Force Feedback Scaling - FFS

The only was to explain this settings it the format of the signal your wheel is receiving.

Recommendation is always PEAK.

Natural Damper - (NDP)

The natural damper will give you an additional damper, which you can adjust from 100 to OFF. At 100, you will have the strongest dampening effect, which reacts to the acceleration and angle of your steering. If you turn it OFF, your steering will have no additional damping, making it easy to turn the wheel. The natural damper is a setting which can also help to reduce unwanted wheel oscillation.

Natural Friction - (NFR)

The natural friction setting is used to simulate the mechanical feel of a vehicle’s steering components. The higher the setting, the more resistance you will feel when rotating the wheel. This can enhance the feeling if driving vehicles without power steering, or with very wide tires. This setting can also help to prevent oscillation.

Natural Inertia - (NIN)

This setting simulates additional weight on the steering axis. It can be useful when using lighter wheels like the P1 or McLaren GT3. The Natural Inertia can also affect the Natural Friction (NFR) setting from feeling less ‘sticky’ on direction changes.

Force Feedback Interpolation (INT)

Force Feedback Interpolation “INT” filters and smoothens the incoming rough game FFB signal and increases the refresh rate. For example, some games use a 60Hz FFB signal, which can feel very rough and noisy, but this can be fixed with the Force Feedback Interpolation. By increasing the value, you reduce the rough feeling and increase the smoothness of the signal. You can set the value to OFF, meaning that you will get unfiltered raw force feedback signal. To enable the interpolation, the value must be set from 1 to 20.

Shock - SHO (default = 100)

This function represents the power of the shock/vibration motors inside the Fanatec® controller, which can be adjusted from 100% – 0% (OFF) in 10% steps. These vibration motors can be directly used by the game or the BLI function (ABS in older drivers).

Force (FOR), Spring (SPR), Damper (DPR) effects

We have to look at these settings from the side so that they act complementary to each other. Thus, they complement the overall comfort that we get through the steering wheel.

Force (FOR)

It pushes the steering wheel in a certain direction. It is recommended to keep it at 100% and adjust other settings in-game.

Spring (SPR)

It gives the steering wheel a return to its initial position, just like a real spring. My personal recommendation is to go with 10-30 range. In the most recent update you won’t find the real benefit of SPRING settings.

Damper (DPR)

The simplest explanation would be that it creates friction. I always try to minimize this setting but also have some friction to feel the car a bit better.

Brake Force - BRF

This setting will allow you to adjust the sensitivity of your load cell brake pedal. If the BRF is set to 100 or MAX, then it will require the user to press the brake with maximum force in order to achieve 100% of the braking signal. Reducing the BRF to MIN will allow the user to achieve 100% of the braking signal with minimum effort. You can check the brake signal level in the driver (on your PC) or you can see it on the attached steering wheel LEDs (depending on the steering wheel type).

Brake Level Indicator – BLI

This feedback is only available on some pedals that have a small vibration motor in the pedals, such as the V3 pedals. A setting that has an extremely large impact on performance as it helps to get a feel for a certain degree of braking. For example, if we set it to 50%, we will get a vibration when reaching the braking level of 50%. My personal recommendation is to set it to 50%.