Setting up Your Wheel

Updated on 28 April 2021 (changed the FFB guide link to the latest one and removed one dead link)


In principle, RBR should detect any wheel you throw at it as long as you have installed DirectX End-User Runtimes (June2010). This is also the primary solution when FFB is/goes missing*. (Note that directx_Jun2010_redist.exe as such doesn't install the DirectX files, it only extracts the installer files to the location of your choice. The actual installation then begins by running DXSETUP.exe.)

* Now, with certain steering wheels (such as AccuForce Pro) FFB problems may persist even after installing the DirectX pack, in which case you can try running Microsoft DirectX Diagnostic Tool (type dxdiag in the Windows search box) and see if it knows any better. If it doesn't, as a last resort you may have to edit the registry like one RBR VIP demonstrates in this clip.




Outside RBR


  • Delete the file PC_inputfilter.ini. The single most important thing that you must do, regardless of the wheel.

  • Open RichardBurnsRally.ini and delete its line "ConstantForceMultiplier = -60". Yes, we're aware that it's not really necessary but just think of the placebo effect, it's amazing.

  • In your wheel settings, make sure that combined brake and throttle pedals are disabled.

  • If you need to invert any of the controls, you can do that by opening input.ini (located in the game directory, remove its read-only flag in file properties) and editing the lines you want from false → true.



Inside RBR

Options Controls → Controller Setup:
Remove any existing controls from "Acceleration and Brake"

Note! With some (usually high-end) steering wheels, assigning steering itself (when the wheel is otherwise detected) can be rather onerous task, and that is because you have to turn the wheel very fast lock-to-lock to get any reaction out of the game. So to make this easier, the workaround here is to simply lower your wheel's rotation degrees temporarily to something silly like 180 or even less. Works every time.

Gear Up/Down (Secondary) replacing the vanilla keyboard controls of Left/Right once steering is assigned is a feature of NGPCarMenu plugin. This allows you to have paddle shifts and sequential gear stick (if available) assigned at the same time.

As you can see, the NGP plugin enhances the Controller Setup with its own direct gear mapping (Reverse – Sixth Gear, a feature only available for NGP cars) and this should satisfy most users (more info in ReadMe.PhysicsNG.txt). However, if you're looking for a functionality where one is forced to use the clutch to shift (like some are), then you'll need to install a separate H-Shifter 3.0 plugin (by Racer_S) and use it instead.



Options → Controls → Force Feedback:
Turn off Autocenter Wheel
(It's pointless at best. You don't have to agree, of course, as long as you don't mistake this for "Self-aligning torque", nothing to do with that)



Options Controls → Filter Settings → Steering → Axis:
Turn off both Maximum Fade and Saturation Speed

About Filter Settings in general: Unlike in some newer games, within RBR you can't add deadzone to your pedals, let alone make a joystick handbrake ignore half of the axis, so you'd very much require some external solutions (like DXTweak or DIView). Actually, you can read more about setting up your joystick as handbrake from sptp's tutorial.



Options → Gears: Turning off Neutral Lock and Gear Protection is highly recommended
(RBR explains both of those settings to you)




Finetuning Force Feedback


Recently, TerrorSnow (or just plain Snow) have gone to painful lengths to test and understand the ins and outs of FFB sensitivity settings provided by the NGP plugin and have written some of the best guides ever seen on the subject but here are his updated views (April 2021) on the matter.