Thrustmaster TS-PC / TS-XW Assetto Corsa Settings

From time to time I race some laps in Assetto Corsa. Now with an OSW is not an issue to look for a good FFB configuration but in the past, with commercial belt-driven devices, there was a big void space where anyone could lost his/her mind before finding some good setting that fitted well enough. Kunos staff was kind enough to share their Thrustmaster settings to allow everybody to get the maximum output from the game and the hardware.

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I’m trying the latest Thrustmaster TS-PC wheel, so I spent many hours to find the best settings that can suit all kind of cars in AC.
No need to add my personal review about the wheel, you can find them on the net, I can only confirm that it is more powerful of a T300 (almost a 20-30% globally) and – most important – provides a more consistent and linear FFB all over the range than previous TM wheels and Fanatec CSW. Of course, it’s ten steps ahead of G25/G7/G29 wheels talking about feedback details and strenght.

The following settings should be also good for T300-T500 wheels, with probably some little differences in the DAMPER_MIN_LEVEL value. Please try them, hope they will suit your needs.

FIRST: remember to remove any custom LUT or 3rd parties in-game FFB software. This is my main section of the ff_user.ini (forget the gamma value, be sure that ENABLED=0):

SECOND: update your wheel to the latest firmware using the provided firmware updater.

Let’s start with the Thrustmaster Control panel

As you can see, there’s not much to do. We will tune FFB in game, not here.

Before starting AC, let’s modify the “assetto_corsa.ini” file located in your Steam folder\steamapps\common\assettocorsa\system\cfg path and set the following parameters:

That’s a crucial part: the DAMPER_MIN_LEVEL is not just a simple damping force, but it’s related to the gyro effect generated by the wheels, so it is very dynamic, car-dependent, and allows to get more detailed and realistic feedback, especially in “unusual” conditions like slight oversteers or hard left-right (or right-left of course :D). I want to explain it better: the main “problem” setting a steering wheel is finding good ffb values to “feel” the track surface and catch losses of grip in time and with the right amount of force and general steering wheel weight. Setting this behavior the right way is like night and day for the user experience and as said for realism.

I’m lucky to be also a driving instructor on racing/drifting cars in real life, collecting much feedback from real cars and then try to get the closest experience on AC, so a DAMPER_MIN_LEVEL of 0.3 (together with other settings around here) is the value that provides me the most realistic feedback with the TS-PC and AC.
Please advise: this value could be slightly different for other belt-driven wheels (Aris uses 0.2 on his CSW but with a custom DRI value on the wheel, while another dev uses 0.15 on his DD wheel). Don’t go over 0.3 and below 0.1.

Ok, now let’s start AC and configure the FFB:

Don’t be scared, the global gain is set to 100% for a reason that I’ll explain later. Check instead the minimum force: it is just not needed on the TS-PC because its belt-driven system is so good that there’s no trace of the infamous dead zone near the center position of the wheel.
For those that don’t know about Kerb, Road, Slip and ABS effects: I like to “amplify” the kerb effect coming from the physics to compensate the lack of forces on your whole body that you would experience in real life… anyway, set those values according to your personal tastes.
Don’t care too much about the “Brake Gamma” value on the right, I have load-cell pedals that require a linear gamma, while some potentiometer-equipped pedals would require a smoother curve.

So, what about that gain set at 100%? I just prefer to set individual FFB percentage for each car directly in game (using Plus and Minus keys of your Numeric Pad). If you have good feeling at driving (and be honest with yourself) you can just feel a difference of 3-5% in the force feedback per-car value. If you don’t care about that, just set the Gain between 60% and 70% according to your tastes and forget the following paragraph.

[PER-CAR FFB SETTINGS]
In order to give you some reference, I’d like to share some of my personal per-car FFB settings (that are stored in your Windows Documents\Assetto Corsa\cfg\user_ff.ini file). A value of say 0.650 means 65% in-game FFB and so on:

[ks_pagani_huayra_bc]
VALUE=0.650

[ks_porsche_911_gt3_r_2016]
VALUE=0.670

[ferrari_458_s3]
VALUE=0.700

[ks_lamborghini_huracan_gt3]
VALUE=0.650

[ks_bmw_m4_akrapovic]
VALUE=0.700

[ks_audi_r8_lms]
VALUE=0.630

[ks_maserati_gt_mc_gt4]
VALUE=0.670

[ktm_xbow_r]
VALUE=0.720

[ks_mclaren_650_gt3]
VALUE=0.750

[ks_ferrari_f2004]
VALUE=0.650

[ks_porsche_918_spyder]
VALUE=0.570

[ks_nissan_gtr_gt3]
VALUE=0.730

[ks_glickenhaus_scg003]
VALUE=0.650

[ks_ferrari_488_gt3]
VALUE=0.650

[ks_mclaren_p1_gtr]
VALUE=0.600

I want to specify that these are my personal settings, it’s not the absolute truth and may not suit everybody, so don’t hesitate to try something different. Just take your time to “acclimate” to the new settings, run a bunch of laps before modify them.