Best DIRT 5 Settings for Logitech G29 / G920
DIRT 5 is an arcade racer first and foremost. It didn't even have wheel support at release. Support did come in a later update, but for the Logitech G29 or G920, the force feedback is lackluster at best. The default settings make the wheel far too heavy and hard to control. This is easy to fix, but even at its best, there is very little information felt through the wheel. Bumps and surface details are often very light, making the wheel feel rather lifeless.
It's important to get the steering angle set correctly. DIRT 5 doesn't have a good way to do this in-game, so we have to change this in G HUB. In this guide, we will first look at the settings you need to set in G HUB, if playing on a PC. Then we will look at the in-game settings to improve the force feedback.
G HUB Settings
DIRT 5 doesn't have a good way to set the steering angle in-game. (Technically it's possible, but it is imprecise and there is no Soft Lock to stop your wheel rotating past the maximum angle.) The best option is to change the value in G HUB.
Create a new profile for DIRT 5 with the following settings:
| Setting | Value |
|---|---|
| Operating Range | 540° |
| Sensitivity | 50 |
| Centering Spring | Off |
DIRT 5 Settings
Annoyingly, the user interface in DIRT 5 doesn't provide numerical values, just a visual bar. The bars are broken into 20 segments, so each step is 5%.
In Settings > Input Settings > Logitech G29 / G920 > Advanced Settings:
| Setting | Value |
|---|---|
| Steering Linearity | 100% |
| Steering Deadzone | 0% |
| Steering Saturation | 100% |
| Throttle Deadzone | 0% |
| Throttle Saturation | 100% |
| Brake Deadzone | 0% |
| Brake Saturation | 100% |
You can change the steering angle in-game by lowering the Steering Saturation. Unfortunately, it is imprecise, since there is no numerical display and there is no Soft Lock, so the wheel will keep turning past the maximum angle.
In Settings > Input Settings > Logitech G29 / G920 > Vibration & Feedback:
| Setting | Value |
|---|---|
| Force Feedback | 55% |
| ABS Feedback | 70% |
| Self Aligned Torque | 100% |
| Collision | 100% |
| Landing Feedback | 100% |
| Surface Feedback | 90% |
| Tyre Slip | 55% |
Force Feedback simply controls the overall strength of all the other forces. Setting this too high will make the centering force of the wheel too strong, creating a very numb wheel.
ABS Feedback shakes the wheel when the ABS assist kicks in. I can only feel it when the ABS assist is set to High. It's actually quite a strong effect, so I would turn this down quite far if you are using ABS.
Self Aligned Torque is the main force feedback you feel. It's best to leave this at 100% and control the strength using the Force Feedback setting.
Collision shakes the wheel when you hit other cars or something on the side of the track. It seems to be mostly limited to head-on collisions. Most of the time you will hit something and not feel a thing.
Landing Feedback seems to have no effect. Presumably it's supposed to shake the wheel when you land from a jump, but I can't feel any effect.
Surface Feedback provides some shaking and vibration when you drive over certain types of surfaces.
Tyre Slip provides force feedback and vibration when your tires lose traction. I'm not a big fan of this, so I have it quite low. You can set this higher if you like it.
Conclusion
There are times when it feels a little silly to use a wheel in this game, as it was obviously designed with controllers in mind. However, it is entirely playable with a wheel, and most of the time it works really well. Part of this is simply using the cockpit view camera. Some of the vehicles have very limited visibility, making it much more difficult than a third person camera.
Overall, I prefer using a wheel, though there are certain events that are certainly made much harder than they would be with a controller and a chase camera. If you have a VR headset, you may be interested to know that DIRT 5 works surprisingly well in VR using VorpX.
Let me know if you have any questions or comments.
