Best F1 2012 Settings for Thrustmaster TMX / T150

F1 2012 plays very well with a wheel, but being an older title, it doesn't know about newer wheels like the Thrustmaster TMX and T150. Using the in-game control settings, you are still able to bind the steering, pedals and buttons to actions in the game, but you will still need the keyboard to navigate through all the menus.

With a little text file editing, you can make F1 2012 natively support these newer wheels, including full menu navigation and improved force feedback, making the experience even better. Importantly, this does not prevent the game from saving your progress, as is common in other titles when you start editing their internal files.

In this guide, I will show you how to edit the necessary files to support these wheels, then look at the best settings to use for the force feedback in-game.

Device Action Map Files

Every supported input device has a file (called the device action map) that defines it and its button bindings. In order to add support for new wheels, we need to make a new action map file for the device.

Device Action Map

Download the device action map file for your wheel:

• Thrustmaster TMX
• Thrustmaster T150

Place it into: Steam Library\steamapps\common\F1 2012\actionmap

Action Map Paths

Just adding the file isn't quite enough. We need to tell the game to use this new file.

Edit the actionMapPaths.xml file in the same folder. Add a new entry that contains the name of the file you just created using one of the lines below:

  <xml processor="ActionMap" filename="actionmap/Thrustmaster TMX.xml" map="UPDATE" pool="TEMPORARY" />
  <xml processor="ActionMap" filename="actionmap/Thrustmaster T150.xml" map="UPDATE" pool="TEMPORARY" />

</dataset>

Force Feedback

Now the game will know how to use the buttons on the wheel. We can go one step further and improve the force feedback by editing the file: steamapps\common\F1 2012\forcefeedback\devicesetup.xml

You need to add an "FFBDevice" entry for your wheel at the bottom of the file, above the line:

</FFBDevices>

For the Thrustmaster TMX, use this line:

<FFBDevice name="044fb67f" scaleForce="1.0" scaleFriction="5" baseFriction="0.0" maxFriction="255.0" scaleEffects="1.0" delay="0.0" nativeFriction="1"/>

For the Thrustmaster T150, use this line:

<FFBDevice name="044fb677" scaleForce="1.0" scaleFriction="5" baseFriction="0.0" maxFriction="255.0" scaleEffects="1.0" delay="0.0" nativeFriction="1"/>

These match the settings used by the G25, which is the closest match to these wheels that existed at the time. This greatly improves the force feedback on these wheels.

Thrustmaster Control Panel Settings

There is no Soft Lock in the game, so to get a proper steering angle, it is best to set the rotation in the Thrustmaster Control Panel. I don't like having to do this as I often forget to set it back to normal, but there is no other option.

Spring and Damper are not used by F1 2012, so can be set to any value without issue. As a general rule, I leave these at 100% since there are some games that require them.

BOOST should always be turned off. For an in-depth look as to why, see my BOOST Force Feedback Analysis.

F1 2012 Settings

I had trouble trying to get an existing profile to work fully with the wheel. You can drive just fine, but not navigate the menus. I had to create a new profile to get full wheel support.

In Options > Driving Controls:

Until you set these values, the game won't use the wheel to navigate the menus.

In Options > Driving Controls > Advanced Wheel Settings:

The Saturation values are inverted from you might expect. 0% uses the full range of the wheel or pedals. I raise the Steering Linearity to make the wheel slightly less sensitive when centered.

In Options > Driving Controls > Force Feedback Options:

Environmental Effects is the vibrations you feel from kerbs and the road surface.

Feedback Strength is the main force you feel in the wheel.

Wheel Weight is a damper force that simply makes the wheel heavier.

Conclusion

If you try to play with the default settings, the game is impossible to play. The steering angle is way too large and the force feedback is far too heavy, giving a really bad first impression. Once you set these proper values, however, the game becomes a lot of fun to play.

Let me know if you have any comments or questions.