Best Gravel Settings for Thrustmaster T248

Gravel is an intense off-road racing game made by the same developers who created Sébastien Loeb Rally EVO. You can feel there is a solid handling model underlying the physics, though it has obviously been adapted to work in an arcade game style. As a result, Gravel feels surprisingly good with a wheel.

The force feedback isn't amazing, but it gives you enough information to comfortably control the car. There is very little customization available, so there are a few annoying vibration effects, but they don't detract from the actual racing. Unfortunately, the Thrustmaster T248 isn't natively supported, but it's easy enough to add support for it by modifying a game file.

In this guide, I will show you how to add support for the wheel and what you need to set in the Thrustmaster Control Panel, on the wheel and in the game to improve the force feedback.

WheelConfig.ini

In order to add support for a new wheel, you need to modify the WheelConfig.ini file. This files stores all the bindings for all the supported wheels. I simply added the T248 bindings to this file and it worked immediately.

Download: WheelConfig.ini

Place it into Steam Library\steamapps\common\Gravel\gravel\Config\WindowsNoEditor, replacing the existing file. The game will automatically recognize the wheel from now on.

Thrustmaster Settings

Gravel has a Soft Lock feature, so it will automatically set the proper steering angle for each car in the game. Set the rotation to 900° on the wheel and calibrate the wheel in-game.

FORCE at 4 bars with FFB at 1 creates a perfectly linear force feedback response with no clipping, which is the ideal for any racing game.

Rotation and Overall Strength are identical to the ROT and FORCE wheel settings, respectively. Changing it in one place overwrites the other. I recommend changing these on the wheel and ignoring the values in the Thrustmaster Control Panel.

Spring and Damper are not used by Gravel. 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.

Gravel Settings

In Game Options > Controller > Wheel Settings > Steering Wheel Calibration:

Make sure to run the Steering Wheel Calibration. Oddly enough, the onscreen graphic won't match your real wheel's rotation (despite what the game says), but the number will be correct. Just ignore the graphic, the calibration is working fine. You only have to do this once.

In Game Options > Controller > Wheel Settings:

Steering Linearity and Steering Deadzone should be left at 0 for linear steering.

Force Feedback Intensity is the main force you feel. It's mostly the feel of the tire grip. Setting this too high will make the wheel feel too heavy.

Vibration Intensity controls several vibration effects. These seem to be mostly canned effects, rather than physics-based. I wish there was more detailed control, since some of these effects are fairly annoying, like the engine vibration at the start of a race, while others are nice. The more important effects act to give you the feel of the suspension. Some of these feel like actual force feedback, rather than a vibration.

Steering Angle Settings should be set to Automatic to use the automatic Soft Lock.

In Race Options:

I recommend turning off all the driving assists in the Race Options. This will make the driving more dynamic and interesting. Even with everything disabled, the game is pretty forgiving.

You will find these in the menu before you start an event. These options are saved between events, so you only need to do this once.

Conclusion

Gravel completely flew under my radar. By the looks of it, I didn't think it would be the kind of game that would play well with a wheel. I was completely wrong. Besides the annoying engine vibration at the start of the race, I think it plays great with one.

Let me know if you have any questions or comments.