Pro Drivers DEBUNK sim racing pedals myths 

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Random Callsign going the extra mile (or miles in this case) to prove a point to idiotic commenters on RU-vid. I admire your dedication!

Videos like this are sim racing gold! It’s great to finally see topics like this have all the mystery taken out. I have injured my knee from having my sim pedals set too hard. I jumped on the hype train of people online saying that having a stiff brake pedal is the only way to get accuracy in braking. My intuition told me that this probably wasn’t completely true, but I put my faith in what I was hearing. I’ve started experimenting with a softer setting after watching Race Beyond Matter’s video on this this topic. I’ll have to retrain my muscle memory, but after a few hours with the soft brake, I can feel how I may have more precision this way.

Easily the most informative video r.e sim/real braking I've ever seen. Cheers!

More simracers need to watch this. Daniel Morad and Dave Perel's explanation was fantastic

Great video, really interesting to see that even pros take different approaches in sim. Underlining what most sensible people already thought : it's a matter of personal preference.

OMG, I loved this so much!!!! All the drivers so helpful and clear! They are awesome. And they all confirmed what I thought which is that sim braking could never mimic the real thing exactly because of the lack of g-force. I feel better about my choice running a pretty soft brake pedal with quite a lot of travel. Yay!

Excellent video! Very valuable to get some feedback from people with real world experience. Keep in mind though that Pressure = Force / Area, so “bar” isn’t really an appropriate unit of measure to determine how hard you need to press the pedal as a point of comparison. I still maintain that the fundamental element that makes a good brake pedal for sim racing is a clearly defined threshold point which you can hit consistently and modulate around with finesse. What that feels like in a practical sense is purely subjective, but it is essential in the absence of seat of the pants feel. Some people will prefer a stiffer pedal with shorter travel like I do. Others will prefer softer, but as long as the required definition is there to establish muscle memory, everything else is purely personal preference. The biggest mistake people make IMO is upgrading their pedals and automatically defaulting to an overly soft setup with little definition as that’s what they’re used to. I personally fell into this trap when I first upgraded to HE Ultimates and it wasn’t until I tried pedals that ONLY offered a stiffer setup that I realised what I was missing out on after being forced out of my comfort zone. That doesn’t mean the stiffer pedals are “better”, it just serves to demonstrate that experimenting with the range of adjustment available on your chosen pedals is a worthwhile exercise.

massive respect random callsign for talking to all these gt drivers and for a very big topic in sim racing community

I was always told I needed to have a very hard brake pedal with almost no travel and I struggled a lot. Recently upgraded to HE Sprints which have a softer pedal with more travel out of the box and I find them to be an absolute joy to use. I am now much more confident when braking and can control the brake pressure well. At the end of the day you set up the pedals how they work for you and not how someone says it should be.

Thanks for this! Hearing pro drivers talk about sim gear, especially brake pedal settings was brilliant and informative. Sim racing setups are so very personal. Thanks again for this!

“You don’t even need a direct drive wheel” 👏🙌

Sim racers crying "you can't judge pedal travel as consistently as pedal pressure" must have never thought about their throttle pedal. But in summary, there's no correct way, just do whatever you feel gives you the most precision.

Amazing insight and super interesting. I too had the misconception that my brake pedal had to be super stiff. I was shocked at how much travel there is when they showed the cam in the F1 car. Awesome job on video, top notch!

these type videos are so hard to come by. cheers dude, keep up the awesome work

I like a softer brake pedal because it makes it easier to heel & toe downshift. My pedal in my real car has a lot more travel vs the sim pedals and is easier to heel & toe due to the G forces. I can’t left foot brake that well because I’m so used to driving H-pattern transmission cars.

Some comments, 7 days after the video... :-) - They talk about brake PRESSURE in the real cars, which isn't the same as pedal FORCE. 80 Bar pressure in a Ferrari might take 100kg force. 120 Bar in a Mercedes might take the same 100kg. Drivers often seem to be unaware of this! - G force is an argument often made but this is VERY complex. If I was to do a guess I would say it reduces the pedal force between 5% and 20%, but not magically cut it in half. This is really tricky to analyze and also often 'over used' by people. - Seems a great variety of forces and travels are preferred, so it might make sense to look for pedals that offer a large range of adjustments because: - Whatever works best for you is of course justified! I do wonder how far this subjectivity goes. What about F1 drivers in the official team simulator? Do they also get to say 'let's do 50kg today' or will it be whatever the real car needs, minus their proper analysis of brake G force 'aid' force? I would almost think so but I don't know.

This is one of the greatest video on sim racing ever made. Informative, straight to the point, with data from the real world. Well done.

Wish we could have every sim racing content creator watch this. The amount of times I've heard "harder is more realistic" is insane.

This is the best Video for sim racing i have seen so far. It is great to hear what professional drivers say. On the internet are so many stupid commentarys like ABS and Tc must be off and the break as hard as possible and people who are new belive it and quickly loose the fun. Thanks for this Video🙏

Thanks for this insight on pedal inputs! Also some of my favorite sim/real racers providing commentary!

I started out with 70 bar on my Invictas, all fun in the first few races but started to get really heavy and painful on long nights, especially endurance. Found the sweet spot at around 42 bar, which is kinda funny it's what David recommends as well.

I usually go for what's optimal and comfortable for gaming. There's no way of going 1:1 with real life

I can't tell you how many times I've had SIM Bois flame me for this.... There's a massive discrepancy between what people in the sim community think is realistic, and what actually is. There's also a big difference between how a race engineer would set up a brake system versus how a SIM d00d would. There's a lot more than what these drivers discuss, and for the rest you should talk to an engineer.

What an awesome video! Thanks to you and all the drivers! So much gold here!

This is so informative and helpful for the community. Thank you so much for this.

This has got to be the most informative vid on brake pedal set up , i have ever seen. Well done, fantastic vid 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

It's funny that you did on video on this topic because I told you when we were at Spa that the brake pedals that I've tried (the load cells one) felt so short and hard to press compare to anything that I drove in real life..I remember that you told me that it was something that you can change a little and now, to hear from pro drivers who thinks almost the same clear my mind a little ; I guess I wasn't far from the true after all

Excellent perspective from the drivers, this was great man!

bloody awesome video! Trying to explain this to people with engraved viewpoints is always annoying to do lol. David Perel and Random Callsign collab on controversial topics video would be awesome haha. You two do tend to speak your mind in a way others maybe dont, would be great to see such a thing if it could ever happen. Simracing myth busters :D

Thanks for the video, great insight. @7:17 this is why I bought the asetek invicta, coming from g29 pedals. And it actually works for me. Im at 42 bar with medium rubber. Way more consistant now without guessing the position of the pedal instead of pressure.

Great interviews, very eye opening!

I love it. Learning the philosophies and also just trial and error everything. You never know til you try.

Good video. Great little interviews.

"In real life i never think of "oh ill use 60 percent braking here" I just go by feel" Wow that quote helps me ALOT as a newbie trying to setup my brake bias.

That’s awesome that you got to interview lello

Thank you so much for this video, we need more videos like this if we are going to close the gap from sim to irl

Great vid....pretty much what I thought they would say because of gravity/g-forces. Very interesting to hear about their use of sim rig pedals.

I never understood those influencers who would suggest that somehow you need pedals that are like stepping in a brick wall 🤔 I’ve been saying this for 10 years now…and never understood how anyone could get accuracy with no give…not only is it not realistic, it’s just not practical or immersive imho.

Always love ya vid's mate keep it up :D

great to hear first hand opinions from actual professionals that know what they are talking about. i have never understood why people want to use the load cell near max pressure. i use it near minimum pressure, then again i dont have a proper setup, so i couldnt really press it any harder. it still feels plenty hard to me though, comparable to my irl, an average road car.

This is genuinely interesting. Great idea for a video.

One guy said he uses deceleration to judge brake input ... That's how a belt tensioner can help a little .. at least he did for me. The harder you press, the tighter the belt gets

Awesome video. Super fascinating. Seems like the takeaway message is there is no one way to set things up - be it in a real car or in a sim rig - so just go with whatever makes you fastest.

Outstanding video! And thinking about it, in the limit, you will be faster with a lighter brake as that will be a faster break to engage and disengage. I never used my loadcell at max because I find it a pain. Good to know it is the good setting ^^

Sub. Most interesting sim racing video I’ve seen in a long time! Good stuff. Interesting what pedals they are all using. Assume they are referring to the Ultimates?

Parabéns Ricardo excelente video, provavelmente único nesta plataforma. O detalhe das explicações dos pilotos é brutal 👏🏻

This reminds me a lot of Ross Bentleys videos. He has a similar concept of how he asks drivers questions

congrats on the video! all of what they say is true: in my irl racing years, i never applied same force on the brakes every single lap as you can do in the sim, but feeling the weight transfer plus deceleration, you also rely on how smooth car feels when applying input into the apex. is much softer, but it depends on the car setup and how you feel with the brakes. Sometimes you can go much harder into brakes than in sim. For what i've seen lately on twitch, most of the sim drivers, when driving a racing car won't make it as fast as in the sim, i can tell you best sim racers against any real driver, in real tracks, might lose no less than 2s per lap. I hope this will shut some sim racing trolls thinking they know more than a real driver about racing. Keep on!

The most valuable video to date, great work RC

This video is great. Big thank you for your that! I am also interested in the forces in the wheelbase. What are the forces you have in a GT3 or in a modern F1?

Great compilation and case closed😊I'm using two shakers just for the padals since 2016 and would need to relearn braking if I would turn them off. I also can't brake with shoes in sim-racing and need to feel how much braking is enough through the vibes. A decent FFB does it was well and hands are far more sensible to vibrations than feet anyway. The front-shakers needs to be tuned quite 'loud' so I can feel them and soft elastomers are dampening the effects too much. Metall vibrates far better through and glad I've switched the elastomers of my Ultimates against a stiff spring plus those plastic fillers. The spring also provide a quicker rebound and feels more precise.

Bang on the money! its what ive been trying to tell people for ages that the sim doesn't require the pedal setup super stiff.

Great video! I have learned a lot!

Really interesting video. I’ve always wondered if the desire for super heavy sim brakes is a form of attempting to compensate for the lack of physical feedback in a rig. Even driving casually on public roads, in a van like I do, the feedback you get from your balance, eyes and body as the car moves you around, is huge. I’m no sim racer, just someone who drives sims for fun, so I can’t talk about that, but my basic setup at home is set up to be quite soft with a decent amount of travel.

Daniel Morad had some great talking points. Love this type of video.

Great content! Thank you very much!

Those like me who started to do online simulation in 1997 with Grand-Prix Legends and Nascar Racing and who knew and especially experienced all the devices. Having racing online with (against) AJ Allmendinger, Justin Wilson and some famous French and Belgian rally drivers etc... already in 2005-2006 all these questions were already discussed and answered on the race forums of the time. These are really purely modern questions specific to a new generation of sim-racers, with other means of communication. Only.

Great video, good selection of feedback.

I noticed a lot of folks talking up stiff, short throw pedals for sim racing when I first started, and honestly, it can be pretty misleading. As all of these drivers mentioned, in real life, G-force plays a big role in how brake pressure feels. For all the newbies out there, start with what feels right for you, then tweak your settings bit by bit. Test out those small changes and repeat. Avoid making huge adjustments all at once-it's tough to tell what's actually helping and what's not. Great video, best of luck sim nerds 🏁

That G force tells you so much about what is happening at that moment. Of course G force makes a huge difference.

Does this mean logitech pedals offer the superior experience

Good video, debunks the well you need a set of $1200 pedals totally. Any good load cell set up with a fair amount of adjustability will be fine, it is more about being repeatedly the same. Personally I like my brake pedal set up like my real car as far as the amount of movement is concerned but I go into the software and set the pressure values for the loadcell to read 100% brake applied in accordance with the maximum amount of pressure I like to apply for full braking. I play sim racing games to have fun, my FFB levels are also set fairly light as well, I want to feel the surface and loss of grip but not be duplicating being in the gym working out going through a corner. Even modern race cars now use power rack and pinion steering systems, you do not see most real world racing drivers looking like the incredible hulk to be able to steer a race car. So those that claim you need at least 25nm direct drive wheels for good ffb I feel about the same on that as I do the pedals! I think many of these guys are just trying to justify the amount of money they have spent on some of this gear. I like videos that are asking for real racers input. I can remember watching some videos a few years ago about ACC with Dave Perel and N. Thiim when they were working with the devs making the ACC game and telling them what did not feel right or how the cars reaction would be wrong and the devs would make changes and it reached a point both drivers said that ACC was very realistic as compared to the way it drove as compared to their real life cars. Then it would seem funny to see some bozos posting on different videos or forums stating how ACC was all wrong and the cars did not drive right when you had 2 actual gt3 drivers saying ACC got it right and I know Perel drove a lot on iRacing as well. I know personally I will never drive an actual gt3 car so how would I ever think I was right and someone like Thiim was wrong about how the gt3 cars drive! Again this type of content I find interesting just subbed to your channel!

@5:30 This interview here is what I think is really going to help me get my brakes right. I also find it crazy how someone like Morad can be like "yep this is 62% braking right here", whereas I'm like yep, I'm pushing the brake softer.

Iv never been able to get braking right on my setup,just because there is no g-forces involved,in a real car you can physically feel how hard your braking which you cant in a sim so i have to rely on abs to help.having vibration on my peddle would really help so wished they all came with this a standard

Great video man!

I took out some of the rubber in my load cell CSL pedal and put in a spring. It gave me more travel and also a progressive rate where I can feel where I'm at if I get my settings right. The stock load cell felt more like the the air brake pedal in my semi because it was so stiff. I've never heard someone describe a stiff load cell as feeling like a air brake pedal but it does.

I'm not the best of sim drivers, but I tend to opt for about a medium spring, I like my brake to be slightly stiffer than my gas pedal, but not so ungodly stiff I can't put some precision into it. I don't want it stupidly soft either like my clutch.

Nice vid mate!!

I'm not a racer but I've been doing track days for about two years now and I can really understand what these guys are talking about. The main problem is there is no G forces in sim racing. When you hit the brakes on track you feel it slowing down and from your butt in the seat feeling you know how much to brake. And you use reference points for when to start braking. But it's all about feeling in the real car. Weight transfer and balance.

I always thought load cells had too little travel and this video really helps in understanding why they are different from real race car pedals. Would love more videos like this!

You asked four different drivers and you got four different opinions. There really is no single right approach to pedal settings. The common thread here is how to achieve 1.) precision and 2.) comfort, and how you achieve that is entirely up to you. Worth experimenting with for sure, especially if it leads to improvement!

very nice video indeed! informative to see how the pros look at the topic. what I wonder is: they all talk about pressure (force divided by area [cross section of hydraulic line I would assume], like hitting 80-120 bar, while in simracing we all talk kg (as most of us do not have hydraulics but load cells). anyone has an idea of how, say 100 bar on a GT3 car, translates to kg on a sim rig?

Really really liked this video. Morad was super super nice, but every driver was. And they gave us very interesting insight.

Great video! Thanks

Thanks RC! Great video.

Really good video 👍! People can now relax and heal their knees from injuries 😀

What a cracking video. Thanks man.

43 bar. Slight slop “play”in pedal from 0-18% for easy ankle modulation trailing sucking car into corner etc (small corrections). Start to stiffen up from 18-45% or so and full stiffness no travel from 45-100%. That is my ideal pedal.

Thanx for the upload 👍

Vindicated as a right foot braker. So many tell me i need to left foot brake but it just feels wrong, Thanks 😊

Sim racing is all about versatility imo, i like to think you can setup your sim basically like you want as far as it suits your driving style, in real life there is too much variables to be able to do that since you got the gforces pushing your body through corners.

I still have the original spring set up in my old G27. Waiting to get a progressive spring modded into it because the stock springs feel linear. I would like the brake to feel soft near the top and stiffer near the bottom because of an foot injury I suffered makes it hard to tell hard far I'm pressing the brake. In quick braking scenarios, I tend to accidentally press the brake too hard and upset the car.

I have the CSL Elite Pedals with load cell kit. I used to use the 65 rubber bushings and found some improvement changing over from the G29 set. Then I saw a Jarno Opmeer video where he states he uses the hardest rubber and sets his brake force to like 80. So I made the switch and was blown away by the results. After about a week of getting adjusted, I started just slashing time from my laps. So I do recommend at least trying it as I never would have made that much of an improvement if I didn't experiment. It may or may not work, but no harm in trying.

What a great video and insights.

I think the real question is, when do we get a pedalset that simulates ABS? (Im aware of vibrating v3s but that doesnt count)

Having a stiff brake or soft brake depends on the pedals you are using at the computer. Cause in the end it boils down to how the pressure change is registered and fed into the simulator. What I mean by that and what I am referring to is the fact that say the Fanatec Clubsport Pedals have the loadcell directly behind the bumper stack. Thus the stack first needs to compress and transfer that force through this force absorbing stack into the loadcell behind it. This results in a non-linear registration of the brake pressure signal. Comparatively the Heusinkveld pedals register the pressure on the loadcell not from behind the bumper stack but rather from behind the heel of the pedal. The rotating brake pedal around its mounting axis compresses a small linear force spring that pushes down on a loadcell. Thus registering a linear signal, this while the bumper stack behind the pedal on a different road gives the sensation of brake pressure in a non-linear way. Resulting in your brain being tricked but the simulation game getting a more useful signal, and often the physics engine would have a brake pressure curve build into it and possibly on a per car basis. Which with a linear input curve doesn't result in a distortion of the physics calculated brake pressure output curve, giving you the impression that you have more proper control over the brake of the car and that it is easier to modulate... and that impression isn't a lie.

So like with everything else: it’s all personal preference. Ask yourself what you want. Be as realistic/immersive as possible or have the best possible setup for being as fast/consistent as possible.

Great video!

Wow I knew there would be some differences but I never realised stuff like the braking G force help you brake further until it was pointed out

I’ve always used a softer brake pedal and this makes me glad I do

Excellent video! We now know all these guys need to hit the squat rack.

How less than one year can make a difference. Daniel Morad, on his rig, is rocking the “Active Pedals” from Simucube with a crazy price tag.

Fantastic video… you have a new subscriber 👍

At the end of the day it's personal preference but the bigger issue is one of consistency, I have seen a RU-vid video on a channel which went into depth on the use of springs instead of elastomers which I believe the VRS pedals only run springs, Anyhow the benefit of springs is they do not degrade over time or suffer from creep or changes due to seasonal temperature changes as elastomers can suffer from a 15% variance due to these factors which can greatly effect the output as your muscle memory cannot change to compensate, But with springs any variance is negligible at a max 2% variance and that's if your unlucky and as the springs used are linear every time you use the pedals the set up is a constant which means faster overall lap times and consistency from race to race.

This is great content

As someone who races as well ive always wondered why people want ultra hard grr drr 900kg brake pedals and steering wheel turned up to 500nm of torque to make a slight adjustment in a parkig lot. Guess its the same marketign that eacecar must be garbage to drive with germans and others pushing thin tyres, hard steering wheel and shitty ride quality as sporty onto the general masses.

Hey random, thanks for this video. It clearly shows, that pedal configuration is a personal preference thing. Keep up your great work! Cheers!

I feel like this is very much about personal preference. I don't drive performance cars but motorcycles & even on the road I prefer the strong initial bite of a sintered pad & the good modulation afforded by a fairly soft hydraulic ratio in master cylinder to caliper, but I do offset it a bit with a more aggressive lever ratio to reduce the amount of travel needed. It reduces the travel, but not the pressure, which is still quite light, I'll be 2 finger braking from 120mph+. In sim I pretty much like the same, I almost feel I have 2 "modes" between trail/hard braking where I want finer accuracy & I only need just enough to transition smoothly between the two. That said - I'm pretty slow XD. All my pals find my pedal too stiff and short travel.

Cheers, that was a good video. 👍