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Linux Steering Wheel manager 'Oversteer' has a new release

By - | Views: 18,043

Have a Steering Wheel that you need to tweak on Linux for your favourite racing games? Oversteer can help with that a lot and a new release is up.

What can Oversteer do? Depending on what's supported by each device it can help you to change the emulation mode, change the wheel rotation range, combine accelerator/brakes pedals for games that use just one axis, force feedback gain, profiles for different games you can setup and more. It's almost essential if you like a good UI to work with your hardware on Linux.

Release 0.5.0 went out August 25, here's what's new:

  • Fixed swapped pedal axes in the Logitech G920 wheel.
  • Removed fake dead zones in the display of the steering wheel and pedals due to errors in some GTK themes.
  • Fixed hot-plugging of devices with proper detection of disconnections and connections.
  • Fixed warnings in the build/install process by upgrading requirements to Meson 0.50.
  • Fixed enabling the screen ffbmeter when loading a profile.
  • Added proper desktop environment identification of the app.
  • New style for the overlay window with transparency and a title bar to ease relocation.
  • The overlay window position will keep its position when in automatic display mode.
  • The overlay window position is now saved in profiles.
  • Experimental support for the Thrustmaster T300RS wheel if you're using this
  • And other smaller fixes.

You can check it out on GitHub.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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7 comments

Avehicle7887 Aug 26, 2020
Been thinking about getting a Logitech wheel. Anyone know what's the support like in Wine?
Magamo Aug 26, 2020
This project sounds fantastic. Now if only something similar were to be done for joysticks and HOTAS inputs, all the ones I've tried have been abandoned, unless someone has some suggestions.
chrisq Aug 26, 2020
Quoting: Avehicle7887Been thinking about getting a Logitech wheel. Anyone know what's the support like in Wine?
Quoting: Avehicle7887Been thinking about getting a Logitech wheel. Anyone know what's the support like in Wine?

I've read that, at least the g920, has full support, including force feedback.

I have the g920 myself, any game in particular you want to play? If I have it I can test it for you.
berarma Aug 26, 2020
Quoting: Avehicle7887Been thinking about getting a Logitech wheel. Anyone know what's the support like in Wine?

Most Logitech wheels are well supported but...

G920:
+ It has the most complete firmware, all the effects are implemented in the hardware.
- You might need to update the firmware to fix some bugs and you'll need Windows for that.
- The Linux driver has an issue with games sending effects updates at high rates. I guess the driver in Windows drops commands to stay in synch with the game without glitches but the Linux driver queues the updates and creates enormous lags in the FFB. I've heard that ACC (after pausing the game) and ETS2/ATS (without VSync) can be affected.
- Lack of settings and emulation modes. Only the rotation range can be tweaked.

G29/G27/G25/...:
+ Besides setting the rotation range it can emulate older models and combine brake/accelerator pedals.
- With the default Linux driver most effects aren't supported and some games will have incomplete or missing FFB (ETS2/ATS and some Proton/Wine games).
- It has the same issue than the G920 when effects are updated very fast.

G29/G27/G25/... with driver new-lg4ff:
+ Supported effects are almost on par with the G920. The inertia effect is still unsupported and the friction effect is seemingly not working properly although these are seldom used.
+ Effect updates at high rates are managed correctly and don't cause any lag nor performance problems.
+ It has settings for fine tunning the FFB and combining clutch/accelerator pedals.
- Still not as complete regarding effect support as the G920.
- Currently, it has to be installed manually and it's only maintained by me.

G923: I don't know.

Proton had some serious FFB bugs up to version 4.11-10 (I think). It works fine now. I don't know what's the status of the FFB in Wine. If it doesn't work already patches might be on their way. DR2 at least needs a recent kernel (maybe 5.8?) for the FFB to work.

The new-lg4ff driver: https://github.com/berarma/new-lg4ff.

UPDATE: I'm trying to make it as correct and unbiased as possible to help decide which one to buy.


Last edited by berarma on 27 August 2020 at 10:36 am UTC
TobyHaynes Aug 26, 2020
Quoting: Avehicle7887Been thinking about getting a Logitech wheel. Anyone know what's the support like in Wine?

I have an ancient Logitech Formula Force GP racing wheel. I've been using it with Project Cars 2 running through Proton 5.x and the force feedback works out of the box in that game.
Avehicle7887 Aug 26, 2020
Quoting: berarma
Quoting: Avehicle7887Been thinking about getting a Logitech wheel. Anyone know what's the support like in Wine?

Most Logitech wheels are well supported but...

G920:
+ It has the most complete firmware, all the effects are implemented in the hardware.
- You might need to update the firmware to fix some bugs and you'll need Windows for that.
- The Linux driver has an issue with games sending effects updates at high rates. I guess the driver in Windows drops commands to stay in synch with the game without glitches but the Linux driver queues the updates and creates enormous lags in the FFB. I've heard that ACC (after pausing the game) and ETS2/ATS without VSync can be affected.
- Lack of settings and emulation modes. Only the rotation range can be tweaked.

G29/G27/G25/...:
+ Besides setting the rotation range it can emulate older models and combine brake/accelerator pedals.
- With the default Linux driver most effects aren't supported and some games will have incomplete or missing FFB (ETS2/ATS for now and some Proton/Wine games).
- It has the same issue than the G920 when effects are updated very fast.

G29/G27/G25/... with driver new-lg4ff:
+ Supported effects are almost on par with the G920. The inertia effect is still unsupported and the friction effect is seemingly not working properly but these are seldom used.
+ Effect updates at high rates are managed correctly and don't cause any lag nor performance problems.
+ It has settings for fine tunning the FFB and combining clutch/accelerator pedals.
- Currenlty, it has to be installed manually and it's only maintained by me.

G923: I don't know.

Proton had some serious FFB bugs up to version 4.11-10 (I think). It works fine now. I don't know what's the status of the FFB in Wine. If it doesn't work already patches might be on their way. DR2 at least needs a recent kernel (maybe 5.8?) for the FFB to work.

The new-lg4ff driver: https://github.com/berarma/new-lg4ff.

I came across your github a few days ago prior to this thread. My current local choices are between the G29 and the G920, of which I think I'll go with the G29.

I've prepared the kernel and loaded your module in advance to make sure I don't run into any bad surprises (hopefully).

Thank you for your work
berarma Aug 27, 2020
Quoting: Avehicle7887I came across your github a few days ago prior to this thread. My current local choices are between the G29 and the G920, of which I think I'll go with the G29.

I've prepared the kernel and loaded your module in advance to make sure I don't run into any bad surprises (hopefully).

Thank you for your work

You're welcome!

Both wheels are good with the G920 beating the G29 in the firmware department. It's a pity the Linux driver has lag issues in some games. I'm trying to implement a workaround for this issue in https://github.com/berarma/ffbtools but it's not ready yet and I don't know how well it will work. It'll be a nasty workaround anyway so I can hardly recommend it as a long term solution.

I think you'll be happy with the G29. I've been adding features to the driver that may appeal to the more serious simracer (with an entry level wheel). I hope most of it can be integrated into the mainline kernel or at least I hope to be able to maintain it for a long time.


Last edited by berarma on 17 September 2020 at 12:36 pm UTC
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