- Telemetry records your pedals as the game used them, so it works the same on every rig — and shows problems you cannot feel.
- Three pedal checks: does the brake reach 100% when you stamp on it, does the throttle reach 100% flat out, and do both sit at 0% with your feet off?
- To judge an upgrade, compare several sessions before and after, same car and track: typical lap, spread and brake-point spread — not one best lap.
- StintLab draws nothing over the game, so there is nothing to set up for VR or triples, and it never sits between your wheel and the game.
Every rig, the same data
StintLab reads the game, not your hardware. There are no drivers, no plug-ins and no device list — the game publishes your inputs along with everything else about the car, and StintLab records them. So the question is never whether your rig is supported, only what its data can tell you. StintLab needs nothing from any of these:
| Your setup | What it means for your data |
|---|---|
| Controller | Short trigger travel changes the shape of every trace. Faster on a controller covers what to look for. |
| Wheel and pedals on a desk | Pedals that slide or a desk that flexes show up as brake points that wander from lap to lap. |
| Wheel stand or folding cockpit | The same checks apply; a stand that moves under braking is worth ruling out first. |
| Rigid cockpit, direct-drive base | The better the rig, the more your traces show you and not the hardware. |
| Load-cell or hydraulic brake | The brake trace is the pedal value the game received — with a load cell, a measure of how hard you press rather than how far. The pedal checks below are how to tell it is calibrated. |
| VR headset, triples or ultrawide | StintLab shows nothing over the game, so there is nothing to position. |
| Shifter, handbrake, button box | Gear is recorded with every sample; clutch and handbrake are not. |
Three pedal checks your traces can do
The throttle and brake traces are the pedal values the game reports, 0 to 100% — the end result of your pedals, their software and the game's own controller settings. If something in that chain is off, the trace shows it on every lap, whatever your foot is doing.
1 · Does the brake reach 100%?
Take a lap where you braked as hard as you ever would, at the end of the longest straight, and look at the brake trace there.
A flat ceiling below 100% on your hardest stop means the game never sees full brake: the calibrated maximum is more force or travel than you actually use. Lower it until your hardest press reads 100%. The opposite — 100% within a few metres, and flat, on every stop — means you reach full brake with a fraction of your effort and have nothing left to modulate with; raise it. Staying below 100% on purpose is fine — many drivers brake just short of lock-up — but you should be able to reach it.
2 · Does the throttle reach 100%?
On a long straight, flat out, the throttle trace should read 100%. A ceiling of 96–98% on every straight is a calibration or deadzone problem, and depending on the game and car it can cost power. It is worth telling apart from a part-throttle hold, which ends:
3 · Do both pedals sit at 0% with your feet off?
Look at the brake trace down a straight. A line a few per cent above zero means the brake is dragging — a noisy sensor, a pedal that does not return fully, or a heel resting on it. A throttle trace that shows a few per cent all through a braking zone is the same thing on the other pedal. A small deadzone at the bottom of the range, set in your pedal software, usually fixes both.
Did the upgrade make you faster?
New pedals, a stronger wheelbase, a stiffer cockpit: every upgrade promises lap time, and the first night on new hardware is the worst possible time to judge it. You are still learning it, and one quick lap proves nothing. A fair test takes a few sessions either side of the change:
- Pick one car and one track you know well — ideally one where your times had stopped improving, so practice alone is not what moves them.
- Baseline. Two or three sessions of ten laps or more before the change, in the same conditions and with the same settings.
- Change one thing. One upgrade, or one setting. Two at once and you will never know which one worked.
- Give it a few sessions. New hardware often makes you slower before it makes you faster. Drive it, then measure.
- Measure the same way. Two or three sessions after, same car, track and conditions, and compare the numbers below.
| Number | Where StintLab shows it | What a real improvement looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Typical lap | Session report — the median counted lap | Lower, session after session. The best single measure of your pace. |
| Spread | Consistency, in the viewer and the session report — quickest to slowest counted lap | Narrower: more of your laps close to your best. Often the first thing better hardware changes. |
| Brake-point spread | Session report, Braking points — “Brake point varies ±N m” for each corner | Smaller at the heavy stops. The usual promise of a load-cell brake. |
| Invalid laps | Session report | Fewer. Control is as much a gain as speed. On Assetto Corsa laps StintLab sees only pit time and penalties, so a cut may not show here. |
| Best lap | Session report and your season record | Improves last — and on its own proves little. |
Here is what a baseline looks like, from the worked example session: eight laps, six of them counted.
After a new brake pedal, the numbers to watch in a session like this are the ±16 m at the 500 m corner and the 0.608 s spread. If both come down over a few sessions and the typical lap follows, the pedal is paying for itself. If nothing moves, the time is somewhere else — and how to get faster at sim racing is about finding it.
Force feedback, field of view and other settings
The same method judges a settings change, and settings are cheaper to test than hardware. StintLab does not record your wheel settings or the car setup, so keep a note of what you changed and when.
| Change | Watch | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Brake pedal force or calibration | Peak brake per corner; brake-point spread | A pedal you can press to the same point every time gives steadier numbers in both. |
| Force feedback strength | Spread over a long run; invalid laps | Too strong can tire you out over a stint; either way you are looking for fewer scattered laps, not a new best. |
| Field of view or seat position | Brake-point spread | Braking points are judged by eye; what you can see changes where you brake. |
| Pedal position or angle | Brake-point spread; peak brake | A more comfortable leg angle can make a hard press easier to repeat. |
Whatever you change, judge it over a run of laps, not one. One lap is a sample; ten are a measurement.
VR, triples and a quiet screen
StintLab shows nothing over the game while you drive: no overlay, no pop-ups. The only sign it is running is its icon in the Windows tray, which turns amber if something needs your attention. That is deliberate — there is nothing to place in a VR headset, nothing to stretch across three screens, and nothing to distract you or anyone watching your stream.
You read your laps between runs. Every page StintLab builds is a self-contained HTML file, so you can also open them on a laptop or tablet beside the rig — copy the file over, or print the session report to PDF.
What it needs from your PC
| What it needs | Notes | |
|---|---|---|
| PC | Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit | The same PC the game runs on. |
| Games | F1 25 on PC, or Assetto Corsa on PC | F1 25 in either telemetry format. The full list, including what is not read. |
| Hardware | Any wheel, pedals or controller | StintLab never talks to them. |
| Disk | About 50 KB a lap | About 3 MB for sixty laps, in your own user folder. |
| Internet | None to run | Setup fetches Microsoft's WebView2 runtime once if your PC lacks it. |
Not supported: Mac, Linux and console versions of the games. F1 25 on a console can send its telemetry across your network, but StintLab has not been tested that way.
Questions
Will a better wheel or pedals make me faster?
Sometimes, and telemetry is how you find out rather than guess. Better hardware tends to make you more repeatable before it makes you quicker, so look for a tighter spread of lap times and steadier brake points over several sessions, not a new best lap on the first night.
Is a load-cell brake worth it?
A load-cell pedal measures how hard you press rather than how far the pedal travels, which many drivers find easier to repeat. Whether it helps you is measurable: compare your brake-point spread and your lap-time spread over a few sessions before and after, on the same car and track.
Does StintLab work with my wheel — Fanatec, Moza, Logitech, Thrustmaster, Simucube or another brand?
StintLab never talks to your wheel or pedals. It reads the telemetry the game publishes, so if the game works with your hardware, StintLab does too — a controller included.
Can StintLab calibrate my pedals?
No. Calibration happens in your pedal software and the game's controller settings. StintLab shows you the result — the pedal values the game actually used — so you can see whether a calibration change did what you meant it to.
Does it work in VR or on triple screens?
Yes. StintLab draws nothing over the game while you drive, so there is nothing to place in a headset or across three screens. You read your laps afterwards on the desktop, or open the pages it builds in any browser.
Does it add input lag?
It cannot: StintLab is not between your wheel and the game. It reads what the game publishes about the car, after the game has already used your inputs.
Can I run it alongside my other sim racing apps?
With Assetto Corsa, yes — shared memory can be read by several programs at once. With F1 25, the game sends to one port and only one program gets each packet, so two tools cannot simply share it. Close the other tool while you drive — or, if it can forward the game's packets to a second port, point that at StintLab and set the same port in StintLab's settings.toml.
Does StintLab record my force feedback or car setup?
No. It records the car's telemetry and your inputs, not your wheel settings or the car setup. When you are testing a change, keep a note of what you changed and when, so you can line it up with your sessions afterwards.