Your wheel turns, and the pedals still register, but nothing is pushing back in your hands.
Your inputs are reaching the game, so the wheel hasn’t dropped its connection. The force feedback effect running on the motor is what stopped.
FH5 and ACC both get stuck like this after an Alt-Tab or a minimise. To remedy this, start with the quick resets, because they’ll usually save the session you’re already in.
Try This Before You Quit the Session
Work down the list. Stop as soon as the weight comes back.
- Click back into the game. On Borderless Windowed, or with a second monitor beside you, it’s easy to click off the game without noticing. Click the game window once, turn the wheel, and give it a second.
- Nudge the FFB gain in ACC. Open the force feedback settings, change the gain, apply it, then put it back where it was. ACC players have reported the feedback returning this way without a restart.
- Hit the re-detect button in ACC’s controls. Go to Options > Controls and look in the top left for the button with two curved arrows. Players use it after losing FFB, so it’s worth a click before you start pulling cables out.
- Unplug the wheel’s USB and plug it straight back in, with the game already active on-screen. Skip this one for now if you’re on Forza. Forza warns that unplugging and reconnecting a wheel to a USB 3.0 port can generate an erroneous VIDPID, and the game needs the correct one to read your wheel at all.
- Switch the wheelbase off and on. Keep your hands off the rim on a direct drive base since it may recalibrate on the way back up.
- Restart the game. It’s the cleanest reset when nothing above works, even though it costs you the session.
Image Source: SimStaff
Update Your Wheel Drivers First
A Windows update in March 2023 introduced a GameInput incompatibility that broke force feedback on some wheels after an Alt-Tab. Driver and firmware releases have handled it since, which makes an old install the likeliest reason you’re still seeing it.
Thrustmaster’s current driver package is 2026_TTRS_1, several generations past the original 2023 fix. Logitech, MOZA, Fanatec, Simagic, and Asetek owners want the newest driver and firmware from their own support pages too.
Update before you change anything in Windows. Be aware that a firmware install that didn’t complete cleanly will produce plenty of its own symptoms, including feedback dropping mid-session.
Close the wheel’s control panel before you launch the game, as well. When you’re testing, change one thing at a time and relaunch the sim between changes.
Image Source: SimStaff
Check GameInput Service
Microsoft GameInput handles force feedback for input devices, including racing wheels. Microsoft describes feedback effects as being loaded onto the device motor, where they can be started, paused, resumed, and stopped.
That fits the symptom here. Steering and pedal inputs can keep reaching the game while the effect on the motor has stopped after the game lost focus.
Open Task Manager and look for GameInput Service in your running processes. It installs alongside the Xbox app and stays on the machine even if you uninstall that app, so it’s often there when you don’t expect it. If it isn’t listed at all, this isn’t your problem, and the checks for your game are the next stop.
If it is running and current drivers haven’t changed anything:
- Press Windows + R.
- Type services.msc and press Enter.
- Find GameInput Service.
- Right click it and open Properties.
- Set Startup type to Disabled.
- Click Stop under Service status.
- Restart the PC.
- Check Task Manager to make sure it stayed off.
Disable it. Don’t delete it. If an Xbox controller, Game Pass title, or another Windows game starts playing up afterwards, set GameInput Service back to Automatic and start it again.
This fix isn’t guaranteed, and you’re switching off a Windows service other games use. If nothing changes, turn it back on and move to the checks for your game.
Image Source: SimStaff
What to Check in Forza Horizon 5 and 6
Forza’s current wheel guidance says force feedback is sent to the device registered as Device 1. Pedals, a shifter, handbrake, or spare controller can end up ahead of the wheelbase.
Unplug the other control devices, connect the wheelbase straight to the PC with no hub, and then test the Steering input under Advanced Controls > Wheel > Custom Profile. Once the base has feedback, reconnect the rest of your gear one device at a time. If the number of devices is what’s tripping you up, we’ve covered the multi-USB limit in FH5 and FH6 in more detail.
There’s one odd FH5 fix worth knowing if the feedback cuts in and out while you’re driving. One player traced the dropouts to a mouse on a plate attached to the rig. Vibration kept nudging the mouse, so FH5 kept switching between mouse and wheel input. Moving the mouse stopped it.
Forza EmuWheel is useful when Forza won’t detect your hardware properly. It uses vJoy to combine separate devices into one controller Forza can read.
If the wheel has feedback but feels wrong rather than dead, you’re tuning rather than troubleshooting, and Horizon’s centre spring behaviour is usually where that starts.
Image Source: SimStaff
What to Check in ACC
Try leaving ACC with the Windows key instead of Alt-Tab. In a Steam thread about FFB dying after tabbing out, one player reported that using the Windows key kept the problem away across his last few attempts.
It costs nothing to run that way for a few sessions and see whether the dropout stops on your rig.
Keeping It From Coming Back
Use Fullscreen if Borderless Windowed keeps making you click onto another monitor by accident.
Give the wheelbase a clean run of power and USB too. Thrustmaster wants the power cord in a wall socket rather than an extension lead or power strip and the wheel connected directly to the PC without a hub or extension. On a desktop, try the rear motherboard ports first.
If the dropouts happen at random rather than after Alt-Tab, move the wheel to another USB port and test again.
Testing Outside the Game
Load a different racing sim before you spend another evening in FH5 or ACC’s settings. If the feedback dies there too, you’re chasing Windows, the driver, the USB connection, or the base itself, and our general rig checklist covers more ground than this page does.
Then use the manufacturer’s force feedback test if your wheel software has one. On Thrustmaster, type joy.cpl into Windows search, open Game Controllers, choose the wheel, click Properties, and then open Test Forces. Thrustmaster provides 12 force tests there.
A wheel that passes those and still loses FFB in one game points you to that game’s input handling. A wheel that fails them gives you a reason to contact the maker before spending another evening on game settings.
A wheel that goes light 20 minutes into a stint with no tabbing involved is a heat problem, and it has its own set of checks.
Image Source: SimStaff
When to Stop Troubleshooting
SimRigSupport handles remote diagnostics for sim rigs. If the wheel is still going light after these checks, we can work through the setup with you and find where the drop is happening.
Provide a detailed description of exactly what happens before you contact anyone. “Steering and buttons work, FFB dies every time I Alt-Tab” gives whoever is troubleshooting something to act on.
Include your wheelbase model, driver and firmware versions, Windows version, USB connection, and the games where you’ve seen it.
Add the date it started and the game version you were running. A wheel that’s been fine for months can go light in one title after a patch nobody asked for, and it cuts both ways: one F1 23 player reported that update 1.07, which was meant to fix Alt-Tab FFB loss for other people, was the update that handed him the problem. Knowing which build you were on when it started is often the thing that explains why last week was fine.
