clshades
Well-known member
How dare you post my dreams.
Experience With Racing Wheels
- Thread starter GregoireA
- Start date
GregoireA
Well-known member
Dam you people that only buy stuff at Christmas! This shipping from California is going to take forever.
GregoireA
Well-known member
A Christmas miracle! All three packages arrived today!
Took a while to setup so didn't get to use it much but here are my first impressions:
Wheel and base have a nice build quality, but on the surface not much better than Logitech. That goes to show how good a product Logi makes for their price. This is one of the cheaper, if not cheapest wheels from fanatec but it does not feel or look cheap.
The pedals are truly an order of magnitude better than most thrustmasters and logis. They are solid metal throughout and take a bit of time to get setup. The normal brake pedal uses a hard foam pad to increase pressure over the normal return spring. I got the pressure sensing load-cell pedal so I decided to keep the 3rd pedal as a clutch.
Luckily the seat I have has a mounting plate with various pre-drilled holes in it however I still had to cut away some plastic so that a bolt head could get to the hole. Thank goodness I finally bought a dremel tool.
Updating firmware via PC went relatively smoothly, and while connected to PC you can adjust tons of settings that can be saved onto 5 profiles that can be selected on the wheel. This is where this wheel is no longer entry level learning how these adjustments works seems pretty important to fine tune the experience. For now the only one I've tried is the brake force setting which allows adjustment to the threshold of pressure required to get to 'full brake' by default it is set to 50% and I found that I had to reduce it to 20% otherwise my foot would get too tired.
Playing GTS went well. If anything the wheel feels too smooth to me. I'm used to a G29 and have used a T300 and both of those wheels are almost always rumbling and jumping all the time. So far with little tuning the Fanatec seems to just smooth out a lot of those outputs. The feel of when you start to understeer and you front wheels rub and vibe really comes through realistically and doesn't kick your hands around.
The gas pedal has a nice long throw that I almost immediately got used to. The brake pedal will take some getting used to because I'm trained to let off by moving the brake pedal, but with the loadcell if you do that you pretty much come right off the brakes all together. With practice I'm sure this will be a much better braking feel. Even with ABS off(this is regarded as impossible in GT) I started to develop a good feel for it.
Once I get more time with the wheel I'll share how I feel about the value. For now if you have any questions let me know and I'll look into it.
Took a while to setup so didn't get to use it much but here are my first impressions:
Wheel and base have a nice build quality, but on the surface not much better than Logitech. That goes to show how good a product Logi makes for their price. This is one of the cheaper, if not cheapest wheels from fanatec but it does not feel or look cheap.
The pedals are truly an order of magnitude better than most thrustmasters and logis. They are solid metal throughout and take a bit of time to get setup. The normal brake pedal uses a hard foam pad to increase pressure over the normal return spring. I got the pressure sensing load-cell pedal so I decided to keep the 3rd pedal as a clutch.
Luckily the seat I have has a mounting plate with various pre-drilled holes in it however I still had to cut away some plastic so that a bolt head could get to the hole. Thank goodness I finally bought a dremel tool.
Updating firmware via PC went relatively smoothly, and while connected to PC you can adjust tons of settings that can be saved onto 5 profiles that can be selected on the wheel. This is where this wheel is no longer entry level learning how these adjustments works seems pretty important to fine tune the experience. For now the only one I've tried is the brake force setting which allows adjustment to the threshold of pressure required to get to 'full brake' by default it is set to 50% and I found that I had to reduce it to 20% otherwise my foot would get too tired.
Playing GTS went well. If anything the wheel feels too smooth to me. I'm used to a G29 and have used a T300 and both of those wheels are almost always rumbling and jumping all the time. So far with little tuning the Fanatec seems to just smooth out a lot of those outputs. The feel of when you start to understeer and you front wheels rub and vibe really comes through realistically and doesn't kick your hands around.
The gas pedal has a nice long throw that I almost immediately got used to. The brake pedal will take some getting used to because I'm trained to let off by moving the brake pedal, but with the loadcell if you do that you pretty much come right off the brakes all together. With practice I'm sure this will be a much better braking feel. Even with ABS off(this is regarded as impossible in GT) I started to develop a good feel for it.
Once I get more time with the wheel I'll share how I feel about the value. For now if you have any questions let me know and I'll look into it.
GregoireA
Well-known member
I currently own two G27s. According to many who made the transition, the newer Thrustmasters are definitely better, especially with the pedals. I haven't tried it myself though. That said, with my lowly G27 and an Oculus Rift, I've become probably one of the top 100 drivers in Dirt Rally 2. Just got my first world record, and ranked 82nd, 47th and 25th in the World Series Rounds 1-3 respectively (with thousands competing). In 2019, I would've been happy with a top 1000 spot. The difference was the VR, not what wheel I used. However, I do now aspire to a better wheel and a motion platform setup. Actually, two of each, so we can have our pre-Covid race nights once we are post-Covid.
GregoireA
Well-known member
Impressive! Goes to show that practice and skill with any given setup can lead to results. I don't play racing or flying games in VR much because I get motion sick but I can imagine how actually looking into a turn like I do in real life would make my driving ability way better.
I highly recommend against most Thrustmasters. I'll upload pictures of the t300 to show how flimsy some of it is compared to logi.
Yes, their new T-LCM pedals look good but are more expensive than the fanatecs and you probably don't get nearly as much customization.
If you are used to the G27 I recommend you stay with it. For comparison I put the G29 pedals beside the t300rs pedals. For some reason the aluminum is oxidizing a lot. Sure the thrustmaster is made out of reinforced plastic but they really do feel flimsy compared to any other pedal I have used. Few pictures of the t300 wheel to show how it looks nice but is actually just molded plastic that they did not bother removing the overhang from. I don't have sensitive hands but those small ridges and holes would give me blisters.
If you feel like it is time to upgrade maybe try mixing and matching wheel bases and pedals. You play on PC so it should be way easier to do that.
Attachments
GregoireA
Well-known member
My bad, that was the T300 GT. The RS has the 3 pedal setup, which appears to be a fair deal better built.
It seems like the Fanatecs are the best way to go, but that they can get expensive quickly. The setup that would best suit me is like the one rally driver Jon Armstrong uses in his YT channel.
For now, though, I am sticking with the G27, and anything I save will be for the motions system(s) that I want.
As for VR, yes, I got a lot of motion sickness to start with, but the feeling and realism made me determined to stick it out. After one particular time, about my third occasion using VR for driving, I got into the weirdest most profuse sweating ever while combating the nausea and driving on. After that incident things improved markedly. Most people do get used to it if they push through a little. Some never do. I'm hoping the motion platform will help in removing the ill sensations altogether.
GregoireA
Well-known member
After one solid week of using the Fanatec I'm still getting used to it.
The wheel feedback is smooth and strong. At first it felt like something was missing, and after looking at the G29 again I found that the Fanatec doesn't rumble and make nearly as much noise as the Logi.
WRT the feedback, I play with the normal settings in GTS(6 torque, 6 feedback) and like I have said before the feedback is smooth and strong however after playing for around an hour I find that I start to get fatigued because of the weight needed to move the wheel in some situations.
Of course, I could turn down the torque but I got this to make it feel more like a Sim and this checks a box for me.
I am still getting used to the brake pedal. I have found that I need to use it on one of the highest sensitivities otherwise the amount of pressure required is too much for the mounting setup.
In general the combo of really nice and accurate feedback plus being able to 'feather' the brakes going into a turn makes for a setup I find gives me more control.
Unfortunately the throttle signal has started to get very erratic. This is apparently very common for some Fanatec pedals because of the open design and the apparently very crappy potentiometers they use. The recommended fix is to replace them with HAL effect sensors but in my opinion a 300$ pedal set should not need an aftermarket replacement; they should come with the better sensor from the start so they don't fail in the first week of use.
I have contacted Fanatec for support so we will see how they handle this common problem.
Overall I'm still happy with this upgrade, but the coming week will really make or break my opinion.
The wheel feedback is smooth and strong. At first it felt like something was missing, and after looking at the G29 again I found that the Fanatec doesn't rumble and make nearly as much noise as the Logi.
WRT the feedback, I play with the normal settings in GTS(6 torque, 6 feedback) and like I have said before the feedback is smooth and strong however after playing for around an hour I find that I start to get fatigued because of the weight needed to move the wheel in some situations.
Of course, I could turn down the torque but I got this to make it feel more like a Sim and this checks a box for me.
I am still getting used to the brake pedal. I have found that I need to use it on one of the highest sensitivities otherwise the amount of pressure required is too much for the mounting setup.
In general the combo of really nice and accurate feedback plus being able to 'feather' the brakes going into a turn makes for a setup I find gives me more control.
Unfortunately the throttle signal has started to get very erratic. This is apparently very common for some Fanatec pedals because of the open design and the apparently very crappy potentiometers they use. The recommended fix is to replace them with HAL effect sensors but in my opinion a 300$ pedal set should not need an aftermarket replacement; they should come with the better sensor from the start so they don't fail in the first week of use.
I have contacted Fanatec for support so we will see how they handle this common problem.
Overall I'm still happy with this upgrade, but the coming week will really make or break my opinion.
GregoireA
Well-known member
How is your experience so far?
