The 'everlasting' steering wheel thread

ambro25

How is that for an idea: can I encourage owners of steering wheels for PC/consoles (I'm not sectarian) to post in this thread what they use, what they have used, on what platform and provide some review/feedback, just so anybody with an interest in racing sims and reading up this Forum, and wanting to purchase a wheel, can take a better-informed decision?

I'll start the ball:

Modena 360 Pro (PC, USB)

I bought this off the Forum a short while ago.



I find this quite well-built and sturdy, heavy also if you don't clamp it to a surface. The wheel has 4 paddle shifters (2 left, 2 right), 2 of which are used for gears, the other two can be used for analogue acceleration/brakes if you don't want/can't use the pedals.

The pedals themselves are very sturdy and not too soft, very comfortable to use, but you may find the base a bit light for adult use so velcro (for carpet) or some sort of suckers (for laminate/varnished surface) may be in order.

The wheel is not force feedback'd, but the axial tensioning is really rather good all the same, feels about the same as my real-life MX-5. Best thing is the rubber coating of the wheel, that makes it very comfortable to hold and a good grip at all times. The hat switches feel a bit flimsy and are located for 'thumb use', not very comfortable to use - I tend to use the two 'single' buttons located underneath (one assigned to rear view, the other for handbrake). The wheel also includes a gear shifter on the right handside, which I have not used at all as it's quite stiff (don't know if it was less so when th wheel was new, but too small & close to the wheel to operate comfortably).

Current use: LFS S2, GTR, GPL, TOCA RD2, GTL Demo

Turbo Wheel (CBS Colecovision, proprietary) :eek:

showing my age now

That was the first wheel I ever had and used - I believe the first gaming wheel ever made available to home computer/console users (1982/83, I think).



No force feedback, no axial tensioning, no nothing - it was just a free-turning bakelite wheel, quite stylish at the time, and had a separate pedal which was very soft (0.01 mm diameter spring or somesuch, felt like) and the base was not weighted at all. Quite sturdily built, though, for 80s US gear.

It could be used with Turbo (pole position-like, very basic and blocky) and, my fondest memories of my CBS, The Dukes of Hazzard ('proper 3d racing' :rolleyes: for the time, you could do handbrake turns and all...)

Over to you guys 'n 'gals

Oh, yes - "why everlasting?" Because it'd be nice of people to keep posting as and when they change wheels/upgrade, etc, etc...

aidan_dunne

I also have the 360 Modeno Pro, ambro25. Your review of it there pretty much sums up what I think of it too. I picked it up for peanuts in Peats last year. To be honest, I haven't had much of a chance to use it but it's a fairly decent wheel. I don't find the lack of force-feedback a major problem either, it feels alright as it is.

It is a pity that you can't assign all the different buttons/hat switches/paddles/gearstick different functions, though. For example, in a rally game, say, I'd like to be able to assign the top paddles the gearshift function and be able to assign the gearstick at the side as a handbrake, so when I pull back on it it "lifts" the handbrake. You can't do that with this wheel though, it seems, as the gearstick and top paddles are linked together. If you assign the paddles gearshift function, the gearstick is also assigned that same function as well and vice-versa. Similarly, the bottom paddles are linked to the pedal assignments, so you can't assign them a seperate function either. It's a pity they all weren't independent so you could assign them individual functions if you wanted to.

Other than that, though, I'm fairly happy with it. As I said, I don't get much use from it as I don't have the time to play games as much as I'd like these days but, when I do, it does me fine.

Games I use it with: Colin McRae Rally 2, Grand Prix 4, Rally Championship Xtreme and the rest I can't remember!

Oh, by the way, anyone know if there's a way to get this wheel working with older DOS games like GP2 and (Network Q RAC) Rally Championship? As a USB wheel, I don't think there's a way of getting it to work in DOS which is a real shame. Anyone know of a way of getting USB devices to work in DOS or a way to "emulate" it as a standard joystick port device or something? Or is there such a thing as a USB-to-old joystick port adaptor you can buy? I know you can get them for the other way round (to convert older wheels/joysticks to USB) but is there anything you can get to do what I'm suggesting here? Any help would be much appreciated, folks!

Balfa

I used to use a MS Sidewinder FFB wheel, and it was a good solid performer, no highlights, but no real flaws. It was two minipaddles, i think four face buttons, and no shifter. Its best feature was probably its build quality. It felt very good and comfortable and there were never any creaks or groans of cheap plastic. The worst thing about it was probably the pedals. The springs aren't strong enough and the base moved around a little too easy. I never got much use out of this wheel because of the way my PC used to be set up i had to move the monitor and my seat and hook the wheel up and i was just too lazy to bother with all



Two days ago I got a Logitech Driving Force Pro. This is fantastic. Build quality exceeds the MS in every way. The gear shifter looks a little tacky up close, but i didn't notice that until after about four hours of play, because it feels perfect to the hands and i wasn't staring at my gearshifter around the nurburgring
The pedals are very sturdy, and the brake is the stiffest i've ever tried in a game controller, which is a good thing. The base does move around a little bit, but it hasn't disrupted my play so far. The force feedback is also considerably stronger than i remember from the MS wheel. The entire wheel is rubberized, unlike the MS wheel which just had handgrips on either side of the wheel in rubber, which is nice because i prefer to hold the wheel high at 11 and 1 o'clock.
This wheel is designed for PS2, but has a USB connector and can also be used with PCs. The wingman team 4.60 drivers offer full support for it, and are nicely configurable. The PS2 thing is really just a bonus for me as most of its use will be on PC, but it's nice to be able to play GT4 with a wheel.
It features two minipaddles, 6 easy-to-reach face buttons, 4 secondary out-of-reach face buttons, a hat switch and the (sequential) gear shifter up and down make a total of 18 digital buttons along with the steering and pedal axes.
I absolutely love the shifter and use it in preference over the paddles. I tend to use it with my little finger with my hand still at 1 o'clock on the wheel, or sometimes just rest my hand next to the shifter if i'm on a straight and waiting to shift up.

This wheel's biggest trick its 900 degrees of wheel rotation, which is mostly a great thing, but also has a couple of niggles. You can switch between 200 degree and 900 degree mode, either in the driver screen or by holding down select, R3 and right paddle, which seems to put a lock in place to prevent the wheel moving beyond 100 degrees (feels more like 90) either way. Now the biggest problem with this is that 200 (feels more like 180) degrees of rotation is really small, i think the MS wheel i used to use was like, 270 degrees or something which was far more useable. I can't stand to use the 200 degree mode because i feel really restriced. The alternative is to use 900 degree mode which can be a bit of a pain if the game isn't designed with that in mind... Grand Prix Legends at the Loews hairpin isn't fun when you've got to turn the wheel an entire turn and a quarter to reach full lock.
To somewhat overcome this, the drivers allow you to set any angle between 40 (!?!) and 900. This leaves the locks unlocked but uses full centering force to "prevent" you from going beyond your chosen angle. I was kind of worried at how this would work at first, but i went ahead and set my wheel to 360 degrees and it actually works fine. Sure, it's possible to exceed the 360 degree limit but i don't tend to do it during normal racing. For PS2, you can choose either 200 or 900, it doesn't look like you can get anywhere between.

So far, i've enjoyed GT4 at 900 and GPL and LFS S2 Alpha Demo at 360 (though i'm going to try PS2 TOCA RD2 in a bit, and during the time it took me to write this post, i've downloaded about 90% of the GTL demo). I did think GPL felt a bit funny and awkward at first, but i read up on some forums (BHM, i think) and found that i should set all forces (centering and damping in this case) to 0 except overall in my wheel drivers. This solved the problem and now the wheel works great in GPL, and i left the settings like that to try LFS with great results there as well.

One funny thing is that the wheel seemed to move its center of rotation off to one side in GPL until i exited the game mode and went back in. I'm not totally sure if it's because of simulated car damage or something else, but it seemed to go away after a while. I'll post back after further tests

Anyway, it's a really enjoyable wheel, and i'd recommend it to anyone. The RRP is a little high, but i found mine for a stonking $70. If you've got a PS2 and GT4, that's definitely a deal clincher.

smokingman

Go this a while ago and besides one niggle, it's the best you'll find anywhere...
The force feedback on this wheel is better than the sidewinder and any other logitech one I've played on. This, combined with the incredible rubber grips, the six easily reached configurable buttons on the face, the analogue paddles (hate those digital click ones on other wheels!), 240 degrees of wheel rotation, a triple clamping system that secures it to any desk tightly, pedals with carpet gripping teeth under the base and also slippy-floor rubber pads to stop it slipping....all make this the best wheel out there!

My one niggle that seems to be a common occurance is that the brake pedal does occasionally come out of the factory a bit faulty. I've had to add a 12% deadzone to it's action through the software so that I'm not always braking just a tad. I've heard this is fixable but with a wheel as good as this, you'd expect the pedals to be of equal quality.

I play this on GTR (got Colin McCrae 2005 but can't stop playing GTR instead)
and I love it!

Balfa

Logitech Driving Force Pro update.

I was just moving my wheel and found out that there's a retractable spikey bar on the bottom of the pedals, so i extended it and now the pedals are stuck to the carpet like glue, excellent!

With no niggles, it's the best you'll find anywhere :P

and it seems fashionable to put pictures of your wheel in the post, so:


edit: one other thing i like about it is that the desk footprint of the wheel is about half the size of the MS wheel i used to use! Very useful. And yet it still manages more forceful feedback. And even though it doesn't have the momo's gimmicky triple-clamp system, it's as good as cemented to the table.

dealgan

"ACT Labs Force RS" Wheel
http://www.actlab.com/Products/forcers.htm

"ACT Labs performance pedals"
http://www.actlab.com/Products/pedal.htm

3-pedal system - clutch is an add-on pedal, but attaches very neatly to the 2-pedal assembly

Seems to be discontinued now, but you can still get parts for repair from them. I had to replace one of the gear paddles behind the wheel, (dont ask !) and it was delivered in about 3 days.

Excellent wheel & pedals.
Recently had to swap the pots from clutch over to accelerator, as it was getting worn, and wouldn't always give you 100% throttle.

They also do/did a "GPL Shifter" which mounts with the wheel.
Comes with an 8-position gate, but you can buy other gates with fewer slots.
Great for LFS, very real when you set it that you have to clutch when changing gear.

Owned it for about 3 or 4 years.

Dcully

Logitech formula force GP here,very nice wheel.
Got it after my MOMO broke.
Solid wheel,very precise and as with all logi gear drivers are top class.
Only 80 yoyos in PC world a year ago.

OSiriS

Dragging up a relatively old thread I know, but I felt this to be a good reference rather than starting a new thread for it.

I bought an old Microsoft Sidewinder Wheel (the one without force feedback) a few years ago with the intention of getting into GPL, but was never able to stick with it long enough to properly get the hang of the proper physics etc. The last couple days now I've been messing around with the LFS demo, and have GTR in the post with an eye to getting into something else in a while if I can get the hang of it.

I'm starting to wonder though if my wheel of choice is holding me back. While it seems responsive it just doesn't feel quite right. Times have moved on since the last time wheels were discussed here, and prices have fallen. I've noticed I can pick up a MOMO from itdirect for €115, and a Logitech formula force GP for €65, though if I were to lok around the likes of PCWorld, Peats, etc it may be possible to find cheaper since ordering from the net seems to cost the same. I would like to know if any of you have any experience with my own wheel and these newer generation wheels. Is there much of an improvement in performance and handling. I am also wondering if a MOMO is really worth an extra €50 over the formula force GP.

Since Dcully has has experience with both of these I would very much appreciate your input if you are around, but I would be grateful if anyone can share their experiences

Thanks

Dcully

I had the MOMO but my 2 year old got at it when it was in calibration mode and kept hitting the buttons whilein force feedback test mode and broke the motor.
I now have the formula force GP as above in pic [i added a smaller newer poic btw]and have no problems with it.
Its excellent value and ive won some online races with it too
The logitech driving forcepro is excellent also.
Since your in the market for some racing sims why not try rfactor its outstanding and far better than thoseyou mentioned.
http://www.rfactor.net/
Check out the community for it here,new greatmods released on a weekly basis now.
http://forum.rscnet.org/forumdisplay.php?f=799
Theres a list of 51 mods on this site complete with download link.
http://rfactorracing.yusho.de/index.php?categoryid=43&p13_sectionid=3

I reccomend the GP2,PCC,F1 mclarenGTR,F1 challenge,Aussie V8, for must downloads.

OSiriS

I've been having a luck at rfactor alright. The main reason I bought GTR was the price, I wanted a cheap good game to get used to driving before shelling out more cash. I may not buy the full LFS, but I'm enjoying the demo. The training is pretty good for messing around with low speed cars, and it's helping me get used to driving.

The main problem I'm having with my wheel at the moment is high speed control. Either it won't calibrate right, or these game include strong torque steering. High speed driving requires fine adjustments I can't seem to get with my sidewinder. Either it won't respond and it continues to drive me onto the dirt, or it responds too much and sends me into a spin.

ButcherOfNog

lo oldtimer

the lack of force feedback is always gonna be a problem, i'd blame that. i've what is now an old ms forcefeedback wheel, done the job proudly until i hadn't the time to put in the practice to compete in online leagues. haven't powered it on in the guts of a year, must have a fling at rFactor at some stage.

Balfa

Force feedback will definitely make a big improvement. You're missing out on all the subtleties that let you know what the car's doing. Intuitive things, like the steering stiffening up when you brake and load the front wheels, and then loosening again as you lock the front wheels and all your grip disappears.

With that in mind, pretty much any of the wheels mentioned here will do, but I swear by my DFP :]

On a related note, I did more testing and it turned out the off-centre thing was just damage modeling in GPL. Phew

OSiriS

Hey Nog;) been a while alright.

I picked up a Formula Force EX, the latest version of the GP I believe, and bought rFactor. The difference is night and day. From a newbies point of view, I went from handling teetering on a knife edge in LFS to being able to really attack the circuit. The response from the cars is fantastic, and while I'm still alot slower than the AI I can see where I need to improve.

Dcully

Dont forget to download them mods,as with all rfactor mods they are usually only from 40-100 mb pretty small in fairness.

OSiriS

I got a hold of them too, but for the time being i'm gonna learn to walk before I try running.

Dr. Dre

Just wondering how many of you guys have experienced the 'Act Labs' setup. It really is like nothing I've dealt with before, quite amazing.

SouperComputer

Dr. Dre wrote:

Just wondering how many of you guys have experienced the 'Act Labs' setup. It really is like nothing I've dealt with before, quite amazing.

Ive always wanted to get one, but keep putting it off. Its back in production now, so I guess that is a good thing.

Dcully

Yeah same here,i aways intended to purchase one.

nikimere

I've a Logitech Driving Force Pro with a Frex adapter and a 235mm Sparco Flat bottom suede wheel....

http://www.frex.com/gp/wheeladapter/index.htm

Dcully

Anywhere in Ireland i can walk in and buy the logi DFP?
What about online stores who stock it?

nikimere

Efioanaes wrote:

Anywhere in Ireland i can walk in and buy the logi DFP?

Nope, i've tried everywhere....

Efioanaes wrote:

What about online stores who stock it?

http://www.darkplanets.co.uk/ps2/logitech-driving-force-pro.asp
Cheapest place i've seen around, i know a few people who have bought from here.

SouperComputer

@nikimere

Did you have any problems setting up the software with the DFP?

nikimere

SouperComputer wrote:

@nikimere

Did you have any problems setting up the software with the DFP?

what software? the drivers?

SouperComputer

nikimere wrote:

what software? the drivers?

I was thinking of getting one a while back, and I noticed a couple of people on RSC etc etc having issues getting the full rotation to work. I read about FFB issues too. Although it must be 6months ago now when I read into it,

nikimere

i've never had any bother with the wheel at all.
i update the drivers everytime a new one comes out but i got mine back in August '05 and it's never missed a beat.
great wheel!

Balfa

The don't officially distribute the DFP in Ireland If you know someone who lives in the US, this site has extremely cheap DFPs:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=289638

No problems with software or anything. Excellent wheel. My review of it is further up this thread.

edit: and by the way, I hereby void the niggles I had with the 900 degree rotation - I was just worried about it at first, but it never ever proved to be an issue during races.

dealgan

Dr. Dre wrote:

Just wondering how many of you guys have experienced the 'Act Labs' setup. It really is like nothing I've dealt with before, quite amazing.

Didn't spot your post until now !

I've had the ForceRS wheel, performance pedals & add-on clutch pedal, with teh gpl shifter for around 5 years or so.
Excellent stuff.
From wear & tear I had to change over the pots from clutch to accelerator pedals last year, but its fine since. I also replaced one of the paddles that broke.
The strength of the force-feedback is excellent... I usualyy have to turn it down, or I get sore muscles from wrestling with it !

tbh, I haven't used the shifter much .. a bit with LFS when I got it first, but it is quite noisy in operation .. when you slam it from one gear to the other its quite a loud clunk .. not good for late night racing !

Dr. Dre

dealgan wrote:

...

tbh, I haven't used the shifter much .. a bit with LFS when I got it first, but it is quite noisy in operation .. when you slam it from one gear to the other its quite a loud clunk .. not good for late night racing !

I hear ya, I used to have to revert to the flappy padles for late nice racing when I had a house with the ex

nikimere

wait, never mind.... (repeating myself!)

ShevY

I had an act labs force RS wheel, standard pedals and GPL shifter.
The force feedback was unlike anything id used before. really great.
unfortunately the pedals broke, so i was left with a wheel and shifter.
I suppose i should probably buy the usb adaptor for the shifter and get a momo wheel or something