Do you have a steering wheel? Can you go back to not having one?

I recently got a badass, Thrustmaster T300 GTE Edition with T3PA pedals, and TH8A shifter, with a GT Omega Stand.

I know how that sounds, but i don't care because it's so fucking cool!

Seriously, it's the first time i've spent so much money on a gaming peripheral (more expensive than any console), but after having it for a few days i cannot imagine ever playing a racing simulator like Project Cars, Assetto Corsa, Dirt Rally, or Forza Motorsport without one.

It changes everything in simulators, all of a sudden, you go to the settings and do what you've never done, and turn off every assist possible and tweak sliders until it is as realistic as possible and then...

You're no longer playing a game, you are in a simulation, and you are not doing races, you are doing practice laps for an hour, and then, going back to the menu, going mechanic engineer on you car, tweaking stuff around and then testing out your new set up.

And i'm not one of these crazy car guys, i never was, i haven't played racing games in a real way in years, and i never got crazy about Gran Turismo or Forza.

But yeah, owning a wheel totally changes the way i view racing simulators...

So my questions are, do you have a racing wheel/rig?

Have you ever owned one?

How fucking cool is it?

And could you go back to playing these games with a controller?

I think I tried one as a kid/teen and it felt kinda fun, but I recall being pretty terrible at handling it. But I've never been much of a racing game guy anyway, at least when talking about more realistic driving games. Rollcage, Hi-Octane and Big Red Racing, though...didn't really need a racing wheel for those, I guess!

@glots: Yeah, it was the same thing with me, before getting this one, the only other time i had tried anything like this was on the ps1 with a really crappy wheel, and that sega rally game on the arcades, and i do remember that sega rally game being really awesome to play because you were basically inside a car with a wheel pedals and shifter, it was really cool!

I pulled the trigger on a racing wheel last year. I got the Thrustmaster TX with the Leather rim and T3PA pedal package and bought the F1 rim as well. I spent way too much money on it (although I know I could have spent double on a Fanatec wheel or something else) especially since I had just built a PC a few months earlier.

I love it. I only use it for iRacing and F1 games right now, but definitely don't want to go back to a controller if I don't have to. I think it makes those games so much more fun and immersive. That said, when it comes to more arcadey stuff like Forza Horizon or something else, I enjoy relaxing with a regular controller rather than the wheel. I kinda have to be in the sim racing mindset to use the whole setup.

That's cool man, and yeah, i did look up the fanatec stuff, but it is way too expensive, especially for someone like me, who had no idea if this was gonna be for me at all, but did want to get some quality stuff, and yeah, Thrustmaster stuff was above Logitech and right behind fanatec, so it was perfect for me.

I actually bought it from a guy who was in the process of upgrading his setup to fanatec stuff, and he only had it for a year, but yeah, i'm only on ps4 right now, but i'm afraid that if i do get into the more serious pc stuff, like iRacing or rFactor, i will at some point think very seriously about going up a few levels with fanatec, but yeah i don't even want to think about it, cos once you get to that level, you start thinking about a better rig, and some of the crazy ppl equipment that they have, and then this becomes your life!

I do agree about Forza Horizon, it'd be cool to try it with the wheel just for fun, but yeah, i think i'd still play that game with a controller.

DON'T BUY A RACING WHEEL!

Because I'm cheap I went for the TMX for $200US but it's still life changing. I had played a lot of Dirt Rally and even the Race07 game/expansions with an Xbox controller but felt like I had hit the limit of car control with it. After getting the wheel it was frustrating for a couple hours but now I can't be without it.

If you don't already love driving or racing games / sims then it's probably not worth it, but if you love either of those a wheel really completes the package. If money is little concern at least go for the T300 / Alcantara or similar with pro pedals and if you want to get hog wild you can get Heusinkveld pedals (JUST PEDALS) for 1000 euro and 3000 euro wheels to match.

It's just like real racing - it can eat every penny you have!

Haha, i actually came across that video again a few days before buying the wheel while doing research, it was so funny to hear that again, and to know that Vinny, years later, ended up buying a racing wheel!

Btw, does anyone know what wheel he ended up buying?

@lanechanger: Every single time somebody posts "should i buy a racing wheel ?" i think of this moment. my advice listen to Ryan DON'T BUY A RACING WHEEL !

I had a racing wheel for Forza Motorsport 2 back in 2007. I don't know if I was just bad or the racing wheel that was a fairly cheap wheel was bad but I quickly went back to a controller because it was much easier.

I've been dying to get one, but I have no idea how I'll mount it or set it up. I have a very big desk, but there's a drawer where I sit. :(

.

@thatonedudenick: Ok, so, i guess you wanna keep the drawer right? If so, get a stand, like the one i got, it's the GT Omega Steering wheel stand.

It's cool because you can have the whole thing set up and ready to go in a few minutes, but you can also fold it away and put it away somewhere when you're not using it.
I use it in front of my couch but you can put it in front of your desk and use it with a regular chair, don't use it with an office chair though, you don't want to move around while you're trying to drive, haha. ;)

@bprjctx: I'll look into that. Thanks.

A few years ago I spent about £500 on the Fanatec Forza Motorsport wheel, stand, pedals and shifter, all hooked up to my 360 and pc which were connected to a 1080p projector. It was bliss, for a while.

I couldn't really have it set up permanently because that sort of setup takes up a lot of space and when I did use it, it was super tiring especially after a long session, so more often than not it sat at the end of my bed and became a very expensive coat stand. I ended up going back to the pad and found I had just as much enjoyment.

Sure I wasn't playing a lot of PC sims but in the end it just wasn't worth the hassle. Sold it to a friend and didn't really miss it. I borrowed a friends logitech wheel recently play Project Cars and Dirt Rally in VR but again, it sat under my desk for the majority of the time I had it. Wouldn't buy another unless I had space to have it set up permanently and I lived in racing sims.

I have 4 at least. I can easily go back for most games. Many games are worse with wheels, especially after the 900 degree craze began. Somehow real race cars moved to quicker and quicker steering while sim wheels moved to slower and slower steering. Bizarre.

I don't enjoy sims without wheels and I usually don't enjoy less-simmy games (Horizon, rally anything, Burnout) with them. I didn't buy an Xbox One because MS didn't support any existing wheels, buying an Xbox One would entail another $300 wheel just to play Forza games, didn't seem worth it. Now I guess I'll be able to play the next Forza on PC with my Fanatec 911 or Logitech G-series wheels.

I don't have a stand, I bought a TV tray to clamp my wheel to, then later switched up to a $79 IKEA desk.

Ryan is so eloquent, yet is he right? Is a contrivance and a fallacy? They skipped the most interesting part when being their 'charmingly garrulous' selves, the actual explanation. Still, I'm not going to explain it either! However it's true a wheel won't make a game more fun. I'd like to think it serves a different function.

What has bothered me the most personally, is that the pedals in these rigs have no clutch. That's the only part I would have liked to practice in a realistic simulator, especially when learning to drive. After all, driving wheels and rigs are as much fun as a learning tool can be, that doesn't mean they are without merit, but there is a specific purpose which isn't fun and games. Look at Drew, he used those things to get to the real thing. Actually, I'm a big fan of learning software and it is a tragedy that it has got such a bad rep and history of BS. If only Rocksmith existed when I was a teenager, I might have learned to play guitar, but the only thing I could do is learn to touch type and cram foreign vocabulary, with _ _ _ _ _ descending like Tetris pieces. (I still loved it and can't find anything like it now.)

The act of "play" itself is purposeful in that it is a way to learn and practice, the very pursuit to make games just fun or just an art, thus depriving them of all purpose (like competition, simulation, teaching and practice) is entirely misguided, besides industry games have their own completely nefarious purposes, like how to maximize monetization or optimize engagement and keep people glued to the screen.

I have a g27. It's super rad.

Got a wheel with force feedback but doesnt work on the current gen consoles so stopped using it, tempted to get a new one but the hold up on Gran Turismo made the Xbox version the only one worth getting so far but still hanging on. PC/PS4 Logitech wheel most likely now, can play the Play Anywhere titles like Forza on pc thankfully and I still like them so works out best that I didnt cave in earlier.

@eurobum: Actually, when you get into the more serious sims, like Project Cars or Assetto Corso, or the crazy serious sims on pc, like iRacing or rFactor, you get to the point where you actually are learning how to drive, and race, they do have working clutches, and even sequential or H shifters like the TH8A i got, and it gets even crazier than that, but here's a video about one of the best iRacers, trying it in the real world.

Really interesting, oh, and if you actually wanna learn how to drive properly in the real world, there's this, which when paired with a wheel with 3 pedals and an h shifter, pretty much gives you an advantage if you're in the process of getting your drivers license.

Oh, almost forgot here's another example but going backward, showing you a real world rally driver in Dirt Rally, using his muscle memory and real world knowledge to destroy it in the game.

@bprjctx: Thanks for sharing that, I just descended down a youtube hole of watching rally drivers strafe passengers. My interest is with technology and technology is mostly a disappointment. For instance it is just with this generations of GPUs that graphics cards can even render multiple screens correctly, something called simultaneous multi projection, because VR required it. Prior to that the side screens just showed this comically distorted mess, that is also just a blur because of how LCD screens work...

When I have to drive a stick shift occasionally, I still feel like I'm pedaling or it it feels like the Flintstones. Certainly I'd be better at that if I spent 1'000 hours in a simulator rig. Except we got clutchless transmissions now that don't waste much fuel and every other factory new shit-box you can order with paddle shifters on the steering wheel, not that anyone ever uses them. Still it's hard to get excited for racing, something that clearly on the way out, hopefully soon to be replaced by electric cars and robotic drivers. I guess the biggest disappointment is once you grasp the physics, you realize that simulators cannot create that feeling in the pit of your stomach, that acceleration (g-forces) give when taking turns, slamming the breaks or flooring the throttle. Although motion sickness from blurry screens and motion sickness from aggressive driving may be similar enough.

Maybe there is a bright future for simulation and proper rigs and wheels with VR, If only we could get like a 900 dollar VR screen that one could take out of the helmet and use as a phone, perhaps with a separate clip-on battery.