I've had a GT2 wheel (and Club Sport Pedals, equally as important) about a week and I can honestly say I'm not ever going back to racing games with a controller. I've always been decent at racing sims with a joystick, not really noteworthy or anything but I can play most games on medium difficulty levels and win, except for tracks that have long sweeping turns, I've never been good at micro corrections with a controller, with a wheel it's ...well...exactly how you think it should be. That's not a big surprise. What is the big surprise is that I've always been a third person view kind of guy for racing games (because being in the cockpit feels foreign...keep in mind I've driven ~180,000 miles in the real world...from inside a car...I know, it makes no sense whatsoever) but now having a wheel I can't race in third person perspective. My first race was on easy, against Honda Fit's and the equivalent, I was in a stock Ferrari 360 Modena, and I took second. Not my proudest moment.

Only gripe so face about the wheel isn't actually about the wheel, its about the sequential shifter. The standard gated 6 speed H shifter feels too weird, plus I drive a manual transmission daily (2011 VW GTI 4 door) so going to back to a sequential or paddles is nice (previous car was a 2003 BMW M3 with SMG tranny) but they've reversed the sequential order. In the BMW you pull the stick toward you to upshift (1 -> 2 or 2 -> 3), and you push it away from you (toward the radio/dashboard) to downshift (4->3 etc) and after doing that thoughtlessly for three or four years and ~30,000 miles I can't go opposite of it. Luckily blowing a shift doesn't destroy the engine in the M5 I'm driving, but I think it means I can pull the little rods out of the side of the wheel because the shifters are going to be unused.

Unless the next Clubsport shifter is awesome...

One side note, I did a lot of research about this wheel, and there was a lot of negative reviews regarding its use with Forza 3. Apparently people think that Forza 3 doesn't make the force feedback kick in hard enough. I'm not sure what they can possibly be talking about. I've got the wheel at half strength, and it still pulls a phenomenal amount. Me thinks some people may be overly picky...kind of like complaining about the sequential shifter being backward. :D

I've had a GT2 wheel (and Club Sport Pedals, equally as important) about a week and I can honestly say I'm not ever going back to racing games with a controller. I've always been decent at racing sims with a joystick, not really noteworthy or anything but I can play most games on medium difficulty levels and win, except for tracks that have long sweeping turns, I've never been good at micro corrections with a controller, with a wheel it's ...well...exactly how you think it should be. That's not a big surprise. What is the big surprise is that I've always been a third person view kind of guy for racing games (because being in the cockpit feels foreign...keep in mind I've driven ~180,000 miles in the real world...from inside a car...I know, it makes no sense whatsoever) but now having a wheel I can't race in third person perspective. My first race was on easy, against Honda Fit's and the equivalent, I was in a stock Ferrari 360 Modena, and I took second. Not my proudest moment.

Only gripe so face about the wheel isn't actually about the wheel, its about the sequential shifter. The standard gated 6 speed H shifter feels too weird, plus I drive a manual transmission daily (2011 VW GTI 4 door) so going to back to a sequential or paddles is nice (previous car was a 2003 BMW M3 with SMG tranny) but they've reversed the sequential order. In the BMW you pull the stick toward you to upshift (1 -> 2 or 2 -> 3), and you push it away from you (toward the radio/dashboard) to downshift (4->3 etc) and after doing that thoughtlessly for three or four years and ~30,000 miles I can't go opposite of it. Luckily blowing a shift doesn't destroy the engine in the M5 I'm driving, but I think it means I can pull the little rods out of the side of the wheel because the shifters are going to be unused.

Unless the next Clubsport shifter is awesome...

One side note, I did a lot of research about this wheel, and there was a lot of negative reviews regarding its use with Forza 3. Apparently people think that Forza 3 doesn't make the force feedback kick in hard enough. I'm not sure what they can possibly be talking about. I've got the wheel at half strength, and it still pulls a phenomenal amount. Me thinks some people may be overly picky...kind of like complaining about the sequential shifter being backward. :D

I have the GT2 Clubsport Edition as well and its the only way to play IMO. I do have the same gripes about the shifters they just don't feel at all like what you would find in a real car. The clutch feel isn't there either.
 
If your free Thursday nights you should join us for some racing . Giant Bomb Forza Race Night, Thursdays @ 10:30 PM ET

Nice! I'll see what I can do to placate the fiance to get some racing time in tomorrow night. Thanks for the link, reading through the first few posts it seems like a pretty cool environment.

I'm just curious, how long did it take you to be better with a wheel than a controller? I'm having a blast but still struggling...not struggling but definitely not as solid of a driver as I am with a joystick. Granted I don't have much wheel time (first wheel of any sort, and I had to finish GoW2 before finishing GoW3 last night) but it's a little frustrating that my proficiency is somewhat lacking.

Thanks again for the heads up on Race Night.

I had quite a bit of time behind the MS wheel before upgrading to the Fanatec GT2 so I would imagine the change was not as big of a shock as it would be if moving from a controller. That being said i still had to basically learn how to drive all over again. It probably took me a month or so to get back up to speed. 
 
Make sure you check out fanatecwheel.com. There is a settings section where people can post their Fanatec and in game settings for pretty much every game out there. Some times they can make a huge difference in how the game plays. Direct Link
 
Finally I would suggest sticking with the paddles/sequential till you get back up to speed then gradually work in the H gate shifter + clutch. Depending on the car though you may want to just stick to the paddles. It gets hard to row through the gears with the really quick cars due to the lack luster H gate shifter.

Holy...I spent a fair amount of time there and never saw that page - definitely a wealth of information there. And I'm definitely sticking with paddles for the time being, 1 - I miss having them in my real car and 2 - the gated shifter feels terrible to me. I've seen the unveiling of the CSR shifter, after some reviews I may upgrade.

I found a DIY to change the sequential so it shifts the proper way (up is a downshift, back toward you is an upshift), I may have to try that out.

Thanks again for all of the advice, it's greatly appreciated.

Do you have a link to the Sequential mod? I would be very tempted to try that as well.

Here you go - http://ozfm.darkbb.com/t2032-fanatec-sequential-shifter-mod

I'm not the complete McGuyver type (grew up with an older brother who could rewire a security system at the age of 7 - no joke) and this took me the better part of 45 seconds, and works great. Far more intuitive, at least for me.

I figured it might be that simple but, I wanted to make sure.
 
Thanks!

If it was me, I would have to switch the shifter in the real car to match the way the Fanatec does it, because that's how I've shifted in racing games with every wheel I've had. :P

@slowbird said:

If it was me, I would have to switch the shifter in the real car to match the way the Fanatec does it, because that's how I've shifted in racing games with every wheel I've had. :P

Lol, rewiring an SMG would probably require an advanced engineering degree, no joke it was more video game-ish than any video game I've played in the last 20+ years.

@j3ffro919: Silly BMW, thinking I would want to use inverted controls. :P