rec.autos.simulators

What is better, Logitech FF Gp,Microsoft Sidewinder, or Thrustmaster 360
Modena? That is all I have to choose from, but how big is the difference, as
I favour the Logitech slightly due to  price(slightly) and store location.
GPL is my first Pc game, up till now I have been a console man, but I am
looking forward to a stretch and to control.
Thanks

You will get as many different answers to that as there are people in
this newsgroup.  Really they are all very good wheels, it's just a
question of what you prefer.

I ended up with the Logitech wheel, mostly because it was a better fit
for my desk. Its only real drawback so far has been that it doesn't have
as many buttons as the others, and they are not very well placed.  But
overall I am very happy with it.

I think the MS units have the best clamps and the best pedals.  However
people with slower CPU's have said that MS's force feedback tends to
slow the CPU down more than others.

I have not tried the Modena, but on the other Thrustmaster wheels that I
tried I was uncomfortable with how vertical the pedals were.  Bad
ergonomically, and also the reason why they tend to skate across the
floor during use.  The Logi and MS wheels have pedals mounted at lower
angles, which are more comfortable and tend to stay in place better.
OTOH from what I can recall the Thrustmaster line tends to have the best
wheel units of the three, at least in terms of number of buttons and
levers and so forth.

All of which probably didn't help you one bit.  Try them at the store if
you can, and then see which one you like better.  You are not likely to
be disappointed with any of them.

Regards,
Hal

BTW there is a $20 rebate on the Logi wheel (should be glued to the box)
and I think Best Buy is offering a rebate on the MS wheel also.

apart from (some say, not me) inferior force feedback, get the
force-rs with rs-shifter (engine braking ya know) and forget the only
second place wheel the logitech ff

cheers

Rich

I use the LWFF-GP.  It's inexpensive and a little flimsy, but for my
first wheel and PC game (I was in your exact shoes last November) it's
been great.  No problems after many joyful hours of GPL - just
remember that it will take a little bit of adjusting of settings in
the core.ini file under [joystick].  I use roughly damping = 30,
latency = 0.0005, torque = 350.  Oh, just remembered that just after I
got it there was some noise that required lubrication of the motor or
gears, but that's all.

Bob Simpson