rec.autos.simulators

I have seen some of you asking what a good steering wheel to get is.
I have had the same problem. In the last year I have been through 5
wheels.

I started with the Thrustmaster SuperSport which when I got it was
great.. but 2 months later and the damn pots were spiking hard.
I tried to exchange it for another and the one I exchanged it for was
spiking worst OUT OF THE BOX!!

Anywho I then got the Interact V3... muhahahahaha... don't even THINK
about buying one these plastic-Nintendo-loving-pieces-'o-crap.

So then I get the Andretti wheel which I read some good reviews of.
I can't really put my finger on it but it just did not feel right.
Don;t get me wrong the wheel seemed smooth but the desk size it took
and the oversized wheel made it difficult to use.
It was a good wheel but just didn't feel right.

Well.. I then see Thrustmaster has come out with a digital steering
wheel.
Wooohooo!! I think.. No more spiky pots since its digital.
So I pick up the NASCAR Digital Pro.
My God people.. what in the hell is wrong with them???
The deadzone on a DIGITAL stick??
The deadzone was about 1/2 and inch right or left!
You could not adjust the deadzone any smaller.
I just don't understand why they would make a digital wheel then
give it a huge deadzone. I downloaded the newest drivers and it
knocked the deadzone to 1/2 inch in either direction but as you RAS
experts know, that's still too much play in the wheel.
That is just pitiful.

So since then I have been using a joystick (4 year old Thrustmaster
Top Gun) and wishing I had a decent wheel.

Last night I went to Best Buy and say the Logitech wheels.
The Force Feedback and the Formula non force.
Since I'm not a fan of Force Feedback (Kills my FPS in games)
I picked up the $90 Formula wheel.
It is sweet. Nice bright yellow wheel with *** grips.
Digital.
The first thing I noticed I liked about this wheel is that it had no
"center stop"
A center stop is when the wheel has a "stop" point right in the center
of the turning radius. In other words, turn the wheel full right..
then start going full left, as you get to the center you will feel a
"stop" then it will continue..
I HATE that in wheels as it isn't natural or realistic of real wheels.
The Microsoft wheel has it, as all the other wheels I have ever tried
except for the Thrustmaster SuperSport.
Well, the logitech does not have this "stop" and it feels so damn
smooth.
The wheel has USB OR game port which works great. The calibration
set-up is smooth and flawless.

I really love the pedals. They have a foot rest on the left side so
you can drive one footed with the base lifting off the floor. First
time I saw pedals with that big of a rest area.

The profiler software is very good too as you can set up the wheel
differently for every game you own and launch the game with those
settings.
It has software select able split or combined axis and you can set and
control the buttons and shift paddles to whatever keyboard command you
want.

I stayed up until 6:00 am racing with this wheel and it is the best
wheel I have ever laid hands on bar none. So responsive and smooth.
It even works in Old DOS games perfectly. I fired up IndyCar II (DOS)
and Microprose Grand Prix II last night and was blown away buy the
amount of precise control I had.

Best Buy has a 2 year warrantee you can buy which I did for $10 which
means anytime in the next 2 years I can return the wheel to Best Buy
for ANY reason and get another one for free.
I asked them if they offered that for the other wheels they sold and
they said the only brand they have enough confidence in to do this
with is the Logitech wheels.

So, for all of you folks wanted to know the best wheels you can get,
get the Logitech ones. I can't praise this wheel enough. I haven't
tried the FF back one so I can't honestly comment on it but if it is
made with the same car as the non-FF then I say grab it.
I also haven't haven;t tried the TSW or ECCI wheels which I am sure
are very high quality but I personally can't see paying $300 to $1500
for a steering wheel when this baby I got right here does more than
enough.

Before anyone asks, no this is not an AD for Logitech. I do not work
for Logitech, I do not know anyone who works for Logitech nor am I
receiving anything to say the above. I just want to help those that
are searching find a great deal and share my happiness in a quality
product.
It's not something you see much these days.
- James "Gunslinger" Wohlever

Techware Computer Services
http://www.racesimcentral.net/

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Don Chapman

I got it to work with the DOS version of ICR2 this way -

1 Create a shortcut on the desktop of win98 to the indycar.exe  file
adding the -h switch.
2 Under properties-program-run, choose maximised .
3 Click Advanced and tick Prevent MS-DOS programs from detecting
windows. Don't tick any other box.

To my surprise when I went into the calibration screen in the game it
detected the wheel and calibrated it perfectly!

The rendition version was a different story. I have a v1000 rendition
board and could only get it to run cartrend.bat and not cartfast.bat.
With the Creative drivers it only ran at about five fps and the same
with rendition reference drivers v2.1. When i used the drivers that
came with win98 it worked fine.

I created the same shortcut for cartrend.bat and the LWFF worked but
not as well as the non-rendition version. It barely registered in the
calibration screen just a small range at each end of the scale. It
just wasn't accurate enough in the game to use.

All this without rebooting to DOS.

Michael