rec.autos.simulators

At last I'm thinking about buying myself a steering wheel and pedals
for some of the PC driving games I play, mainly Ubisoft F1RS and TOCA,
but also Nascar 2 and Grand Prix Legends in the future, and probably
others.

I don't require perfection from the wheel and pedals, but is Mad Catz
PC _any_ good? At least it appears to be affordable, but does it break
up easily, or is it otherwise worthless? How does it connect to the PC
(this wasn't mentioned on the box I inspected at a store today)?
Normal SB gameport is enough for both the wheel with all buttons and
the pedals? What kind of technology does it have inside, ie. does it
have "pots" that need to be cleaned all the time, or does it have some
better and fancier stuff inside like the diodes in MS Sidewinder 3D
Pro joystick?

While Mad Catz PC cost about 490 FIM here, I also saw them selling
Digital Edge's "F1 Sim Compact" for around 895 FIM (it may be called
something else in States). I've heard some very good things about this
wheel. What kind of technology does it have inside? Same old "dirty
pots" or something better? Compatibility with MS-DOS games like
Nascar 2 (the last DOS driving game I will probably play, so that is
not a biggie)?

Looking at the picture on the box, it seemed as if the pedals were
fastened on the wheel?!? But they are still just like ordinary pedals
at the end of a cord, right? ;-)

If I remember right Digital Edge had two different models of their
wheel, the cheaper one and the very high end one. Which one is this
"F1 Sim Compact"? I guess the cheaper model would be enough for me,
because this is not the only uprade I'm going to make to my PC this
year. ;-)

Any other suggestions for a good pair of wheel and pedals especially
for F1RS, TOCA and GPL? Preferably "potless". Thank you.

I have a digital edge (not compact) and I believe the only
difference between it and the compact version is the pedals.
You're basically doubling the price to get a very good set of
pedals.

The wheel itself is not without problems. The way it fixes to the
wooden board that keeps it on your desk is not very good. With
mine I soon had large amounts of play and the wheel moved about a
lot. So you end up wedging bits of paper etc under it to try and
keep it steady. I guess it can easily be fixed with the help of a
drill and a few screws - but that's not the point. Also I have a
small amount of play in the steering wheel which causes an
annoying wobble in use.

That said I tried out the thrustmaster wheels at a store on the
weekend and they are very poor in comparison. So if your choices
were down to the digital edge compact or something similar to the
thrusmaster GP1 I'd go for the digital edge. The gear levers
behind the wheel are especially good on the digital edge. The GP1
has them too but there is way too much travel on them.

Can't comment on the mad catz wheel. But when I did a scan of the
web a few months ago I didn't find any raves about it.

Jem

personally, I had a mad catz wheel and did not like it.  It had a cheap feel
to it, and was impossible to fasten to my desk.  I currently use the nascar
pro wheel by papyrus, and it works great!  best clamping system I have seen
yet.  Although the per4mer force feedback wheel intrigues me, as well, it
has gotten good reviews here.

I have been using  a Mad Catz wheel for about 6 months now and havent had any
problems with it.  The main reason that I chose that over any of the lower end
products out there was because I have been using one for my Playstation ever
since it was released (oh yeah, finding it on sale for $29 didnt hurt either).

Two main problems with it.  Firstly, by itself both units (wheel and pedals)
are just too light and need to be anchored down to be anywhere effective.
Using heavy duty velcro to keep it on a cart on the pedals to the carpet have
solved that problem.  The other problem is that they dont give you any config.
software with it, but you can get the drivers from their site (it would have
been nice to have them included).  I find that the wheel calibrates better with
the Thrustmaster Pro Panel instead of the standard Joystick Panel.

I have always liked the layout of the buttons on it, including a shifter and
shift-buttons on the back of the wheel as well.  So if I am playing something
like TOCA for example, I use the shifter.  Whereas if I am playing F1RS, you
just the buttons on the back of the wheel.

The wheel always had a good feel to it once you managed to get it bolted down.
I noticed that on my old PSX version,  there are bungee-cords used inside...but
on the newer PC version, springs are being used.  I have cleaned out all pots
recently just to make sure that nothings dirty, but there havent been any
problems as far as drifting settings or the sort.  Another thing worth noting
is that the wheel responds MUCH better after zeroing out the Dinput.dll
deadzone settings all the way down to zero.  

So if you can manage to find someway to bolt down the wheel unit (ie. velcroing
it to a small typewriter cart), it isnt that bad of a deal if you can get it
pretty cheap.

Of course in a few months I will be finishing my move and then will be
upgrading to one of the high-end units like a TSW or ECCI, but until then this
setup isnt that bad to hold me over.

Hope this helps,
F1Filter

The *best* wheels available are the TSW (Thomson Super Wheel) and the
ECCI(Extreme Competition Controls Inc). Both are made in the USA
and cost the equivilant of around 500.00 They are *the* wheels to get
if you have the money?

For the rest of us mere mortals the choice is really as follows....

1) F1 Sim - approx 150.00, expensive, made from steel, excellent
*feel*, quality suspect? probably the best all round value wheel?

2) F1 Sim "compact" - approx 80.00, as above, except they have
plastic pedals instead of steel pedals, and are therefore a bit
cheaper. NB:- The picture on the box shows the wheels on top of the
steering column, but they are used as standard pedals, eg:- via a lead
the pedals are placed on the floor.

3) Thrustmaster (TM) T2 - approx 100.00 made of tough durable
plastic, feels ok, pedals too close together & small? Desk clamps poor
design? (on *all* TM wheels), legendary after sales support from
Thrustmaster, parts suspect (expects pots and springs to break
regulally). Now obsolete and no longer sold so possibly hard to come by?

4) TM GP1 - approx 60.00, as per the T2 above, but no pedals, levers
behind wheel to accelerate and brake, can make hands ache after a
while?

5) TM Nascar Pro/F1 pro - approx 120.00, new revamped version of the
old T2, as per the T2 above, slightly bigger pedals.

6) all the other, cheap and *** wheels - (eg:- Per4ormer, G-Force,
etc) approx 30.00 to 70.00, usually poorer quality, cheap parts,
aimed at *arcade* type racers rather than serious sims? You get what
you pay for?

IMO, if you cannot stretch to an F1 Sim, or are worried about it's
quality go for one of the TM wheel sets. They are the next best thing,
good quality, have excellent after sales support. I would recommand
e-mailing Thrustmaster as soon as you get your wheel, and request
spare pots and springs straight away, which they will send free of
charge,  as these components *will* break after heavy use.

These wheels and pedals plug into any standard game port, but you do
have to set them up (as you should set up *any* joystick, wheel,
pedals, or gamepad?) under win95 game controllers icon, in control
panel. You should set up your wheel and pedals as a "race car
controller", and under the advanced tab, have the "poll with
interupts" option selected (although if you have problems calibrating,
this is the one of the first things to try changing, eg:- turn it
*off*)

(TIP: Get directx 5, which when installed, replaces the old joystick
icon in control panel, with a game controller icon that is much
better, also d/l the "Thrustmaster Pro-Panel" program from the
Thrustmaster website, as this allows accurate configuration of *all*
wheel and pedals, as well as other joysticks, gamepads, etc)

8?)

*Peter*    8-)
(NB: remove asterix to e-mail)

No need for the base board now? and the whole thing can be connected or
disconnected in about 10 seconds, leaving your desk available to use as
normal, cos the inserts (if fixed correctly) are flush mounted so do not
interfere with your use of the desk when the F1 Sim is disconnected.

I think they cost me about 7.00? and they were well worth it, and only
took about 10 minutes to fit (make sure you measure the position of the
holes properly before fixing!)

*Peter*    8-)
(NB: remove asterix to e-mail)

says...

Interesting. You could always pull out the ones fitted to the baseboard and
fit them into your desk. Infact mine have come out "naturally" several times
and I've had to wrap them in paper to tighten the fit and then give them a
good thump with the hammer.

Anyway what you describe is nice idea. The main problem I have with the
mechanism is the holes in the metal base plate are much larger than the shanks
of the screws that holds them to the baseboard. This means the wheel unit
moves about a lot unless you provide a very tight/resistive fit between the
metal base and the baseboard (i'm currently using an old mousemat!).

Jem