Discussion | Direct Drive Wheels: The Good, Bad And The Ugly

[Paul Jeffrey]

Discussion time! Direct Drive wheels are becoming increasingly common in sim racing, but which one should you get?

Long gone are the days of just one or two niche manufacturers developing DD wheel solutions for a hardcore few. In 2020, the discerning sim racer has a wealth of choice when looking to make the switch to Direct Drive... but with so many options, and such a high price point, what constitutes a good purchase?

I am not going to even try and pretend I am an expert on all the different DD bases available today, far from it in fact, so I thought it worth throwing up this thread for our community to discuss their own experiences, and offer up advice to those still thinking over their next steps.

For the record, I run the Bodnar SimSteering V2 and absolutely love it; however at the price point they are asking, you will probably want to follow the route I took and purchase it second hand!

 

[Brent Mills]

Given that I'm slow anyway and no gear will change that, and my T300 literally does everything I could ever ask for or need from a simracing wheel anyway, I'm pretty OK with the fact that I am the "sour grape" who can't afford a DD wheel

That makes two of us, but at least together we are now 'vinegar'!

 

[RCHeliguy]

That is just impressive beyond belief to me. It appears that these real race drivers have logged so many hours driving and have enough skill to place a car on the right line, modulate the brake and throttle smoothly without feeling much of anything. My guess is that he was listening to the tires sounds closely, but otherwise just had great game controller skills.

 

[RCHeliguy]

That makes two of us, but at least together we are now 'vinegar'!

Who is happier? The guy who just loves to race, or the guy who is in perpetual search of the next thing to buy.

Personally if I have an idea about a way to improve my rig, that consumes me and I stop racing until I finish my idea. I guess that makes me more of a team engineer than a driver. I happily tinker with my rig for hours and have spent many more hours working on my rig compared to driving it.

I'm not saying there is a right or wrong here. It's all how we enjoy this hobby.

 

[Kyuubeey]

That is just impressive beyond belief to me. It appears that these real race drivers have logged so many hours driving and have enough skill to place a car on the right line, modulate the brake and throttle smoothly without feeling much of anything. My guess is that he was listening to the tires sounds closely, but otherwise just had great game controller skills.

Not very far from how some aliens like it, at 0 to 10% FFB and with potentiometer pedals for consistency.

 

[avenger82]

And, don''t forget, real cars don't give this much of information nor with such big strength
to your hands through a wheel.

AFAIK older Formula 1 or Indy cars could generate >20Nm sustained forces on fast corners

 

[LagunaSeca]

Its funny, if you go on guitar forums you will see similar arguments to what you see here. A lot of people think that the Epiphones are better, especially lately with all the quality control issues, and PR issues that Gibson has had. Personally I am with you, I like my Fender Strat, and Fender Tele better than my Epiphone Les Paul, but I realize that opinions vary. If you like your TS-PC racer, then rock that, but there is no reason to scoff at those who like their DD wheel. A 5% difference to you, may be a 100% difference to someone else. I hear people talking about some DD wheel buyers post purchase rationalizations, but I think that works both ways. if you read through this thread I think you see people trying to rationalize not buying a DD wheel simply because they cant afford it. At the end of the day you can justify your decision on weather to buy a DD wheel or not to buy a DD wheel how ever you want, but its simply your opinion, and not fact

Well my point is not to say whether epiphone or Gibson is better. In fact I got myself a strandberg boden for playing with humbuckers. My point is, older fields are mature enough so that people in a very wide range of financial capabilities can purchase stuff with decent quality and most importantly, with all necessary functions, like telling the time accurately on a 10 buck watch.

I said the Gibson is superior because the wood/pickups they use is better. Another fact is that I did fail the test to distinguish my friend's epiphone/gibson while blindfolded.

You can see I am the relatively chilled person in this dicussion because I am always "in the middle" of internet wars. I have G27, TX-PC and full DD rig because I am a nostalgia guy who does not like selling old stuff that accompany me for a long time (especially stuff that gave me a lot of fun). I have both single coil and humbucker guitars.(well you can have both in one if you play HSS) I have PC, PS4 and Xbox as my friends use different platforms so I can play with all of them, etc, etc. So every time I saw salt accumulating in a thread I could not help but wonder, how people start to fight each other for reasons like this.

 

[Justievdk]

I have the Fanatec CSW2.5 and would like to switch to the podium because I have a lot of Fanatec steering wheels. Unfortunately, the customer service and quality of Fanatec is very poor, I have had bad experiences. That's why I doubt whether I should buy a podium or switch completely to another brand. Maybe this survey will help me here.

if i am correct this is a Fanatec QR to USB conversion kit WITHOUT MESSING WITH YOUR RIM, but you need to buy both:

Shop - Sim Racing Machines

www.simracingmachines.com

Adapter for Fanatec wheels Quick Release 100pcs - SimRacingBay

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

www.simracingbay.com

 

[Cote Dazur]

@Paul Jeffrey thank you for this thread and thank you to all who participated.
I am now totally convinced that I do not need any update to my present wheel and particularly not a DD wheel.

My strategy for my SIM hardware was and will stay with spending money in getting motion, since I already have everything else including tactile.

Tactile, for me, provide a lot of feedback that I was trying to get, with more or less success, from the wheel FFB.

Adding motion to my rig should bring me what is not provided by tactile and the wheel FFB, to give me a more complete simulation.

 

[BrunoBæ]

I am now totally convinced that I do not need any update to my present wheel and particularly not a DD wheel.

Good comment.
And specially your understated humour

 

[avenger82]

I only really see two kinds of comments from DD wheel owners - around 5% of them is "it's so amazing, it transformed my simracing!", with the remaining overwhelming majority being "I can't get my super special custom 50 Nm wheel working with this game!" (or "I can't find any reliable settings that would give me the feel I like, and I've already went through all 75 independent tweaking options in my custom software and sacrificed a goat!").

Given that I'm slow anyway and no gear will change that, and my T300 literally does everything I could ever ask for or need from a simracing wheel anyway, I'm pretty OK with the fact that I am the "sour grape" who can't afford a DD wheel

I think thats Internet forum bias. People who are content with their profiles/settings have no incentive to say so in forums. I’d expect DD owners to be more likely perfectionists or more “demanding” than say G29 users. DD wheels have much more capabilities, and sophisticated settings so its easier to get lost tuning it.
I also have T300 and its not bad, but I’d like to have dynamic range and speed of a DD wheel. Strength is mostly not that important , but I’d like to be able to try simulate historic Formula cars forces and for that you’d need up to 20Nm sustainable force wheel. Of course you’d need strong, rigid rig, emergency stop button and a good insurance

 

[RCHeliguy]

I think thats Internet forum bias. People who are content with their profiles/settings have no incentive to say so in forums. I’d expect DD owners to be more likely perfectionists or more “demanding” than say G29 users. DD wheels have much more capabilities, and sophisticated settings so its easier to get lost tuning it.
I also have T300 and its not bad, but I’d like to have dynamic range and speed of a DD wheel. Strength is mostly not that important , but I’d like to be able to try simulate historic Formula cars forces and for that you’d need up to 20Nm sustainable force wheel. Of course you’d need strong, rigid rig, emergency stop button and a good insurance

I think that is correct. There is a learning curve at first. The most frequent posts are people asking how do I get this to feel right in a specific title. Once people have them running, they tend to get quiet.

And I've seen people who make a different profile for every single car that they drive, so yeah, there are some perfectionists.

As far as insurance goes, in iRacing you need to make sure you pull your hands off the wheel if you are ever going to hit a wall or you will be hurt. Now that I'm conditioned to let go, I haven't been hurt.

I'm not into having sore wrists, but I do tend to run pretty hot on the torque and have it dialed back just enough that I don't have pain issues.

 

[Miguel Batista]

I think thats Internet forum bias. People who are content with their profiles/settings have no incentive to say so in forums. I’d expect DD owners to be more likely perfectionists or more “demanding” than say G29 users. DD wheels have much more capabilities, and sophisticated settings so its easier to get lost tuning it.
I also have T300 and its not bad, but I’d like to have dynamic range and speed of a DD wheel. Strength is mostly not that important , but I’d like to be able to try simulate historic Formula cars forces and for that you’d need up to 20Nm sustainable force wheel. Of course you’d need strong, rigid rig, emergency stop button and a good insurance

I don't know if I agree. Last summer, some of the best sim racing fun I had was just setting up AMS1 with my DFGT and getting the wheel to feel good. Honestly, I was super surprised with the results and after a few hours it felt almost like a belt driven wheel (no CLACK CLACK CLACK and jolts on the FFB). And now I am designing my own rims and I haven't gone DD yet. Nor will I in the foreseeable future.

Need to get a decent rig to bolt my wheel to. My good comfy chair broke and I think I need something more permanent.

 

[Case_]

I also have T300 and its not bad, but I’d like to have dynamic range and speed of a DD wheel. Strength is mostly not that important , but I’d like to be able to try simulate historic Formula cars forces and for that you’d need up to 20Nm sustainable force wheel. Of course you’d need strong, rigid rig, emergency stop button and a good insurance

I honestly have all the dynamic range I need in like 95% of cases (and if learning stuff about FFB taught me something, it's that a lot of people set their FFB *way* stronger than they should, and get upset about "bad FFB" if they can't). I would like to maybe get a slightly stronger wheel like Fanatec CSL or something like that, sure, just to have the option to go slightly higher if needed, and for the added benefits of that particular wheel, but beyond that...I really just don't see the need. Even now, I'm sometimes even setting the FFB lower than I could, because I just see no enjoyment in having to literally fight the wheel for an hour just because real drivers might need to in that given car.

If you do enjoy that, though...by all means.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

Aesop would be laughing his butt off reading some responses in this thread.

 

[Case_]

I agree. There's never enough condescending pointless comments in any thread on the internet.

 

[RasmusP]

I honestly have all the dynamic range I need in like 95% of cases (and if learning stuff about FFB taught me something, it's that a lot of people set their FFB *way* stronger than they should, and get upset about "bad FFB" if they can't). I would like to maybe get a slightly stronger wheel like Fanatec CSL or something like that, sure, just to have the option to go slightly higher if needed, and for the added benefits of that particular wheel, but beyond that...I really just don't see the need. Even now, I'm sometimes even setting the FFB lower than I could, because I just see no enjoyment in having to literally fight the wheel for an hour just because real drivers might need to in that given car.

If you do enjoy that, though...by all means.

Hey! Don't you say something about ffb strength! There's nothing better than completely losing control of the car because you were kinda close to the limit and your wheel does a 90° turn in it's own, turning in a completely wrong direction because you hit a high kerb and couldn't hold the wheel at all! Lol...

Been there, done that, raised in game gain, reduced wheelbase strength and got back in control.

I also don't see a point in needing to let go of my simracing wheel when I know I'm gonna hit a wall or tree...

 

[RCHeliguy]

Been there, done that, raised in game gain, reduced wheelbase strength and got back in control.

I also don't see a point in needing to let go of my simracing wheel when I know I'm gonna hit a wall or tree...

I think the issue with hitting a wall hurting you is a particular of iRacing, I don't hear complaints about this in other sims.

I agree that there is no point in it. I think the sim should recognize a collision with a stationary object and curb the FFB output in those instances especially when the software recognizes that it is connected to a DD wheel.

In normal driving I haven't had any issues with the wheel pulling too hard while I'm driving and it is enjoyable to drive. While I don't consider a DD wheel necessary and recognize some downsides to using one, I'm not suggesting that I don't prefer it. At this point I would never go back to a belt. I've gotten over the learning curve, have it dialed in nicely and like it.

I also would never go back to not having motion or tactile or VR. They are all improvements that I enjoy. None are necessary, but all are appreciated.

 

[EsxPaul]

I think the issue with hitting a wall hurting you is a particular of iRacing, I don't hear complaints about this in other sims.

Apologies for my off topic post

Mark, perhaps try setting up your maximum strength with an alternative approach. There's some helpful tips from Neils Heusinkveld on the subject, taken from the iRacing forum:

 

[Deleted member 197115]

I think the issue with hitting a wall hurting you is a particular of iRacing, I don't hear complaints about this in other sims.

Yep, iRacing feature as it's the most realistic sim out there. Third degree burns are still in work though.

 

[RCHeliguy]

Yep, iRacing feature as it's the most realistic sim out there. Third degree burns are still in work though.

I've not experienced an engine fire yet! Something to look forward to