F1 2010 Gaming Computer + Steering Wheels

[Dylan Hember]

Hi, at the moment i am playing on the Xbox but really want to move onto the PC. Although, i dont really know much about all the PC stuff. So i need some help and suggestions of which Gaming computers + steering wheel to buy. What are the best ones for Value?

P.S. I think you can get a free trial of Fraps, but what does the trial give you? Does it allow you to record but limit your recording time?. Or it ony lets you record so much and then you need to buy fraps.

 

[Scott Webber]

Where are you from m8?

www.overclockers.co.uk
www.ebuyer.com ( or .co.uk )
www.aeria.co.uk

M8 let me know you're budget and i'll get some help, i know a few friends who work in the pc industry their whole lives.

a good steering wheel ( depending on your budget ) a Logitech Driving Force GT ( £80 or $90 ) a G27 ( £ 244 or so $260 )

i would like to know what country your from and the budget, i'll then get back to you

 

[Dylan Hember]

From England

 

[Deane Cockerill]

re Fraps, I think it costs £37 or $37, but if you're after ingame video recording take a look at this, MSI Afterburner thread it's free. Fraps demo gives you 30 secs vid recording

 

[DrR1pper]

What is your margin mate?

I built myself my latest PC last october:

Intel i7 920 running (Overclocked to 4.2Ghz)
6gb OCZ Reaper DDR3 ram
Gigabyte P6-t Deluxe OC edition motherboard
Two EVGA GTX 460's 1gb @ 40% overclock
4x Western Digital 1TB Hard-drives 64mb cache in raid 0 (2x2)
A nice clean, great airflow and quite case from thermaltake
Thermaltake 700W PSU
Creative sound blaster gaming audio card
"Can't remember the name of" CPU cooler for the overclock (though not needed)

All this for under a grand. I can max any game i through at it and its just lightning fast at loading games with the new WD 64mb cache hard-drives. Read/Write of 160mb/s....really amazing for a non solid state hard-drive (they average anywhere from 180-300mb/s but you need to pay around 7 times more - literally).

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

For simracing hardware questions is best to post here http://www.racedepartment.com/sim-racing-hardware/

 

[Dylan Hember]

Thanks to evryone who has replied to this thread, i have some money but i may hold on and buy in the future.

 

[Jean-Francois Matte]

Hi, at the moment i am playing on the Xbox but really want to move onto the PC. Although, i dont really know much about all the PC stuff. So i need some help and suggestions of which Gaming computers + steering wheel to buy. What are the best ones for Value?

P.S. I think you can get a free trial of Fraps, but what does the trial give you? Does it allow you to record but limit your recording time?. Or it ony lets you record so much and then you need to buy fraps.

Hehehe Dylan I was about post exactly the same thing, since Xbox live has so many goodam disconnection problems in our racing club. As Bram suggest I'll post in the hardware section. But I'm moving back to pc gaming, that's for shure.

 

[Dylan Hember]

I will probz swith to pc in the future, but not at this moment in time. Jean would you like to sign up for RD's Official Xbox league?. You can sign up for it in the thread located in the forum this threads in LOL.

 

[Jean-Francois Matte]

I will probz swith to pc in the future, but not at this moment in time. Jean would you like to sign up for RD's Official Xbox league?. You can sign up for it in the thread located in the forum this threads in LOL.

A league would be great, but the xbox servers problems are just too annoying. We would have to do some testing, cause the way it runs now is just not playable ! AND I can't use my fanatec GT2/CS online without having problems, so I have to use that M$ toy instead. Ya right ! I'm rigging up a PC !

But hey, I'll sign up anyway :tongue:

Edit: the MS wheel has disconnection problems as well when playing on xbox live

 

[William Kalwick]

I built my PC in '09 for $700. It still plays F1 2010 at max. I highly recommend building your own, it's not that hard.

As for a wheel, if you want a good one, my friend found a G27 on craigslist for $160.

 

[Gareth Jones]

I'm in the same boat as you Dylan. I can't comment on building a PC but I'm interested in getting a wheel for a PC when the 2011 game is released. Could someone point me in the direction of a good wheel for a reasonable price, say between £100 to £150, are there decent wheels for that price?

Also, how stable are they? if you turn full lock quite aggressively, does the base lift off whatever you have it placed on?

 

[Andrew Macpherson]

For that budget you should look at a Logitech Driving Force GT or Thrustmaster F430. I have the latter and the clamp is very strong, there is no lift-off ever.

 

[Gareth Jones]

I hear a lot about the g25 and g27, are they more expensive and better?

 

[Paul Lock]

Hey Dylan - if you are looking to build a rig, make sure it is based on the latest Intel i5 2500K Sandybridge (if just a gaming rig) or the i7 2600K Sandybridge if you want general use and gaming. Already the i7's like mine (socket LGA1366) are being out classed by the stupendous performance of these new K series Sandys. The next generation 'Ivybridge' chips are too far away to wait for if you are building from scratch, but worth waiting for if you are upgrading a rig like mine.
I am literally in the process of building a rig for Wibblemonster here on RD, well as soon as the bits arrive tomorrow.

His requirement was for a pure gaming rig (he has an imac for everything else) with the best bang for buck, and to be able to game at 2560x1440 resolution.

What ive bought him is an absolute steal at under £1,400, and more of a nuclear explosion for buck than a paltry bang! The i5 will clock up to 4ghz very happily. The 2x 6950's will flash to 6970 performance (saving £150) and the more expensive hyperthreading i7 2600K isnt needed for gaming and in fact gets outperformed by the i5 in places (saving £70). 4gb of Dual-Chan RAM is proven to be more than enough (no triple chan on Sandys). The money saved on all that is put towards a 120gb SSD which is SATA3, so will read/write at 500mb/s. Boots Win7 to desktop in 10-15 seconds.

Spec -

Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor
Asus P8P67 PRO Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION **
2x Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 6950 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit
OCZ Vertex 3 120GB 2.5" SATA-3 Solid State Hard Drive
Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache
Corsair A50 High-Performance CPU Cooler
Asus Xonar DG 5.1 PCI Sound Card
Coolermaster Silent Pro Modular 850W Power Supply
Coolermaster CM-690 II Advanced Dominator Case - Black
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit - OEM
Samsung SH-S223C/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM

I hope this helps mate.

Oh as for a wheel - G27 of course!

 

[Jan-Olov Johansson]

That is a very impressive build for that kind of money , not sure I could match that here in Sweden, maybe prices are lower in the UK ?

 

[Andrew Macpherson]

I hear a lot about the g25 and g27, are they more expensive and better?

Yes and yes. Those wheels are pretty much considered the gold standard by which all other wheels are judged.

 

[F1 2011 Rocks!]

I have had the Thrustmaster Ferrari Force Feedback USB Wheel since just after Christmas and I would thoroughly recommend it to anyone who doesn't mind about the limited (compared to more expensive wheels) rotation and the lack of a clutch. In F1, the wheel works pretty much the way my wheel does anyway, so I'm not fussed. I got it for around £80 from play.com and it has a two year guarantee.

If I can, I'll dig out my review.

Edit: Voila:

http://www.racedepartment.com/sim-r...rrari-f430-usb-ff-wheel.html?highlight=review

If you don't want to drop £200 on a wheel (and since this is your first wheel, I doubt you're a hardcore racing sim fan) the Ferrari one is a great midrange choice. Just be sure to get the right one: there is more than one and this is the only good one.

Also, how stable are they? if you turn full lock quite aggressively, does the base lift off whatever you have it placed on?

As stable as if I were driving a real Ferrari through my bedroom wall.

 

[Gareth Jones]

Thanks for digging that out, no I don't want to spend £200 on a wheel, it seems a bit mad to be honest. I'm not planning on getting one until f1 2011 is released, is the thrustmaster compatible with xbox aswell or just pc?

 

[Andrew Macpherson]

Thanks for digging that out, no I don't want to spend £200 on a wheel, it seems a bit mad to be honest. I'm not planning on getting one until f1 2011 is released, is the thrustmaster compatible with xbox aswell or just pc?

PC and PS3 only. I have this wheel as well, and I like it a lot, it's pretty much ideal for F1 racing.

One thing I will add though is that it seems to wear out faster than other wheels. After owning it for a year I have had breakages in the gas pedal as well as the paddle shifter. From what I've read, I think these are fairly common. It has a 2 year warranty and they are good about replacing things right away when they break, but you shouldn't expect it to work much longer than the warranty period. So basically you are buying a good wheel for 2 years.