Logitech G29 / G920 – The Best Sim Racing Beginner Wheel

Metla · Aug 5, 2021

Kyuubeey said:
It is just a happy coincidence that car behavior is mild enough to facilitate driving with extremely gimped control instruments.

Nice!

pinkimo · Aug 5, 2021

Is it a sponsored article? I don't see how anyone a bit informed could recommend a G29 nowadays...

Worse, I've probably never read something as wrong as "Logitech seems to have found a healthy balance of price and quality with the G29 and G920 models." on this website. Logitech uses the same tech since the G25, with each model more expensive while at the same time more outdated and less reliable than the previous one. I definitely can't call that healthy (it's healthy for them, overpriced and no effort but people continue to buy).

The G25 and G27 were fantastic for their time (and are still great as cheap second hand beginner wheel), affordable and the competition was way more expensive.
The G29/920 have always been more expensive than the G27, with the same very very old and quite terrible technology compared to belt driven bases, while the competition is way more fierce, with the T150 which can be found in the same price range, with worse pedals, but way way better base. Even the T300 can be found for not much more than the G29.

Paul McCluskey · Aug 5, 2021

My G25 lasted a few years before getting some nasty fault with the gearing, my dfp gt on the other hand feels better now than it ever did, must be the wear and tear, have moved onto T300rs which feels great, no more rattles. They are going for around same price as the G923 so it's a no brainer too get that or a similar wheel from fanatec, couldn't go back too logitechs rattles. Yes the Logitech is a good beginner wheel but for the same money nowadays you can get so much better, They need too up their game. I'd say my red Wingman Formula Force wheel (not plastic version)with the steel cable from Logi was their best wheel but sadly couldn't use that anymore as the connections were so outdated .

roadyroad · Aug 5, 2021

mglt said:
It's a Joke ?
The G29 is the same of G25/G27 ...it's a prehistoric technologie (2003 !!! ) .

In fact there's a technological improvement in the wheel : in the g25 and g27 the small disc detecting the movements of the wheel was notched, so with separated steps without any value within, in the g29, it has been replaced by a magnetic detection system, or something like that (I needed that info long time ago), which is much more accurate as it covers all the disc's surface.

Problem is reliability of this disc, it.just break with time (you can read plenty of comments about that and watch videos). In the g25/g27, ypu can just consolidate the original disc with a mechanical disc or a coin. It is just a mechanic system, an easy fix (even if you're not used to repair stuff). On the g29, it won't work, your wheel is dead.

The shifter is a nice small tool, until it breaks. Potentiometers are the issue there. I've even received another shifter (still was in the warranty period) which was broken when I received it, potentiometers issue. Logitech sent another one and it was fine. I stopped using it because I got another shifrer, from thrustmaster, so it is still functional.

I must say that the small shifter of the g29 is really good to use when it is in front of you next to the wheel, as in the old F1s, you change gears really fast, I'm not that confortable with my thrustmaster's shifter (it may be because, considering its size, it should be placed lower and on my side).

Positive points from the g29 :
- a nice entry level wheel, with a shifter.

- the 3 pedals set : no other wheel provides such a good set, and it is reliable, or can be fix easily (only fix I needed one time was some WD40 spray, and it was as new).

- logitech's warranty services : they replace the material without any issue.

Negative points of the g29 :
- unreliability : you will end buying another wheel anyway because at one time it will break and ypu wont be able.to fix it. My goold old DFPGT for pc and PS2 still works fine, 1nd it had supported much more hours than the g29 (GTR2 and GTL times....)

- dated force feedback effects : I think it should be compared to the T150 which, from what I read, is a more advanced option in terms of FFB. The pedals set is far superior in the g29 though.

The g29 isn't a bad option for a begginer. On the contrary, the pedals will be a good option even after a wheel upgrade. With the warranty, you'll have at least 2 years of fun with it. I have more doubts about the shifter as it is sold separately.

-

guidofoc · Aug 5, 2021

So, this is advertisement right?
Not sure who decided they are the best.

Richard Wilks · Aug 5, 2021

Kyuubeey said:
Lots of incorrect stuff in this post. You should go and measure tolerances in the steering assembly, measure the mid-corner steering torques and measure the wheel acceleration, average velocity and maximum velocity in road, drift and racecars if you're going to write things like that. I'm sure you haven't done any of that otherwise you wouldn't be writing those things.

Typical mid-corner steering torque in a powersteered roadcar might be 5Nm for the light ones. Unassisted roadcars can range from 10Nm to 20Nm. The NSX was considered to have "very light steering" and it's something like 9Nm mid-corner on the tires I made for it, at speeds where the powersteering is not assisting. Typical steering torques for racecars are somewhat higher, albeit not necessarily by very much in GT type cars, but I think mid-corner unassisted 30Nm+ is achievable in some Formula and P cars.

In terms of steering acceleration and speed, I haven't seen an actual measurement with sensors but with a visual method, even relatively mild accelerations can be 10x compared to low-end wheel capabilities and still several times more compared to Fanatec belt wheels.

A G27 will accelerate basically 10 times slower than it should and it'll cap the speed at under half or even 1/3 of the required rotation speed, which means that adequately catching even a relatively mild drift in an understeery roadcar is impossible to achieve with the wheel alone. This is with cars using standard steering geometry and powersteering, not "hardcore drift machines". I think a G27 under load is not even physically capable of spinning fast enough to go lock-to-lock as fast as any real steering system can.

Definitely if you are already good at driving you will gradually improve going from a low-end wheel to a DD wheel, but it's not a magic bullet. It kind of is a magic bullet when it comes to racing very sketchy cars or drifting. While I've seen people on G27 beat DD wheel users in drifting unrealistic cars with huge inertia and so on, the more realistic the car becomes the more advantage the DDW has. After some point it's not possible to really compensate for the wheel capabilities with skill any more because the car is performing outside of the wheel's envelope. The only thing you can do is an inputs adjustment for less yaw acceleration.

Of course it will be "more real", especially if it has enough torque to directly match the real car's steering torques. Then you can program the powersteering using the real curves and achieve wheel performance closely mimicking the actual car. Any perceivable differences on telemetry seem to come more from software differences than anything.

Do *you* "need" anything above a low end wheel? That's up to you; probably not.

Are there benefits? Yes, and they're not just "immersion" benefits. Literally no car's design functions even remotely correctly on anything but high-end wheels because the real car was designed with a similarly performing system in mind. It is just a happy coincidence that car behavior is mild enough to facilitate driving with extremely gimped control instruments.

And from where did you got those numbers? Are they from steering arms, or the force in your hand at the wheel? You do realize that forces on the tires are absolutely meaningless to determine how much force you have to make in the wheel, because of all the gears that change the torque through them until they reach the wheel right?

I drove already enough things in anger, even without power assistance, to know that those mega forces people keep mentioning are nowhere near what you need to do for a car at speed.

As for speed of the self centering, like i said, only hardcore drift cars have that much inverted caster that that becomes an issue. In real cars you can even get fully sideways,and the wheel wont ever react unless you want to. And i know this first hand.

The only application where you would need that much force is if you are trying to replicate what happens when you hit a wall hard with the wheel.

But please, keep going on about a glorified washing machine motor toy.

Kyuubeey · Aug 5, 2021

Richard Wilks said:
And from where did you got those numbers? Are they from steering arms, or the force in your hand at the wheel? You do realize that forces on the tires are absolutely meaningless to determine how much force you have to make in the wheel, because of all the gears that change the torque through them until they reach the wheel right?

I drove already enough things in anger, even without power assistance, to know that those mega forces people keep mentioning are nowhere near what you need to do for a car at speed.

As for speed of the self centering, like i said, only hardcore drift cars have that much inverted caster that that becomes an issue. In real cars most you can even get fully sideways,and the wheel wont ever react unless you want to. And i know this first hand.

The only application where you would need that much force is if you are trying to replicate what happens when you hit a wall hard with the wheel.

But please, keep going on about a glorified washing machine motor toy.

It's a torque. You know, newtons one meter away. 1Nm is 0.738 ft-lb if that makes more sense. How much it is at your hands will depend how far away you grip the steering column from ie: how big your wheel is.

I haven't measured the torques, but others have from their racecars and roadcars. The NSX value is from inside AC.

Centering speed isn't really tied to caster per-se but it'll depend on the mechanical trail and scrub radius and also the SAT curve of your tires. Caster is a component of that. Hardcore driftcars have much less caster than your typical race or roadcar with powersteering.

In most real cars? You've driven most real cars? Are you a test driver?

Richard Wilks · Aug 5, 2021

Kyuubeey said:
It's a torque. You know, newtons one meter away. 1Nm is 0.738 ft-lb if that makes more sense. How much it is at your hands will depend how far away you grip the steering column from ie: how big your wheel is.

I haven't measured the torques, but others have from their racecars and roadcars. The NSX value is from inside AC.

Centering speed isn't really tied to caster per-se but it'll depend on the mechanical trail and scrub radius and also the SAT curve of your tires. Caster is a component of that. Hardcore driftcars have much less caster than your typical race or roadcar with powersteering.

In most real cars? You've driven most real cars? Are you a test driver?

You do realize that a real car is a thing that you can buy and drive right? Even on a track, it's not that expensive.

As for the rest of what you said, did anybody measured the torque of the steering column shaft, and at the tip of the steering wheel?

And as for caster not being important : https://suspensionsecrets.co.uk/drift-car-set-up/

Caster

High amounts of caster are normally used in drifting to extract the benefits of a quick returning steering wheel as the car tries to self-centre. This is why when watching in-car footage of a drifter you often see the steering wheel spinning quickly through their hands when transitioning between corners. The wheel returns at such a high speed that it often steers past the neutral axis and begins steering in the opposite direction which is a very useful feature for the driver allowing them to provide steering input using the throttle and clutch, where the term “steer from the rear” comes from. Usual amounts of caster used are anywhere between 5 and 12 degrees of caster depending on the level of the set up.

Kyuubeey · Aug 5, 2021

Richard Wilks said:
You do realize that a real car is a thing that you can buy and drive right? Even on a track, it's not that expensive.

As for the rest of what you said, did anybody measured the torque of the steering column shaft, and at the tip of the steering wheel?

And as for caster not being important : https://suspensionsecrets.co.uk/drift-car-set-up/

You've bought and driven most cars? Jeez, how much money do you make? That's like at least a few billion dollars to purchase 51% of automobiles created, and I'm leaving out all the rare variants.

I think it was with a strain gauge on the shaft but I don't remember. The tip doesn't matter, because it's a torque. You can solve it from the shaft torque. You can solve any diameter from the shaft torque.

Amateur setups typically run higher caster partly for more "feel" and centering but also for less front-end grip on mid-corner, but it depends entirely on the car. E30's might run even 10deg or more, but their lower balljoint is offset rearwards from the wheel center, so it's not comparable to a car with the balljoint 2cm in front and half the caster.

Nowadays many pro setups are using Wisefab or something similar that offsets the knuckle forward to give more trail, then they dial the caster to 3-5deg for better wheel angles mid-corner.

Richard Wilks · Aug 5, 2021

Kyuubeey said:
You've bought and driven most cars? Jeez, how much money do you make? That's like at least a few billion dollars to purchase 51% of automobiles created, and I'm leaving out all the rare variants.

I think it was with a strain gauge on the shaft but I don't remember. The tip doesn't matter, because it's a torque. You can solve it from the shaft torque. You can solve any diameter from the shaft torque.

Amateur setups typically run higher caster partly for more "feel" and centering but also for less front-end grip on mid-corner, but it depends entirely on the car. E30's might run even 10deg or more, but their lower balljoint is offset rearwards from the wheel center, so it's not comparable to a car with the balljoint 2cm in front and half the caster.

Nowadays many pro setups are using Wisefab or something similar that offsets the knuckle forward to give more trail, then they dial the caster to 3-5deg for better wheel angles mid-corner.

Boy, you are really clutching at straws now, aren't you?...

I have my opinion and you have yours. Better leave it at that, because you couldn't disprove nothing of what i said anyways, and i am not interested in chasing your moving target arguments.

Kyuubeey · Aug 5, 2021

Richard Wilks said:
Boy, you are really clutching at straws now, aren't you?...

I have my opinion and you have yours. Better leave it at that, because you couldn't disprove nothing of what i said anyways, and i am not interested in chasing your moving target arguments.

See the issue here is that empiric measurements aren't opinions; but alright, I didn't perform them myself so I can oblige. Well, apart from the visual analysis, that I did do myself, which was kind of the main point to begin with.

Regardless of your opinions, the cheap sim wheel just doesn't keep up with the real one, while the DD one will go in front of the real one if you don't put in enough friction and damping. I should have probably filmed that so I can post it to people.

Richard Wilks · Aug 5, 2021

Kyuubeey said:
See the issue here is that empiric measurements aren't opinions; but alright, I didn't perform them myself so I can oblige. Well, apart from the visual analysis, that I did do myself, which was kind of the main point to begin with.

Regardless of your opinions, the cheap sim wheel just doesn't keep up with the real one, while the DD one will go in front of the real one if you don't put in enough friction and damping. I should have probably filmed that so I can post it to people.

You could have backed out of it, but you didnt.

You also didnt post any measurements or analysis of how much force you need to do at the tip of the rim of the steering wheel. So you are talking bollocks.

Show me any car that isnt a drift car which the wheel is coming back to the center all on his own without any driver input faster than a G29 yes please.

Kyuubeey · Aug 5, 2021

Richard Wilks said:
You could have backed out of it, but you didnt.

You also didnt post any measurements or analysis of how much force you need to do at the tip of the rim of the steering wheel. So you are talking bollocks.

Show me any car that isnt a drift car that which the wheel is coming back to the center all on his own without any driver input faster than a G29 yes please.

I already told you that it's a torque.

9 Nm / 0.175 m = 51.428 N ~ 5.244 kg or 1.560 lbs.

I'm pretty sure you can find videos of standard cars drifting. It's very hard to just visually determine though, at least until you know exactly what it looks like, so if you are curious, you could do a comparison yourself if you own a G-wheel. Freeze frame it and you can find an approx. acceleration and speed with some math as long as you know the constants for the wheel size and so on. After some time you can just see it in real-time.

EDIT:

1lbs to lbs.

Richard Wilks · Aug 5, 2021

Kyuubeey said:
I already told you that it's a torque.

9 Nm / 0.175 m = 51.428 N ~ 5.244 kg or 1.560 lbs.

I'm pretty sure you can find videos of standard cars drifting. It's very hard to just visually determine though, at least until you know exactly what it looks like, so if you are curious, you could do a comparison yourself if you own a G-wheel. Freeze frame it and you can find an approx. acceleration and speed with some math as long as you know the constants for the wheel size and so on. After some time you can just see it in real-time.

EDIT:

1lbs to lbs.

You are not telling again where that was measured. If it was in any place that isn't the steering shaft to which the sterring wheel is attached, its meaningless...

Whishfull thinking at best i say.

I will give you the chance of leaving the conversation one more time. Take it.

Kyuubeey · Aug 5, 2021

Richard Wilks said:
You are not telling again where that was measured. If it was in any place that isn't the steering shaft to which the sterring wheel is attached, its meaningless...

Whishfull thinking at best i say.

I will give you the chance of leaving the conversation one more time. Take it.

I already told you that it's the steering column.

Sorry, but you're being a bit of a dummy and I need to keep clarifying things that have been written before, so it took some time for us to come to closure.

Jim Layee · Aug 5, 2021

You're both wrong.

Kyuubeey · Aug 5, 2021

Jim Layee said:
You're both wrong.

Barges into thread.
Denounces arguments.
Refuses to elaborate.
Leaves.

What a Chad.

Richard Wilks · Aug 5, 2021

Kyuubeey said:
I already told you that it's the steering column.

Sorry, but you're being a bit of a dummy and I need to keep clarifying things that have been written before, so it took some time for us to come to closure.

Offenses wont take you anywhere.

You are going to the ignore list.

The only closure i saw is that you demonstrated you dont know what you are talking about.

have a nice day.

Jim Layee · Aug 5, 2021

Kyuubeey said:
Barges into thread.
Denounces arguments.
Refuses to elaborate.
Leaves.

What a Chad.

Had to be done else you two would be banging heads until sun up .

Dazmaniac · Aug 5, 2021

guidofoc said:
So, this is advertisement right?
Not sure who decided they are the best.

It's an article by Mike Smith (604Racing) and presumably based on his opinion that the Logi G29/G920 is the best entry/budget wheel for a sim racer.

So if we asked you what in your opinion was the best budget sim racing wheel, could we also say your answer was an advert?

Logitech G29 / G920 – The Best Sim Racing Beginner Wheel

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