I had finally made up my mind and was about to order an OSW with Fanatec rims this weekend .. now I'm doubting again
Still, don't think I can go wrong with an OSW.
You won't go wrong with an OSW but (other things being equal) the Fanatec route will probably require less faffing about. I do like the idea of my rims all working without having coily USB cables modded to them, and of the Podium wheels being officially supported in sims. The Podium will be more of a plug & play solution and I must admit that does appeal to me in my advancing years. Less faff = more time behind the wheel.
As someone who literally just setup their OSW this weekend, complexity is not an issue at all.
The P1 setup was the pain. I hope to not go through that again. The end product though exceeds expectations.
From the time you get the OSW out of the box to the time you're up and racing is maybe 30 mins. Process:
- unbox
- Mount to P1 front mount using 4 screws. Nothing else is needed. Brackets/plates/hinges/etc
- Attach wheel
- cables to the power unit and from PU to PC
- Install simucube and hit next to update firmware. pick SRB profile and you're done
- Due to the high fidelity of the unit, you basically need to adjust FFB to you liking and a coupe of other settings. That's really it
- Then adjust FFB in game based on what you want
For people with a set of Fanatec equipment, the Fanatec podium series will good sense. For those looking for a piece of mind of a large global entity supporting the product, the Fanatec will also fit the bill nicely. I expect there to be a bit more polish in the GUI and just overall appearance of the product. The OSW looks industrial but that's what it is.
The OSW will be more flexible simply because each component can be updated individually. This also means the failure risk is dispersed across components rather than the whole unit being dead. The open source nature means progress will come fast as you generally have smart dedicated enthusiasts in the open source market rather than voices being drowned out by "corporate strategy." A lot of the OSW info on the web is dated esp the high view count videos. The reality of where the software today is as plug and play as you can hope for.
As I mentioned earlier, I'm glad to see fanatec sort things out and that's good news for the community expanding along with high end sim racing becoming more popular. We shouldn't treat everything as a winner/loser scenario (not stating you guys are).
All said and done, I haven't seen anything that makes me want to have second thoughts about my OSW choice.