Which Steering wheel

davecarter · 22 Aug 2006 at 12:25

Hi

I have a microsoft sidewinder steering wheel ,but its getting on a bit now and behaves rather oddly in the latest games. A friend has offered me £15 for for the sidewinder is it worth upgrading to say a Saitek R440.

Whatd advantages do the newer steering wheels have?

cheers in advance

Dave

banja · 22 Aug 2006 at 12:46

Take the £15, then buy a Driving Force Pro. It's a PS2 wheel which works perfectly on the PC. They are phenominal for the money right now (find for £60 if you look)

Advantages for this wheel are that the encoder on the wheel is optical, it's got steel bearings. It turns upto 900 degrees. Pedals are a little flimsy though.

Or, splash out when the G25 comes out (probably £150-£180) Eek!

davecarter · 22 Aug 2006 at 15:32

banja said:
Take the £15, then buy a Driving Force Pro. It's a PS2 wheel which works perfectly on the PC. They are phenominal for the money right now (find for £60 if you look)

Advantages for this wheel are that the encoder on the wheel is optical, it's got steel bearings. It turns upto 900 degrees. Pedals are a little flimsy though.

Or, splash out when the G25 comes out (probably £150-£180) Eek!

Yeah G25 looks amazing but dunno if I can stretch that far, does the Driving Force Pro come with drivers for PC then or just work out of the box

Cheers

Trifid · 22 Aug 2006 at 15:34

You can get the drivers for the DFP -it is USB btw- on the internet. It is meant to be the best mainstream wheel that is out now. I have a cheap Thrustmaster one that works well, but would like a DFP/G25.

NutritioN · 22 Aug 2006 at 15:55

Which Sidewinder wheel is it? Force feedback? Which games react wierdly to it, and which games do you want the wheel to be good with?

davecarter · 22 Aug 2006 at 16:23

NutritioN said:
Which Sidewinder wheel is it? Force feedback? Which games react wierdly to it, and which games do you want the wheel to be good with?

Yeah its a sidewinder FF Original Gameport vesrion about 6 years old, bought it for the orilgina GP3 & Colin Mcrae

Tried it with latest Colin Mcrae and TOCA 3 and the FF behaves fairly erratically

NutritioN · 22 Aug 2006 at 16:39

Heh, ah! I have the USB version. I gave up on those games with the wheel because I was faster on keys and the codemasters games felt so vague and lifeless on my wheel. The FF may well be screwy on your wheel, but I think those games are pretty bad for FF anyway. Does the default driver for the wheel work in XP?

I only regularly use my wheel with Live for Speed, and it's wonderful, wheel works beautifully. You could try the demo and see nice FF in action

If your wheel works fine there, maybe a new wheel isn't necessary.

The advantages of say a DFP (even thought it isn't particularly new) is that it has recent drivers and most decent driving games recognise it. Not sure how it compares to the MSFF wheels as I think they're okay, just less keys on the wheel, no 900degree movement but they might have more sturdy pedals

davecarter · 22 Aug 2006 at 17:20

NutritioN said:
Heh, ah! I have the USB version. I gave up on those games with the wheel because I was faster on keys and the codemasters games felt so vague and lifeless on my wheel. The FF may well be screwy on your wheel, but I think those games are pretty bad for FF anyway. Does the default driver for the wheel work in XP?

I only regularly use my wheel with Live for Speed, and it's wonderful, wheel works beautifully. You could try the demo and see nice FF in action If your wheel works fine there, maybe a new wheel isn't necessary.

The advantages of say a DFP (even thought it isn't particularly new) is that it has recent drivers and most decent driving games recognise it. Not sure how it compares to the MSFF wheels as I think they're okay, just less keys on the wheel, no 900degree movement but they might have more sturdy pedals

Ill have a look at live for speed but isnt it multiplayer only, never really got into multiplayer games.

You may be right about the code masters games the ff may be screwed to begin with , ill give lfs a try and see how it feels

cheers for ya help

NutritioN · 22 Aug 2006 at 17:26

Yes it's aimed at multiplayer, but still great offline if it's your kind of game. You can either get serious online, or doss about in the car park layouts where there's no pressure just people roaming around. Don't be put off by having to play against other people.

The game does have computer controlled cars in singleplayer mode, but they will ignore you 90% of the time and push you off, fun for practice though.