Looking for advice regarding replacement for Logitech G29

Hi everyone.

I hope I'm not posting in the wrong area.

I recently had a bad experience. It was my own fault as I didn't research very well.

I purchased a Logitech G29 wheel. I learnt that because they are not belt driven they have a deadzone at the center of the wheel where there is no feeling. The wheel turns 5 or so degrees in either direction before any resistance is felt. It's due to something to do with preventing the motors working against each other. Because of that it just doesn't feel very realistic. A real car doesn't have a lot of play in the wheel when you turn it. I'd like a wheel thats tight in the centre. So that as soon as the wheel starts turning there is active resistance. I was told a belt driven wheel will be much better. Also the G29 feels like your driving on flat tires. It's very notchy

So I thought I'd come here where I'm sure you all know exactly what your talking about when it comes to racing sims and whats a good wheel and whats not.

Unfortunately I don't have a lot of money to spend. Hopefully I will get a reasonable amount back when I sell my G29 and that can go towards a new wheel. So I think I'm looking at a total budget of around 350 UK pounds.

I've looked at a thrustmaster but I just don't have the knowledge about wheels. I get far too stressed and anxious when trying to decide what to buy and that was part of the problem when buying the G29. To avoid all the stress I ended up buying something too quickly and now I'm feeling even more uncomfortable. So I'm hoping you can help me out.

Would any of you be able to point me in the right direction for a wheel appx £350 which will feel more realistic than the G29?

Thanks for reading.

 

I don't know how it works in the UK, or how long since you bought the wheel. But in Sweden we can return a pruduct within 30 days if we are not happy with it, and get our money back.
I upgraded from a G27 to a T300 this winter and I'm really happy with my Thrustmaster wheel!

 

I've been driving with a G27 for years and no, it's not that bad. What is your settings? Try to increas the minimum force.

 

I have the G920 and though I think I know what you mean I don't feel it too bad in RaceRoom. Not sure how much tweaking in the settings you have done.

I have however been wondering about an upgrade myself recently. At first I wanted longevity which I read was Logitech's strongpoint rather than the belt driven Thrustmasters. Also they were supposedly noisier due to the fan for cooling. So I took the hit on drive feel and got the G920 at a good price at the time. It's a bit notchy sometimes but I think it's ok for the price I paid of £150

I've had a look at DD wheels but in reality they are out of my budget. Fanatec look good but need importing to UK and I think also go out of budget and may be a bit delicate?

So sooner or later I'm thinking I may have to go with a Thrustmaster. Not sure which one would give a worthy upgrade. I paid 150 for my G920 so will I get 2x better with a £300/350 wheel?

Box in the uk do a good range of thrustmasters. personally I was think a TS-W or TS-PC would be the biggest change, but that comes at a price.

 

Can only concur with heppsan, dumped my old G27 18 months ago for a TX300 and haven't looked back, like chalk and cheese. May well invest in something better one day but am more than happy with the 300 to date, no quibbles at all. Fine piece of kit.

 

Hiya.

Thank you all so much for taking the time to post. I really appreciate it.

I'm really very sorry but I forgot to mention that I was using my G29 on Forza 7. I just downloaded a proper racing sim. You will probably know it as RaceRoom Racing Experience!!! I feel so very silly for not trying my wheel with RE before posting here.

Now that I have tried my wheel with RE I can say that it's excellent. Theres very minimal deadzone if none at all.

I just did not think that Forza 7 would be so much different to RE. Everyone Ive spoken to have had great things to say about it. But no matter what I try I can still not get the setup anywhere near as good as it is with RE. I've tried mirroring the settings to that on RE but it just feels horrible.

Surely Forza 7 can't be this bad?

Have any of you guys n gals played Forza 7? Probably not as people here play proper games.



I'm really sorry if I've wasted any of your time with this.

 

Glad it feels good on a proper game!
Haven't tried Forza 7, might if it ever get VR support though, just for fun.
But would imagine Forza 7 to be built more around gamepad controllers, do to it being an Arcade title.

 

Forza 7 is what it is, its an arcade title which it does very well. As said its gamepad focused so forget it being sim orientated its aimed at a greater audience for console arcade users

 

Got a G27 - it was horrible, until I learned how to tweak around the gear driven System - but that was not so easy. You can use WheelCheck with a step log 2 test and the lookup the csv found in documents at which percentage the first force is applied. This is your Minimum force Setting. Should be the same with the G920, I can not tell if it can compare against a T300, as I didn't have time to test my brothers T300 yet. If you want to give it a try, I can post my profiler and ingame FFB Settings.

 

T300RS Alcantara. Don't think twice!

 

I tried the Alcantara, but actually preferred the Leather 28 GT rim, so went with that

https://www.box.co.uk/Thrustmaster-Leather-28-GT-Wheel-Add-On_1919270.html

 

Hi.

@Matthias Petz, your post has really interested me. What is the Wheel check with a step log 2 test you mentioned? Is it some 3rd party software? I am all for tweaking settings using 3rd party software if theres a chance I can remove entitely or minimise as much as possible of the FFB deadzone.

It's driving me mad (no pun intended) that it's so perfect in Raceroom yet so rubbish in Forza 7. There's obviously a setting somewhere thats going to get rid of the deadzone in Forza 7 but this setting probably needs to be done outside of the game with software which will override the game settings.

I have done some research on the Thrustmaster by reading various forum threads which ask G29 or T300RS. It seems to be a close run thing between the two and have found people playing Forza who are saying that they have a FFB deazone on the T300. I have also heard people say that the T300 pedals are no where near as good as the G29 pedals. I do have to say that I really like the G29 pedals very much indeed. They are a very solid setup with a lovely feel to all the pedals, especially the brake pedal. Another thing about the T300 people have said is regarding the long term reliability not being as good as the G29.

I found a new T300RS GT edition for £327 on Amazon but if the pedals are not nearly as good as the G29 ones are I'm discouraged.

The way the G29 feels on Raceroom is perfect for me. If only I can find a setup/setting I can tweak to make it feel the same in other games like Forza 7 I would finally be happy with my purchase. But until then I feel very frustrated.

I just don't know what to do right now other than ask Matthias Petz about these complicated settings he mentioned and hope for something good..... like a miracle. No pressure then!

Thanks again all for your help.

 

If you don't like the Thrustmaster T3PA pedals that come with the package you mention, there are other pedals you can use e.g. the (much better) T3PA Pro pedals, which come with a conical rubber brake mod, which gives a much better progressive feel on the brake, they're also much more adjustable for position: https://www.box.co.uk/Thrustmaster-T3PA-Pro-Add-On-Pedal-Set-f_2033552.html

One advantage with the Thrustmaster Pedals over the Logitech ones, is that (on PC) is that I think they give 1024 bits resolution (steps) instead of just 255. If you really like the Logitech pedals (which are pretty good with spring mods, like the Nixim), you can get a cheap adapter to make them work with Thurstmaster wheelbase: http://shop.thrustmaster.com/en_gb/db9-pedals-t-rj12-adapter.html

You can even use Fanatec pedals with Thrustmaster pedals, either by connecting the pedals to your PC separately via USB (doesn't work for consoles or for Forza 7 on PC), or directly to a Thurstmaster wheelbase with an adaptor (e.g. the discontinued Basherboards CPX adaptor, which I have, or the new Drivehub), though obviously that adds cost.

I use a Thrustmaster T300 wheelbase with the Leather 28 GT rim and Fanatec CSR Elite pedals (see pic below), I bought all of the parts separately, but shop around for good prices, the pedals I managed to find secondhand on eBay for £80 and they work perfectly - the loadcell on the brake is great.

It's also worth budgeting for a mounting solution, unless you have a desk that is easy to clamp onto and at the right height. I use a Wheelstand Pro, as have very limited space, and it folds down and packs away quite small, but the GT Omega stand is a better (but still quite cheap) option, if you have the space.

 

BTW the T300 doesn't work with XBox without an adaptor like the Drivehub (it will work with a PS4, though), but the Thrustmaster TX would. The T300 does work with Forza 7 on PC, though.

 

Pretty nice as well! Use gloves though or you'll get blisters.

 

I've not found that an issue so far, but have not done any long races. I don't usually let the wheel slide through my hands, though, so don't think it will be a problem.

 

Sure, let my try to explain what I have learned in the last 2 years about FFB. Gear driven wheels need to have a deadzone in the center to not oscillate on the straights. So near center there is no power applied by default, but this value is different from wheel to wheel. Also the power is not linear when a linear increasing signal is sent from the game via logitech profiler to the wheel. All what Wheel Check 1.81 (download: https://boxthislap.org/logitech-g27-wheel-settings/) does with "Spring Force: step log 2 (linear force test)" (just open and select step log 2 - do NOT touch the wheel after it has been select, do put something (fingers, elbow, arm) through your wheel, it will begin to move with increasing force. The output log file (log2 <date+time>.csv) can be found under the "Documents" folder in the explorer.

Open this file with notepad or Excel. First column contains the force value sent via Profiler to your wheel. Divide by 100 to get the percentage value (eg. 2300 means 23%). The fifth and last column contains the measured force. My first line where the value in the last column is not zero has a value of 600 (6%) in the first column. This means, if I want to apply the minimum possible force to my wheel the application has to sent a value of 6% via profiler to the wheel. This is the minimum force value I set. I have always written "via profiler" because on thing is important: If You change settings in profiler or let ingame settings override the profiler's overall intensity this minimum force value can change and you perhaps have to repeat this test. For AC there's a little tool over there at racedepartment, where you can create a personal wheel LUT (look up table) which can be used to get nearly linear force output if you want to try this. I am not aware of such a tool for RRRE at the moment.

For Profiler settings - I have played TheCrew, DirtRally, AssettoCorsa and RRRE during the last 24 months. Except TheCrew (for which I have a separate game profile) everything is fine with global settings 100/0/0/off, combined pedals off, wheel range seems to be around 875° (and not really 900°), and - very important - enable the game to be able to change settings. So RRRE settings overwrite the profiler settings completely. For RRRE FFB settings: First step I take in every car is to lower the FFB multiplier to 1.000. In FFB Settings I am using inverted (this seems to be a Logitech necessarity) and intensity 100 (like in the profiler). The next value under intensity seems to be valueable for gear driven wheels G25/G27/G29/G920 - this smooths out the force, I have 5 in there. Minimum force feedback should be clear by now. For everything else I started with zero values and tried and tuned one after the other until I was satisfied. You need to keep in mind some things when doing this:

• shocks and dampening are perhaps profiler settings in the end, my values are below ten, just to feel some feedback from springs and dampers as I go through curves or over the green
• the effects from understeering, vertical load and side force (do not know the english words) and the last "Zahnstange" must fit your feelings, but these can accumulate to over 100% and therefor create heavy clipping. Test drive with FFB display and make sure you do not get clipping (not even mild clipping) when driving or you will loose possible feedback information
• the last section seems to be like AC - effects you normally can not feel through the wheel of a real car, but as most of us do not have a rumble system oder full-motion platform you can mix in these "feelings" to the wheels FFB as you like
• when you have modified everything to your liking you just need to change the FFB multiplier per car, if overall intensity is to high, just lower this single value in the FFB settings.

I did this over the last evenings in November and January after the TripleScreen-Enabler-Patch and I am very satisfied now with the FFB although I am using the everywhere hated G27 wheel. I can post every setting in detailed value, but as FFB is a subjective thing, this would be no guarantee to fit other users.

Edit: changed link to WheelCheck 1.81 from boxthislap.org

 

ough, can't edit:
Important - do NOT put anything through your wheel running the step log 2 test....

This one missing word can REALLY HARM YOU.

 

Probably a silly question, but you did go into Forza7 advanced settings and set the inner and outer deadzones to 0 and 100, sounds like you are describing the default settings which are 15 and 85, courtesy of google

Edit - And if its so perfect in Raceroom, surely job done, who needs Forza

 

WOW WOW WOW OMG OMG OMG !!!

My poor little brain! That is some seriously complicated sounding stuff.

Right now my problems are not with RRRE but with Forza 7.

When you say 'profiler' are you referring to the Logitech gaming software?

I'm sorry... I really need to find out how to do all this stuff with the software you mentioned by trial and error. It's not fair on you that I keep on asking you question after question.