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Good Racing game controller for PC?

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#22
I downloaded most of the racing demo's on Steam earlier and found them extremely hard with the keyboard just trying to see how the game was. I know for sure a controller is a must now.
I might pick up Need For Speed: Shift the 360 controller works with that quite well from what official NFS:S forum users have said.

Ok to hell with racing back to Killing Floor now :D
 
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#23
DietOrange said:
I downloaded most of the racing demo's on Steam earlier and found them extremely hard with the keyboard just trying to see how the game was. I know for sure a controller is a must now.
I might pick up Need For Speed: Shift the 360 controller works with that quite well from what official NFS:S forum users have said.

Ok to hell with racing back to Killing Floor now :D
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The keyboard is useless for propper racing games, the game has to be designed around keyboard play for it to work even remotely well (many of the really old racing games where, as back then there where no wheels, gamepads didn't have analog controls, and most people didn't own a Joystick, but thease days, the games assume you have at the very least a dual axis gamepad).

But personally i have found there can be a big difference in what games control well with what, some games, mainly the console ports, are definately designed to be played with a gamepad, and many of them actually don't work very well with a steeringwheel (you can play, but often the tracks and cars are designed around the gamepads abillity to go from one extreme of the axis to the next very quickly, and with a wheel, keeping up with that is exhausting! it's more a full upper body workout than a game!).

And contrarywise, some games you definately need a wheel to get the best out of them, the SimBin games for instance are extremely hard to play without the accuracy and good force-feedback of a steering wheel, GTR2 is such a game, i usually play with my Logitech G-25 wheel, but since i broke my foot recently and can't use the pedals, i tried playing it with my Rumblepad-2, and i found myself either flying off the track at every corner, or having to go around them very slow to stay on the track, it seems allmost unplayable on full realism settings with a gamepad, i had to lower the realism allmost fully to have any winning chances in a race.


Thus, i'm quite glad i own both a wheel and a pad, but that might be a tad expensive if you're not all that into racing games..
 
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#25
If you want to race seriously, you definately want to buy a wheel. Generally speaking, you want it to have as many degrees of rotation as possible, a clutch pedal and an h-gate shifter.

With Logitech releasing it's g27, you could opt for a g25 wich should be fairly cheap (as in 150 bucks rather than 250) by now. I use a G25 myself for two years now (former Logitech DFP and Microsoft FF user) and I am very happy with it.
Or you could get one of those fanatec porsche wheels, they seem to be pretty good aswell, allthough the very early models tend to lose center when used a lot. It's fixable, but annoying when it happens during a race.

As for racing games, there are plenty to chose from right now, at least if you're into the sim genre or like arcade racers. What we don't have on PC though are games of the carporn genre, which means loads of cars and tracks, with driving physics in between sims and arcade racers, like the Gran Turismo series or Forza.
 
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#26
Grobut said:
(you can play, but often the tracks and cars are designed around the gamepads abillity to go from one extreme of the axis to the next very quickly, and with a wheel, keeping up with that is exhausting! it's more a full upper body workout than a game!).
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I don't think this has a lot to do with them being console ports. ;) I very much doubt games "are designed around the gamepads abillity to go from one extreme of the axis to the next very quickly". Apart from gimmicks like the wiggling in Mario Kart games, of course.
There are games that aren't designed to be simulations and designed to work with a keyboard (e.g. Flatout) and most arcade racers are like that (even the pc-only ones!), but if we are talking simulations (or pseudo-simulations. i.e. I include PGR in this as well) it doesn't matter if it's a console port or not. It mostly depends on the kind of game, really.

Rally games are games of extremes, for example. Console port or not. It's just how rally works. It's why many rally game fans play with joysticks instead of gamepads or wheels. Playing a rally game with a steering wheel is exhausting and with a gamepad you don't have the same precision as with a joystick.
F1 simulations can be a tad exhausting to play as well, but not nearly as much as rally games.
Closed circuit racing simulations other than F1 (e.g. games like GTR, Grand Turismo or Forza) are usually even lighter on that and the lightest are probably realistic motor cycle games, but to be honest I have no interest in those so I can't really say. It just looks that way from videos.

That's not to say a wheel isn't awesome for immersion in almost every game that supports it, but for pure competitiveness it's rarely the best choice. Unless of course you are a professional race driver and you are used to wheels and can't play with anything else...

I have a wheel but it's only slightly above 180
 
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#27
I belive you have played Collin Mcrae 2004 and 2005, yes? atleast i'm fairly sure it was you i talked about thouse games with some time ago.

Anyway, Mcrae 2005 perfectly illustrates the "you need a sensitive input" thing, there's only one way to turn in that game, and that's powersliding, and you basically need to steer hard instantly to do it, playing that game with a wheel is just rubbish, it feels terrible, disconnected and hopeless, the game was clearly not ment for it!
It's fully playable with a gamepad (though not my cup of tea, the 2004 game was significantly more enjoyable), but not a wheel, and it's not just that a wheel is more work, the game just plain doesen't support it (or i should say, only the bare minimum was done to make wheels compatible hardware/software wise, nothing was done to make it enjoyable playing with one though).

That's basically what i'm trying to say here, many games out there where just not optimized very well for steering wheels, enough has been done that it works and can be done, but that doesen't mean it's worth doing, playing a game like Flaout2 for instance, yeah a wheel works, but you can feel the force-feedback effects where an afterthought, and as is apparent from the Menu's and all else, thease games where aimed at the Console market, they where ment to be more casual games you play with a gamepad, and indeed, that's how they are best played, same is true of TrackMania and the like (a PC title that one, but definately not ment to be played with a G-25 racing wheel, again a Gamepad is the best option).

Another example is Test Drive Unlimited, this is an awkward game on the PC.. it supports all kinds of input options, but none of them work very well, i've tried the Xbox360 version, and it plays very well with a gamepad, but somehow, i can't seem to make it drive as good with a gamepad in the PC version, and it's not exactly good with a steering wheel either, the Force-feedback feels sloppy and sometimes gives you a very wrong sensation of what's going on, braking and the clutch feels terrible, and the steering is just.. off somehow, i can't put my finger on it, but something is not as it should be, its functional, but not well implimented.


But then fire up a game like GTR2, and it just feels great driving around with the wheel and pedals, clearly the game was coded for this, the FF, the steering, the pedals, it all comes togeather, but on the flipside, like i said, try playing that one with a gamepad and you can just feel it's out of it's element there, the game is not well coded/balanced to work with a gamepad.

Another example is Rally Trophy, yes a rally game, with lots of agressive turning and all, but again, that's a game that feels great with a wheel and pedals, it's definately well coded for that, and somehow, playing it with a gamepad feels.. very "meh" and tricky in comparison.
Most of the recent Rally games i definately get better times with a gamepad versus a wheel, it just works better, but this one, it's the opposite.
 
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#28
I have not been satisfied by any racing game since F1Racing, which was excellent with a wheel/pedal. No assistance, manual shift, real weather, man that was stressful.
I once done the season as it rolled out, came fifth if I remember correctly.
Pissed all over Daemon Hill lol!

Everything that I've tried since has not merited dusting of my SideWinder and to be honest they all feel arcady.
And thats a shame.

Did I not see a F1 game in development for next year somewhere?
 
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#31
Grobut said:
I belive you have played Collin Mcrae 2004 and 2005, yes? atleast i'm fairly sure it was you i talked about thouse games with some time ago.
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Colin McRae is especially bad with a steering wheel because of it's flimsy "driving-on-honey" physics and keeping the car on the road is a balancing act that is "almost but not entirely unlike" driving a car so driving with a steering wheel just feels off. Even more off than driving with a keyboard or a gamepad. Other than that it's as playable with a steering wheel as any other rally game.

Richard Burns, for example, is a ***** with a steering wheel as well and while there are inferior console versions of the game I don't think anyone considers the pc version a console port.

Rally racing as opposed to "normal racing" is just more about extremes because that's how you control a car in these conditions. I don't know if you watch Rally on tv what the drivers have to do to keep their car on the road is extraordinary.
Opposite lock, the Scandinavian flick, quick evasion of obstacles like holes in the road or rocks,...
Rally games are exhaustive to play with a steering wheel.
 
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#33
Murphy said:
Colin McRae is especially bad with a steering wheel because of it's flimsy "driving-on-honey" physics and keeping the car on the road is a balancing act that is "almost but not entirely unlike" driving a car so driving with a steering wheel just feels off. Even more off than driving with a keyboard or a gamepad. Other than that it's as playable with a steering wheel as any other rally game.
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I have never disputed that it can be done, it's not impossible to do it, i'm just saying some games just don't feel right, and aren't as enjoyable when played with a wheel, some games work better with a gamepad, they are more enjoyable that way, and Mcrae 2005 is a prime example of that, and GTR is a prime example of the reverse, its great with a wheel, and annoying with a gamepad.

Murphy said:
Rally racing as opposed to "normal racing" is just more about extremes because that's how you control a car in these conditions. I don't know if you watch Rally on tv what the drivers have to do to keep their car on the road is extraordinary.
Opposite lock, the Scandinavian flick, quick evasion of obstacles like holes in the road or rocks,...
Rally games are exhaustive to play with a steering wheel.
Click to expand...

Yes Rally is more demanding than most other racing, and contrarywise, fast track racing is easier if you have a more accurate input device to cut the corners just right (though there are exceptions here too, see Trackmania), but that's not really the point, the point is that thease are games, not actual physics, but code subject to shotcomings and design desitions, it's not just that Rally is demanding, its ultimately about how the game is coded, and how well it supports certain devices.
Some Rally games feel great with a wheel, even if it is demanding, because driving them this way offers a ton of immersion, and in some i even get better times with a wheel, because the Force-Feedback is well coded and it lets me drive to the limit, but not beyond, and do better. But in others, a wheel is just more work with none of the payoff, be it strange car physics or badly implimented FF support, or stange smoothing of axies, they just don't feel right, and are more enjoyble if you play them more casually with a gamepad, you will often get better times with a pad in thease aswell.
 
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#34
Of course some games play better with steering wheels than other games. I just don't see the connection to consoles you made in your initial post.

A steering wheel, in itself being a realistic device, amplifies shortcomings in the physics of games.
When you hold a gamepad or a keyboard you are prepared to play a game and even if it drives as weird as ColinMcRae you can come to grips with it pretty fast. It's still looks weird (CMR looks like cars are driving on an aircushion or something, due to the brilliant middle-axis turning technology they employ...) but the challenge of driving and how you go about certain things, like certain turns on certain surfaces feels roughly right. You can still flick your car into corners and you can still feel differences between surfaces, etc. Pressing buttons or tilting sticks is an abstraction anyways, so if your input goes weird ways to get you around a turn it's still your input that is controlling the car and it's somewhat-quasi fitting if you squint at it from the right angle, if you know what I mean.
When you hold a steering wheel though, you are prepared to drive a car. And when a game feels as not-car-like as ColinMcRae the wheel feels out of place as well. You would have to make the same weird input you would have to make with a keyboard or a gamepad, but there is no abstraction. It's extremely counterintuitive to drive an unrealistic game with an actual steering wheel. It can be done, but it doesn't feel right.

Of course the actual implementation of steering wheel support is very important too, but back when I played CMR this wasn't my main problem.

I tried NfS:HP2 and NfS:U too and had the similar problems. Those two also border on being reaction games so you have the full baggage of having to throw around a wheel and you gain almost nothing from its precision.
As far as steering wheel support goes, I found that as long as the game fully supported being steered by an axis it didn't matter much if that axis was on a wheel, on a thumbstick or on a joystick. Force Feedback is often an issue, of course, but more often than not that's more a question of immersion rather than actual usefulness.

The more realistic the games were that I tried with the wheel, the better and the more useful the wheel was. Live for Speed felt VERY right with a steering wheel, for example.

You thought it's down to the steering wheel support, I thought it's down to the kind of game. Maybe it's a mixture of both and the more realistic games also value their steering wheel players more and thus have better support for it?
There is definitely a trend.

I stand by my assessment of CMR though.:p
 
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#35
Murphy said:
Of course some games play better with steering wheels than other games. I just don't see the connection to consoles you made in your initial post.
Click to expand...

The connection is simple, what's the default input device for a Console? the gamepad! and thease days, what sells more copies, Console or PC titles? Console titles! ergo there is a noticable trend for thease multi-platfom titles to be coded around the gamepad, instead of beeing coded around steering wheels.

Ultimately it's about sloppy support, if they made the effort they could make the games play well with both, it's by no means impossible (it could be done simply by having two physics models, one well suited for the more rapid movements of a thumbstick, and one more suited for the higher precision of a wheel, most games allready autodetect if you are using a pad or wheel anyway), but companies go where the money is, and that means they often wont spend the man houers fine-tuning the games for a market they don't expect to cast off as much money.


I'm not going to quote the rest of your post, because we agree, i have no problem with anything you said there, indeed it is a mix of what kind of game it is, the physics it is using, and also how well it supports the hardware, all of thease are factors.

But you have to ask yourself, why are they coded that way? it's true that the cars physics are usually what makes the game play well with a wheel or not, but they made the physics that way for a reason, so what is that reason?

The reason is the market they aim for, simple as that, games like the GTR series are aimed at the PC market, and more to the point, at Sim-heads who are willing to buy a wheel to gain more realism from the game, whereas games like CMR-2005 and the NFS series are first released on the Consoles, and thus aim at a more casual market that are most likely going to be playing with a gamepad (not many people own a wheel for their Console).

Now that's not to say that Console development is the only factor, there are PC titles that are very casual too, and a few Console titles that are fairly realistic, but there definately is a noticable trend here, the Console market is regarded as beeing the more casual of the two, and thus it has more casual titles, and indeed, most of the multi-platform racers out there are fairly casual.
 
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#40
Nah I'm a tight bugger.

The way it's setup is acceleration and braking on the left stick, and steering on the right stick. It's a bit annoying as it stops me from using throttle and brake at the same time - plus manual gearing really isn't much of an option. I've tried using the clutch as one of the buttons on the rear, and the gearchange itself using the 2 shoulder buttons. Just doesn't feel right. The G25 comes with a gearstick so I'll enjoy that a great deal :)
 
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