Leaving the controller behind

[AlexDB9]

As I'm getting my first ever wheel (Thrustmaster T300 RS GT) I wanted to know what you guys think are the advantages of a wheel compared to a controller in your experience.

I love the thought of a wheel for the lifelike control but also would hope after the learning curve phase to also give me an extra edge on the road.

So apart from the sure thing of the increased immersion, in terms of on-track performance does a wheel make you faster, more consistent or both/neither in comparison to a standard controller?

Drop a vote and comment.

 

[Fennario]

Once you get past the learning curve there is no going back. Granular control over steering, gas, and braking with separated force feedback for each element (Fanatec) provides a level of detail and control far beyond what the controller can provide - whether you are able to translate that additional data into faster/consistent times is up to you..

 

[Pigems]

Congrats on the new wheel man!! A wheel is just more fun for me, I could never go back to a pad. I don’t know if there is really any performance advantage, other than the ability to control your tire wear a little better than a pad though.

 

[Zorz]

Haha, that vote ratio being 100% faster and more consistent (at the time I'm posting this!)

I know it's definitely possible to be competitive with a pad but for me personally it was like night and day when I got my G29. Its just that much easier to reliably extract performance with more natural controls. The force feedback helps too.

 

[ASH32]

If you are rubbish with the pad, like me and a lot of others, then you'll be faster with a wheel once you put the hours in. Hence the poll results so far.

However if you are one of the very fast pad drivers you might not gain much pace at all, certainly not easily anyway but matching your times should come with time. The pad itself is not really a disadvantage in GtSport, it has a lot of built-in assistance.

The biggest thing a wheel has over the pad is extra enjoyment, basically what @Pigems has already said.

 

[seadog777]

For me it's not about speed or consistency (but it has made a difference and that's how I voted) it's more about realism and the overall experience.
I've seen many say they are slower when they first get a wheel..... but they soon get the hang of it. Controlling speed with your finger and direction with a lever..... just no!

Edit - congrats on the wheel - I've had mine nearly 2 years now and it's still going strong!

 

[Trone_Colby]

Congrats on the wheel.

I voted faster and more consistent.

It depends on the player at the end of the day. I’m completely crap on the controller most of the time. Once I got a wheel and put hours in, I’m faster and more consistent.

I try to go back to the pad every now and then out of boredom...I can’t make most turns now lol.

Something else that’s funny? I can’t do rally on the wheel but on pad I do it perfectly lol

 

[StPeterMartyr]

The pad itself is not really a disadvantage in GtSport, it has a lot of built-in assistance.

DS4 user here. What do you mean by "built-in assistance"?

 

[ASH32]

DS4 user here. What do you mean by "built-in assistance"?

It's hard for me to explain but it's been covered by people who can on here before, so the posts/threads are about somewhere. I would think they'd be YouTube videos out there too.

Very basically when using a pad there is some hidden assistance to help it against wheels, kind of like an extra turning/countersteer assist, with a touch of traction control too.

You can countersteer and thus avoid spins far quicker and easier than any wheel user ever could (it's impossible a lot of times unless you react before you lose control) but at the same time there are some corners that require control that is just not possible with the pad, the banked hairpin corner at Maggiore being one such place and the disadvantage here is higher in some cars more than others. There are places that are easy flat out (depending on the car) with a wheel that a pad user can not do whatever they do.👍👎

As I said it can be explained far better than this, by people far more qualified to talk about it than me, I'm mainly going off what I've read and/or felt from my very little pad time. Go search, I'm sure it's out there.

One think I can say though is playing GtSport with one method and then the other is like playing two different games and yet some pad users can race alongside and match and even beat even the fastest wheel users at most, if not all, tracks. Which means they've done a cracking job making it fair, maybe they have even gone too far with it, I change my mind of that all the time though.

 

[Pigems]

DS4 user here. What do you mean by "built-in assistance"?

Think about this, if you are full lock mid corner on a pad, and then release the joystick, it springs back to center, and so do your cars wheels. You can’t do that on a wheel, it will not return to center if you just let go mid corner. On a wheel you have to maintain straight ahead too(depending on the settings you use), you can’t just let go of the wheel while driving in a straight line, the car will start to speed wobble and eventually spin out. But on a pad, you can just point the car straight and let it go as long as the road is straight. There is more as well I believe, but that’s just two of the smaller “built in” differences between a pad and wheel.

 

[meekrab]

Trail braking is a thousand percent easier with a pedal than a trigger.

 

[05XR8]

I'm a DS4 user. Hopefully, I'll get a wheel. Thing is, the biggest advantage of a wheel, has to be it's much better for comfort. I seriously doubt wheel users get numb finger.

 

[Fruffy91]

I'm a DS4 user. Hopefully, I'll get a wheel. Thing is, the biggest advantage of a wheel, has to be it's much better for comfort. I seriously doubt wheel users get numb finger.

I get this thinking il go faster if I push harder on the trigger even though its at full throttle already

 

[05XR8]

I get this thinking il go faster if I push harder on the trigger even though its at full throttle already

My hands are definitely more rigged and loss of blood flow ramps up on long corner circuits. I too feel nearly breaking the stick left or right gives me more turn. Surprised the controller hasn't snapped in half. A wheel would be more comfortable to rest hands and relax overall.

 

[Redneckchef]

I'm a DS4 user. Hopefully, I'll get a wheel. Thing is, the biggest advantage of a wheel, has to be it's much better for comfort. I seriously doubt wheel users get numb finger.

Numb finger is definitely a big issue with the DS4 on longer play sessions. Or if I have had a big day at work. Nothing like when I settled in for the 90 lap Gr2 race at Laguna Seca and lost the feeling in my right hand lap 3.
Takes time to get them back and you just feel off after that.

I do agree that the way they have worked it does help allow wheel and pad users to race pretty competitively together.

 

[Klik]

I just bought t300 rs gt and tlcm loadcell pedals. Still few days until delivery.

Wondering if i should have gone for TGT and those included in box t3pa pedals with conical mod instead of buying tlcm? But tgt is about 350€ more expensive than t300

 

[NevilleNobody]

I found it tough and went back to a controller. I think it may have hurt me that I have been real life driving for quite a while with some track time too. Biggest issue I had was it felt like I was not connected tot he screen and it was "remote", I could not feel the front end of the car, there seemed to be WAY WAY too much steering lock compared to real life but most of all there was absolutely zero pedal feel, especially on the brakes. Like none. I had no feel whatsoever for the pedal inputs.

 

[fisheye]

I get this thinking il go faster if I push harder on the trigger even though its at full throttle already

I have 3 controllers with 80% throttle, you have to mash them for 100%. I'm trying the repair today.

 

[AlexDB9]

I just bought t300 rs gt and tlcm loadcell pedals. Still few days until delivery.

Wondering if i should have gone for TGT and those included in box t3pa pedals with conical mod instead of buying tlcm? But tgt is about 350€ more expensive than t300

The pedals you bought are definetly better than those on T-GT and you saved money in the end, but I have to ask, why then didn't you get the base T300 RS which has less good pedals but identical wheel (save for PS logo instead of GT) and motor as the GT Edition? It would save you even more money.

 

[kilesa4568]

I found it tough and went back to a controller. I think it may have hurt me that I have been real life driving for quite a while with some track time too. Biggest issue I had was it felt like I was not connected tot he screen and it was "remote", I could not feel the front end of the car, there seemed to be WAY WAY too much steering lock compared to real life but most of all there was absolutely zero pedal feel, especially on the brakes. Like none. I had no feel whatsoever for the pedal inputs.

The people who last longer than a couple of months with a wheel seem to say the opposite.

Voted faster and more consistent but its main strength for me lies in how much quicker it is to get up to a competitive pace. On a pad, I had a nightmare nailing clean, error free laps and my quickest felt more like luck than judgement. Usually with half the tyre life from over driving too.

 

[AlexDB9]

I found it tough and went back to a controller. I think it may have hurt me that I have been real life driving for quite a while with some track time too. Biggest issue I had was it felt like I was not connected tot he screen and it was "remote", I could not feel the front end of the car, there seemed to be WAY WAY too much steering lock compared to real life but most of all there was absolutely zero pedal feel, especially on the brakes. Like none. I had no feel whatsoever for the pedal inputs.

That's awesome you had track time! What car(s)?
That "remoteness" you speak about I'm sure will strike me too when I'll get my wheel but I really hope it's not that pronounced for me as it was for you, otherwise weeks of wage would go down the drain Lol but even more so would mean I'm stuck "thumb driving". Or in the case of DualShock's motion control "air driving".
Btw, which wheel you have/had?

 

[breeminator]

I found it tough and went back to a controller. I think it may have hurt me that I have been real life driving for quite a while with some track time too. Biggest issue I had was it felt like I was not connected tot he screen and it was "remote", I could not feel the front end of the car, there seemed to be WAY WAY too much steering lock compared to real life but most of all there was absolutely zero pedal feel, especially on the brakes. Like none. I had no feel whatsoever for the pedal inputs.

This is all true, but can be addressed. With Fanatec, you can set the steering range. I agree about the brakes as standard, but it can all be fixed with the right materials to provide resistance at the right points in the pedal travel. Because GT Sport has a non-linear response, you need to set it up so that it needs a lot of force to move the pedal through the last little bit of distance. You need two layers of material - a hard stop to set the full travel limit, then a softer material before that so that you can feel when you hit it, but it then needs a lot of force to compress it to reach the hard stop. It's poor that it's down to the end user to sort this out, but you CAN get a spot on brake feel with GTS if you put the work in to setting it all up.

 

[Scaff]

The pedals you bought are definetly better than those on T-GT and you saved money in the end, but I have to ask, why then didn't you get the base T300 RS which has less good pedals but identical wheel (save for PS logo instead of GT) and motor as the GT Edition? It would save you even more money.

Getting any wheel at the moment is hard, I suspect that was pretty much the only choice.

 

[stpatty]

I switched to a G29 last December.

When you start, you'll struggle. The hardest thing for me was to figure out how much input I needed to put in. To expand on the earlier description of steering smoothing on the controller, look at it this way. You steer with the left stick. Consider how much you move it to the one side for full lock. Now imagine how far you need to turn a wheel to turn your car the same amount. It was difficult trying to adjust to that, and it was difficult trying to be consistent.

I remember someone on here saying when they first switched to a wheel they would spin out in ways they couldn't replicate with a controller when they tried. When you start, do some laps on a track you're familiar with and a stable car you're familiar with - I used the Gr.4 GT-R, which is about the most stable car in the game.

The only way you can really get better is by sticking with it. When I got my wheel I'd been playing GT Sport regularly for over a year and I knew I would still be playing it regularly, as well as other games. Now I'm just about at the same level I was at before I switched. I can't tell you if I'm faster or better or if I find it more immersive, but I can probably control the car better. I'm certainly glad I made the switch, and if I had an actual rig to mount it on I'm sure I'd be even better.

 

[neil_1980]

I think one of the main advantages with a wheel set up is that you're more inclined to put the time into practicing which in turn makes you faster and more consistent than you could be with a controller.

That could be down to it being more comfortable, more immersive or due to having chucked cash at it (or more likely a combination of the 3)

That said if you don't bother putting in practice then you'd be literally seconds a lap slower with a wheel compared to a controller

 

[NoStopN]

I switched to a G29 last December. When you start, you'll struggle.

Caveat: If you are in lower DR lobbies, you're struggle might not be very bad. I won my first daily 36 hours after getting my wheel & won a total of 5 that week.

 

[Veinz]

It depends, I feel faster and more consistent when racing in Gr3 or above, but I’m probably more or less at the same level in the slower categories.

The big gain I got from switching to a wheel was better tire wear.

 

[Jayceon47]

I'm more or less balanced, still quicker on DS4 tho, I can flow with the G29 on any other game but with GT, I'm still slower on wheel but I just enjoy the consistency from it. I do miss my monstrous pace on DS4 but oh well..

 

[RACECAR]

I'm a DS4 user. Hopefully, I'll get a wheel. Thing is, the biggest advantage of a wheel, has to be it's much better for comfort. I seriously doubt wheel users get numb finger.

As a prior longtime pad user, I can certainly confirm numb finger is NOT the main issue when using a wheel

I'm more or less balanced, still quicker on DS4 tho, I can flow with the G29 on any other game but with GT, I'm still slower on wheel but I just enjoy the consistency from it. I do miss my monstrous pace on DS4 but oh well..

I tend to feel it comes down to experience and time. When I first started using a wheel (The Logitech G27 back on GT6), I was way faster on the pad and its not too much a stretch as to why: Years of experience with the throttle and braking on the controller just simply meant I was more comfortable with the particular nuances of that device then with a wheel that I only had been using for a day or two. The exact same thing happened to me lately when I got a desk back in September, at first I was garbage and over driving and naturally was super slow while the controller I had been using for the last two years was giving me quicker times (even 8 wins in the FIA races so I did ok). One whole month later exclusively using the G29 and now, I'm destroying my lap times I previously set on the controller and the consistency is already settling in.

 

[xxPinkyKissxx]

I have a G29 but i use the Pad still for FIA races as i just don't want to lose ground while getting up to speed with the wheel. Its a lot more enjoyable with a wheel but its the braking i struggle with. Getting the balance right with hard braking is difficult to get a hang of. I also find it twice as difficult to catch if i start to spin or to get the car back on the track if i've spun off!! I'm roughly half a second slower per lap with a wheel than a pad on my strongest tracks. I should really be using this FIA downtime to practice with the wheel but thats a different story!!

Practice makes perfect i guess! I was an automatic gear user until about a year or two ago. Now i can't use a car with auto gears!