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* pop
Oh! Ah! Right. Sorry . . . dozed off for a moment there.
I got used to a wheel from when I was an adolescent, and used to jump into any relative's or family friend's parked car and turning the wheel and making 'Vroom vrrroooom' sounds, till they yelled at me to get out and stop messing about.
When that was not possible, I would draw a chair up to a wall and face it holding a dinner plate like a wheel and do the same thing. Sometimes I put chairs behind me and would make my reluctant siblings frightened passengers; when I crashed, they were all supposed to fall over in their chairs, too. A few broken dinner plates and chairs (as well as self-inflicted bruises on passengers) provoked my Mom to put a halt to this and I had to cop out.
Later on I got the chance to move a car backward and forward short distances in a friend's car as he and I hung out in it while our parents were trapped listening to homilies in church.
Holding a real wheel, and feeling the bulk of the car respond was the first wake-up call I got that this was nothing like a dinner plate.
Then I got into bikes, and a handlebar is quite a different thing - even a twitch can translate into a wild swerve off the road.
Along come video-games,
Pong, Pac-Man, Space Invaders . . . and finally a computer with a keybord and a mouse, and games like
Wolfpack, Battle of Britain, even
Spectre - all games that were good without a wheel; a yoke made flying a joy, and a keyboard and mouse made torpedoeing Merchant ships, or blowing ballast just a click away.
And then the racing/driving games.
Which totally teed me off; all I had was a controller, and . . . that . . just . . didn't feel right. As much of a driving fanatic as I was, I stuck to flying, war-games, and creative sandboxes, and the only racing game I would play was Uniracers on the SNES.
Because I was used to a wheel before I started trying to get used to simulating it using a controller, a controller seemed totally 'fake'.
I was mad as hell watching my eldest kid play through GT3, and then GT4 . . . and finally I couldn't help it - I started playing them with a controller. Bought myself into the NASCAR series and kept ploughing away through these driving games hating the controller. It didn't feel too bad playing Ford OffRoad on the PSP, though, and I would spend hours every night in bed using the buttons to play through the game. That didn't feel so bad, and actually helped me get more programmed into the use of the PS3 controller (though TBH, I find the XBox controller a lot more ergonomic, if not user-friendly.)
So back to GT3, and then fully into GT4 using the controller, hating it, but doggedly going through the game. Finally not being able to stand the frustration any more, I got myself a DFGT.
Bam! What a different game! I had my wheel back! I could actually drive, instead of twiddling my thumbs to control all the different wheels working under me.
The
DFGT (IMHO) is one of the best wheels to start with - especially if you have
never used a wheel before. It's comfortable, and fairly ergonomic, and quite realistic within the parameters it is confined to. My game bounded forward - not only did GT4 suddenly become more easier for me, the actual driving became intensely enjoyable, absolutely addictive, and B-Spec Bob and I were suddenly fighting each other for races; became my turn more often than his
- and I love being a race engineer, too, so B-Spec is a part of the game I really enjoy (with a controller - not a wheel!)
GT5 comes along and I get myself a G27 - more of a big brother to the DFGT, with a lot more realism, especially in the tactile feel of the wheel, and its inputs - and I can never play driving games with a controller anymore, unless we're talking menus involving modding, photomode, replays, etc - where, yes, using a wheel is a pain - this is where the controller comes into its own.
So in my case it was not so much getting used to a wheel, and synching into it right away, having got used to a real wheel (and diner plates) first, but a case of returning to what was natural to me.
I rarely play with the others in my gang at their homes, because I won't play with a controller. I need my wheel.
To hone in on the point of this topic now, and how to get used to a 'gaming' wheel - an example for me would be letting my 12 yr old take one of the Lupos out (in Practise mode) to the Ring. A few crashes and bangs, a bit of swerving around, and once he got the coordination of wheel and pedals (he was on Auto) he started to actually enjoy himself, and going : "Wow! I know why you play this game so much! It's fun!"
It was actually the
feeling of driving that was fun - but I didn't tell him that.
Then I made him take part in a one-make race at the Ring, and then the Lupo Cup itself, on the Ring - all which he won (with a few restarts
) He never uses a controller now when he borrows my game for a race or two occasionally. And he feels confident that when he progresses to a real car he is not going to be too disoriented about the controls.
He now understands what I'm doing when I'm driving my car IRL and he is riding shotgun.
Getting used to a wheel - and it doesn't matter what game you are playing - NFS, TDU, GT5, - is much like getting used to a wheel IRL. No two vehicles I've driven have had the same 'wheel-feeling'. Even identical models. Some are as responsive as a flight-yoke. Some RL vehicles I've driven respond seconds
after the move on the wheel is made; some are tight, some loose, some definitely with a will of their own.
Wheels in games pretty much feel lifeless 'underneath' - on the surface they behave with whatever settings, (or particular car) one is using - from wildly uncontrollable, to absolutely dead.
Get used to the wheel by
driving first, forget about racing. Use the default settings, whatever game you are playing - and then tweak the settings (one setting at a time) till you tailor the wheel to suit your movements.
Use Practise Mode (so that it doesn't recycle your UCD unnecessarily) and so that you can drive at your own pace. Take a leisurely drive around Madrid, Rome or London, as if you were driving a real car with friends in it. Stop, Park, Reverse, do U-Turns, fling the car around a corner, stomp on the accelerator, stomp on the brake;
feel what your wheel does in these instances - these are all things you may actually have to do while racing (one of the core actions in racing cars, is to drive the car. Fast.)
Use low HP cars in the beginning - use stable machines, like the Lancia Delta, VW Golf, Mini Cooper, etc, and ace the one-make races. Then progress to higher HP, as well as the more finicky cars like the Stratos or Yellowbird.
Your next step would be to forget Automatic (unless simulating an Automatic only car) and to get used to Manual - and a whole new powerful, and an even more 'controllable' game will come to life. The only downside being that you may suddenly start to look for paddles when driving your own Automatic IRL. Happens to me all the time when I need to down shift in my RL car, when behind my RL wheel - which doesn't have paddles.
I need to talk to my mech about replacing it with a G27.
Finally, try not to break your wrists when you have got the Red Bull by the horns. Quite possible in the RL Red Bull, I would think.
TL; DR: ?
What I said:
Practice makes perfect dude. Just treat the wheel as if you were learning to drive a car for the first time.
