The Thrustmaster T500RS Thread

[Devedander]

because resale value means nothing? getting service at the dealer conserves the cars value. I'm not sure how this analogy applies to the wheels tho

If it's a show car or something I suppose maybe, but in my whole life I have never seen where an oil change was done affect the price of a car much as long as it was done at a respectable location and the records kept.

Now full engine service, maybe. But honestly there are plenty of better mechanics than you find at a lot of dealers.

The security of knowing it's dealer serviced is a big scam in my book... I know too many people who worked at even high end dealership garages who couldn't mount an engine without an instruction book.

Well what im saying is PD will know this wheel inside out and code for it more accurate then any 3rd party wheel @ the same price point.

That's an assumption at best...

Sometimes it's the company who's bread and butter is solely making that one product that does the better job at follow upservice than the megacorp who does a bunch of things and can't be bothered with a few minor updates as long as things in that category are still selling well.

Better third part products and support are not impossible by far.

To go back to the car analogy, I have had dealerships tell me any number of lies to get out of fixing something on my car they really should have vs going to a private shop where the guy did a radiator flush only to tell me he spotted a bad bulb in one of the lights and fixed it for free because it only took him a second and the bulb only costs $.50.

 

[Devedander]

Dp

 

[whatbrown]

I hope it's wirelees except for the power plug. I just don't see why we have to deal with a mess of cords for steering wheels in this day and age.

 

[shirakawaa]

I hope it's wirelees except for the power plug. I just don't see why we have to deal with a mess of cords for steering wheels in this day and age.

Wireless management adds latency.
That's a good reason for having wired wheels.

 

[zr1chris]

I hope it's wirelees except for the power plug. I just don't see why we have to deal with a mess of cords for steering wheels in this day and age.

I know what you mean my DFGT is nice but all the cords are a pain in the ass.

 

[SFX_Adavicro]

Those pedals look really nice, now we need to see the shifter. I find it strange its seperate.

 

[Devedander]

Wireless management adds latency.
That's a good reason for having wired wheels.

These days we are talking 2 or 3 ms latency... it's going to be unnoticeable. TVs introduce latency up into the many tens of ms. With driving games and a wheel latency is far less important than say FPS twitch shooters and is far less important when it's known and steady latency... with online gaming latency is more important because it's dyanmic and can't be predicted well for (as well as it's always higher than a few ms).

 

[ropalo21]

Trustmaster never gonna be Logitech....Logitech have much quality than Trustmaster and more good touch and it have LED RPM and the gears is on your hand not only behind the wheel...and except some buttons in the wheel is fully supported.I never change my G27 for nothing except the next logitech wheel.My vote:Logitech G27.

 

[ibuycheap]

Yeah but think about it, If your gonna spend $500 wouldn't you spend it on something officially supported. PD will code & patch directly for this wheel to perform @ its optimal level.

That is total nonsense. They are coding to a licensed api by Immersion. This is the same situation as direct x with AMD / Nvidia cards. The differences between them are minimal even at the extremes where the game says "should be played on nvidia". It's hard to see how a force feedback api would be any different.

Support for buttons and what not are on the developer but the force feedback calls themselves are the same.

 

[ibuycheap]

Look again, the arms are definitely metal, I can guarantee that to you.

How can you guarantee that? because its shiny??? It makes no sense to have that support structure in metal.

http://benchmarkreviews.com/images/..._Force_Feedback_Pro_Clutch_Edition_pedals.jpg

Those pedal arms look identical but don't have the metallic paint.

Thats the RGT the predecessor to this. It looks like they reused the injection molds for the arms.

 

[Marsekay]

Um excuse me for being thick, but how would you use the upside down (real life...) pedals without just kicking the unit over?????

 

[Devedander]

Um excuse me for being thick, but how would you use the upside down (real life...) pedals without just kicking the unit over?????

Rest your heel on the base portion like you rest your heal on the floor of your car? Or screw the whole pedal assembly down to whatever you have it on.

 

[ShylockHolmes]

That's one UGLY wheel for $500. The pedal base looks like the running board from billy bob's tow truck.

That GT2 is a pretty sexy wheel, waiting for the SRT guys to demo it. I think I'll order it to give me a change from my PWTS not to mention a backup wheel if anything goes wrong.

 

[tribolik]

no separate shifter
not in the box and not in the pics
its a lot of money for a wheel with no shifter

 

[marble_eye]

for $500 this wheel would have to perform better than the Logitechs and Fanatecs on all platforms and games (which it may very well, no one knows)....spending that kind of money just for GT5 compatability is rediculous, the game isn't even close to good enough to justify that (in my opinion)

 

[mykem]

no separate shifter
not in the box and not in the pics
its a lot of money for a wheel with no shifter

There is a shifter- the paddle shifter which you can use right away. For those wanting a H-gated shifter, I'm sure there's one on the way. There's a reason why there's a clutch pedal. If it's anything like how Thrustmaster built the Throttle for the Warthog, then we'll be in for a treat.

[YOUTUBEHD]wzM96Je8pfw[/YOUTUBEHD]

Personally, I find the steering wheel captivating. Not quite the same class as the Frex Simwheel (which costs 5 times as much), but in the same vein as my G25- unadulterated simplicity and none of the Fanatec brand name pretentiousness. So there won't be the moment of freaking out when you realised that you're driving Ferrari 430 Scuderia with a Porsche GT3 steering wheel setup.

 

[cygnus_zero]

Looks awesome, glad I held out on buying a wheel.

 

[krishy_123]

Clutch but no H shifter in the package... I see the paddle shift, but thats usually for clutchless shifting. Really annoyed that that thing would be the official wheel instead of the already popular G25/G27 made by a large company like logitech.

 

[greekbull]

I've got a real tough decision now between this and the Fanatec GT2(really like the fact that I can use that with my 360).

But...Everybodies talking like Thrustmaster isn't a high end or well known company. Within Flight Simulation they have a great name. Granted not for their low end cheap wheels but their high end stuff has always been top notch and nobody has a better history with the high end stuff. Certainly not Logitech. These guys have been building that stuff more in the Flight Simulation world for 20 years! And I have experience with that stuff going back to the early 90s. Great stuff.

Thrustmaster is a very good High End company if your looking at thier high end stuff and not the lower priced stuff. And a lot of electronic companies have tiers of equipment. Sony has regular Sony and Sony ES which is miles above for a good name most of you will recognize. Their regular gear is low priced and in the $100-$500 range. Then you go ES and you can get up into $3000 recievers which are in a totally different class.

Point being don't dismiss a brand because you aren't impressed with their lower end cheaper stuff because obviously there is a lot less money and quality in that line.

LOL with all of that said I'm not sure which way I'm going to go with my new wheel. If the thrustmaster setup was cross platform(which I'm sure it's not) I would probably be all over it.

Here are some images of their high end stuff:

 

[rats3572]

I think I will be looking seriously at the thrusmaster wheel I have the g25 and had it now for 3 1/2 years it's a great wheel but it's starting to feel a bit worn.
I was going to go with the g27 for my new wheel but now they are about to release this I think i will wait and see.

 

[H3avyM3tal]

This wheel looks intense. I also hope it performs well, but I have a feeling we don't need to worry about that. Glad I hold out on a new wheel

 

[arora]

What's up with the green writing in the first post? I can't read that without getting a headache.

 

[CoolColJ]

There might be a new Logitech wheel coming out soon too, it looks like G27 is discontinued

 

[jonny_goddard]

what website is selling this wheel? i cant seem to find any

 

[tvman]

I don't suppose seeing as it has the GT5 emblem on it that it might possibly be 360 compatible as well. I guess right now we don't even know if it's PC compatible.

 

[tvman]

what website is selling this wheel? i cant seem to find any

Not yet or we'd have likely heard. Seems to me that they might be missing out on the xmas season unless it's up for sale the first of next week. Odd timing if it isn't.

 

[12thgear]

The Fanatec wheels really are quite nice. It's refreshing to have a quality wheel on the Xbox 360. I will never understand why Microsoft's wheel for their flagship next generation game console was such a step back from what Logitech had already produced. If you want a good wheel that works with everything, the Fanatec GT2 or a used PWTS are the only options.

I assume the new T500 RS will be compatible with Windows. Hopefully there will be official drivers too. I'd love a chance to compare the T500 and a Fanatec belt-driven wheel head-to-head. These look to be the big dogs in the high-end consumer range, before you start jumping up to something like an ECCI TrackStar.

Also, I really agree with you about the bad rap Thrustmaster gets. Granted, they brought a lot of it on themselves after Guillemot bought them and diversified their product range. And if you're not familiar with their flight heritage, the name is... unfortunate. They haven't had a great wheel in a while. I have a soft spot for them though, especially for their HOTAS systems. I've used them off and on for years, and they're pretty great. As far as I can tell they pretty much created the enthusiast flight stick market.

I've got a real tough decision now between this and the Fanatec GT2(really like the fact that I can use that with my 360).

But...Everybodies talking like Thrustmaster isn't a high end or well known company. Within Flight Simulation they have a great name. Granted not for their low end cheap wheels but their high end stuff has always been top notch and nobody has a better history with the high end stuff. Certainly not Logitech. These guys have been building that stuff more in the Flight Simulation world for 20 years! And I have experience with that stuff going back to the early 90s. Great stuff.

 

[OmniusGT]

After using the Driving Force Pro with GT4 and upgrading to the Driving Force GT for GT5 (which didn't arrive as we all know) so the wheel was used for Prologue and other driving games, its a shame to see Logitech 'losing' the GT licence...

The question is, if this T500 is the new official wheel, why has the 'on the fly' extra buttons been dropped? The Plus and Minus buttons, scroll wheel and menu button? It seems strange that if you go for this wheel, you can't do that anymore, you can tell this if you go into the options to configure the T500 in GT5, there is no option to configure any of the unused buttons for these Driving Force GT only buttons.

Also looking at the T500, how would you attach it to a desk (I have my Driving Force GT clamped to my desk using the internal clamps) but I can't see anything on the photos of this new wheel?

S

 

[Sele1981]

Wow the Fanatec GT2 costs 500€

Are they completely out of their mind?? And the joke is, it also costs 500$ wich makes 372€...

No thanks I keep playing with my DFP... Or get an G27 when the price is down again to 200€...

 

[UK-Gamer]

Wow the Fanatec GT2 costs 500€

Are they completely out of their mind?? And the joke is, it also costs 500$ wich makes 372€...

No thanks I keep playing with my DFP... Or get an G27 when the price is down again to 200€...

Do you need XBox compatibility?