Ok so Black Friday sales are coming, the cold is here forcing me indoors more, and racing has bitten once again.
Currently I’m running a TS-PC racer and Fanatec V3 pedals and using VR. I’m happy with the pedals but ready for a change on the wheel/base. I don’t have anything against the base, just the wheel doesn’t fit with most of my driving. So after looking at replacement wheels, I remember the dilemma.
The cheap wheels feel cheap. The nicer Thrustmaster stuff is ok, but seems over priced. The custom stuff looks great, but the price makes me want to jump to a better base to future proof. If I’m spending $400+on a wheel, I might as well sell the current base and look at a “budget”DD. With the Podium about to launch, having access to all of Fanatec’s wheels seems like a huge benefit. Also, with the AccuForce V2 going on sale as a full setup for $999 it seems very hard to beat, even if later on I add a fanatic conversion to get into their wheels.
But then I went from wanting a simple wheel upgrade to dropping $1000-$1500 on what was just to give me a round (or nearly round) wheel.
I bought a wheel adapter to run a cheap round wheel, and while I don’t need any buttons on the wheel face for my playing, I do need the shifter paddles. The next option was to buy a shifter to go with it, but I realized playing in VR makes that less than ideal. While I know you don’t look at the shifter, being blind from it while learning the positioning seems rough. Maybe that’s overblown and I should just turn the AI down a notch or two while getting the feel. The Fanatec SQ1.5 seems a good value there. The other option, and the one I think would be more enjoyable is a triple monitor setup, but again, more money for better resolution but there is something incredibly immersive with VR tracking your head movements.
So what would you do? I race offline maybe 3-5 hours a week, enjoy the thrill of the immersion more than trying to win or be competitive. I can afford the upgrades but I struggle to justify them (or at least when we start talking $1000+). If a swap will change the immersive feel greatly, ill make the jump. But if the 599xx or Sparco TM wheel will do well enough I don’t hate anything about the current base.
Currently I’m running a TS-PC racer and Fanatec V3 pedals and using VR. I’m happy with the pedals but ready for a change on the wheel/base. I don’t have anything against the base, just the wheel doesn’t fit with most of my driving. So after looking at replacement wheels, I remember the dilemma.
The cheap wheels feel cheap. The nicer Thrustmaster stuff is ok, but seems over priced. The custom stuff looks great, but the price makes me want to jump to a better base to future proof. If I’m spending $400+on a wheel, I might as well sell the current base and look at a “budget”DD. With the Podium about to launch, having access to all of Fanatec’s wheels seems like a huge benefit. Also, with the AccuForce V2 going on sale as a full setup for $999 it seems very hard to beat, even if later on I add a fanatic conversion to get into their wheels.
But then I went from wanting a simple wheel upgrade to dropping $1000-$1500 on what was just to give me a round (or nearly round) wheel.
I bought a wheel adapter to run a cheap round wheel, and while I don’t need any buttons on the wheel face for my playing, I do need the shifter paddles. The next option was to buy a shifter to go with it, but I realized playing in VR makes that less than ideal. While I know you don’t look at the shifter, being blind from it while learning the positioning seems rough. Maybe that’s overblown and I should just turn the AI down a notch or two while getting the feel. The Fanatec SQ1.5 seems a good value there. The other option, and the one I think would be more enjoyable is a triple monitor setup, but again, more money for better resolution but there is something incredibly immersive with VR tracking your head movements.
So what would you do? I race offline maybe 3-5 hours a week, enjoy the thrill of the immersion more than trying to win or be competitive. I can afford the upgrades but I struggle to justify them (or at least when we start talking $1000+). If a swap will change the immersive feel greatly, ill make the jump. But if the 599xx or Sparco TM wheel will do well enough I don’t hate anything about the current base.
