The specs of F1 Sim Compact and Mad Catz wheels/pedals?

At last I'm thinking about buying myself a steering wheel and pedals for some of the PC driving games I play, mainly Ubisoft F1RS and TOCA, but also Nascar 2 and Grand Prix Legends in the future, and probably others. I don't require perfection from the wheel and pedals, but is Mad Catz PC _any_ good? At least it appears to be affordable, but does it break up easily, or is it otherwise worthless? How does it connect to the PC (this wasn't mentioned on the box I inspected at a store today)? Normal SB gameport is enough for both the wheel with all buttons and the pedals? What kind of technology does it have inside, ie. does it have "pots" that need to be cleaned all the time, or does it have some better and fancier stuff inside like the diodes in MS Sidewinder 3D Pro joystick? While Mad Catz PC cost about 490 FIM here, I also saw them selling Digital Edge's "F1 Sim Compact" for around 895 FIM (it may be called something else in States). I've heard some very good things about this wheel. What kind of technology does it have inside? Same old "dirty pots" or something better? Compatibility with MS-DOS games like Nascar 2 (the last DOS driving game I will probably play, so that is not a biggie)? Looking at the picture on the box, it seemed as if the pedals were fastened on the wheel?!? But they are still just like ordinary pedals at the end of a cord, right? ;-) If I remember right Digital Edge had two different models of their wheel, the cheaper one and the very high end one. Which one is this "F1 Sim Compact"? I guess the cheaper model would be enough for me, because this is not the only uprade I'm going to make to my PC this year. ;-) Any other suggestions for a good pair of wheel and pedals especially for F1RS, TOCA and GPL? Preferably "potless". Thank you.

I have a digital edge (not compact) and I believe the only difference between it and the compact version is the pedals. You're basically doubling the price to get a very good set of pedals. The wheel itself is not without problems. The way it fixes to the wooden board that keeps it on your desk is not very good. With mine I soon had large amounts of play and the wheel moved about a lot. So you end up wedging bits of paper etc under it to try and keep it steady. I guess it can easily be fixed with the help of a drill and a few screws - but that's not the point. Also I have a small amount of play in the steering wheel which causes an annoying wobble in use. That said I tried out the thrustmaster wheels at a store on the weekend and they are very poor in comparison. So if your choices were down to the digital edge compact or something similar to the thrusmaster GP1 I'd go for the digital edge. The gear levers behind the wheel are especially good on the digital edge. The GP1 has them too but there is way too much travel on them. Can't comment on the mad catz wheel. But when I did a scan of the web a few months ago I didn't find any raves about it. Jem

personally, I had a mad catz wheel and did not like it. It had a cheap feel to it, and was impossible to fasten to my desk. I currently use the nascar pro wheel by papyrus, and it works great! best clamping system I have seen yet. Although the per4mer force feedback wheel intrigues me, as well, it has gotten good reviews here.

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>At last I'm thinking about buying myself a steering wheel and pedals >for some of the PC driving games I play, mainly Ubisoft F1RS and TOCA, >but also Nascar 2 and Grand Prix Legends in the future, and probably >others. >I don't require perfection from the wheel and pedals, but is Mad Catz >PC _any_ good? At least it appears to be affordable, but does it break >up easily, or is it otherwise worthless? How does it connect to the PC >(this wasn't mentioned on the box I inspected at a store today)? >Normal SB gameport is enough for both the wheel with all buttons and >the pedals? What kind of technology does it have inside, ie. does it >have "pots" that need to be cleaned all the time, or does it have some >better and fancier stuff inside like the diodes in MS Sidewinder 3D >Pro joystick? >While Mad Catz PC cost about 490 FIM here, I also saw them selling >Digital Edge's "F1 Sim Compact" for around 895 FIM (it may be called >something else in States). I've heard some very good things about this >wheel. What kind of technology does it have inside? Same old "dirty >pots" or something better? Compatibility with MS-DOS games like >Nascar 2 (the last DOS driving game I will probably play, so that is >not a biggie)? >Looking at the picture on the box, it seemed as if the pedals were >fastened on the wheel?!? But they are still just like ordinary pedals >at the end of a cord, right? ;-) >If I remember right Digital Edge had two different models of their >wheel, the cheaper one and the very high end one. Which one is this >"F1 Sim Compact"? I guess the cheaper model would be enough for me, >because this is not the only uprade I'm going to make to my PC this >year. ;-) >Any other suggestions for a good pair of wheel and pedals especially >for F1RS, TOCA and GPL? Preferably "potless". Thank you.

I have been using a Mad Catz wheel for about 6 months now and havent had any problems with it. The main reason that I chose that over any of the lower end products out there was because I have been using one for my Playstation ever since it was released (oh yeah, finding it on sale for $29 didnt hurt either). Two main problems with it. Firstly, by itself both units (wheel and pedals) are just too light and need to be anchored down to be anywhere effective. Using heavy duty velcro to keep it on a cart on the pedals to the carpet have solved that problem. The other problem is that they dont give you any config. software with it, but you can get the drivers from their site (it would have been nice to have them included). I find that the wheel calibrates better with the Thrustmaster Pro Panel instead of the standard Joystick Panel. I have always liked the layout of the buttons on it, including a shifter and shift-buttons on the back of the wheel as well. So if I am playing something like TOCA for example, I use the shifter. Whereas if I am playing F1RS, you just the buttons on the back of the wheel. The wheel always had a good feel to it once you managed to get it bolted down. I noticed that on my old PSX version, there are bungee-cords used inside...but on the newer PC version, springs are being used. I have cleaned out all pots recently just to make sure that nothings dirty, but there havent been any problems as far as drifting settings or the sort. Another thing worth noting is that the wheel responds MUCH better after zeroing out the Dinput.dll deadzone settings all the way down to zero. So if you can manage to find someway to bolt down the wheel unit (ie. velcroing it to a small typewriter cart), it isnt that bad of a deal if you can get it pretty cheap. Of course in a few months I will be finishing my move and then will be upgrading to one of the high-end units like a TSW or ECCI, but until then this setup isnt that bad to hold me over. Hope this helps, F1Filter

The *best* wheels available are the TSW (Thomson Super Wheel) and the ECCI(Extreme Competition Controls Inc). Both are made in the USA and cost the equivilant of around 500.00 They are *the* wheels to get if you have the money? For the rest of us mere mortals the choice is really as follows.... 1) F1 Sim - approx 150.00, expensive, made from steel, excellent *feel*, quality suspect? probably the best all round value wheel? 2) F1 Sim "compact" - approx 80.00, as above, except they have plastic pedals instead of steel pedals, and are therefore a bit cheaper. NB:- The picture on the box shows the wheels on top of the steering column, but they are used as standard pedals, eg:- via a lead the pedals are placed on the floor. 3) Thrustmaster (TM) T2 - approx 100.00 made of tough durable plastic, feels ok, pedals too close together & small? Desk clamps poor design? (on *all* TM wheels), legendary after sales support from Thrustmaster, parts suspect (expects pots and springs to break regulally). Now obsolete and no longer sold so possibly hard to come by? 4) TM GP1 - approx 60.00, as per the T2 above, but no pedals, levers behind wheel to accelerate and brake, can make hands ache after a while? 5) TM Nascar Pro/F1 pro - approx 120.00, new revamped version of the old T2, as per the T2 above, slightly bigger pedals. 6) all the other, cheap and *** wheels - (eg:- Per4ormer, G-Force, etc) approx 30.00 to 70.00, usually poorer quality, cheap parts, aimed at *arcade* type racers rather than serious sims? You get what you pay for? IMO, if you cannot stretch to an F1 Sim, or are worried about it's quality go for one of the TM wheel sets. They are the next best thing, good quality, have excellent after sales support. I would recommand e-mailing Thrustmaster as soon as you get your wheel, and request spare pots and springs straight away, which they will send free of charge, as these components *will* break after heavy use. These wheels and pedals plug into any standard game port, but you do have to set them up (as you should set up *any* joystick, wheel, pedals, or gamepad?) under win95 game controllers icon, in control panel. You should set up your wheel and pedals as a "race car controller", and under the advanced tab, have the "poll with interupts" option selected (although if you have problems calibrating, this is the one of the first things to try changing, eg:- turn it *off*) (TIP: Get directx 5, which when installed, replaces the old joystick icon in control panel, with a game controller icon that is much better, also d/l the "Thrustmaster Pro-Panel" program from the Thrustmaster website, as this allows accurate configuration of *all* wheel and pedals, as well as other joysticks, gamepads, etc) 8?) *Peter* 8-) (NB: remove asterix to e-mail)

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> The wheel itself is not without problems. The way it fixes to the > wooden board that keeps it on your desk is not very good. With > mine I soon had large amounts of play and the wheel moved about a > lot. So you end up wedging bits of paper etc under it to try and > keep it steady. I guess it can easily be fixed with the help of a > drill and a few screws - but that's not the point. Also I have a > small amount of play in the steering wheel which causes an > annoying wobble in use.

You can purchase from the makers of the F1 Sim, a desk mounting kit, which consists of two brass inserts. You simply drill two holes in your desk, hammer in the inserts, and your F1 Sim now slots into the brass inserts on your desk. (via the 1/4 turn bolts on the steering column which normally connect to the wooden base board). No need for the base board now? and the whole thing can be connected or disconnected in about 10 seconds, leaving your desk available to use as normal, cos the inserts (if fixed correctly) are flush mounted so do not interfere with your use of the desk when the F1 Sim is disconnected. I think they cost me about 7.00? and they were well worth it, and only took about 10 minutes to fit (make sure you measure the position of the holes properly before fixing!) *Peter* 8-) (NB: remove asterix to e-mail)

says... Interesting. You could always pull out the ones fitted to the baseboard and fit them into your desk. Infact mine have come out "naturally" several times and I've had to wrap them in paper to tighten the fit and then give them a good thump with the hammer. Anyway what you describe is nice idea. The main problem I have with the mechanism is the holes in the metal base plate are much larger than the shanks of the screws that holds them to the baseboard. This means the wheel unit moves about a lot unless you provide a very tight/resistive fit between the metal base and the baseboard (i'm currently using an old mousemat!). Jem