2024 Sim Wheelbase Guide - Whether You're Racing or Drifting, This One is For You

what's up janky fam a lot of you folks joined this Channel with my original Sim racing gear video and one of the topics I covered in that video was the different types of wheelbases you can buy including gear belt and direct drive at the time I was running a thrustmaster T300 setup and essentially said that I didn't think direct drive was this huge upgrade that people make it out to be for me personally the difference in driving wasn't necessarily worth an extra say $300 to upgrade first off is it just me or is my video quality gotten significantly better in a year second pretty shortly after that video I uh upgraded to direct drive so in this video I'm going to dig a bit deeper into my experience with the SIM magic Alpha mini thrustmaster T300 and Logitech G29 and hopefully help you make a more informed decision about what kind of setup makes the most sense for you for a quick Topline Gear Drive is exactly what it sounds like where a number of Gears mesh to produce rotation in the steering wheel belt also generally uses gears but one of the major connection points will be a belt to help smooth out power delivery and then direct drive is almost exactly what it sounds like where you're basically directly attached to a larger motor I feel like I've said this about a thousand times already but for those who don't know one of the goals of my channel is to bridge the gap between Sim and real life and in addition to probably over a decade running on Sim at this point I also have real life experience in road racing autocross drag and most recently drift so there's my resume let's move on let's start off with price since that's historically been the biggest line of the sand when purchasing a wheelbase setups can range anywhere from a few $100 to thousands of dollars depending on exactly what you're looking for on the low end you could score basically a full Logitech G29 setup for something like $350 with a shifter and it's hard to beat that in terms of cost in comparison a thrustmaster T300 with a shifter jumps anywhere from $500 to $600 depending on which of their shifters you decide to grab for anyone that's been following SIM for a while it's no secret that direct drive wheelbases are the next big thing the problem is that in the past you've needed to be a straight fing baller to afford a direct drive setup with them trending around $1,000 for something complete with pedals in a shifter however as with any other newer technology companies over the last few years are figuring out ways to do direct drive for cheaper and the mosa R3 is a good example of that where you can put a full direct drive setup together for around $600 and then there's the fitech csld DD which is probably the most Mass Market direct drive set up at this point and that lands around $700 so for a long time the T300 was my slam dunk recommendation for anyone getting into the hobby but with the prices in that wheelbase having gone up over the last few years and with the release of these lower-end direct drive Wheels the T300 is no longer the bargain entry level wheelbase it once was now looking solely at Price the G29 obviously still wins hands down and that's why a lot of people wind up buying them but there are other factors to consider before you YOLO into the cheapest wheelbase money can buy and we're going to start with build quality when looking at wheelbases build quality materials can be all over the place at the lower end the G29 and T300 are almost entirely plastic both inside and out which makes them feel a bit toyish and if you pop these wheelbases open you'll also find these smaller Motors that rely on Gears to increase the amount of torque they put out to the steering wheel with direct drive you are directly attached to a larger motor that generally puts out more torque so as a result they tend to be made out of higher quality materials compared to the budget friendly options and this is effectively because they have to be my Alpha mini for example puts out 10 newon met of torque compared to 2.1 for the G29 and 4.5 for the T300 the higher the torque The more stress you put on internal components which means cheap plastic pieces are more likely to fail I've played around with a handful of direct drive wheelbases from SIM magic simcube mosa and so on and they all feel pretty on par with each other at least to me in terms of build quality materials I mean effectively they're all made almost entirely out of metal on the low end I'm pretty sure you can throw a Logitech d29 down a flight of stairs and still have it work fine afterwards for the T300 I have seen a lot of complaints about overheating and losing force feedback especially during drifting and that seems to be primarily because the cooling design is complete trash where it's just this small fan that blows in the general direction of the motor for direct I have seen some complaints here and there but overall they seem to be pretty reliable setups so overall in terms of build quality I think direct drive wins hands down compared to your entry level options on to Driving Experience which to me is the most important category what a lot of people in my comments like to argue is that you can buy a cheap wheelbase and stomp on folks with more expensive setups and that's true it's kind of like how you see videos of lower horsepower cars like Miatas beating cars like Corvettes on the track but the reality is that if you look strictly at platform capabilities the Corvette gives you more tools to put down better lap times similar for drifting yeah you can slide with 200 horsepower but 400 is almost like an easy button in comparison overall I would say the G29 is completely functional for racing I do think the clunky nature of the gear mesh takes away from fidelity meaning a lot of the F of the road gets lost in that translation and while rotation speed isn't as important for racing having a faster wheel does make your life easier for example trying to save a lap in a snap over steer type scenario on the drift side despite all the BS workarounds people try the G29 doesn't spin fast enough to simulate a real car as a result you have to do all this extra BS like manually forcing the wheel to counter steer faster to keep the car in a drift moral of the story you can drive fast with the G29 put down good lap times be on someone's door in a tandem but you're always going to be fighting your wheelbase more than your competition on higher end setups okay now that I got that out of my system in my previous gear video I mentioned that I didn't think it was as big a jump from the T300 to the lower-end direct drive Wheels as some people make it out of B and here's my opinion A year later if you're currently on a T300 or a higher end belt drive like fitech I don't think think you're going to find that lower level direct drive Wheels like the R3 are this revolutionary experience compared to what you're used to driving and if you're upgrading I'd recommend the alpha mini your R9 at a minimum because I think otherwise you're actually going to wind up disappointed don't get me wrong direct drive is absolutely better than gear belt the Fidelity from the road and another micro feedback you get from the wheel is just awesome the whole experience is more raw and direct for lack of a better word on my Alpha mini I'm running a full-size NRG steering wheel attached with what's basically a regular NRG quick release Hub and it all feels super substantial in like a legit piece of professional some Racing Equipment when I was swapping back and forth between setups I didn't think all of this was as big a deal but now that I've been on direct for a while I essentially would never go back I will say I feel like it took me a while to get my direct setup dialed in in terms of settings whereas both the T300 and the G29 were basically plug-and play I do think that's one area where I'd be concerned for beginners with direct drive essentially not understanding when your wheel is doing something like clipping which is basically drops or stutters and force feedback due to your settings being too high that said it's hard to beat the performance from direct so in terms of Driving Experience direct drive basically wins this category hands down down now let's more officially marry all of these categories and talk about our conclusion okay so here we answer all the world's greatest questions like how much would a woodchuck would chuck if a woodchuck could chuck would now that in one take regardless of what stage you're in whether you're just starting the hobby or you've been doing it for a while I will always recommend looking for used gear marketplaces where I've lived have been littered with Sim racing setups that people spent a ton of money on thinking they were going to keep forever hell I've sold three myself if you're just getting into the hobby keep in mind it's super important to make sure your wheel setup is compatible with whatever system you're playing on you'll find that a lot of wheelbases are PC only or that there are different versions for Xbox and Playstation if you're stuck buying new it's kind of hard at this point to argue against direct drive with the price and accessibility improving so much over the last few years I mean if you're open to use gear you can still get some great deals on older fitech belt drives and even the T300 I think I paid like $200 for my T300 setup a few years back in which case I would say that's still worth it over direct drive if you've been in the hobby for a while any upgrade you make should be to direct I mean that's where the industry is going but I wouldn't rush out the door to upgrade to direct if you've already got one of the higher end belt driven setups yes direct is better but I think people tend to exaggerate just how much that said if you're running the G29 or some other lower-end thrust Master wheel the differences will be astronomical on the topic of the G29 I know that I've trashed it a lot in this video and I realize that they're a super cheap entry-level option to get into the hobby but I do think you should do everything you can to avoid buying that wheelbase that said I realize that everyone has different budgets and different life experiences and if that's all you can swing so be it anything is better than playing a racing game on a controller and I think most of us can at least agree on that you can always spend more on this Hobby and short of being rich at some point you need to draw a line in the sand right if money is No Object you buy high-end direct drive setup with a load cell pedal and you never look back but if you're like most of us you're balancing the cost of this hobby with the cost of keeping yourself clothed and fed and hopefully in that case this video helped provide some clarity on your decision I put up this little chart that shows my purchase recommendations depending on your situation but overall I think direct drive gets a pretty easy win here and if you have the means that's going to be the best setup you can buy anyway as always I am happy to answer any questions in the comments please like And subscribe so that helps me grow the channel and hopefully I'll see you next time

Channel: JankyDrift

Views: 17,668

Keywords: assetto corsa, sim drifting, sim drift, first sim racing, first sim racing setup, beginning sim racing, beginning sim racing setup, beginnner sim racing wheel, first sim racing wheel, sim racing, start sim racing, start sim drifting, sim racing wheel, thrustmaster, thrustmaster t300RS, logitech, logitech g29, logitech g920, Fanatec, simagic, moza, best sim racing, best sim drifting, cheap sim racing, fanatec dd1, Simagic alpha mini, fanatec csl, simucube, moza r3, moza r5

Id: CAIdUVooylQ

Length: 8min 1sec (481 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 18 2023