The online racing simulator
Logitech G25 reviews
(85 posts, started )
#51 - Jakg
Quote from Robster230 :...

- my Momo seems to not like being turned to quickly now, yet i've just bought new pedals for it

Now i hear that i really want one, lets just hope they make a wheel-only one (unlikely )
it came yesterday. and i gotta say, i love it. i suck at driving with the 6-speed, but thankfully there are paddle shifters.

the best part though is the pedals. there is more resistance on the brake pedal, and it increases the further the pedal is depressed, so it gives a pretty realisitc pedal feel. it actually allows me to brake later going into corners because i have a better feeling for the lockup threshold.

one thing i'm not use to is the 900 deg. rotation for the wheel. my old wheel was 180 deg. and i'm used to catching a slide from that rotation amount. With the extra rotation amount, i'm catching the slide ok, but once the tires bite, i'm getting a nasty snap oversteer that i can't catch. i'll get used to it, but its a slight issue i'm having right now. i'm getting better though.

anyways...on to the pics.

pedals. been down for less than a day and already covered in dog hair.


wheel and shifter
Lol @ hairy pedals!

If you're not used to the 900 degrees, try going up in steps, it's a good way to learn, try 270, then 320 etc and up in small steps. Get good at each before moving on
The brake pedal is good, but a bit too far from the throttle for comfy heel and toeing. But I'll get used to it eventually. On most road cars I can't help but heel and toe (it's automatic now), but it just feels odd on the G25 at the moment.

The wheel when it auto-countersteers is awesome. Still not quite fast enough, but it'll recover big LX6 slides on it's own, just like in real life (ok, not JUST like real life, but pretty damn close for a feedback driven motor system).

The H-shifter is good, but a bit too underspringed for me. And I'm getting annoyed that I can select a gear in LFS perfectly, bug not have it register because the clutch wasn't done enough. In real life you'd feel the gear through the lever and know it hadn't worked, but that's a big problem, and would required switched magnets and mechanisms talking to the sim.

The sequential mode is good - feels sturdy, and I've enjoying slamming up and down the gears in this way. I have it close to the wheel, so it's a very natural movement! But the buttons, being behind the shifter, are difficult to get at without knocking the gear lever, or talking your eye off the road for ages. Shame.

The pedal wire could be a few feet longer, as could the power cable (transformer to wheel end).

Surprisingly few gripes for something SO different to my known and loved Momo/ECCI.
Good review, I agree on the underspringed shifter actually, wonder how stiff a spring you could use before it'd pull itself out of gear hmm
Is my G25 damaged?
Hi there,
i am wondering if the feeling while steering with high force feedback (like centering spring) is normal.
While driving the BF1 in long curves like Kyoto you make very little turns with the wheel, which is really annoying because I can sense every single tooth of the cogwheel of the force feedback drive.

Is anybody else having this problem/feeling?
The highpoint of the whole setup is definately the actual wheel for me. Feels a notch up from everything else I've used. I wasn't expecting a big difference from my old DFP but there's definately one - quieter, more precise, lot easier to catch slides with full rotation. Only having 2 buttons hasn't troubled me in the slightest. Did have to sand down the paddles a bit as one of them cut my finger (sharp edges).

The pedals, well to be honest they aren't as good as I was expecting. The travel is shorter than the Act Labs set I had, the clutch spring is a bit stiffer than I like, and I had to spend 20 mins taking them apart to tighten the throttle arm up as it was very loose from the factory. But once you get going with them they do the job well and feel good. They feel (and look internally) like they should last a lot better than the old Logi's.

The shifter, I think its not bad, could do with being a bit firmer, but you can drive it with a heavy hand and it feels solid enough, doesn't feel like it'll fail either. Nice it clicks when your in gear, otherwise it'd be hard to tell with such little resistance.The shifts are short and take less time than with my old Act Labs one. I can't understand the people who say they can't reach the buttons, I can reach them all fine. I have it mounted down to my left similar to a real car. Didn't like it much when it was level with the wheel. And when in sequential mode, it clicks when downshifting like it catches something, damned annoying.

Pedals cable is way too short, could do with being a couple of ft longer. The rest are good length's though.

Overall well chuffed, it actually lives up to the hype, thats unusual these days.
Quote from FlipFlop :Hi there,
i am wondering if the feeling while steering with high force feedback (like centering spring) is normal.

Yeah thats is normal. It's caused by the cheap BDC Motors which have a good amount of magnetic cogging, and torque ripple during commutation. It requires very high quality servo motors to get rid of it, but a single motor costs more then a G25 set. Of course the cogwheels have a coggy feel too, but not much when seperated from the motor.
Quote from FlipFlop :Hi there,
i am wondering if the feeling while steering with high force feedback (like centering spring) is normal.
While driving the BF1 in long curves like Kyoto you make very little turns with the wheel, which is really annoying because I can sense every single tooth of the cogwheel of the force feedback drive.

Is anybody else having this problem/feeling?

This feeling (refered to as cogging) results from the interaction of the rotor windings with the permanent magents of DC motors. G25 uses a greatly reduced gear ratio which makes the effect even more noticeable (but which leads to higher wheel speeds and greatly reduced gear/inertia losses that give G25 it's unique functionality). To offset this effect G25 uses five pole motors wound to minimize cogging. It is a balance between cogging, maximum torque and cost. These motors are designed specfically for G25 and are not "off the shelf" motors. As you lower your torque settings the cogging feel is greatly reduced.
#60 - Gunn
Quote from T.K.Jode :

First of all, I was expecting the wheel diameter to be bigger based on what everyone has been going on about. Yes, it's maybe 1/4 of an inch bigger than the DFP, but I'm pretty sure my leather-wrapped Act-Labs wheel was even bigger than this one.

It's at least 2cm bigger than a Momo which in turn is bigger than the DFP.
Thanks M.Mos and mcman for your answers.

The effect from the motors is something I assumed too. But I am still wondering if there is some other problem, because if I set the FF to a certain strength and use a comparable FF strenght with my old Momo Racing, the cogging is much bigger with the G25!?

I saw some pictures from the inside of the wheel where the big cogwheel is seperated axial to get rid of backlash. Couldn't it be that there is a problem (missing springs for example?

I think if this effect (in this dimension) is normal to the G25 that would be a shame, because the Momo Racing feels much better while driving a BF1 on long curves.
Attached images
backlashreductionou3.jpeg
FlipFlop, Mcman already answered that. It's because the G25 has a much reduced gear ratio then the DFP. Now it is more noticable but you can turn the wheel faster and with less noise. As Mcman said its a compromise about price and quality. The main problem remains the commutation process of the brushes. The Motor in FFB wheels operate in stall mode or at very low rpm's most of the time, this has high requirements on the motor. A cheaper solution then using a zero-cog BDC motor could be to use a brushless motor with smart software control (sinusiodial current control), which i thought logitech is going for when i first read about the G25.

I don't thing it's a problem with the spring, but you have to open it to be sure.

What are your FF settings in LFS and in control panel?
M.Mos, i don't know the DFP but probably the Momo Racing Force has a similar ratio. So I understand the technical circumstances Mcman described, but I am still wondering about the extend of the effect compared to cheaper wheels.

In control panel I set FF to 100% and in LFS to 50% which is the lowest I want to use because otherwise the wheel gets to wishy-washy at low speeds.

In all reviews I read, nobody complained about this effect. But maybe I am just to sensitive (which i can't believe).
If the shop where I bought it, would still have it in stock, I would go exchange it, but now I have to risk my warranty by opening it. And if there is no defect I think I return it, because it bothers me to much. Everything else on the wheel is really fantastic so far.
#64 - Davo
Quote from FlipFlop :In control panel I set FF to 100% and in LFS to 50% which is the lowest I want to use because otherwise the wheel gets to wishy-washy at low speeds.

I think the problem is the high FF you have setup. I use 50% in control panel and 60% in LFS and it seems right for me. Here are my settings ignore the red circle.

I found it's better to go up in force in LFS rather than the logitech profiler because the wheel became too hard to turn and very stiff. So try a lower setting in Logi and higher in LFS.

I suggest 115-125% in Control panel. Why i do it, well check it out yourself with FFconst.exe, it allows you to manualy send the same FF effect as LFS does. With 100% you will notice a deadzone in the middle i.e. you can drag the slider a bit but the wheel does not move. When you set it to 115%-125% you will notice that the wheel instantly reacts to small slider movements. In LFS i have set it very low, 10-30% depending on car and set.
Attached files
FFConst.rar - 30.3 KB - 243 views
#66 - Davo
Works fine for me, I move the wheel the incar wheel moves or the little slider thing down the bottom moves too.

If I use mose force the wheel just becomes very heavy and hard to move. I'd need to lift weights or something to move it with anything over 100% force.
Okay a review

The Wheel:
The wheel feels great, the force feedback is much better than my on my old wheel (Microsoft Sidewinder FFB), have much better precision than the old wheel too. I feel the car being more stable with this wheel, though I'm not as fast as with the old wheel or have perfect car control, but that will come with experience, give me a few weeks and I'll get similar times.

The Pedals:
All of the pedals are stiffer than on my old wheel (G25 throttle requires more force to move than the brake on the old wheel). I have a lot more control of the pedals than on my old wheel too, no problem with them not responding to my commands. I shall say that the brake is quite stiff, way stiff. Will take some time getting used to how much force I actually have to apply to be fast.
Let's not forget that I keep pushing the wrong pedal when using the H-gate with clutch. Will take some time getting used to use 3 pedals instead of 2, thats for sure.

The shifter:
Not as good as the wheel and pedals, very easy to get the wrong gear selected. Also managed to make the shifter come off the table it was attached to. Unlike others I haven't gotten into reverse by mistake, nor have I accidently moved the stick when using the buttons on the shifter. One problem that I do have, sometimes I can't the stick to stick in a gear position. Will learn this too, with time.

Overall:
Great wheel and pedals, good shifter. Well worth the price.


Tested it in NFS: Carbon too, and worked somewhat okay, managed to use the shifter without even touching the clutch, not so realitstic there. Though, what can you expect from a crap game?
Quote from DanneDA :The shifter:
Not as good as the wheel and pedals, very easy to get the wrong gear selected. Also managed to make the shifter come off the table it was attached to.

Ehhh.... I'd have to disagree with those and ask a question: could you post a vid of your shifting behavior?
The wheel: 95
Love it. Nice look, nice feel, great precision. Like i've mentioned before (someplace else on the forum), my old wheel was a 180deg wheel, so the 900deg rotation is taking a bit of getting used to, although someone gave the good advice of incrementally increasing the rotation to get used to it. i'll have to definately try that.

Pedals: 99
Absolutely love the pedals. It'd be nice if the clutch pedal was a bit further away, but other than that they are great. i love the feel of the pedals. i've found that i can brake later and remain control, which is nice, and should eventually equate to faster times.

Shifter: 90
No issues with the shifter. Haven't had a problem with missed shifts (the throw is actually fairly close to my actual car's). Haven't had a problem with knocking it out of gear either. Only thing is that in 2nd gear it crowds my right hand on the wheel, but that's more of an issue of how i have the wheel and shifter setup on my desk, so i'm not counting that issue. button's are a bit obscured, but not probitivily so, and its really only an issue in 2,4,6/r gears. in the other gears, my fingers are long enough to reach the buttons from the shifter.

overall: 96
great controller set. leagues better than the DF i upgraded from. well worth the price, and i'd recommend it to anyone that can afford its price...and if you can't afford it, save up. its that good.

also, don't knock NFSC too much on it's clutch funtionality...LFS is the same way
Quote from DanneDA :Tested it in NFS: Carbon too, and worked somewhat okay, managed to use the shifter without even touching the clutch, not so realitstic there. Though, what can you expect from a crap game?

You can do that in nKP too - I've been trying it with the shifter (edit the actlabs.ini file and but the button numbers in the appropriate place [the same number LFS shows]), and you don't NEED the clutch to change either.

Though, what can you exp... whoops
Quote from spankmeyer :Ehhh.... I'd have to disagree with those and ask a question: could you post a vid of your shifting behavior?

Only use the fingertips to change gear (=no force), and probably because of that I'll have an easy time missing to move leaver to the correct position.

Also how do you change to seq. for the stick? The switch get stuck sorta halfway, and I don't want to break it moving it further.
Push the stick down and turn the switch to engage seq mode.

Try being a bit more agressive with the shifter if your only using your fingertips on it - I've barely missed a gear all day between LFS/NFSC I think because I throw it into gear quite firm.
#73 - Davo
Quote from Rtsbasic :The pedals, well to be honest they aren't as good as I was expecting. The travel is shorter than the Act Labs set I had, the clutch spring is a bit stiffer than I like, and I had to spend 20 mins taking them apart to tighten the throttle arm up as it was very loose from the factory. But once you get going with them they do the job well and feel good. They feel (and look internally) like they should last a lot better than the old Logi's.

Tightening the throttle up how does it feel? More like the clutch stiffness? I'm finding I'm having trouble controlling the amount of throttle, basically I'm always flooring it because I have no feeling in the pedal. Is it worth taking them apart to get the throttle a little harder?
#74 - Jakg
Quote from Rtsbasic :The pedals, well to be honest they aren't as good as I was expecting. The travel is shorter than the Act Labs set I had, the clutch spring is a bit stiffer than I like,

Yay! i have an excuse not to buy one! I love how much travel the accelerator has on his old (and now my!) pedals!

I could buy one and then not use the pedals though.... do'h.

/me counts the pennies
Not too impressed with it i think there is a software problem even though the steering seems to be precise i have not broken my PB with it. The FF to me is a problem and the accelaration.

See my post on G25 Software.

Logitech G25 reviews
(85 posts, started )
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