I just broke down and got myself a Logitech momo FF wheel Saturday.

I have seen all the chatter in game about how much faster a wheel is than a mouse so I expected to plug it in and shave a second or 2 right away...

I have a pretty quick BW XRT setup, and I was running low 1:26 laps consistently with my mouse.
I have my lines nad brake/shift points all worked out so much that I barely even have to think about it anymore on that track, just zone out and go!

I tried and tried and the best lap I could turn with my wheel was 1:29...
Now I'm kind of dissappointed, I really like the immersion you get from using a FF wheel and pedals but I'm wondering if the pedals simply make you slower... I mean I can click from mouse1 to mouse 2 way faster than I can get my foot off the gas and onto the brake.

Do you wheel guys use another method for throttle control?

I use my left foot for braking and I often trailbrake but I am relatively new to LFS and by no means lightening fast, I'm sure one of the more experienced racers can give you a bit more insight.

Quote from Jethro! :

I just broke down and got myself a Logitech momo FF wheel Saturday.

I have seen all the chatter in game about how much faster a wheel is than a mouse so I expected to plug it in and shave a second or 2 right away...

I have a pretty quick BW XRT setup, and I was running low 1:26 laps consistently with my mouse.
I have my lines nad brake/shift points all worked out so much that I barely even have to think about it anymore on that track, just zone out and go!

I tried and tried and the best lap I could turn with my wheel was 1:29...
Now I'm kind of dissappointed, I really like the immersion you get from using a FF wheel and pedals but I'm wondering if the pedals simply make you slower... I mean I can click from mouse1 to mouse 2 way faster than I can get my foot off the gas and onto the brake.

Do you wheel guys use another method for throttle control?

Well, you expected wrong... It needs some time to adjust to the wheel... In fact, I was hoping the same thing as you and got dissappointed as well...

Maybe the biggest advantage of wheels is, that you can brake and throttle at the same time, which can help you a lot stableizing (how the hell do you spell that?) the car through the corner, thus enabling you to go through with higher speed...
Trailbraking is also a technique you can never do with a mouse...

I'm more of a drifter, and now I suck at drifting.. However, I'm finding it much easier to pilot the quicker RWD cars

Btw Jethro, did you used to be an Aus FxP'er??


Dw if you have no idea what im talking about

I'd have to say I think I will eventually reach a comfort zone with the wheel where I can turn laps as quickly as I was before, and even if I couldn't the game is 10 times more enjoyable with a wheel & pedals...

I shaved a second today after practicing for about a half an hour... it'll just take time (i hope)

Quote :

Btw Jethro, did you used to be an Aus FxP'er??

Nope, sorry. Must have been an imposter!

This is my first venture outside of first person shooter genre in 10 years... Thats how freaking good LFS is!

Before you even start to practice with the wheel you need to setup it. Read this: http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?p=80633#post80633

Do you have Logitech Wingman Profiler & Drivers installed?
http://www.wingmanteam.com/lat ... ware/latest_soft_main.htm

And make sure that your pedals work as separate pedals.

And don't use your old keyboard car setup when driving with the wheel. It probably won't be fast because of the difference with the contoller.

ps. And some reading http://www.turnfast.com/tech_driving/driving.shtml

You WILL be slower to start with, I think its widely known that changing from any control method to a wheel makes you slower at first.

It took me a couple of weeks to surpass my old pad times, but now I am certainly faster than I ever was, stick with it.

Check threads here for settings and just practice and try not to get too frustrated, and don't go back to your old control method, even only for a minute.

Dan,

despite using racing game s (cant call em sims) since grand prix 2 came out, i never bought a wheel till i played lfs, always using a joystick instead


when i got a wheel i immediatly lost 3 secs a lap of blgp ( ok ill be honest i couldnt get past chicane ) and despite having driven on road for 25 years it took a few hours to feel comfortable

Quote from bbman :

Maybe the biggest advantage of wheels is, that you can brake and throttle at the same time, which can help you a lot stableizing (how the hell do you spell that?) the car through the corner, thus enabling you to go through with higher speed...

why can't you do that on a keyboard and mouse setup? i have A- accelerate Z-brake.. if i want to brake and throttle at the same time i hold both of these keys down... it isn't rocket science

the only disadvantage a keyboard or mouse has going against it when compared to the wheel, is the digital like throttle and brake. where a wheel driver can hold an F08 at 1/3 throttle when feathering it out of a corner, mouse and keyboarders have to taptaptap. though on slower cars the disadvantage isn't as significant.

i pop by the demo occasionally and im down to low 1:23's XRT on my mouse

well on pedals you can hold the brake at half pressure...

or 1/4 pressure. or just lightly rest your foot on it for as long as you want. its analogue so there is more control from it, keys are like digital on/off switch. with pedals youre using your feet, which is never easy, but you learn hand/eye/foot coordination eventually. being a driver i already use my feet on pedals so using my handss to accel / brake was never confortable in the first place.

at first i was slower with the wheel as i got used to it. but now i am beating my PB and also being way more consistent than I used to. for example. i would sometimes do a 1:54 and regularly do 2:00 times on my joypad. now i can get a 1:54 and regularly do 1:56 laptimes. so it is faster overall. now i can do back to back attempts at PBs. but i was using a joypad which was twitchy as hell.

oh yeah drifting is like 10x harder, thats for sure, but it sure is a good excercise workout. i heard if you turn off feedback and reduce the degrees you wheel turns its ok but i havent tried it.

just trust in the fact that in a real car is there isnt an A and Z key.

Quote from richy :

just trust in the fact that in a real car is there isnt an A and Z key.

you also don't sit up as straight on an office chair and also not looking at a screen 40cm away from you sim racing will always be just a play on reality

aye but a car wheel + pedals is a human interface just like a keyboard, in a way you are sitting up straight staring at a windscreen. its not that far off.

Quote from Takumi_Project.d :

the only disadvantage a keyboard or mouse has going against it when compared to the wheel, is the digital like throttle and brake.

I was pretty much aiming at that... In a very fast, yet unstable setup, a little "tap" of a digital control could do more harm than good...

I've used a wheel from the start of my online racing (a couple of years ago).

The issue I have is that LFS claims to be a SIM (and has no aids)!! But it DOES!! If you use a KB or mouse, there are settings for the throttle and brake. This gives a definate ADVANTAGE to mouse and KB users!. Afterall, being fast is about being SMOOOOTH and it's definately harder being smooth using wheel and pedals.

I've noticed that there are MANY more Turbo drivers running BP Track in 1:23 with mouse than with Wheel. Look at the LFS hotlap record and you'll see the fastest hotlap is 1:23:200 and with a mouse.

I don't mind that the game compensates for mouse and KB, I agree with someone else above that said it is the games strength, BUT, I'm sorry, if I'm using a wheel and pedals, I SHOULD have a slight advantage over someone using mouse and keyboard!!! I don't want to take away from the skill of mousers at all (they have plenty!!) BUT if you want to call it a SIM.. I haven't seen many cars driven with a mouse (maybe a joystick).

If they restricted the game to only folks with a wheel, they wouldn't sell near as many licenses. I don't have a wheel (nor can I afford one) and must stick with the mouse/KB combo.

I, however, am nowhere near good enough to set a decent lap on any course. (my best so far on Blackwood is in the XF GTI--at 1:40)

Quote from cobra193 :

If you use a KB or mouse, there are settings for the throttle and brake. This gives a definate ADVANTAGE to mouse and KB users!. Afterall, being fast is about being SMOOOOTH and it's definately harder being smooth using wheel and pedals.

illepall
Blaming the game isnt a valid point when you are slower.

The quote above is really the silliest piece of crap I have EVER read in this forum
Sorry for this very aggressive comment, but it's really absolutely true...

Simply because the only effect of these settings is making everything slow and delayed, which makes it impossible to be smooth. Yes, the car reacts in a smooth way, but to be smooth, you must be able to react very fast. Smooth driving means a smootly moving car, and not a smooth device input. Mostly there is a lot of quick countersteering going on. You dont have any feeling for the brakes as well...
You lose a lot time under braking because you cant adjust the brake, you lose even more when steering with keyboard.
Mouse drivers are probably faster because they have 1. a better set or 2. just more skill.

If you had S2, you would notice that there is really nobody who is capable of driving the really fast cars with keyboard. Mouse can be tricky as well, but at least not fast. The only way to go is wheel, and almost all the WRs are with wheel, except a few demo configs...

XRT+BL1 combo is very popular in demo where the majority has a mouse. I know someone who has done 1:23:27 with keyboard. In S2 almost everyone has a wheel so of course there aren't many mouse users in the toplist.

You can be fast with a mouse but it's harder with the more powerful cars. But it can be done.

And with a mouse you can turn the "wheel" faster when in trouble.

Quote from ORION :

illepall
Blaming the game isnt a valid point when you are slower.

The quote above is really the silliest piece of crap I have EVER read in this forum
Sorry for this very aggressive comment, but it's really absolutely true...

Simply because the only effect of these settings is making everything slow and delayed, which makes it impossible to be smooth.

Impossible to be smooth???? What?????? The slow and delayed settings ARE DRIVING AIDS (most commonly known as traction control and steering assist).
Slow and Delayed = SMOOOOTHHHH.

Obviously a very sensitive mouser.

Like I said, go take a look at LFS hotlaps. More than half of the fastest drivers use mouse or keyboard. Also, like I said, I didn't mean to take anything from the skill of the guys that run those times (in case you didn't happen to read that part in my previous post), it OBVIOUSLY takes more skill than doing it with a wheel. Simply take a look at telemetry from the fastest hotlap using a mouse and the fastest using a wheel and the telemetry is way smoother.

Watch the hotlaps yourself. Pretty much none of the fast drivers use slow and delayed settings because it doesn't help with lap times at all. You want the controls (especially throttle and brake) to be responsive, not delayed. It's no advantage whatsoever because us wheel drivers can operate all of the controls at any rate we like, not just a predefined one.

Slow and smooth inputs are only good if the situation calls for it, but a lot of the time they're a big handicap, like when braking (wasting precious time while the brake pressure is building up) and you cannot correct/provoke small slides as well. In corners where understeer is an issue you often have to make the car a bit unstable on entry to get it to turn, and smooth inputs won't do that. Chances are the driver you're complaining about would be even faster with a wheel and pedals.

Quote from cobra193 :

Like I said, go take a look at LFS hotlaps. More than half of the fastest drivers use mouse or keyboard.

There are more than the demo combos. You wont see more than 5 hotlaps even driven on most S2 combos with kb and only little more with mouse.

On Topic: I got my wheel in January and am still not that much faster in lap times, than I was with kb. BUT Im much more safe and dont cause any crashes.

Quote from cobra193 :

traction control and steering assist

you baisically have no idea what you are talking about. Show me the traction control setting in the keyboard settings... show how steering assists help you. Do you know why there is a kn (keyboard no help) in there? Scawen implemented this just, because I requested it for testing, and found I it nice for rally. Thats the only reason why it's there. And if those aids are so superior, where are the keyboard WRs?

Quote :

it (dricing with mouse/kb) OBVIOUSLY takes more skill than doing it with a wheel.

Even for me as a former keyboard freak (and Im still racing with kb a bit), this is just a big laugh...

bal00 said it already, you can only be fast with keyboard when you use extreme settings, which are everything but not smooth. Button rate should always be higher than 0.6, and reduce rate higher than 0.45.
Otherwise you are not more than a passenger tbh.

When driving with mouse, you don't really need any helps, because when you are fast, you are mostly braking 100% and accellerating 100% (in the demo cars that is - they dont have much power). Thus mouse isn't really different. The brake help you can use there is available for wheel aswell, but iirc it's not allowed to upload a hotlap using the brake help (it's really just supposed to be used for beginners). However, you will notice there are no hotlaps with brake help on.


Besides this, you can also race a race with wheel, which you can't really have with keyboard. When you have to react very quickly, you will spin in situations where a wheel driver walks away with no problem. hotlapping is the one thing, racing is completely different...


Just a thought:
Are you sure you are using the latest version of LFS? There was indeed some problem with the keyboard steering a long time ago, when people like arrechee and tuke had most of the wheel WRs. This was caused by the keyboard countersteering help beeing too powerful. Now it's reduced and very fair.

Quote from cobra193 :

More than half of the fastest drivers use mouse or keyboard

oh yes, of course... (no, i didnt check this to get one that shew my point, i picked the only one im on!)

I remember the times when I used a mouse and had to set the brakes really low to avoid blocking, which obviously meant longer braking distance, thus slower laps. With a wheel and pedals, you can brake real hard at first, then gradually reduce the brakes, which makes braking very effective without blocking. Oh and try driving a FWD GTR with digital "pedals" ...

I can now safely say that after 6 months of getting used to my wheel I am faster and more stable, plus the thrill of it is one of a kind!