Testing & Results

Thrustmaster RGT Testing Methodology

While testing a wheel may sound easy, relaying the results of your tests can be a difficult undertaking. Any input device is very subjective to the individual user’s tastes. What feels good to one user may feel horrible to another user. You may like your wheel to be very light or very stiff, you may like your Force Feedback to be very strong or turned off entirely. You may like a large center dead zone or no center dead zone for your wheel. Combine those preferences with the fact that racing games almost never feel the same and you can start to see the difficulty with writing a wheel review. I decided to list not only my test system but also my personal preferences below in hopes that you can at least get a feel for where I’m coming from when I say I liked it or didn’t like it for a particular game. Keep in mind that some of the games that I give a negative feel result may be more about the inherent control for that game rather than a negative towards the Thrustmaster wheel. I will try and make note of those particular games during my results.

Test System

Motherboard: Asus P5K
System Memory: SuperTalent 4,4,4,8 (4x1GB) DDR2
Processor: Intel Q6600 at 3.2GHz (8x400Mhz)
Video: MSI 8800GTX OC 610Mhz Core

Hard Disk: Western Digital WD1500 10,000 RPM SATA
PSU:PC Power and Cooling 750W
Operating System: Windows XP Professional SP-2
Hanns-G 28" LCD at 1920x1200

Reviewer's Preferences

• Prefer games like GTR2, rFactor, Colin McRae Rally 2005
• Dislike games like Sega Rally, and most of the NFS Underground style series.
• Prefer a tight control feeling with little to no dead zone.
• Prefer the game allow me to steer out of spin rather than have the feeling of twisting the car on a center pivot point.
• Huge fan of Rally racing games but have not enjoyed the control in D.I.R.T.
• For the most part if the game wasn't designed to be played only with a wheel, I probably won't like it.

Force Feedback Pro Clutch Results

I figured I would first start with the simulator style games and work my way down to the Arcade style. My testing consisted of a very simple controller setup in which I check to see if the game actually recognized the wheel by name and if so, did the default control settings need configured. If the game allowed, I would set the force feedback setting to maximum. Other than configuring the button and pedal assignments, no time was spent dialing in the handling of the car. I would then make note of how the clutch worked, how the Force Feedback felt, and how the control felt in general. My reference point for a comparison is a Logitech Momo wheel but for the most part I tried not to make a comparison and just state if the control felt good or bad.

rFactor: Wheel was not recognized by name. No default profile available. Required custom configuration to get all pedals working. Clutch worked great in the game. Good Force Feedback. Good control.

GTR2: Wheel was recognized by name. Required custom configuration to get all pedals working. Clutch worked great. Force Feedback felt good. Good control

Nascar Sim Racing: Wheel was not recognized by name. Required custom configuration to get all pedals working. Clutch worked great. Force Feedback was good. Good control.

Richard Burns Rally: Wheel was not recognized by name. Required custom configuration to assign controls to pedals. Force Feedback test didn’t work. Couldn’t get Force Feedback to work at all in the game. Clutch setup fine in the control settings but didn’t seem to have any option to disable autoclutch that I found. I checked on Thrustmaster’s website and they do list support for both Force Feedback and Clutch with RBR so I may just be missing a simple setting here. Control felt ok but very loose given no Force Feedback.

Race 07: Wheel is recognized by name. Required custom configuration to get all pedals working. Clutch worked great. Very strong Force Feedback. (Would actually twist the wheel out of my Daughter’s hands) Wheel actually felt very good in this game with great control.

D.I.R.T: Wheel is recognized by name. Required custom configuration to get gas and brake working while wheel is still set to 5 axis. Clutch does not work in this game. I guess you could say Force Feedback technically worked however I think I would rather turn it off than feel a wimpy rumble and shake every now and then that seemed to have nothing to do with my driving environment. It felt very disconnected from the game. Steering felt very loose. Control was ok but not good. (I’m not a big fan of the vehicle control in D.I.R.T so it may not be the fault of the wheel so much as my dislike for the game. Perfect example of a great game made for the console and ported to the PC as an after thought.)

Xpand Rally Xtreme: Wheel not recognized by name. Required custom configuration to get pedals working. Great Force Feedback. The Force Feedback in the game really made it enjoyable. Driving on gravel or in a rut really felt like you were on gravel or just hit a rut. Good Control.

NFS: Pro Street: Wheel was recognized by name. I ran into an interesting problem with both Pro Street and NFS:Carbon. The brake pedal would cause the menu to constantly scroll. I would have to hold in the brake at any menu in order to stop the scrolling. The only way I could get the pedal configured properly was to use the clutch as the brake. Thrustmaster does have a notation that this wheel must be operated in the two axis mode for NFS games so I guess using the clutch is out of the question here. Force Feedback ok but a little on the light side. Control was actually very good. One problem with the Thrustmaster wheel vs the Logitech wheels in the NFS series has to do with the need to push a nitrous button quite often. The button placement can seem a little out of place when reaching for that needed boost. The G25 wins hands down here and the Momo has 6 easy to reach buttons.

NFS: Carbon: Wheel is recognized. Same problem mentioned above with the scrolling menu. Force Feedback is ok. Control is ok. (I’m not a fan of this game at all so honestly didn’t spend more than a couple of laps testing it. My Daughter did run a few laps with it though.

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