Open challenge to wheel users

I'm tired of hearing people say that using a wheel on FM4 is a disadvantage.  So I have a challenge for anyone with a wheel.  At the 2012 Petit Le Mans i had the fastest time throughout the 3 day weekend on FM4 with a Fanatec wheel and pedal rig that the Forza booth had set up. Here are the conditions:

From the main forza screen, click Free Play, Quick Race. Select the #2 2008 Dodge Viper Comp Coupe. You can run any difficulty you want, but the cars tune must be STOCK*. Track is Road Atlanta short. Its 3 laps. Send me a picture of your finishing time(or post your picture here) and we'll compare it to mine. It took me 3 attempts to get my best time, obviously you guys can run as many times as you'd like.

*Honor system is being employed here. Obviously I cannot watch you race and make sure you used a stock tune so let's be truthful and not tune the car whatsoever.

Strange, mostly what I hear is that the wheel has the advantage. Personally I think it depends on the track. Some tracks like Road Atlanta Short, the Alps, Maple Valley, the wheel is slightly easier.

Depends who you ask. Controller drivers like myself would claim the wheel has more potential because of the fine inputs you are capable of achieving. Wheel users like Pred may claim the wheel is harder because of the reaction time and immersion factor. Personally I think the wheel has more potential but takes longer to learn.. my 2c

Well i use a controller for forza and a wheel for gt6. i would say that in the same car with the same specs (the S2000 that is in forza with the matching model in gt6... theres like 15 s2k -.- took a while ot find exactly the right one) and on the same course, im a bit faster in Forza, but the learning curve for the wheel is much steeper than the controller. side note, in gt6 the chicanes at Nurb GP and Suzuka are backwards from forza. probly a licencing thing since technically those are two different layouts..

AAR GTDon wrote:

Strange,  mostly what I hear is that the wheel has the advantage.  Personally I think it depends on the track. Some tracks like Road Atlanta Short, the Alps, Maple Valley, the wheel is slightly easier.

^^Explain that to Pred who in a recent PM told me "using a wheel on a racing sim is a disadvantage"

That is what I feel. My opinion. It is also the opinion of most on forums. Controller folks get to flick in an instant to lock left or right. They can brake or get to the accelerator faster. React faster to a over/understeer situation.  The controller is faster.  The wheel is definitely more precise and better for close car placement. But you cannot say I can turn two and a half turns of my wheel in the time a controller user can flick from a straight to full lock.

I've got to agree with Pred 100%, been using a wheel since FM2 and you just can't turn full lock to lock like a controller. Thats the MAIN disadvantage.....then of course depending on type/make of wheel pedals setup etc and you have even more problems like with the wireless crap pedals from microsoft  

Admin/PredatorUSMC wrote:

That is what I feel. My opinion. It is also the opinion of most on forums. Controller folks get to flick in an instant to lock left or right. They can brake or get to the accelerator faster. React faster to a over/understeer situation.  The controller is faster.  The wheel is definitely more precise and better for close car placement. But you cannot say I can turn two and a half turns of my wheel in the time a controller user can flick from a straight to full lock.

And there is just the hard cold fact that the very fastest guys are what? Hand controller users.

... my wheel does a full 900degree turn radius... but i have set ups so that if i run a street car i can have the wheel set up like a street cars and if i run a race car or a lmp its much less rotation.... my 2 cents from what i have learned in my short time with a wheel.

True some wheels do as mentioned, some don't (microjunk) Still it's not the same as simply flicking the toggle on the controller left/right ---- especially with sin steering  

This is just my opinion, but why would you want to go from full lock to full lock on a wheel? That is NOT good driving technique unless you have already spun out. Controller users do this because the game significantly dumbs down most of the imputs from a controller, since smoothly moving a little stick a quarter of an inch is not something most people are going to want to learn to do. I've never used a wheel on Forza 4, but I've used wheels in many past racing games, and always found that using a wheel gave much more direct control of the car. Sure you have to be smooth to be fast, which probably dds some difficulty, but I always found the extra precision and consistency that the wheel offers to be preferable. When you're driving as fast as you can, you don't want to be going from full lock to full lock, you want to be smooth. My whole take on is that using a wheel makes the game more demanding, but once you master it, you can be a little faster and much more consistent.

@Matthnt: Maybe I'm just being dense, but I don't understand the point of your challenge. Shouldn't it have been directed at anyone, controller-user or wheel-user, to have them set a faster time using a controller? That way you prove that the wheel can be just as fast or faster?

Not really wanting to go lock to lock --- just the ability to QUICKLY fling side to side with above mentioned dumb downed as the controllers are then, well then you understand. Seems like you have to turn the wheel quite abit more than you would in a real car etc....... or at least how my DD S13 is anyway   

Yeah, I mean, in a way the controller is more forgiving to IMO terrible driving, but I think everyone in this league is kinda past that point in the learning curve.

As for the dumbing down, I definitely agree that even the wheel inputs are significantly dampened. My biggest pet-peeve in older Forzas was that even using a wheel did not give really give you direct control like a real life car. You could still see a slight delay between when you would turn the wheel and when the car would actually turn. I was really glad when I first saw Forza 4 that all the cars had interior views so you could see the steering wheel in the car so you would know what the actual steering angle of the car was.

As far as the lock to lock issue is concerned, here's what I think. It may not be as quick, lock to lock, but wheel advantage can be in the adjustability of that speed.

Ruptured Duck77 wrote:

As far as the lock to lock issue is concerned, here's what I think.  It may not be as quick, lock to lock, but wheel advantage can be in the adjustability of that speed.

one other thing is think of it this way. While at the alps i have to nail my turn ins like everyone else, but if i shot in a littl too soon its INCREDIBLY HARD to ease off the steering angle just enough to still make the turn but not turn full lock into the upcoming wall. I had some close calls where i wished i could ahve went from 100% right turn to 85% right turn so that i wouldnt hit the wall but not straighten out either. thats just a thought that i happened to have during the race.

bigdutyDMomoney wrote:

@Matthnt: Maybe I'm just being dense, but I don't understand the point of your challenge. Shouldn't it have been directed at anyone, controller-user or wheel-user, to have them set a faster time using a controller? That way you prove that the wheel can be just as fast or faster?

Sure it can be directed at anyone. I did this on my controller the Sunday after Petit 2012. Since I was used to braking without ABS on the controller and I have more time on it my overall time was about 3s faster, around 1s a lap. I posted this 'challenge' for 1 reason: I wanted to see where my time time would fall on the leaderboard that doesn't exist as of now.

I only have a M$ wheel and there seems to be a delay between the steering input and the in-game reaction of that. I don't use my wheel because I'm no good with it. i think if i had a better wheel and had some time to play with deadzones I would be just as fast if not faster. My other issue with using a wheel is driving 3rd person. I've only driven 1st person about 2-3 times and I'm horrible at it.

SP33D RAC3R 28x wrote:

I only have a M$ wheel and there seems to be a delay between the steering input and the in-game reaction of that. I don't use my wheel because I'm no good with it. i think if i had a better wheel and had some time to play with deadzones I would be just as fast if not faster. My other issue with using a wheel is driving 3rd person. I've only driven 1st person about 2-3 times and I'm horrible at it.

Lol how do you driver around a track in real life bud? Looking through a Go-Pro? lol Just messing with you.

Yea :-/ I put it on setup mode and just drive watching my phone the whole race.

SP33D RAC3R 28x wrote:

Yea :-/ I put it on setup mode and just drive watching my phone the whole race.

hahahaha,

SP33D RAC3R 28x wrote:

Yea :-/ I put it on setup mode and just drive watching my phone the whole race.

From what I understand about your phone....You are like a super duper excellent superhero racer if your able to get the results you do while using THAT phone!   

That I am    lol wish I had a picture of this thing... It's got 6 blue/black spots all over the screen, up to the size of a dime. Anyone that looks at something on it is immediately distracted from whatever I'm showing them. "WTF are those dots? This video is weird"

SP33D RAC3R 28x wrote:

That I am    lol wish I had a picture of this thing... It's got 6 blue/black spots all over the screen, up to the size of a dime. Anyone that looks at something on it is immediately distracted from whatever I'm showing them. "WTF are those dots? This video is weird"

The day after i got my new phone it magically got a crack in the lcd. Blue streaks and a spot. But seeing as its cold in my house i left it out of my pocket and i noticed that the temp had an effect on the screen... it was fixing it o.o so i stuck it in the freezer and boom brand new. Now, mine wasnt bad enough to have any black dead zones just the dark blue streaks and dots. But i couldnt believe it worked.