FANATEC PORSCHE 911 TURBO WHEEL

You know that smell new cars have? Among professionals it’s known as “new-car-
smell” and it comes in cans these days. It’s a delicate olfactory blend of plastic,
leather and electronics, basically the main components of a car interior. I have no
idea if the smell from the freshly opened Porsche wheel box came from a can, but I
don’t really care. It effectively homed in on my nose and gave me that great thrill you
usually get when hopping behind the wheel of a brand new automobile. And in a way
that was exactly what I was about to do. Yay!

THE HARDWARE

THE WHEEL

Upon the first inspection of the contents of the box I immediately noticed how heavy
the wheel was. Compared to “my other wheel”, this one was NOT a toy. Well it was
really, but it didn’t feel like one. This really felt like the steering wheel of a classy
sports car. And a Porsche at that… Securing it to my desk was a no-brainer. The
mounting mechanism proved to be very effective and functional. When set up
correctly, removing and mounting the wheel takes exactly 3 seconds. The fact that
the connection to the computer is wireless makes for at least one less cable to worry
about. As opposed to what many (most of them NOT having the Porsche wheel)
have stated all over the internet, this doesn’t cause any apparent latency. From what
I gather, technically, it’s perfectly possible to make these connections without
noticeable latency. No need to worry about that then…

The wheel itself has a small display where you can change settings like FFB-
strength, degrees of rotation and… wait for it… throttle vibration. Basically these
options are for PS3 users who can’t change them in the driver. For PC users it’s often
better to change these settings in the driver-setup, but it’s actually pretty nice to be
able to, for instance, change the degrees of rotation without having to alt-tab out of
whatever game you’re playing at the time. The “throttle vibration” option makes the
wheel vibrate as you push the throttle, no matter how slow or fast you’re going. A
pretty useless option if you ask me, but it does point us to the interesting fact that
there are two independent vibration motors inside the wheel. It would be very
interesting to rout road-, curb- and engine vibration to these motors, while steering
forces could be handled by the main belt driven FFB-motor. I think, if Fanatec made
some driver info available, these features could be added to a lot of today’s games
(through plug-ins and mods), but I’m certain we’ll see this option available straight
from the box in future games. Fanatec has also stated that, in future version of the
driver, they will include options to show in-game information on the small display. And
THAT is good news!

THE PEDAL SET

The pedal set was… well, how to put this… less impressive. It didn’t feel half as
massive and well-made as the wheel itself. These observations were, as personal
observations go, highly subjective, but they were real nevertheless. Where the wheel
seemed of outstanding quality and extreme sturdiness, the pedals seemed a bit on
the light and “flimsy” side of things. Yes, they were shaped and positioned like the
ones in a real Porsche, but I doubt they would’ve passed a Porsche quality-test. If
there is such a thing and I’m pretty sure there is. Basically the whole set is a bit too
light. Adding to the problem is the fact that the brake pedal is really very hard. Now,
when you push the brake pedal in a real car you can feel the resistance rising as you
press deeper. That’s how brakes work. You push the pedal engaging some kind of
intricate “force multiplication device”, which then applies the multiplied force to the
brakes. Some call it “hydraulics”, I call it magic. The Fanatec PW brake pedal doesn’t
exactly feel like that. Pushing down on it feels like trying to compress a tennis ball.
The cumulative resistance is there, but it’s too hard, too fast. This issue was the first
to really remind me of the fact that this was a test-specimen of the Porsche wheel.
We, the testers, were going to report all issues to Fanatec and they would then make
changes to the final product. In it’s turn, the stiffness of the brake pedal made one of
my earlier observations become another “issue”. Braking required force, too much
force for the pedal set to stay put. So when using the brake, the whole set would
basically “topple” because it was too light and too short. There just wasn’t enough
“base” behind the pedals to compensate for the pressure I was applying.

The stiffness of the brake is caused by a piece of rubber foam acting as a resistor to
the pedal. The fact is that it’s too high, adding too much resistance too soon. Fanatec
has acknowledged this and given instructions for a “DIY brake-mod” (as these things
are called) involving cutting the piece of rubber and reapplying it in a slightly different
way. I understand that this results in a softer and more natural feeling brake, but I
have not yet done the actual modification myself. Fanatec stated that it has already
made these changes at the Porsche wheel production line and that final versions will
not suffer from this issue.

A lot of people in the simracing scene had concerns about the fact that the pedals
were battery operated. You don’t really want your pedals to run out of power when
you’ve got a three minute gap between yourself and second place, half way in a two
hour endurance race. To put things straight, users can choose to use the pedal with
either a cable (connected to the base of the wheel) or batteries. Fanatec has stated
that the production edition of the wheel will include a longer cable after complaints
from testers that the current cable was too short.

Update: After removing the foam from underneath the pedal, the brake has more travel without feeling
too soft. I think it’s a great improvement over how it was before, even without adding a different piece
of foam. I also put some cardboard between the pots and the plastic casing holding them. The lack of
immediate response in the throttle was caused by the pot being slightly loose and moving as I pushed
the pedal. The deadzone is now gone, because the pot stays firmly in place, and I’m able to apply a lot
more subtlety while using the throttle, which is quite essential if you’re looking for that perfect line
through a corner..

THE SHIFTERS

That’s right, “multiple shifters”. The Porsche wheel comes packed with two. One for
sequential shifting and one with a H-pattern shifter. The mounting system is
“different” from what we know. The shifters are fitted on two metal bars sticking from
the base of the wheel, keeping them in place, and connected with a short ps/2 cable.
While this may seem a pretty good idea on paper, in practice, it has some
shortcomings. Sequential shifting isn’t much of a problem, the forward or backward
nudge is no problem for this mounting system, but when it comes to H-pattern
shifting, depending on how aggressive you change gear, it may turn out to be
inadequate. If you keep in mind that the shifter itself is not attached to your desk and
that the metal bars, although pretty sturdy, have some inevitable movement when
force is applied, you pretty much get the picture. The firmness of the H-pattern shifter
(this has to be said, the shifter has a really good, firm feel), in itself a very positive
point, actually makes matters worse. To shift, you have to put some weight in it and
this moves the unit around. Not much, I haven’t really found it irritating yet, but
enough to piss some people off. In my opinion, the best move Fanatec could make
now would be to include a desk-mounting system for the shifters. That way, people
building a cockpit would also be able to put the shifter anywhere they want.

What’s important to mention is that the shifters can be connected on either the left or
the right side of the wheel. So if you’re used to driving on the wrong side of the road
(and let’s face it, it IS the wrong side of the road…) you can mount your shifter to the
left of the wheel using the aforementioned system and cultivate your bad habits in
your favourite sim.

THE SOFTWARE

THE DRIVERS

Steering wheels require good drivers. In more ways than one. Currently the Porsche
wheel drivers aren’t exactly up to scratch yet. For instance, the centre-spring is on by
default and requires a “trick” (turn it on, press accept, turn it back off, press accept) to
be deactivated. The pedals lose their calibrated extremes every time the computer is
reset. Hardly ideal. It must be noted that, over the past few weeks, Fanatec have
been frequently updating the drivers and are doing their best to cater for the testers’
needs and suggestions. My guess is they’re currently working on better drivers and
firmware to be released before this testing period is over so the testers can be as
objective as possible.

Update: Fanatec has recently moved the ending of the testing period back by more than a month to
march 31st. I think they’re working hard on better drivers all-round so testers will have a product that is
as close to the final production model as possible. This will probably result in more useful and accurate
reviews of the wheel. A good thing for people considering buying it…

IN THEORY
Looking at the Fanatec website and running across the list of features for wheel
makes me dizzy, but I can safely say that hardly anything is exaggerated. The wheel
is modelled on the real Porsche 911 Turbo wheel and has the genuine metal Porsche
logo at the centre which is pretty cool. It’s leather and makes you smell your fingers
after a good race. The diameter really is 300 millimeters which, if I’m not mistaken,
will make it the largest wheel on the market in it’s price-range.
IN PRACTICE

RFACTOR

This is the sim I mostly play, so it’s the obvious choice to start testing the wheel with.
It has to be said that rFactor doesn’t always present the best frame of reference for
testing stuff like this due to the difference in mods (cars). They all handle differently,
which, in essence, is a good thing, but you can never be too sure about the quality of
their force feedback. Add to the mix the tons of FFB-options in the controller.ini and
RealFeel, which is an FFB-enhancing plug-in that tends to give really nasty results
with incompatible mods. You get the picture…

After tweaking the controller.ini, adjusting it to the ideal settings for this new wheel, I
started the game. Successfully suppressing the urge to immediately go for a
Porsche-mod I fired up the BMW M3 E46 Street-mod instead. Now, I’m aware of the
fact that this car tends to be a bit loose in the rear, but it does provide the option to
put the steering angle very high, which is handy when your wheel goes around the
full 900 degrees. I installed the H-pattern shifter, which may not be the realistic option
for this car, I think the real one comes with either a sequential shifter or a paddle
shifter, but it allowed me to test the whole clutch-shifter-wheel-package in one go.

What became immediately apparent was the fact that moving to another wheel
requires mentally rewiring your simdriving skills. Like changing cars in real life takes
some adapting, switching wheels turned out to be quite the challenge. It took me a
reasonable amount of time to get used to the extra degrees of rotation and the
firmness of the whole thing… not to mention the clutch…

But let’s not dwell any further on my

driving-skills, or the lack thereof, and
concentrate on the FFB because it’s
pretty impressive stuff. The belt-system
makes the wheel very silent. This is a
bonus if you, like me, are racing in the
same room where your significant
other is trying to read a book or watch
TV. Belt-driven FFB also proves to be
very smooth. I concentrated on the feeling the wheel in my real car had, and came to
the conclusion that the sensation of the Porsche wheel comes quite close. I have no
idea if this is a good thing or not, since, although it could be argued that VW has
some connection with Porsche, my Polo is everything a 911 Turbo is not. On the
subject of FFB-realism a lot of perfectly good forum-topics have already been worn
down to the thread. What is it’s function? What do we expect from good FFB? Should
it give us information about the position and handling of the car at the cost of realism
or should it provide realistic feedback at the cost of this extra information? Usually it
depends on taste, but the fact stands that, in real driving, a lot of information about
the car’s behaviour is assessed from g-forces working on the body. In short my
opinion goes as follows: A gaming peripheral that has the same feel as a real
steering wheel can’t be bad.

But back to the game. As stated before, the BMW is a bit loose at the back so it was
quite a challenge to keep it on the road with the steering wheel rotation at 900°,
however it provided for a fun challenge. The car’s natural tendency to start drifting
required really fast turning of the wheel in both directions.

…and that’s when the nastiness started…

As I was driving around the Nuerburg

Sprint Track, I noticed the wheel going
off-centre a bit. It became quite
worrying, because, driving in a straight
line suddenly put the wheel at 7° left of
the middle. Not good. The funny thing
was that alt-tabbing and recalibrating
the wheel fixed it, but after a while it
went “off” again. To the right…
Apparently I was not the only one having this issue. Fanatec has acknowledged the
problem and is doing everything in it’s power to rectify it. We should rest assured that
the final production model of the Porsche 911 Turbo wheel will not have this issue. I,
for one, am waiting for a way to fix it ASAP because I think the centring problem is
absolutely the only thing wrong with this wheel.
Moving to the pedals, most of the issues addressed earlier in the review still stand as
you drive a car around a track. The brake is too sensitive and too hard and the whole
base is a bit too light, but as I was driving I noticed another problem. The throttle did
not register before it was pressed down at least 10% and there was a distinct lack of
subtlety available. Dosing the throttle correctly was pretty hard, and since this is a
rather crucial aspect of racing it was another reason not to like the pedals very much.
As ever, Fanatec tells us they’re on the case.

Concerning the shifter(s), all earlier comments still stand. The mounting system could
be improved but didn’t actually cause any irritation with me. Driving with a clutch and
a shifter takes some getting used to, but after a while I got the hang of it and started
to really enjoy myself. I found getting in my real car afterward to be an interesting
experience too. Suffice it to say that Polo’s don’t have six gears…

After running the BMW out of fuel I

decided to take the Pagani Zonda for a
spin at Monza. I installed the
sequential shifter, tightened the
wheel’s rotation to 360° (with the
tuning-display on the wheel), activated
the autoclutch and I was good to go.
With this different car came a
completely new sensation in the wheel.
I had to tone down the FFB to keep it enjoyable because it just pulled so hard,
probably to do with the smaller amount of rotation degrees, but after I got that right,
racing the car was a blast. The long straight across T6 at Monza is pretty bumpy in
places and going down there at high speeds was really cool. The track surface
translated perfectly through the wheel’s FFB. I do have to point out that I made sure
the auto centring was off. The difference between having it on or off is immense.
When it’s on it feels like the FFB is veiled. It’s like looking at a Rodin sculpture that’s
covered in white drapes, it’s under there somewhere, but from where you’re standing
it’s not quite defined and not actually very pretty...
So much for rFactor. It required some tweaking, keeping in mind RealFeel and the
FFB differences between mods, but it was a great ride and gave a good impression
of what the Fanatec 911 Porsche wheel was up to. On to the next game…

GT LEGENDS

While being based on the same

engine, this game differs greatly from
rFactor. A lot of the options are the
same and most of the “ins and outs”
are alike. The big difference is the fact
that GT Legends, as a game, is more
polished than rFactor and less
tweaking is required in order to get the
maximum out of the game. So I
decided to go in head first without too much fussing about with the settings. I
designated some buttons and immediately came to the conclusion that some weren’t
working. Looking around on the internet revealed that this had nothing to do with the
wheel itself. GTL can only recognise so many buttons and the wheel has more, that’s
all. Using the H-pattern shifter seemed obvious for this game as I didn’t think any of
these classic automobiles featured sequential- or paddle gearing. Off I went…

GT Legends was obviously built to be used with this kind of setup. Manual clutching
was a breeze and the cars felt really alive with the force feedback available from the
wheel. It had been quite some time since I played this game, because I always found
it very challenging. Maybe it was the experience gained with rFactor or the wheel
itself, who will tell, but I was better than ever at it now.

In short, the GT Legends experience was great, perhaps more so than rFactor due to
the little tweaking and tuning that had to be done in order to get the feeling right.
FLATOUT

As far as arcade racers go, this one is

my favourite. I’m basically a
simulation-kinda-guy, if it’s a virtual
representation of real life, I’m there.
Whether it’s a flightsim, racesim,
boatsim, trainsim, simsim, anysim, I’ll
probably like it. Some people call it
“autism”, I call it “a healthy interest”,
yet when it comes to Flatout I’m all for
arcade games. Forget H-pattern shifters and clutching, this is as “arcade” as it gets. I
like it because no other game has carnage and destruction just like it and not only is
it visually stunning, I always found the FFB to be really cool too. As you hit the
various track surfaces the wheel starts feeling different and when you get some air it
goes completely limp, exactly like you’d expect. I was really impressed with how,
compared to “my other wheel”, the Porsche wheel enhanced the experience even
more. I was reminded of just exactly how strong the FFB in this wheel was. As I was
romping around the various dirt tracks I could really feel the car’s behaviour translate
through the wheel into my hands. I was in complete control and loving it…
CONCLUSION
I personally like the wheel and I love how Fanatec is keeping close with the
community to make it even better. Hopefully they can keep this up. They’re a fairly
small, little known company and this kind of trait could really improve and sustain
their image among gamers everywhere. It’s called marketing, but it’s the kind that
doesn’t leave customers behind feeling robbed. I, for one, am prepared to give
Fanatec some credit for this.

I can be fairly short in my conclusion about the Porsche Wheel. It’s important to keep
in mind that these tests were meant to provide Fanatec with sufficient feedback so
they can improve their product in the future. I don’t think any of the testers got a
product that was even close to the final production version. There were some obvious
problems, but all things considered, this is a brilliant wheel. And it can only get better.

THE GOOD:

- The wheel has great, silent feedback and a sturdy feel

- It looks great (leather!)
- …and it makes you smell your fingers after a good session
- The shifter has a realistic firmness
- The whole thing is wireless
- PS3-mode
- It comes with a 1 GB USB-stick in the shape of a Porsche ignition key

THE BAD:

- The pedals have some accuracy issues (said to be already fixed in production version)
- The mounting system for the shifter is just not good enough (Fanatec is working on it)
- Drivers should be improved

THE UGLY:

- Wheel losing centre (as ever, Fanatec is on it)