I have loved racing games ever since Gran Turismo 1. In particular I enjoy sim racing games. Being able to play something that is somewhat realistic but also not having the worry if something goes wrong is great, so a few months ago I decided that it was time for me to get a racing sim wheel.
A note before continuing with the article. All links that I have in the article are affiliate links. This means that if you purchase an item via the link I will get a small percentage of that purchase at no cost to you.
Enter the Logitech G29
I know the Logitech wheels are not every ones favorite wheels, but it is my first racing wheel and I think we can all agree that it is much better than a controller.
While I was doing my research I came across people saying that the G29 was too expensive for what it was and that the Thrustmaster T300 is a much better wheel to get. After looking into this I wanted the Thrustmaster T300. You can upgrade the pedals, get an awesome shifter for it, upgrade the rims(and there are some great ones available). This got me super excited and I was almost about to get the T300 when I realised that in my country the T300 costs almost double what the G29 would cost me. For that price I would also be able to get the shifter with the G29.
This made me go and do some more research on the G29 and do comparisons between the G29 and the T300. After a lot more research it seemed like people online thought the G29 was more reliable compared to the T300.
So I took the plunge and went for the Logitech G29. Needless to say I was extremely excited to get the wheel and start racing.
Things I have noticed
Noise
On all the videos I have watched and in a lot of the forums and reviews people mention the noise that wheel makes. Unfortunately this gear grinding sound does happen quite often especially if you turn up the FFB levels.
When I am racing I tend to wear headphones so the noise that the wheel makes doesn’t bother me at all. However when I use my speakers the wheel becomes very noticeable but even so I don’t really have an issue with the noise. When driving I am usually concentrating on the game and I do not notice the noise.
If you want to have less noise you can always turn down the FFB settings which will make the wheel much quieter but it will also make the feedback weaker. For some people this is fine but I do enjoy have a decent amount of feedback so that there is some input required in order to turn the wheel.
FFB in different games
This is something that I wasn’t expecting. I mostly thought that the wheel would behave in a similar way with all games. This is not the case at all.
Each game will implement their own FFB and I have to say it can be disappointing. Currently the games that I mainly play is Project Cars 1 and 2, Assetto Corsa and The Crew 2.
Before we get into each game I need to mention that if you want to use the G29/G920 for drifting it can be disappointing. The wheel does turn to help you catch the car but it does not turn fast enough. This means that you will have to help it along sometimes. You do get used to it though.
Assetto Corsa
The first sim racer I had on my PC was Assetto Corsa. Out of the box I think that Assetto Corsa feels great, there is a good amount of force from the wheel but I also find the feedback to be quite crisp. I haven’t actually messed around with the settings in Assetto Corsa too much because I find the feedback to be to my liking.
Project Cars
Project cars is another game that I really enjoy. In terms of FFB I feel that Project Cars 1 and 2 are decent. With Project Cars 1 I didn’t like the fact that to get the FFB to feel good I had to manually go and mess around with settings to figure out what I liked. With Project Cars 2 however it was a different story. There are a few simple pre-selected settings that one can choose from and then you can customize those settings. I also feel like Project Cars 2 has decent FFB, a bit better than Project Cars 1 but not as good as Assetto Corsa for me.
If you want to see the settings that I use, you can find them here.
The Crew 2
I don’t have too much to say about The Crew 2. I really enjoy playing it but the FFB is basically non-existent. It makes the wheel require you to put force into it to turn but there is almost no feedback to be had. I have played around with the settings and you can get it to be more accurate in game but there is still little to no feedback.
From what I have learned. If you are only after FFB then you need to pick your games wisely and I would say that you should stick to sim racers. That being said, if you are going for a wheel that is most likely what you will be doing, but I would also say don’t discount games like The Crew 2. They might not provide feedback, but using a wheel is still a massive improvement over a controller in terms of being able to be more consistent when you are driving.
Pedals
There is nothing much for me to say about the pedals, other than I think that they are really good. There are three pedals, one for accelerator, brake and clutch.
The pedals feel good, each pedal has a different feel compared to the other pedals which is great. If there is something that I am not a super happy about it is the brake pedal. Logitech decided to put a small rubber block in the pedal so that you would have some resistance when pushing the pedal. For me personally I wish that they block was a bit softer just so that the pedal could have a slight bit more travel. The other issue with the block is that the pedal is easy to push and then suddenly you hit the rubber block and it stiffens up massively. After a while you do get used to it, but it is something that I would like to update in the future sometime.
Another great thing about the pedals is that it has little spikes that you can release at the bottom of the pedal set. This allows the pedal set to grip into carpet so that they do not go sliding around when you are using the pedals. One thing I have noticed especially when using the brake pedal is that the foot rest part of the pedal set can lift up if you press the brake hard. This can be annoying but luckily it doesn’t happen too often depending on how you press the brake pedal.
Something else that I have read and watched online is that people say that they wish the pedals had 10bit resolution instead of 8bit resolution. To be clear, I have never tried 10bit resolution pedals, but I have not experienced the G29 pedals to lack in accuracy. Your mileage may vary, but if this is your first wheel I don’t see it to be a problem.
H Shifter
Before purchasing the wheel, I could not decide whether I wanted the get the shifter with the wheel or not.
I done quite some research and came to the conclusion that I need to get the Thrustmaster TH8A with the G29. I have seen people online that have been able to connect the two. Also the TH8A is quite nice in terms of software and what one can do with the shifter in terms of customising the way that one can shift. The TH8A allows gives you the ability to make your shifts shorter in the software, you can also change it so that it becomes a sequential shifter which is great depending on the cars you want to drive.
After figuring out that that is the shifter I need to get, I started to look at the prices of them in my country. Turns out, that shifter costs almost as much as the wheel did. So I decided that it is better off just going with the Logitech shifter.
The Logitech shifter is really not bad all. I actually quite enjoy the feeling of shifting gears with it and I got it for a sixth of the price of the Thrustmaster TH8A.
All the CABLES!
This is something that I was not expecting. The wheel comes with 4 cables. One for the USB to plug into your computer or PS4. One to connect the pedal to the wheel, one for connecting the shifter to the wheel and then the power cable. (If you don’t get the shifter then at least you can get rid of that cable)
All the cables are quite long too. This does make sense for most of the cables, but the shifter cable is also quite long. For me the shifter cable needs to be shorter.
I am not sure what I was expecting since it makes sense that it would need so many cables. But it does become annoying if you use your computer for non-racing games.
Every time I want to use my computer to edit videos or to play another type of game I have to unplug all the cables and move the wheel with all the cables and it just becomes a mess. It is the same story with setting the wheel up to play a game. The cables get in the way while setting it up, and if you have it attached to your desk like I do, then cables can interfere with your keyboard and mouse which some sim racing games still require you to use.
Build quality
This is one of the things that a lot of people online talk about. From what I have experienced the build quality is great. It might feel plasticky in terms of the wheels base and the pedals base, but over all I think that it is great.
The pedals are metal which is great, this is better than the stock pedals that you get with the standard Thrustmaster T300. All in all, the pedals feel great to me.
It is a similar story with the wheel. The wheel itself is hand stitched leather. The leather feels good, but it does feel a bit thin. The wheel itself has a good feel in term of grip and most of the button feel good.
Issues with games losing settings
This is something that I am not entirely sure about. I don’t know if it is the games that lose the settings or an issue with the Logitech software.
Sometimes when I plug in my mouse, which is a Logitech G600, Project Cars 1 and 2 lose my wheels settings, but Assetto Corsa doesn’t lose the settings. I have also had Assetto Corsa lose the settings and Project Cars not lose the settings.
It is very frustrating, because the wheel works normally until you get into a race only to find out that you have no input at all.
To fix this issue on Project Cars I just reset the wheel in the game and then I recalibrate the wheel.
In Assetto Corsa you have to go to the wheel settings and manually assign the buttons for the shifter, pedals and wheel. Assetto Corsa is more annoying to fix than project cars but I have only had this issue twice with Assetto Corsa but I have had this issue a few times with Project Cars.
Working with PC
What I haven’t mentioned above is that before I went for the Logitech G29, I could not decide if I wanted to go with the G29 or the G920.
These wheels are basically the same, there are just a few differences they have.
The Logitech G29 has more buttons including the red wheel that you can see in the images above. Personally I do not use this wheel as much as it is not accurate at all. Sometimes it takes one click other times it takes two or more so it is not consistent.
The plus and minus button can be useful for things like brake balance or turbo boost pressure. I do use this button sometimes so I can see the use cases for that.
All in all I would say go with whatever you prefer visually if you are using a PC, with the G29 I put it on PS4 mode. If you are using a console you need to go for that one that supports the console you are using. To be clear, the G29 is for the PS4 / PS4 Pro and the G920 is for the Xbox One / Xbox One s / Xbox One X.
Conclusion
All-in-all I highly recommend the Logitech G29. If you are currently playing any racing games seriously upgrading to a wheel is definitely something you should consider and I would say that the G29 or the G920 are great wheels to get started with.
You can check out all the products I listed above, here:
Amazon Associates Disclosure
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.
