The wheel is limp as a noodle on the straight ahead - much worse than FM4. You have virtually no idea of how the wheels are tracking when going in a straight line. This is quite a fail.
Yet again, nobody has bothered to index the strength of FFB in line with the selected degrees of rotation. With the wheel set to 270 degrees, it is physically impossible to turn it at all without greatly reducing the strength of the feedback effects. With the wheel set to 330 degrees I found that it was necessary to reduced the FFB to 50% or less for the wheel to be usable without excessive exertion. I’ve driven go karts which have a more tractable rack even at that setting. 100% = strong feedback at 900 degrees rotation. The default strength should be reduced proportionally as the degrees of rotation are reduced. There are some pretty sound engineering as well as ergonomic reasons for this - particularly with regard to the amount of work the motor is being required to do - but yet again a manufacturer seems to have missed the blindingly obvious, leaving unwitting purchasers to fry their motors.
The fan protectively kicks in almost immediately during operation and is quite loud. No, I mean LOUD. And intrusive.
Grip transitions seems fairly poorly articulated, even sluggish. Don’t know whether this is the game, the wheel, or both.
For some strange reason, you occasionally appear to be able to exceed the grip limit and still maintain steering control. I’m not complaining about this, but it does present an advantage over the gamepad.
The wheel has way way way way way too much spring at settings below 900 degrees and it isn’t adjustable on Xbox. The lack of ability to calibrate this mars the wheel quite significantly. Again, this doesn’t present as an issue at 900 degrees, as the amount of spring is actually helpful and largely absorbed by the additional centering required. At lesser degrees of rotation however it becomes increasingly pronounced, to the point where the wheel acts as though it is being centred by strong elastic from even 20 degrees off centre. Another fail.
It is a bit ‘tuggy’ when riding the limit of lateral grip, but this is a common problem with belted wheels, and may improve as the belts wear in.
Overall, the much hyped new feedback effects are actually no better than in FM4. There is no real increase in detail that I could pick up on. Rumble is perhaps a little better defined, but by and large I felt as though I had more information off the tyres in FM4.
Autoclutch works well.
The newly available adjustments to wheel sensitivity seem only to further deaden the centre zone. I tried them all and ended back with the default. There was a pronounced loss of turning effect with all of them which was quite puzzling. I’m not going to choose understeer.
The base is big and ugly. It looks like it was designed by a technician in the '60s.
It’s a couple of seconds a lap faster than a pad for me.
It’s another black mark that the TX is STILL not properly supported in the game. It can be hit or miss getting FM5 to recognise it, and regardless, the game does not save the selected degrees of rotation.
Rumble just goes away every now and then, which is quite a bugbear.
Like the Fanatec wheels, the TX wheel reduces the strength of feedback when the motor temperature passes a fixed threshold. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear to take much to reach this threshold during normal operation.
It ticks and creaks more than the Fanatec ever did, and surprisingly, the GTE rim is the worst offender.
There is occasional internal clunkiness and grinding from the force feedback assembly. It appears to be designed to be smooth in operation at higher angles of rotation. Reducing the angle of rotation progressively highlights the weaknesses of its construction.
I have little to say about the pedal set shipped with the wheel, because I’m using Clubsports with the CPX adaptor, but when I did use them for a couple of hours I was less than impressed. Thrustmaster appear to have tried to compensate for their relative flimsiness by using quite strong springs beneath the pedal armatures. This unfortunately only aggravates their tendency to fly all over the place during use. They need to be nailed down.
The threaded-collar-plus-fixing-screw wheel attachment system is borderline bizarre. Very Citroen.
Only a complete jackass would enclose a heavily worked power supply within a case containing thermally sensitive heat generating components. Oh, wait.
Shame that “Base is ugly” wasn’t one of the first few points…i would have stopped reading much earlier.
Seriously, thats not a review imho, its rather an extensive listing of negatives about the TX/FM5 combo, the only positive i’ve read is that the autoclutch works well (phew). If thats what Rex requested then OK, but you should change the thread title…its pretty misleading.
I’m just calling it as I see it. Like everybody else who has purchased the Thrustmaster, I have an investment in the product. Objectively, it falls short, but then I went in with my eyes open. The wheel is overpriced, not maturely engineered, barely adequte in its performance, and poorly supported in game. Even adding the GTE rim (additional expense) and Clupsport pedals doesn’t really save it. If there aren’t many positives in my review, then that’s because - at least as far as FM5 is concerned - there aren’t many positives. The TX is a wheel, barely.
Well, this list obviously helped some to assure that its not all Sugar and Smiles with the TX (oh look, a dead horse…)
It surely is not perfect, same as Fanatec and Logitech wheels, but just listing 20 negative points and then call it a review…well, it doesn’t really give the impression of being an unbiased one.
And talking about overpriced, don’t get me started with the CSW and its mabuchi innards
The latest firmware update for the TX may need an ingame update from turn 10 to improve some of the listed shortcomings in FM5? A couple that aren’t explained; improved XBox one protocol(pretty vague); the other was center value adjust(could just be a deadzone, but I’m hoping it is an adjustment for the center return spring). Maybe when the Infiniti car pack drops well get an update from T10.
Pretty sure the ‘center adjust’ was to let you set true center on the wheel. Previously that required a separate tool that you could only get from support. Wheels were getting shipped out with center not being set properly.
This is just a Fanatec fan boy thread slamming the tx in hope of getting Fanatec support for the xbox one! The Thrustmaster wheel rocks!
The CSR ELITE had a very high failure rate especially when it first came out! You can change the motor and it works great!
I’m far from a Fanatec fanboy. The Thrustmaster wheel does not ‘rock’. It is barely fit for purpose. The only wheel manufacturer I have come across that can consistently produce solidly engineered and affordable product is Logitech. Pity about that.
And the TX is free from failures? Ha, I got one and it didn’t even work when I set it up. Call it what you want but these are legitimate points that seem to be missed in a lot of reviews.
I wouldnt call this a review as its entirely focussed on pointing out negatives, but I have to agree with the majority of points made.
But Id like to add that pretty much all of it (except the base being ugly, which I disagree with anyway...) is problems caused by the game, not the wheel. With that in mind I would find a thread title like "Review of Forza 5s force feedback" more suitable in order to avoid giving false impressions about the TX.
For the wheel itself my best game to judge it is Assetto Corsa, because I used to play it with my Fanatec CSR before I got the TX.
Cut short, the TX is incredible on that game.
Comparing CSR and TX there, they actually feel quite similar, but I like the TX even better, it feels more refined and nuanced. Can`t say I expected that given a CSR+pedals is still more expansive.
No wheel can produce feedback if the game doesn`t send it. Turn 10 have a lot of work to do if they want to catch up with other companies in that section.
I still enjoy my Forza sessions, but unfortunately “limp as a noodle” nails it.
This pretty much nails it, imho. While the TX/FM5 combo is far from perfect, the wheel shines if used with a PC and proper FF protocol (Assetto Corsa is a good example). Thats why i dont agree with Mick’s statement about being “overpriced, not maturely engineered, barely adequate in its performance”
anyways, I dont want to start an argument here, everyone has a right to their own opinion, i’m just worried that such a ‘review’ could put off potential buyers from getting a great piece of hardware (despite its QA issues that seem to have improved significantly with the new batch of TXs). The issues with FM5 can easily be solved/improved by software patches (if T10 is actually gonna do it is another story
Yup. You sir nailed it. It is a great wheel, especially on a PC with proper FFB protocol. I’m waiting to see what WMD Studio does with the drivers on Xbox One when Project Cars comes out. Wouldn’t it be a trip if Project Cars FFB feels way better than FM5 does on Xbox One.
What you guys call negative, I’d call dispassionate observation tinged with a little resignation and disatisfaction. I went through what seemed for me the salient features of the TX with FM5 as they came to mind, and commented on them. Where I come from that’s a ‘review’.
If it’s required to balance the negative with a corresponding amount of positive in order to appear even-handed, what exactly would you like me to enthuse about? I was struggling to find something about the TX/FM5 combo that achieved minimum reasonable expectations. In fact, the GTE rim is still the nicest part of the experience for me. I can invent some stuff if that would make people happy.
Well it reads pretty much all as a slate against the TX rather than an objective review, there’s expressing dissatisfaction and there’s being overly critical for the sake of it, it’s very easy to lose the objectivity of a review through all the hyperbole.
Anyway, apart from a few reliability issues with my first TX (nicely sorted and replaced by Amazon) my experience with the TX has been almost a complete polar opposite to the OP’s. Apart from a few cosmetic changes I’d make to the rim and base, the actual functionality and feel of the wheel have been great. I’ve played on wheels since Forza 3 and each game has brought incremental improvements. The feedback was really good in Fm4, I think they (T10) over egged the ‘next gen’ stuff for Fm5, but imo it was never going to be a night and day difference as we were already coming from an excellent position to begin with. I feel Fm5 with the TX is a modest step up from Fm4. It certainly isn’t the deplorable trawl for me to play Fm5 like it seems for the OP, shame he feels that way.
To read that the OP struggled to find something that achieved ‘minimum reasonable expectations’ with the TX makes me think the original expectations were far out of line to begin with. It’s interesting how the boys at Insidesimracingtv.com are really enthusiastic about the TX (despite them detailing out some issues they have with it) and I certainly value their opinion above the unknowns in here. Why ‘should’ I trust the patronising and sneery replies when they are at odds to the experience I have??
Edit - As others have pointed out a lot of the OP’s issues may stem from Fm5 as opposed to the wheel, many players have commentated favourably on the TX when using it on PC.
I think the solution for the OP is to pack the wheel up and sell it on, hopefully the alternative MadCatz wheel can offer some form of respite to the dismal time the OP is having.
I guess OP didn’t see the video on YouTube from InsideSimRacing. http://youtu.be/rT2kFOuA0Wk He clearly states that he runs 100 FFB on FM5. However he can’t run it that high on a PC, way to strong (he said that in that video or another one. Either way, he has stated that he don’t run max FFB on PC, way to strong). Besides the DOA or dying after a while for some people (mine is just fine). The TX is the best wheel on market for PC or Console (base, not talking about stock pedals) according to Darin & I agree. TX really shines on PC. In all his videos/game reviews, wether it’s xbox one or PC, he is using the TX. Perhaps OP should have tried it on PC, clearly FM5/xbox one don’t let the wheel truly shine like it does on a PC.
