Thinking on picking one up, is it worth the 400$
Usually its the opposite, the controller will always be much, much more forgiving than a wheel in Forza Horizon 4 (and IMHO in Forza Motorsports as well). The wheel is for when you want to experience the game more as a simcade experience, drive the cars around, feel how the wheel reacts to them. $400? That’s a $200 to $250 wheel on sale, Sir or Madam. And don’t forget you’ll need to clamp it to something, which may bring the price up another $100 if you aren’t sitting at a desk. Having said all that I use a cheap Thustmaster TMX ($200) and it makes Horizon a different game, more fun to just drive around…but if I want to win races I stick to the controller and hood cam.
For Horizon 4 not at all, the controller will always be faster/better control, the game wasn’t meant for a wheel. For a fun factor the wheel is great and give you a more “real” experience driving the cars. I have a wheel and only use it less then 10% of the time i’m playing, but when i do break it out (time to setup/time to take down) it’s a blast to play, fun to actually feel like you’re driving the car and it’s a whole different experience.
Its because the wheel doesn’t have the updated drivers. Post 2018
I had always used a controller with driving games up to a year ago. I got a wheel to play GT Sport, and also tried many other games with a wheel - AC, PC2, R3E, ACC, F1, FM7. I eventually came back to FH4, but had sold my Xbox and controller, so could only play it with a wheel. I think I am generally doing faster times than I was with a controller, but you have to bear in mind I’ve been using a wheel for a year now. Most likely you’ll initially be slower with a wheel, but if you give it long enough, you may become faster. I wouldn’t recommend mixing use of a wheel and controller, as going back to the controller will prevent you from adapting fully to using a wheel.
Some aspects of the game are easier with a wheel, some are harder. High power dirt and cross country, and drifting, are the aspects I find hardest. You really need to use a car and tune specifically for a wheel in some cases, though in other cases I’ve found tunes I made for a controller are fine with a wheel. Manual with clutch is also awkward with a wheel, so I try to only use cars where I can use manual without it being painfully slow (EB110, for example, is best avoided if you’re using manual rather than manual with clutch).
Also, I’d advise against buying a wheel that doesn’t let you change the degrees of rotation. I know the Logitech wheels when used with GTS have a fixed very large range, I’d check you can adjust the range with FH4 before buying one. I use a Fanatec wheel where I can set the range on the wheel itself, certainly for GTS it’s superior to both Logitech and the cheaper Thrustmaster wheels in this respect.
A wheel is, IMO, much more fun to use than a controller, most of the time. You do need to think about how you’re going to fix everything in place. I made my own rig out of structural timber, which is very cheap to buy. Don’t think that you can just sit on a normal chair with the pedals on the floor and the wheel clamped to a desk. I mean, you CAN do that, but it’s just awful compared to having everything solidly fixed in place.
Oh, and settings matter a huge amount with a wheel. You need to find settings that let you understand what the car is doing, and what the game is trying to tell you. It’s all about getting as much information as possible to allow you to make corrections as early as possible, then your corrections can be as small as possible. Early small corrections make you faster than later larger corrections.
I have a Logitech Driving Force GT and I couldn’t do without it. I first started using a wheel years ago with Gran Turismo 5 and couldn’t believe how much more control I had. I’m significantly faster using a wheel than I ever could be with a controller. I try it every now and then and always put it down after a few minutes and go back to the wheel. The one thing that does seem to be better with a controller is drifting. I’m rubbish at it but very slightly less rubbish with the controller.
(Oh, and the Logitech wheels can be adjusted down from 900 degrees of rotation using the Logitech Profiler software.)
Do you need access to a PC to do that? And does the setting persist if you connect it to a console after changing it?
Oh, I’m sorry, I don’t know if it works on a console. I play on a PC and there’s software that allows you to configure it but I doubt if that exists on the Xbox.
I picked up a used playseat and Logitech wheel/pedal/shifter set back in November, it instantly transformed the ‘realism’ of the game. Asan earlier poster has mentioned I tend to struggle with off road and drifting, I also find it difficult to get the ‘feel’ of a car. I can be traveling down a road at high speed, go to shave a little speed off to adjust for a curve in the road, end up loosing control and spinning off!!
I decided to pick up my controller and have a little bash whilst waiting for a new game to upload to my console, I thought I’d have a bash at the Autumn Showcase Remix as I couldn’t do it whilst using the wheel (6 seconds off) After a few attempts I nailed the remix with the controller.
I then went and had a look at Rivals, took on the Goliath to see if I could post a clean, fast lap, sure enough I did! The reason I could think of was, I’m so much more used to ‘finger dancing’ with a controller than I am with ‘foot dancing’ with pedals, the ability to be able to left ‘foot’ brake on the controller makes so much difference for me, I just can’t do it with the pedals!
There is a lack of pedal realism in the seat/peadal set up as the pedals don’t sit on the floor, the bracket allows for a certain amount of movement when stomping hard on the,m
The xbox allows you to set the sensitivity or degrees of rotation up to about 900 that I’ve seen, but the wheel has to be supported on xbox via USB, not sure if the logitech driving force is recognized directly by the xbox one or not.
Not at all.
Unfortunate…PC or new wheel, still it’s more of a novelty in the Horizon games. Wheels in Gran Turismo games prior to the last one was, honestly, almost a requirement for me. But that was when wheels were 270 degrees and you couldn’t get smooth turn-in with the little twin nub sticks of the PS2 or PS3 (at least I never could once HP numbers got higher).
Wheels are less important today in Horizon or Motorsports unless you want to up it a notch and feel more like you’re in a driving game where, indeed, the wheel and pedals does make a big difference.
PS: The Fishtailing with a wheel can be a result of two things: First your wheel settings are not correct, and second…some of these cars are just twitchy as hell to drive without tuning them. That 2016 Turbo Porche 911…you’d expect it to be planted but hello throttle-off-oversteer on every single corner (for me). A quick change to the rear differential solved 1/2 of that problem immediately.
Tweaking your wheel in the Forza games is almost a meta-game anyhow…ask 30 people for their best wheel settings and you’ll get 30 different answers.
Alright guys… I need this shared to the correct place sir. Found a massive fix for G920, probably other wheels but unresearched atm. need help fine tuning settings per game vs computer/logitech app… are the settings betterbetter matched or weighted against each other to gain peak results… Still early experimenting on my part… I just enjoy the researching tbh…
[Mod Edit - profanity removed - MM]
OK…
You need a laptop or pc… Forget gaming with your wheel until you’ve done this even if your wheel came from Logitech… There was an important update in 2018 for g920 firmware… fh4 …
That spongey oververwhoherersteering beeeeeatch…
OK…
Plug wheel into pc… Probably get a flashing white light on wheel, means you don’t have the correct drivers installed on pc/laptop… So… Update your drivers through your computer.
Now download the logitech application for pc… (official website, do your own digging I’m drunk )
Then, update the firmware in your wheel through the software.
This will add the (drivers? ) nessesary in the wheel for all the games on Xbox… It was updated in 2018 so definitely worth doing if you haven’t already…*may even be updated more…
This allows you to tune pedal and wheel sensitivity (locked on most games) + rotation, deadzones ect…fix those bloody brakes … Actually a note… Pretty damn good that thick rubber brake zone, everyone is slating, once the settings are right
For example… rotation on game settings is set to 540° because you did your research and gradually want to increase from there till it feels right and/or you get better … Makes sense, However… What if the contrast between wheel firmware settings and game settings mean all these epic guides and reviews for tuning and settings are worthless???..
The firmware inside the wheel is set to allow 900° but the game says no only 540°… and you pull it round… and boom… Now your wheels squint an you think you’ve had gear placement issues before now?
Unless your logical and okay stick… Still thay feeling of wasting 300quid
… Tuners… Here’s your missing piece to the puzzle, plz help us.all…