▶Join the Community:
▶Follow me on Twitter:
▶Next Level Racing:
▶Heusinkveld Handbrake

0:00 Intro
0:51 Pick Your Poison
2:18 The Important Bit
5:23 Wheelstands & Cockpits
7:12 Not Games, Simulators

IF you’ve been pondering over the thought of getting into sim racing recently, you need to drop everything, stop what you’re doing and watch this video because now is the perfect time to get into the hobby.

The first step of getting into the hobby is deciding which platform you would like to race on. Is it console or PC? PlayStation or Xbox? Before you do anything else, you need to answer these questions. You don’t want to buy an entire sim racing setup, only later to find out that it’s not compatible with your platform. Of course, if you already own one of these platforms, the decision is kind of a no-brainer if you want to go about the cheapest route. But, if you’re totally new to gaming in general, I would definitely recommend picking PC. Yes, a console is cheap, but in a couple years, you’re gonna want to switch to PC. It’s practically the course of nature. It’s simply the superior platform. So, buying a gaming PC from the get go may be a worthwhile investment.
But, if someone put a gun to my head and told me I had to race on a console, I would definitely chose the playstation. This is because on PS you get the Gran Turismo franchise, which is a far superior racing simulation as compared to Xbox’s Forza. It offers much better competitive racing, and a more realistic simulation. But if you are on console, you’re just delaying the inevitable of joining the PC master race. It has better sims, and you can even mod your racing sims, which I’ll cover a little later on when we discuss racing sims in more depth.
So, now you’ve picked your poison, it’s time to select a your peripherals. The wheel and pedals are the most important aspect of your sim racing setup. It’s true that most racing simulators are compatible with game pads, or even keyboards, and there are plenty of racers that use them. But at that point, is it even sim racing? If you do try to play racing simulations on either of these, you’re bound for a bad time. Racing simulations aren’t like your casual racing games, and they aren’t designed with gamepads or keyboards in mind. Meaning, you’re going to have a tough time controlling your car. You’re definitely going to want to buy a wheel.
The wheel I started out with 6 years ago was the Logitech G920. It also comes in the G29 variant, they’re practically identical, except the G920 is for Xbox, and the G29 playstation. Both are compatible with PC however. Anyway, the Logitech offerings are PERFECT for anyone wanting to get into sim racing on a budget. They cost around £300 or $400, and with that you get a durable wheel and a decent 3 pedal set. You can also throw in a H pattern shifter for a little extra, which is a worthwhile addon in my opinoin. It just means you won’t have to use the flappy paddles, and will actually have a realistic shifting action in anything other than race cars.
However, logitech recently came out with the logitech g923. This is their upgraded version of both the previously mentioned wheel. As far as I can tell, there isn’t much difference. If we disect the marketing mumbo jumbo, all you get is a slightly improved brake pedal and more vibrations through the wheel which really isn’t much. So, you can decide if you think this is worth the upgrade.
Much like the successor to the G29 being almost identical, the predecessor to it is again, almost identical. If you want to sim racing on an extreme budget, you can find logitech g27s second hand at a very reasonable price. Again, the g27 will offer an almost identical experience for under a ¼ of the price.
Now the other company that makes wheels for budget sim racers is called thrustmaster. They have a lot of models, which can become quite confusing. However, the models you should look out for are the T300, T150 or TMX. They’re all decent wheels, and range from cheaper than the aforementioned Logitech wheels, to more expensive. The main difference between the Logitech and thrust master wheels it the way force feedback is delivered.

Hit the like, and maybe even subscribe button if you enjoyed the video!

MY SIM RIG:
▶Fanatec Wheelbase Base
▶Fanatec CSL Elite Wheel
▶Fanatec Shifter
▶Fanatec CSL Elite Loadcell Pedals
▶Heusinkveld Handbrake

▶ GTLite
▶ Gloves
▶Monitor
▶Oculus
▶GTX 1080
▶i5 8600k
▶16GB DDR4