Looks like a neat little toy, but it's not what I'm looking for in a controller. Sorry.

http://kotaku.com/5860472/how-many-buttons-does-a-pedal+free-pc-racing-controller-need-this-many



The most ironic part from the Kotaku article:

"When we set out in 2008 to create a new kind of racing game, one of the first issues we had to confront was the age-old ‘interface problem'," said Ignite CEO Jonathan Haswell. "For decades now, racing game players have been faced with the unenviable choice of spending a huge amount of money on a wheel-and-pedal set that is tricky to set up, store and transport or settling for a binary joypad that simply isn't fit-for-purpose.

...

The Simraceway SRW-S1 Steering Wheel goes on sale today at the SteelSeries web shop for $119.99.

In case it isn't apparent re: the Irony of it...


The main thrust of the argument is that wheel and pedal sets are expensive and not very portable.

Basic Logitech wheel: $150
This wheel: $120


Well, at least they got the portable part right.

Kind of like the Kinect wheel, but a little nicer and not wireless. Not for me either, and obviously you can't have force feedback, but good to have options I guess. Too bad he didn't compare track times with a normal wheel vs that.

When I first saw it I thought "nice!"

But then, "Wait...no pedals? And it's wireless?"

Actually, I already have a wheel at home that works this way:



And to be honest - I get better laptimes in Mario Kart using the classic gamepad.

If you sneezed it would cause a huge multi-car crash.

I can see the benefit of this for someone with a lower limb disability that stops them being able to use pedals..

This has to be a better option than a pad for racing and could be a godsend for someone who has such a disability but still wants to add more realism to their sim experience.. I like it.

or if you travel and have a gaming capable laptop this could be a nice thing to pack in the suitcase.

http://www.bsimracing.com/2011/11/hardware-steel-series-srw-s1/

also waiting for the first pictures/video of someone strapping it to a wheel just for all of the buttons and dials

So accel and upshift are on the same side? And brake and downshift on the opposite side?

Does that mean you have to feather the brake and throttle with a couple fingers, while simultaneously clicking off shifts with the other fingers of the same hand? Sounds complicated, like rubbing your tummy while patting your head.

I'll stick with my not-as-portable wheel/pedal combos with a nice collapsible wheel stand.

I like the look of the thing and it seems fairly precise. But I'd want pedals with it.

BTW, for those who didn't know, Simraceway is now open for business. It's initially free to play and is essentially rFactor with a massive kick in the pants tied into an online portal. Kind of feels like rF 1.5. It's a pretty neat little package and very well put together although this is becoming an increasingly crowded marketplace so it'll be interesting to see how things progress over the coming months.

http://www.simraceway.com/

Thanks for this brief review Darren!


I am working at Simraceway, so if You guys will have any questions or troubles while using - please let me know :-)

Registered and downloaded. The website did not want to accept my gmail email account (invalid email). Had to use different account, then worked...

Does not work smoothly for me. Every third time I start it the login authentication fails for some reason... I hade nice race in Evo at Mid Ohio, but the game locks up in pitlane for me when I want to take Megane for lap at Zaandvort. Also had couple of lock ups when navigating to online races and even in website when trying to join from website...

But being public beta, this thing has potential.

I don't like graphics though. I wish they went the way GSC did with ISI code.

I'll check it out after the Sprint Cup race today.

Very odd issues Piotr... What is your hardware? Please try using fullproc for starters, so in START menu, go to Programs > Simraceway, right click the Simraceway shortcut, Properties and in Target, make it look like this: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Simraceway\SimracewayGame.exe" +fullproc


Could help with a couple issues!

Alright, so I gave it a shot.

...I hope there's more planned. A lot more.

Because right now, it's like a company that normally makes horrible free-to-play MMORPG's said "hey guys let's do a racing sim".

Of the five cars in the game, only one was available as a starter: a Mitusbishi EVO. If I want more, I can apparently pay with real money or I can earn in-game credits to the tune of 5 credits per lap. I think the next car up in terms of cost is 5800 credits? After that you're looking at 22,000 and 26,000.

You're going to be making a LOT of laps unless there's another way to earn them. Just competing in a single race didn't seem to earn me any more than what I got for completing laps.

My racing options are limited to solo practice, "quick race" where I suppose up to 8 random people can join your lobby, and "events" where it's the same old SimRaceway fare as always - run short races, the combined time of your laps goes onto a leaderboard, and at the end of the week the top player on the leaderboard wins something.

In this case, my one and only car means I am only eligible for a single event - oh, and by the way...the guy at the top of the leaderboard is apparently about 7 seconds a lap faster than anyone else. What's a good EVO laptime for Mid-Ohio? This guy is averaging 1:31's. I'm about 10 seconds back of that myself.

The track looked nice though. I'll give it that. Very detailed.

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but right now this game appears to be an attempt to cash in on the F2P market - give players a little tiny chunk of a game, and force them to either pay up to access the stuff they really want, or "earn" it through in-game credits (and if the current pace of earning credits is any indication, I'd shoot myself in the face before I got to the first car).

Firstly....

I $#*^ing want one...

Do they work with the Wii?

It's like THE perfect combination of the xbox 360 controler, the wii controls, and a F1 nob set...

But I'd probably use it more for bike sims then 4 wheeled sims... But still that looks sweet!!!

Oh and Chunx... That's exactly how I've driven for my entire sim racing carrer until this year... It's really not that hard to get used to... and these paddles have a bigger range of movement which makes driving more plesurable with it...

As far as simraceway goes I'm giving it a trial run later today or tomorrow, but with Skyrim, SCES 2012 and Saints Row I don't know how many laps I'll be putting in but I'll give some feedback on it... I do know I had to sign up with my other halfs email address though... My yahoo address is invalid apparently...

Also what is this raceplate thing on my profile about?

First impressions of Simraceway are pretty positive from a public beta perspective...

There's some interesting points to it and a lot to like, but also a lot to iron out...

Here's a few of my thoughts...

the feel of the EVO is great and reminds me a lot of the Skoda's from rFactor, which is great for the first car you get to drive...

The damage effect is really cool, and the force feedback recognises the new bent steering position, and the tyre heats up when you bend a fender too much, but the pit crew can that... Sliding off the track hurts in the ways that it should, and the barriers bite as hard as they should...

the force feedback took more fine tuning to find the right feel then fine tuning then trying to find the right sensitivity settings which was nice for a change.. But there's a few bugs in the control settings, I'm unable to map reverse gear to reverse gear on my H shifter for example...

the online gameplay is fun, with the event challenge not only giving you something to do with the game each week, but a reason to better your times... 5 lap event challenge is a good way to start off..

I did feel that only having the one car to drive out of the box a little restrictive... I'd at least like 10 cars to get things rolling... Although 0.47c to buy the next available car the BMW isn't much, and it also unlocks another event... Or I could spend months racing my way around mid Ohio trying to get the laps up for the car, but after 2 hours solid gameplay I only had 155 credits, and I need 5000+ for the BMW... 47 cents seems like the better option to increase the fun... But that's nothing compared to the McLaren which is over 20000 or 2.11 USD... Then there's the 3rd option of winning the event, which nabs you $2 in the Evo challenge... But then there is scope for people to drive the unpopular cars in the hope that smaller fields will make for a better chance of winning the prize and getting more 'free' content... Which could lead to the same small group winning that event over and over...

The servers take a bit too long to click over and doesn't like being alt/tab to desktop so you can do other things while you wait as it won't reload and I have to kill the process to get back into the game... also when people join a server during qualy it freezes while it loads the new players car, not great for mid corner..

The event servers have had a few wreckers come in, and as there's a point to racing this may force people to try and drive on quiet servers to get better times.. which kinda ruins the fun element of racing against others, but as more real drivers sign up and the part timers stick to the bigginers lounge it'll be better...

The website itself has crashed on me a few times and I've been unable to install any new tracks, which is a shame because I really want to try out the Nordschleife on this...

Is it something I can see myself spending a lot of time on...???

In time with more event options and more cars this could be a hell of a lot of fun... I don't think it will take the place of something like the SCES series in my life, but when I'm bored and want to pick up a fun race and challenge myself this could very well fill the void... Buying content is another matter, I do wish there would be more available when you first start out, but I suppose that keeps the serious racers in the events and the not so serious on the other servers... I will say this though... Buying a car is far more attractive then a subscription of any kind... As long as the event servers are up for a year I feel I'll of got my 2 bucks out of that car....