timwheatley.org

Fanatec Porsche 911 Turbo Wheel, Pedals & H-pattern gear shifter.

I was sent the Fanatec Porsche 911 Turbo Wheel for review having not heard much about it, other than what I’d read on a few simracing Web sites, of course. I knew the build quality would be good and that I’d be overcome with new things to get used to, but really I had no idea what an ‘awakening’ I was set to experience with the first truly spectacular wheel I have ever owned.

I did have a lot of things to get used to with this wheel. Firstly, I had to adapt to 900° of rotation from the wheel. Both wheels I have owned recently hit a physical stopper at around 90° each side and totaled out at 180°. Second, I had to adapt myself to use a more realistically stiff ‘racing style’ brake pedal. Third, the big one, I had to adapt to use the clutch… I’ve never had a three pedal set before and have hardly ever driven on normal roads… Lastly, I haven’t used any force feedback since about 2000… I would have very many bad habits from years of simracing and this wheel was going to rip them right out of me…

Upon reading the wheel specifications, one thing stood out for me as an area of concern: Wireless. This steering wheel features no cable between wheel and PC and this worried me for a couple of reasons: Would the latency of the wheel be fast enough for my steering commands to be instantly delivered to the simulation on the screen? Would interference from the ‘wireless world’ be a problem?

For the PC I think that the wireless option isn’t really too much of a bonus, I have cables going from every device except my mouse to my PC. But, for the Playstation 2 and 3, wireless is an obvious requirement: You can be sat on your couch as far away from the TV and Playstation as you need to be and not worry about someone tripping over controller wires.

I was quite worried though that someone next door might turn on their microwave and cause me to crash in-sim when the wireless lost connection (yes I’m joking with the microwave, but this genuinely concerned me)…

My concerns turned out to be absolutely wrong as I found there to be no issues with the connection and absolutely no problem with controller lag.

INSTALLATION

Please note that I suffered problems during installation. I had read in other reviews that there are some problems on installation of the wheel… I wanted to prove that everything worked perfect when you followed instructions but I found that even following the instructions turned out to be difficult… I have since contacted Fanatec about it and they told me they have a totally different procedure for installation now which matches the conclusions I drew myself during my own struggles:

1. Fully build and mount wheel and pedals.
2. Do not use the automatic updater on the USB stick.
3. Download the latest driver manually on the Fanatec website.
4. Plug in the RF dongle before you install the driver.
5. Run Setup.exe from your manual download.
6. Calibrate the controller.

I spent nearly 1½ hours trying to figure things out the way the manual I received was telling me to. I eventually gave up and did it my own way (shown above).

FIRST USE

I went into the Control Panel > Game Controllers and calibrated the wheel next. This was a simple process, but I was concerned to see a lack of Force Feedback preferences available… I set the wheel to a 0% dampening strength, 900 degrees of rotation and loaded up iRacing to take the Skip Barber 2000 for a spin…

Unfortunately, spin was a bad choice of word: I have been so used to using a wheel with about 180° of rotation that I wasn’t moving the wheel nearly enough to catch the little slides and wobbles that the car does, especially at a track like Lime Rock Park… I asked on the iRacing member forum for help and someone thankfully told me they had experienced the same thing. I went back to the control panel and temporarily set the 911 Wheel to (it’s minimum) 200° of rotation, finding that I could then drive perfectly I knew it wasn’t a problem with the wheel, it was a problem with me.

Note: If you wind up purchasing this wheel, be aware how different it is to almost every other wheel on the market. If you haven’t experienced huge amount of wheel rotation or stiff brake pedal like this before you might find it quite hard to adapt at first - be patient. It’s taken me about four days to re-claim by pace and consistency.

BUILD FEATURES

The power supply for the wheel is nice and long. It’s the little things like this that make life easier and I was delighted to see that where this wheel needed cables, it provided cables long enough to not make life difficult.

The pedals for this wheel are one of the biggest features of it and actually a major step forward in terms of realism. I have driven the Skip Barber 2000 in real life and the brake pedal for the 911 Wheel is getting pretty close to reality in terms of stiffness. It isn’t quite as hard to push down the 911 Wheel’s brake as it is most race cars, but it’s close enough, for sure. The pedals can be either wireless (with the use of four batteries - supplied by Fanatec), or they can be wired. It would also be nice for the pedals to be made of metal… They are currently plastic and while they both look and feel solid, my clutch pedal has started making a noise when fully pushed after just a couple of weeks, though this has not affected performance.

The 911 Wheel's pedals. Solid, with a stiff and more realistic brake pedal.

The fixings and clamps for the 911 Wheel are strong and tight, I haven’t experienced any slippage. Like most wheels though the desk clamps don’t reach far enough under my desk to get past the ‘lip’ my desk has, but this doesn’t seem unusual. Like with other wheels I have had to clamp the wheel to the lip itself.

The wheel also comes with a set of ‘knee fixings’ which should allow you to use the wheel on your legs… I have not tested this as I can’t imagine being able to keep it on my legs while force feedback is active. This feature is undoubtedly useful for the Playstation 2 and 3 users.

The desk clamp and leg fixings for the under-side of the wheel.

Having a choice of gear selection sticks is a major reason to buy this wheel. Not only is there a set of buttons behind the wheel (which simulate the paddles most open-wheel race cars have), there is a sequential gearbox (forward and backwards to shift gear) and H-pattern shifter that will sit at the side of your wheel (on the end of poles clamped inside the wheel housing). The gear sticks are very strong and feel they’ll take a lot of racing, the method of housing them (on the poles) also feels strong and sturdy.

Dual metal poles go through the wheel body and the (changeable) gear stick.

The steering wheel itself is based upon the real Porsche 911 steering wheel. It feels so wonderful when driving! Being able to slip your fingers around a stitched leather steering wheel is an absolute privilege. It is perfect thickness, the construction feels solid and the amount of available buttons means you can control everything you need to control. I haven’t found anything to use the buttons on the front of the wheel for yet, but the ‘paddle’ buttons on the back of the wheel are in use whenever I drive the Formula Mazda! The front of the wheel also includes a very cool illuminated LED display that I assumed can be configured to work with software and display output of speed or shifting indications. I’ve personally turned it off (via the control panel shown above in this article) because, like I said, I don’t use any of the front buttons.

Note: Fanatec say that they are about to release a driver update that brings information from the game or sim out to the LED display.

The Fanatec Porsche 911 Turbo Wheel provides the perfect look and feel.

FORCE FEEDBACK CAPABILITY

Until very recently I used a Thrustmaster steering wheel, I also hadn’t bothered with Force Feedback since the year 2000. I got a Logitech Driving Force EX and tried it’s Force Feedback - I wasn’t impressed enough to continue using it.

The Fanatec Porsche 911 Turbo steering wheel is a totally different animal. I am now hooked on Force Feedback and can say with absolute joy that the experience this wheel is capable of delivering converted me to a fan of Force Feedback in general.

With a setting (within the iRacing simulation) of between 8 and 10 in strength, the feel this wheel gives is simply amazing. I can feel the changes in camber of the turn, levels of banking and occasionally can feel the tiny transition from one type of surface to another very, very well. That feel, combined with a higher degree of rotation in the wheel, is making me a much smoother driver and I’m finding myself able to tame circuits I have struggled at quite badly over the last couple of years.

To sum up: 911 Wheel Force Feedback = YES!!

NOISE

I actually don’t remember hearing the motor of the force feedback, ever. It is far quieter than any wheel I have ever owned, have seen on show displays or have seen in friend’s homes.

When you run a long session with Force Feedback the unit gets warm and there are fans that will run until the unit cools off. They’re not loud, but I did wonder what on earth the noise was the first time I heard them!

The body of the wheel has airflow grills above the fans.

PROS

Fantastic build quality. Feels solid.

Looks the part. Porsche-branded and cool looking. Nice leather finish.

Sequential and H-pattern gear shifters are provided and easily swapped.

900° of rotation, the same as many road cars (and the Pontiac Solstice featured in iRacing).

Wonderful Force Feedback capabilities that allow you to really feel things at a whole new level.

Stiff brake pedal that is much closer to the resistance of the real thing. It isn’t exact though, from my experience it feels about 50% as rigid as a real-life racing brake pedal (but that’s better than the 0% resistance most pedals offer).

Clutch pedal. Not every set of wheel and pedals has a clutch… Although it can be quite difficult to perfect, it might be worth it in the long run.

Non-slip pedals. When I say non-slip, I mean it. If you fix the metal plate to the bottom of the plastic pedals like you’re supposed to, these pedals aren’t slipping anywhere…

Haven’t had to recalibrate the wheel since I had it. Normally I had to recalibrate Thrustmaster and Logitech wheels before every running as they would both lose ‘center’ - I’d find myself having to turn the wheel to go straight. No sign of this issue with the 911 Wheel.

Wireless pedal to wheel communication. (Batteries in the wheels provide wireless communication, cable is provided if unwanted).

A choice to use a cable for pedal to wheel communication, rather than wireless (useful if those batteries die).

Wireless connection between wheel and PC/PS2/PS3.

Compatibility with PC, Playstation 2 and 3.

CONS

The installation from the USB stick of the USB wireless hub. Bad drivers/software… Fanatec are aware of this issue though and confirmed my installation method (above) works.

ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT

Working instructions need to be shipped with these wheels.

The clamp could do with being a bit longer. It’s wide enough for any desk but doesn’t get over the ‘lip’ on the edge of mine so I’m attaching it to the edging, rather that the desk - it doesn’t feel safe like that. Fanatec do have a solution though, they have a different clamp you can buy…

Clutch pedal has started to make plastic ‘tapping’ noise (after two weeks) when pressed fully. Still works perfectly though, I guess a part is hitting the casing.

CONCLUSION

My concerns over the wireless being interfered with or laggy seems to be misplaced and although the installation was a bit of a pain, it hasn’t caused me any further stress. The lack of configuration options in the control panel was a concern, but after using the wheel for some time now - I haven’t needed to change anything outside the game or simulation’s own settings. Amazingly, I haven’t even needed to recalibrate the wheel at any time!

At the moment, all in all, the Fanatec Porsche 911 Turbo Wheel is probably one of the best pieces of equipment you can buy in terms of quality, feel and performance. It is genuinely making me a much better simracer and that’s only after weeks of usage… In terms of pricing, it is a lot of money, but I honestly think it’s worth every cent if you want one of the best wheels available today.

Buy from: fanatec.de. Wheel is for PC, PS2 and PS3 (untested by me).
Price: $350 (approx).

Note: The wheel comes with a 1GB memory stick (that looks the same as the USB hub). This stick contains the PC drivers but you can use it like any other memory stick. I’d advise against using the drivers on the stick and instead suggest downloading the latest ones from Fanatec manually.

Yes, that’s right! Finally… Tim Wheatley got rid of that dodgy $30 Thrustmaster wheel… I loved the old girl but, she had too many problems. She lagged, spiked, did all sorts of wonderful things… She made it very difficult to drive in a straight line though and after all this time… I moved on.

The Logitech Driving Force EX steering wheel that I was given, I should point out, is labeled on the box as a Playstation wheel. It doesn’t come with anything saying that it works on the PC, nor does it come with a drivers CD for the PC, but, you can simply go to Logitech.com and there they are, bright as day. Drivers are (currently) there for both Windows XP and Windows Vista.

CABLES, PLUGS & SETTING UP

The box contained wheel, pedals and power supply unit. I don’t have a Playstation, but reading the documentation that came with the wheel, my version should work with both the PS2 and PS3. It comes with a USB connector and (what I’d refer to as) a ‘gamepad’ connector. Obviously in this review I’m talking about the PC, so you would use the USB connector. The first thing I noticed when unwrapping was how wonderfully long they made the wires! No longer am I going to have to use the front USB connector on my computer case for my steering wheel! Not only that, but the wire between the pedals and steering wheel is similarly well-endowed, as is the power unit.

I attached the pedals to the wheel, plugged in the power (at both ends) and then mounted the wheel on my desk. Running the driver EXE I had downloaded from the Logitech Web site I waited until I was told to plug the wheel into the computer and then did do. Following the onscreen instructions made it very easy and after a quick run through the calibration I was ready to race… It hadn’t taken longer than three minutes.

I now took a quick look at the unit in it’s new home and tried to find faults. I must admit, I found it hard to pick faults on how the wheel looks. Apart from the obvious Playstation-related buttons, which don’t bother me, the wheel both looked and felt sturdy, professional and like it could take a race or two! I certainly didn’t feel like the thing would fall apart anytime soon.

I guess my only real issue is with the clamps. They don’t reach forward enough for me and I’m sort of concerned they’ll work their way loose as they’re clamped onto the lip of my desk, rather than just past that lip - where I would prefer. I guess this isn’t a big deal, I’ll just have to keep checking the tightness every week or so.

FORCE FEEDBACK & NOISE

Compared to many other wheels I have heard with motors, the Driving Force EX doesn’t make much noise at all. Infact, if you disable both Force Feedback and set the centering force of the wheel to 0% - you won’t even hear it. I’m used to a wheel with no motor (it did have one, but I guess it burned out) and I was delighted to see that I could get the same effect by just modifying a few settings rather than waiting for it to break! With full force feedback effects it’s certainly not more noisy than I would expect and I don’t even need to turn my speakers up to compensate.

I don’t normally use force feedback, so although I’m trying it with this wheel, your mileage may differ. Any review of force feedback is heavily reliant on the game or simulation used to test it anyway…

Trying the wheel with Richard Burns Rally I mainly found myself feeling tightening of the steering, there wasn’t really any notification when you’d landed after a jump. It seemed like the force feedback was only simulating the feedback of the steering column and ignoring any vibration or ‘jolts’ that I believed I should be feeling.

Trying the same general settings with Flatout: Ultimate Carnage I felt the tightening of steering in the turns, but also felt a ‘jolt’ during sideward impact (from other cars, or the armco). I also felt the car becoming ‘light’ while in the air. Again, this force feedback was missing any sudden jolt’s you would expect when getting front or rear impact but did seem better than Richard Burns Rally. Annoyingly, Flatout 3 gave a constant rumble of vibration… I can only assume this is meant to simulate the engine? Whatever it is… It doesn’t work for me, it feels silly.

One thing I have discovered though is just how vast the difference is between software. Interestingly the force feedback in Richard Burns Rally doesn’t seem as good as that seen in the new Flatout title, they are a world apart!

I’ve seen a lot of sim racers saying how good the force feedback is in iRacing and after a quick test - I have to agree. You can feel transitions in different levels of banking, you can feel individual bumps/kerbs and you can feel the armco/wall and other contact forms seen in both Richard Burns Rally and Flatout. As much as this sounds like a compliment of iRacing, it’s actually a compliment of the Logitech Driving Force EX because when given the ‘feedback’ this wheel can certainly supply the ‘force’. It does actually feel pretty good… Whether it’s enough to make me switch on force feedback from this point? Probably not… My wrists ache as it is and I find it harder to keep concentration when driving!

GENERAL DRIVING

So, turning the force feedback off as I will normally be using it, how does it feel?

It feels great. You can’t feel any ‘workings’ in the wheel, it’s nice and smooth, but there is a bit of a problem (and maybe it’s just me)… When going down the straight I find my steering oscillating left and right… I actually ended up setting the wheel to pull back to the center with a strength of 30% - this made keeping it straight a lot easier. I’m thinking that the wheel is probably just a tiny bit too precise compared to what I’ve been using; my tiny compensations in steering didn’t help keep it straight.

FINAL THOUGHTS

It’s a very, very nice wheel and well worth the current purchase price (about $80 right now on Amazon.com, $55 on Amazon.co.uk). It’s probably the best feeling wheel I have ever had (so far anyway!) If you can’t afford the Logitech G25 and don’t want to go for the cheaper or unknown options, this is a great wheel.

LATER NOTES

It’s now a long time since I wrote this review and I have learned a couple of things further about this wheel.

First, this wheel doesn’t have actual force feedback. Apparently Logitech failed to get proper licensing to include it and instead included a basic ‘rumble’ technology which frankly is pathetic when compared to how a decent wheel feels.

Second, it seems to suffer from the ‘loss of center’ problem I hear a lot when reading about Logitech wheels. You’ll suddenly find yourself having to steer left or right in order to go straight. Some people think this is related to force feedback or the center spring but it actually doesn’t seem to be as I always had both of these disabled with the Force EX…

I still have B17 Flying Fortress 2 - The Mighty Eighth installed on my PC. B17 2 was released back in 2000 by Microprose and I was lucky enough to be on the testing team. I got to wondering today what old games/simulations other people might still be using and I know some of us just can’t let go of some titles so, what’s yours? What old games do you still play??

Make sure you tell me the year your oldest game was released! (Oh and, re-makes like the recent Settlers II Anniversary Edition don’t count!)

Selected highlights of a B17 2 mission… I hope you like the glorious slow-motion explosion I did for it!

I can’t say that I am impressed by this footage:

Is this type of game meant to be anywhere close to a real life battle? Because, of course, in all warfare the standard way of avoiding being shot is to simply jump 6ft into the air… Better yet, in order to ensure you get your targetting best, you should run straight towards the enemy, exposing yourself completely, simply so you can shoot from just 5ft away! That seems to be what this video shows… It shows that this is pretty much the same as every other first person shooter. You do the same things to avoid and the same things to attack… What a shame that they couldn’t bring a revolution to this type of gaming.

Far Cry (which used the old CryEngine) was an awesome single player game, because as a single player you can play it “real”. It’s similar to most racing simulations; you can drive realistically or you can drive what is fastest with the flaws of the simulation. First person shooters (when played against other humans) just seem all the same “gameplay” to me…

Also, why is it that when the person is shooting at his enemies, the objects behind the enemy seem free of bullet holes even though the player is obviously missing his enemy an awful lot? I thought this was supposed to be a game engine that “everything” could be destroyed?

I’m going to be blunt. Development studios have got to stop releasing unfinished products just so they can meet their release date. Ubisoft have released an unfinished product here and just days after release, they had a patch ready to go that still didn’t sort the problems. Ubisoft were obviously not prepared to wait for another month so the development team could get this patch into the release version and Ubisoft have released what in my opinion is a beta product not in any way ready for release. Before playing Silent Hunter 4 you must install the 1.1 patch or it is not worth buying (even with the 1.1 patch it is not a more immersive and comprehensive simulator than Silent Hunter 3 was), this review is of the 1.1 version.

Installation

…takes forever! I realise there are probably a lot of compressed textures on that DVD but, my god! The only thing I have ever known be more scary was opening the Monkey Island II box to see 11 (e-l-e-v-e-n) floppy disks inside it… You are treated to a few nice screens from the sim during the installation though, which is nice. I decided not to install “GameShadow” as although it probably is the best way to ensure the sim stays up-to-date, I am expecting Silent Hunter 4 may get just as many community made modifications as Silent Hunter 3 did, in which case, I don’t want my installation broken because GameShadow decided to update the sim for me.

Menus/User Interface/Settings/Graphics

When you first run the sim of course the first thing you see is the intro sequence which, to be honest, seems weird. It is very artistic and I love that the Silent Hunter 3 and 4 titles had good enough graphics to have the intro video produced from them, but it still seems weird. Maybe it’s the voice of the person reading the poetry? You can see the intro sequence (which remember, is all in-sim graphics) below…

One thing that really annoys me lately are loading times (58 seconds on my machine between the intro sequence and the main menu). Why is it that this sim decided to show me an intro sequence, THEN load what it needs to display the main menu to me? Why can’t a low priority pre-load kick in during the intro sequence? Sure, after the first few times you see it, that intro sequence is going to get skipped, but it’d be nice, wouldn’t it? Na, I guess I’m being silly, nobody will watch the intro more than once…

The first place I went to (and any other player should go to) is the options screen. You are able to modify sound, graphics and gameplay options there. My resolution wasn’t properly implemented so I had to go and switch for a widescreen resolution in the graphics menu, other than that the default settings seem pretty good but below you can see what I set my options to to test the sim.

The museum is normally the section on the menu I would use to setup my graphics but the problem I had with how I setup the menus was that, it looked crap. Right from the off, Silent Hunter 4 was less graphically impressive than Silent Hunter 3 and was so dark by default that for the first time ever with this laptop, I needed to adjust gamma settings! After sorting out my options and finally getting SH4 looking any good whatsoever, I took a look around the available models in the museum. I was surprised to see that there are things in the museum that don’t work (did this make it past the beta testers?) such as “survivors”. Along with that slight problem, the menu system for the museum is extremely annoying and completely lacks even a pinch of user friendly design.

It was while running the submarine school that I found myself becoming increasingly frustrated at Silent Hunter 4 again as you are taken throught he familiar guides as seen in Silent Hunter 3 of navigation, defense (flak and anti-aircraft guns), torpedo attack and of course a full convoy attack. The school was great, but my main frustrations came from the graphics settings I had to sort out before I could complete any tasks… How can it be that Silent Hunter 3 simply installs and runs - and runs perfect, yet Silent Hunter 4 requires a massive amount of work on my part playing with settings before I finally settle on something that frankly doesn’t look as good as Silent Hunter 3 to me? Why is it that the best resolution textures look washed out? Why is it that the game looks better to me with less features turned on?

Moving into the career section, I setup my profile and obviously want an easy ride first time around, so I give myself 5000 renown… If only I had known how little time that would actually last me! I started off based at Pearl Harbor and after a little movie giving some background on the progress of the war, I was put forward into “the office.”

Just like in Silent Hunter 3, the office is your base of operations, you click on the submarine on the desk to fit your sub’ with new equipment, you click the picture of your crew to dismiss/promote etc. It is fairly straightforward except now, different to Silent Hunter 3, this section is huge. Obviously in the two years between 1939 and 1941, submarining progressed a long way, because the American’s had much more arms at their disposal than the German’s did in ‘39 (when Silent Hunter 3 begins). The crew section alone is where I spent all of my 5000 starting renown (renown is a figure awarded to you based on performance and you “buy” crew and upgrades with it). Before the mission begins you are once again given some background on your mission, which as you can see, can be very different to the missions available in Silent Hunter 3. I do like also that with some missions you are given the choice of whether you want to start inside or outside the harbour.

Now at this point I should say that, if you have a legal copy of the sim and would like to use a cd crack (a replacement “exe” file that allows you to not have to use your DVD and keep it safe), don’t do. When you use a cracked exe, the copy protection causes some very strange bugs that Ubisoft say they will not correct. Here are some shots I took of the crew while trying a cracked exe:

At first the User Interface in the submarine can be a little confusing and doesn’t seem too friendly, but after some time you do get used to it and the layout I now prefer over Silent Hunter 3. What I don’t understand is why the User Interface is full of bugs and has a really huge lack of features, especially when (once again) Silent Hunter 3 made them available. For example, if you want to raise the periscope a little, you can’t do it from the menu, you have to use Pg Up and Pg Dn, when you accelerate to the maximum time on the map, the figure of acceleration leaps out of it’s placement box and onto the map! These are little bugs that show me that either the beta test team was too small, or the developer was rushed…

Command Room:

Map, Periscope, Radar, Sonar:

Bridge:

Deck Gun, Flak Gun:

Weather:

Submarine Management, External Camera:

Running a mission in a career is one of the most wonderful things about the Silent Hunter series. If you manage to get immersed into the sim and keep up with when things happen it’s also extremely educational. I found myself learning the Pacific area map fairly quickly and that’s great because I frankly had no idea where things were. I also found myself taking note of what happened, and when, because it’s obviously an excellent lesson on World War II.

Before each mission you get your briefing and choice of start location. After that, you’re placed in your Submarine.

With Silent Hunter 4, there are a number of new things, but it is essentially the same as Silent Hunter 3 in terms of gameplay. First thing I noticed on leaving port was the anchor icon at the top right, which allows you to auto dock at the base closest to you (you can’t do the trick you did with SH3 where you’d be able to dock while in enemy waters anymore, you have to sail all the way home too!) First thing you have to do is set your route, then you can sit back and relax…

When you are at your location and on “hunt”, that’s when things really get interesting. There is a series of screenshots below of a ship sinking, a new addition to Silent Hunter 4 is “survivors”, although it doesn’t work for me yet (in version 1.0 or 1.1), you can rescue them if you want. Shortly before the ship explodes, the moving figures on the deck of the ship actually fall over and die… I laughed when I first saw it! Also, there is visible 3D damage, in a shot below you can see a huge hole in the side of the ship…

The survivors are not just coming from the ships, they also come from the air. In the screenshots below you can see that an ejected pilot floats in the water waiting for rescue…

So there you have it. Silent Hunter 4 is SH3 with a lot of added features and obviously a different theatre of war. While it is extremely enjoyable to play, it is extremely hurtful to see it all dissapear when the sim crashes back to the desktop and you had forgotten to save it. It is a better sim than Silent Hunter 3 but right now you cannot see the pretty graphics through the fog of frustration…

Issues

The simulation really doesn’t like to be alt-tabbed (minimised). It crashes very, very often and I find this troubling because Silent Hunter 3 didn’t have that problem. Once when I tried to minimise the graphics options menu after taking a screenshot, the entire system locked up the instant I pressed the Alt key. Upon reboot my system couldn’t even detect my external USB Creative Soundblaster Live! (which was a bit of a concern). I had to unplug the device, plug it back in and then reinstall the drivers… I often minimise things and it’ll be difficult to remember not to do it here. I assume the bug here is with my soundcard but it’s astonishing this wasn’t picked up on in beta testing. With the 1.1 patch you also crash out of the game by pressing “A” and sometimes the sim crashes when you have done nothing wrong at all.

By default the simulation does not recognise that I have a widescreen monitor and proudly sets resolution of 1024×768px, 4:3 on my 1920×1200px, 16:10 (or 8:5 as it is in the sims graphics menu) resolution monitor. This can be changed but it’s certainly a little weird that it isn’t put on an 8:5 ratio when it is able to detect you have an 8:5 ratio monitor. The really strange thing is that reading the Ubisoft forums I found that the game was designed and built around a resolution of 1024×768, just like Silent Hunter 3 was… When you change the resolution above 1024×768, only the User Interface changes, the sim simply “stretches”… With Silent Hunter 3 you had no option of higher resolutions and there was a reason: The sim looks worse at higher resolutions, not better, and it is the same with Silent Hunter 4 - so why give us the option?!

Final Thoughts

A bug ridden piece of software at the moment that lacks any improvement over Silent Hunter 3 except some new mission types and better graphics (if you are able to configure them properly). The saving grace is that Ubisoft’s Silent Hunter team have a great track record for fixing bugs with their patches and they will most likely get it right in the end, the problem is that I don’t think I should be doing their beta testing for them and pay for the product too. My advice is to enjoy Silent Hunter 3 until the bug reports die down… But if you do decide to go ahead and buy Silent Hunter 4, set the resolution to 1024×768 and save the game regularly because if you don’t, you may just lose it over, and over, and over again…

Running Silent Hunter 4 on a Dell XPS Gen 2/M170:

1. Set your desktop resolution to a 4:3 ratio, such as 1024×768px (*not needed for window mode).
2. Ensure desktop scaling is enabled (if it is, you will see black bars at the left and right side, *not needed for window mode).
3. Run Silent Hunter 4 and setup the graphics options as follows:
      Resolution: 1024×768px (the sim is built to use this resolution)
      Ship 3D Damage: Full
      Character Detail: Full
      Particles Density: Full
      Terrain Objects Density: Full
      Terrain Objects LOD Size: Full
      Gamma: Just right of half way
      Window Mode: Either, but On is more stable (see steps 1 and 2 above also)
      Post Process Filters: Either, whichever you like more
      Full Scene Glare: On
      Light Shafts: On
      Environmental Effects: Off (system can’t handle it)
      3D Ship Wakes: On
      Detailed Wave Ripples: On
      Ship Normal Maps: On
      Ship Caustic Effects: On
      Texture Quality High: On

I think firstly that if Insurance Companies are going to be taking this study seriously, they need to distinguish between racing games like those mentioned and the types of racing games and simulations that are actually available.

I can absolutely understand why the study could be correct. Having played Burnout I can tell you that I thought my reflexes were amazing as I managed to navigate through traffic while travelling much faster than them… and surely that’s the problem? These racing games simulate normal roads, normal roads where there are actually speed limits, normal roads where there are “innocent people” in those other cars you crash into when your reflexes aren’t quite fast enough. Couple that style of racing with the glorified slow-motion replays of every crash titles like Burnout provide you with and it’s easy for someone like me to see the problem.

I do play those types of games, but I also run racing simulations, racing simulations are completely different. There is no traffic heading in the opposite direction, there are no “innocent motorists” and the crashing isn’t glorified. Quite often if you make a mistake and crash in a racing simulation - that’s your race done as your car is wrecked - compare that with the endless supply of wreckable machines “God” supplies you with in the Burnout series.

Eventually if you play games like Burnout you are going to believe that not only are you supremely skilled, you’re also invincible. When you run a racing simulation, such as Grand Prix Legends, NASCAR Racing 2003 Season or the new iRacing.com Motorsport Simulation, the objective is to finish well in the race and that means making as few mistakes as possible, being a clean, smooth driver, being aware of other drivers and giving room to them when they get close to you. It is entirely different.

I have raced many times on games like Burnout and Need for Speed. I once was even commandeered by a work colleague to unlock a license for him on GT3 because he couldn’t do it… Almost every time I raced, I raced those games with my simulation head on, I slowed a lot more than I had to in a “bounce of the walls” style game, I didn’t often put myself in a risky position or crash and even though I may have looked slower I often ended up at the finishing line first.

Back in June 2006 I was lucky enough to be able to drive a Skip Barber 2000 racecar at Lime Rock Park, my only “training” prior to this was done on iRacing.com’s new simulator. I was frightened about being out there on the real track in the real car, I wasn’t crazily confident. Driving a Dodge Neon, Viper and RAM before the Skip Barber 2000 gradually taught me the real world skills I already had locked in my brain from the racing simulations I race on a daily basis. I had 40 minutes of track time and only 10 minutes in did I have one little loss of control - but I caught it. You can actually play these arcade style games like Need for Speed in a realistic manner but the game does not promote this, they promote breaking the speed limit, they promote crashing into “innocent traffic” and they often promote running from the Police. Racing simulations promote being the best driver you can be, being fast on a closed circuit while also maintaining control of the car.

One of my old friends from RSC has been producing a racing simulation. He has released his first two preview videos (that I have seen). Looks great!

The higher staff in RSC has known this for a little while, but finally I get to tell the rest of you! I was approached by FIRST to take up a position of employment with them working on their “new product” and I accepted. This is a dream for me and I never imagined it when I setup a shoddy little website back in April 1999 that turned into this place, (RSC has existed since December 18th 2001 when the forums went online). I can’t say moderating his place has been fun but it has been educational!

I know there will be some comment about this, but I’m really not debating things anymore. However you feel about anybody, I feel I have friends and ‘colleagues’ in sim racing at all quarters, Jure from BHMS, Jan from US Pits among the best of them. Life has been pretty messy with the move to Northern Ireland etc (those of you who have been here from the Legends Central days know how much that site cost both myself and Phil Lee), but to get an offer like this? To work with someone like Dave Kaemmer?

When I was taking my exams at school, my friend Kieron and I went back to his place (I had an Amiga), turned on his PC and ran Indy 500 for a few hours… My life has been racing simulations for 10 years, Dave has been the author of them for 10 years also. RSC is five years old.

My fondest memories in sim racing are back in the days of early Grand Prix Legends, some of you who are still here were here way back then too. I hope you guys get the same feelings about Dave’s latest as I had about GPL way back in 1998.

No matter how you feel, please be happy for me achieving my dream here, good karma says if you do you’ll get yours too.

Tim.