Annual Review: Six Gamepads

When Will Drivers Do The Job?

If you want force feedback, you have to install the drivers. Here I can repeat my complaints about other Saitek products with regard to drivers not certified for XP and complicated installation. But there is worse. The control panel is the same as an Immersion, the force feedback designer. It may be Immersion 2 standard and the force can be adjusted as can recentering, which is a good thing, but calibration does not work properly. By default, the device has two axes. There are many games where this is no problem, but some require the wheel and pedal set to be on a single axis. In this case a single axis can be set in the calibration panel, but doesn't actually work because the brake is not detected. I tried on two different computers and it was the same each time. There is also an image profiler like on the other Saitek gamepads. My view is that the mandatory driver is a lame duck and a good reason not to buy this wheel.

Weird Driving

The new model turns out to be even less precise than the previous one. I don't know if it's due to the driver, but the default setting causes a strange gradual deflection, which makes the wheel imprecise. The force feedback is powerful enough though, and the effects less defined. At $93 (80 euros), this wheel is not too expensive, but I can't honestly recommend it.