A Simracing Wheel That Works In A GT3?

[Paul Jeffrey]

Recently German sim racing hardware giants Fanatec announced an interesting new collaboration with BMW to develop a replica sim racing wheel... that isn't a replica, but actually works in the real car!

Yes you heard that right, the newly announced BMW Fanatec wheel has been created to work in both the real and virtual world, meaning that for the very first time sim racers will have the opportunity to use hardware on their rigs at home that is identical to the wheel attached to the latest GT3 specification race cars from the Bavarian marque.

The announcement piece from Fanatec got me thinking, with the worlds of real and virtual racing seemingly converging ever closer in recent months, how big is this announcement for our sport? To see a brand as prestigious as BMW engaging with the powerhouse that is Fanatec to produce a crossover piece of hardware like this is something rather incredible, and can only mean exciting things for the future of hardware development at the very highest end of the market.

Think back 10 or even 20 years ago, playing with a plastic wheel on the old Xbox with it tightly pinned onto the sofa by your knees, and how far hardware has travelled in such a short space of time is almost crazy to comprehend.

This announcement, aside from being very, very cool in its own right, is potentially massive for our hobby. BMW themselves consider esport to be a key pillar in their motorsport adventures going forward, both in terms of competitions and hardware, and that extra influx of prestige and obviously exposure can only be a great thing for our community going forward.

Real cars using sim racing wheels, at the top level of international GT racing. Yup. We live in strange but absolutely wonderful times.

Fanatec BMW announcement | Read more HERE.

What do you make of the new announcement? Interested to see how the wheel performs in the real and virtual world? Do you think this is the start of potentially a golden age for sim racing hardware? Let us know in the comments section below!

 

[Nick Hill]

No, I don't like this wheel. I will wait for the limited edition in 24k gold plated.

What, not enough cash for the diamond inlay edition? Plebe!

"It ain't the shoes, Mars".

MJ reference - approve!

 

[Fanatec_Thomas]

Thanks for the great article!

Some have doubts but I can asure you that the wheel you buy in our webshop is exactly the wheel in the car. Including the logos and of course all internals. 100% the same.

Why? Because it cannot get more realistic and also more durable and hardcore than that. It is a statement that you can expect a quality level which is way above the requirements of simracing.

The price will be a huge surprice in the motorsport world. Similar steering wheels are typically 5000 € and that is the true value of this steering wheel.

Just like we did with our other products we came up with ways to bring down the price a lot and deliver unbeatable price performance which is good for motorsport and even competes with similar offerings ( but with less features and lower quality level) on the simracing market .

Thomas

 

[Fanatec_Thomas]

It's just another worrying sign from Fanatec that they've completely abandoned the midrange market that made them so successful.

No need to worry about. We will make more announcements before the end of next month.

We will continue to serve three different target groups:

CSL: Advanced and ambitious simracers on a budget

ClubSport: Hardcore simracers which are looking for an unbeatable price performance on high-end gear

Podium: The best of the best. Leading technology and functionality.

 

[AccAkut]

Some info posted on Simucube board regarding the "real use" of CAN protocol in simulation environment.

Lee bodnar's why current ffb doesn't work 2011 article

Nope, this is just communication protocol between the wheel leds, buttons etc and the wheelbase for them. To get real time system where a CAN protocol could be an important part and an improvement for the force feedback, you would need to ditch Windows also entirely which is not a real time...

community.granitedevices.com

View attachment 425878
View attachment 425879

this really is the answer to the "CAN-Bus" hype. It also shouldn't be too hard to program Arduinos or similar to read it if you wanted to use it on a diferent no supported wheelbase (this sort of homebrew system has been used for year in the car builder/tuner scene, even your lowbob Megasquirt can read CAN Bus these days).

@Fanatec_Thomas
Yeah, but it's missing midrange and entry level. "Advanced" is not mid range.

 

[DrRob]

Honestly, sometimes I don't understand the sim racing community. Am I that far off?

For me immersion is the most important part of the hobby. The wheel is one of the few input devices I have to manipulate the virtual race car on the virtual track.

I turned to highly skilled artisans of the community to get a replica wheel of a real racing car.
Why? Superior strength/rigidity, top class materials and buttons/switches as well as original dimensions of a real size wheel.

Now a larger producer of well established sim racing equipment reveals the release of a real life racing wheel (the real deal I understand) for the sim racing market and everybody is boo-boo?
Hilarious.

Maybe if a different company would have released the same wheel the reception would be different?
Is the Fanatec crowd not the correct audience?

Personally I would hope I could also use this wheel with non-Fanatec equipment (USB-corded, quick release). I really like the approach and the product itself. I would imagine that if you produce the wheel in a larger quantity, this could be good value for price IF you want some kind of realism in your sim rig.

 

[Paul Glover]

It's just another worrying sign from Fanatec that they've completely abandoned the midrange market that made them so successful.

Is it?

If you look at Tesla, they did the high end stuff first to help them make the Model 3. Might be what Fanatec are trying to do a bit more of? Bring in more cash to help with overall product development.

 

[GagarynGaribaldi]

My experience with Podium products hasn't been great.

Fanatec marketing is ambitious and the products look good on paper but the reality is quite different. For Example -They launched intelligent telemetry a year ago to utilise the Oled displays the podium bases and the endurance button module a year ago (last years halo product) and it still barely works to the extent that the official advice is not to use it - just stick to the Fanatec logo.

My DD2 hasn't worked properly for months - wheel constantly losing connection and freezing. I'm on my third RMA now in 18 months - this time the wheelbase itself has had to go back - sent it two weeks ago and still heard nothing - I have doubts whether it will be back this year. Dealing with support is painful - the reps are helpful but clearly rushed off their feet - takes ages for each ticket to be picked up then even longer to reach a solution - each email isn't replied to until one or two days later

Endless beta software releases that never fix long standing problems - for the last 12 months the only way to use some hardware was to use beta software - no official releases worked. The infamous FFB clunks still exist but according to forum reports they have temporarily stopped trying to fix them and have moved the flawed beta firmware to full release anyway.

I can't help thinking that introducing a new product into an ecosystem with longstanding software issues isn't going to help things - their software developers are already clearly stretched beyond their limits.

I admire Thomas' ambition but more investment is urgently needed in the support and software side of the business - releasing new products without solid and reliable software and support is not sustainable. I can't imagine that tis new wheel will not also have similar issues.

 

[PegaMixel]

This is not even the first time Fanatec equiped an actual Race car with one of their wheels. Back in 2015 they had the GT-R LM Nismo equiped with one of their F1 carbon wheels.

 

[Ciccina2016]

No need for any of this when you drive in VR, you always drive the exact wheel of the car you are driving.
And they say VR is expensive! Amateur's!

Indeed.. using VR and wearing gloves... what is the point ?

 

[TRASGU]

I don't like it, for a home enviroment:

-It is oversized. 310mm is too big and will make more difficult to correct mistakes
-Overbuilt. Nobody needs a steering wheel able to resist forces that not even the strongest direct drive servo can't output in a crash
-Overenginered. Who the heck needs CAN bus in a home simulator?, it won't reduce the lag at all, and nobody would notice any difference between a serial protocol and a CAN one, it is just marketing, and also windows, macos and linux are not RTOS (real time operative system). So who cares what hardware anybody have, the OS will introduce quite a lot more lag than any lag comming from any comunication protocol.

The carbon fiber construction is absurd, adds quite a lot in costs as it has to be manufactured in a highly manual and labour intensive process. As simracers at most we only would need an small substructure made in cast aluminium just to add stiffness feel to the steering wheel at a cheap price without increasing weight by a lot, and then the carcass of the steering wheel can be coated with hydro dipping carbon fiber vinyl as some people does to their aluminium rims, and it feel very realistic.

-Overpriced. The quality of the materials, the licensing, the real life structural strenght needed, the carbon fiber construction, the fact that it can't be manufactured in mass cheapening the costs, none of us need any of that, but it skyrockets the cost and sinks the availability of the product up to such a point that it keeps the never ending trend of making this hobby obscenely expensive.

Lack of controls. It is a real life steering wheel, but it lacks controls because those are in the cockpit of the real car, I hate button boxes, modern sim wheels should have almost F1 amounts of rotarys and buttons. This steering wheel has a right amount of buttons, but lacks rotarys. Nowadays we are living a never ending increase in buttons and rotarys in every simulator on the market.
3 rotarys does not cut it at all in 2020, just in ACC with GT3 cars You need 6 rotarys: 1 for ECU MAP, 1 for ABS, 1 for TC1, 1 for TC2, another for brake balance, and would be nice to have other 2 to control the car high and low beam in just 1 rotary and the wipers speeds (yes, ACC allows it).

-Also, and it is just only my personal taste, but I find that steering wheel ugly as a sin.

I would kill for a officialy licensed F1 steering wheel from any team competing in this season championship with a functional real size color display compatible with simhub, and all the buttons and rotarys functional (the micro displays tha fanatec incudes in their wheels are useless), all the buttons and paddles made in reasonable cheap materials but with the same springs/magnets/kind of sensors as the real steering wheel to have the same feeling when using the controls as in the real car, and home enviroment grade electronics. The carbon fiber construction, real life internal electronics and conectors, and the overprice that comes with all that it isn't needed at all, it just adds costs and doesn't add nothing to the user experience, except bragging rights.

 

[G-Slev]

My immediate thought when I heard about this was "okay, I can use my simracing wheel in a GT3, but why?". I struggle to understand why it is a USP. I don't, and never will, own a GT3. I doubt BMW will lend me one for a track day to test it out.

It also has the aesthetics of a Bratwurst, and I doubt it will be cheap.

It's like buying flame retardant boots and gloves for simracing.

It's a pass from me.

 

[RichardHessels]

I don't like it, for a home enviroment:

-It is oversized. 310mm is too big and will make more difficult to correct mistakes
-Overbuilt. Nobody needs a steering wheel able to resist forces that not even the strongest direct drive servo can't output in a crash
-Overenginered. Who the heck needs CAN bus in a home simulator?, it won't reduce the lag at all, and nobody would notice any difference between a serial protocol and a CAN one, it is just marketing, and also windows, macos and linux are not RTOS (real time operative system). So who cares what hardware anybody have, the OS will introduce quite a lot more lag than any lag comming from any comunication protocol.

The carbon fiber construction is absurd, adds quite a lot in costs as it has to be manufactured in a highly manual and labour intensive process. As simracers at most we only would need an small substructure made in cast aluminium just to add stiffness feel to the steering wheel at a cheap price without increasing weight by a lot, and then the carcass of the steering wheel can be coated with hydro dipping carbon fiber vinyl as some people does to their aluminium rims, and it feel very realistic.

-Overpriced. The quality of the materials, the licensing, the real life structural strenght needed, the carbon fiber construction, the fact that it can't be manufactured in mass cheapening the costs, none of us need any of that, but it skyrockets the cost and sinks the availability of the product up to such a point that it keeps the never ending trend of making this hobby obscenely expensive.

Lack of controls. It is a real life steering wheel, but it lacks controls because those are in the cockpit of the real car, I hate button boxes, modern sim wheels should have almost F1 amounts of rotarys and buttons. This steering wheel has a right amount of buttons, but lacks rotarys. Nowadays we are living a never ending increase in buttons and rotarys in every simulator on the market.
3 rotarys does not cut it at all in 2020, just in ACC with GT3 cars You need 6 rotarys: 1 for ECU MAP, 1 for ABS, 1 for TC1, 1 for TC2, another for brake balance, and would be nice to have other 2 to control the car high and low beam in just 1 rotary and the wipers speeds (yes, ACC allows it).

-Also, and it is just only my personal taste, but I find that steering wheel ugly as a sin.

I would kill for a officialy licensed F1 steering wheel from any team competing in this season championship with a functional real size color display compatible with simhub, and all the buttons and rotarys functional (the micro displays tha fanatec incudes in their wheels are useless), all the buttons and paddles made in reasonable cheap materials but with the same springs/magnets/kind of sensors as the real steering wheel to have the same feeling when using the controls as in the real car, and home enviroment grade electronics. The carbon fiber construction, real life internal electronics and conectors, and the overprice that comes with all that it isn't needed at all, it just adds costs and doesn't add nothing to the user experience, except bragging rights.

You could have just said you don't like it.

 

[Kayumi]

After reading all of the comments written so far I have to admit Im quite sad

People want the most realistic setup they can possibly buy and complain about a steering wheel which can be used in a real GT3 car.

Sim Racing in general is a rather expensive hobby, so not every product on the market will be affordable for everyone, ofc we can blame the manufactures, but we also have to blame ourselves for buying that high end stuff.
There is a market, otherwise guys like Fanatec, GD etc. wouldn't produce such products.

I really don't know where the negativity comes from most of you guys...

 

[Gadaga]

No need for any of this when you drive in VR, you always drive the exact wheel of the car you are driving.
And they say VR is expensive! Amateur's!

Fully agree... Fancy wheels with displays and buttons are off no use in VR. You can't see it so you would have difficulty to find the buttons and read the selected turning button settings. So this is total overkill.
And in any case, using a BMW wheel in any other car makes it weird as other cars have other wheels...

 

[Mr Latte]

I like it but its rpice when bou

I don't like it, for a home enviroment:

-It is oversized. 310mm is too big and will make more difficult to correct mistakes
-Overbuilt. Nobody needs a steering wheel able to resist forces that not even the strongest direct drive servo can't output in a crash
-Overenginered. Who the heck needs CAN bus in a home simulator?, it won't reduce the lag at all, and nobody would notice any difference between a serial protocol and a CAN one, it is just marketing, and also windows, macos and linux are not RTOS (real time operative system). So who cares what hardware anybody have, the OS will introduce quite a lot more lag than any lag comming from any comunication protocol.

The carbon fiber construction is absurd, adds quite a lot in costs as it has to be manufactured in a highly manual and labour intensive process. As simracers at most we only would need an small substructure made in cast aluminium just to add stiffness feel to the steering wheel at a cheap price without increasing weight by a lot, and then the carcass of the steering wheel can be coated with hydro dipping carbon fiber vinyl as some people does to their aluminium rims, and it feel very realistic.

-Overpriced. The quality of the materials, the licensing, the real life structural strenght needed, the carbon fiber construction, the fact that it can't be manufactured in mass cheapening the costs, none of us need any of that, but it skyrockets the cost and sinks the availability of the product up to such a point that it keeps the never ending trend of making this hobby obscenely expensive.

Lack of controls. It is a real life steering wheel, but it lacks controls because those are in the cockpit of the real car, I hate button boxes, modern sim wheels should have almost F1 amounts of rotarys and buttons. This steering wheel has a right amount of buttons, but lacks rotarys. Nowadays we are living a never ending increase in buttons and rotarys in every simulator on the market.
3 rotarys does not cut it at all in 2020, just in ACC with GT3 cars You need 6 rotarys: 1 for ECU MAP, 1 for ABS, 1 for TC1, 1 for TC2, another for brake balance, and would be nice to have other 2 to control the car high and low beam in just 1 rotary and the wipers speeds (yes, ACC allows it).

-Also, and it is just only my personal taste, but I find that steering wheel ugly as a sin.


I would kill for a officialy licensed F1 steering wheel from any team competing in this season championship with a functional real size color display compatible with simhub, and all the buttons and rotarys functional (the micro displays tha fanatec incudes in their wheels are useless), all the buttons and paddles made in reasonable cheap materials but with the same springs/magnets/kind of sensors as the real steering wheel to have the same feeling when using the controls as in the real car, and home enviroment grade electronics. The carbon fiber construction, real life internal electronics and conectors, and the overprice that comes with all that it isn't needed at all, it just adds costs and doesn't add nothing to the user experience, except bragging rights.

Well thank you for that overview:

This is an example of people on the internet who know best about in this case a product having never used it, felt it, or seen it other than what's been briefly shared.

Scenario :

Fanatec team up to produce a wheel rim for the new GT3 BMW race car
They innovate, make its controls and LEDs compatible with CAN but also with PC software
The size and shape, as well as contours of the rim, are fit for purpose for the real racer but compliment the functionality of the sim gamer. It brings a new look to its carbon construction and even a hidden D-Pad with improved quality controls.

To recap, Logitech are not bringing you this, nor Thrustmaster and both are much larger companies than Fanatec. Some credit is perhaps due and not continued bashing or criticisms. Congratulations to Fanatec I say for making it not only possible but producing something new, exciting, remarkable, and quite incredible if the price can be similar to other rival sim gear.

Gees, this is a cool product and will be of interest to lots of Fanatec DD owners as well as help convince some to go with the Fanatec ecosystem.

I just hope in 2021 they plan to release the Playstation compatible wheelbase as a standalone item but is an official Gran Turismo wheel rim/base coming?

 

[Marcel Pfister]

I don't like it, for a home enviroment:

-It is oversized. 310mm is too big and will make more difficult to correct mistakes
-Overbuilt. Nobody needs a steering wheel able to resist forces that not even the strongest direct drive servo can't output in a crash
-Overenginered. Who the heck needs CAN bus in a home simulator?, it won't reduce the lag at all, and nobody would notice any difference between a serial protocol and a CAN one, it is just marketing, and also windows, macos and linux are not RTOS (real time operative system). So who cares what hardware anybody have, the OS will introduce quite a lot more lag than any lag comming from any comunication protocol.

The carbon fiber construction is absurd, adds quite a lot in costs as it has to be manufactured in a highly manual and labour intensive process. As simracers at most we only would need an small substructure made in cast aluminium just to add stiffness feel to the steering wheel at a cheap price without increasing weight by a lot, and then the carcass of the steering wheel can be coated with hydro dipping carbon fiber vinyl as some people does to their aluminium rims, and it feel very realistic.

-Overpriced. The quality of the materials, the licensing, the real life structural strenght needed, the carbon fiber construction, the fact that it can't be manufactured in mass cheapening the costs, none of us need any of that, but it skyrockets the cost and sinks the availability of the product up to such a point that it keeps the never ending trend of making this hobby obscenely expensive.

Lack of controls. It is a real life steering wheel, but it lacks controls because those are in the cockpit of the real car, I hate button boxes, modern sim wheels should have almost F1 amounts of rotarys and buttons. This steering wheel has a right amount of buttons, but lacks rotarys. Nowadays we are living a never ending increase in buttons and rotarys in every simulator on the market.
3 rotarys does not cut it at all in 2020, just in ACC with GT3 cars You need 6 rotarys: 1 for ECU MAP, 1 for ABS, 1 for TC1, 1 for TC2, another for brake balance, and would be nice to have other 2 to control the car high and low beam in just 1 rotary and the wipers speeds (yes, ACC allows it).

-Also, and it is just only my personal taste, but I find that steering wheel ugly as a sin.

I would kill for a officialy licensed F1 steering wheel from any team competing in this season championship with a functional real size color display compatible with simhub, and all the buttons and rotarys functional (the micro displays tha fanatec incudes in their wheels are useless), all the buttons and paddles made in reasonable cheap materials but with the same springs/magnets/kind of sensors as the real steering wheel to have the same feeling when using the controls as in the real car, and home enviroment grade electronics. The carbon fiber construction, real life internal electronics and conectors, and the overprice that comes with all that it isn't needed at all, it just adds costs and doesn't add nothing to the user experience, except bragging rights.

Doesn't it offer 5 rotaries and not 3? + 16 other button inputs and a d-pad.

 

[CrimsonEminence]

This is not even the first time Fanatec equiped an actual Race car with one of their wheels. Back in 2015 they had the GT-R LM Nismo equiped with one of their F1 carbon wheels.

It's likely for an exhibition model.

This is more like it:

 

[PegaMixel]

Watch the sarcasm.

 

[Nevini]

mod-edit: removed

 

[Jens Roos]

Not Fanatec owner at all but it seems they now come up with an high quality steering wheel, using 5 rotaries and many of the inputs using hall sensors, strong material and what I would assume, upgraded quick release. If this one is the exact same as for the GT3 car it should be FIA approved as well.

Many forum threads complains about quality problem (not uncommon for volume consumer level products), or use of "cheap" materials/constructions in their wheel and now there is an high end product to select from if that is what you looking for, just peel of the emblem and use it for any car .

Must call it innovative to make the electronics for the steering wheel CAN bus compatible and could open up for 3rd party to create an USB/CAN interface (Arduino is one DIY choice). However, today it's not uncommon that CAN packages are encrypted (by the car manufacture) so it might not be an easy task to implement if this is the case.