Thrustmaster TX Wheel - My Thoughts So Far - UPDATED 1/5/14

UPDATE (1/5/14):

So, I have spent many more hours since Friday morning with my TX wheel.  Here are some additional thoughts, mostly good, but a few not so good.

First, I spent a lot of time this weekend with the F1 rim.  This works very well, although as I note below under some not so good thoughts, I wonder whether the rim changes cause some problems that will hopefully be addressed in a future firmware update and/or game update.  Anyway, with regard to the good, I was able to use the F1 rim for several open wheelers, including the Lotus F1 car and the IndyCar.  There is a feature on wheel that allows you to change the degrees of rotation and I was able to do that.  270 works perfectly for the F1, 360 for the Indycar and prototypes.  The FFB is amazing and definitely on par with the FFB and physics in F1 2013 for PC.  The control was so sharp that I was able to best a rivals time from one of the fastest Forza 5 racers on the planet, our very own Sarcasmo Jones.  In sum, if open wheel is your thing, the F1 rim is a required option.

I also tried the stock pedals.  They are adequate.  I found that left foot braking was required, so that the pedal set would not move around as much.  The brake pedal has more resistance than the stock pedal set with the M$ wireless racing wheel, but it still lacks the progressive resistance you get with the Clubsport pedals or the T500RS pedals with a mod, such as the excellent Basherboards mod.  The stock pedals are not comparable to the Clubsports or the T500RS pedals.  Use them if you must.

I also hooked up the wheel and did more iRacing.  The FFB in iRacing is quite good, but not as powerful as the FFB generated by the Clubsport wheel, CSR Elite or the T500RS.  I could not feel the rumble strips in iRacing as much as I expected.  I was able to feel when the wheels would break loose and there is nice FFB on the turns, particularly the sharper turns.  For the money, the TX is a very good option, particularly with the GTE rim, but I hesitate to recommend it over the T500RS.  If you have the choice and iRacing is your thing, go with the T500RS.  

Finishing with the other good, I will say that the TX wheel is obviously fine tuned for Forza 5.  The FFB and physics in Forza 5 with the TX wheel are some of the best in all of sim racing.  Its too bad that the TX has such widespread reliability issues, since it performs so well in Forza 5 when it is working.  I honestly believe that Turn 10 and M$ has developed some sort of "next gen" FFB system in the TX.  It feels that good.  The TX performs better in Forza 5 than iRacing, but that is to be expected, just as the T500RS performs better in GT6 than it does in iRacing IMO.  I am buying the marketing regarding the "official" wheels for Forza 5 and GT5 and GT6.  

The bad news is that I have experienced some instances where the wheel would not calibrate after I turn it off, change a rim and then turn it back on.  It seems to be related to rim changes, some of which I tried while still in game.  I experienced two instances where the wheel would not calibrate at all where it essentially was "bricked".  I unhooked it and let it sit for a while and it fired up later.  My speculation is that this is either related to rim changes, or possibly the controller incompatibility issue.  For now, it seems to not occur if I exit the game, power down the wheel, disconnect the wheel, change the rim and then re-connect and fire the wheel back up.

My advice is that if you are going to use this as your primary wheel, wait until Thrustmaster does some more firmware updating.  I knew going in that there were some issues with the wheel and so the problems did not cause me any significant consternation.  If you are OK with some troubleshooting, then go ahead and essentially "beta test" this wheel along with me and the other TX owners out there.  The experience in Forza 5 when the wheel is working, particularly with modded T500RS pedals, will make the hassle more than worth it.

Let me know if you have any follow up questions.  I hope these comments are helpful.

INITIAL THOUGHTS (1/3/14):

I received my Thrustmaster TX wheel and pedal set last night.  I also received a Thrustmaster GTE rim.  I previously had bought a Thrustmaster F1 rim.  Here are my thoughts after a couple of hours of setting it up and running it.

First, I ordered the TX from Beach Audio via their ebay store.  Total was $348, with free shipping.  Well, free it was.  I won't complain about the 10 days from the time I ordered until the time I received my wheel.  With the holidays, it could have been worse.  What I will complain about is the fact that they shipped the wheel in the Thrustmaster box, with no outer box, like I have always seen with my Fanatec stuff.  Whats up with that?  By the time I got the wheel, the Thrustmaster box was totaled.  It has a huge rip on one side.  I know they gave me a great price, but at least they could have put the wheel in an outer cardboard box to better take the rigors that come with shipment.  Lucky for me, the wheel sustained no apparent damage.

As far as initial impressions go, the base is indeed smaller than the T500 base, which is a good thing for my small home office.  The pedals appear better than I have read.  Yes, they are plastic, but they are not light, and the pedals have metal faces, with at least some resistance.  The rim is completely plastic and is quite small, IMO too small.  It also feels light and to be candid, cheap.  The GTE rim feels much better.  It is mostly metal, heavier than the stock rim and it has a good quality rubber coating on the exterior, much like the stock rim with the T500.

Set up was cake, but to be fair, I have owned a Thrustmaster wheel and pedal set for a while now, the T500, and so I was familiar with the process of installing the driver, connecting the wheel and then updating the firmware.  I also read the firmware installation instructions ahead of time just in case there were quirks.  The process went fine.  I installed the driver on my gaming PC, connected the wheel when prompted and then I updated the firmware.  Easy peasy.  If you follow the directions, and your wheel and PC are working correctly, the set up should be easy.

So, once the wheel was ready to rock and roll, I connected it to my Xbox One.  I am currently using the T500 pedals with the Basherboards brake mod.  I only used the wheel with Forza 5 on my Xbox One.  This weekend I will try the wheel on my PC with iRacing.  I will also try out the stock pedals.  I will post some follow up comments this weekend.

The stock rim was a quick turn off and so I quickly changed to the much higher end and better feeling GTE rim.  I did some adjustments to the settings, as recommended in some posts and threads over at fm.net.  I basically got rid of all inside deadzone.  I also played with the FFB setting and ultimately settled on 95 out of 100.  That is probably too high for most folks, but I like a lot of force feedback.  I also played with the degrees of rotation ("DOR") settings.  The wheel allows for on wheel DOR adjustment.  You simply press the d pad to the left and at the same time hit the "mode" button.  The key is the flashing of a red light next to the mode button.  One flash = 270 degrees, two flashes = 360 degrees, three flashes = 540 degrees and four flashes = 900 degrees.  Very simple.  

As far as FFB in Forza 5, the wheel is amazing.  The FFB is powerful and smooth.  It is as smooth, if not more smooth than any other wheel I have ever used.  It also is diverse.  I can feel when the wheels get loose, I can detect rough road surface, including the cobblestone parts of Prague and I am even able to counter-steer.  The FFB is different from car to car, the Abarth feels very different than the Camaro, which feels very different than the class McLaren F1 car.  That makes perfect sense.  The FFB reveals that Forza 5 physics are really quite good.  To get the best feeling FFB, I needed to adjust the DOR to be more accurate for the car.  Lets just say that 900 DOR is not good for the class F1 car.  Rather, I needed to adjust it to 270.  For you PC sim racers, I would say that FFB and physics with this wheel and Forza 5 are comparable to Assetto Corsa.

The T500 pedals work perfectly.  I just connected them to the pedal port on the TX and away we went.  It is interesting to me that the pedal set for the official wheel of Gran Turismo, the T500RS, works with the official wheel for Forza 5.  

Overall, I can heartily recommend this wheel to any Forza 5 fan.  I know there are reliability issues and if history is my guide, my wheel will crap out when I get home tonight and fire it up.    But, while its working, and particularly if you add the GTE rim and either T500 or upcoming T3PA pedals, it is as good as any other moderately priced wheel option out there.

I will post some additional comments once I play with the wheel on the PC in iRacing and once I hook up the stock pedals and take them for a spin.  I also will try out the F1 rim on it and give some thoughts about how that feels with the F1 and IndyCars in Forza 5.