Cheap Thrustmaster Force Feedback Racing Wheel , Branded by Ferrari (Electronics) (Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows 95) Price

The box contains the wheel unit and a pedal unit. The wheel comes with a tough, rubber coating that offers a good grip and enough buttons to keep you from having to reach for the keyboard too often during a race. The front of the wheel has two normal buttons and a pair of hat switches within easy reach of your thumbs. The switches can be programmed with up to four commands each. There are also two pairs of paddle switches behind the wheel. The upper pair is best used for shifting, while the bottom pair can be used for anything else you like. There is a "shifter" on the right side of the wheel, but it's a simple switch that can be pushed forward or backward. A good deal of force is required to move the shifter, and it has a nice feel. But don't mistake this glorified pair of extra buttons for a real gated shifter.

The pedals are on a narrow base and are hinged on the top; they feel more like real car pedals than any others we've tested. They also have a lot of travel, making precise throttle and braking modulations possible. Many pedals have so little travel they basically act like an on/off switch. As with most wheels, you only get an accelerator pedal and a brake pedal. There's no clutch. It doesn't really matter, though, as manual-type shifting is impossible with the wheel setup.

A splitter cable gives users the choice of attaching the wheel to either a serial port or a USB (universal serial bus) port. After securing the wheel to our desk using the solid clamping mechanism, we used the USB connection, and Windows immediately recognized the product. We then installed the drivers using the included CD-ROM and were immediately able to use the wheel with our racing games. Guillemot also includes a simple interface for programming the wheel's buttons, but we had better results just using the button-programming features of the games we played to establish unique settings for each software title.

As a pure racing wheel, this product did great in our tests, serving up smooth, precise control in both arcade games like Need for Speed: High Stakes and more realistic simulations like NASCAR Racing 3. Many force-feedback wheels have a dead spot near the wheel's central position, which makes precision turns difficult. This wheel has none of those problems, moving in a perfectly smooth arc from the left stop to the right stop.

The only problem we had with the wheel was with its surprisingly coarse force-feedback effects. Crashes and other major events like being slammed by opponents' vehicles were accompanied by suitably realistic wheel jerks, but the wheel wasn't as good at reproducing more subtle rumbles. Rolling over wooden bridges, hopping small curbs, and getting in minor scrapes often occurred with fewer small thumps than we've found in other wheels we've tested. Still, this Ferrari-branded product provides more accurate steering than many other force-feedback products, so the tradeoff may be worth it. --T. Byrl Baker

Pros:

• Smooth operation
• Plenty of buttons
• USB or serial-port installation
• Quality construction
• Hinged pedals

Cons:

• Few gradations in force-feedback effects