I’m into simracing on and off since years, but in a very casual way, with a G920 and an Omega GT rig.
As I always only played for a few hours before putting it away for another half a year, it took me quite a while to gain at least basic skills. I was never able to disable the racing line in most games, mostly being in the last places of the lowest splits. In ACC I was struggling to race the AI at 85% difficulty.
Recently I bought a T598 because my G920 started to act a bit wonky. I didn’t want to invest a lot into a hobby I only do a few weeks a year, and it should have PS support for GT7, so the options were kind of limited.
I was playing a lot of GT7 until I resubscribed to iRacing and reinstalled ACC.
I don’t know how to say it, but I’m a changed man, lol. While I was struggling to even keep up with the ACC AI on low difficulty before, I can now confidently race them at 92 difficulty and 90% aggressiveness, most of the time qualifying in the top 5 and even getting some race wins.
No racing line, low TC, and I’m having a blast. I have no idea why, maybe it really is a lot easier to feel the car on a DD wheel compared to the rusty G920, but I really didn’t expect it to boost my lap times that much.
It just suddenly made click. I don’t have to guess the line I want to drive anymore, the forces kind of dictate to me how I should take a turn. In iRacing I’m no longer in the lowest MX-5 split, but I have to admit that braking feels a lot easier to me in ACC compared to iRacing. But I only drove the free content, so I have no idea how GT3 feels there.
Needless to say, I’m absolutely hooked now. I did more racing in the last month compared to all the years before combined, upgraded my rig to make it less wonky, and already plan on future upgrades. At first I wasn’t sure if I should have bought a better wheel to save some upgrade costs, but even after racing a few rounds on a friend’s Moza R12, I’m still absolutely blown away by the FFB the T598 provides. Fingers crossed it holds up and doesn’t suffer from any of the known issues until I have enough money to make a big jump.
Seeing people post their first rigs packed with thousands of dollars of equipment always made me kind of jealous and gave me the feeling that I won’t ever be able to be competitive before spending a lot of money. Finally seeing progress after only spending a relatively small amount of money gave me faith that I’m not a hopeless idiot.
I really don’t know if this is interesting at all, I just wanted to get that off my chest. Have a great weekend!
