As someone who’s taken an Audi R8 around Ascari racetrack, I’ve always been a little sceptical of even the best racing wheels. I’ve always felt that they’re slightly disconnected from giving the realistic force-feedback that I feel makes virtual racing come alive. Then I tried the new Logitech G RS50 racing sim kit.
This unassuming combination of a button-festooned racing steering wheel, wheelbase unit, and accelerator and brake pedal combo has a whole host of tech that makes this setup feel closer to a F1 Simulator – something I’ve tried, and failed at miserably.
While I’ll admit that I’m not the biggest player of serious racing games – I'll take the arcade nature of Forza Horizon 5 over Gran Turismo 7, though I appreciate the latter’s obsession with automotive realism - the RS50 kit impressed me with its handling of feedback.
First off, the feedback to the steering wheel is provided by a direct-drive motor in the wheelbase unit. This means that haptic feedback is not delivered via a series of gears connected to a small motor, but rather directly from the motor, enabling a full 8Nm of torque to be delivered to the steering wheel.
And you can certainly feel it. Trying out the system with Forza Motorsport, and I could feel how the wheels were behaving and how some of the torque was loading up on them as I approached each corner. I also got an intimate feel for the kerbs as I clipped them more than I’d care to admit, as well as the gravel as I overcooked far too many corners and came off the track.
At times, the feedback from the wheel felt like it was starting to work my arm muscles, with moments where I had to really contend with the torque, wrenching the wheel round in opposite lock to try and get myself out of an impending crash.
Some of this could have been avoided if I had made better use of the pedals.
Not only does a hall-effect mechanism on the accelerator allow for precise modulation of the pedal, but the load-cell brake, which uses the same pressure-sensing tech found in bathyspheres, can detect the amount of pressure applied to the pedal and make for much more modular and progressive braking.
As someone who’s always struggled with getting the braking right in serious racing games, this was a bit of a boon, letting me tap the pedal to kill some speed going into a corner or really put on the automotive anchors when I lost control of the car and flew towards the wall of the circuit.
Add in all Logitech G’s Trueforce, which goes beyond normal haptics and offers tighter integration into a game’s physics and audio systems to provide a deeper level of physical and aural feedback, and the experience is complete.
As such, when I messed up in Forza Motorsport I couldn't really blame the gear, as the RS50 felt spot on with reading my inputs and feeding back an almost overwhelming amount of force, both subtle and sledgehammer-like.
Despite being a rather solid driver in the real world (in my humble opinion), my skill in sim racing, or lack thereof, got thoroughly humbled, though I enjoyed every moment using the RS50.
Customization meets quality
I didn’t dig into all the customization tools and features that the system enables, from being able to display straightforward data like engine revs to showing torque levels, but there’s a lot on offer here.
All in all, Logitech’s gaming division isn’t doing anything revolutionary in racing wheels, especially given it has its pro-grade products with direct-drive motors. But it does bring a lot of the higher-end features from those pro setups to a more affordable, consumer level.
I reckon the overall quality of the RS50 racing kit is very solid. At $699.99 / £599.99 for the RS50 steering wheel and wheelbase, and a further $159.99 / £119.99 for the RS pedals, it's far from cheap and might not be the best entry point for sim racing beginners.
But for people looking to get more serious with realistic racing, Logitech G’s RS50 racing kit might accelerate those ambitions.
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