whether you're a big rally racing nerd with a Sim setup in your living room or
not EA Sports WRC is a bundle of fun
allowing you to smack into trees in Fidelity that was previously reserved
for the pros but just how much do you need to spend to have a satisfying Sim
racing experience to find out EA Sports
handed us one metric bushel of sponsorship money and basically said I
don't know do whatever you want as long as you work in a few talking points about the game so we decided to get the
whole range of setups from a wheel and pedals that we got for $30 on Facebook
Marketplace hooked up to a PC that matches their minimum spec all the way
up to a racing Sim setup that costs more than an actual rally car is it worth it
to spend a bit more cash on your rig or would you be better off sticking with a
PS5 controller cuz not going to lie that's looking like a very real
possibility right now meet the thrustmaster t80 Ferrari
Edition side note guys you absolutely should not pay extra for the prancing
pony logo just get an unbranded t80 we found this one for $30 on Facebook
Marketplace including some tasty feet picks so that's the way you're going to
want to go if you're aiming at a pretty basic setup speaking of basic setup
getting this setup is very easy you just throw the wheel at your Tech Tippy
friend and let him figure it out oh interesting and we're timing me
excellent and begin to be clear the point is not to set some kind of speed
record for installing a racing wheel but rather just to provide some convenience
context for each of the various setups all we got to do for this guy is loosen
the desk clamp without clamping this guy I have personally done that before slide
this bad boy onto here tighten and clamp
the desk clamp oh boy I can kind of see leaving it plugged
in but just in a pile next to you I suspect that's what a lot of people end
up doing but we're going to go ahead and plug her in Alex was your Genius plan to
use this Ikea foot rest to kind of angle the pedals or am I moving it out of the
way that would be horrible okay fair enough hey but how convenient is that
now you don't need a foot rest ow dang it
okay I am really not selling this very well am I not the single most ergonomic
okay no with the chair adjustments we're going to need a little bit more time
there that's not so bad under 2 minutes hold on hold on you're missing something
what are you doing you take them Jam them into the wheels like that that's my
Pro Racing Tip right there then you don't slide back oh yeah hey that's not
bad it's mostly stops 2 minutes 30
seconds just about on the nose let's fire up the game do we have a solution
for the uh pedals no oh I guess I could just put them against the wall yeah and
you see that box that's filled with sandpaper how do I always end up
crawling around under your desk it's only happened like once before there we
go if it's stupid and it works it's not stupid okay this is not bad you've got
your abxy or at least the PlayStation equivalent this engine start button is
actually a little d-pad which is super cool now that we're on the main menu
there's a whole wack of gameplay options but we're just going to jump straight into quickplay where we can play solo or
multiplayer in a variety of different modes they've got quick generate create
rally where you can create a custom one and a regularity rally which I assume
has something to do with the crapping yourself that you might do going over
some of these jumps and stuff sorry I'm not I'm not into rally racing so I don't
know all the lingo and Alex you say we want H1 for wheel Drive yes why H1
what's H1 yeah that's historic the first that means nothing to me okay perfect no
it it just means like it's the very oldest oh okay ooh competition type
realistic that's one of the things people are really excited about with this game is it's not super
arcadey which is going to be a problem for me oh my God our poor
car can you tell this wasn't our first take
woo oh no
okay things didn't take long to go sideways and uh not going to lie I don't
think I can blame the game for it in spite of the fact that we're running on
minimum Hardware so this is a 9600k with
a GTX 1060 I'm getting about 50 FPS
running at 1080p low without Dynamic resolution scaling
overall pretty smooth gaming experience
I can't say the same for my wheel though that doesn't mean somebody more skilled
could put up some decent times with this thing not everybody needs an expansive
array of buttons and an Alcantara wrap I mean the shifting paddles are tactile
enough and you're certainly not going to lose your grip on it but it lacks any
kind of force feedback meaning that particularly for an inexperienced driver
not having any kind of feedback from the vehicle you know steering a little
harder when you're going faster or from the shape of the road makes it really
difficult to tell what the heck is going on cuz all I have is the visual cues
which at that point raises the question
why don't I just use a controller let's try this for comparison the controller
definitely has the convenience factor going for it uh there here let me start
my
timer 3.67 seconds
oo they've got integration with the ps5s
rumble your door is going don't worry
about my door man you worry about your door okay oh shoot I'm going to blow up
my engine never mind my doors oh boy
um I just need a little bit of time to
get the H really you can
tell I mean woo stuff still happens uh
okay hey we made it around that corner second gear mind you but we made it
around the corner grand total adjustment time about 2 minutes and I'm pretty sure
I'm better on this already
oh don't speak too soon that's how you
learn we know that this is not an Apples to Apples comparison the price Delta
between this and that wheel is over double but this at least serves other
purposes and doesn't take up as much space in your house and I think it's
fair to say from our short experience that a wheel without force speedback is
just plain not going to be a good time I mean PS5 winner oh buy a lot I tested
this on the Shakedown I was 12 seconds faster on the controller that's like 25%
faster it's crazy yeah bottom line
though don't let us tell you what you like at the cost of a basic wheel
secondhand you should just buy one try
it and then if you don't like it resell it probably for the exact same amount
you paid it's my favorite kind of free rental I do it all the time of course
the real reason that we did this video was not actually to look at the extremes
both high and low budget but rather so Alex could have an excuse to build his
personal mid tier setup on work time wait what yeah yeah okay that actually
makes a lot of sense and explains why we're at your house for this shoot
guys's been genuinely stoked for this game since it was announced that Cod
master has picked up the wcip and he's put together a pretty nice but not
unreasonable rig for it starting with the GT light Pro from Next Level racing
once again in theory we just uh crack this thing open and it's
Off to the Races I'm making it look so easy you really really are
not oh wait why am I doing this this is your job all right okay I just r videos
let's Benchmark it wait you're going to undo it now we're going to time me again just for fun but theoretically once it's
all set up it would just be a matter of unfolding it and you're pretty much good
to go we're going to want to run these cables first including I yes power oh
this is cool we got some handy dandy little 3D printed spacers here so we can
clamp this onto a really really Slim plate like this and then we got a couple
of screws to secure this into place we
line up I don't know am I allowed to have a helper friend yes oh wow
oh nice you don't happen to have handy dandy spacers for this boy do you I have
screws for it you have screws oh well
yes that will do uh there we go there we
go oh what was that still good I don't know
by now it should be pretty obvious that we're spending both a lot more time and
a lot more money on this versus our last setup but when you consider the extra
utility not to mention how much you're all already into it for by the time
you've got a PC that will run this game at its best I don't think it's that
unreasonable this seat for example the GT Racing light is $300 new and you can
get a less cushiony version for $50 less and you can find them for as little
as150 used if you're lucky other than that we just need a USB and an HDMI
cable to run over to our PC and we
should be pretty much good to go H uh
USB extension anyone oh hi perfect uh if
you don't need USB 3 speeds active cables like this one are an inexpensive
and convenient way to extend the range beyond the official specification as for
what we're plugging it into meet Alex's G27 it's the same racing wheel Logitech
has been making for about 19 years but the 2009 version of it that is uh not as
good as the original one but better than the ones that they have now yeah how
exactly does that work that they keep bringing out new ones that have less
features and higher prices like the g920
doesn't even include a shifter
anymore the good news is that means you can get something old like this one a
G27 or even a G25 and still get a modern
gaming experience out of it these can be had for around the 150 to $250 us range
by the way we're not going to be running this stock uh Alex do you have some hair
elastics handy oh yes one second of course he does I need to go steal them
so we go around here with two okay hold
it up wait don't you don't you lift a
knee bra I a rally car you
go yeah yeah
ious now we just need a display mounting for a monitor is not included with most
of these seats because it's typical for people to set this up in their living
room or their family room and use their TV but as a not forever alone Alex
doesn't really have that opt which is funny because she thinks it's
not going to disturb her I guess but like it's really loud when the force
feedback is running this any who let's put this monitor onto
this Mount that you got from also next level racing and what are one of these
worth uh 100 bucks or so okay this is going to be difficult it's the power of
the LTT screwdriver LTT how do we get
the other ones in now that's that's the bit that I was concerned about oh like
this well okay you could oh okay in all
seriousness though I bet we
can I think we can get this last one hold on you want to you might want to
back back that off yeah that one's not going in nope that's a negatory but the
good news is that it's not going to get lost cuz it's trapped in there you got
to have a seat though so we can get the height adjusted okay oh goodness oh goodness I don't
think you're supposed to get in from that side with the shift rally oh my
mic's caught too now I can't oh boy
is this the right height for you sir uh it needs to go up a little bit wait you want it that close to you want the wheel
covering that much of the screen yeah it's fine oh I mean I guess that's sort
of the experience the fov is like the biggest thing right okay not bad I mean
you don't have Ed's um Racing shoes that
heel toe I mean probably could have been a little better if you weren't in
moccasins you stay put cuz I think getting in and out of there is not
happening at this point I'll get you set up okay I think we're supposed to like
move this thing away that's how you get in it out uh race cars are hard to get
into it's just realistic something to note if you want to replicate Alex's
setup which by far is the best bang for the buck out of what we're looking at
today we'll have everything links down below is that the G27 specifically
cooperates best with a USB 2 Port so this is a usb3 extension but he
specifically chose this motherboard because it has USB 2 ports and we're
operating in USB 2 mode this is amazing
why are you going out that side it's
great ah yes being
short not so bad after all is it this is
the Difference Maker while the other wheel had tension when you turned it to
the side this one has Motors inside it that actively resist you according to
the bumps in the road or the force with which you should be turning they're not
the most sophisticated Motors you can get ones that are higher power or have
better granularity but I am expecting this to be a major step up yeah uh this
is another critical piece of any Sim setup you do not want to do what he was
doing or even what I was doing every time you need a keyboard or Mouse so
having one of these magnet to the bottom of the chair is an a Player move is this
the monitor you're going to be using or is this just something you stole from work for now oh no this is my monitor it
was supposed to replace the one that's in there uh it's better every single way
but the OSD sucks so I don't use it oh it's really bad like awful just terrible
why how often you need to use the on screen display all the time cuz you need
it to be like brighter during the day and then turn it down during the night and then it was like in the one right
there I have three color temperatures three different color profiles believe
beautiful you can just switch between them just never oh let us know in the
comments are you an Alex or are you a me
to logitech's credit sure they haven't developed a new wheel in 20 years but
hey at least they're still supporting the old wheel that they still make yeah
look at all these things we can adjust in the software you got the force
strength the degrees of rotation that it'll take before it just stops this
great centering spring disable that also degrees of rotation 270 is the best for
this you can go full Sim I go full I want to set records people always get so
like mad they're like oh it's not very realistic to do that I'm like I don't
care the most realistic thing is to try and win the race by exploiting the
rules we've gone a little higher end for the PC this time Cod Masters recomend
men's a 2070 but Alex has a 3080 so
we're going to go ahead and crank some details I think this time we're also going to be upgrading the experience
we're going to go with WC and they've got 18 locations with gravel snow and
tarmac that according to Cod Masters is greatly improved Alex wanted me to go
with Chile and this is a gravel map
track no stage stage 34.7 km that is an
incredibly huge map to create no wonder this didn't
launch on PlayStation 4 like how could you even contain that not with these
apparently that's pretty cool okay now here here go to the left Builder ooh
what are we doing you're building a car what do you mean I don't know where
engines go Mid Engine yeah sure oh my
gosh exhaust kits like what why what do you mean like just to
change the sound oh okay well this one then I guess right
sure I mean yeah breaks I uh get the
good one I guess painite I can feel the pain of everyone watching this who's
actually into this stuff including our sponsor by the way thank you very much
no no he he knows the stuff Andrew knows it the most he's just letting me
struggle for fun am I done now oh my oh
my goodness there's there's so many
things this is also like kind of realistic cuz they don't even make like
they don't modify a Toyota Yus they take
a body and put Yus body parts on it at the end I see that makes sense this is
like the tennis rackets that the pros supposedly use when actually they just
use their old racket that they trained on and learned on with a new paint job
so they can sell the new racket to you the idiot consumer sort of does it
matter how much I spent I don't think so just quick
play oh it's automatic oh well that's not going to be a very
Apples to Apples comparison well we can change that pretty
easily there we
go oh no I'm immediately much worse
Alex wait where am I going oh he said right I okay this must be very hard for
you guys to watch H this is kind of the dirt slwc
experience for the first couple of hours they call it the Dark Souls of racing
games okay did he say extreme left I
can't understand his accent he sounds like
Andrew woo okay that right there was the first
like oh yeah I can definitely feel a
difference with the force feedback moments oh you should use your left foot for breaking uh I there's no way that I
would be able to do that that would completely break my brain oh no speaking
of breaking thing oh yeah oh yeah still alive there is no question though that I
am way faster on this than I was on
either the other like useless wheel with no feedback or the controller you're on
the road in a car that's so much harder to control oh yeah this isn't even like
apples to apples either and this this is a gravel track compared to the other one
too right yeah uhoh uhoh uhoh handbrake
right sorry sorry sorry I just ah I hit the
thing oh no oh no don't over steer
lus no no I got this i got this okay
show us how it's done oh god I didn't even have fun on the other setup to be
honest with you oh there's this within a minute I'm having fun totally different
game oh my goodness this is like scary fast I would
not want to be in this car oh sport feedback needs to get changed a lot
still having it at all is so much better than what we had before Alex this is
1440p ultra and we're sitting at about 80 FPS and it's Sol overall you beat me
by uh 39 well look who's keeping track of the
exact number this is I can do better
than 136 or 25 I can't do better than one thing handbrake gas what why do you
need handbrake and gas so you can let go of the handbrake oh my goodness
oh that poor engine well that sounds like future Alex's problem oh yeah we
turned the force feedback way up and it is definitely
better okay no no I got this i got
this oh oh no no dang
it okay I'm still going to get a better time than last time oh crap here's
problem you're the your oh no am I okay
well that explains why the brakes aren't working very well you're doing so much
worse I'm worse why am I worse the door
fell off I love the damage effects
though no no no I'm still
alive okay here we go no no no
no oh it's better than last time he oh
yeah it's a pretty big Improvement this poor car let's let's see how she's
doing as great as this handbrake mod is here I'd kind of like to continue to use
it as a shifter so I got this thing it was 80 bucks off of Amazon and it is the
annex Sim racing handbrake anyway let's
throw it
on this this handbrake came with Hardware
but the slots aren't large enough for it to go
through well that's you got what you pay for I
guess looks it looks pretty funny whatever you guys ha nice that
wasn't HT at all improvised some mounting hardware with some leftover
basis screws and you thought we were idiots for not putting all the screws in
there once again wow honestly this seems way
worse I think you just paid $80 for a
downgrade sir yeah this is that feels so chunky and nice this it's chunky it yep
it's um it's something the good news is
there are lots of other good upgrades that you can make to a setup like this
if you want to spend a little bit more money like for example a nicer pedal set
from someone like fitech these can either stick to the floor with their
grips or can be bolted into a frame or onto a Sim rig then there's Wheels there
might not be a huge control advantage to it but I'd say having a wheel that's a
similar diameter to an actual car might
help immerse a little bit yeah yeah there we go that's more like it and this
particular one is attached to fitech csld DD which is the same motor that we
used in Jake's Intel extreme Tech upgrade
and it costs almost as much
as this but it is a really really nice nice
upgrade one that not everyone will agree about though is VR the game is supposed
to add VR support sometime in the but
Alex will not be using it nah the whole
Sim racing is hard to set up is already a huge problem you don't need to set up
VR at the same time shocking how often my valve Hardware running on my valve
software just miraculously doesn't work from one day to the next you know what
does work though is this transition to the ultimate setup the ultimate Sim
racing setup that lives in our employee lounge hasn't changed since we built it
and that's because it was already flipping awesome and code Masters has
already done the work to integrate not just higher-end peripherals from the
likes of fitech and hoisting Feld oh these pedals oh see that tension it's
all adjustable and everything it's so cool but even debox meaning that our
platform down here which has four AC Servo Motors that can independently
adjust the height of each corner of the platform allowing it to tilt forward
when you break lean back when you accelerate and bump all over the place
when you're going over a gravel road fun fact by the way your co- driver who sits
in the passenger seat and calls out which turns are coming next how far out
they are recorded the lines while sitting in a rig like this so that as
you're going down the road his voice actually reflects the condition of the
road you're driving on that is so cool why am I talking about it
then me and lonus have both both played around with this a fair bit in the game
cuz honestly it's just absolute heaps of fun although that's not what we're going
to be doing right now this right here is going to be an emulation of the 1985
Safari rally where all that lonus needs to do for it to be historically accurate
is to crash out for the most part around like really long pavement stages and
stuff like that it's a lot of fun the Safari rally isn't it's just a workout
it's punishing it hurts you what the heck if it makes you feel any better I
got a 329 on the stage so it is quite
doable actually that's not to say I'm going to pull it off because apparently
we've turned damage up to hardcore mode so good luck me hey I had that too okay
should I do a Shakedown yeah do a Shakedown see how she feels
okay go 50 and I sto
fantastic I am going really slow and
this is extremely bump
oh red lined it oh I'm in neutral whoopsy
daisies I am not going very fast but it really feels like I am right now and I
was not paying attention to my co- driver what do you say I don't know but
I'm good I'm good I'm still alive something that's hard to even focus on
on a course like this cuz everything's shaking all over the place and you're just trying to stay on the road is that
the game looks really really good we're
on a 3090 here running at what is it 3x 4K Alex yes this is freaking
awesome woo oh my goodness I hit a
guy there is no question whatsoever that
the more feedback you can get into your body the more realism you get and like I
can't believe what a polished State this is in for a game that isn't even out yet
getting all these exotic peripherals to work with anything can be a challenging
at the best of times how long did it take to set this up be honest be honest
probably about 2 hours the hardest bit is that they don't have native triple
monitor support so I had to go into a config file and get that all done you
can see how it's kind of strange in the menu yeah but the debox stuff was all
fine yeah that just like worked oh that's so cool okay I'm ready to start
how' I do in my Shakedown other than being slow that was good slow is better
than crashing out yeah all right let's go let's go what was your time uh 3:26
and how much of it is the Shakedown I don't know about a third of it okay so I
could be closer than I was yesterday yeah oh put it in first and give it full
revs oh my goodness well that's not a good start this is it
this is go time wait three left crap crap crap crap
crap I got to give her more gas this is a really long gas pedal whoa I do not
need to give her more gas right now go slow slow is smart no no I got this i
got this tight no it Titans over the crest I got this go for it no I'm not
flooring it Andy go floor it or go
home
okay whoa whoa buddy how do I get in
Reverse dang it I
stole crap dang it I stoed again we
won't count your penalties there's penalties for resetting oh jump 8
jump woo man if this gas pedal was a little
shorter I'd be having a way easier time with
it stop it whoa what the hell this is something
no I can't not stall this
thing doesn't help I have to think about the lingo so much
oh man I am sweating right
now like freaking sweating right
now bad bump are you kidding me okay
that's a 5 minute 38 5 minutes
38 well let's see how you did with the penalties am I done oh shoot I wasn't
done no you're done you just need to it's the end of the rally you know you
need to go up to the Marshall did I just stall I just stalled just driving
in first what the heck happened okay just just floor it let the clutch go and
get up to the guy this is not that hard okay they they did it for you okay
penalty 17 seconds oh how' you do that
in 3 minutes something I I went a lot
faster than that well that felt really F seriously can you see how's my pitch
doing there you go from a five minute race no no the point is just like okay
oh yeah it's physically exhausting yeah in a way that no other game is
physically exhausting like this is what a 600 WT motor it's like grabbing on you
like moving around you got even with the bolsters you got to hold yourself that
was fun though there's no way I could play for hours at a time though man
that's crazy not that stage in this no question in my mind sponsorship or not
that was a ton of fun and if you're into rally racing oh yeah especially fun but
the best way to experience it that's what we set out to answer and my tier
list goes a little something like this wheel without force feedback bottom of
the barrel terrible controller with any kind of vibration way above yeah so like
this much above and then literally anything with force feedback in wheel
it's like I don't know that much higher Y and then I'd say it's more fun with
the better wheel but in terms of your capability to compete not that much no
so you're happy with your setup oh yeah for sure yeah I think most people would
be too and EA would would be really happy if we mentioned that EA Sports WRC
is out now for Xbox series X and S
PlayStation 5 and PC with over 70 Vehicles spanning Decades of rally
history 17 locations some of the longest stages we have ever seen in a rally game
and made by legendary developers Cod master so you guys are not going to want
to miss it there's a link in the description to pick up a copy of the game and a bunch of the hardware that we
showed off to help you guys best enjoy it if you guys enjoyed this video hey
maybe check out the one where we built this setup now that we've got this game
for it it's like without knowing it this is what we made it for so good awesome