I've never really tinkered with racing simulators before because using a keyboard/mouse just didn't do it for me. I figured if I were ever to try to get into them I'd have to lay out some cash and buy a proper racing setup including the wheel, shifter and pedals but I never looked into it seriously as it wasn't really a high priority for me.

I just picked up the new Bundlestars Superpower Sims Bundle though, primarily for the flight sims but it comes with 2 racing sims and 2 transport sims and I thought it might be fun to give them a whirl.

A buddy of mine has a Logitech G25 racing wheel and loves it. He suggested I look at that and the G27 newer model. I had a look at them and they do look pretty decent. Between the two I'd lean towards the G27. It's $299 CAD online on average but I've found it as high as $349 or so (Tiger Direct) and as low as $198 so it can be had for a reasonable price for a limited time.

My question to you racing sim aficionados is what hardware would you recommend to someone new to the genre but who wants a high quality hardware product that helps to deliver the most realistic simulation experience? What do you have and use? What price for it do you personally think is fair, and if you have any links to good deals on any hardware, please include them as well.

Also, I'm interested in both racing and driving, in particular a sim that focuses on giving a real in-depth experience so what other racing/driving simulators would you recommend, preferably those which are current generation or a gen or two older or ones that are particularly fun and enjoyable even if they're older than that. I figure race car and regular car driving sims are probably the most entertaining, but am open to trucks, busses or others if someone thinks they're worthwile enough. If you could give fine points on why you think a particular sim is great that would be cool too.

Ok, this should be a new experience for me now, I look forward to the wide variety of ideas and suggestions from everyone! Thanks in advance!

If you have the time, money and want multi, I would recommend iRacing.

Logitech Driving Force GT is very good, lower end than the G25/G27 of course. You can easily find it on sale for $99. You lose the nice separate stick shifter and nice paddle shifters - the DFGT has little buttons behind the wheel arms that do the same thing though. You can get aftermarket paddles at granturgismo.com if you want.

Otherwise, also look into the Fanatec wheels, they are very nice looking, and competitive with the Logitech ones.

Currently the best consumer wheel in the market is the the thrustmaster t500 rs but it is really expensive.
If this is your first try in the world of racing sims I would suggest you to save some money and go for a logitech g27 (you may find a used one for 100/150 €/$/whatever) or a Driving force gt if you are on a budget.

For the titles I would suggest:
- gtr2 (my love, if you like classic cars try the power & glory mod)
- gt legends (great classics cars racing but obliterated by gtr2+P&G mod )
- race 07 + expansions
- rfactor/rfactor 2 (plenty of good mods to try, the second one is still in beta)
- netkar pro (great forcefeedback and driving model, few tracks and cars)
- iracing (the best package overall: great driving model and laser scanned tracks. However it may get a bit expensive)
- raceroom racing experience (f2p, made by the team that made race07. I have not tried this yet)

To be released:
- Assetto Corsa (made by the author of Netkar Pro, looks really promising)
- Project cars (currently in closed beta, the graphincs are just amazing)

Gravis Analog for everything.
...
What? true classic and couldnt break it with 15 years of use :)

I haven't got much money for such luxuries (probably would if I didn't buy games at such a high rate, shut up) nor the space to store them at the moment, so I make do with a Thrustmaster GPX controller, which is basically the XBox 360 controller reborn with more precise (=heavier) sticks and triggers that will annoy you in shooters (EDIT: Tried a few shooters and no, they don't. If anything, the meatier springs make it feel better) but justify themselves in racing games. Yeah, it's not as immersive as a wheel, but I'll take it over the mouse and keyboard any day of the week. After Gran Turismo 4, it did take a while to get used to having the gearshift on A and X rather than the shoulder buttons, but I overcame that in a day or so.

As for games, GRID (available on GOG) is pretty good. It's not a simulator, but hardly an arcade racer either: you could dial in ABS and traction control so that every car feels like it came straight off Need For Speed: Most Wanted, or you can use cockpit view and turn driver assistance off so that the cars squirrel off the line in a mad tail-whip (or spin out altogether, which is pretty embarrassing), oversteer readily through corners if you provoke them, and lock up under heavy braking. There's a sequel too, but I haven't got any first-hand experience of that yet.

The cars in GRID range from touring cars through F3 open wheel racers to Le Mans prototypes, so even the lamest piece of engineering you can get your hands on will be a rocket.

Attached is a little screenshot from said game. That is NOT something you want to see when you've got 104mph showing on the speedometer.

I only have experience with one wheel, and it is not amazing (it does the job, and it cost me less than 20€, but it lacks some features and I guess the precision is not amazing either), and that is a Logitech FormulaForce GP.

As for games, one of the most fun ones I've played is Race 07. It is a proper simulator, and a darn good one at that. I would also highly recommend getting this bundle for GT Legends & GTR FIA GT Racing, two top notch racing simulators. Also, register on Gamer's Gate and get yourself a free copy of Volvo the game. it actually uses the same engine as Race 07 and is a proper simulator with good car physics. It does not have a whole lot of cars or levels, but hey, a bit of extra free quality content is never a bad thing, right?

Racing (sims) definitely isn't my genre of choice, but from what I hear you should pay attention to iRacing. I understand real life professionals play the game in order to study the tracks: they're so true to their real life versions. It's a mumorpuger in the sense that you have to pay every month though, and I think you even need to buy tracks/cars separately, but I guess that's the price for having the most realistic racer out there.

Or, Forza Motorsport seems to have had the thumbs up from many sim fans, if you're looking for a cheaper, lighter, and less realistic realistic driving simulation.

When you get tired of all the realistic driving/racing simulators, and are just looking for some clean, mindless fun, I recommend checking out TrackMania Nations Forever. It's free, it's fun, and it's very very cool. Basically, you just race to get the best time on a wide variety of tracks, most with some sort of stunt component (jumps, loops, etc.). It has online multiplayer (no collisions, the other cars are "ghosts") and a fantastic level editor for creating your own tracks.

Gravis Analog Pro is OK indeed, but nothing compares to TAC-2.

But, this is a good topic. I have been thinking about getting some wheel for racing games as well, but so far haven't bought anything.

Also if somebody knows links to well-written quality comparisons and reviews, at least I would appreciate reading some.

I agree. Even if you do upgrade, you have a good second wheel available for head-to-head games.

Yes, good point Shift and Shift 2 are very good fun. The sounds are excellent, and though the simulation isn't as intense as some, it is a very rewarding game.

If you can find some of the older games, like Colin McRae Rally 05 that is a very fun rally game. TOCA 3 was also quite fun because you could play multiple disciplines.

F1 2013 is probably well worth it too, try a demo. I haven't tried it yet but I'm certain you can dial up the sim-level to your preference. The Classic version has many generations of F1 cars to play with too.

I will be a bit more elaborate in this post as yesterday was past my bedtime.

It all depends on how serious you are about going sim, for a wheel and pedals I recommend the T500 with a round wheel, not the F1, sadly this very expensive piece of hardware is the only I can safely recommend.
From personal experience, the Logitech DFGT, mine broke in half after a year thanks to its autocalibration routine =/ and the pedalset is plain awful, though you can replace it by G27 pedals.
I don't know about the Logitech G27, heard generally favourable recommendations about it but with my DFGT experience I didn't want to find out.

Another I cannot recommend is Fanatec, they say German build quality et all, but it is made in China and their acclaimed belt driven system is terrible, either you have FFB but the wheel is impossible to turn like it is in solid concrete or you have no FFB but with little resistance and that is ignoring the horrorstories if the thing breaks down, also be prepared that their drivers are conflictiing with other software.

As for games I already said iRacing, though it's not for everyone (like me), but their stance about having equal racing for everyone is admirable, not just for a racing game but the whole gaming industry could take an example of that.
That said don't expect only gentlemen racers, it's just NFSW there like everywhere else.

I know rFactor is a big thing but I never liked it, the physics just don't feel right to me, like your car is running on flat tires.
If you want to play rFactor engine based games I recommend those made by Simbin, they're desent and at least the graphics don't look like drab. Just keep in mind that Steam's GT-R 2 has removed all the Porsche's and Ferrari's which made up about 60% of the content of the game.

I'm a bit out of simracing at the moment, I'm hoping Project Cars will be good.

Wow, thanks for all of the great feedback everyone! Somehow the thread slipped past me and I just started catching up and doing online research of all of the suggestions everyone made.

Wow, there is a lot of wild hardware out there for sure. I had a look at the Fanatec hardware and it looks pretty sweet but also very pricey and probably a little more pro than I really need. Good to know about it though as I had not bumped into it yet and if I really get into this stuff at some point it could be upgrade hardware perhaps. Very slick though.

The Thrustmaster hardware looks even more high end with official replicas of real gear. Quite a bit outside of the price range I'm looking at now though. Ideally I'd like to spend about $200 CAD but probably will go as far as $250. I probably should have mentioned that originally. :) I am new to racing sims but not new to sims, and prefer middle of the line to top of the line hardware to have a really good experience over saving a few bucks and perhaps being disappointed. I've done that in the past back in the day with flight gear and eventually I splurged and got a Saitek X-52 Pro stick+throttle combo and the matching rudder system, and a NaturalPoint TrackIR Pro 4 head tracker device. Altogether the stuff cost me around $700 or so but the experience of it all in good flight sims is just hard to describe the level of awesome. Worth every penny finally getting to satisfy that multi decade teenage boy fantasy of having real flightsim hardware. :) Got that a number of years back and while I haven't used it to the bone, when I do it is fantastic.

So I'm kind of looking for similar hardware for driving/racing but with a lower total price range. Mind you, quality and features are important so I sometimes will spend more to get what I think is right too. I don't have a hard budget other than what I semi-whimsically choose to impose on myself to not go too crazy, so I figured the $200-250 range is good to start with unless I find myself letting coolness factor of some hardware override my better financial judgment. Hehe.

After looking at all the hardware suggested by you guys as well as on a few other forums/IRC input it seems that a lot of people feel the same overall depending on what range of hardware, putting the Thrustmaster and Fanatec at the top of the pile, and Logitech and others in the mid to low. I'd put myself middle of the range and so far the wheel that seems to get the most comments here and everywhere else I've looked does seem to be the G27 surprisingly. It was originally suggested by a friend who owns a G25 so that's where I started. Looks like I did a full circle and ended up back with it hehe. I did learn a lot along the way though and am more hip with what's out there thanks to the great feedback from all of you!

On the software side, I've got the 2 racing sims and truck sims that came in the bundle I bought to start with and sort of tip my toe in the water but I have a pretty good feeling I'm going to get into this stuff. Overwhelmingly almost everyone recommends iRacing as the best of the best so I have bookmarked that one as a top pick to pick up sometime. I haven't had a chance to get to check out trailers, screenshots, reviews etc. of all the sim titles suggested but I've bookmarked all of them so I can peruse them over the next few weeks and know where to focus my attention. I gotta say, the quality of some of the ones I did watch trailers of like the iRacing and a few other recent titles mentioned above is pretty wild compared to the last time I ever seen a racing sim in action.

One thing that I did not have much luck with though is just regular car driving sims. I found one called "Car driving simulator" which is Russian and has Russian road signs and stuff which doesn't sound terribly appealing, and another one called "Driving Simulator" with versions from a few years ago up to their current one "Driving Simulator 2013" which looks interesting but appears to be European. Does anyone know of decent regular joe driving simulators that focus entirely on North American driving and rules of the road etc? Preferably with scenery and popular major cities included such as Toronto, New York, etc. I imagine such titles are probably not ultra-popular out there except perhaps with schools or such but I'm interested in them similarly to being interested in flying regular non-combat airplanes in FSX etc. Just seems like it might be fun. :)

Another thing I'm interested in doing is building a bit of hardware to create a smallish sim cockpit with. I know they make premade chair/cockpits but they seem overpriced and nothing really made me too excited. I was thinking of picking up a driver's bucket seat from a dead car or in the classifieds for cheap and having fun with some wood/ABS/metal/whatever to whip up a rig to fit the seat into and have movable mounts that could be switched between my flight cockpit mode and car mode. Don't think it'd cost too much to do and it'd probably be fun as well. I'll be googling for people who have done DIY projects like that before for tips/ideas but if anyone knows of any such sites/projects already that they think are "must see" or similar feel free to URL drop them here too. This is going to be a fun little project. :)

I'll be able to point others who are interested in this sort of thing here in the future as well. I'll post updates with anything interesting I find along the way also.

Thanks again for all the valuable feedback everyone! Much appreciated!

I was actually thinking of doing something similar when I'm in the market for a new office chair. You can get used ones for next to nothing, and second-hand bucket seats for a couple of dozen to around a thousand euros depending on what you're willing to settle with (a budget of about 200€ would do, I think). Combine the two and hey presto, comfiest chair ever. You'd probably want to implement some kind of swivelling armrests as well, which might be tricky but probably doable.