Manettino switches, are they useful?

[Wokzombie]

I am thinking of buying a ~€300 wheel for the PC, and one of the choices is the Thrustmaster T300RS / T300 Ferrari GTE.
Now, I dislike Ferrari branding a bit less than Playstation branding, but the only real difference between the two is that the RS has two more buttons, where the GTE has a manettino switch.

I can't really think of what I would use the manettino switch for.

Can you give me an idea, perhaps?

 

[Wicked]

Brake bias
Or anything that can go up and down really. I find it really useful.
The switch acts as 2 buttons basically so you can always map other things to it.

 

[Wokzombie]

Isn't that something you could do better with buttons than a manettino?

 

[Mark_McQ]

Brake bias
Or anything that can go up and down really. I find it really useful.
The switch acts as 2 buttons basically so you can always map other things to it.

You can also push it in for a 3rd button.

 

[Mark_McQ]

Wokzombie, it's a momentary switch, rather than a selector. I had my wheel apart the other night and it's essentially a 2 position encoder. I tried to replace it with a proper encoder so I could use it for brake bias, but I couldn't get it to work right. Not sure if it was the cheap chinese ebay encoder I used that was the problem, or if the wheelbase isn't handling the input because it's just expecting a simple button press, but every time I turned the new encoder it would jump back and forth between the 2 buttons. Thought it was a glitch at first but the order it was activating the switches in seemed to follow a pattern. Going to try a better quality encoder at some point soon and see if it will work.

 

[Wicked]

Isn't that something you could do better with buttons?

Yes you can ,but it is harder to press a switch in the wrong direction than it is to press the wrong button.

 

[Wokzombie]

Wokzombie, it's a momentary switch, rather than a selector.

Don't you mean it's a momentary switch and a selector? As in, you can select Off, 1 or 2, and press it down.

Yes you can ,but it is harder to press a switch in the wrong direction than it is to press the wrong button.

I can sort of get that reasoning.

 

[Mark_McQ]

Don't you mean it's a momentary switch and a selector? As in, you can select Off, 1 or 2, and press it down.

The off/1/2 text on it is just for aesthetics. It permanently sits in the middle position at 1, and then you turn it left or right and it returns to the centre position.

 

[Frank]

It is basically 3 buttons as stated above and I absolutely love it for brake bias!

 

[PicoBp]

Yep, brake bias (turn left/right) + pit limiter (press) is my setup for it, and it's a charm to find and use even blindfolded.

 

[Wokzombie]

Okay, that is a little weird.
Just so we're on the same page here, we're all talking about this little doowhickey on the bottom right here?

 

[Mark_McQ]

Yep, the very same.

 

[Wokzombie]

Okay, I am a giddy little man-child right now. I just ordered it and I'm a hopping around like a teenage girl waiting to be asked for prom.

I am upgrading from a Logitech Griving Force GT, which is nice, but really has too many issues in my case.

T300! *screams*

 

[Mark_McQ]

You're going to be blown away. The DFGT is a decent little wheel, but the smoothness of the T300 will really surprise you. One thing I will heavily advise though is either pick up the Thrustmaster T3PA pedals or a set of G25/27 ones with an adaptor. The stock 300 pedals are ok but the ones I mentioned above are much better. I'm using the G25 with the Ricmotech adaptor to plug them straight into my wheel.

 

[Wokzombie]

Yup, the T3PA / T3PA Pro pedals are in the queue for later, until then I don't mind using the stock T300 ones.