There are six buttons located on the hub of the wheel. The wheel is also a little loud under heavy turning but it’s not too noticeable if you are playing the game (I only noticed this when I let the girlfriend try out the wheel). I checked out some of the competitor products and all of the other wheels in this class exhibited the same behavior. The wheel does have a bit of a notchy feel (you can feel the gears that the wheel uses to transfer the turn information to the computer). While this is kind of a turn-off at first, you quickly get used to it and it’s no longer a problem. The wheel does take some getting used to, as it’s super-sensitive by default (you can change this setting within the control panel applet). It’s comfortable to grip and has notches for your thumbs and the main gripping part of the wheel (at the 3:00 and 9:00 positions) has a nice soft rubber coating. I would have preferred to install it onto my desk but with my keyboard tray right below it I was forced to relocate the keyboard and install the wheel on the keyboard tray.

You do need to make sure you have enough clearance below where you’re going to install it because the clamping mechanism does take some space. Once you have it tightened down, it’s not going anywhere. You slide the wheel where you want to install it, tighten the screw on the clamp, and then lock it in place with the clamp. I did install version 4.0 of the SideWinder software just to see what was there but more on that later. The device is automatically recognized by WindowsXP and the driver is installed. You simply clamp the wheel to your desk connect the wheel to the pedals via a RJ-11 cable plug in the wheel to the power supply and then hook it up to the computer via a USB cable. To test the wheel, I tried the game with Need for Speed 2: Hot Pursuit 2 and the demo versions of Microsoft Rallisport Racing and NASCAR Thunder 2003 so that I would have a wide variety of games to try the wheel out on, as each game represents a different type of racing environment. This review will focus primarily on the wheel since the included software package is a bit on the stale side. The Microsoft SideWinder Force Feedback Wheel comes with the wheel, a set of pedals, a heavy-duty electrical plug, and a copy of Monster Truck Madness 2. Your actions trigger events on the screen, which in turn interact with you in the form of vibrations and shakes from the device, enhancing the gaming experience.

Most devices are input only (you send information to the game about what you want to do and it reacts to you), force feedback devices actually interact with you. Microsoft SideWinder Force Feedback Wheel is similar to a joysticks in that it helps get you further into the game by making it feel more realistic.

Microsoft sidewinder wheel windows 10