Which steering wheel for Euro Truck Simulator 2/American Truck Simulator?

[Feek]

I have quite a lot of hours played on ETS2/ATS although I've not touched it for about eighteen months. When I broke my shoulder a couple of years ago, I found that driving it was really good physio and helped me get movement back.

I decided a couple of days ago that I'd like to have a drive again so I updated all my mods and bought all the new DLC for both games but have run into a bit of a problem.

Logitech Control Centre doesn't work on macOS Monterey. As a result, not all axis are supported and around 90° of wheel rotation is full lock steering. This means I can't use the clutch which makes my shifter useless and the steering is so sensitive that it's undriveable.

Does anyone know of any steering wheels that are properly supported in macOS these days that I can use with ETS2/ATS?

 

[Thryll]

I have no answer but exactly the same question. I downloaded the ETS2 demo just to see what it is like on my 2017 5k iMac, and trying to steer with my Kensington track ball is ridiculous. I see by another query elsewhere that Big Sur breaks all steering wheel operations -- Logitech, etc., so I suspect that the answer is the one no Mac fan really wants to hear: Build yourself a gaming PC, as Apple and suppliers of hardware have basically ignored this market for 30 years. Watching ETS2 vids on You Tube from posters with high-power PCs is enough to cause serious envy. Add to the annoyance of having to build and equip a PC is the fact that prices for vid cards in particular are often double MSRP.

 

[Feek]

I suspect that the answer is the one no Mac fan really wants to hear: Build yourself a gaming PC

I'm seriously considering setting up a Boot Camp partition with Windows 10, just so I can play ETS2 and ATS.

 

[Thryll]

There’s a thought. Might that affect frame rates? I don’t have a clue about that. I suppose a person could ask Logitech if they are planning to issue a Monterey fix for their gear. Did yours work with Big Sur?

 

[Feek]

Annoyingly, I can't do it because I don't have enough contiguous space for Boot Camp to be able to create the partition. I understand the reasoning why but surely Boot Camp should be able to run some low level defragmentation to resolve this. My iMac is from 2017 and the only way I can free contiguous space is to run a full backup, nuke and pave and then restore.
I guess it'll have to wait until we get a replacement for the 27" iMac later this year and I'll be able to blitz this iMac and rebuild it with nothing installed and then Boot Camp it.

 

[Feek]

Replying and necroposting my own thread.

I was proper chuffed to find out that Apple are adding native support for various controllers, including the G29 into macOS Ventura. That's ace, really good news.

It means I'll be able to drive ATS/ETS2 and F1 2017 again.

 

[MacsRgr8]

Yeah, looks like the good ol' G27 will not be supported, though. That wheel worked fine until macOS Monterey playing Feral's Grid Autosport, Dirt Rally and Dirt 4. F1 2017 does work but too fidgety.

Up until the previous beta of Monterey, that wheel does not work. Continuous moving the wheel's full axis, and games won't even start.

Waiting for the latter beta's to find out if I need to replace the G27 with the G29.

 

[Feek]

My only disappointment is that ATS and ETS2 don't appear to use all the cores on my Studio. I was expecting mind boggling performance but it doesn't seem to be that way. I should have expected that I suppose, the engine is quite old now.

 

[MacsRgr8]

I think only the most modern games utilise multpile cores. To put it in other words, most games are single-core (or dual-core) performance dependant, especially the older ones.

I have a Mac Studio Max (64 GB RAM | 32 Core GPU) which replaced the 2017 iMac 27" (32 GB RAM) Radeon Pro (8 GB).
Running macOS, the Mac Studio is about 2x the speed of the iMac in games, this is running Intel-based games.
To me that means a great performance increase by the Mac Studio! (Especially X-Plane 11 as this is so hardware-limited),

I recently acquired Windows 10 and installed that on the iMac, using Boot Camp. Playing around in games, also using the Unigine Benchmark apps, the iMac gains about 30% speed increase. I know this is not a scientific research, it is very noticable. I also installed ETS2 on Windows (thanks to Steam) and the performance is impressive on that iMac.

 

[Feek]

To me that means a great performance increase by the Mac Studio! (Especially X-Plane 11 as this is so hardware-limited),

I installed XP11 yesterday on my Studio and once I ticked the box to enable Metal, I was impressed. Looking forward to XP12 appearing on the scene.

 

[FadeToBlack]

I bought a PC specifically to play ATS/ETS2 on it. Been using it as my primary computer ever since and Windows has been driving me crazy with how slow and cluttered everything is. I have a Logitech G920. I plan on switching back to my M1 MacBook Air as my primary machine and was also wondering about the wheel support. If I have to buy a new wheel, I’m willing to. So sick of Windows. lol

 

[Feek]

I have a Logitech G920. I plan on switching back to my M1 MacBook Air as my primary machine and was also wondering about the wheel support.

Don't get too excited just yet. A few weeks ago I spent nearly two hours with Apple support trying to get Ventura to recognise my G920 and in the end all they could tell me was "It might not be implemented yet". I've not tried again since 13.1 rolled out but will have a go over the next few days and report back.

 

[FadeToBlack]

Don't get too excited just yet. A few weeks ago I spent nearly two hours with Apple support trying to get Ventura to recognise my G920 and in the end all they could tell me was "It might not be implemented yet". I've not tried again since 13.1 rolled out but will have a go over the next few days and report back.

Hey, thanks for the reply. Yeah, I’m definitely not getting my hopes up. I’ll probably just wind up keeping my PC and Mac, anyway. I definitely don’t wanna get too crazy, sell my PC and then run into problems if there’s no wheel support. I definitely wouldn’t play it without my wheel. That’s what makes it great.

I was *kinda* overreacting about how bad Windows is. Yes, it’s slower and not as sleek as MacOS, but it’s not terrible. lol

Nothing wrong with keeping both.

I will be paying attention to see if they get it working properly and we’ll see.

 

[Feek]

but it’s not terrible

It is really

 

[FadeToBlack]

It is really

Yeah, it really is. It just took me like 5 minutes to get my PC to go into sleep mode. I can turn on and restart my M1 MBA like 3 times in that same time span. 😂

 

[Feek]

I've just done the 13.1 update and my G920 still doesn't appear to be natively supported yet, it doesn't appear in System Settings.

 

[MacsRgr8]

So, Apple is not supporting the racing wheels yet, or just a couple?

My old G27 kinda works, i.e. the game itself makes it work (like it does for many years now), but due to the fact that simply plugging it in to my Mac makes the wheel go crazy, it looks like macOS Ventura does not support the G27 at all...

Maybe this is the reason that Grid Legends is postponed until next year?

 

[Feek]

So, Apple is not supporting the racing wheels yet, or just a couple?

The best I can tell is that they're not supporting any natively yet. You should just be able to plug a wheel in and have its appear under game controllers but none are.

My G920 sort of works in ETS2/ATS. Well, I say 'sort of' but it doesn't really. It recognises it's plugged in but it doesn't recognise most of the axis or the buttons.

I've not been able to play these games since 32 bit support was removed from macOS and the old Logitech drivers stopped working so I'm really looking forward to this support we were promised being actually implemented.

 

[Feek]

Still not implemented in 13.2

 

[MacsRgr8]

FWIW, I plugged my ageing G27 in my Mac Studio runing 13.2

Same irritating keep moving left to right etc...

I again tried an older game (Grid Autosport) and the irritating continuous movement stooped and the game still works with the G27, same as before Ventura.

Also tried Dirt 4. And the same applies. So, theses older games still work fine woth G27, including FF and 360 rotation.

So, like I said a few posts above... at least for these games all is not lost. The OS does not support the wheel, but the games still do.

 

[BattleFreak]

Is the same as with me and my G29. Dirt4 works with G29 and FFB.

Other games in Steam and Crossover recognize the steering wheel but not FFB and 900° steering.

 

[MacsRgr8]

Any brave soul started testing macOS 13.3 and their wheel yet...?

 

[Feek]

Any brave soul started testing macOS 13.3 and their wheel yet...?

I don't do beta versions but I'll try it as soon as it hits general release.

 

[MacsRgr8]

So... reviving this one: eh no changes even to 13.3.1, right?

 

[Feek]

So... reviving this one: eh no changes even to 13.3.1, right?

Correct, still not implemented in 13.3.1.