Thank you Turtle Beach for sending us this racing wheel to review!

While I've long had an appreciation for racing games and wanted to play with a racing wheel, it wasn't until Dirt Rally hit back in 2016 that I finally dove into modern racing head on. I bought a cheap Logitech Momo racing wheel from a friend for next to nothing to see if I would enjoy it, and then upgraded to the venerable Logitech G27 racing wheel that I've been using for as many racing games as possible for the better part of a decade. As good as that's been, the force feedback is loud and not super accurate, and drifting with that wheel's a bit of a pain because it doesn't spin quickly enough. Once I learned about direct drive motors, I'd been plotting and scheming for a way to upgrade. Thankfully, Turtle Beach blessed us with an opportunity to review one of their new direct drive wheel combo kits. Thanks guys!

Over the last ten or so years, the racing simulation hobby has exploded in popularity. With powerful GPUs and ultrawide monitors, and even VR gear, the simulation aspects are better than ever. However, arguably one of the most important inventions in the sim racing hobby was that of the direct drive wheelbase. Before this, the major racing wheel companies used gear-driven (Logitech) or belt-driven (Thrustmaster) systems where smaller motors would have the torque increased through gears or a belt which would increase the ratios necessary to give enough force to make the virtual driver feel the resistance and force feedback from the motor.

Of course, like any technology, using gears or belts has some compromises. These include slop or play in the movement, noise from the gears, or hard movement limits. For example, on my G27 you can feel significant resistance moving the steering wheel without any power applied to it. You also can hear the gears and/or the motor while it spins. It hits a hard wall when it's rotated all the way in one direction as well, though that could be an implementation detail rather than a hard limit to the technology. Whatever the case, despite its flaws, I'm certainly grateful for the relatively affordable G27 I picked up used many years ago, as it's given me some great racing memories.

Sim racing hobbyists were not content with the status quo of gears and belts. A group of sim racing lovers in the 2010s took servo motor technology and shrunk and refined it for the first time for consumer use in a racing wheel. Essentially, they took a servo motor from industrial equipment, attached a controller and a wheel to it, programmed the force feedback controllers and interfaced it with a computer, and made something far more powerful and accurate than anything before for the home market. In the late 2010s and early 2020s, more and more companies got involved, and Turtle Beach decided to join them early 2024 with their VelocityOne Race. This wheel, the VelocityOne Race KD3, is their second wheel, an entry-level racing wheel for consumers who can't afford the first model's higher price tag, or may prefer its more understated design.

While I have seen many talk about direct drive wheels online, I had never used one before now. Of course that does mean I can't compare this Turtle Beach VelocityOne KD3 to other direct drive wheels, but I can compare it against my Logitech G27. It's my understanding that follow-up models in their G series (G29, etc.) use largely similar motor mechanisms to the G27, so my experience with this older model should closely mirror newer models in the same line.

Modern direct drive wheels are modular, and the KD3 is no exception. Being modular, the steering wheel itself can be separated from the wheelbase via a nice quick release system. The pedals are also a separate piece, though in this case, the two pedals can't be separated from each other. While other things are included, like mounting hardware and cables, the wheel, wheelbase, and pedals make up the majority of what's in the box. A manual transmission shifter is not included, though Turtle Beach does sell one and it can plug directly into a PC, or plug into one of the rear USB-C ports on this wheelbase for console use.

It's important to note that consoles often have different requirements than PC, and many games on PC offer much more flexible controller and wheel options than consoles do. The KD3 supports Xbox and PC; unfortunately PlayStation support is not available. On PC, you can connect the wheelbase, pedals, and shifter or anything else directly into your PC or into the back of the wheelbase (if the accessory is Turtle Beach VelocityOne Race branded). On Xbox, connecting to the wheelbase is required if you want it to work, as only that configuration works on Xbox.

While a racing wheel kit is incomplete without at bare minimum a steering wheel and pedals, there is a bit more included with this kit. On the VelocityOne Race KD3, the wheelbase itself has a small screen that Turtle Beach calls the Race Management Display (RMD). It's surprisingly useful and a nice value-add, though I wouldn't call it essential. What's so great about it is it allows you to configure some important aspects of the wheel without having to boot up the Turtle Beach VelocityOne Tuner Windows or Xbox app, or even the mobile (Android, iOS) app of the same name.

The Windows and Xbox app work really well in my testing, and I was able to update the firmware on either Windows or Xbox, which is not always the case. The Android app, when it was connected consistently, worked well enough, though I didn't like how you couldn't easily load the onboard profile to the phone and edit it, but instead you edited a profile and loaded it onto the wheel. But my main issue with it is that it was finicky to connect and stay connected in my testing. Of course, your mileage may vary in that regard.

On the included wheel, the rolling knob and button labeled 'E2' controls the RMD's menus. It defaults to a useful status screen that shows what OS mode it is in (Windows, Xbox), what devices are connected to it (pedals, shifter), if the Bluetooth mobile app is connected, and various status items like the profile, pedal, and wheel status. That last one is particularly handy as sometimes the wheel can get knocked off center after a crash, so it can be nice knowing at a glance where it's pointed.

There are several other screens where you can choose the platform (Windows, Xbox), profile (one of five onboard), or configure aspects of the wheel. These include setting the overall K:Drive strength in percent, wheel rotation in degrees between 90 and 2600, pedal sensitivity in percent, configure the left dial's button mapping, configure the RGB lighting, view telemetry, and check system settings. The menu is simple but handles a lot; though there is more detail when configuring using the app, it's great that a lot is still onboard.

The telemetry mode lets you view the current telemetry in games that support it. These include things like RPM level (shown as an LED light rather than numbers), speed, and which gear you are in. It's useful and neat, though perhaps not that important since most games also show that on screen. It is somewhat involved, though, since the game must support it, and the telemetry software must as well; more on that later.

The VelocityOne Tuner app lets you adjust much more than the wheel alone allows you to do. For example, you can adjust the K:Drive overall strength on the wheel itself, but the app also lets you adjust the centering spring emulation and damping effects. The app allows adjusting the deadzone, if you would like, along with the rotation in degrees, while the wheel itself is just the latter. The same is true with other views like the pedal tab, that lets you adjust both sensitivity and deadzone, while the wheel itself just adjusts sensitivity. This is why setting up the app, in whatever form you choose, is still important for setting things up the way you want.

Game compatibility is one area of real struggle for new wheels. Games with wheel compatibility span back decades, but it wasn't until relatively recently that we had more consistent APIs that games can target that work with all gaming hardware. DirectInput has always existed, but it's apparently difficult for developers to get right, as most older games I tested either couldn't detect this wheel, or acted erratically. Sometimes they would work, but there was no force feedback. Whatever the case, game compatibility is a real area of struggle.

It seems that Xbox compatibility is generally better than PC for older titles. For example, I have the older Windows Store and Xbox One crossbuy version of Forza Horizon 3, while I bought FH4 and FH5 on Steam. Forza Horizon 3 Xbox version works just fine with the KD3 wheel, while the Windows version doesn't detect it at all. The wheel seems to work on the few Xbox games I tried, but over 90% of the games I own are on PC, so that's what I spent most of my time testing.

Most modern releases from major games studios work just fine on both PC and Xbox. Assetto Corsa (all), Forza (sorta), most recent Codemasters titles, and some more prominent indie titles like Drift CE and JDM: Japanese Drift Master all work well. Recent KT Racing games also work, like WRC 10 and Generations. Older titles, or ones from smaller developers, often do not. For example, Forza Horizon 5 works (with a complex workaround, but that workaround does work), while Forza Horizon 3 or 4 do not work on PC (but do on Xbox). F1 2023 and 2024 are listed as working, but unfortunately for me, the most recent F1 game I own is 2020, which does not. Some modern smaller indie titles, like #DRIVE Rally and Rally Arcade Classics, both do not work with this wheel, which is a real bummer as they are both fun games I looked forward to playing with this wheel. I need to keep my old Logitech wheel around, because otherwise I am limited to gamepad play with those games.

In my testing, the more robust the wheel support the more likely the wheel will work well. For example, games with concurrent multi-device input tend to work really well. In Assetto Corsa Rally and Evo, I tested using the wheelbase for steering, the Logitech Racing adapter for my older Logitech pedals and shifter, and a flight stick for the handbrake, and it all works wonderfully together. It's a hassle to setup, but its fun to see it all work like that. Honestly, expect to have to map inputs for almost every game on PC, as Turtle Beach's compatibility list shows only one game as offering a plug-and-play profile, and that's Forza Motorsport 2023, which I haven't picked up (yet?). Here's the full compatibility list.

It's worth mentioning that this list is not exhaustive; several racers have released since that list was compiled that do work well. Nascar 25 works great after configuring the wheel, and Project Motor Racing seems to have a built-in profile for the KD3, as I had to do very little configuration to get right to racing in that title.

A few games require manual configuration (modding?) to get them to work completely. One title that did this is Dirt Rally 2.0, which requires downloading a custom force feedback configuration file from Turtle Beach's website. Without it, you won't get any feedback whatsoever, including no wheel centering. But with that config file, that game plays so well that the force feedback could easily be a showcase for that wheel. It's awesome once you do the work.

Another aspect that requires a bit of work is live telemetry. It's important to note that telemetry is PC only. As I mentioned before, you can set the screen to telemetry mode, and it will show you what telemetry there is. However, the game itself doesn't publish that information to the wheel. You need a telemetry service running that can extract that information from the game. There are two relevant apps that can help you with this. The first is Turtle Beach's own Race Connect, which you can launch directly from Tuner. It does the job, but it only works for about sixteen games. While that isn't bad, it doesn't update often enough to be current with the latest releases. Thankfully, the RMD also supports SimHub, a free (with a paid upgrade version) app that supports telemetry on over eighty games; far more than the KD3 will work on, especially since SimHub supports flight simulators as well. SimHub can do a whole lot more than just send your speed to the KD3's screen, but that is more than I'm going to cover here.

I can't believe I got this far into a review and haven't even told you what the experience racing with the VelocityOne Race KD3 is like. In can you haven't figured it out yet, sim racing is a deep and complex subject that requires more tuning and setup than your average game, but the rewards can be incredible.

Yes, the experience driving with a direct drive motor is a massive leap up over my older Logitech G27. Was the G27 bad? No, you can still enjoy driving. But the vibration and noise from moving gears, not to mention the resistance, means you don't often feel subtle force feedback effects. Another frustration with my G27 is I found drifting in games hard to pull off properly, because the wheel's return to center is too slow, so the car is already well into the slide before you can start spinning the wheel the other way. This can lead to some difficult-to-execute drifts.

With the VelocityOne Race KD3, the direct drive motor is perfectly smooth, and the wheel moves effortlessly unless forces from the game work against that. It's also simple to make sure the wheel rotational degrees match the car; in case the game doesn't configure that for some reason, you can switch it up on the fly using the onboard display to make sure things match.

But having such smooth and perfect motion, force feedback really comes through clearly. You can feel pebbles, slides, and impacts like never before. You can more intuitively feel when grip breaks loose, and better gauge drifts and slides. Taking corners is more realistic and intuitive. While turning, the wheel's natural and faster return to center allows quicker and more natural corrections after making a mistake. The feedback from the game gives you much more information, making you drive better - or at least think you are. Whatever the case, it's a lot more fun when you feel more immersed, and even this entry level direct drive wheel is a massive step up from my old Logitech, even if the rated force isn't that far off (3.2 Newton-meters for the KD3, vs. 2.3Nm for the Logitech).

I will say that the leather-wrapped wheel and the metal spines on the G27 looks so nice and premium in comparison to the mostly plastic and rubber KD3 wheel, but the KD3 wheel performs so much better it's easy to forget about that. The KD3 wheel is also one inch larger in diameter, which makes it just a bit closer to a real car.

I really like the KD3's bundled pedals; they look and feel great to use. The major issue I have with them is there is currently no in-ecosystem way to add a clutch pedal. I understand that many younger drivers have never driven a car with a clutch, but I've been driving cars with a manual transmission since my first one. So, for me, not having a clutch pedal feels like I'm missing a limb. But for most of you, that's not a big deal, and these pedals feel good with nice resistance. They include a really nice anti-slip pad on the bottom, but with the amount of pressure needed to press the pedals down all the way, I found they would easily tilt back so the front of the pedal set would lift up off of the floor. Thankfully, they have screw slots on the bottom to make mounting them to a rig or wheel stand simple. I mounted them to my wheel stand.

Speaking of mounting, the wheelbase also has screw holes for mounting it. I mounted mine to my wheel stand after testing it clamped to my desk. And I have to say, while the pedals were good but not great free floating, the wheelbase's mounting clamp is absolutely genius. It uses a thick steel three-sided clamp with a single, strong post clamp that you twist to tighten, not unlike a monitor arm clamp. The way it hooks to the wheel base and tightens is a brilliant design that somehow offers really solid clamping force while taking up very little space. It's great!

One thing about buying a racing wheel is that you really buy into the whole ecosystem. Unless what you buy has everything you'll ever need, it's important to evaluate what they are offering outside of just the wheel bundle itself. Right now, their ecosystem isn't too large, but it's much better than before. The VelocityOne F-RX Formula Wheel is an optional replacement wheel that should make it feel great to use when racing F1 cars. I have not tested this accessory, so I can't say with confidence how good it is. It has extra buttons and paddles compared to the default KD3 wheel, including a pair of analog paddles in addition to the digital paddles that the KD3's wheel has. With that said, I would never recommend drifting with an F1-style wheel; you need something you can spin, catch, spin and reverse, which is outright dangerous when the wheel can smack your hand with the handles.

Another really nice part of the ecosystem is their VelocityOne Multi-Shift. This H-pattern shifter with sequential and handbrake modes honestly looks amazing. I hope I get to review this some day, but if not I'm inclined to buy one on a sale. I'm currently using my old Logitech shifter with an adapter because I really do need one to make driving feel natural, but it's low quality and starting to show its age with it sometimes not registering. That, and using it is more complicated than I wish it was since I need multiple USB connections on my PC to make it work.

With a nice wheel and shifter, there are at least some accessories that can improve the driving experience. I hope that they offer a clutch pedal at some point, so I can finally retire these much worse Logitech pedals; the pedals are small, and the spring resistance is really quite soft, making it more difficult to judge how to stop properly.

The Turtle Beach VelocityOne Race KD3 is a really nice racing wheel in a lot of ways. The one thing that is complicated to evaluate here is the value for the dollar. At full price MSRP, it's a tough pill to swallow. There is some stiff competition at a similar price point, and some of the direct drive competition offers more Nms of force or a more fleshed out accessory ecosystem; even if I can't personally vouch for their performance, I can certainly read a spec sheet. One thing in Turtle Beach's favor is the integrated Race Management Display; that is definitely a valuable addition. With that said, on sale this offers a really great value. I've seen it on sale for $349, at which price it's absolutely worth it. During the Black Friday sale this year, it was at a bonkers $299. At that price, it's a no brainer - buy it!

Turtle Beach's sophomore entry into racing simulation has proven that they are listening to feedback and are serious about making a real dent in the sim racing ecosystem with their VelocityOne Race line. It's a high-quality product that feels great and performs well, as long as it works on the games you're playing and you're fine with its limitations. If you like to race with the classics, you might want to stick with more established brands. But if you are diving into the many modern masterpieces, seeking the most accurate simulation that you can afford, then the VelocityOne Race KD3 is a really good choice. I look forward to the day I can ditch the old Logitech stuff for good! Recommended at the right price.