Next changes are cosmetics, and I will just male a quick overview about it. A metalic edging is now surrounding the front of the base (I personally like it), the front plate border is now painted mat black and manufacturing looks more precise (see picture below), and the biggest change is the plexiglass window that is not fully translucid anymore but dark black tinted. It gives the base an more "beastly" overall look, more in line with the black paint and plastic parts, however at the cost you now see less at the inside. I personally like this revised overall look a lot, though I also regret a bit the inside became less visible. I have suggested Fanatec to add some leds to lit up the inside, in case this could be done easily and at low additional manufacturing cost (with the possibility to lit it off, of course).





        Another technical change: cooling system. As you may have seen on the pictures a second fan has been added at the rear side of the base. The air still enters from the left side of the base and exits at the right side but now also at the back. Only drawback so far: noise level. As for the CSW v1 betatest Fanatec provided us bases with a high (max ?) fan profile for the initial testing. That mostly explains the current high sound pressure level, however the rear fan (which I suppose is smaller) also produces more motor noise, adding to the unpleasant overall (current) noise level.

        This is undoubtely the biggest negative aspect I will report about this CSW v2. Even wearing my large over-the-ears headphones (tactic3D wrath) I still clearly hear the cooling system. I really insisted in my Fanatec feedback about that aspect, I mentionned the rear fan motor noise, suggested to use a better quality one, and even suggested to consider a possible watercooled version of the CSW v2 for the hardest to please people (of course this would come at a cost). However we should now wait and see what a more optimized fan profile could provide in term of noise level, as current temperature increase is close to zero (just checked by hand), so current fan profil is obviously overdone. This is currently being worked on for upcoming firmware, so I have no idea at the present day how low the cooling noise will be reduced (I should be able to tell you more about this in a few weeks, and I will probably make a video about it using a SPL meter as I already did for the v1).



        A smaller ergonomic change: I often have talked with Fanatec about how annoying it was to have to keep the start button pressed several seconds to switch the unit off, and a modification is planned for the upcoming firmware so that a shorter button press will shut the base off (I was not able to test this yet).

    And last but no least, the power supply is now stronger. 24v 5A (120W) for the CSW v1, 24v 7.5A (180w) for this v2 pre-production unit:





        Let now begin to dig into the heart of the subject with this next change: friction and cogging. After unboxing the base, I immediately wanted to try to turn the QR hub by hand to check the difference with my v1. Here is the exact feedback I have sent to Fanatec about this: << I immediately wanted to try to rotate the axis by hand to get a feeling of it and compare with the v1. I was happy to see the drag has been greatly reduced as I can rotate it by hand using a lot less strength. I feel a light cogging but I guess less drag is what makes it more apparent >>. Then I made the same test with the wheel rim mounted on, which made the friction reduction even more obvious. And on top of this, cogging wasn't even felt anymore. We'll see below if those improvements help to bring out more details or not from the FFB signals.

        I have tested the base with project cars, assetto corsa, and lastly on the crew beta. Since I own my CSW v1 (I was also beta tester for it), the formula one rim has always been my prefered rim. I undoubtely use it a lot more than my GT rim. So I began my testing with this F1 rim with which I played a significant amount of time with the v2, and currently less with the GT rim for which more time will be needed so I can give you a more complete feedback with the v2 base (note: part added below after the conclusion of this preview).



        The first thing that immediately jumps out to you is the overall smoothness (btw, I began the testing with assetto corsa). It is very good, very pleasant, substantially better than with the CSW v1. Next thing is the really high power of the FFB. While with the v1 set at the max power you could still tell yourself you could want a bit more power, this does not happen with the v2 anymore.

         With assetto corsa and pcars, at best I went to 70% without using any FOR amplification (I even have set it to 90%). And with "the crew", a game that targets a more arcade audience and thus a FFB made accordingly, I had to lower FFB to 30-40% (not a bad FFB but those arcade games often have higher average effect strength, contrary to FFB signal on simulation games that are focusing on details to give a better feel of grip level and thus have lower average level due to dynamic range limitations from FFB wheels).




        My opinion is I have no doubt the FFB power will be way enough to please 99% of the players (most hardcore simracers included), at least considering continuous power. I mean there is way enough so I could set it to a level I would qualify being unusable for longer than a few laps (I'm weighting a bit over 80kg / 175 pounds for info), meaning levels I could clearly not use for a full race, even if it was only a 5min race.

        Where one could wonder about max power could be the peak power, I mean when your criteria is "can the wheel offer a perfect reactivity on any conditions/circumstances". On this aspect, with the F1 wheel I don't think anyone should worry about it: FFB is ultra-reactive. With the bigger and lot heavier GT rim, maybe a (very) few people may request something more reactive, that's hard to say (more infos about this below this preview). There is way enough power with the v2 to move the heavy GT rim quickly, but could it be even better with more peak power ? Again, hard to say without testing also with a high power base like high power direct drive base.

        Some words about the details the lower internal friction could bring out now. Again here, it is hard to give a really objective feedback. For exemple, vibrations from rumble strip seemed to stand out more (initial impression when I began testing). Though beside this, speaking about all small effects / forces, hard to say if there is really a noticeable improvement. If I was asked my opinion right after the first hours of testing with assetto corsa and project cars I would have said that concerning details, quality-wise it was not night and day compared to the CSW v1. Or said in other words, there is no "mind blowing effect" on this particular area.

        As said above, what stands out the most is the great smoothness and great available power. For the details felt, maybe I have not tested enough to really be able to make my opinion on it (also concerning project cars I was focusing on the game physics improvements in the meantime). Details gain in FFB is also hard to quantify as you have to remind how it was on the v1 to compare with the v2. A detailed comparison would require to test successively with both base versions, which would be complicated for me as I attach the base to my desktop using the Fanatec table clamp.




         Another positive aspect, that is also confirming the significant power gain with the v2 base, is not only the ffb power never faded out (despite I pushed the wheel significantly near the limits, with a power set relatively high and doing many consecutive laps on assetto / pcars, or with "the crew" with which I was able to drive several hours non-stop), but also air temperature at the base exit remained really low. Air from cooling remained cool, almost the same temperature than ambiant.

        Although we need to keep in mind the high fan profil used for the betatest, and see what temperature/noise ratio Fanatec will be able to achieve with an optimized profil, but my initial impression is the new motor does not produce much heat. I guess overall efficiency of the motor may be better, combined with a better efficiency for the heat dissipation as promoted by Fanatec.

        A single aspect remain to be cleared up, as one day I wanted to retry to turn the QR hub by hand and told myself it seemed a bit noisier than at unboxing. This is something I have not had the opportunity to talk about with Fanatec yet, but in all honesty I am completely unable to say if it was there since the begining (unboxing) or not. It can be felt as a small friction, as if there was some dust somewhere, and I precisely wondered if that could be some carbon dust coming from the motor break in. Now being brushless I suppose any waterbreaking-in wouldn't have any sense (this is beyond my electric motors knowledge).

        Although note this does not have any consequence on the ffb, I have not felt any difference. This is just something I felt when doing a random QR rotation test and again I'm not able to say if it was there since the begining or if there was an evolution during the first hours of use.





        To conclude this (p)review, I would say we have an excellent ffb wheelbase here (and people who know me a bit know I'm far from being the last to share my thoughts when there is something I dislike, so if there was anything wrong with the CSW v2 believe me I would tell you). The CSW v2 is clearly how I would have expected the v1 to be. I am someone picky and despite I never tried any direct drive wheelbase yet I cannot really figure out what else I could request from a FFB wheel. This base offers way enough continuous power, smoothness is great, peak power remains an area I would have to explore more with more testing with the GT rim, but I have not been disappointed with my current testing with this rim so far. Same about details, more testing would be needed for a deep feedback, but that would require to be able to switch quickly between the v1 and v2 or being able to compare with a good direct driven wheelbase.

        Now from a more global point of view, and this is something I have been discussing a lot about already with other racing sim enthusiasts or direct drive wheelbase owners, my personal opinion is with this CSW v2 base (and even with the v1 already), hardware is beyond software. Undoubtely there a some limitations coming from the hardware (like more limited power with the v1, but that's a completely different story with the v2), but my opinion is current racing games still do not take advantage of the whole potential offered by a CSW v1, and even less when considering a v2 or a direct driven base. In other words I think improvement felt by an enduser would be better if a good sim game was focusing on bringing out the maximum of the potential of a single highend wheelbase than the difference you would get with the same game (same ffb signal) between a CSW v2 and a direct drive wheel (I extrapolate my experience by successively using a microsoft sidewinder FFB wheel, then a Fanatec GT3RS, then a CSW v1 and now this v2).

     


          I have hard time figuring out there could be such a great improvement margin left beyond what this CSW v2 base already offers, if I consider the raw result obtained with this base which again I think is not even representative of its whole real potential. With no doubt I can qualify this CSW v2 being amongst the top high-end wheelbases (I cannot compare with a T500RS as I never tried one). I could even say this CSW v2 is close to perfect as I think it will please 99% of the racing sim/games enthusiasts, even the most demanding ones. The remaining aspects to clear up are the noise level that will be achieved with an optimized fan profil, and the long term reliability (although the very good heat dissipation is promising in this area).

         Technically (manufacturing, power, smoothness), as this base completely satisfy the player I am I have not much had to say to Fanatec. So my suggestions during the betatest focused on software. For example the limited number of slots (custom presets) in the wheel menu. When I switch from one car to another in a racing sim I always have to tweak the on-the-fly wheel settings. This is the first thing I have to do before begining lerning the track/car combo and tweaking the car setup. So I suggested Fanatec this wheel setting management could be handled driver side, keeping tweaking control from the wheelrim but offering infinite number of preset slots so we could have a dedicated preset for each car. Being handled driver side would also allow it to be overlayed directly ingame (by using rivatuner stastic server, for example), and we could even imagine the preset to be loaded automatically when switching to another car. Another benefit of it would be to allow preset trading between end users. Now, I can't say if there would be a demand for that an extended preset management (share your opinion :) ).

 

         Another little thing I regret a bit with the last Fanatec firmware is the negative drift mode being removed. Of course such a setting introduces some friction but I personnaly liked the result with some cars.
 
        I guess I will stop there as I already have written a lot about this base. I will confess I have been a bit surprised about Fanatec decision to lift the NDA as early, though I guess this should be a sign other betatesters also gave them very positive feedbacks about this new base. As a side note for english readers, note this is a direct translation from my original preview that was written in french. It is not word by word as some sentences sometime need a bit of rephrasing for a correct translation (and forgive me if some phrasing do not feel very natural to native english speakers), but I did my best to stay as close as possible from the initial french preview.

       If you have some questions you can ask on Fanatec blog, Project Cars Fanatec support thread, or Hardware.fr Fanatec thread (french only), I will do my best to give you answers.
 
        Also in this preview I talked about further details about the GT rim used with this v2 base. I have shared those new testing in the comments of my initial french preview so I translated this part too and you can read it below. I hope this will give a deeper overview of the v2 base when used with this bigger and heavier GT rim.

          I have also planned to publish a few others videos on my youtube channel. The first one was the QR play test already published and linked in this preview. Next one will focus on the continuous power the v2 base can produce. Then I will make a gameplay video as this is often requested on forums. And as said in this preview, when the optimized fan profil will be released I will try to make a video using a SPL meter so a direct comparison can be made with the video I made in the same conditions with the v1 base.



          Yesterday we started the season 2 of our assetto corsa race championship. We had 2 races on the Nürburgring sprint layout (relatively tortuous layout), 18 laps per race (approx 30min per race), driving the lotus eleven. I trained and made some setup tweaking during 1h in solo mode, then trained another hour during our MP training session, then 20min qualifying session and the 2 race sessions.
 
 I began my solo testing with the F1 rim for approx. 15min then switched to the GT rim for the rest of this race day (training / quali / races).
 
Assetto corsa was set as follow:

    Also a per car ffb setting was recently added to the game, that I left to 100% (idk if it overrides the gain setting in the general option menu or if both combine, I suppose they combine)

And the CSW v2 was set at 50% power (FF:100 and FOR:50), no damping, no drift mode.



        My feeling is the CSW v2 has way enough power so that the heavy weight of the GT rim is not felt as being a limiting factor regarding FFB effects. To be fair I even felt this setting was still providing a bit too strong FFB. For example the effects from driving over track bumps or rumble strips were still felt overdone, incommodating my driving more than I think it should (or at least more than what I would like^^). Even leaving aside my personal preferences, from a "raw" point of view I felt those effects were rendered really (too) strong, even though I should note this is a very light car (less then 800kg) and that racing suspension (I had although set softer for this race) are likely to transmit more informations to the wheelrim than what is felt on a road car.

        And this is part of what made me decide to try to use the GT rim for this race (in addition to the fact I promised a more detailed feedback with this rim, and because this lotus is equiped with this type of rim anyway), as I wanted to check how the additional weight of this rim could help filtering those strong effects as they were felt even stronger with the F1 rim (despite the base was set to 30% power instead of 50% with the GT rim. I brought it up to 50% when switching to the GT rim in order to get more informative feedback from the FFB signal, especially concerning grip level). And if this indeed allowed to filter a bit those effect stiffness (bumps, kerbs), I felt it was still too stiff for my taste.



        So I think there is enough power with the CSW v2 to drive such an heavy rim as the GT rim, and see no reason to want even more (like with a very strong direct drive wheelbase for example), as even with the CSW v2 set at 50% I already can feel it being too strong. One may eventually desire the wheel to pull harder during cornering, although my current testing with the GT rim is not enough to answer this question, and this also for several other reasons.

        First because I have not had enough time to try to better tweak the effect level balancing using the few options assetto corsa offers for this. I have played using the settings I had for the CSW v1 and with no doubt the higher power and different response curve from the CSW v2 implies to tweak those settings again, as the balancing between the more "decorative" part of the effects (those improving immersion in the game) and the informative part was not the best with those setting I used. Grip feeling was too weak versus bump feeling, and that may partially explain I had to use a too strong overall power that resulted in bump effects being too stiff and too present.



        But another question is to know if assetto corsa (and all other games/sims !) really offers enough settings to fine tune this balancing. I need further testing with the slip setting, however there is not "stiffness" setting, for example (altough a lower overall power setting should already make those effects softer, but I'm almost sure this will not be enough). So we come back to what I already have said in the preview, and I have not changed my mind about this: my opinion is the hardware is beyond the software with current games. I still think games lack settings to match closer the specifications of each FFB wheel. Also as I found some effects to already be too stiff with a CSW v2, my guess is this negative aspect would be even more brought out by a stronger direct drive wheelbase. Because of this lack of game settings, I still think that regarding this particular area GT3RS > CSW v1 > CSW v2 > powerful direct drive.

        I hope this extended feedback will help GT rim owners to get a better idea about what they can expect with the CSW v2 and this rim. As a last note, I will say I still consider this GT rim not suitable for competitive racing. It is ok for someone looking for immersion (even using a CSW v1) but is too much a handicap for competitive racing when you consider you will fight against players using lighter rims (like with logitech FFB wheels that equip a large part of the market).



        And I will jump on the occasion to say I regret Fanatec does not offer any affordable solution to people who would like a simple light (similar to the F1 rim weight) and smaller rim (like the round1 rim diameter). The F1 rim weights 1200g (perfect for competitive racing), the GT rim weights 2200kg (too heavy to compete against light rim players). The 918RSR is an option, with its 1625g, but 427€ (incl. shipping). Another option is the universal hub + round1 rim, with which I calculated you can reach 1520g with 4 buttons sets + rotary switch + small paddles + lcd mounted on, and even 1360g if you do not mount any button nor rotary encoder, but again this solution would cost you 367€ including shipping. This is really a price I cannot justifiy when I compare with the F1 rim that costs 197€, and the GT rim at 227€, both including shipping fees (and with the universal hub option you even lose the rev leds !).

        So I really hope Fanatec will offer such a solution soon. I may be wrong (share your opinion everyone), but I think I'm not alone being looking after a smaller diameter round rim (similar to the round1), being light weight (close to the F1 rim), offering the same number of buttons than the F1 and GT rims offer, with also the LCD and rev leds those rims offer (and decent paddles of course), and priced somewhere between the F1 and the GT rim prices (so, close to 200€ shipping included).


Preview written by Madcat on Friday, September 3^rd 2014 (french version), translated by Madcat on Thursday, October 2^nd 2014.

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