Win98 era most popular were the MS Sidewinder and Logitech wheels (therefore still be available for good price 2nd hand) I've had first hand experience with the first 3 Logitech wheels.

Formula Force aka "old red" and by far the best out of the 3. It's belt driven giving a better feel and built solid. It also came with a USB to serial adapter, useful for early buggy USB days
Formula Force GP still a good wheel but much cheaper build quality force feedback is now gear driven like everyone else.
MoMo Racing Basically the same as the Formula Force GP but better build quality.

Reviews at the time between the MS/gear driven and Logitech/cable driven wheels were usually a tie as both methods had pros and cons.
I haven't tried the MS wheel, It would be interesting to compare to the Logitech gear wheels but based on Logitech alone I think cable gave the better feel

I haven't tried any of the wheels on anything later then XP but this post seem to think its still possible
https://superuser.com/questions/253143/how-do … rk-in-windows-7

Would the Saitek r440 cut it against these?

I think that the question should sound not "what a best FF wheel has W9x drivers?" but "what are the wheels those have FF are supported by the most games (or specific game, so name it) of Win9x era?"
That's because of the FF effects support those times was varying from game to game and, for example, NFSII has some restictions if you wanna to play it with FF. May be other games too.
To get the satisfaction not with OS ("drivers installed") but with exact games you'd better list the games you're interested in and you will got the exact model(s) to choose from. I hope so 😀
That's all because of the FF era was just rising

Games like Toca2, Breakneck from the 98 era, but also newer games like Dirt and fonza, rather not have to have 2 wheels for storage reasons.
so a newer wheel, but backward compatible, would love to continue with the sidewinder, but hay ho..

not interested in the "it's buzzing, I must have crashed" like game system controllers.

the win98 system i'm using is a little hp t5710, with gameport, but also like more up-to-date driving.

Cbb wrote on 2020-12-30, 16:15:

I think that the question should sound not "what a best FF wheel has W9x drivers?" but "what are the wheels those have FF are su […]
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I think that the question should sound not "what a best FF wheel has W9x drivers?" but "what are the wheels those have FF are supported by the most games (or specific game, so name it) of Win9x era?"
That's because of the FF effects support those times was varying from game to game and, for example, NFSII has some restictions if you wanna to play it with FF. May be other games too.
To get the satisfaction not with OS ("drivers installed") but with exact games you'd better list the games you're interested in and you will got the exact model(s) to choose from. I hope so 😀
That's all because of the FF era was just rising

Your talking about games that use i-Force 1.0 really early Win95 era games NFS SE and NFS II been the most popular only the MS wheel is backwards compatible all the other wheels seem to start at i-Force 2.0, luckily so do majority of games.

Digidreamer wrote on 2020-12-30, 15:13:

Would the Saitek r440 cut it against these?

I've never seen one let alone used one but going off the reviews of "well built" and "light" I'd assume on par with the Logitech Formula Force GP which was a perfectly acceptable wheel.
funny enough its that's wheel's drivers people are hacking to support the old Logitech wheels so drivers must be decent at the very least.

Don't get the Momo. They say G29 is the best.

However...the Driving Force GT is similar but much cheaper and easier to find.

I literally discovered this the other day, and I am quite happy with the GT.

Can you clarify your setup and if you're aiming at more simulation or arcade/simcade titles? I'm interpreting from your messages that you have two physical systems, one running 98 and the other running 7 (on which you run DOSBox and virtualized XP)? In my experience, there isn't really a good solution to cover these two eras.

My setup is three PCs, primarily focused on simulations. 1) Windows 98 PC with Thrustmaster T2 gameport (also covers DOS games); 2) Windows XP PC with formally a Microsoft SideWinder FFB (USB); 3) Windows 10 with modern-era controllers (direct-drive wheel, pressure-based pedals).

For retro it's t5710 for windows 98se , for more modern it's a t730 with wind0ws 7 pro 64bit. Going to try emulation virtual xp.

Would try splitting the force feedback with seprate midi, but seems not possable.

Thinking more simulator, it's more imersive, if you enjoy the race, who cares you came second.

This may or may not be helpful, but this came to mind...

I remember the hand-me-down steering wheel my brother gave me when he upgraded back in the early 2000s. It was an old Thrustmaster Nascar Pro, non force feedback. It used a game port. I used it to play all sorts of games on his PC, and then when it was mine I used it to play NFS: Porsche, NFS:High Stakes and others. I loved the feel of that wheel. It was pretty loose, but it just felt nice and smooth.

What he upgraded to was a Thrustmaster Nascar Pro Force Feedback. It felt and sounded like trying to turn the wheels on an electric toy car. Quite obnoxious. It had lots of extra buttons (8-way switch, dpad-like thing, paddle shifters, etc.) and the force feedback worked okay for the time, but... it was extremely loud when turning.

I used it again about 5 years ago, after he had given it to me (in Windows 7... the last OS to support it), and it was fun to use in Project Cars, but the noise was still pretty obnoxious. I will say, it did still work after nearly 15 years, so they seem to be fairly reliable. If the noise doesn't bother you, it seems like a good wheel. If other models are quieter and don't sacrifice other features though, I would check those out.

G29 a little over casual gaming Budget,

R440 looks like not much more than a little tremor and nothing when you hit a barrier. been checking out Vids online.

Logitech momo and Logitech Driving Force GT (if I can land one cheap on Fleabay) looking promising, with over 2 turns lock to lock

Digidreamer wrote on 2020-12-31, 11:12:

Logitech momo and Logitech Driving Force GT (if I can land one cheap on Fleabay) looking promising, with over 2 turns lock to lock

I have a few Momos and a GT which I had never compared to a couple of weeks ago. The GT is excellent, and from what I read online has a lot in common with the G29. The Momo was bad, extremely high dampening with weak force feedback. If you can find a cheap GT, jump on it...as you say the G29 is out of price for most people.

So looking for a cheap dfgt, looking for strong force feedback, looks like drivers available for win98se and windows 7 64bit, unless anyone knows different,

Ok, Logitech DFGT secured, looking forward to wrestling with it, Hope it puts up the same fight as it did when buying it.
Will keep you updated.

wonder if you can fit a Mountney Steering wheel to it, Who needs buttons, my car has only a horn on the wheel....

Any one got win98 drivers for dfgt for force feedback, so many sites saying theirs are for win98 but aren't what they say..

I think it's the older Driving Force Pro that last had win98 drivers available. BTW I have a DFGT currently (never tried to use it for w98) and while FFB is strong enough, gotta complain its slow, not a great wheel for drifting, it doesnt turn fast enough to counter-steer effectively. Will be upgrading it to a G25 eventually, but I first wanna try playing gran turismo 5 with it, as it was meant for that officially. For win98 I use the formula force (old red) and my complaint with that one is the pedals are shite, but the wheel itself is quite good.

Got it working under lgs460, think it's seen as a pro usb, some buttons are missing but other wise fine. A lot lighter than the sidewinder and twitchy, should be able to tune it down.

an old post here also mentioned getting the G25 recognized as a driving force pro under w98 with lgs 4.60