Is using a steering wheel supposed to be hard to learn? Struggling to stay on track

The Game Room
1

I’m a PC user and for the last 15+ years I played all games with a keyboard, including racing games and simulators and while I wasn’t great, I’d often finish in the first 3 places in races for example, singleplayer though.

I decided to switch to a steering wheel, a G27, and in some slow games like Euro truck simulator I got used to it right away, but in any fast paced game like FH 5 or Assetto Corsa, I struggle to keep on the track, regardless of what car I choose, fwd or not, slow or not. I set up the steering wheel exactly as it’s supposed to be and how others have done it, in Assetto Corsa I even went the extra mile and did the LUT configuration thing that is specific to every particular wheel, so the hardware and software aspect is not problematic.

The problem is that I constantly keep slipping off the track, at first I was pushing the brake or gas in curves too hard and when I stopped doing that, things improved, but even with better throttle control, I still feel like if I move the wheel 1 millimeter too much to the side, it flies off the track. Ironically with the keyboard that is either 0% or 100% steering, I never had this issue.

Is there some tutorial for this specific problem or do I need to learn other things like drifting?

2

Using a wheel for racing games seems to be its own skill.

Personally I find a controller much easier to use for racing games. I have a wheel and pedals but I only use it for American truck Simulator.

Racing games are literally too fast to use the wheel. The range of motion is too far, and with limited input of just one screen and speakers you can’t “feel” the speed like you would IRL.

My only advice is brake earlier and keeping your line is way more important and faster than drifting.

3

I wonder if the keyboard input method is somehow dampened via software. I would think it may be, due to the on/off nature of it. Which one gets used to. While the wheel is not. So it may be far more sensitive and require a lot of practice to zone in on.
I never like button input for vehicle steering. So have always used a wheel. Or at least the tilt sensitive game controllers. So I can’t compare them myself.
In real life driving I notice people that I refer to as digital drivers. They drift slowly this way or that, then make a large fast correction, then slowly drift again all the time. Often doing digital curves as well. Straight, jog, straight, jog.