Last week I decided to get a racing sim setup and since I’m now spending so much time at home, the timing turned out to be perfect.
I’ve been following @gamehexshop on Instagram for some time now. They’re a local business that sells sim rig setups for the home. I used to check their online store often but never really knew what I needed to get or how much a setup would cost so eventually I just decided to DM them last week and ask. They had shared a home setup on their story so I messaged them asking how much it would cost and if it would work with my Xbox. The setup they had shared on their story cost 279KD but they told me I would need the Xbox bundle version if I wanted it to work with my Xbox. 279? That’s less than I imagined it would cost so after a bit of back and forth and some research from my end, ordered a setup for my home.
Most of the time I just play racing games on my Xbox. Every now and then I might play a FPS but there hasn’t been one I invested a lot of time in in years so it’s not that important. Plus I have the Switch 2 which I use for other games. Gamehex carry two brands, Moza Racing and PXN. Both are pretty popular brands especially Moza Racing.
What you need for a full setup:
- Computer or Xbox
- Wheel base
- Steering wheel
- Pedals
- Seat
- TV/Monitor
- Cockpit (what seat, TV and everything connects to)
- Additional accessories like handbrake or manual shifters
Moza Racing sells all their sim components separately including the steering wheel, wheel base and pedals, or you can buy them as a bundle. They have an R3 Xbox bundle that works straight out of the box with Xbox, which is what I went with.
The R3 is their entry level wheel base and it’s what provides the force feedback from the road along with the steering feel. The bundle includes the R3 wheel base, an Xbox compatible steering wheel and a set of pedals.
Since I mainly do rally racing, I also picked up the Moza Handbrake and the 12 inch steering wheel. The 12 inch wheel replaces the standard 10 inch D shaped wheel that comes with the bundle. It’s just the outer frame, so you unscrew the original rim from the hub and attach the new one.
They also offer a formula style wheel for those who do more GT or F1 racing.
In addition to the Moza stuff I got Gamehex’s GMX Rig GT4, the monitor mount for it, and the GMX R11 seat. I already had a 55″ OLED TV screen for my Xbox so mounted that to the setup. Their prices are extremely reasonable with everything basically costing close to Moza’s MSRP in the US. Because I bought a package they gave me a 10% discount but they’re also offering 10% off throughout Ramadan.
The total cost for my setup was 305.300KD, not including the 12″ steering wheel which I bought a couple of days later for 20KD. They were able to deliver the items on the same day and then the following day they sent over a technician to set everything up. They did a really clean install, hiding all the wiring so that the setup doesn’t look messy. They then custom fit the sim for my needs, adjusting everything including pedal location, steering wheel angle, etc., all to my liking.
The result? It feels like I have my own arcade machine in my room. It’s insane! All the parts are made of metal no plastic anywhere and the R3 wheel base is really powerful. Although by Moza’s standards this is the entry level base providing “only” 3.9Nm of torque, in reality it’s incredibly strong and when I’m rallying and hitting jumps or ruts on the ground I’m constantly fighting it and getting a lot of feedback. Using the handbrake feels great as well. I chose not to get the manual shifter because the steering wheel already has paddle shifts and when I’m rallying I prefer to keep the car in auto anyway so I can just focus on steering and braking. If you check the price breakdown above you’ll see a “performance kit” listed, this is for the brake pedal and gives it a more realistic feel. Highly recommended, otherwise the pedal feels too light.
My 55″ TV is overkill for sure but I wasn’t about to go buy another smaller TV just for this setup. Also the 55″ kind of gives the games a close to real life scale. When I posted the photo above from Dirt Rally 2.0 one friend thought I was out of town and had taken a shot of me driving before he realised what he was looking at. So no complaints there. For sound I initially was using headphones but decided to connect a pair of KEF LSX speakers I have along with the KEF KC62 subwoofer and it’s been amazing. I 3D printed some speaker stands for them to make them point up towards me since they’re located on the floor and it works really well.
The only issue I had was when trying to upgrade the firmware. Moza have iOS and Android apps where you can control various settings, sensitivity and do calibration, but if you want to calibrate the handbrake or do firmware updates you need their Windows only software. I’m a Mac user so the only way to get it done was to install a virtual Windows environment, which worked for me but it was a hassle to do.
Luckily for me all the racing games I wanted for my Xbox were on sale so I ended up getting them all for a great deal:
Assetto Corsa – $7.49
Assetto Corsa Competizione – $10.88
DIRT 5 Year One Edition – $21.76
DiRT Rally 2.0 – Game of the Year Edition – $21.76
F1 25 – $30.47
I already had Forza Horizon 5 and Forza Motorsport from before. Dirt 5 I used to play when I had GamePass but just bought it outright now since I no longer have GamePass and it’s actually one of my favorite games and the one I’ve been playing the most since it’s the most arcade-like.
So yeah, this has been a really great buy and what I’m spending all my time on now. If you have an Xbox I highly recommend the Moza R3 Bundle. You don’t even need to buy a rig to use it, it comes with table clamps so you can connect it to any desk or table you have. Gamehex also sell more advanced setups for people with PCs, you can check their full range on their website and build your own package, here is the link.