Fifth Gear Tries F1 Simulator of Cruden

Bram

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Bram Hengeveld submitted a new blog post:

Fifth Gear Tries F1 Simulator of Cruden

The team of Fifth Gear have tested a GBP 165,000 simulator that is used by multiple Formula One teams to help develop their real life racing cars. Driving force behind these simulators is the Dutch company Cruden that we all know here at RaceDepartment as the creators of the popular free to play simulation software RACER.

Powered by ten pc's this machine simulates a F1 car with 98% accuracy. I was lucky enough to test one of...
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I really like the Cruden sims.

I've been lucky enough to have a fair few goes on one now. At first I didn't really like it, but the more you use one (which F1 drivers etc will do), the more you learn to interpret the information it gives you and correlate that with what you feel in real life.

I guess the best example I can give of the feeling is when you drive Racer at your PC all day then go drive a real car, the sudden realisation that you feel g forces in real life when you were not expecting them makes them stand out, and for me at least, the first 100m or so feels really dramatic. My Z4 feels like a 2000bhp dragster kinda :D

If you jump on the sim it's a bit alien at first, but after a while it makes sense and you kinda re-calibrate to it and after a while you settle in and really feel to benefit from the feelings you get!

The F1 car is amazing really. The feelings really are heavy going and you get tired. I was tired after one slow lap due to the strain on my body haha!



My only issue really was that when using them (and it's evident in the video too) there are too many outside of screen distractions which, if you notice for a fraction of a second, spoils the immersion for me at least.
I think for a seasoned user that wouldn't be a problem so much as you'll learn to block it out, but for the entertainment users I think something like Oculus VR will make them absolutely unreal for the immersion and sensations!

I can't wait to sample a simulator with a VR headset...!!

All good stuff :D

Dave
 
I really like the Cruden sims.

I've been lucky enough to have a fair few goes on one now. At first I didn't really like it, but the more you use one (which F1 drivers etc will do), the more you learn to interpret the information it gives you and correlate that with what you feel in real life.

I guess the best example I can give of the feeling is when you drive Racer at your PC all day then go drive a real car, the sudden realisation that you feel g forces in real life when you were not expecting them makes them stand out, and for me at least, the first 100m or so feels really dramatic. My Z4 feels like a 2000bhp dragster kinda :D

If you jump on the sim it's a bit alien at first, but after a while it makes sense and you kinda re-calibrate to it and after a while you settle in and really feel to benefit from the feelings you get!

The F1 car is amazing really. The feelings really are heavy going and you get tired. I was tired after one slow lap due to the strain on my body haha!



My only issue really was that when using them (and it's evident in the video too) there are too many outside of screen distractions which, if you notice for a fraction of a second, spoils the immersion for me at least.
I think for a seasoned user that wouldn't be a problem so much as you'll learn to block it out, but for the entertainment users I think something like Oculus VR will make them absolutely unreal for the immersion and sensations!

I can't wait to sample a simulator with a VR headset...!!

All good stuff :D

Dave
I can see your point there Dave. having never been in a proper simulator I can only really imagine the stresses it puts on your body.

The feeling going from driving in Racer to a real car, can be quite odd at times. and you are right your senses learn to settle into Racer. Like using a clutch with no real feeling lol, without stalling a car out, or bouncing off the rev limiter.

The video from Fifth gear is neat, especially since Cruden gets some attention. And I really like the simulator they have, though I felt like they had a bigger one. Still makes me wish i had one like that. Without the probable expense of course.
 
You can also visit the main office in the Netherlands or contact one of the regional offices you can find on the contact page of Cruden.
 
Boo! Hiss!
I'm not saying that the Cruden sim is bad by any means... But to suggest that it's the very latest technology and even remotely the same as what the F1 teams use is pretty far off the mark. Not even iZone are close to what the F1 teams use because... Well, they're F1 teams and they have a hell of a lot more money and resources. However, having been on both I can tell you I know which one I think is more realistic and it's not the Cruden sim.

I can give you a few reasons why I think this too. The hydraulic movement is too arcade-like in my opinion. It doesn't give a true sense of what the car is doing, it just feels like you have massive body roll through every corner. A lot of people confuse difficulty with realism too. Just because it's hard, it doesn't mean it's realistic. In fact, the more realistic it is the easier it should be to drive as it will feel more natural. So many people who I know are quick drivers in real life can't even do one lap without spinning on the sim at uni and I don't think that's a good thing at all.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's great that the uni's sim was featured on 5th Gear (even if they failed to mention which uni it was), and at the end of the day the cruden sim is still a fantastic bit of kit. It just isn't anywhere near as good as they make it out to be on the video is all I'm saying.
 
I'm not saying that the Cruden sim is bad by any means... But to suggest that it's the very latest technology and even remotely the same as what the F1 teams use is pretty far off the mark. Not even iZone are close to what the F1 teams use because... Well, they're F1 teams and they have a hell of a lot more money and resources. However, having been on both I can tell you I know which one I think is more realistic and it's not the Cruden sim.
Two things, firstly, you did kinda say that the Cruden sim is bad. Second, real F1 teams do use the cruden system I think 5 or 6 teams use it, and I as well remember reading that in an article. Wish I could remember what teams use it.
 
The high-end raceteams use external physics solutions (like Matlab or just plain C++ if you'd want) to be able to tweak the way they want it. The sim then acts more as a graphics and controller engine, more than trying to dictate what the physics should be. For high-end teams you need to give them the tools to develop a simulator, rather than to provide a product that is rigid. The whole point of an F1 team is building something that does not exist yet.

The motion characteristic the teams use is fairly concentrated to give small but important cues, whereas motion such as on UoH is much more 'moving'. Ofcourse, this can all be tuned to one's preference but that's generally the idea.
The point is having a simulator you can develop with, and do that in a flexible workflow.
 

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