THE! Racing Rigs at home & Do-it-yourself- and visual-monitor-setting-tips Thread

Peter Decker · Jan 20, 2014

Good morning Guys!

Couldn't sleep very well tonight, got up 3 hours early before work. So I figured, heck, I want to do some laps, check the forums, check if any faster lap times at A1 has been registered since last night AND execute my idea of starting this thread!

Please feel free to discuss anything about you all people's gaming rigs - low cost, high cost, F1-budget-cost, you get it

First off, I wonder, since I also checked the "introduce yourself"-thread, Mr. Turnbull for example uses 4 monitors. It looks like you use some telemetry at the forth above the center screen, and that is is some other application than "Real Time Telemetry"?

Also, I have one 21"-isch single widescreen racing monitor, but I also have a 4:3 17"-isch to the right where I run "Real time telemetry" usually. But it would be cool to have a visual at that right monitor in some way, like having right angle view like David's right-hand monitor (yeah yeah, I know what you all are thinking now probable - Peter ffs, monitors are cheap nowadays, get yourself a second side-monitor, but I'll tell ya, I am a student with no money whatsoever atm

)

Now some breakfast! Wops, soon late for work, crap. Well, that's life

Good morning to you all again!

April Dillon · Jan 20, 2014

Not to mention, once you have that monitor, you'd need somewhere to put it. I was trying to find some sort of monitor stand a while ago, just for that reason. As if I had a monitor to my right, it'd need to be a magic monitor that could levitate, because my desk stops there

You can buy ultra widescreen monitors nowadays though, which I'm seriously considering. 21:9 aspect ratio? Yes please!

Alienware were showing off an ultra widescreen curved monitor back in 2008. It seems like a cool idea to me, but they don't seem to have stuck with it.

David Turnbull · Jan 20, 2014

i use real time telemetry on the 4th screen peter

just i didnt have it on at the time, the other things i use the 4th monitor for are like autosim analyser, takatec display for rfactor2 and motec, it also comes in handy for watchin p.... while racing

my monitors are 3x23inch, managed to get them cheap from a friend who wasnt really into driving games, before them i used 3x19inch and the immersion was still 10x a single monitor, it doesnt have to be crazy expensive monitors, or even the biggest ones. ive tried 19inch single monitor, 25inch single monitor, 32inch tv, 3x19inch and now the 3x23+15in, unless anything breaks this is the setup i'll stay with.

maybe get a new wheel at some point though, i did have a wheel plate made for the g25 and i had my phone mounted to the middle and used dashmeterpro for gtr and rf2 but as my wheel sits under the desk when not getting used it gets kicked quite a bit, i kicked the wheel plate and snapped it off

so im just using my bare g25 at the moment and my upshift paddle has been fixed a few times.

3 x 23inch + 15inch

3 x 19inch + 15inch

as you can see, even the 19's looked pretty decent even with the HUGE bezels lol, i used them for around 9 months.

my system is a fairly modest affair these days....

amd phenomII x4 955 @ 3.6ghz
msi am3 motherboard
corsair ddr1333 8gb
amd 6970 2gb graphics card
500gb samsung f3 hdd

and the usual array of drives for backups and stuff, think that all probably cost around 200 quid these days and runs rfactor 2 all medium/high at 5916x1080.

Peter Decker · Jan 20, 2014

Wow April, that is one d.mn large monitor, AND curved

Yeah, that super-duper-widescreen-format would be something!!!

Ah ok David! So, no way of making my right monitor show right angle view?

Yeah, why not relax your eyes on the straights with some p.. during the 62 mins stints

I run G25 too, 4-5 years old now with really softened and oily leather at 9 and 3 o'clock

, looked at G27 but didn't see the need for 4 extra wheel buttons?! Not considering my budget however...

or should I beg for money from my lady? "honey, it is for my future professional racing career so I can earn MILLIONS!!!" or something?

"dashmeterpro" - is that for iRacing only? I just checked my iPhone, seems like a really cool tool with 100+ widgets

David Turnbull · Jan 20, 2014

dashmeterpro has versions for all main sims, race07, rf1/2, iracing, its a handy app, i bought an extra phone cover, glued it to the wheel plate and had my phone mounted on it, it looks pretty cool but to be honest i didnt look at it a whole load, it was mainly that it had lights and flashy things and i could impress anyone who came in to visit

i dont really know what you mean about your other monitor? do you mean to have visual during the game so like your wing mirror would be on the extra screen? i dont think thats possible with 2, if you could add another of the same size to the left then you could use softth to scale the res over the 3 mons.

regards the wheel, ive had the g25 and g27, my g27 broke one day i deceided to clean it out and add new grease, needless to say that was the last wheel i opened

but... the g27 was alot smoother than the g25, but to me personally that was it, the extra buttons were handy but that was the minimal diffrences, the lights were too small to be usable, and the ffb felt the same only smoother, tbh if and when my g25 goes to wheel heaven, ill think about the thrustmaster t500s or a fanatec.

Kennett Ylitalo · Jan 20, 2014

I got some mods on my Momo.

Gap removal mod: extra layer of soft silicone between the cogs, acts as a permanent lubricant and a space filler.. From Momo black that's really really used, at the end of it's life and still no gaps i consider that mod to be successful.

Then i got air springs behind both pedals (brake cylinder is now flat, noticed that i really didn't need it since it kept leaking during the race anyway..). Made from two syringes connected with airhose: pedal motion pushes a cylinder, air moves the other cylinder that has rubberband acting as additional spring (pure airpsring needs larger tank, as the pressure increases exponentially simple syringes and reinforced aquarium hoses just wont hold.. So i had to decrease max pressure with rubber bands tuned so they start to give away when pressure gets too high; but at that moment the pedals own metal spring starts to exert resistance, it's logarithmic too..)

I can add 2-4kg more to the measly 1,2kg of pressure needed to put throttle to the floor (even with 5mm block that can be inserted between original spring and it's base; that removes the designed "feature" of throttle pedal being few mm already down and replaces it with at least few grams of initial "torque"..) I have it now on 4kg total max.

Added benefits are stronger initial load, i need to use ~400g before there's any movement t all. On default conditions you need to add dead zone as the pedal is resting with it's plastic weight on the spring, the movement starts from zero effort: I think this depends in the individual pedal unit, the construction allows quite a bit or movement (Reik has Momo too and he hasn't complained about anything..But i think he could drive with couple of Pong paddles...). It's not exact design but a a bit messy, all kinds of moldings and install holes being a bit wonky here and there but it is self-correcting assembly, which would be kind a neat if it wasn't clearly a way to move yourself out from dead end in design. My brother has same wheel and the pedals on that are totally different compared to mine when i got it... Momo designed the wheel, Logitech packed some pedals they got lying around at the time to the package, that's how it feels.

With some other pedals Momo with gap removal mod is really really good wheel, the single small motor has it's advantages too.

Another benefit is that the cylinders aren't as fast as the metal spring, i can use that delay to do some very fast throttle releases and get on the exact same power before the lift

. To be perfect, i would need to add a third spring for those extra fast motions.. Or divide it to two stages but naah...

EDIT: Oh, forgot the "sponge" stoppers, firm foam cut from kneepads under each pedal for the last 5mm. It's values are maxed out long before and that self-correcting feature makes it hard to get a real, constant max position..So i have "Couldthard" setup: if i lift a little from pedal-to-the-metal, it's still maxed out.. He used it to fool himself; "if i lift a little at Eau-Rouge, i can get thru safely" while conveniently forgetting the reality.. It does work in the sense that there is a mental difference, you are prepared for that forward motion of slowing down so if you really need to, you're few fractions of a second faster. And the cylinder sticks just a bit at the very end from tiny area of suction between cylinder and piston head, that makes it easier to keep it at confident 100% at Abu Dhabi. Holy **** Batman, someone take the batteries out from this guys keybo

Kennett Ylitalo · Jan 20, 2014

I use 19" secondary monitor during races too, btw. Running real time telemetry on it.. Not used during practice since it's my "music corner" aka DAW monitor..