Buying Advice -ProSimu 3dof or Next Level V3

[bluey]

Hi to all..i am thinking of getting into a motion rig ..but not sure which way to go ...ie seat mover nlv3 or rig mover prosimu 3 dof ...any advice would be most welcome ..

 

[Flibbberflops]

Thinking of getting one of these (T1000-3) but worried about space.
What size is the base that holds the frame?
Thanks in advance.

I replaced the base board that it sits on so its not the exact same size but its about 100cm x 100cm.
The metal frame is also about 100cm wide at its widest point (the red front arms). The black frame is about 130cm long, so it overhangs the base board (slightly at the front - more so at the rear).

 

[Flibbberflops]

@AussieStig Are you still using the ProSimu T1000 3DOF?

A year on and i am still using mine.Its been faultless.
In fact recently I purchased ACC and tried playing today in VR without the plugin for the motion. It felt terrible. The game was so unrealistic and I was starting to feel sick in VR. So I stopped, dug out the ACC motion plugin and it fel so much better.

 

[ThugUK]

I replaced the base board that it sits on so its not the exact same size but its about 100cm x 100cm.
The metal frame is also about 100cm wide at its widest point (the red front arms). The black frame is about 130cm long, so it overhangs the base board (slightly at the front - more so at the rear).

Do you have any photographs you could share please?
Also with a tape held in place at the widest and longest points of the rig itself?
Does it 'have to' go on a board?

 

[Flibbberflops]

To be honest, the best photos are in the link already posted.
https://www.isrtv.com/reviews/review-prosimu-t1000-3dof-motion-simulator/
My rig is in a confined space so its hard for me to get pictures of anything other than a close up picture.

However, going on the photos in the link I shall talk you through it.

Starting with the 3rd photo down. First of all ignore the big black square mat. This is just a mat and not really needed.
The first thing you need to look at is the grey chipboard. This is the base and it roughly mirrors the "H" of the lower red frame. This chipboard is just three sepearte pieces of oblong board connected together to make a "H". It is done this way for shipping (compactness). To be honest this is the only naff bit of the rig. I binned the chipboard and instead brought one large replacement about 100cm square. The "traction loss" actuator bolts to this base board so it can push/pull the red frame left and right. Also screwed to the base board (under the red fame at the front and back) are two larg metal plates. Those are there because the red frames have casters on each corner for the travtion loss movement (which obviously roll on the metal plates). In the picture the right side (with the actuator) piviots a lot (this is your bum end of the rig). The left side in the picture is the pedal end and piviots very little.

Next the longer black frame (shown in the same picture) holds everything else... seat, wheel, pedals and actuators. If you have just the 3 motion, 2 actuators bolt to the front of the black frame and the feet of the actuators slip into the red cylinders you can see on the top of the red frame. If you have 5 motion, there are two more at the back.

If you go to the 7th picture down you will see that once the black frame is built your ass hangs over the base by about 20cm for maximum traction loss movement. The front pedals hang over about 10com

In that link, the guy has custom built the wooden base board to extremes so it can me moved easily. This is a consideration if you will need to move it. I have moved mine once and it is very hard work due to the weight (and unlike the link, no wheels). You can sepearte the black frame from the rest fairly easily and slide the rest but its defo a two man job and not something you would want to do often.

 

[Insert Coin]

A year on and i am still using mine.Its been faultless.
In fact recently I purchased ACC and tried playing today in VR without the plugin for the motion. It felt terrible. The game was so unrealistic and I was starting to feel sick in VR. So I stopped, dug out the ACC motion plugin and it fel so much better.

Can you give me your honest opinion about the 'annoying bird chirping noise' of the SCN6 actuators I often read about?
Which software do you use to run the T1000 DOF3, SimTools 2.0 (69 euro)?

 

[Flibbberflops]

Can you give me your honest opinion about the 'annoying bird chirping noise' of the SCN6 actuators I often read about?
Which software do you use to run the T1000 DOF3, SimTools 2.0 (69 euro)?

Unfortunately not objectively - no. In my particular circumstance I use a VR headset with headphones and I like the sound cranked up. When I am immersed I cannot even hear my better half telling me the tea is ready (I have to get a tap on the shoulder).

If you use a speaker setup I imagine you would need to either except the chirping or have it quite loud indeed. The chirping happens mainly with big actuator movements. The majority of the time on the track you are not subject to large movements. This is probably going to be more pronaunced if you are rally driving (but i don't do that either due to VR rally making me chunder).

I think it is important to mention that the "typical" idea of race sim motion is something that tosses the driver around like an old sock. The prosimu isn't really like that. The actuators have something like a 20com travel range, so if normal position is in the middle you have a relatively small range up and down. The beauty of actuator motion is not really the extent of movement it is the speed and refinement. Therefore the beautiful feeling I get from the motion is more to do with vibration and feeling the road surface. When it comes to big movement I only really rate the gear change jerk and the back end movement which feels unbelievably realistic when someone performs a TPAC on you.

What I am trying to say is that i find the majority of movement is the rumble of tiny vibrations and the other stuff which gives you such a great feedback. Its not the big chirping movements. To that end that rumble is loud on the surface you have the simulator on. In my case, I am in the loft on a wooden floor. When its active the rumbeling on the floor below is just like you are in the same room. You can even hear it clearly on the floor below that. I have even purchase sound deadening matts which help a bit but not much. Therefore I have a 9pm curfue. Not because of the chirping but because of the rumble.

 

[Flibbberflops]

Forgot to say... yes I am using simtools 2.0. The plugins for new games turn up incredably fast on xsimulator.net. On relase day of ACC, the plugin was availble virtually instantly.

 

[Insert Coin]

Unfortunately not objectively - no. In my particular circumstance I use a VR headset with headphones and I like the sound cranked up. When I am immersed I cannot even hear my better half telling me the tea is ready (I have to get a tap on the shoulder).

If you use a speaker setup I imagine you would need to either except the chirping or have it quite loud indeed. The chirping happens mainly with big actuator movements. The majority of the time on the track you are not subject to large movements. This is probably going to be more pronaunced if you are rally driving (but i don't do that either due to VR rally making me chunder).

I think it is important to mention that the "typical" idea of race sim motion is something that tosses the driver around like an old sock. The prosimu isn't really like that. The actuators have something like a 20com travel range, so if normal position is in the middle you have a relatively small range up and down. The beauty of actuator motion is not really the extent of movement it is the speed and refinement. Therefore the beautiful feeling I get from the motion is more to do with vibration and feeling the road surface. When it comes to big movement I only really rate the gear change jerk and the back end movement which feels unbelievably realistic when someone performs a TPAC on you.

What I am trying to say is that i find the majority of movement is the rumble of tiny vibrations and the other stuff which gives you such a great feedback. Its not the big chirping movements. To that end that rumble is loud on the surface you have the simulator on. In my case, I am in the loft on a wooden floor. When its active the rumbeling on the floor below is just like you are in the same room. You can even hear it clearly on the floor below that. I have even purchase sound deadening matts which help a bit but not much. Therefore I have a 9pm curfue. Not because of the chirping but because of the rumble.

Did you use SimVibe (tactile / bass shakers) before you had the T1000? If yes, is the T1000 much better?

 

[Flibbberflops]

Did you use SimVibe (tactile / bass shakers) before you had the T1000? If yes, is the T1000 much better?

I did indeed. I had four tactile tranducers in chasis mode. At the time I thought they were great. It was only when I moved to the T1000 did I realise how poor the simvibe was.

 

[Insert Coin]

Thank you for your replies, much appreciated. A question about the needed floor space: what is the maximum length from the front to the back (top) of the seat when the seat is most extended (actuators at their highest point / seat leaned back)?

 

[Flibbberflops]

This is not easy to measure as the seat can be bolted in various degrees of lean back. Mine is anout 140cm from front to back but remember you have all the wiring at the front which you need space to get in. Really I would say you need about 200cm in all.

 

[Insert Coin]

Thanks! Does the motion cause unwanted movement in VR? Recently I read someone went back to monitors because of the shaking image in his VR headset when using motion. Or can this be compensated somehow? (I only race in VR.)

 

[Flibbberflops]

The T1000 does cause movement in VR but I wouldn't call it unwanted. When i created my setup I wanted to make it as close as possible to real driving. Not only do I not have any aids that are not on the car but I also have no onscreen display and I just rely on what ever is shown on the cars virtual dash.
I haven't done much real track racing but in the little I have I know enough that you head does get bounced and it is never smooth like some people demand. The T1000 moves your head in VR (I have a oculus) and yes you get bounce movement. However, because the T1000 is refined and is not doing the extreme g-force movements that other simulators go for, I think the movement ads to the realism.
Below is a video I have made actually using the T1000 in VR. This shows what the movement is like. I should warn that the movement looks a bit jaring in the video but remember it happens in sync with real physical movement.. which makes it feels real natrual. When you are in VR you don't see the movement as you do in the video. In fact you hardly notice at all because your brain is compensating for the motion. I guess its a bit like running... you don't notice your head moving up and down as you are taking those large strides. If you think about it would be unnatrual to have your body moving violiently over bumps and stuff and having no effect on your vision... I actually think its one of the best features of motion + VR.
If you also have a strong Direct drive wheel, the whole violence of it all makes very realistic. Its fantastic... its not for whimps!

 

[Flibbberflops]

Overall I would urge anyone thinking about buying expensive sim hardware to have agood think about what you want.

If you are a serious sim racer then you want good quality gear to give you acuracy. You want enough feedback to know what the car is doing but that is about it. You don't really want motion, this just distracts from your aim of winning races. Sound is propably not that important either, as long as you can hear revs and tyres then that is good enough.

If you are a sim immersionist then you want everything that makes you feel like driving, realistic feedback, full motion, VR, wind in your face, sound cranked up on headphones to shut everything out. Alas this is noisy. A decent direct drive wheel giving strong feedback will vibrate through even the solid rig... add a manual gear change, wind machine and motion rig and it is all quite noisey... let along the noise blasting out of your headphones. Even getting an seat harness gives that added extra feeling of immersion. Ramping up immersion to max will not make you a faster sim driver... infact it will make you slower because your goal is to fool your body into thinking it real. Therefore there will be moments that you will natrually back off from where undoubtedly on a sim racer setup you would have gone all in. Even when your mind isn't fooled by the immersion, you are always mindful of the jolt a direct drive wheel (with realistic setup) can give you when things go south! yes its raw, yes its loud, yes it bounces you around a bit.... Its realistic!

If you want quiet because you are sharing a living room with someone watching TV at the same time, get yourself a PS4 with a control pad!

 

[Steve D]

@Flibbberflops

Can I ask you how you find SimTools from both an end-user set up and in-sim motion perspective please. (Based on using ProSimu product) I've been trying to gen-up on it and have dived in to the manual but info relating to detailed end-user experiences is fairly limited. Does the s/w receive regular updates?

Is it also correct that, apart from the license, you need to buy a plugin for each sim? If so can you advise if plugin support is available for the following please:

AC, ACC, Dirt Rally, PC2, rF2, R3E?

Are these plug-ins also updated on occasion?

Cheers!

 

[Flibbberflops]

To be honest I think Simtools could be made a bit more intuative and can be a bit overwhelming at first. However with the aid of the manual its fairly straight forward to setup (however you wouldn't be able to guess it without refering to the manual). Should you have an issue the guys at Xsimulator.net forums will help you out.
Personally I set it up last year when I got my Sim, added the plugins for the games I wanted and I haven't touched until very recently where I needed to add a plugin for the ACC. What i am trying to say is that I have never felt like the Simtools or the plugins need updates... it just works. I have never felt the need to upgrade over the last year.
Therefore I have never checked for a new version of simtools, however I know there must be updates because I am V2.2 (and recent notes for the ACC plugin specifies it doesn't work on V1).
The plugin's themselves are freely availible on Xsimulator.net. They use a strange annoying system where you need to earn credits (buy making posts on thier forums) to get enough dough to be able to download. However I do not believe these plugins are subject to copyright so you can get them elsewhere.

I am pretty sure all those Sims have plugins availible, most driving games do + some flight sims too. I would recommended you take a look on the xsimulator forums. I think you can even write your own plugin if you know what you are doing but that is way beyond me.

 

[Flibbberflops]

Just to complete the picture regarding head movement in VR, compare the movement in my VR video I previously posted above to the real movement shown in bottom right of the video below.

 

[Insert Coin]

That's some heavy shaking!

 

[ThugUK]

Just to complete the picture regarding head movement in VR, compare the movement in my VR video I previously posted above to the real movement shown in bottom right of the video below.

Was it just me that thought 'the graphics are good, what game that is' for the first 10 seconds?

 

[Flibbberflops]

If you thought the last head movement was bad, check out this! Does anyone fancy simulatiing this with VR & Motion?

https://i.imgur.com/25HYvai.gifv