Example of poor simracing equipment

[Niels_at_home]

Hi All,

Each simracing forum has the ''show your cockpit'' type treads. I will start with saying; its a hobby, if you have fun its great! However, many of these setups are poor.

Since this hurts the simulation experience and drivability, I might use this tread to show a few initially impressive cockpits which are in reality quite bad! Yet the community response seems to be 'Wow I want one!' .


Entry 1: "Full Motion Big Screens .. or Micro Motion Full Lag?"
Setup:

l

What is wrong:
Looks very impressive. Must have cost a FORTUNE! However:
- the lag of these expensive televisions is incredible. Its undrivable on the limit in a good simulator
- the 'full motion' must have cost something but it barely moves at all. Waste of money, as are all wobbly seats but I might go into that at a later date!

Hypothetically, the user could have spent the money on a static seat, Leo FFB wheel, much better pedals and three much faster gaming screens. He would have money left over and an infinitely better simulation experience!

 

[Niels_at_home]

One of the issues is that there is no definition of 'simracing'. Immersion is a part of it but I would say the average 'simracer' is more into the immersion racing rather than simracing. I am not judging! It is a hobby that everybody enjoys in a different way.

I see simulation as the best attempt to replicate the real driving experience. For me that means often realistic steering forces thanks to that wheel I have, but also heavy braking, and I am only at half the force there! Button boxes, or expensive steering wheels to bolt on a G25, they a much smaller part of real driving than the physical forces required.

I do not see the *sim* in a guy having 3 hugely expensive but very laggy screens, running iRacing with 180 degrees steering lock and what seems to be one of the many 2kg brake pedals, on a rig that moves a micro amount, and gives mostly inverted 'g cues'. How many proclaimed simracers use less wheel lock than the real car and left foot brake in cars where this is physically impossible in real life? While sitting in a Frex seat... However I am sure these rigs immerse them deeply into the experience, which is absolutely fine, but I don't like the *sim* claims. It is much like the guys from SRT being all 'sim this sim that' while playing on rigs that are so obviosly laggy and while using the weirdes pedal ''techniques'' which have nothing to do with driving real race car, so it should have no place in simulation.

 

[Paul Mullins]

I see simulation as the best attempt to replicate the real driving experience. For me that means often realistic steering forces thanks to that wheel I have

Not all of us can afford $3700 steering wheels, so we are made to make do with what we can afford..

 

[Pax7]

Not all of us can afford $3700 steering wheels, so we are made to make do with what we can afford..

No, and motion platforms are at least that price, are they not? So, if you have that money, you can go down either the sim or "immersion" route.

 

[William Levesque]

I agree with that stupid habit of people who have 900° steering wheels but only uses a tiny amount... I mean, most of them drive a car in real life so what's the matter ?

I personally use the closest thing possible depending on the car I drive... I match the exact steering ratio and degrees of rotation (If real car uses more than 900° I use 900°, but still match steering ratio) although sometimes they are a pain in the arse to find ! Oh, and I also use the real transmission properties of the car... Sequential, H-Pattern, Bike transmission, etc...

And Niel, how's that ZR1 coming ?

 

[Paul Mullins]

No, and motion platforms are at least that price, are they not? So, if you have that money, you can go down either the sim or "immersion" route.

..and I can't afford one of them either.. If I could, I'd probably be in a REAL race car, not pretending like we all are..

If you want to "simulate" a real race car, then you require all the immersion factors - steering, visual, motion, pedals.. why else do F1 teams invest so heavily in all those aspects? Anything else is lacking and is approaching a simulator..

And then theres the point of the data these 'games' are producing is not based on any real world data - just some programmer approximating their best guess..

 

[Knut Omdal Tveito]

I remember reading about McLarens simulator and that they relied more heavily on carefully designed surround sound system instead of motion platforms.

Niels, do you have any thoughts about this and what sound system do you use?

 

[George Pilkington]

I understand that the mclaren simulator moves around in a room the size of a basket ball court... it cost 60million quid +.
Dont kow if this is right or not...

Whats wrong with iracings steerring ratio's?
I just leave it to them to sort that out for me.
George

 

[William Levesque]

In theory in iRacing you should put your degrees of rotation to 900°, the game takes care of the rest...

But some put it to low extremes like 200° or 180°, so every cars will use that instead of the real value...

 

[Knut Omdal Tveito]

I found a video of the McLaren simulator. No rolling or pitching of the platform to simulate lateral/longitudinal acceleration, just yaw and some shaking vertically it seems. I think it was an interview in EVO magazine that said they relied more on sound and steering wheel feedback for telling what the tires were doing.

 

[George Pilkington]

Well, the artickle I read saying it moved around the room the size of a basket ball court was complete bull...
It was in print, therefore I knew it was true... ;P

Thanks for that vid Knut. Nice one.
George

 

[Paul Mullins]

I think the simulator you were talking about was the Merceedes Benz system:

For my money though, you can't beat the Redbull Sim:

 

[George Pilkington]

Cool Vids thanks Paul.

 

[Stuart Rinck]

To the OP: yours is an awesome functioning rig I am sure. But it looks horrible, just being honest, and you know that already eh? I guess to the purist, it should not matter the looks of a thing, just how well it works for its given purpose. Me? I've got to have something that looks "cool" or nice too. Not to the point of being useless functionaly, but hey it's nice to look nice. Same with our real rides. Do we drive ones that appeal to our eyes? sure we do.
I agree with most of what you say. I have an Obutto, G27 wheel, Nixom pedal mod, trip screens, dual 6970's. Looks fantastic, and works very well too. That with the rest of the PC puts me way up there in terms of cost. Way way more than I ever envisioned spending, lol. Aint that always the case?

 

[Niels_at_home]

Oh yes its not pretty! I hope to improve that at some point.

At least I sit on the 'floor', with soooo may simracing setups the seat is 30cm above the 'floor' so you sit like it is a bus or a van. The pedals are way low. I really don't understand why so many people do that. Even in my ford fiesta I sit 'lower' than many (costly) simracing cockpit rigs you can buy. In a corvette or ferrari you sit pretty damn low in the car with your upper legs comming out of the seat at an angle.

A few examples of bus driver sim rigs, usually dubious wheel positoin / ergonomics too:

http://www.virtualr.net/drop/images/420394cockpit3a.jpg

http://www.obutto.com/images/SR1%20copy.jpg

http://www.virtualr.net/wp-content/gallery/1102/endorag_rsc_white_01.jpg

http://www.cxcsimulations.com/news/wp-content/uploads//2010/08/ferrari-sim2-588x422.jpg

http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/1924/tnsx02blackxboxcobrasea.jpg

I could go on forever!

Regarding audio, it is important and I use headphones. Quite chunky ones: http://www.megamedia.pl/_p/3/n/sluchawki-philips-sbc-hp-890-p3507.jpg

 

[Stuart Rinck]

What do you use for a mic? I am going to get a new headset very soon. Thinking of one of the Logitech models, not sure if I want to try the wireless model though. 2.4GHz is getting too crowded around here with all my devices. These are the ones I would like to get.

Ha, the second one is very much like mine, an Obutto, I have mine setup a little differently, but it's very similar. I have been thinking of ideas that would make it less like "driving a bus", lol. The thing is made of carbon steel, easy to weld on, and I have a small welder. So, I may do some real fabricating on this thing.

 

[Jeremy Loveland]

Hey Stuart
The G35 is a good head set no doubt but get the G930, that way you can get up and go to the loo or get a drink with your headset on.
Getting rid of the cord is well worth the money if your going to use them alot and if you like the cord u can still plug them in with the charge cord while using them

 

[Berney Villers Jr]

Funny Stuff

This thread is a pretty funny rant. Couldn't agree more about using slow monitors, or anything that introduces perceivable lag for that matter.

I can't speak to all motion systems, but I know that mine for example is roughly 4X more capable then the inbound data that I am able to get from game developers like yourself.


We consider Yaw, Pitch, Roll, Yaw Acceleration, Pitch Acceleration, Roll Acceleration, Roll Velocity, Pitch Velocity, Yaw Velocity, Lateral G's, Lateral Speed, Vertical G;s, Vertical Speed, Longitudinal G's and Longitudinal Speed, as well as surges for each previously listed output for most games.


We can easily send 250 new positions per second to our actuators. Compare that to your fastest television! The weakest link in our chain is the slow 60-90 output per second data that we get from developers like you. What we do with this data is to scale it into seat movements that professional drivers and hobbyists alike use for practice. What you do with that data is scale it into screen movements. What exactly is the secret that you know that most every race team and myself does not that somehow invalidates motion simulation?

 

[Stuart Rinck]

Hey Stuart
The G35 is a good head set no doubt but get the G930, that way you can get up and go to the loo or get a drink with your headset on.
Getting rid of the cord is well worth the money if your going to use them alot and if you like the cord u can still plug them in with the charge cord while using them

thanks, I am getting the G930's, wireless will be so nice. I have WAY too many wires around here as it is. And I am also wanting to get the Logitech Z906 500W 5.1 speakers, wire city! Can't wait to hear a C5 'Vette roaring around the track with 500 watts of bass pumping goodness. :wink:

 

[Kennett Ylitalo]

Good surround system is very important, funny how that didn't get anyone attention? It is so valuable information that i would put it up there with screen size and wheel setup. I don't know to what sims use surround sound (i think most of them) but i feel that it is more important than a good racing seat, as long as it is reasonably ergonomic. You can't see decent speaker setup in any of the pics i've seen so far. People spending thousands and use 40€ headsets i see more often....And when they do have speakers they are usually located poorly so they need to use extra wattage to get the auditory feedback. I know that most of us, me included have to rely on good quality headphones because of noise pollution to neighbours/loved ones but at least have the opportunity to use it, maybe once a month, saturday afternoon when wifey and kids are sent to the local park/mall/your-choice-here..

I'm not touting my own horn here, i have to use headphones so i don't have expensive audio, yet. I'll get to that later when i have money for it. I did however use surround system earlier and i really do miss it..

 

[Jim Cole]

I nice set of surround headphones will help a lot, keeps the family and neighbors happy as well as the driver Only issue is when the wife tries to call you and you can't respond due to not being able to hear any outside noise lol.