Mobile Driving/Flying Cockpit with Motion and Tactile ( Build )
RCHeliguy
Premium
Just got a DHL text telling me that I should expect a shipment from D-Box tomorrow. Wow!
The service is everything I had hoped it would be. They DOA'd the entire system sent me all new replacements for everything and when I get it working, I'll put all the original parts back in original packaging and D-Box support will arrange to have DHL pick it up from my house to return it so they can test it to see what failed.
The service is everything I had hoped it would be. They DOA'd the entire system sent me all new replacements for everything and when I get it working, I'll put all the original parts back in original packaging and D-Box support will arrange to have DHL pick it up from my house to return it so they can test it to see what failed.
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RCHeliguy
Premium
This time I'll do a complete function check before I install anything on my rig.
The cable supports are already mounted to the frame. The split sheathing is already cut to size. Everything is figured out. So I'll just need to lift the rig and remove the bracket bolts to the actuators and loosen one side of the bracket to remove each one and then replace it. This should go pretty quickly.
I also removed the flight pedals this time to do some additional wiring cleanup.
The cable supports are already mounted to the frame. The split sheathing is already cut to size. Everything is figured out. So I'll just need to lift the rig and remove the bracket bolts to the actuators and loosen one side of the bracket to remove each one and then replace it. This should go pretty quickly.
I also removed the flight pedals this time to do some additional wiring cleanup.
metalnwood
Premium
Sorry I cant help with the dbox stuff, hopefully one of the other guys jumps in.
In most software I am used to we normally get some calibrration based on max/min outputs sent from the sim, once that mapping is ok its a combo of smoothing/intensity for the effect to get it feeling right.
My gear shifts are crazy without some smoothing on the effect.
In most software I am used to we normally get some calibrration based on max/min outputs sent from the sim, once that mapping is ok its a combo of smoothing/intensity for the effect to get it feeling right.
My gear shifts are crazy without some smoothing on the effect.
RCHeliguy
Premium
I was rushing getting things setup before my wife got home. I need to take my time with this.
My gut reaction to the OOB default settings are that the motion settings need to be backed off for my rig. The Haptic effects did a nice job on the suspension and ABS, but the engine was very meh.
I've got a lot more digging to do before I can say much.
My gut reaction to the OOB default settings are that the motion settings need to be backed off for my rig. The Haptic effects did a nice job on the suspension and ABS, but the engine was very meh.
I've got a lot more digging to do before I can say much.
Glad to hear you are up to speed. The defaults are truly defaults. So much so that my daughter and I have completely different profiles for each game.
RCHeliguy
Premium
Feeling better this morning. I've started to get the D-Box motion and effects blending in to the whole symphony in iRacing.
For my rig I'm at 85% overall strength down from 100% default and the biggest thing to fix the over zealous gear change jerking was dropping the front/rear reactivity a chunk. I have it down to 3.2 right now from the default of 10. I also dropped the roll and pitch some.
In the actuator Haptic vs. Tactile comparison.
Haptic suspension effects feel very good and every bit as good as the tactile for road feel, rumble strips etc. They may even have a very slight edge, so I've turned off my tactile road effects.
Haptic Engine: It's OK, but there is a pretty dramatic difference here. They have multiple engine configurations for engines with different cylinder counts, but they don't hold a candle to Rodney's work.
Something to also consider is that I've been told that using Haptics with the D-Box is a give and take between motion and effects and that the engine effect in particular takes away from motion abilities.
Haptic Skid: I should probably play with it more. I'm used to the tactile effect which feels smoother. The D-Box feels different. I can't say if this is a comfort issue where I just need to get used to their effect. The D-Box effect might actually work better in Dirt Rally than it does in iRacing on the track. The bumpier feel may be right at home on gravel.
Haptic Gear change: I have 5 sets of Tactile effects with separate feelings for up shifts and down shifts. I think they feel better than the Haptic shifts. The D-Box provides what feels like an overly done motion effect during the shift that I VERY SERIOUSLY wish had it's own independent slider. I've got it feeling good, but I wonder what else suffered as a result of that. I did need to use more volume for the shifts because of the motion accompanying the shifts.
I still haven't figured out how to get a decent brake dive feel, but otherwise it feels very good going around a track now. I'll call this good for my first iteration in iRacing.
OBVIOUSLY, this is still VERY EARLY DAYS for me, but I'm feeling much better about how this system is working this morning.
Compared to the NLRv3, on the track, the D-Box's suspension feel is better. Heave does make a difference. There is more information and it is no doubt superior in a number of ways including allowing a solidly mounted seat. I still need more time with it.
I'm very curious how the two will compare in Rally. I'll make sure to play with that over the weekend.
For my rig I'm at 85% overall strength down from 100% default and the biggest thing to fix the over zealous gear change jerking was dropping the front/rear reactivity a chunk. I have it down to 3.2 right now from the default of 10. I also dropped the roll and pitch some.
In the actuator Haptic vs. Tactile comparison.
Haptic suspension effects feel very good and every bit as good as the tactile for road feel, rumble strips etc. They may even have a very slight edge, so I've turned off my tactile road effects.
Haptic Engine: It's OK, but there is a pretty dramatic difference here. They have multiple engine configurations for engines with different cylinder counts, but they don't hold a candle to Rodney's work.
Something to also consider is that I've been told that using Haptics with the D-Box is a give and take between motion and effects and that the engine effect in particular takes away from motion abilities.
Haptic Skid: I should probably play with it more. I'm used to the tactile effect which feels smoother. The D-Box feels different. I can't say if this is a comfort issue where I just need to get used to their effect. The D-Box effect might actually work better in Dirt Rally than it does in iRacing on the track. The bumpier feel may be right at home on gravel.
Haptic Gear change: I have 5 sets of Tactile effects with separate feelings for up shifts and down shifts. I think they feel better than the Haptic shifts. The D-Box provides what feels like an overly done motion effect during the shift that I VERY SERIOUSLY wish had it's own independent slider. I've got it feeling good, but I wonder what else suffered as a result of that. I did need to use more volume for the shifts because of the motion accompanying the shifts.
I still haven't figured out how to get a decent brake dive feel, but otherwise it feels very good going around a track now. I'll call this good for my first iteration in iRacing.
OBVIOUSLY, this is still VERY EARLY DAYS for me, but I'm feeling much better about how this system is working this morning.
Compared to the NLRv3, on the track, the D-Box's suspension feel is better. Heave does make a difference. There is more information and it is no doubt superior in a number of ways including allowing a solidly mounted seat. I still need more time with it.
I'm very curious how the two will compare in Rally. I'll make sure to play with that over the weekend.
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metalnwood
Premium
My thoughts are similar, at the end of the day dbox tech is not really different from other solutions though clever marketing may like to suggest that even with ballscrews, similar motors, speeds, accelerations that they can do more so its not surprising compared to our tactile solutions that it can do some of the things like rpm better.
I like to use slip in tactile and I agree that it gives a more subtle effect with motion delivering more as the slip gets larger edging towards traction loss.
I find kerbs not bad in motion but I like to use motion to reinforce it, depending on how much smoothing on heave it really is good for road texture. With RPM going for tactile always giving you a sense of things happening I find that road noise in tactile is a bit redundant, sometimes the LFE borders on a pang and you realise that was tactile but still a lot more energy coming from motion in this regard.
The smoothing I apply on surge to make gear changes work well are not enough to change the accell/decel surge but WRT your comment on braking, I do limit the dive in braking a bit and let the seatbelt deal with it.
I am a little confused with your terminolgy though, I think you are just using dbox terminology that I am not familiar with. I imagined something like dbox haptic effect being something like RPM where you get a vibration rather then a simulation of motion so I expect when you say haptic suspension/road thats really the subtle movement of the rig rather than something else layered on top of the motion?
Have fun playing with it, once you figured out how things work it should be easy enough to tinker to get things to your liking.
I like to use slip in tactile and I agree that it gives a more subtle effect with motion delivering more as the slip gets larger edging towards traction loss.
I find kerbs not bad in motion but I like to use motion to reinforce it, depending on how much smoothing on heave it really is good for road texture. With RPM going for tactile always giving you a sense of things happening I find that road noise in tactile is a bit redundant, sometimes the LFE borders on a pang and you realise that was tactile but still a lot more energy coming from motion in this regard.
The smoothing I apply on surge to make gear changes work well are not enough to change the accell/decel surge but WRT your comment on braking, I do limit the dive in braking a bit and let the seatbelt deal with it.
I am a little confused with your terminolgy though, I think you are just using dbox terminology that I am not familiar with. I imagined something like dbox haptic effect being something like RPM where you get a vibration rather then a simulation of motion so I expect when you say haptic suspension/road thats really the subtle movement of the rig rather than something else layered on top of the motion?
Have fun playing with it, once you figured out how things work it should be easy enough to tinker to get things to your liking.
RCHeliguy
Premium
There actually are numerous Haptic effects for the D-Box completely separate from motion that are layered on top of the motion for the suspension and they seem to work very well. I'll get into this in detail later. However I will say that the tactile effects I had for impacts, road surface, Rumble, Speed effect , etc.. worked very well and the end result was very comparable. So you should be fine reproducing whatever you need to fill in for those.
FYI, I do like the Crash protection feature that dampens out any sharp spikes in a crash. I smashed into a concrete wall and it I got the gist of what happened without any suffering. I left the default at 1000ms of damping time.
RCHeliguy
Premium
In the category of I expected as much...
With my headphones up, the D-Box is nearly silent in operation except during extremely vigorous action. With my Index headphones down, I couldn't hear anything. It is quieter than my NLRv3 was and that was pretty quiet.
I've had zero issues with my VR headset a Valve Index. So EMI shielding is good to go!
In the I'm happy about it category..
My trackball mouse is not vibrating across the screen.
I've also not noticed anything rattling or squeaking on my rig, so I apparently did what I needed to while battening down the hatches.
With my headphones up, the D-Box is nearly silent in operation except during extremely vigorous action. With my Index headphones down, I couldn't hear anything. It is quieter than my NLRv3 was and that was pretty quiet.
I've had zero issues with my VR headset a Valve Index. So EMI shielding is good to go!
In the I'm happy about it category..
My trackball mouse is not vibrating across the screen.
I've also not noticed anything rattling or squeaking on my rig, so I apparently did what I needed to while battening down the hatches.
RCHeliguy
Premium
This morning I got iRacing feeling even better. I've changed the settings around quite a bit. I got to feel the brake dive I was looking for and then backed it off because the car was not diving that much in VR and it didn't match up.
Gear Shift a tale of 3 combined effects...
I added the gear shift effect back to my G-Belt and it syncs up beautifully with the gear shift motion from the D-Box, which I am using but backed off a bit and I have the tactile Gear Shift effect as well. So tactile gives me a nice thunk of the gear engaging, and the D-Box gear shift motion effect when combined with the G-Belt Gear shift effect feels miles better. Together it's extremely convincing and no longer feels out of place and importantly I don't feel like I'm getting jerked around at all. It all feels very natural.
I suspect some of this is just getting used to my rig feeling different than it did before because my settings are somehow drifting back towards the defaults and yet are feeling wonderful. So I guess my brain is relearning how things feel.
I left iRacing for the day and I'm curious how I'll feel about it staring cold tomorrow morning with the settings I left off with today. I'm hoping that I'm starting to setting in on something that feels good day in day out.
Then I tried Dirt Rally 2.0. I started out stock, but quickly turned off the engine effect and while I can't A/B it with a system that has more motion, so far I'm not disappointed. I still need to spend more time dialing this in. It felt a bit over the top, so I'll likely dial it back some.
Tomorrow morning I'm going to do an quick reality check and see if I still like the iRacing settings that I liked today, then I'm going to try to dial Dirt Rally in more.
Next up will be DCS.
Gear Shift a tale of 3 combined effects...
I added the gear shift effect back to my G-Belt and it syncs up beautifully with the gear shift motion from the D-Box, which I am using but backed off a bit and I have the tactile Gear Shift effect as well. So tactile gives me a nice thunk of the gear engaging, and the D-Box gear shift motion effect when combined with the G-Belt Gear shift effect feels miles better. Together it's extremely convincing and no longer feels out of place and importantly I don't feel like I'm getting jerked around at all. It all feels very natural.
I suspect some of this is just getting used to my rig feeling different than it did before because my settings are somehow drifting back towards the defaults and yet are feeling wonderful. So I guess my brain is relearning how things feel.
I left iRacing for the day and I'm curious how I'll feel about it staring cold tomorrow morning with the settings I left off with today. I'm hoping that I'm starting to setting in on something that feels good day in day out.
Then I tried Dirt Rally 2.0. I started out stock, but quickly turned off the engine effect and while I can't A/B it with a system that has more motion, so far I'm not disappointed. I still need to spend more time dialing this in. It felt a bit over the top, so I'll likely dial it back some.
Tomorrow morning I'm going to do an quick reality check and see if I still like the iRacing settings that I liked today, then I'm going to try to dial Dirt Rally in more.
Next up will be DCS.
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