SimXperience G-Belt review

[RCHeliguy]

Send them an email, Josh is usually pretty good at responding same day.

I've got my ticket in with description of what I tried so far and an image of the driver error I'm seeing.

Life goes on. I'm a bit disappointed, but I know they are a reputable company and this will get sorted.

One of my pet peeves is when people get all bent out of shape when things don't go perfectly. I do my best not to be a hypocrite on this topic.

 

[NeoGrotesk]

I've got my ticket in with description of what I tried so far and an image of the driver error I'm seeing.

Life goes on. I'm a bit disappointed, but I know they are a reputable company and this will get sorted.

One of my pet peeves is when people get all bent out of shape when things don't go perfectly. I do my best not to be a hypocrite on this topic.

I had to contact them to help when I got my second hand GS4 and they were great, so I'm sure they'll get you sorted out.

(nice attitude btw, I wholeheartedly agree )

 

[RCHeliguy]

can I ask you what kind of brackets did you use to fix the seat? Mine when fixed to the motion platform are too narrow to fix a standard seat (42cm wide attach points)

I used these seat brackets. They are not cheap, but they have a pile of places to bolt things! I cut my profile to length to fit just barely inside the brackets.

The Prisma is a larger seat probably close to an EVO III.
It was a tight fit and I did scratch up the sides of my seat a bit, but I didn't drill anything out. They bolted right up to the NLRv3.

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[blekenbleu]

Model accuMotion X4 Controller Status: Driver unavailable

That message at least confirms that USB is working, and swapping cables is unlikely to help.

 

[HoiHman]

@RCHeliguy , Having a USB driver installation issue with the Accumotion Controller box seems to be a common issue. Both the GS-5 and the G-belt can be affected by this.

Support of SimXperience is pretty good, Josh will probably take remote control of your PC and install it manually and get things working.

A good manual downloadable driver package would certainly a good idea, especially for the weekend installations.

 

[RCHeliguy]

Apparently it's a very common issue since a specific widow update. I agree with you that there should be a way to easily self serve the drivers especially with a known issue l8ke this.

Were I to guess why they haven't implemented something like that, I would be concerns over IP.

I know you are a big open source fan and that would mean I could just compile the driver myself. I am a fan too, but I also see the value of a well thought out product and I still think I have better results from this.

He suggested the steps I already tried. The only thing I might try based on what he said is to reboot multiple times and hope that the option drivers show up in the View optional driver screen.

I'll try that in the early AM and keep my fingers crossed.

 

[anton_Chez]

That’s how I installed mine, with the windows update option to install optional driver. That gives you nothing still?

 

[RCHeliguy]

Rebooting twice got me the two drivers I needed and SimCommander recognizes the G-Belt now. I've closed the ticket.

 

[RCHeliguy]

Oh hell yes!!!!!

I just ran the 5th belt under my front cushion and it is pushing up on the underside of the front leg bolster which is just fine. It is solid point for the G-Belt to pull against and it did absolutely make a difference! I'm not bothering with replacing the cushion this is absolutely fine as is.

This has been so much fun! I was just trying out the JonMillerRacing iRacing profile for my SC2 Pro, and tweaking the NLRv3 and SimHub settings along with the SimCommander G-Belt settings to mesh well together.

I definitely like all of them working together. Wow! Braking into a corner feeling the seatbelts pulling me hard, losing traction feeling the seatbelts loosen a bit while the BK-CT on my seat is giving me a great wheel slide tactile effect and the NLRv3 is tilting to the side. Then regaining control and getting the side to side wobble along with the belts cornering effect and blasting out of a slide while having a bit of road texture under wheel. The gear shifts with a bit of NLRv3 fore/aft rock, a clunk from the BK-CT and the coordinated seatbelt action is magical

I may have the gear values setup backwards. I had it tightening on upshifts and loosening on downshifts, but everything was synchronized perfectly, the iRacing sound, motion, tactile and G-Belt are all feeling integrated!

 

[anton_Chez]

Belts shouldn't grab on upshifts? I think they are supposed to. Isn't the car throwing you forward ever so slightly on upshifts? Similar to braking feel?

 

[RCHeliguy]

Belts shouldn't grab on upshifts? I think they are supposed to. Isn't the car throwing you forward ever so slightly on upshifts? Similar to braking feel?

So I got it right? It felt good, but I wasn't sure.

 

[HoiHman]

So I got it right? It felt good, but I wasn't sure.

There no real right or wrong here, it only matters what feel right for you

If you like it, stick with it.

There are rigs with surge modules that move forwards under braking, but there are also surge slides that move backwards under braking (most realistic imho)

What feels best to you is what matters

The SimXperience G-Belt is an awesome product from the company that has been industry leading. They brought us first physic based tactile, the first commercial direct drive and the amazing GS-5 seat.

If i hadn't build a belt tensioner myself i would have bought it instantly.

However, i personally have my doubts with all those effects being mapped to the belts.
I can understand people want to get the most out of their G-belt system, but for me personally a belt tensioner only tensions under braking.

Nothing else

Same applies for my GS-5 which can handle all sorts of effects, but i only use it for (clear) simulated G-s both lateral and surge.

For example: If the left belt tensions up into a righthand corner and you hit the brakes, You will only clearly feel the right belt tension up because of the braking forces. Of course having a G-seat makes it a lot easier to have such a view point, since the G-seat is already simulating the lateral G-forces.

I have tried this myself and it's just not for me. If i want to, i can map anything i want and convert it to an output on the belt system. I just choose not to.

This is a personal preference, again there's no right or wrong. I'm not a saint or a purist, i just set things up like i want it to feel. For me a buttkicker can not simulate G-force same as that a belt can not simulate traction loss.

I do have (unrealistic) wind curving enabled in Simhub, which is complete wrong, but i like it.

Respect to the guys with the 5th crotch belt. That area is probably where i draw the line between comfort and immersion. When i had a 2 belt system i tackled this issue by moving the central lock just above my belly button. This meant the bottom belts where already facing upwards and were not being pulled higher through the upper belt tensioner.

With a 4-belt system it's not necessary at all since all 4 belts are being pulled simultaneously.

Out of curiosity is there a big performance drop from moving the G-belt from the back of the seat to the base of the rig ? From a aesthetic view point and because of physics i would always prefer to have it there.

 

[anton_Chez]

Unless you have rollers of some sort to guide the harness, the placement at the bottom of the chassis is considered inferior, due to the path that the belts take and the direction of the pulling force. I like mine where it is, it does not feel unnatural or out of sync, uncomfortable or in any way incorrect.

I was doing some driving tonight with it and not long after use, the unit just stopped pulling. It went dead for the remainder of the session until I jumped out and had a look. The program was still running, the control box and everything was fine. I restarted SimCommander, went back into another session and it worked as normal. Is that something I should be concerned with @simxperience ? I wasn't running it very hard, in my opinion. I had nothing set above 100% but I was running on the Xtreme setting as opposed to the default.

I'll run some more laps tomorrow and continue to investigate should it occur again.

I should also ask, anyone that is running the 5th belt. Where do you place the cam lock? Further up to your belly button, lower down above your crotch? I wonder what the best and more natural placement for it is. I have to do some comparisons, but some feedback will make it less time consuming! I think I prefer the cam a bit lower as there is less belt pulling on me.

 

[RCHeliguy]

I'm running my cam lock further up by my belly button.
I understand your comment about where the 5th belt comes up and it makes sense. For the moment I'm just enjoying this, but I'm sure I'll think more about it as time goes on. At the moment the effects are good enough and strong enough that I'm a happy camper, but I understand the geometry issues.

 

[vannib]

Guys,
Just finished installation and trying out on ACC.

I have a problem: I am using the universal “cloud” profile, when launching sim commander I see both g belt left and right recognized and also calibrated, meaning that they are both working.

when in game, only the left belt is doing movement. Nothing coming from the right one.
I receive the notification from sim commander that game was recognized etc.


does anybody have a clue? Again, the right below moves and calibrate when launching sim commander, but then nothing in game.

 

[vannib]

Guys,
Just finished installation and trying out on ACC.

I have a problem: I am using the universal “cloud” profile, when launching sim commander I see both g belt left and right recognized and also calibrated, meaning that they are both working.

when in game, only the left belt is doing movement. Nothing coming from the right one.
I receive the notification from sim commander that game was recognized etc.


does anybody have a clue? Again, the right below moves and calibrate when launching sim commander, but then nothing in game.

Update: apparently this happens only if i'm using the "cloud" profile for ACC, for some kind of reasons the right belt does not work there.
If using a universal, non cloud ACC profile it works.

Anybody has a clue on which settings to use for braking? Like max G Force to consider, etc.

Thanks

 

[RCHeliguy]

I'm using 2 G's

If you manually select the Game title, car and track it should automatically set the limits so you don't clip.

 

[anton_Chez]

The cloud profiles should provide the optimum force values for each car in each sim. I am only really using the cloud profile, my unit works fine with this selected, bar the issue I posted earlier.

I actually am testing just having a single profile, for every game, and just select the sim I am using from the drop down box in the settings of that file. Makes it much easier than having 10 different profiles sitting on the dashboard as I am using auto generated cloud settings anyway and all the effects I want are the same for all sims.

 

[anton_Chez]

Further to my issue posted above, today I did some laps in ACC. I have the belts actively pulling on me when I escape to menu, most notably with a constant jolt in the motors every half second or so. It feels very strange and I'd like to remove that. I can't sit in the pit looking or adjusting a setup without being squeezed and also fearing there is extra stress on the unit when the car is not even on the track.

Does any of that sound familiar to any other users? I cannot say that I remember it happening at other times, so there may be a software bug or something floating around. I'd like to solve it if possible.

 

[NeoGrotesk]

Further to my issue posted above, today I did some laps in ACC. I have the belts actively pulling on me when I escape to menu, most notably with a constant jolt in the motors every half second or so. It feels very strange and I'd like to remove that. I can't sit in the pit looking or adjusting a setup without being squeezed and also fearing there is extra stress on the unit when the car is not even on the track.

Does any of that sound familiar to any other users? I cannot say that I remember it happening at other times, so there may be a software bug or something floating around. I'd like to solve it if possible.

I can't remember that ever happening to me. That said, I don't really play ACC because I've got an issue where I lose FFB every time I alt-tab which I can't be bothered to work out a fix for. I tend to just race in AMS2 these days, so it might be specific to ACC.

There have been bugs that have been fixed in the past though, like clipping seems better than it was since an update (the belts used to go a bit crazy!), so it might be an issue that needs ironing out.