Racing sim hardware

Gnomie · August 30, 2009, 12:18:06 PM

Have you heard about the simBOOT? SRT tested them in a recent episode . I've been a beta tester for Randall, and I'm now free to talk about them.

The SRT episode covers it quite well I think. But I would like to add a few words of my own as well. Some of you might remember my home-made racing sock which I used last year, aptly named the Frankensock.

I spent quite some time creating new generations of Frankensock. Partly because I came up with improvements, and partly because they wore out.

So I've got a long history of trying out different types of footwear for simracing, which I think is partly why Randall chose me as a beta-tester.

A great thing about these simBOOTs is how customizable they are. You can select every parameter yourself, and he makes them by hand. With the Clubsport pedals I use the sticky heel/slippery toe on the right foot, and vice versa on the left foot in all sims. For normal driving (right foot braking) it's great to be able to keep the heel of the right foot planted and just slide the foot from the gas to the brake. If I'm left foot braking (in RBR for example) it's useful with sticky grip on the left foot so it doesn't slip. I'm sure others would have different preferences though!

The point is, these boots made a bigger difference than I had expected to be honest. Now it's hard to imagine going back. Certainly you can manage just fine without, but "why settle for adequacy when you can have perfection?" [I'm sure I've heard that in a commercial somewhere..! :flirty:]

If you have any questions, feel free to ask!

Gnomie · August 30, 2009, 06:35:26 PM

Some pictures of the new stuff:

Romus · August 30, 2009, 07:20:45 PM

Gnomie have you written about your feelings using the Fanatec wheel after the G25? Do you like the Fanatec wheel much better? And pedals?

lovretta · September 02, 2009, 05:28:27 PM

Hey Gnomie! Nice upgrade. I like the fact that pedals really do the job!

Fanatec wheel looks nice, but it looks like a Porsche wheel :lmfao:
...and thats what it is for my brain to accept, eg. driving a Ferrari with Porsche wheel... Thats my point, but haven't even tried the wheel, so perhaps if i did, and if i saw fir myself it is really better then g25 then probably i would overlook the cosmetics (which i usually do - don't care about cosmetics as long as something is functional in way i demand)..

Onto the sim shoes parts... I use suede Puma shoes, which i've been wearing around for over a year, and then when i bought G25, i just couldn't drive it wearing just socks... So i tried to with Pumas and since that day, i'm using them only for driving, they are all the time under my Rinoseat. Washed or should i say de-smelled occasionally. For me those do the job perfectly!

obsolum · September 02, 2009, 05:51:28 PM

I don't wear anything special on my feet when racing. Just socks

Gnomie · September 02, 2009, 06:31:33 PM

Quote from: obsolum;288320I don't wear anything special on my feet when racing. Just socks

I think most people do that. I used that in the beginning too, but when I started learning heel&toe it became too painful, so I needed some extra padding. Hence I designed the Frankensock.

The simBOOT also offers this extra protection, but without reducing the level of control.

I tried using shoes with my old pedals, but that didn't work too well because I felt I was loosing too much precision and control. But maybe I just didn't try the right shoes..

The point is, though, that I've stopped looking for something better. The simBOOT does all I want it to, and more.

(I'm just sharing my experiences! I don't want this to come across as a commercial.. I'm not affiliated with the maker of the simBOOT, just to make that clear!)

lovretta · September 02, 2009, 07:35:12 PM

Quote from: Gnomie;288332I think most people do that. I used that in the beginning too, but when I started learning heel&toe it became too painful, so I needed some extra padding. Hence I designed the Frankensock. The simBOOT also offers this extra protection, but without reducing the level of control.

I tried using shoes with my old pedals, but that didn't work too well because I felt I was loosing too much precision and control. But maybe I just didn't try the right shoes..

The point is, though, that I've stopped looking for something better. The simBOOT does all I want it to, and more. (I'm just sharing my experiences! I don't want this to come across as a commercial.. I'm not affiliated with the maker of the simBOOT, just to make that clear!)

I also was racing with socks, but when G25 came, it's brake pedal reminded me of the one a friend of mine had in his Yugo, it was stiff through out all the range, but braked only at the end of travel... I just needed some shoes. And then puma's seemed like a logical choice. Those were there, and were almost out of service. And those are also similar to racing-shoes, not quite true to life replica, but similar in design.
And i also have small feet, so i don't press two pedals at once. EU size 40-41. Depends on shoes. Puma's are 41.

Gnomie · September 02, 2009, 09:25:38 PM

Well I use size 47, so maybe that explains why shoes never really worked for me. :narnar:

Ron and I were talking today about triple monitors. Here's a little bit of information for those who don't know:

This and this video show what it might look like in game. You can adjust the FOV up to 160 in iRacing and LFS, but most people prefer to use ~ 120 degrees. Using 22" or 24" monitors will give you 120 degrees FOV in "real life" as well, so this gives a very accurate representation of what you see in your real car. Then you can of course combine this with headtracking to get the last ~ 30 degrees of rotation to each side.

Today, you basically have two alternatives: Matrox TripleHead2Go (which costs a few hundred $$s) and SoftTH, which is free and does the same job (albeit the framerates will be lower, it doesn't benefit from multiple GPUs, as well as some other caveats) SoftTH works with any monitors, and you can run whichever resolution you want on each screen. The matrox jobbie requires that your monitors support 57Hz refresh rate (which not all monitors do!) and you're forced to use the same resolution on each screen (up to a maximum of 3x1680x1050)

But today I stumbled upon something interesting: ATI's next generation of graphics cards, the HD5xxx series, will have support for triple monitors right out of the box!!

No need for that expensive, clunky TripleHead2Go anymore. There isn't much information out yet about resolutions and so on, but here's a piece I found:

Quote from: vr-zoneATI Eyefinity technology is something pretty cool that will be available the upcoming Radeon HD 5800 series. It allows you to extend your game view across 3 displays like the Matrox TripleHead2Go except that it gonna be much more powerful. That's over 12 megapixels at 2560 x 1600 resolution for the ultimate gaming experience. It is ideal for flight sim, racing games, role paying games, real-time strategy, first-person shooter and even multimedia apps. So how powerful exactly this card is?

This card sports a 2nd gen TeraScale engine that delivers more than 2 teraFLOPS of processing power. With so much power pack inside, it supports a new anisotropic filtering method too. If one isn't enough, you can get up to 1.8X graphics performance boost by pairing them up. The launch is around the corner and reviews will start popping out by middle of September

Source

lovretta · September 06, 2009, 08:21:50 AM

Check out this toy, used by Mark Webber, Sebastian Vettel and their fellow test drivers.

Gnomie · September 10, 2009, 10:15:28 PM

More details about AMD's new multi-screen solution!

QuoteHere's the basic concept: through the magic of its next-generation GPU and an array of compact DisplayPort connections, a single GPU can drive up to six high-megapixel displays for gaming at resolutions that boggle the mind. The example I saw in action today looked like this:

Dead Space at over 24 million pixels

That's six Dell 30" monitors, each at a resolution of 2560x1600, showing Dead Space at over 24 megapixels. The game ran fluidly, and as you can see, your character on screen is pretty much life-sized, if not a little larger.
(...)
Most cards based on the forthcoming Radeons will be able to drive three ultra-high-res displays of various types. Here's AMD's Dave Baumann showing off DiRT 2 on a triple-monitor setup.

AMD has been working with Samsung on Eyefinity support and has plans involving monitors with very narrow bezels, so that many displays can act together as one with a minimum of visual interruption. The company may also incorporate a feature in its graphics drivers to compensate for the visual offsets caused by bezels.

Source

Yes!! No longer a need for Matrox TripleHead2Go or SoftTH. :woot2: The only thing I'm still wondering about is whether this new solution allows you to use different resolutions on the three monitors. I would very much like to use lower resolution on the side monitors, since they're mostly for peripheral vision anyway.

The PC I'm building next autumn will have one of those puppies onboard!

Romus · September 11, 2009, 09:29:49 AM

Quote from: Gnomie;289326The PC I'm building next autumn will have one of those puppies onboard!

With five monitors that will be nice for simracing.

lovretta · September 11, 2009, 11:37:09 AM

5? What about 6?

Two in front of you, as a windscreen, two on each side of you.

And perhaps two behind you? You can then look back for real! :norty:
And you can attach a real rear view mirror on top of the front monitors :woot2:

Gnomie · September 11, 2009, 01:31:34 PM

Lol, let's not be carried away. :narnar: But yes, it does sound promising.

The advantages over TripleHead2Go, as I see it, are
a) you can use higher resolutions
b) you can use more monitors
c) you don't have to buy an extra box (TH2G)
d) hopefully, you can also select the resolution for each monitor independently

Imagine this with three projectors..!

vobler · September 11, 2009, 01:37:55 PM

Quote from: Gnomie;289375Lol, let's not be carried away. :narnar: !

Why not. Next step is a canopy similar to the Frex with OLED display built in....
:yahoo:

Gnomie · September 11, 2009, 02:27:14 PM

OMG!! :dribble:

I have a question about triple screens though: if you set the field of view in game to x degrees, does each monitor then display x/3 of this? For example, if your total FOV is 120 degrees, does each monitor show 40 degrees?

EDIT: I did some more research. Seems there are two different approaches: 1) either stretch the whole image out a lot (like Doorz was afraid of) or 2) render three different screens at the same time. That's the approach taken by iRacing and (I think) rFactor. This is called "3 render mode", and it "(...) allows the sim to take into account the angles of your monitors etc to give a very life-like representation." Here's a demo video.

My concern is that it seems the new AMD solution simply produces one big image. So the game is fooled into thinking that you have one huge screen, rather than three separate ones like SoftTH or TH2G does. So I'm worried that it only supports the "stretching mode" seen in LFS. :g: