rec.autos.simulators

Some simulator ideas (improved sense of speed)

William Dahm

Some simulator ideas (improved sense of speed)

by William Dahm » Sat, 21 Mar 1998 04:00:00

Ok my diy wheel/pedals are finally done and they are the best! I really
don't think this area could be improved upon any without major $$$ put
into a FF motor for the wheel.  Anyway the wheel/pedals are only one
area that a real driver gets a feeling from, and of course sight helps,
but no one has done anything yet with outside feelings.  Now that FF is
at least programed into some sims and there are people out there who are
good enough with comps to work with this stuff I would think its time
for improvement in this area.
 As I understand programs with FF can tell an outside device what speed
a car is moving within a simulated world at any time.  I think this
would allow for either of these to be done by someone who is a skilled
electrician, engineer, comp programer, ect

-set up a speed adjustable fan and have the thing hooked up so that as
the FF programing says as the speed is going up the fan would speed up,
as speed goes down the fan goes down.  Ex 200 mph = fan on full, 100 =
fan on ?, 10 mph = fan on 10%, ect.  I know this has been done with the
gas pedal only but that is not good enough b/c you could floor the gas
and be at 50 mph and the fan would be on full.  I think something
working off the speed of the car could be done now

-same idea, only with something making vibration.  This would be even
easier I would think for someone who really know what they were doing.
Tape a big subwoofer to the bottom of a chair, and have the deep bass
sound increase with higher speeds, and go back down at lower speeds.  I
have a subwoofer taped to the bottom of my chair now, its just hooked up
to the normal speakers.  The problem is that for example in N2 the
engine sound is lowest when going the slowest, and highest when going
the fastest, so the woofer vibrates most at the lowest speeds and least
at the highest speeds, the opposite of how it should be.  Something done
through FF programing of how the fast the car is going could produce
great vibration at high speed and almost none at lowest speeds, as it
should be

I think either of these would add greatly to the sense of speed in a way
auto sims have not had before, taking things beyond just looking at a
screen.  These things could actually give us an idea of how fast we are
going, no more having to tell ourselves to make sure we slow down
enough.  Im sure most people reading this post will think what the hell
is this nut case talking about, get a life, etc.  But when the DIY wheel
pages first went up Im sure most people thought that was nuts as well.
Anyway I know nothing about FF code and very little about how to make it
interact with objects such as motors, fans or subwoofers, but if there
is someone out there who does please give this stuff a shot.

L8er

Matthew Knutse

Some simulator ideas (improved sense of speed)

by Matthew Knutse » Sat, 21 Mar 1998 04:00:00


> Ok my diy wheel/pedals are finally done and they are the best! I
> really
> don't think this area could be improved upon any without major $$$ put

> into a FF motor for the wheel.  Anyway the wheel/pedals are only one
> area that a real driver gets a feeling from, and of course sight
> helps,
> but no one has done anything yet with outside feelings.

Well, the wheel and pedals are most important, but the missing items
are;*the bum feeling - vibrations, when a tire locks, riding bumps &
kerbs
*noises; *** against the road, brakes, gerbox & diff working against
the surface (pretty good in Toca)
*heat :)
*G-forces

I know they have built a quite extreme sim somewhere, where a pukka F1
car was mounted on hydraulic motors, moving it in all kinds of
directions. It was tested by real drivers, and they said it was getting
closer, but....

snip

Not at all! Great ideas! :) give people a few years, and you can do
anything in your living room! Hm. maybe sim-room:)

Cheers,
Matt

Matthew Birger Knutsen
Cheek Racing Cars (http://www.racesimcentral.net/~kareknut)

"Racing cars is like dancing with a chainsaw"
       -Cale Yarborough


rec.autos.simulators is a usenet newsgroup formed in December, 1993. As this group was always unmoderated there may be some spam or off topic articles included. Some links do point back to racesimcentral.net as we could not validate the original address. Please report any pages that you believe warrant deletion from this archive (include the link in your email). RaceSimCentral.net is in no way responsible and does not endorse any of the content herein.