Podium DD's VS Simucube 2's

[Darren Byrne]

Hi guys, the past while I was trying to find good comparisons between these two models of dd's. Has anyone tested both ? I understand that the software for these aren't complete yet but is there any clear winner here ? thanks.

 

[d69morpwr]

Unfortunately AFAIK good surge protection not an option for me, because it would require modernization of electrical installation/infrastructure in my building(Including installation of type 1 and 2 surge arresters/protectors SPD). It's not gonna happen anytime soon. Without it, best surge protection strip or even online UPS won't protect against near lightning strike.
However, I've read they can protect against other small surges. Of course UPS would be good for PC for other reasons(e.g. power outages) but it's quite expensive option.
I've read automatic voltage regulators (AVR) can protect against electrical installation failures(besides voltage stabilization). They are relatively cheap and don't require electrical installation modernization.

Edit : I know very little about SPDs etc., so perhaps replacement of electrical switchboard would be enough to be able to install (and reliability use ) Type 1+2 SPD. But from what I read , that without type 1+2+3 SPDs before sure protection strip it has no chase to protect against near lightning strike.

As far as i know and i could be wrong as long as you have a ground circuit it should work. I dont know of any houses or buildings in my area that have actual surge protection. Most houses and buildings in my area where built in the 50s. Again unless im wrong a surge protector is just the sacrificial part instead of your equipment. I know ive never lost anything but i know people that dont use them that have during the lightning storms we get. Maybe im just lucky.lol

 

[jamescarruthers]

I think you might be overthinking this.

An electric kettle is about 1500W —

Your PC likely to be 600W? Plus the SC2 Pro 480W max. Monitor — 100W?

You’re still well below what a single socket can do.

(At least in Europe/anywhere with 240V)

 

[avenger82]

I think you might be overthinking this.

An electric kettle is about 1500W —

Your PC likely to be 600W? Plus the SC2 Pro 480W max. Monitor — 100W?

You’re still well below what a single socket can do.

(At least in Europe/anywhere with 240V)

Perhaps I haven’t made myself clear. I’m not talking about possibility of too much power consumption and electrical “overloading” (I’m not sure what is the correct word). I believe circuit breakers are for that (which are only 10A in my case , but yeah should be enough unless I don’t use too much other devices simultaneously ).
I’m taking about risks like surges caused by nearby lightning strike or electrical infrastructure failures/outages.

Edit: I was asking peak power consumption in context of which AVR should be enough for PC , SC2 Pro and Monitor, e.g. I think this supports up to 1200W:

Line-R 1200VA Automatic Voltage Regulator - LE1200I | APC UK

LE1200I - Line-R 1200VA Automatic Voltage Regulator | APC UK

www.apc.com

 

[Deleted member 197115]

Anyone knows what is the actual maximum power consumption of SC 2 Pro?
I believe it’s less than 2x 280W.

450

 

[avenger82]

As far as i know and i could be wrong as long as you have a ground circuit it should work. I dont know of any houses or buildings in my area that have actual surge protection. Most houses and buildings in my area where built in the 50s. Again unless im wrong a surge protector is just the sacrificial part instead of your equipment. I know ive never lost anything but i know people that dont use them that have during the lightning storms we get. Maybe im just lucky.lol

Thanks,
I have grounded sockets / power, but only two circuits.
I know most reliable solution is to disconnect power strip from wall socket before storm.

450

Thanks, I couldn’t find it. So perhaps it can be even a little more than 450W.

Edit: finished reply

 

[klh]

I own an SC2 pro but would like to switch to DD2 or another high quality DD wheel base, if it makes sense.

The reason is that some software filters are kept for SC2 Ultimate users(so excluded from sport & pro use), with arguments that I don't agree to in any way. Why should I pay $1000 more to get a gamma(lfb) effect or other stuff? I don't need or want the power and added heft of the Ultimate either.

Also the SC2 scales the current to the motor as the control for the NM output. I can feel the difference in the output clearly at low forces & would like it to be possible to also scale the input signal. What I have been doing so far is to run the unit at max output, when I don't really want to, for safety reasons. Unf. this has now hurt my hands badly on several occasions.

Is the DD2 the right wheel to switch to, or is there a better option out there that makes these things possible?

I am NOT a fanboiiii of any brand, simply would like the best quality output possible(without selling my house in the process 8)), if at all possible.

Fanboiiis need not respond, thanks 8)

Thanks!

 

[AccAkut]

Also the SC2 scales the current to the motor as the control for the NM output. I can feel the difference in the output clearly at low forces & would like it to be possible to also scale the input signal. What I have been doing so far is to run the unit at max output, when I don't really want to, for safety reasons. Unf. this has now hurt my hands badly on several occasions.

Eh, if you injure yourself you're doing something really wrong, I fear its down to you misunderstanding settings and their use. And general misunderstanding on how a motor and wheelbase work. As ofc the current controls the resulting force, how else would it work? Thats the basic principle of an electric motor.

Plus I doubt the DD2 offers what you want.

Before you throw more money on a different wheelbase maybe inquire help from a wheel/rig maker and have what you already own set up correctly at your place.

For comparison I have my wheelbase set to 100% force, but the racing sims only output FFB at 15%. And that feels perfectly fine to me so far, with good feedback and speed at any type of force (low forces and high forces as you call them)

 

[klh]

Eh, if you injure yourself you're doing something really wrong, I fear its down to you misunderstanding settings and their use. And general misunderstanding on how a motor and wheelbase work. As ofc the current controls the resulting force, how else would it work? Thats the basic principle of an electric motor.

Plus I doubt the DD2 offers what you want.

Before you throw more money on a different wheelbase maybe inquire help from a wheel/rig maker and have what you already own set up correctly at your place.

For comparison I have my wheelbase set to 100% force, but the racing sims only output FFB at 15%. And that feels perfectly fine to me so far, with good feedback and speed at any type of force (low forces and high forces as you call them)

Hey AccAkut,

I am sorry, but I do understand the wheel base very well.

The issue is that the output quality from the motor drops as I lower the NM on it, since this is by scaling the current. You specially feel this at the lower forces. This means that I feel the urge to run it at 100% all the time. I know that many/most sims allow you to limit the output, but iracing, for example does not, which sets me up for hurting my hands, which I have one too many times now. It also annoys me that I can't use the force control supported in TrueDrive for SC2, in general, without sacrificing output quality.

This is why scaling the FFB input signal in the DD wheel base makes sense. It would provide that control no matter the title & in a way that would retain ffb quality.

This is one of 2 issues I am having with SC2. I also don't agree to the way marketing limits the software for the various models, so I want away no matter, if possible to find something that is of good quality, but hopefully also provides better low force level quality.

Maybe a DD1/DD2 is not the right one for me neither, could very well be. Maybe I am too picky in both regards above. Also possible.

I am now considering the VRS pro wheel base. Don't know enough about it yet, though.

Either way, thanks for taking your time to try and help.

 

[jamescarruthers]

Have you bought this up on the GD forum?

For the second issue, I don’t understand — you want to downgrade the software to get less, because you’re miffed you don’t have more?

 

[klh]

Have you bought this up on the GD forum?

For the second issue, I don’t understand — you want to downgrade the software to get less, because you’re miffed you don’t have more?

I did bring it up, but no idea if it's something they will do(the input scale).

Reg downgrade, would it be?

Reg that whole last comment actually: As a costumer I want to be taken care of. Not having to look out. So yes I am bothered and would rather put my $ in a more free choice shop with no weird(to me) upsell. That is all.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

If you so desperately needed gamma filter, why didn't you buy Ultimate?
Each model in a lineup comes with a set of feature, this applies to everything, hardware, software, or even room in the resort that you book, you may not need more Nm but it comes as a part of the package.
You are questioning the standard business practice employed by pretty much anything around.
Does Fanatec upsell D2 by electronically limiting torque of the same motor on D1? Why not start complaining about that?

And signal scaling vs current limit, afraid you are either misguided, or are a victim or some placebo effect, never heard of or experienced that myself in my 6 years of DD usage.

 

[klh]

If you so desperately needed gamma filter, why didn't you buy Ultimate?
Each model in a lineup comes with a set of feature, this applies to everything, hardware, software, or even room in the resort that you book, you may not need more Nm but it comes as a part of the package.
You are questioning the standard business practice employed by pretty much anything around.
Does Fanatec upsell D2 by electronically limiting torque of the same motor on D1? Why not start complaining about that?

And signal scaling vs current limit, afraid you are either misguided, or are a victim or some placebo effect, never heard of or experienced that myself in my 6 years of DD usage.

Andrew,

I have explained each of these points at length to you already elsewhere, as you very well know.
Even so you seem to not understand any of it or you just enjoy asking me to repeat for the nth time.

I posted to find an alternative to the SC2. If you have nothing to say in that regard, no need to post.

 

[TedBrosby-]

I own an SC2 pro but would like to switch to DD2 or another high quality DD wheel base, if it makes sense.

The reason is that some software filters are kept for SC2 Ultimate users(so excluded from sport & pro use), with arguments that I don't agree to in any way. Why should I pay $1000 more to get a gamma(lfb) effect or other stuff? I don't need or want the power and added heft of the Ultimate either.

Also the SC2 scales the current to the motor as the control for the NM output. I can feel the difference in the output clearly at low forces & would like it to be possible to also scale the input signal. What I have been doing so far is to run the unit at max output, when I don't really want to, for safety reasons. Unf. this has now hurt my hands badly on several occasions.

Is the DD2 the right wheel to switch to, or is there a better option out there that makes these things possible?

I am NOT a fanboiiii of any brand, simply would like the best quality output possible(without selling my house in the process 8)), if at all possible.

Fanboiiis need not respond, thanks 8)

Thanks!

I did a lot of research on this. A lot.
And I did research taking the approach that SC2 users are quite biased toward any positive statements about Fanatec.
I’m far from a fanboy, as I’ve been burned in the past by blindly following the opinions of biased people when it comes to expensive products.
I also came into this with no negative experience with Fanatec at all. My CSW 2.5 was a blast to use and I didn’t find the CS 3.0 pedals to be disappointing at all. I enjoyed my Fanatec setup, no issues.

What I’ve found is that:
Even the DD2 is no match for the level of detail you get with the SC2 Pro.
While the DD1 has access to the same settings and configurations as the DD2, this is more of a testament to the fact that neither has the level of configuration you get with a more established DD wheel.
The DD2’s filters lack the level of precision and accuracy you get with even SC1’s filters.
Two... settings more than the CSW belt driven wheel, to be exact. Natural friction and natural damper. That’s it.

Fanatec won’t even share the inertia or physical properties of their Servo motors, or the precision of the encoder they’re using. You have no idea how fast or slow it is, or it’s shaft inertia which is useful for knowing how much inertia to add to the wheel to simulate natural drift.

There are plenty of reasons to choose Fanatec over Simucube. The ecosystem, PS4/5 compatibility for GT7 or Xbox compatibility, already having a collection of wheels that you don’t want to sell, etc.

Being “artificially” locked out of settings isn’t a valid one considering even the SC2 Sport has over 4x as many settings as the DD2. Not only can you directly tune the Direct Input force feedback settings like Sawtooth and Damping... There’s SC2 specific settings like being able to lower the slew rate, a force reconstruction filter that smooths out sharp spikes from lower frequency FFB signals like iRacing or PC2 or Forza, but it also makes sure your wheel doesn’t sound like a jackhammer when you hit curbs. You can smooth out the wheel over a wide range of imitations of other popular DD wheels using force reduction.

I wanted to dislike it because of how annoying some of the diehard fans are about it and I came away with a deep appreciation of it.

Also I don’t know how you can say DD1 gets the same treatment as DD2 when it doesn’t come with an E-stop and the warranty is three years shorter... adding those accessories brings it to the price of a DD2. Also why doesn’t Fanatec make ALL the DD wheels PS5 compatible? The hardware is basically the same right? Artificial price gate keeping! (I don’t actually think this way in case you missed my sarcasm... I’m just urging you to find more legitimate reasons to prefer DD2 over SC2).

 

[klh]

I did a lot of research on this. A lot.
And I did research taking the approach that SC2 users are quite biased toward any positive statements about Fanatec.
I’m far from a fanboy, as I’ve been burned in the past by blindly following the opinions of biased people when it comes to expensive products.
I also came into this with no negative experience with Fanatec at all. My CSW 2.5 was a blast to use and I didn’t find the CS 3.0 pedals to be disappointing at all. I enjoyed my Fanatec setup, no issues.

What I’ve found is that:
Even the DD2 is no match for the level of detail you get with the SC2 Pro.
While the DD1 has access to the same settings and configurations as the DD2, this is more of a testament to the fact that neither has the level of configuration you get with a more established DD wheel.
The DD2’s filters lack the level of precision and accuracy you get with even SC1’s filters.
Two... settings more than the CSW belt driven wheel, to be exact. Natural friction and natural damper. That’s it.

Fanatec won’t even share the inertia or physical properties of their Servo motors, or the precision of the encoder they’re using. You have no idea how fast or slow it is, or it’s shaft inertia which is useful for knowing how much inertia to add to the wheel to simulate natural drift.

There are plenty of reasons to choose Fanatec over Simucube. The ecosystem, PS4/5 compatibility for GT7 or Xbox compatibility, already having a collection of wheels that you don’t want to sell, etc.

Being “artificially” locked out of settings isn’t a valid one considering even the SC2 Sport has over 4x as many settings as the DD2. Not only can you directly tune the Direct Input force feedback settings like Sawtooth and Damping... There’s SC2 specific settings like being able to lower the slew rate, a force reconstruction filter that smooths out sharp spikes from lower frequency FFB signals like iRacing or PC2 or Forza, but it also makes sure your wheel doesn’t sound like a jackhammer when you hit curbs. You can smooth out the wheel over a wide range of imitations of other popular DD wheels using force reduction.

I wanted to dislike it because of how annoying some of the diehard fans are about it and I came away with a deep appreciation of it.

Also I don’t know how you can say DD1 gets the same treatment as DD2 when it doesn’t come with an E-stop and the warranty is three years shorter... adding those accessories brings it to the price of a DD2. Also why doesn’t Fanatec make ALL the DD wheels PS5 compatible? The hardware is basically the same right? Artificial price gate keeping! (I don’t actually think this way in case you missed my sarcasm... I’m just urging you to find more legitimate reasons to prefer DD2 over SC2).

Hey Ted,

I do know and agree companies do these same things everywhere. But some of these things are within the norm in the domain, like varying the NM by software or hardware. This is ok by me, since that is easily understood to be a difference between the products. Same for other very obvious things. So from what I know I don't see anything that is different between DD1 and DD2 that would not be pretty obvious. I could easily be wrong & feel sales "out-clevered" there too. I'm not saying it's necessarily greener anywhere else.

With the SC2 it was a combination of a weak point in the way I feel it is performing and then the marketing/sales that I don't agree to that has made me want to find another solution. The weak point alone might not have pushed me over.

Reg. the DD2 I don't know if I prefer that over SC2. I am checking my options for any alternative DD wheelbase, as stated in my post. So that's why I posted. I really would rather support a company with a different sales strategy. It might not exist, but I would not know that, yet.

Thanks for your time & feedback!

 

[LeeHetherington]

I don’t get this. The SC2 website outlines that Ultimate has differences besides max force, and that there are more controls in software. That’s what $1400 more over Pro gets you besides a extra 7 Nm. Consumer makes a choice. Nothing seems underhanded there as you imply.

Do I wish Sport and Pro had same controls. Sure, but I don’t think I’m missing them and they are not worth the extra $1400 to me.

Why doesn’t DD1 come with e-stop? That’s an odd one to me for a 20Nm base.

 

[Glaniu]

Why doesn’t DD1 come with e-stop? That’s an odd one to me for a 20Nm base.

DD1 has no cable so it's not necessary

 

[Deleted member 197115]

DD1 has no cable so it's not necessary

No cable either, poor thing.

 

[jamescarruthers]

It’s very easy to see features as a tick box exercise. One product has more features than the other so it must be better etc

The quality of the implementation is really what matters. A friction filter isn’t just a friction filter, it plugs in to a load of other things also. So even though two wheels might have the exact same adjustments, it doesn’t mean they’ll act the same in any way.

If there were a wheel on sale without any adjustments but felt really great in every game — it would probably be better than every other wheel.

 

[TedBrosby-]

DD1 has no cable so it's not necessary

So I guess your thumbs are made out of forged steel? lol.
I'm not worried about USB cables when I use an E-stop.
I use coiled cables with DIM connector on the wheel but a loose USB on the hub, so if the wheel goes nuts, the cable will just slide out of the USB port.
I'm more worried about my hands than I am a $20 cable.

 

[TedBrosby-]

I don’t get this. The SC2 website outlines that Ultimate has differences besides max force, and that there are more controls in software. That’s what $1400 more over Pro gets you besides a extra 7 Nm. Consumer makes a choice. Nothing seems underhanded there as you imply.

Do I wish Sport and Pro had same controls. Sure, but I don’t think I’m missing them and they are not worth the extra $1400 to me.

Why doesn’t DD1 come with e-stop? That’s an odd one to me for a 20Nm base.

Prevailing theory is that when Fanatec realized they couldn't use a hardware difference for the 20 Nm base vs the 25 Nm DD2 base, they removed soft features like included accessories and warranty duration to differentiate between the two, because despite using their PCB to limit the DD1 vs the DD2, since the servo motor is exactly the same, most people who use both cannot differentiate between the DD1 and DD2.
Taking out the E-stop is a strange one, considering how cheap they are for a basic one. And the fact that the torque off port is some engineered pin connector, means you HAVE to either know the pin out to make your own or buy it, and it's $100...