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.

 

[klh]

what sims are using the wheels with?

I'm just asking because I tried old LFS with my SC2 last weekend and was suprised how different, in some ways better and in some worse, it feels compared to Assetto Corsa. It felt more nuanced at low signal, but also tried ripping my fingers of on impacts, which AC doesn't really do. Had to lower FFB game output to 5% (at 100% True Drive setting) to make it feel comfortable to me.

The games I normally run are:
* rfactor2: Best ffb, even though it really is not good as-is, since it needs heavy filtering on a DD wheel base to feel remotely realistic, at least to me.
* PC2: Was unable to drive this for a long time, since default & custom files felt REALLY bad on the SC2 wheelbase. I created the "silver project" custom ffb file out of desperation & that makes this sim feel good to me & great compared to other custom files & other sims(on high end & DD bases), imo.
* Ice-racing: Even despite the horrific ffb, which feels at least equally good on any belt wheel base. I run ice because of the competitive system that is unrivaled still. I use irffb that provides at least higher frequency ffb output that helps some of the cars a lot, but adds a lag. I wish the reconstruction filter on the SC2 was just a normal interpolation or had more knobs to control it with, since recon, to me, feels worse than for example the simple interpolation as also provided by irffb.
* AMS2: Liked the ffb in early beta. Not sure what happened, but it somehow turned south & also the sim itself just does not have the content like PC2 does. I created the "Silver Raw" custom ffb file that makes it feel pretty good on high end belts & DD wheel bases. I really hope they can improve this sim over time, since PC2 has been wastefully abandoned for future development.
* ACC: Once in a while. Again, ffb just has not much to do with the sensations you get from any real world car. I am of the opinion that FFB should try and give you the lack of important sensation from the whole car, not just the direct steering rack feel. But it feels like a bland experienmce when driving, to me. Just not exhilarating. Also the multiplayer stuff.... Why would ACC do a competitive system & not copy over the best parts from ice....
* RaceRoom: Once in a while. Somewhat improved ffb on some cars recently it seems, but has been thrown off since it's been(and is) really bad for DD otherwise. This sim felt great on my old ts-pc racer. Pure downgrade to move to DD for this title.

The current FFB implementations favor belts & actually the DD wheelbases make some of the sims feel downright horrible.
Most sims prob. feel the best, without too much work, on a csw2.5 & the likes, simply because DD's are not mainstream enough that devs have had the opportunity to optimize for these yet. Hopefully it's happening now, but we'll see...

 

[TedBrosby-]

Looks like SC2 Pro was revised with a single PSU! So those of you nervous about the two PSU’s and short cables, if you can wait for R2 to be guaranteed (vendors probably have to sell R1 stock first, reasonable since the PSU is the only difference) and don’t like two PSU’s, now it’s more or less perfect.

I just got mine a few weeks ago, figures this would happen lol.
But to be honest the good news is it most likely means SC2 will be supported for more than another year and they’ve said they might offer the R2 plate and single PSU as an optional upgrade for R1 users. Depending on price I might buy it.

 

[DirkW]

There was also an interesting discussion on the Simucube forum if you could connect only one of the two PSUs to the "old" Pro, using it just with reduced force, and/or if you could connect the new single PSU to one of the two old Pro's ports. I think Simucube wanted to check if the latter is possible.

 

[Glaniu]

will there be any differences?

 

[avenger82]

Looks like SC2 Pro was revised with a single PSU! So those of you nervous about the two PSU’s and short cables, if you can wait for R2 to be guaranteed (vendors probably have to sell R1 stock first, reasonable since the PSU is the only difference) and don’t like two PSU’s, now it’s more or less perfect.

I just got mine a few weeks ago, figures this would happen lol.
But to be honest the good news is it most likely means SC2 will be supported for more than another year and they’ve said they might offer the R2 plate and single PSU as an optional upgrade for R1 users. Depending on price I might buy it.

I was concerned about short power cables coming from PSUs , so I bought 50 cm PCI-E 6 pin extensions beforehand.
But it turned out that stock 105 cm was more than enough for me.
For me the advantage of two PSU instead of new one for Pro is that I can switch power strip with one PSU plugged in and then plug in the second one to avoid too much inrush current.
With both PSUs connected, switching power strip on trips my 10A circuit breaker.
I know advised solution is to use inrush current limiter, but I’m not sure if 16A ones are appropriate with 10A circuit breakers and I can’t find 10A ones.

 

[klh]

My apologies reg. Simucube 2 low force performance at high vs low force setting in TrueDrive.

As some of you know I have posted my findings that it felt to me as if running the SC2 at high force provided a clear benefit at low forces vs running it at low force & using higher gain in the sims.

I have now spent the afternoon trying to reproduce directly, through using DirectInput & sending FFB signal at 200-600hz at various force levels in TrueDrive and in the FFB signal.

The conclusion from this test is that I have been absolutely, completely unable to reproduce this issue going this somewhat more scientifically correct route. Exactly as some other people have told me they did not believe this to be the case. It seems clear they have been right & I have been wrong.

I am not sure what could have caused this difference in some sims when changing forces around & I will try and find the exact root reason of that some other day.

Again, truly sorry about this and for wasting anybody’s time on it.

I will correct my other posts over the next few days to reflect this.

 

[avenger82]

My apologies reg. Simucube 2 low force performance at high vs low force setting in TrueDrive.

As some of you know I have posted my findings that it felt to me as if running the SC2 at high force provided a clear benefit at low forces vs running it at low force & using higher gain in the sims.

I have now spent the afternoon trying to reproduce directly, through using DirectInput & sending FFB signal at 200-600hz at various force levels in TrueDrive and in the FFB signal.

The conclusion from this test is that I have been absolutely, completely unable to reproduce this issue going this somewhat more scientifically correct route. Exactly as some other people have told me they did not believe this to be the case. It seems clear they have been right & I have been wrong.

I am not sure what could have caused this difference in some sims when changing forces around & I will try and find the exact root reason of that some other day.

Again, truly sorry about this and for wasting anybody’s time on it.

I will correct my other posts over the next few days to reflect this.

But I think it wasn't complete waste of time. You raised somewhat valid issue that for cars that generally generate very low forces and for some reason you want to feel them better you have to increase torque to max in TD.
Let's say it solves your issue, but now depending on a car you can get very big, rare FFB spikes from hitting curbs, wall or when someone hits you. Especially the latter may be not desired. It's not fun or safe when you drive at 5Nm and someone hits you and suddenly you get 25Nm force. Unless game supports it there's nothing like low force boost slider.
Alternatively there could be a "clipping" slider added, so that you'd be able to just set max allowed force in the driver without altering overall forces. So i.e. you could have forces scaled to 100%, but maximum clipped to 16Nm.
For hitting curbs, or accidents it doesn't give you much advantage to feel 25Nm vs having them clipped to "only" 16Nm.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

If you want signal to clip, raise in game gain.

 

[avenger82]

If you want signal to clip, raise in game gain.

If I’d do just that, then low forces would be “boosted”, but I’d only get clipping at 25Nm. I would have to lower force in TD at the same time to have clipping at lower values, but this would lower overall forces too (including low forces).
That’s not the same as I described with proposed Clipping filter/slider.
The idea is to have higher low forces but at the same time high forces clipped to arbitrary value.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

If I’d do just that, then low forces would be “boosted”, but I’d only get clipping at 25Nm. I would have to lower force in TD at the same time to have clipping at lower values, but this would lower overall forces too (including low forces).
That’s not the same as I described with proposed Clipping filter/slider.
The idea is to have higher low forces but at the same time high forces clipped to arbitrary value.

TD gain has nothing to do with signal clipping, it just acts as amplifier on received, already clipped signal.

 

[avenger82]

TD gain has nothing to do with signal clipping, it just acts as amplifier on received, already clipped signal.
View attachment 416027

But when you lower overall strength in TD you will get hardware clipping sooner, no?
If received signal is already clipped then isn't it soft clipping?

 

[klh]

But when you lower overall strength in TD you will get hardware clipping sooner, no?
If received signal is already clipped then isn't it soft clipping?

Changing TD force does not make it clip more or less.
It is a simple current control to the motor in. So similar to scaling the input signal down by a multiple in range 0-1, although not the exact same end result.

@avenger82 You are completely right there still is an issue that having access to the gamma effect might ha e helped.

I can set the TD force to something like 14NM to limit how bad iracing can hurt my hands, but then, as you say, the output will of course drop and I will need to lower iracing's Max force, to make it generate more force.
This WILL make iracing clip earlier, at that max nm in game.
So in total you are absolutely correct that wanting to lower the TD force WILL lead to clipping if I want it to feel the same.

So yesterday I sat down to decide if I want to keep my SC2 or not.
The result was that I gave it some hours middling irFFB to have this filter.
So now my local version of irFFB has this and it works WONDERFULLY for me to strengthen center when lowering TD force and also raising Max NM, So I now will keep my sc2 pro it seems, depending on Granite's simplification and online policies going forward.... I really don't agree to the policies and it sounds like they don't care about advanced users any more and will rather cater for noobs and non demanding userd to no end.... For 6months or so they have regularly mentioned removing the "advanced" filters.... If that ever happens I'm def. gone in a sec.

Today I then added vibrations on under and oversteer to my local irffb.
So now I ALSO don't ICE-race any more It's GREAT!

 

[avenger82]

Changing TD force does not make it clip more or less.

OK So lowering it just scales down all forces and clipping can only be controlled by changing gain value in a game(plus possibly some other in-game settings). But if I set gain to max in game and appropriately lower overall forces in TD, then it can produce same overall forces, but with more clipping.

So I now will keep my sc2 pro it seems, depending on Granite's simplification and online policies goi g forward.... I really don't agree to the policies and it sounds like they don't care about advanced users any more and will rather cater for noobs to no end....

I'm not aware of the new polices, is there any discussion about it on GD forums?

 

[Deleted member 197115]

I'm not aware of the new polices, is there any discussion about it on GD forums?

I think (hope) it's over, at least for now, due to huge community backlash.
But surely some decisions made there are very questionable and outright alarming. This is my least favorite part of SC2 ownership, one strongly opinionated man decision making of the product future, investing time and energy into things nobody wants instead of focusing on something that really matters.

 

[klh]

I think (hope) it's over, at least for now, due to huge community backlash.
But surely some decisions made there are very questionable and outright alarming. This is my least favorite part of SC2 ownership, one strongly opinionated man decision making of the product future, investing time and energy into things nobody wants instead of focusing on something that really matters.

Right!
It seems completely mad that I have to go and code a filter myself that is already there. Add on top that filter development has not really been happening for a year...
No matter the hardware, the total FFB solution will not hold a decisive advantage much longer if they dont get on the horse again. All these fancy online dreams are great and should be pursued even, but not at the cost of core functionality AND core customers.
They even tell us outright our votes don't matter, since we are not representative of their "real" user base... Jesus.. We are the ONLY direct feedback they have, so how can they know anything else....... Man... I do still think they are dead in the water right now, let's see if they wake up before all competitors catch up and run past.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

Exactly, I don't know where that "mythical userbase" lives they cater for. Haven't seen any representatives on official GD or numerous sim boards. And I have been with DD wheels for 6 years, starting with Argon based OSW.

 

[EsxPaul]

Stop being grumpy old men. This is all in your heads

 

[Deleted member 197115]

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[AccAkut]

Exactly, I don't know where that "mythical userbase" lives they cater for. Haven't seen any representatives on official GD or numerous sim boards. And I have been with DD wheels for 6 years, starting with Argon based OSW.

I learned that a huge percentage of SC wheels never go through the big vendors like simraingbay, but are sold directly through the companies fabricating complete rigs for racing teams and (too) well off older individuals, who just feel like "I'd like one of those computer racing things please" and hand a guy 30.000€ to prepare them a "turn key" system. And these guys certainly are not as well versed and invested into the whole core system as we all here are, and may bombard their salesman with questions and service requests. Making everything "easier" for them may be a goal... but I'm just speculating.

 

[TedBrosby-]

I think (hope) it's over, at least for now, due to huge community backlash.
But surely some decisions made there are very questionable and outright alarming. This is my least favorite part of SC2 ownership, one strongly opinionated man decision making of the product future, investing time and energy into things nobody wants instead of focusing on something that really matters.

Fortunately with you on the forums and @EsxPaul and others pushing back, it seems they are at least noticing that they stick their foots in their mouths a lot.
I don't think something like this is genuinely better with other manufacturers. I can't imagine Fanatec or Leo Bodnar giving the slightest crap what forum users complain about.
But seriously the online profiles crap? Where did that even come from? I just get some sort of data mining vibe from it. This stuff happens in the software industry all the time. A really good system gets invaded by some business-speak marketing PM who wants to "global tech company" it with data mining, data harvesting and Firebase analytics etc. Next thing you know, they'll integrate Facebook/Google sign on for the online profiles and that's when you'll know someone's jumping the shark.

I learned that a huge percentage of SC wheels never go through the big vendors like simraingbay, but are sold directly through the companies fabricating complete rigs for racing teams and (too) well off older individuals, who just feel like "I'd like one of those computer racing things please" and hand a guy 30.000€ to prepare them a "turn key" system. And these guys certainly are not as well versed and invested into the whole core system as we all here are, and may bombard their salesman with questions and service requests. Making everything "easier" for them may be a goal... but I'm just speculating.

No offense but where did you "learn this" from?
I think their biggest customer is iRacing forum members. They were the go-to direct drive wheel for many years on iRacing so when their complete all in one was announced, Tomo said he would be selling it there and thousands of iRacing members bought it.
Given we've seen professional Indy drivers using Fanatec CSW 2.5 on a Next Level Racing cockpit, and Lando Norris uses a Cool Performance F1 cockpit which has a Leo Bodnar SS with a Kollmorgen, I think there's no "set standard" for what pro drivers use, and they just take whatever the company provides.
From what I've heard, most of the pro drivers who sim use Leo Bodnar SS and they are usually provided with a complete solution and the vendors specifically choose Leo Bodnar for the direct support. Pro drivers don't want to sit around tweaking settings like iRacing members do.