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.
Podium DD's VS Simucube 2's
- Thread starter Darren Byrne
- Start date
Hi all,
It seems the same people are going over the same discussion here as well, with people fearing that the new system is somehow worse to use than the current one, which it is not.
Firstly, I've been using the new online system for quite a while now. It is a breeze to use and certainly works well, but fine tuning needed....
On the general topic of sharing of profiles:
Reasons why we built the system, is that even if we have the template profiles in the software like they are in the existing version, people are continuing to ask, request and share profiles in forums, Facebook groups and sometimes even directly by email from us. So it is a very proven observation that Simucube users - and user of other wheel bases as well - have a natural need to try out settings, especially settings from other people.
- This is true even if they know what each and every filter slider / adjustment does.
- It is also true when the do not - they just want to have that profile that should feel good, and once they find such a profile and try it out, they are generally happy with it with maybe some minor adjustments.
- This is true even if we had managed to find the time to update the included profiles at the right pace, and finding that time has proven to be problematic. The template profiles we have in the software now, were just profiles that got substantial amount of likes on our own forum. The online system allows for one-click solution to users to do exactly that, without any manual steps at all. It makes daily usage of the product much easier for exactly those users who ask&post settings on the forums.
There was no good format to share the profiles. Sharing ini files is not exactly user friendly way to do it, and neither are screenshots.
Conclusion: Integrated easy to use system is required and will be well received by many.
Develoment based reasons:
The firmware code to manage profiles and the PC software code that manages the profiles are pretty much in need of a complete rewrite anyway. It is based on code that was written several years ago and it is overly complicated to maintain right now. The logical thing to do would be the cheapeast option - rewrite it exactly like it is now, but as a result it would not be at all visible to the user. Therefore, if we want to take the step to improve it, it is better to take a large step now than to make minor adjustment by staying "within the box". Building it as a modern web app has a drawback at the start - it has to live on a server/cloud somewhere. However, the world is going towards web technology based desktop software - that is, programs that are actually lightweight web servers running on your own computer. This kind of user interface design is certainly a very attractive option. Moving on to that kind of platform will necessitate a web app based profile management anyway. And while most known apps that have moved on to use this kind of development are Discord and Spotify, there is for example Visual Studio Code that has been made with the same application framework - so this web app based approach does not mean that the system will be somehow only online system requiring constant web connection after a few updates. And I must say we have no plans to go to new application framework right now, but it could be done in the future.
Conclusion: Improvement must be done, and sometimes taking a giant leap is better than a small one.
Ease of use
There are repeated requests from us to make the system easier to use. Not many people are seeing these on forums etc, because people are not using forums! This issue becomes evident in real-life sales situations where some potential customer now gets to see so many sliders and adjustments right away, while our competitors have just 3-4 sliders and simplified filters. At that point those potential customers do not know the details on how FFB can and should be adjusted to each driver's personal liking, and where a broader range off achievable feel, if one puts it that way, is a good thing and a major advantage of our product. Having industry leading FFB feel is something we intend to keep by adding features and more advanced FFB processing. We certainly want to make the Simucube 2 product easier to use, but we definitively do not want to take any features away from the advanced users. I consider myself an advanced user, and so far we haven't changed anything that would have changed my daily usage of the product in any way. Having an easy system to get a driver started by just a few mouse clicks is a major improvement.
On the topic of requiring Internet connection:
When we posted the announcement last week, the plan was to have the first closed beta, the public beta and the first release version built in such a way, that users would be able to fall back to use the old profile management system exactly as it is now. So there is no near-term fear of Simucube 2 going only online. We also have seen the amount of unsubstantiated fear that we would go to only online system after also stating that we would listen to the feedback and develop a fallback option.
However, if you see the above "Development based reasons" text, the fallback has to change to get rid of legacy code, so that we will not have to maintain two complete management systems. This means, that the fallback option, in the long term, is going to mean these things:
- No profiles stored on the device flash memory
- Cached profiles from the online system are stored on the PC, and new profiles to that cache can be created too while in the fallback offline mode. Both can be edited offline, but I do not see a good way to sync the edited online profiles back to the online system without adding complex management code.
These changes, compared to the current system where the profiles are stored in the device flash memory, are going to be almost 100% transparent to the user. However the focus is now to get the first public version to testing, and the end-state fallback solution, while designed in principal already, is not going to be developed right away. That fallback feature (offline store) would have to be redone anyway if we ever ditch the Qt application framework and C++ and switch to some other framework, so it is cost effective to design it to be quick to build without as much complex options as the current management system.
About misconceptions
Then, we were asked on our forum about a subscription system, and one from our company gave an honest answer on how it could be seen and in what kinds of situations it could really be a good thing. HOWEVER some people (who are also on this forum as well) wrongly read it to mean that we actually are planning or even implementing such a system. This is simply not true.
But fear of something new is natural to human being.
Feedback
We got very little feedback on actual system we showed in the crude screenshots. This was not intended as we'd like as much actual constructive feedback as possible, but it seems it is not possible via the forum thread that begins with people having unsubstantiated fears that do not relate to actual functionality of the system. We already got much better feedback on Facebook via private messages, but I'm willing to give forums another chance, thats why I joined here as well.
It seems the same people are going over the same discussion here as well, with people fearing that the new system is somehow worse to use than the current one, which it is not.
Firstly, I've been using the new online system for quite a while now. It is a breeze to use and certainly works well, but fine tuning needed....
On the general topic of sharing of profiles:
Reasons why we built the system, is that even if we have the template profiles in the software like they are in the existing version, people are continuing to ask, request and share profiles in forums, Facebook groups and sometimes even directly by email from us. So it is a very proven observation that Simucube users - and user of other wheel bases as well - have a natural need to try out settings, especially settings from other people.
- This is true even if they know what each and every filter slider / adjustment does.
- It is also true when the do not - they just want to have that profile that should feel good, and once they find such a profile and try it out, they are generally happy with it with maybe some minor adjustments.
- This is true even if we had managed to find the time to update the included profiles at the right pace, and finding that time has proven to be problematic. The template profiles we have in the software now, were just profiles that got substantial amount of likes on our own forum. The online system allows for one-click solution to users to do exactly that, without any manual steps at all. It makes daily usage of the product much easier for exactly those users who ask&post settings on the forums.
There was no good format to share the profiles. Sharing ini files is not exactly user friendly way to do it, and neither are screenshots.
Conclusion: Integrated easy to use system is required and will be well received by many.
Develoment based reasons:
The firmware code to manage profiles and the PC software code that manages the profiles are pretty much in need of a complete rewrite anyway. It is based on code that was written several years ago and it is overly complicated to maintain right now. The logical thing to do would be the cheapeast option - rewrite it exactly like it is now, but as a result it would not be at all visible to the user. Therefore, if we want to take the step to improve it, it is better to take a large step now than to make minor adjustment by staying "within the box". Building it as a modern web app has a drawback at the start - it has to live on a server/cloud somewhere. However, the world is going towards web technology based desktop software - that is, programs that are actually lightweight web servers running on your own computer. This kind of user interface design is certainly a very attractive option. Moving on to that kind of platform will necessitate a web app based profile management anyway. And while most known apps that have moved on to use this kind of development are Discord and Spotify, there is for example Visual Studio Code that has been made with the same application framework - so this web app based approach does not mean that the system will be somehow only online system requiring constant web connection after a few updates. And I must say we have no plans to go to new application framework right now, but it could be done in the future.
Conclusion: Improvement must be done, and sometimes taking a giant leap is better than a small one.
Ease of use
There are repeated requests from us to make the system easier to use. Not many people are seeing these on forums etc, because people are not using forums! This issue becomes evident in real-life sales situations where some potential customer now gets to see so many sliders and adjustments right away, while our competitors have just 3-4 sliders and simplified filters. At that point those potential customers do not know the details on how FFB can and should be adjusted to each driver's personal liking, and where a broader range off achievable feel, if one puts it that way, is a good thing and a major advantage of our product. Having industry leading FFB feel is something we intend to keep by adding features and more advanced FFB processing. We certainly want to make the Simucube 2 product easier to use, but we definitively do not want to take any features away from the advanced users. I consider myself an advanced user, and so far we haven't changed anything that would have changed my daily usage of the product in any way. Having an easy system to get a driver started by just a few mouse clicks is a major improvement.
On the topic of requiring Internet connection:
When we posted the announcement last week, the plan was to have the first closed beta, the public beta and the first release version built in such a way, that users would be able to fall back to use the old profile management system exactly as it is now. So there is no near-term fear of Simucube 2 going only online. We also have seen the amount of unsubstantiated fear that we would go to only online system after also stating that we would listen to the feedback and develop a fallback option.
However, if you see the above "Development based reasons" text, the fallback has to change to get rid of legacy code, so that we will not have to maintain two complete management systems. This means, that the fallback option, in the long term, is going to mean these things:
- No profiles stored on the device flash memory
- Cached profiles from the online system are stored on the PC, and new profiles to that cache can be created too while in the fallback offline mode. Both can be edited offline, but I do not see a good way to sync the edited online profiles back to the online system without adding complex management code.
These changes, compared to the current system where the profiles are stored in the device flash memory, are going to be almost 100% transparent to the user. However the focus is now to get the first public version to testing, and the end-state fallback solution, while designed in principal already, is not going to be developed right away. That fallback feature (offline store) would have to be redone anyway if we ever ditch the Qt application framework and C++ and switch to some other framework, so it is cost effective to design it to be quick to build without as much complex options as the current management system.
About misconceptions
Then, we were asked on our forum about a subscription system, and one from our company gave an honest answer on how it could be seen and in what kinds of situations it could really be a good thing. HOWEVER some people (who are also on this forum as well) wrongly read it to mean that we actually are planning or even implementing such a system. This is simply not true.
But fear of something new is natural to human being.
Feedback
We got very little feedback on actual system we showed in the crude screenshots. This was not intended as we'd like as much actual constructive feedback as possible, but it seems it is not possible via the forum thread that begins with people having unsubstantiated fears that do not relate to actual functionality of the system. We already got much better feedback on Facebook via private messages, but I'm willing to give forums another chance, thats why I joined here as well.
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D
Deleted member 197115
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Deleted member 197115
Mika, you need to revisit your GD forum membership policy and put some age restriction, as based on overwhelming negative response to that initiative there and your own poll result, it must be full of "old grumpy" individuals resisting "technical progress".
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Please note, that the poll was created after several posts that included heated discussion. The result of the poll is very heavily biased by the unsubstantiated fear-mongering posts above it, so it really is not reflective of the general opinion. This is also confirmed by the feedback from our other feedback channels.
It seems that it is not possible to get actual constructive feedback on any forum these days.
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So without the prior discussion the end result would have been different and people would have overwhelmingly voted for the "everything online" variant? I don't think so. Besides that, the first option implies that it was indeed planned to make an online connection a requirement somehow, does it not?
Why even host such a poll, just to dismiss it afterwards by devaluating the opinion of forum users, which all of a sudden seems to be another term for grumpy oldtimer?
By the way, i am not even registered on the GD board and just read about this topic here.
Why even host such a poll, just to dismiss it afterwards by devaluating the opinion of forum users, which all of a sudden seems to be another term for grumpy oldtimer?
By the way, i am not even registered on the GD board and just read about this topic here.
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I wanted to also answer this point.
The sign-in system and thus the security is really, really important to get right security-wise. But it is also not in our core competence, so it would be expensive endeavor for us to implement our own, with potentially catastrophic data leaks or such if it went wrong.
This being acknowledged, we do have selected a well-used cloud-based system that enables users to create their login username and password, but it also supports Google and Facebook logins. The former is great for those that want to use simple login&password (hopefully not logins-on-a-postit-note), and the latter is good for the people who want to have one-click logins that are modern and easy to use.
And, the Google and Facebook logins support MFA out of the box, which is a great bonus.
For all privacy concerns, we will have a well written privacy policy for this service. That is a legally required thing.
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Deleted member 197115
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Deleted member 197115
Nice, now the community is just brainless parrots repeating whatever somebody else said with no ability to draw any conclusions on their own. Oh, yeah, they are also "old and grumpy", with all that stuff just "in their heads".
I am surprised you are able to retain any customer base at all after treating them like that, besides just outright discarding everyone's opinion that does not align with your "vision".
What was before that? Right, removing filters and dumbing down software so only retards want and can use it.
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That's not the case at all. You announced your plan, didn't like the feedback you received and closed the thread.
I understand how deflating it must feel when you've obviously worked really hard on an idea but you have to take a step back and wonder why (some) people feel so passionate about the implementation method of something they didn't ask for in the first place. Remember, you also get (and rightly so) passionate about what you want, as shown in some of the descriptive language you use. Grumpy old men, parrots etc
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The community is a good one - its not that we don't care about the forum community. However, the competitors are catching up and the amount of competitors is also increasing, so we can't disclose our software nor hardware developments several months in advance anymore like we used to do.
Forums as a format is already pretty dead. Their popularity has died down all over, and only the most technical niche people are commonly using them. For example, I personally know many people in the Finnish simracing community so I do have a good idea on how many Simucube 2 units are being used in Finnish simracing community. On our forum, there are less than 1% of them, and not much more on any forum combined. People have moved on to Discords and Reddit, and closed FB groups.
And I'm sorry that I've used some words that some people do not like, or that they would seem like we would not value the community's opinion. We as a company certainly do value the community's opinion, but currently that opinion has become a positive feedback loop instead of being constructive.
I'm of course sorry that I'm having to spend another Friday night on a forum (that, to my surprise, offers subscription options
).
Forums as a format is already pretty dead. Their popularity has died down all over, and only the most technical niche people are commonly using them. For example, I personally know many people in the Finnish simracing community so I do have a good idea on how many Simucube 2 units are being used in Finnish simracing community. On our forum, there are less than 1% of them, and not much more on any forum combined. People have moved on to Discords and Reddit, and closed FB groups.
And I'm sorry that I've used some words that some people do not like, or that they would seem like we would not value the community's opinion. We as a company certainly do value the community's opinion, but currently that opinion has become a positive feedback loop instead of being constructive.
I'm of course sorry that I'm having to spend another Friday night on a forum (that, to my surprise, offers subscription options
).
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Hey Mika,
Good to see you here too.
There are too many points in your post I don't agree to, to comment in details.
But:
* Newcomers will have issues regardless. They want to learn and will ask and at some point we all get it.
* Settings are worthless without in game settings coming with them.
* A complete rewrite is always a mistake. It seems you want to learn that again, since you must be aware. That this is a mistake also speaks against your other dependencies in your post on exactly that.
* You were going fully online in the 1st version, did you redecide based on valuable Facebook feedback?
* No fear of new. But questions of priorities and concerns, that again, it seems did make you reconsider offline.
* Good to hear filters will be coming back in fashion.
But really it's just agreements and disagreements.
You seem very strong in your beliefs for what is right and wrong.
So no need for detailed explanations and discussions. It is not smart when you tell your audience we are grumpy or parrots or that we don't know what we're talking about.
There are many clever people right there. Why not USE that instead of fighting to get it your personally preferred way?
Really I see opportunities for improvements in almost every single critique you've been exposed to.
Now go and prove us all wrong and we will all love you yet again!!
It really is simple as that. We WANT you to succeed, since we all bought in to your solutions already.
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That is true, and we are not somehow trying to remove that role from the community, be it on our forum, this forum, or otherwise.
I agree. This is why there is a field to write in in-game settings values when publishing the profile for others to use. Later on, we might read this from game files or such clever things - and storing game configurations is not really possible in the device flash memory, so another means to store profile data would be needed.....
No it is not. Moving stuff around and rewriting things does take a bit of time, but then it will pay back the time later via much easier development, and will enable us to more efficiently develop both the filters, and the firmware and PC-side software/drivers later. We are strengthening the development team right now, and a rewrite of some stuff at this point really is a necessary step.
No, it was put back on table to based on the community's valued feedback. However, did the community change to give actual constructive feedback regarding the new system when it was announced that their feedback was noted? no, and thats why the thread was closed.
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Deleted member 1234936
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Deleted member 1234936
Just out of Curiosity, As Company X comes out with a new great idea, the competitors always follow suit, are the game racers out there going to stop racing and sell up because they don't like what going on?
Yes I'm old and grumpy, it's the damp weather, makes everything ache, and you make an assortment of noises when moving. also you can't trust a fart.
I'm also a twenty year old trapped in an elderly body.
Peace, N word
Yes I'm old and grumpy, it's the damp weather, makes everything ache, and you make an assortment of noises when moving. also you can't trust a fart.
I'm also a twenty year old trapped in an elderly body
.Peace, N word
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Ok,
Reg. rewrite: Should be last resort. I agree that if you have searched your options and there is no iterative approach that works, then so be it. There is a strong tendency for developers not to search all paths and jump to rewrites way too fast. I'm sure we agree.
Reg feedback: It seemed to me it was just about to turn, but it's not a problem by me, I honestly think you have your hands full right now and rather focus on it.
Your willingness to always be responsive is incredible and I hope you find time to contribute directly too. We all are looking forward to see what's coming regardless of concerns.
Good luck on the next upcoming releases!
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Deleted member 197115
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Deleted member 197115
There were some very good suggestions on how to retain existing functionality while giving optional non intrusive online access to community profiles or even make existing predefined profiles synced to the cloud.
Was it not constructive enough?
How much your cloud hosting is going to cost your company, my experience with designing and hosting enterprise scale services on the cloud that it's far from easy or cheap as one might think.
You need database, perhaps something cloud native like DynamoDB, S3 for profiles, EC2 instances, ELB, some solution for authentication, IAM? And all that multi regional, based on client geo location, with at least two AZ within region.
You need very expensive subscription model to offset all that cost.
This is killing a fly with the cannon solution.
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There were suggestions, yes, but each of them was trying to solve the the thing with significantly another way, rather than commenting about details and general things that were presented in the screenshots that were presenting the actual features the thread was meant to be about.
It is important that our cloud hosting service is scaleable for future, this is actually a good point! According to our calculations we are not in any service level that would require any hugely expensive upkeep costs - its not like there are a million concurrent users or such, which would easily happen on some other types of services. Of course we are monitoring this, and if it turns out that it is becoming too expensive, we just move the web app to run locally with True Drive with local cache with only the login system and periodic syncs to cloud, or something similar. There is no need to revert back. We can also live with just one service region at start, as there is nothing in the system that would always require some strict latency for every event - but we will be monitoring responsiveness to get data for this. And most really critical code runs in the web app that is loaded in True Drive, so it remains responsive.
It is important that our cloud hosting service is scaleable for future, this is actually a good point! According to our calculations we are not in any service level that would require any hugely expensive upkeep costs - its not like there are a million concurrent users or such, which would easily happen on some other types of services. Of course we are monitoring this, and if it turns out that it is becoming too expensive, we just move the web app to run locally with True Drive with local cache with only the login system and periodic syncs to cloud, or something similar. There is no need to revert back. We can also live with just one service region at start, as there is nothing in the system that would always require some strict latency for every event - but we will be monitoring responsiveness to get data for this. And most really critical code runs in the web app that is loaded in True Drive, so it remains responsive.
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Deleted member 197115
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Deleted member 197115
Are you saying that fallback method is some sort of local service running embedded tomcat? Disappointing and shortsighted, you are just shoehorning your always online solution instead of making offline primary as it should for a hardware device and use online as a secondary, non mandatory option.
Guess Andrew is not going to update SC2 SW/FW any time soon.
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Andrew, I guess you didn't read my previous post about how the fallback option will be in short term and in long term. The above was an option for the performance related improvement for the online-based profile management.
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TedBrosby-
Premium
You don’t need to. Pop up a disclaimer box and let users know that once a profile is edited offline, you’ll need to recreate it for online use.
Tell them it can only be used offline and show up again online if it matches the online profile the last time the user was connected. Let users know if it’s edited it won’t sync.
A simple hash check is enough to verify it’s not modified. Or do a simple copy of the profile to offline mode with a tag in the name “[Offline Copy]” and when a user edits it, let them know the changes won’t be reflected in the original profile online. Maybe a button “copy for offline use” and when the copy is pressed, show the disclaimer?
As an engineer/user I would be pretty content with that solution.
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Deleted member 197115
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Deleted member 197115
May be, when I read "web app running locally" some sort of local web container is the only thing that popped in my mind, how else can you run app in browser.
Things in your design keep changing, which makes it harder to keep a track of what temporary and what permanent solution going to look like.
And miscommunication and misunderstanding is the number one enemy of such things. May be new thread on GD forum with more detailed explanation and some diagrams will set a different tone than meaningless screenshots and "old system eventually goes away so it's online online or you are stuck with no new features" promise that sounded more like a "my way or highway" threat.
Glad that you are considering abandoning Qt library, but what's wrong with MFC?
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