Perhaps SRV driving?
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Guide / Tutorial Building The Most Immersive Elite Dangerous Simulator - An Extensive Guide
- Thread starter Exigeous
- Start date
You should check out this thread over on Community Creations, now that's a simpit!
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/171495-DIY-Controller-and-Throttle
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/171495-DIY-Controller-and-Throttle
Deleted member 110222
D
Here I am with a fourty quid desk from Argos & an X52.
Totally awesome OP!
Totally awesome OP!
Xion or nothing.
http://www.xionplayer.com/
OP - Nice rig. You're single right? The wife would never go for that in our house.
Again thanks to all for the kind words, much appreciated. Remember I do welcome and encourage any constructive criticism, I'm sorta surprised no one has slammed me for the sticker/gunk that's still on the sides of the rear speakers! I had them mounted differently before (with doublesided tape) and when I moved them kept forgetting to remove the old. When I saw it in the pictures late last night I thought " , that gunk is still there!". To answer a few more comments:
Again thanks for all the kind words, keep any criticism or suggestions coming. I always enjoy making the thing better!
~E
Ah Winamp, I have very fond memories. I'll admit I sorta love to hate WMP and just stuck with it as it does a pretty good job with my rather huge library and the hotkey plugins work well. Point taken though ;-)
I'll try it soon, I'm a big fan of Descent and Eve: Valkyire for arcardey fun
I'm not sure I can say "best", as you know the sky is the limit on custom made stuff but for a reasonable budget yeah, it's pretty high up there. Many guys like the Thrustmaster TH8A which I also have, it's just out of shot as I replaced it with the Fanatec. If you're looking for 6-speed only it's great, I wanted the ability to select between that and sequential and while I'm with you in terms of hell-toe (especially in the racecar) once I put the Fanatec in SQ mode I never looked back. There's something so wonderfully satisfying about the feel of the huge stick and the satisfying click of the shift. If you have a look at the Thrustmaster and are interested mine will be for sale soon, just make me a fair offer and it's yours....
Originally I was thinking exactly that, can it be moved but with a link left in this forum to the new location? Obviously I'd like to to be easily viewable to all searching for it, that's why I wrote it.
That would be pretty damn funny!! On a more serious note I'd much rather that 'she' have her own things anyway, the last woman I dated was also a racer so when we split it was horribly awkward for a while and I'm not going through that again!
One lesson I've learned in life - no matter what you do someone has done it better, at least most of the time. I went through several pages but couldn't find the finished product, is it still in progress or is it done? I think I did a pretty great job putting together off-the-shelf gear which is nothing like what this guy has done!
Again thanks for all the kind words, keep any criticism or suggestions coming. I always enjoy making the thing better!
~E
I just put a huge "NOTE" at the top of the post above the picture as you must be the 10th person between this thread, PM and Reddit who didn't look closely nor bother to scroll down and see the entire section on VR. Of course I use VR, the monitors are there as I started this build over a year ago before VR was released. I also still prefer my monitors for racing titles and for titles that don't support VR at all (DOOM, Overwatch, Rise of the Tomb Raider, etc).
So to answer your comment nope, VR MAKES this setup as "new school" as possible.
Have you considered motion-simulating articulating powered chair? There is a kick starter that does this for a mere $2500 (or 1800 without the seat). It's called the Race Cube: https://www.carthrottle.com/post/the-racingcube-is-the-worlds-first-affordable-motion-simulator/
Since you've invested $14k what's a few grand more in the pursuit of VR glory?
Since you've invested $14k what's a few grand more in the pursuit of VR glory?
While I'm very glad you posted this as I haven't seen it I'll add you to the (long) list of folks who keep commenting on things without even skimming the table of contents - I already have a motion setup. Mine is a 2DOF so this one looks better in some respects so as I said I'll have to check it out further.
I keep getting "3 screens isn't immersive, you need VR" or "the Warthog doesn't have twist for yaw, you need pedals", etc. - when I already have all that which is why I spent so long laying out the post with an easy TOC.....
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Ah it's a shame - looks like that motion system died on the vine, it only got a few backers and no updates for over a year. Looked WAY too jerky too, my system wasn't even that bad and I turned it down a ton to keep it from throwing me around too much.
Less a guide than "Look what I have folks!" but frankly if I had that setup, I'd gloat about it too
Need to find a way to stick my hotas to my chair in an...elegant manner. The warthog hotas is heavy. Can't just staple it to the side of an office style chair...I feel some DIY coming on this weekend.
Need to find a way to stick my hotas to my chair in an...elegant manner. The warthog hotas is heavy. Can't just staple it to the side of an office style chair...I feel some DIY coming on this weekend.
Blimey, that's roughly the same I paid for my first yacht!
Very jealous.
Very jealous.
Less a guide than "Look what I have folks!" but frankly if I had that setup, I'd gloat about it too
Given I stated many times that wasn't my goal at all and it took me over 3 hours to write given the way I formatted it and laid it out with a table of contents and links to pretty much everything, hopefully helping others find and use those products I think it's pretty much ALL and guide and virtually NO "look what I have". Had I simply wanted to brad about it I would have just posted pictures and a short list of gear. Fortunately you're the only person that's made this comment, sorry to see you completely and totally missed the point.
I can't exactly recall where I saw it on Youtube but there is a video of a guy using some mounts to attach a Saitek X52 to an office chair. While it was for the X52 and it is MUCH lighter the mounts were very heavy duty and I remember thinking they'd likely work well for the Warthog as well.
~E
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In fact look what I just found....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5xeDbYrp74&t=606s
While this is a nice setup I can't see where the money went exactly. I have had similar setups in the past but usually throw them in storage due to reconfiguring rooms to suit different needs. Had (have, was sitting in storage for the last 2 years and just pulled it out to let my friend borrow until I decide whether or not I'm selling it and he's an absolute racing freak, joins any online ranked match and puts most of the top racers to shame) the same Obutto, triple monitor mount, the fancy tabletop they released, the shifter piece, the only thing I can't seem to find right now and I have a feeling it's in my local storage and not my one a few miles from here is the keyboard tray. Had 3x 120hz 1080p 24" monitors at the time for a triple 3D setup with 3x GTX 580 back when 3D was booming in PC gaming (going back a few years now when this beast rig was built I built this PC while waiting a month for the Alienware M17x R3 to ship due to the Sandy Bridge bug. I wanted something to play 3D with at the time and the laptop was delayed for a few months because of the bug. The laptop alone was $2500). The entire PC rig alone was about $3,000. The Obutto with all accessories and monitor was <$1,000. Still have my Fanatec Porche 911 GT3 RS V2 w/ shifter and CSP (roughly $500, just re-read your BOM and it looks like you had a similar setup with that. Can't remember if my CSP's are V1 or V2 but I never did get the inversion bracket for it probably should have looking back after all the money I had already spent anyway). Also ended up buying another shifter that has 6 or 7 shift points iirc that was around $200 on its own. Adding onto that with new stuff I now have. $300 HOTAS Warthog, $250 for Rift (bought VR set off a local guy, $500 for Rift + PSVR) but let's use $600 retail value + $200 for Oculus Touch. That's $800. Using a 43" 4K TV as well that was $380. Buttkicker $200 (from memory). Synology DS413 with 4x 3TB drives in a SHR mode which roughly could have been around $600. You using Windows 10 Enterprise I can't even follow since Enterprise only adds (iirc) Bitlocker. I can probably count up all the "luxury" items I have in this room and not even come close to a $14,000 figure. Forgot to add my DX Racer King Series chair that was about $480 I think (funny thing is the obutto seat was almost the same cost as well, maybe I'll nix my desk eventually and go back to it)
I might even still have my sequential shifter but I do remember when I moved everything to storage I broke either the sequential or H shifter. Can't find either right now though *shrug*
With all that said, it's nice to see some enthusiasts. I would like to see a breakdown of costs though to get that number because if you spent nearly $14,000 then I am calculating something wrong over here and I would be mind blown to know I spent close to that and pretty much nixed the whole thing.
Current rig is running a single 980Ti because I haven't needed to upgrade up until I played ED in VR. This is the only game that is maxing out my GPU and the only VR game that comes close to maxing my GPU. Even on VR Low I still get dips below the vsync locked 90fps (45 per eye) which causes terrible reprojection. It's pretty amazing that a ~2+ year old game (if you count beta) is maxing out a 980Ti when current new games can't even do that and no other VR game comes remotely close.
I might hook my buttkicker back up (just saw you are using the Gamer 2 as well. I think we were the same person at some point. I was one of the people who had an amp catch on fire and they refused to replace it until I went through a huge ordeal with them. Finally got a replacement amp after several months of back and forth) I used it for awhile but fell out of sim stuff until I played ED in VR which pretty much drew me back. I was about to sell off my VR setup but this game single-handedly made me keep it.
Up until watching a mining guide yesterday I had no clue a program like voice attack existed. It sounds like it'll pretty much do anything Dragon does but for $10
Overlay in a VR environment? Seriously? I wanted this specifically for streaming so I can have my chat window up and communicate with my twitch viewers in real time. That is absolutely amazing. Beyond that point it would be nice to be able to pull up a browser or something on a hotkey so I can view youtube videos for assistance without the hassle of taking my headset off. I've been playing ED for about 18 hours and keep finding more and more stuff I want to try out. I would like to test your settings because it sounds like you are using regular "Ultra" settings coupled with some tweaks of your own. VR Ultra looks amazing but the trade off is terrible reprojection and framerate loss. I will probably pick up the 1080Ti next month as that should (I hope) eliminate all that.
I might even still have my sequential shifter but I do remember when I moved everything to storage I broke either the sequential or H shifter. Can't find either right now though *shrug*
With all that said, it's nice to see some enthusiasts. I would like to see a breakdown of costs though to get that number because if you spent nearly $14,000 then I am calculating something wrong over here and I would be mind blown to know I spent close to that and pretty much nixed the whole thing.
Current rig is running a single 980Ti because I haven't needed to upgrade up until I played ED in VR. This is the only game that is maxing out my GPU and the only VR game that comes close to maxing my GPU. Even on VR Low I still get dips below the vsync locked 90fps (45 per eye) which causes terrible reprojection. It's pretty amazing that a ~2+ year old game (if you count beta) is maxing out a 980Ti when current new games can't even do that and no other VR game comes remotely close.
I might hook my buttkicker back up (just saw you are using the Gamer 2 as well. I think we were the same person at some point. I was one of the people who had an amp catch on fire and they refused to replace it until I went through a huge ordeal with them. Finally got a replacement amp after several months of back and forth) I used it for awhile but fell out of sim stuff until I played ED in VR which pretty much drew me back. I was about to sell off my VR setup but this game single-handedly made me keep it.
Up until watching a mining guide yesterday I had no clue a program like voice attack existed. It sounds like it'll pretty much do anything Dragon does but for $10
Overlay in a VR environment? Seriously? I wanted this specifically for streaming so I can have my chat window up and communicate with my twitch viewers in real time. That is absolutely amazing. Beyond that point it would be nice to be able to pull up a browser or something on a hotkey so I can view youtube videos for assistance without the hassle of taking my headset off. I've been playing ED for about 18 hours and keep finding more and more stuff I want to try out. I would like to test your settings because it sounds like you are using regular "Ultra" settings coupled with some tweaks of your own. VR Ultra looks amazing but the trade off is terrible reprojection and framerate loss. I will probably pick up the 1080Ti next month as that should (I hope) eliminate all that.
First I hope the guide/details were helpful, given your comments it seems you read most, or at least skimmed much of it. I'm sure many saw it and just thought ?!? and didn't get beyond the first picture or just scrolled to the bottom ones. I included all the detail as I knew players like yourself could benefit from everything I'd been through to create it.
Okay now as for cost, you're right in that if I were to replace the system right now I could probably do the whole thing for under $8k. I don't want to do a full cost breakdown as I don't want that being seen as bragging, etc. but if you're really that curious PM me and we can discuss it in more detail. There are a few rather expensive options, the motion platform was about $1500 and my first PC build was over $5500. That included the Titan Z video card which at the time was about $1800 on it's own. That price also includes every little thing in the picture from cables, mice, keyboards, gamepads, mounts, tablets, etc. etc. It's amazing how fast all that little stuff can add up. Part of it is also parts that I only used for a short time as I learned I didn't need them or I upgraded/changed to something else. The big ticket items were motion ($1500), cockpit ($1000), PC ($5500), Monitors ($1000), VR ($600), Audio/ButtKicker ($500), and HOTAS/Driving controls ($1500). Then there's easily a few thousand in all the other little crap that isn't obvious. Again if you'd like more specifics I'm happy to help you out but as you're alluding you don't at all need to spend what I did these days to replicate something that's either very close or near exact.
I'll take that as a compliment my friend ;-)
....I had no clue a program like voice attack existed. It sounds like it'll pretty much do anything Dragon does but for $10
I think it's sort of a shame that people see VoiceAttack as a voice controller for Elite. What it really is is an incredibly powerful scripting and macro creation tool that happens to be controllable via voice. I've created a ton of my own scripts/commands, many that have nothing to do with Elite. I can walk in the room and say "Computer, Lights" and the lights come up. "Computer, productivity" and Chrome, Word, Excel and Photoshop all launch. And of course "Computer, flight mode" and Elite and the 10 or so other apps I use when playing Elite all launch. As for Dragon while you can do some dictation with VA honestly it sucks. Remember VA is just using the built in Windows voice recognition software and while it's come a long way it's certainly not as good as Dragon. For Elite you can use "Open a channel" and it will put VA in dictation mode with "Close Channel" being send. So you can say "Computer, open a channel", "channel open sir", "hello pilot, how are you today?", "computer close channel", and it will send that message. But as the recognition isn't great I'd often send "hell ho pie out, Howard toad day". Some of the stuff it comes up with is hysterical.
Yup and that's one of the big reasons I want it too. If you haven't seen Hello V (hellov.io) go check it out. It's in somewhat early beta and I haven't had good luck with it myself but a friend who is also a VR player has. Right now I use a simple Twitch based text to speech IRC app called Anna. It logs into your channel and converts chat messages to speech so I can "hear" questions and comments. I also just got the Ivona voice Emma - Ivona makes very high end/quality TTS voices for Windows that are fairly incredible. Emma is a British accent and honestly most of the time I can't tell it's not a human voice it's so damn good.
Just wait, if you've only got 18 hours in you don't even know yet what you don't know! I'm at about 500 hours and I'm still learning and doing new stuff. If you'd like to wing up or simply chat about your/my setup PM me and I'll give you an invite to a small groups Discord server where I usually play. Or search for the Elite Discord from Reddit (not sure if it's bad etiquette to post that here so I won't)
I actually just wrote a bunch of detail about my in-game settings for a Reddit thread where we were discussing visual settings. I do use custom settings for every option, I spent a lot of time reading about what options do what, what impact they have on visual quality compared to framerate and where to cut back so you get a smooth 90 fps (for VR) but have things still look great. Even with a 1080 you can't just slap it on Ultra or High and go and have it be perfect, sure the 1080 is powerful but Elite in VR is very demanding. You can find those settings at the following thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDange...he_damn_gray/dbgfcwl/?st=ix1cw46q&sh=be8d2751
Unfortunately I disagree here, honestly 2.0 will crush even a 1080 - at least in terms of you won't get a solid 90 fps. Depending on your tolerance of dropped frames, etc. you can run that high but IMHO the visual difference isn't worth the drop in performance. I run it at 1.5 as that gives a great balance of things looking very smooth and readable but still getting 90 fps almost all the time. You'll drop some frames in stations and on planets, specifically when you're on the platform that rotates as it brings you to the surface. As you're usually not reading much then the dropped frames there aren't too bad. I do go back and forth between MLAAX2 and SMAA anti-aliasing at times but again find that MLAAX2 looks good "enough" while staying smooth.
I've also been playing with my gamma settings recently. I usually set gamma pretty high in games as I like seeing all the fine detail and don't mind if the colors and blacks are a little washed out. After discussing that on a thread recently I change my gamma from max to 1 tick above middle and while I do lose some fine detail in my cockpit, etc. the difference in black levels of the galaxy outside is worth it as it looks just great. Colors are richer too, the beautiful blue of the Pleadies nebula is just fantastic. Two final hints - I run with a crystal blue colored HUD, it's FAR easier to read in VR (or at least to my eyes it is). it's similar to the blue in the cockpit of the Imperial ships which looks great to me, far less bloom than you get with the stock dark orange. I also set my HUD brightness (from the functions tab on the right panel) to lowest or maybe a few ticks up as again when it's low you don't get all the bloom/blur around the text. Having a button/key mapped to disable your entire HUD (Ctrl+Alt+G) is another great VR "trick" as I use it all the time (Witch Space, pretty views, in the SRV). It's a hidden option, you can't bind a key for it in the Options menu, I use the app JoyToKey so I can map it to a button on my throttle and when JoyToKey sees me press that it types the "Ctrl+Alt+G" for me. If you've never tried it you eealy should ;-)
I know that was a lot, damn me and my fast typing skills....
~X
PM Replied
If you can't track down the amp you can use any amp you'd like, there's nothing really special about it other than it's designed to only amplify the low frequencies that the kicker needs. If you pull an analog feed off the .1 channel from your soundcard that would already be low frequency only so any powerful amp should work just fine. I'm not sure if you've modified your transducer, I can't find it right now as I'm not at home but there's a good mod where you take the end caps off the kicker and add a piece of foam or some kind of bumper. That way when it's firing at full power you won't hear the clicking/rattling sound which is the piston inside the magnet smacking against the metal housing. Really silly they didn't add those bumpers from the start.