Hardware & Technical Is a Buttkicker worth it for Elite Dangerous?

[Aussiedroid]

Thanks again everyone for your feedback and info!

+1

Maybe dont get it if you live above people though, as the sheer buttkicking power can go through floorboards especially if you dont have a carpet underneath.

Shouldn't be too much a concern for me, although it will be on floorboards. Saying that, if the vibration is too much I could see it having the opposite effect on immersion. I was looking for a more subtle haptic feedback - I assume these devices can be adjusted to a decent degree of power?

You will need a sub output from your sound card to drive it, and yes in general powerful sound does add a lot to this game, i,m using 3000 dollars worth of yamaha gear inluging 2x 250w down firing subs and its mind blowing only problem is i cant do much at night as at full power it can be heard half way down my street.

But in general you should be able to pick up a good quality self powered sub for 200.00-300.00 dollars on the second hand market if your sound card can drive it.

Ah, I do have a sub output on the soundcard, but I have my sound configured through the optical output to a DAC. From there I plug in my headphones so I don't think the sub output would be active? That would pose a bit of a problem if, for example, I could not put it inline with the current config I have. Do you know if there would be any way around that?

Thank you!

 

[Shar]

Yes it would be hard to peel a sub output if your using headphones and you want hear the sub, in that case perhaps only feel it. realisticly if you want serious sub output 20-100hz then you need to lose the headphones and use speakers. the way it could be done with you're headphones is with a spliter at the dac headphone output then send the same output to a sub, you will need a sub with speaker flow though termanals and may have to customize the cable. the subs crossover will deal with filtering the frequency.

Look if you're wanting to stick to headphones for you sound you would be better off putting you're money into the best headphones you can get. you can get some mad bass out of high end headphones these days and as a bonus you wont upset anyone else.

Have fun.

 

[Tony Spaniels]

Thanks again everyone for your feedback and info!



Shouldn't be too much a concern for me, although it will be on floorboards. Saying that, if the vibration is too much I could see it having the opposite effect on immersion. I was looking for a more subtle haptic feedback - I assume these devices can be adjusted to a decent degree of power?

................
Thank you!

Yes you can adjust the feedback to be as subtle or as bombastic as you like. My point being that if you turn it up full beans and the downstairs baby is trying to sleep it might be an issue

Any other situation you're grand! I use mine with VR gaming and normal gaming but yeah using it in Elite with an HMD, man feeling your viper engine growl and kick when you boost is worth every penny in my opinion But then I am an immersion junkie.

 

[Aussiedroid]

Yes it would be hard to peel a sub output if your using headphones and you want hear the sub, in that case perhaps only feel it. realisticly if you want serious sub output 20-100hz then you need to lose the headphones and use speakers. the way it could be done with you're headphones is with a spliter at the dac headphone output then send the same output to a sub, you will need a sub with speaker flow though termanals and may have to customize the cable. the subs crossover will deal with filtering the frequency.

Look if you're wanting to stick to headphones for you sound you would be better off putting you're money into the best headphones you can get. you can get some mad bass out of high end headphones these days and as a bonus you wont upset anyone else.

Have fun.

The PC that is used in the cockpit is actually used at my desk as well (they sit next to each other, and swap monitor outputs and speakers to headphones). Not going to be easy to change that up as still need them for my headtracking and mic, and besides having speakers running for multiplayer games is always bad for those listening.

I have Sennheiser G4ME headset, so quality is decent. The bass is good with the headphones, but ofc you simply do not feel anything on the cockpit. They are plugged into my Audioengine DAC, which is also running the Audioengine A5+ & Subwoofer. The Sub does have an output on the back for daisy chaining subs on, but again obviously disabled when using headphones. I was hoping that the Buttkicker amps would work a bit like a sub crossover/phase to grab the right frequency range for the device from a soundcard input, but if it only powers the device as such then I think it will be useless for my needs.

Thanks for saving me a lot of money!! (although I am a bit bummed lol)

 

[winterknight]

Why can't you connect the Buttkicker to a different sound output at the PC. By accident I found out that you can select, in the windows sounds menu, to feed two or more devices.

 

[Aussiedroid]

Why can't you connect the Buttkicker to a different sound output at the PC. By accident I found out that you can select, in the windows sounds menu, to feed two or more devices.

Hmm interesting, I have never been able to get sound output out of two outputs from a single device under windows. Seems to only allow me to pick one output device. Any more detail you can provide on how to do this?

Thank you.

 

[DD_Crash]

There is this method, although it can be a bit trial and error https://youtu.be/FKeDabIySgs

 

[winterknight]

Hmm interesting, I have never been able to get sound output out of two outputs from a single device under windows. Seems to only allow me to pick one output device. Any more detail you can provide on how to do this?

Thank you.

I'm not absolutely sure how it is working on my computer.
When I rebuilt my computer with new mobo/cpu/ram etc I had a Logitech speaker phone connected and I think this maybe the reason why it works. The Speakerphone is no longer required and is therefore not usually connected, and the driver for it has been un-installed, but it still works. Handy when talking to youngest wherever he happens to be worldwide, sometimes internet is only way. I assume the installation for that did the Win10 changes.
It also means that I can have my speakers, my USB headphones and separate desktop mike all working at the same time. The spkrs are usually off or very low volume.