Buying advice please - Next Level v3 Motion Platform

[MarkR]

I'm looking for some advice and thoughts of other owners or people with good knowledge of the product, please.

I always said I'd buy myself a motion simulator if I could afford one and had the room available. Well, that day may have arrived. I'm impressed by what I've seen of the Next Level v3 Motion Platform

This seems to meet all my criteria:

+ Limited space requirements, I don't have room for a huge sim rig but this seems compact enough to work.
+ Works with Oculus Rift VR, that fixed head position setting solution is impressive
+ Great support and regular updates from the developers
+ Available in the UK
+ Works with my current Thrustmaster wheel and accessories.
+ Sub £3k for the full setup, I'm not a pro racer I'm not looking for a practice simulator this is just for fun so the cost/fun balance has to be right.

So help me do the man maths! Is it worth it?

Is there another similar product I should also look at? It would need to be reasonably compact, work with VR, available in the UK without too much hassle and in the same £3-5K price range.

Is there anywhere I can try one or even better several of the systems in the UK?

 

[anton_Chez]

There's a marketplace thread for selling...

 

[dave kirk]

Hope this is the right place to mention I'm looking to sell my NLRV3.
I'm in UK and have just sent it back to Next Level for a minor repair to usb socket. When it returns I'll be leaving it in the box ready to ship.
I've had many hours of enjoyment from this unit but my house is up for sale(there's actually a photo of my simrig on property website) and new home won't have a spare room .
Also tbh I'm more into flight sims and although it has great support for DCS, x plane & Aerofly I think this unit is really at its best in racing titles.
I play a lot of elite dangerous and often used the joystick mode which was kinda fun.
Anyway hope there's a good home to be found.

I'm in the UK and interested, send me a PM with how much you are after?

 

[Gary Warke]

There's a marketplace thread for selling...

Sorry Anton, I've not been about these parts for a while. Just had a look and apparently I don't have enough privilege to advertise there.

 

[anton_Chez]

No need to be sorry dude, just pointing it out so that you get more eyeballs on your ad.

Not a drama, I'm not the forum police!

 

[rikirk]

Well, I am not happy with the V3 with ACC and when I saw the DBox plugin in the last 0.6 release, I reached out to Matthew and they are already working with Kunos to bring some goodies to the V3 loyal owners Once again their customer support is second to none. Will follow up as soon as I have news.

 

[anton_Chez]

What aren't you happy with? I know there is sort of a bug with the telemetry in gear shifts that SFX-100 users have felt. Is it related to this? I don't think I've tried it with motion. I haven't spent more than an hour with it on release of the first build.

 

[rikirk]

It's out of sync. When on rF2, both AF and V3 work in unison, while with ACC I feel two separate responses which is a detriment to the whole experience. Actually, I believe it was better before 0.6, but never like rF2 with the GT/GT3 where with VR, I fool myself thinking I am on the actual real car.

 

[blanes]

That sounds odd, I have been driving ACC past week with my AF and NLRv3 and never noticed anything out of sync ... but then again I am old and probably out of sync myself ... but is interesting no doubt and look forward to whatever update comes along !

 

[anton_Chez]

Hey Blanes Yeah doesn sound weird. Hopefully they address it.

 

[blanes]

So you built yourself a new sfx100 motion sim hey Anton ! Good on you mate, looks like an incredible project. I still having fun with my v3 now fitted to a GTtrack cockpit it feels really good on a stronger, more rigid frame. If anyone eventually offers that sfx100 in a sort of kit form, like osw went, I would be real interested. One day perhaps.

 

[anton_Chez]

Yeah I did man, it's awesome. But so is the V3. It's just different. I actually ran them together for a little while before deciding I'd rather only run the actuators. Felt a lot more rigid in the seat and was able to feel all the details I was missing with the seat moving. Some are still running both in tandem though. I said the same thing you did about someone building it for me, but I had fellow Aussie, Simon, print my 3D printed parts for me and I built the rest from there. I surprised myself actually, despite a few errors along the way!

 

[blanes]

Right, that is really good you had someone help out with the 3D print parts. I would love to test drive the sfx100 myself one day, there is probably someone aroun brizzy has built one. Do you mind telling roughly how much it ended up cost in total ? Anyway glad you are enjoying it Anton and you must be pretty chuffed you built it yourself I imagine !

 

[anton_Chez]

Yeah man it ended up being really good. I liked the build now that it's all done but I did have some frustration while doing it. To be expected I guess. Overall, it cost me a little over $3K. Like 3100 or something. That includes everything needed for it except the cost of a 3D printer, however I did pay for the prints. It also includes the donation to the software creator to access the expert mode of the software and support continued development. So really, if you were to buy a 3D printer, it wouldn't cost you more than the V3 would brand new. It just needs a good chassis to bolt on to. Doesn't have to be 80 20, a user (Rowan) has bolted his to an MDF fabricated rig, although he is now upgrading to a P1 from Simlab. It definitely wouldn't work, however, with something like a Next Level style chassis. Unless some major modifications were made to it.

 

[RCHeliguy]

This is a bit of a status update. I'm still loving my NLRv3 and 4 transducer setup. It seems to complete the experience well. I can feel the engine reving in the pedals, wheel, and shift, FFB with the Sim-Lab P1 cockpit is so much better. I can't wait to see how a DD wheel feels by comparison. The bumps in road are also transmitted a bit to the steering and shift, but it seems like an appropriate proportional amount. Much more natural feeling that I expected to achieve.

The seat mover and seat transducer seem to be well paired with the seat moving for all the big changes and the transducer filling in texture.

After playing for a while the loudest part of my rig is the CSW 2.5 cooling fan or fans which is a bit surprising to me. I don't hear any of it while I'm playing in VR with headphones covering my ears, which is 100% of the time I'm using my rig.

I'm really liking how my VW Passat car seat feels and I can guarantee that how your seat is mounted to the seat mover and whether or not it is sprung will have an impact on how the whole system feels.

I think the YMMV rule is very much in effect because everything works together as a system and once everything feels right, you immediately focus on the next weakest link.

Recently I'm noticing the limitations of my VR headset more. I know there are other motion systems out there, but I feel like I've hit the point on the immersion curve where it is close enough at least for now that I'm happy and wanting to focus on other areas that I notice more. My Heusinkveld Sprint Pedals should be here soon and I'm really looking forward to dialing them in. Once I get a DD steering system, I'm quite sure I'll become more concerned about the headset.

All that said, I really don't want to get stuck in a continual upgrade cycle on everything. I think I'll be able to get my cockpit setup where I'm happy with it, and I'm hoping that I'll be content with it and leave it alone.

 

[blanes]

Nice description of your setup, it sounds great. I drive a veedub golf so I imagine is very good having a Passatt seat on the rig. There is always a better version of whatever on the horizon but I think is good to enjoy the best of what you have. It's coming upto 4 years since I got my AccuForce wheel and longest I have ever used one wheel, certainly strong enough for me and the simcommander software sets it apart from other DD systems. Still enjoy my NLR v3 and Rift as both given me hundreds hours of fun and do the job well. I would love to try the sfx100 dbox clone one day though but happy enough for now !

 

[janne saari]

First post here! Hello all. Just received my NLRv3 unit yesterday and got to try it for 1hour. I can see the potential, but obviously as first the default settings were way too much (for Assetto). Dialed them down and copied SimRacingGarages profiles, but still needed to tweak a bit down from them, as some effects are too much in my mind. Is there somewhere profile repository or something where I could try different profiles from people? (Dirt, iR, AC,ACC, DCS)

Some work also tuning the transducers as I would like to try to use one SW. Now using SimShakerWheels which I have liked and need to see if I can achieve as good feeling with NLR SW for transducers as well. Have one under the seat and one for pedals. One attached to shifter now but this is possible to be moved elsewhere. If there is these transducer profiles available feel free to share!

EDIT: Just noticed that there is whole thread for NLRv3 settings! Heading there now

 

[RCHeliguy]

It sounds like we're using a similar setup. My transducers are on either side of the pedals, one the 8020 supporting my H pattern shifter and one mounted under the seat. I'm using SimHub & Shake It Bass Shaker so far. I've got Aura AST-2B-4 's all around.

My system is really well dialed in for Dirt Rally and feels great in VR. It's pretty well dialed in for PC2. I haven't dialed it in for AC yet.

 

[janne saari]

Nice setup m8, couple of years ago I couldn't even dreamed of saying, yes sounds like similar setup to mine

Have been playing with settings and have found that Anton's first page (from settings thread) Dirt Rally settings were awesome (dialed overall just a bit down IRC). This game really shines with motion. I have worked with AC settings and using Antons post procession settings from first page (dialed gain down to 1.00). And I tweaked my own settings for motion effects and got decent settings now for GT3/GT4 cars. At first I lost lap time which actually was quite annoying as I try to be competitive. Now with better settings I feel I'm not losing lap time and everything feels really natural, not perfect yet but I sort of don't recognize the motion - it feels quite natural, not distracting. Still work to do but being more happy with it every day.

Havent played with transducers yet. What channels should be put to transducers ? Engine, gears, strips?

 

[RCHeliguy]

I have bumps going to the pedals and seat, engine revs to pedals and shifter. Gear changes to the pedals and seat. What I find is that the NLRv3 handles the motion great and the transducer under the seat just adds a bit of granularity, but having the bumps with transducers at the peddles helps cement the realism. I have a few other effects, but I need to dial them in better at the track. I'm already very happy with how they feel in Dirt Rally.

 

[anton_Chez]

Good job! That's the idea, take someone else's profile and if it NEARLY suits you, just alter a slider here and there and away you go! Glad to hear you found them useful. Once you get used to motion your lap times should sync up with the previous ones on a static rig.