Another day with my rig, and another day of fantastic fun and racing punctuated by periods of frustration and bewilderment.
Yesterday we had a few people round for drinks and a social, but part of it was for the guys to have a bash on my rig. Well, that was the idea anyway. In the end, only two of them got to have a go, both absolutely raving about the experience. The other two couldn't use it because of the bizarre, irritating recurring issues that plague the rig.
For reference I was using Automoobilista 2, using Steam VR mode on an i9 Win 10 desktop, with a 3070 GTX with 32Gb Ram. This then connects to a Reverb G2 headset, Fanatec V3 pedals, a Fanatec DD wheelbase with the 8Nm power supply and a Formula wheel, with a NLR V3 seat mover
To start with, there's the Reverb G2 issues, where sometimes it will work, sometimes it won't. Yesterday, it took me abot an hour of unplugging, resetting, reconnecting, closing Windows mixed reality repeatedly as it would open immediately after it was closed....
Then when I did get it to open, the AMS2 screen would appear right at the bottom of the view, and sometimes the recentering works, sometimes not.
Then finally I got it working and on went friend number 1, who proceeded to pound round Interlagos (he's brazilian) for the next hour. We left him to it, and after his extended go, he came downstairs to let one of the others have a go, and absolutely raved about it. So after doing nothing more than going back to the pits and taking off the headset, it stopped working. Strange artefacts on the screen, the desktop having flashing areas, no possibility of clicking on anything, so CTRL-ALT-DEL and force everything closed. Still no full resolution, so restart the PC.
After the restart, go through the unplug / replug dance, and finally friend number 2 is having a go. He's on there for half an hour or so before he comes down to let the next guy on, except here we go again, the fragility of the G2 meaning we have to do the restart procedure again.
But this time, now the Fanatec DD and pedals are no longer recognised by Windows, Fanalabs has the 'no device detected' message and everything is greyed out. This time I could not resurrect it, and we abandoned it.
Today, I had to reinstall all the firmware for the Fanatec gear so that Windows could recognise it all. Of course, all the settings and profiles are erased so I have to do all that setup again. This is not an isolated case, the same would happen with the CSL Elite wheelbase before it too. How did the firmware suddenly become null when it was working for hours previously?
When it all works, I absolutely love it, the interaction with the rig with the NLR V3 seat mover and the VR is fantastic. The problem is that out of every hour I spend on the rig, at least half that time is spent trying to fix the *(^%&* thing.
Windows updates I'm sure have to hold their hands up as contributory factors; however the sheer fragility of the Fanatec stuff and HP Reverb G2 systems has me pulling my hair out. For such mass produced consumer stuff to be so repetitively problematic is just appalling, you would have thought that they could make them more robust in terms of their function.
I don't want this to just be a rant (although that is what it largely is) so I want to know if anyone has any advice on trying to get the parts of the system to be more bug resistant, whether there are any bits of software that should be used, or should not be used to avoid confilcts..... basically help in trying to improve the fix versus use ratio
Cheers
Les
Yesterday we had a few people round for drinks and a social, but part of it was for the guys to have a bash on my rig. Well, that was the idea anyway. In the end, only two of them got to have a go, both absolutely raving about the experience. The other two couldn't use it because of the bizarre, irritating recurring issues that plague the rig.
For reference I was using Automoobilista 2, using Steam VR mode on an i9 Win 10 desktop, with a 3070 GTX with 32Gb Ram. This then connects to a Reverb G2 headset, Fanatec V3 pedals, a Fanatec DD wheelbase with the 8Nm power supply and a Formula wheel, with a NLR V3 seat mover
To start with, there's the Reverb G2 issues, where sometimes it will work, sometimes it won't. Yesterday, it took me abot an hour of unplugging, resetting, reconnecting, closing Windows mixed reality repeatedly as it would open immediately after it was closed....
Then when I did get it to open, the AMS2 screen would appear right at the bottom of the view, and sometimes the recentering works, sometimes not.
Then finally I got it working and on went friend number 1, who proceeded to pound round Interlagos (he's brazilian) for the next hour. We left him to it, and after his extended go, he came downstairs to let one of the others have a go, and absolutely raved about it. So after doing nothing more than going back to the pits and taking off the headset, it stopped working. Strange artefacts on the screen, the desktop having flashing areas, no possibility of clicking on anything, so CTRL-ALT-DEL and force everything closed. Still no full resolution, so restart the PC.
After the restart, go through the unplug / replug dance, and finally friend number 2 is having a go. He's on there for half an hour or so before he comes down to let the next guy on, except here we go again, the fragility of the G2 meaning we have to do the restart procedure again.
But this time, now the Fanatec DD and pedals are no longer recognised by Windows, Fanalabs has the 'no device detected' message and everything is greyed out. This time I could not resurrect it, and we abandoned it.
Today, I had to reinstall all the firmware for the Fanatec gear so that Windows could recognise it all. Of course, all the settings and profiles are erased so I have to do all that setup again. This is not an isolated case, the same would happen with the CSL Elite wheelbase before it too. How did the firmware suddenly become null when it was working for hours previously?
When it all works, I absolutely love it, the interaction with the rig with the NLR V3 seat mover and the VR is fantastic. The problem is that out of every hour I spend on the rig, at least half that time is spent trying to fix the *(^%&* thing.
Windows updates I'm sure have to hold their hands up as contributory factors; however the sheer fragility of the Fanatec stuff and HP Reverb G2 systems has me pulling my hair out. For such mass produced consumer stuff to be so repetitively problematic is just appalling, you would have thought that they could make them more robust in terms of their function.
I don't want this to just be a rant (although that is what it largely is) so I want to know if anyone has any advice on trying to get the parts of the system to be more bug resistant, whether there are any bits of software that should be used, or should not be used to avoid confilcts..... basically help in trying to improve the fix versus use ratio
Cheers
Les
