I've been messing with sims on and off for around ten years. I've never been much good at them, certainly not enough to get on the track with other humans (I'd rather not race at all than be one of those pubbies people write horror stories about), but I do enjoy turning laps in Assetto Corsa or running hill climb stages at a relaxed "rich guy playing with his new sports car" pace. However, I'm (a) not really satisfied with tooling around like a grandma anymore and (b) my equipment, such as it is, is making it extremely difficult and, as I pass 30, physically painful to add pace to my driving.
I don't have any rig per se. I keep a complete Logitech G27 system in my closet and, when I want to drive, I push my keyboard back against the base of my monitor and clamp the wheel base down onto the lip of the desk. When I was 24, this was awkward but doable, though I gave up on trying to figure out the H shifter because the part I would clamp it onto (a slide-out tray originally meant to write a letter on, because this desk predates the invention of the PC by several decades) would wobble and shift around as I attempted to move the shift lever. At 30, it hurts. My right leg and ankle ache from fighting gravity, and as I get tired I lose the ability to accurately modulate the throttle because my leg just wants to give up and floor it. The wheel, pedals, and monitor never quite line up. I have one 30" monitor (LG 3840x2160 75Hz IPS, not fast, but I spend 80% of my time with it doing things that aren't video games and the screen is beautiful) and no room for additional ones as my audio rig (DAC, amplifier, external MIDI) and computer tower occupy the right half of the desk, and if I were to eat the massive bill for a new GPU and displays I'd just go VR and not have my view cut up like I'm driving a 1948 Hudson.
But the screen is really not the issue (it's an issue, but a strictly secondary one). The ergonomics are. The wheel and pedals being too low, the monitor too high, this dilapidated POS of an office chair that hurts even doing normal things in, let alone wrestling with a a ton and a half of '88 RX-7 that really doesn't like the way I took that last corner. What can I do, now, for the least amount of money possible, that will let me have some sort of rig that I can work comfortably enough in to turn consistent laps and not feel like I'm being interrogated by the CIA? I think I can worry about the display and the GPU and the wheel later, my equipment is broken on the fundamental level of ergonomics, without which no serious driving is possible. I need some way to have it away from the computer, so I can still use my PC to do productive tasks, listen to music, or play other sorts of games (good luck playing Doom wads with a steering wheel!).
P.S. Is there such a thing as a "standard" passenger car seat and can they easily attach to a rig? I'd love to pull a nice cloth sport seat (e.g. from a GTI) out of a junkyard, it would probably be cheaper than a racing seat and look better.
I don't have any rig per se. I keep a complete Logitech G27 system in my closet and, when I want to drive, I push my keyboard back against the base of my monitor and clamp the wheel base down onto the lip of the desk. When I was 24, this was awkward but doable, though I gave up on trying to figure out the H shifter because the part I would clamp it onto (a slide-out tray originally meant to write a letter on, because this desk predates the invention of the PC by several decades) would wobble and shift around as I attempted to move the shift lever. At 30, it hurts. My right leg and ankle ache from fighting gravity, and as I get tired I lose the ability to accurately modulate the throttle because my leg just wants to give up and floor it. The wheel, pedals, and monitor never quite line up. I have one 30" monitor (LG 3840x2160 75Hz IPS, not fast, but I spend 80% of my time with it doing things that aren't video games and the screen is beautiful) and no room for additional ones as my audio rig (DAC, amplifier, external MIDI) and computer tower occupy the right half of the desk, and if I were to eat the massive bill for a new GPU and displays I'd just go VR and not have my view cut up like I'm driving a 1948 Hudson.
But the screen is really not the issue (it's an issue, but a strictly secondary one). The ergonomics are. The wheel and pedals being too low, the monitor too high, this dilapidated POS of an office chair that hurts even doing normal things in, let alone wrestling with a a ton and a half of '88 RX-7 that really doesn't like the way I took that last corner. What can I do, now, for the least amount of money possible, that will let me have some sort of rig that I can work comfortably enough in to turn consistent laps and not feel like I'm being interrogated by the CIA? I think I can worry about the display and the GPU and the wheel later, my equipment is broken on the fundamental level of ergonomics, without which no serious driving is possible. I need some way to have it away from the computer, so I can still use my PC to do productive tasks, listen to music, or play other sorts of games (good luck playing Doom wads with a steering wheel!).
P.S. Is there such a thing as a "standard" passenger car seat and can they easily attach to a rig? I'd love to pull a nice cloth sport seat (e.g. from a GTI) out of a junkyard, it would probably be cheaper than a racing seat and look better.
