Tactile, the next frontier?

[Cote Dazur]

Just a few notes about where I am at with how important, crucial?, tactile is in our quest for better immersion.
I am mostly driving in AC, because AC is such a monster of a SIM, it has amazing content, almost all, with CSP, CM and SOL, the features of any SIM, amazing graphics, excellent VR, the ability to recreate any race or championship and lastly, but not the least, amazing FFB.

I also drive occasionally the other suspects, ACC, PC2, AMS2, RF2 ( if you create a sequel, just add a 2 to the title, how creative,) R3E. Some SIM have different FFB, that some driver praise. I have been puzzled by how they could believe those other FFB, except for ACC, are in any way superior to AC FFB. Different for sure, but mostly what I qualify as over active, as not what a real wheel in a real car feels like. Honestly, if any of my cars in real life felt like the FFB from those SIM, I would take my car straight to the garage.

When thinking more about it, I came to the conclusion that they might not use tactile. Tactile, make you feel the bumps and road irregularities and different car vibrations that you typically do not feel in your real life wheel. But if you do not have tactile, then I guess some thing is missing.

To compensate, when not using tactile, I guess, having an over active FFB working over time to feel the gap, is appealing to some SIM users, I guess if you play it long enough you might even start to believe it is realistic.

FFB in AC is to me , the closest to how a car wheel feel and that is what makes AC so intuitive to drive and so immersive, VR and tactile are feeling the gap to make the SIM even better. ACC ffb is also very intuitive.

I cannot speak about motion because I have not experienced it yet, but I highly recommend tactile. It is not expensive and will transform your SIM experience for the better. (And probably also will save you the expense for the totally over rated DD wheel)

 

[dwightyone]

Can't race without my buttkicker - I mean, I really really can't, without it I race terribly. The only equivalence I can give is, its like stepping out of the house and going to work with no shoes on - just doesn't feel right

Motion is good I used to own next level v2 but I can live without that but it does bring a smile to your face being knocked about. Of course the trick is very low settings and not out of the box ones. Tbh would rather add more buttkickers in different areas

 

[onearmedbandit46]

Can't race without my buttkicker -

Same. That, combined with VR and good FFB settings makes the game so immersive.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

Anyone here is using DD wheel?
I've noticed that the need for transducers is greatly diminished with strong detailed wheel bolted to solid rig, some effects are missing though, the most noticeable is gear shift.
At times I just shut transducers down as it lets me "hear" FFB better, esp. when tuning game profile.

Titles with lesser FFB than AC and ACC benefit from tactile more, eg. DR2.

 

[Alex Townsend]

I have some of those old Aura Interactive backpack things from the 90s that never took off. They have tactile transducer pucks inside them.

I was planning on removing the pucks and hooking them up to an amp but I'm pretty clueless as to what sort of amp I would need and how to wire these things up to it.

I watched a video earlier about hooking them up to a Dayton SA200 as it's a bass transducer amp but unfortunately they don't sell those over here in Malaysia...

 

[onearmedbandit46]

Anyone here is using DD wheel?
I've noticed that the need for transducers is greatly diminished with strong detailed wheel bolted to solid rig, some effects are missing though, the most noticeable is gear shift.
At times I just shut transducers down as it lets me "hear" FFB better, esp. when tuning game profile.

Titles with lesser FFB than AC and ACC benefit from tactile more, eg. DR2.

No only a lowly G29, which is fine but doesn't provide the feedback that a DD wheel does (so I've read). It is on my shopping list though, be interesting to see what difference it makes with regards to a transducer. I have my BK2 currently set up for speed, road bumps, gear change and wheel slip. All things you can feel through the seat irl, so it certainly offers more immersion for me currently.

 

[bondyboy]

Anyone here is using DD wheel?
I've noticed that the need for transducers is greatly diminished with strong detailed wheel bolted to solid rig, some effects are missing though, the most noticeable is gear shift.
At times I just shut transducers down as it lets me "hear" FFB better, esp. when tuning game profile.

Titles with lesser FFB than AC and ACC benefit from tactile more, eg. DR2.

Yes DD user here, also running tactile in form of 4 dayton audio bst-1's in chassis mode together with smaller transducers on the seat and pedals, all driven by simcommander

I find AC and ACC have the best tactile output and will only drive them with the transducers, feels lacking without, but also means I can't drive them late at night - meaning the other driving games get a chance

 

[Deleted member 197115]

Try SimHub, I have stopped using SC altogether after discovering this app. Unless you are on AF that needs it. Still, tactile management is much better in SimHub, easier too.