[PROJECT LOG] My DIY SimVibe racing rig

[miahallen]

Basic plan
Since I've left the overclocking scene, sim racing has taken over as my hobby of choice. I'm working on plans to upgrade my racing rig. It started this past summer as a wooden wheel/pedal stand. I pull it up to my couch where I sit. It has been working pretty well, but I don't feel I have the optimal seating position, and I wanted to upgrade that.

I found a seat at the local junkyard and came up with a more optimized driving position. I also mounted a Thrustmaster TH8 RS gated shifter to a new center console. The new driving position is much better than before, and the shifter is in a great position.

I also wanted to add more immersion into the setup, and had been looking at "full motion" setups with hydrolics for some time, but the cost put me off, and living overseas, getting the equipment would be more difficult & expensive. But a couple months ago, a new software was released called "SimVibe" which look to have great potential as a poor man's motions alternative.

SimVibe
I'm going to incorporate SimVibe software with 6 Aura bass shakers and 4 Dayton "puck" shakers. The SimVibe software intercepts the telemetery data from most racing sims, and allows up to 7 discrete channels of information to be output to tactile transducers ("bass shakers" or just "shakers"). I will be using three sound cards; one for normal audio, one for SimVibe "chassis mode" and the third card for SimVibe "extension mode".

Chassis mode
The first extra soundcard will output 4 discrete audio channels to a 100Wx4 channel amp, which will run four Aura bass shakers, one at each corner of my rig. These will each simulate the tractile response from each wheel of the car I'm driving. This is what SimVibe refers to as "chassis mode" and it can be used independent from the "extension mode".

Extension mode
The second extra soundcard will output 3 discrete audio channels to a 100Wx4 channel amp, one audio channel will be split to two amp channel to run two Aura shakers mounted to the bottom of my seat. The other two audio channels will each run to two Dayton "puck" shakers (their quite small), a pair will be mounted under my pedal plate, and the other pair will be mounted around my shifter.

SimVibe components
x2 - 24 VDC 14.6A 350W Regulated Switching Power Supply - $100
x2 - 4x100W @ 4 Ohm TK2050 Class-T Digital Audio Amplifier - $100
x6 - Aura AST-2B-4 Pro Bass Shaker Tactile Transducer - $270
x1 - Dayton Audio TT25-16 PUCK Tactile Transducer Mini Bass Shaker 16 Ohm 4 Pack - $45
x1 - ASUS Xonar DGX 5.1 - $40
x1 - Syba SD-PEX63034 7.1 - $20
x1 - SimVibe software - $80

The current configuration
Here are some pictures of my setup in its current configuration. My current setup is not bad by any means, I sit on a couch in which I installed an Aura bass shaker and recycled sub amp. It works great for gaming & movies, but its just inline with my subs, so I'm expecting a huge improvement switching to telemetrics based shakers. I'm exclusively a PC gamer and play with nVidia 3DVision on a 100" screen (mostly iRacing). I have a proper 7.1 surround sound system, and tri-SLI 580GTX video cards being fed by an i7 3820 running @ 4.8GHz (all water cooled).

The problems with the current system are that the wheel is too close to my torso. My pedals are too low, and the whole rig pushes forward on the carpet if my brakes are too stiff. So I'm planning to address all these issues with this upgrade.

Here are a couple picture of the new seat I picked up at the junkyard yesterday for about $40. It came from a late nineties JDM Subaru Impreza. The seat is super comfortable and I'm really excited to race in it

I did a build log of my DIY screen here.
I did a build log of my DIY computer system in my desk here.
I did a build log of my DIY 18" subwoofer here. (I also have a Polk 10" sub behind the couch).

Day 1
After disassembling the old setup, I fist had to get measurements I wanted to use to find a comfortable position for the new setup. The seat will be the only adjustable bit, so getting the pedals and wheel in the optimal placement was essential. I used a double tray, with the wheel mounted on the lower tray, which gives extra room for keyboard, controllers, etc on the top. I also built a new mount for the pedals and moved the lower platform way back. Then I added a second lower platform to extend the overall length to provide room for the seat to get mounted.

I also tried mounting a seat shaker to the bottom of the seat cushion. I wasn't 100% sure I'd leave it here, but I wanted to try this method.

So, this is where I finished on day 1:

Day 2
I started by working on getting my shifter installed. I wanted to be able to have a "center console" of sorts with a place to rest my arm. So I started by created a new right side panel sculpted to fit the requirements. Then I cut the center console with room for the TH8 RS shifter. This is what I came up with:

I've mounted the shakers on an extra piece of plywood and it will be mounted to the seat rigidly...then the whole thing (seat/wood/shakers) will be mechanically decoupled from the rig with a rubber bumper above and below its mount points.

The shakers are mounted to the bottom of the plywood (and not touching the rig's chassis).

I also added a diamond plated pedal plate, its much more comfortable now

Day 3
My casters arrived today. I got six of them, and I've installed them in an unusual way:

The basic idea is that the shakers at each corner will be more effective if them have more wiggle room....so I've given each on an area where it can shake the base by not putting a caster under each corner. The red lines I added show where the base will flex a bit to give each shaker a bit more effect (hopefully).

I also ordered some carpet to cover the rig, so I'll let you all know how that goes.

Here is another shot of the rear, as you can see...I also installed the other two Aura's I already received...now I'm just waiting for the other order from parts-express.

Day 4
Today I broke everything back down to begin the final rebuild

The difficult part of this build is that I wanted a clean look, so I've opted to use wood anchors, instead of normal nuts and bolts. So the anchors are hidden under the carpet. Because of this, I really needed to plan ahead and ensure I had all the anchors placed correctly before laying out the carpet. So that when I begin to assemble post carpet, the bolts will find their places.

Then I used 3M 77 multi purpose spray glue to attach the speaker carpet, and stapled around the bottom edge.

After that, I got started building my amp rack. There is a lot of wiring, and part of the reason I got such large casters was to allow space for all of it to be mounted to the bottom.

To the left of the amp rack, I also mounted the Fanatec CSR-E power supply.

With all six Aura shakers installed, it looks like this.

Then I got my seat installed back in place.

Day 5
Today I finished the right wall, the shifter plate, and the front wall where the pedal plate will be braced.

I mounted two shaker pucks below the shifter.

But during testing today, these two pucks would not respond. So I'll have to figure that out later.

Day 6
Alright, I finished up the rest of the pieces today, carpeting went pretty well while I was using the 3M 77 glue, but then I switched to a different on that is like stringy spray. Its a darker orange color and it made a mess with overspray, yellowing the carpet. It also didn't work as well in general. Read this is a simple endorsement for 3M 77.

The pedal plate is at approx a 30 degree angle.

The pedal faces end up being almost vertical.

As you can see above, I also reshaped the left wall to allow for easier egress.
With the wheel plate and top plate installed, the final result looks quite nice.

My backup wheel is the old 360 wheel...which is horrible next to my CSR-E, but it will have to suffice for the next couple weeks while I wait for my replacement from Fanatec.

I did more testing today, and it appears one of the amps from parts-express has two dead channels. So, my pedal plate shakers, and shifter shakers are not working yet. But they'll be ready to go once I replace the amp.

Now I'm working on tuning the SimVibe software, so far pretty good, although I'm not convinced my from shakers are mounted in the best way, the four in the rear kick butt....literally.

I'm a huge 3D Vision fan. I've been gaming on my 100" Acer projector for about a year now, and I love it. But the resolution sucks! 720p is just not enough, especially on such a large screen.

The largest size 1080p screen which supports 3D Vision in 1080p is 27". I was hoping that would change and something would be announced this year at CES, but my hopes were dashed to the rocks....and we are still stuck with the 27" limitation.

So, I've broken down and ordered three Asus VG278HE 3D Vision monitors. They normally sell for $500 each, which is a lot for my budget, but I found in the Amazon warehouse deals section, they are going for less than $400 each, I just ordered three for $375 a piece.
Asus VG278HE 27" 144Hz 3D Vision monitor

Its still a large investment, but I think it will be worth it. I'll be running them with two MSI Lightning Extreme 3GB GTX580 graphics cards in SLI (water cooled)....they should have plenty of power for the configuration, I'll also have a standard 580 for PhysX and additional screens.

Day 7

I've discoved a problem with using two Asus soundcards together. The driver control software is not setup to handle two soundcards simultaniously. When I open the software, it just acts as if there is only one card present. This is a problem because even when setting the Windows properties to "quadrophonic", the driver default for these soundcards is 2-speaker stereo...so it takes the Windows commands to send sound to the rear speakers and redirects it to the front speakers.

So I was able to get one card working properly in quadrophonic mode, but the second card was only outputting sound to the front two channels. To solve the problem, I performed the following steps:
1) In the Asus DGX control software, set the 1st soundcard output to 4-speakers
2) In Windows sound output properties, set the 1st card to "quadrophonic"
3) Manually close the Asus DGX control software
4) Go into the Windows device manager and disabled the 1st DGX soundcard
5) Manually open the Asus DGX control software again (this time it takes control of the second soundcard since the 1st one is disabled).
6) In the Asus DGX control software, set the 2nd soundcard output to 4-speakers
7) In Windows sound output properties, set the 2nd card to "quadrophonic"
8) Manually close the Asus DGX control software
9) Go into the device manager and enable the 1st soundcard

This seems to have solves the issue somewhat, but I'm still getting inconsistent results. I thought for a while the amp was bad, but I think the problem is attempting to run two of these cards in one system. So I've sent back one of the DXGs and I've ordered a cheap VIA Envy based card to replace it.

I'm getting bored waiting for my new wheel and monitors to arrive, so I'm working on some of the details of my rig. Today I made a mouse pad ;D

It started life as a SteelSeries QcK+ Gaming Mouse Pad....but I made short work of that.

The size and position is perfect.

 

[Mr Latte]

Hi, like what you have done so far and nice setup.

Would like to hear more of your thoughts on Simvibe and the configuration/effects you prefer using when you get it all up working.

For me one of the issues I want to do more testing with, is in isolating the seat with it's own tactile yet still enabling good effects from "Chassis" tactile.

 

[miahallen]

Thanks Mr Latte...I'll definitely be posting my impressions when I reach that stage....I'm still waiting for all the parts to arrive....ichin to race too LOL

 

[miahallen]

Day 4
Today I broke everything back down to begin the final rebuild

The difficult part of this build is that I wanted a clean look, so I've opted to use wood anchors, instead of normal nuts and bolts. So the anchors are hidden under the carpet. Because of this, I really needed to plan ahead and ensure I had all the anchors placed correctly before laying out the carpet. So that when I begin to assemble post carpet, the bolts will find their places.

Then I used 3M 77 multi purpose spray glue to attach the speaker carpet, and stapled around the bottom edge.

After that, I got started building my amp rack. There is a lot of wiring, and part of the reason I got such large casters was to allow space for all of it to be mounted to the bottom.

To the left of the amp rack, I also mounted the Fanatec CSR-E power supply.

With all six Aura shakers installed, it looks like this.

Then I got my seat installed back in place.

more to follow...

 

[miahallen]

Basic plan
Since I've left the overclocking scene, sim racing has taken over as my hobby of choice. I'm working on plans to upgrade my racing rig. It started this past summer as a wooden wheel/pedal stand. I pull it up to my couch where I sit. It has been working pretty well, but I don't feel I have the optimal seating position, and I wanted to upgrade that.

I found a seat at the local junkyard and came up with a more optimized driving position. I also mounted a Thrustmaster TH8 RS gated shifter to a new center console. The new driving position is much better than before, and the shifter is in a great position.

I also wanted to add more immersion into the setup, and had been looking at "full motion" setups with hydrolics for some time, but the cost put me off, and living overseas, getting the equipment would be more difficult & expensive. But a couple months ago, a new software was released called "SimVibe" which look to have great potential as a poor man's motions alternative.

SimVibe
I'm going to incorporate SimVibe software with 6 Aura bass shakers and 4 Dayton "puck" shakers. The SimVibe software intercepts the telemetery data from most racing sims, and allows up to 7 discrete channels of information to be output to tactile transducers ("bass shakers" or just "shakers"). I will be using three sound cards; one for normal audio, one for SimVibe "chassis mode" and the third card for SimVibe "extension mode".

Chassis mode
The first extra soundcard will output 4 discrete audio channels to a 100Wx4 channel amp, which will run four Aura bass shakers, one at each corner of my rig. These will each simulate the tractile response from each wheel of the car I'm driving. This is what SimVibe refers to as "chassis mode" and it can be used independent from the "extension mode".

Extension mode
The second extra soundcard will output 3 discrete audio channels to a 100Wx4 channel amp, one audio channel will be split to two amp channel to run two Aura shakers mounted to the bottom of my seat. The other two audio channels will each run to two Dayton "puck" shakers (their quite small), a pair will be mounted under my pedal plate, and the other pair will be mounted around my shifter.

SimVibe components
x2 - 24 VDC 14.6A 350W Regulated Switching Power Supply - $100
x2 - 4x100W @ 4 Ohm TK2050 Class-T Digital Audio Amplifier - $100
x6 - Aura AST-2B-4 Pro Bass Shaker Tactile Transducer - $270
x1 - Dayton Audio TT25-16 PUCK Tactile Transducer Mini Bass Shaker 16 Ohm 4 Pack - $45
x1 - ASUS Xonar DGX 5.1 - $40
x1 - Syba SD-PEX63034 7.1 - $20
x1 - SimVibe software - $80

The current configuration
Here are some pictures of my setup in its current configuration. My current setup is not bad by any means, I sit on a couch in which I installed an Aura bass shaker and recycled sub amp. It works great for gaming & movies, but its just inline with my subs, so I'm expecting a huge improvement switching to telemetrics based shakers. I'm exclusively a PC gamer and play with nVidia 3DVision on a 100" screen (mostly iRacing). I have a proper 7.1 surround sound system, and tri-SLI 580GTX video cards being fed by an i7 3820 running @ 4.8GHz (all water cooled).

The problems with the current system are that the wheel is too close to my torso. My pedals are too low, and the whole rig pushes forward on the carpet if my brakes are too stiff. So I'm planning to address all these issues with this upgrade.

Here are a couple picture of the new seat I picked up at the junkyard yesterday for about $40. It came from a late nineties JDM Subaru Impreza. The seat is super comfortable and I'm really excited to race in it

I did a build log of my DIY screen here.
I did a build log of my DIY computer system in my desk here.
I did a build log of my DIY 18" subwoofer here. (I also have a Polk 10" sub behind the couch).

Day 1
After disassembling the old setup, I fist had to get measurements I wanted to use to find a comfortable position for the new setup. The seat will be the only adjustable bit, so getting the pedals and wheel in the optimal placement was essential. I used a double tray, with the wheel mounted on the lower tray, which gives extra room for keyboard, controllers, etc on the top. I also built a new mount for the pedals and moved the lower platform way back. Then I added a second lower platform to extend the overall length to provide room for the seat to get mounted.

I also tried mounting a seat shaker to the bottom of the seat cushion. I wasn't 100% sure I'd leave it here, but I wanted to try this method.

So, this is where I finished on day 1:

Day 2
I started by working on getting my shifter installed. I wanted to be able to have a "center console" of sorts with a place to rest my arm. So I started by created a new right side panel sculpted to fit the requirements. Then I cut the center console with room for the TH8 RS shifter. This is what I came up with:

I've mounted the shakers on an extra piece of plywood and it will be mounted to the seat rigidly...then the whole thing (seat/wood/shakers) will be mechanically decoupled from the rig with a rubber bumper above and below its mount points.

The shakers are mounted to the bottom of the plywood (and not touching the rig's chassis).

I also added a diamond plated pedal plate, its much more comfortable now

Day 3
My casters arrived today. I got six of them, and I've installed them in an unusual way:

The basic idea is that the shakers at each corner will be more effective if them have more wiggle room....so I've given each on an area where it can shake the base by not putting a caster under each corner. The red lines I added show where the base will flex a bit to give each shaker a bit more effect (hopefully).

I also ordered some carpet to cover the rig, so I'll let you all know how that goes.

Here is another shot of the rear, as you can see...I also installed the other two Aura's I already received...now I'm just waiting for the other order from parts-express.

Day 4
Today I broke everything back down to begin the final rebuild

The difficult part of this build is that I wanted a clean look, so I've opted to use wood anchors, instead of normal nuts and bolts. So the anchors are hidden under the carpet. Because of this, I really needed to plan ahead and ensure I had all the anchors placed correctly before laying out the carpet. So that when I begin to assemble post carpet, the bolts will find their places.

Then I used 3M 77 multi purpose spray glue to attach the speaker carpet, and stapled around the bottom edge.

After that, I got started building my amp rack. There is a lot of wiring, and part of the reason I got such large casters was to allow space for all of it to be mounted to the bottom.

To the left of the amp rack, I also mounted the Fanatec CSR-E power supply.

With all six Aura shakers installed, it looks like this.

Then I got my seat installed back in place.

Day 5
Today I finished the right wall, the shifter plate, and the front wall where the pedal plate will be braced.

I mounted two shaker pucks below the shifter.

But during testing today, these two pucks would not respond. So I'll have to figure that out later.

Day 6
Alright, I finished up the rest of the pieces today, carpeting went pretty well while I was using the 3M 77 glue, but then I switched to a different on that is like stringy spray. Its a darker orange color and it made a mess with overspray, yellowing the carpet. It also didn't work as well in general. Read this is a simple endorsement for 3M 77.

The pedal plate is at approx a 30 degree angle.

The pedal faces end up being almost vertical.

As you can see above, I also reshaped the left wall to allow for easier egress.
With the wheel plate and top plate installed, the final result looks quite nice.

My backup wheel is the old 360 wheel...which is horrible next to my CSR-E, but it will have to suffice for the next couple weeks while I wait for my replacement from Fanatec.

I did more testing today, and it appears one of the amps from parts-express has two dead channels. So, my pedal plate shakers, and shifter shakers are not working yet. But they'll be ready to go once I replace the amp.

Now I'm working on tuning the SimVibe software, so far pretty good, although I'm not convinced my from shakers are mounted in the best way, the four in the rear kick butt....literally.

I'm a huge 3D Vision fan. I've been gaming on my 100" Acer projector for about a year now, and I love it. But the resolution sucks! 720p is just not enough, especially on such a large screen.

The largest size 1080p screen which supports 3D Vision in 1080p is 27". I was hoping that would change and something would be announced this year at CES, but my hopes were dashed to the rocks....and we are still stuck with the 27" limitation.

So, I've broken down and ordered three Asus VG278HE 3D Vision monitors. They normally sell for $500 each, which is a lot for my budget, but I found in the Amazon warehouse deals section, they are going for less than $400 each, I just ordered three for $375 a piece.
Asus VG278HE 27" 144Hz 3D Vision monitor

Its still a large investment, but I think it will be worth it. I'll be running them with two MSI Lightning Extreme 3GB GTX580 graphics cards in SLI (water cooled)....they should have plenty of power for the configuration, I'll also have a standard 580 for PhysX and additional screens.

Day 7

I've discoved a problem with using two Asus soundcards together. The driver control software is not setup to handle two soundcards simultaniously. When I open the software, it just acts as if there is only one card present. This is a problem because even when setting the Windows properties to "quadrophonic", the driver default for these soundcards is 2-speaker stereo...so it takes the Windows commands to send sound to the rear speakers and redirects it to the front speakers.

So I was able to get one card working properly in quadrophonic mode, but the second card was only outputting sound to the front two channels. To solve the problem, I performed the following steps:
1) In the Asus DGX control software, set the 1st soundcard output to 4-speakers
2) In Windows sound output properties, set the 1st card to "quadrophonic"
3) Manually close the Asus DGX control software
4) Go into the Windows device manager and disabled the 1st DGX soundcard
5) Manually open the Asus DGX control software again (this time it takes control of the second soundcard since the 1st one is disabled).
6) In the Asus DGX control software, set the 2nd soundcard output to 4-speakers
7) In Windows sound output properties, set the 2nd card to "quadrophonic"
8) Manually close the Asus DGX control software
9) Go into the device manager and enable the 1st soundcard

This seems to have solves the issue somewhat, but I'm still getting inconsistent results. I thought for a while the amp was bad, but I think the problem is attempting to run two of these cards in one system. So I've sent back one of the DXGs and I've ordered a cheap VIA Envy based card to replace it.

I'm getting bored waiting for my new wheel and monitors to arrive, so I'm working on some of the details of my rig. Today I made a mouse pad ;D

It started life as a SteelSeries QcK+ Gaming Mouse Pad....but I made short work of that.

The size and position is perfect.

Day 8

A few updates here. I figured out the SimVibe "audio" problem. It was not an Asus soundcard incompatibility issue, one of my amps only has 2 working channels. So I'm working on getting that replaced. Right now I have the 4 shakers in the corners running in chassis mode, and I have the two shakers mounted on the seat. The pucks on my pedal plate & shifter will not be working until I get the amp replaced.

Today I decided to reconfigure my shakers. After a couple weeks experience, I found that the two shakers in front were not very effective as placed. They were fighting too much rigid structure vertically, so I pushed the front casters out to the corners and moved the shakers to the middle. The one on the left is much better now, the one on the right is still fighting a lot of vertical structure (the shifter mount), and so its vibrations are still pretty muted. I've still got some more ideas to fix this, but I'm going to run it like this for a while to see how I like it over some more time.

I also found the four shakers under the rear were overkill, and the three separate channels were getting muddled together. I decided the two corner shakers were enough for vertical vibrations, and decided to mount the seat shakers to the rear of the seat for horizontal vibrations....BEST DECISION I'VE MADE...its almost like adding SimVibe to a non-SimVibe rig...it just notches it up to the next level!

The combination of vertical and horizontal vibrations is intense! Before, disabling the chassis mode (all vibration) was a night and day difference, after racing with SimVibe, you cannot race without. In the same way, if I now disable the horizontal effect and run with only vertical effects, its a similar change, it feels a bit lifeless. This setup is killer!

I decided to use the same strategy for my shifter pucks. The one in the rear kept vibrating with the motion of the center console, and it was making a lot of noise. So I've rearranged it as well.

Also, my new wheel arrived I'm really enjoying it so far

I'll leave you with a couple random pics of my nine year old struggling to reach the pedals

I am still waiting on my new triple monitor stand +3 Asus VG278HE 3D Vision monitors to arrive. Then I should be posting another update

 

[CTstryk]

Wow, your rig really turned out nice...

 

[Spike125]

Nice and clean work.
Tactile will also be my next project after I finished my handbrake.
Hope your wheel is fixed soon, so you can enjoy your rig

 

[miahallen]

Thanks

Great news on that front...Fanatec says my wheel needs to be replaced, so I asked if I could upgrade to the Clubsport wheel, they said sure

 

[Infinital-NG]

Very nice looking. Wish I had something that nice.

Did have a question in regards to your butt-kicker amps underneath. It seems that the amps themselves are pretty open, were you not worried about dust/hair getting underneath your rig and possibly causing problems? Maybe it's because I live with 5 dogs and dog hair gets everywhere.

 

[miahallen]

No dogs (or cats, or birds, or any other pets ) for me LOL

I figure the amps will actually be more sheltered from dust as debris down there than in just about any alternative location.

 

[mrbasher]

Looking awesome! That's a lot of vibration

What happened to your CSR-E? Did you get a new one yet?

 

[G219]

Very nice work!

 

[miahallen]

My CSR-E was #20 off the assembly line and has performed very well. A few minor issues with it bothered me, but nothing serious enough to warrant an RMA....except for the smell of burn motor when he FFB was up to high. It didn't bother me much because at first I thought it was only a problem with F1 2011. Later when I turned up my FFB settings in iRacing, I found the smell appeared there as well. It never affected the function of the wheel....so I waited until I left for Christmas vacation last month to ship it to the Fanatec service center in Arizona. They checked out the wheel and reported that it needed to be replaced. The good news is that Fanatec is allowing me to pay the difference to upgrade to the Clubsport wheel, which I'm pretty excited about

 

[Nelliel03]

Wow looks very nice! Great work. I was thinking of getting those dayton pucks and didn't want to drill the 70mm hole they recommend. From the pictures it looks like you didn't drill. Do they work fine like that?

 

[miahallen]

I put the 70mm holes in my pedal plate for the two pucks I put in there, but not on the armrest. They seem to be doing fine, just be careful you don't over-torque the screws and break off the plastic mounting tabs.

 

[vasiliflame]

You have a very beautiful home there , also a great Diy rig i applaud you .

 

[miahallen]

I'm a huge 3D Vision fan. I've been gaming on my 100" Acer projector for about a year now, and I love it. But the resolution sucks! 720p is just not enough, especially on such a large screen.

The largest size 1080p screen which supports 3D Vision in 1080p is 27". I was hoping that would change and something would be announced this year at CES, but my hopes were dashed to the rocks....and we are still stuck with the 27" limitation.

So, I've broken down and ordered three Asus VG278HE 3D Vision monitors. They normally sell for $500 each, which is a lot for my budget, but I found in the Amazon warehouse deals section, they are going for less than $400 each, I just ordered three for $375 a piece.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00906HM6K/?tag=gtplanet-20

Its still a large investment, but I think it will be worth it. I'll be running them with two MSI Lightning Extreme 3GB GTX580 graphics cards in SLI (water cooled)....they should have plenty of power for the configuration, I'll also have a standard 580 for PhysX and additional screens.

 

[miahallen]

I'm getting bored waiting for my new wheel and monitors to arrive, so I'm working on some of the details of my rig. Today I made a mouse pad

It started life as a SteelSeries QcK+ Gaming Mouse Pad....but I made short work of that.

The size and position is perfect.

 

[Cheeba]

oops double post

 

[Cheeba]

miahallen, you are one creative dude 💡. Way to recycle that mousepad! I love the clean neat look of your rig.

How are you coming with Simvibe? What are you thoughts on the Dayton pucks? Thought about using a set for extension mode in addition to chassis mode but not sure if it's going to be overkill (don't have Simvibe yet), necessary or if the pucks are even worth it being they are so small.

Have you tried running Tri-Sli and letting the CPU handle the PhysX? I had 3 3gb 580's setup like that because I got better results letting the CPU handle the PhysX.

Regards

 

[bevo]

How well do those amps perform? I've been trying to find a cheap way to get a 4 channel amp to run 4 shakers, but haven't found one. 50$ for one of those amps seem to good to be true.

What would I need, one of those amps, and one of the power supplies?
Is there soldering to be done to connect the power supply and amp?
If you could just give me a quick rundown of how to connect the power supply and amp I would really appreciate it.

I would love to setup an amp like that. It would save me about 250$ compared to the other one i was looking at.

Oh, that is a car audio amp. So that must be an AC to DC power supply ?

 

[miahallen]

miahallen, you are one creative dude 💡. Way to recycle that mousepad! I love the clean neat look of your rig.

How are you coming with Simvibe? What are you thoughts on the Dayton pucks? Thought about using a set for extension mode in addition to chassis mode but not sure if it's going to be overkill (don't have Simvibe yet), necessary or if the pucks are even worth it being they are so small.

Have you tried running Tri-Sli and letting the CPU handle the PhysX? I had 3 3gb 580's setup like that because I got better results letting the CPU handle the PhysX.

Regards

My two Asus DGX cards didn't play well together, so I'm waiting on another sound card to come to see if that will work better. I got the current setup working properly for one day, but most of the time, the soundcard I was using for extension mode was not behaving, and would only output to the seat shakers at about 40% volume. I didn't really have enough time with it all working correctly to give a good opinion on the pucks....I'll let you know later.

I currently have three 1.5GB 580s. Sometimes I run them in tri-SLI, sometimes in dual-SLI + PhysX...it really depends on the game. I used to do hardware reviews, and discovered that not all PhysX is created equal 💡

How well do those amps perform? I've been trying to find a cheap way to get a 4 channel amp to run 4 shakers, but haven't found one. 50$ for one of those amps seem to good to be true.

What would I need, one of those amps, and one of the power supplies?
Is there soldering to be done to connect the power supply and amp?
If you could just give me a quick rundown of how to connect the power supply and amp I would really appreciate it.

I would love to setup an amp like that. It would save me about 250$ compared to the other one i was looking at.

Oh, that is a car audio amp. So that must be an AC to DC power supply ?

I'm very impressed with these amps so far....they are NOT car audio amps, they are designed to run with 30V input (not 12V like a car amp), although they will work at 12V with less output.

To answer your question though, yes, they work great. You'll need a power supply like the Meanwell models I have which output up to about 28V, I'm running them at 24V which provides plenty of power for my setup. Soldering is not required, just ensure you order one of there power connectors:
http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=090-492

 

[miahallen]

I've discoved a problem with using two Asus soundcards together. The driver control software is not setup to handle two soundcards simultaniously. When I open the software, it just acts as if there is only one card present. This is a problem because even when setting the Windows properties to "quadrophonic", the driver default for these soundcards is 2-speaker stereo...so it takes the Windows commands to send sound to the rear speakers and redirects it to the front speakers.

So I was able to get one card working properly in quadrophonic mode, but the second card was only outputting sound to the front two channels. To solve the problem, I performed the following steps:
1) In the Asus DGX control software, set the 1st soundcard output to 4-speakers
2) In Windows sound output properties, set the 1st card to "quadrophonic"
3) Manually close the Asus DGX control software
4) Go into the Windows device manager and disabled the 1st DGX soundcard
5) Manually open the Asus DGX control software again (this time it takes control of the second soundcard since the 1st one is disabled).
6) In the Asus DGX control software, set the 2nd soundcard output to 4-speakers
7) In Windows sound output properties, set the 2nd card to "quadrophonic"
8) Manually close the Asus DGX control software
9) Go into the device manager and enable the 1st soundcard

This seems to have solves the issue somewhat, but I'm still getting inconsistent results. I thought for a while the amp was bad, but I think the problem is attempting to run two of these cards in one system. So I've sent back one of the DXGs and I've ordered a cheap VIA Envy based card to replace it.

 

[miahallen]

Yahoo! my new CSW arrived

 

[JogoAsobi]

Very nice work on your rig, really like the way you upholstered everything. Having lived in Japan...good thing that you covered those tatami mats in that traditional-style Japanese room before starting the project. Out of curiosity, is the screen you project on to mounted to what appears to be a black board?

 

[miahallen]

Thanks

No, it has wings covered in black felt. My screen build log is posted in the OP

 

[JogoAsobi]

Thanks

No, it has wings covered in black felt. My screen build log is posted in the OP

Missed that.

Nice touch with the diamond plate for the CSPs too! Enjoy that new wheel!

 

[miahallen]

Thanks, I'll post another update soon....

Now I just need my new monitors and triple stand to arrive

 

[miahallen]

Day 8

A few updates here. I figured out the SimVibe "audio" problem. It was not an Asus soundcard incompatibility issue, one of my amps only has 2 working channels. So I'm working on getting that replaced. Right now I have the 4 shakers in the corners running in chassis mode, and I have the two shakers mounted on the seat. The pucks on my pedal plate & shifter will not be working until I get the amp replaced.

Today I decided to reconfigure my shakers. After a couple weeks experience, I found that the two shakers in front were not very effective as placed. They were fighting too much rigid structure vertically, so I pushed the front casters out to the corners and moved the shakers to the middle. The one on the left is much better now, the one on the right is still fighting a lot of vertical structure (the shifter mount), and so its vibrations are still pretty muted. I've still got some more ideas to fix this, but I'm going to run it like this for a while to see how I like it over some more time.

I also found the four shakers under the rear were overkill, and the three separate channels were getting muddled together. I decided the two corner shakers were enough for vertical vibrations, and decided to mount the seat shakers to the rear of the seat for horizontal vibrations....BEST DECISION I'VE MADE...its almost like adding SimVibe to a non-SimVibe rig...it just notches it up to the next level!

The combination of vertical and horizontal vibrations is intense! Before, disabling the chassis mode (all vibration) was a night and day difference, after racing with SimVibe, you cannot race without. In the same way, if I now disable the horizontal effect and run with only vertical effects, its a similar change, it feels a bit lifeless. This setup is killer!

I decided to use the same strategy for my shifter pucks. The one in the rear kept vibrating with the motion of the center console, and it was making a lot of noise. So I've rearranged it as well.

Also, my new wheel arrived I'm really enjoying it so far

I'll leave you with a couple random pics of my nine year old struggling to reach the pedals

I am still waiting on my new triple monitor stand +3 Asus VG278HE 3D Vision monitors to arrive. Then I should be posting another update

 

[fatkrakr]

Next time your son is racing grab him a pillow and stick it behind his back. That should get him in a better position for the pedals.