Obsessive hobbies....

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Putting my stereo to good use. :p

The Force Feedback seems to work pretty well letting me know when I'm losing traction, hitting bumps, or pulling hard into a corner. There is no seat of your pants feel, but it is enough to go on. I've just scratched the surface so far.

This also folds down so I can put it away which was the only way to get my wife to buy off on it.

fanatecsetup_2808.jpg
 
Very nice setup there! Enjoy the drives and the racing.
 
Back to woodworking. I met 98 year old Al Hudson yesterday at a local wood working exhibition.
His interview starts at the 30 minute mark on the video below. His woodworking is inspiring.

http://thehighlandwoodworker.com/the-highland-woodworker-episode-33/

Here is one of my favorite of his pieces that I've see so far. It gives me some great ideas, but I'll need to up my game and learn some new skills to build something like this.
Looks like I'll be joining my local wood working guild.

loveitfurniture.jpg
 
Putting my stereo to good use. :p

The Force Feedback seems to work pretty well letting me know when I'm losing traction, hitting bumps, or pulling hard into a corner. There is no seat of your pants feel, but it is enough to go on. I've just scratched the surface so far.

This also folds down so I can put it away which was the only way to get my wife to buy off on it.

View attachment 19504

Well... maybe you need a better power cord to get that 'seat of your pants ' feel? Jeez mark. :)
 
Well... maybe you need a better power cord to get that 'seat of your pants ' feel? Jeez mark. :)

They have these for 'seat of your pants' feel :)

I should probably explain things a bit more. There is a software package that allows you to decide how and what you want to feel. Some people will connect 3 transducers to their chair and decide if they want to feel the motor as it approaches redline, bumps and sliding etc..

71MzTTS-QmL._SL1308_.jpg
 
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They have these for 'seat of your pants' feel :)

I should probably explain things a bit more. There is a software package that allows you to decide how and what you want to feel. Some people will connect 3 transducers to their chair and decide if they want to feel the motor as it approaches redline, bumps and sliding etc..

71MzTTS-QmL._SL1308_.jpg

Lol. This is cool. I remember when the rumble pack was introduced for Nintendo 64. I was like - what could this possible do?? Haha. A lot!!
 
Lol. This is cool. I remember when the rumble pack was introduced for Nintendo 64. I was like - what could this possible do?? Haha. A lot!!

My son tried out my rig yesterday for a couple hours. He was used to racing games with very unrealistic levels of grip and it took him a little while to learn that he had to use his brakes much earlier and use the distance markers on the tracks before turns. Initially he also felt like the force feedback in the wheel just made the game harder, but he eventually realized that FFB also gives you useful information.

I'm finding a lot of this very interesting in terms of the technology involved and how they trick the senses.

As was said earlier it is just a game. The physics are supposed to be pretty realistic it terms of when the car loses traction, how fast it can accelerate and brake. They have variable weather so clouds can roll in and it can start to rain making the track slick. The tires have to warm up before giving you their best traction and they wear during the race. The tracks are laser scanned and the road texture, banks and dips come through the steering wheel. It is nice to experience something at least partially without risking my life or destroying vehicles.

VR would be the next step and with VR you are actually looking at the instruments in each car. You can look at your co-pilot in a Rally and see his notebook as he reads off the turns. If you look down you see your legs operating the pedals and your arm shifting gears. It is at this point where adding vibration to the seat amplifies the realism more than if you are not using VR.

However the resolution in VR is currently weak(Oculus/Vive). You can't read the distance markers on the track well and while you have depth perception and feel like you are in the car much more than when using monitors there is obvious pixelation etc...

The just released Samsung HMD Odyssey mixed reality headset has 3D headphones that are supposed to give you surround sound information. In this scenario you would be looking around in virtual space and hear a car coming up behind you and be able to look over your shoulder to see where it is. However this supports a new VR standard by MS. These headsets have just started shipping and they are not supported by much. They have twice the resolution of the current Oculus and Vive but are still limited to 110 degrees of peripheral vision.

The Pimax 8K headset is a kickstarter project for a headset with 200 degrees of peripheral vision, 4K resolution in each eye and it maxes out your vertical vision. However it doesn't ship until February assuming they don't have delays and there is no video card available that is powerful enough to drive it.

NVidia is set to release their next Volta based video cards in early 2018 which may be powerful enough to drive this headset.

The bottom line is that all the pieces are coming together, but the VR that I want isn't fully flushed out.

1. We have a new VR standard with multiple manufacturers supporting it, but little software available.
2. We have new hardware being released that looks promising but has yet to be proven.
3. We still are waiting for video cards capable of driving the new headsets at full resolution.

So for now I've only purchased the least volatile piece of the equation, the physical controls.

I tried an alternate pedal configuration today. I think I like this better.

pedalconfig_2842.jpg
 
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In regards to VR. I can only see out of one eye. But, about a year ago I put on the goggles at a kiosk in Best Buy and was blown away. Yah it was not as clear as it should have been because of the 3D ... but even so it was amazing. I thought of movies filmed this way - watching it multiple times from different perspectives. I was pretty floored by it.
 
Mark, thanks for the detailed update. I'm also eagerly anticipating a full VR setup for my sim. That Pimax set looked intriguing until I saw that the display is not OLED. But whenever a headset that uses panels like those in the iPhone X (with 120Hz frame-rate refresh, HDR and full Dolby Vision certification) is released, I'll be all over it.
 
Mark, thanks for the detailed update. I'm also eagerly anticipating a full VR setup for my sim. That Pimax set looked intriguing until I saw that the display is not OLED. But whenever a headset that uses panels like those in the iPhone X (with 120Hz frame-rate refresh, HDR and full Dolby Vision certification) is released, I'll be all over it.

Me too!

Looks like the following from "real" manufacturers

Gen 1 ( Oculus/Vive ) 1080/1200 per eye ( 2K total )
Gen 2 ( Samsung HMD, Leveno, Dell ) 1440x1600 per eye ( 4K total )

Gen 1 required an NVidia 1080Ti to run with some games with highest settings at 90 fps.
Gen 2 will require the not released Volta card to run at 90fps with highest resolution and software support

The Pimax 8K will likely end up running of the same 4K per eye with a Volta card but will do onboard interpolation making things smoother.
UNLESS it can run smoothly off of two separate video cards each rendering one eye, it will never use all of its resolution.

NVidia is planning to stop supporting Dual SLI which is just as well for VR as people were having issues with it working properly.

So the question will be if the new StreamVR, OpenVR, or Oculus SDK's will cleanly support separate video cards.

Of course now you are talking about purchasing what I can only assume will be two $800 video cards plus a headset which will come in at over $2,000 just when people are starting to talk about how VR is just now becoming affordable for Gen 1 devices.
 
Me too!

Looks like the following from "real" manufacturers

Gen 1 ( Oculus/Vive ) 1080/1200 per eye ( 2K total )
Gen 2 ( Samsung HMD, Leveno, Dell ) 1440x1600 per eye ( 4K total )

Gen 1 required an NVidia 1080Ti to run with some games with highest settings at 90 fps.
Gen 2 will require the not released Volta card to run at 90fps with highest resolution and software support

The Pimax 8K will likely end up running of the same 4K per eye with a Volta card but will do onboard interpolation making things smoother.
UNLESS it can run smoothly off of two separate video cards each rendering one eye, it will never use all of its resolution.

NVidia is planning to stop supporting Dual SLI which is just as well for VR as people were having issues with it working properly.

So the question will be if the new StreamVR, OpenVR, or Oculus SDK's will cleanly support separate video cards.

Of course now you are talking about purchasing what I can only assume will be two $800 video cards plus a headset which will come in at over $2,000 just when people are starting to talk about how VR is just now becoming affordable for Gen 1 devices.

Is it time to buy stock?? :)
 
Is it time to buy stock?? :)

NVidia has been a solid investment. Look at how it has tracked in the stock market!

The bigger issue lately has been Etherium mining. Etherium is a block chain based currency like Bitcoin that requires massive processing power to unlock new currency.

Parallel processing GPU's are proving to be ideal for this type of work.

Check out this link to get an idea. Nvidia is working overtime these days to fill chip demand.

https://qz.com/1039809/amd-shares-a...-boeing-747s-to-ship-graphics-cards-to-mines/
 
I'm sure someone will find this wooden chair fastener funny, and while I know this isn't a rigid cage, it is actually working very well. It keeps the chair from lifting in front or sliding back when I hit the brakes hard. I've yet to play for over two and half hours, but so far the folding chair is perfectly comfortable. I was looking at getting a Corbeau fixed shell racing seat, but at the moment I don't see the point.

I'm really enjoying Dirt Rally. It is a real blast and the immersion in front of a 65" TV with reasonably realistic feeling controls is better than I hoped. I'm actually enjoying rowing through the gears on the H pattern shifter. They clunk into gear very realistically. I've changed my pedals around a bit more and have added a stronger spring to the clutch and harder pressure cylinders from the performance brake package I got.

The wheel's force feedback when you go airborne off the crest of a hill or start to lose traction is still impressing me.

stabilizercleanedup_2857.jpg
 
BTW the initial feedback on the new MS MR headsets seems to show them lacking.

They have more resolution, but the area outside the center area is much more noticeably out of focus. Most people consider them cheaper feeling and these headsets are having issues dropping frames in sims despite being advertised with lower graphics card requirements.

There may be some issues with performance that will be worked out over time, but I don't think I'll be picking up one of these. I don't think I would buy a Pimax either. However I'm betting the 2nd generation Oculus and Vive might be worth considering.
 
Very pretty!

My local wood source just gave a presentation at my local wood workers guild. He said that much of the south american wood like Honduras Mahogany was dropping in quality, increasing in cost and becoming less viable. It appears that African wood is gaining in popularity. Sapele, and African Mahogany is starting to fill the hole. He also said that Walnut was out of style for a while but is now back in style and in high demand and prices are going up because of it. Apparently China is taking cargo ships full of Walnut these days.

That waterfall Bubinga is striking! Is the first picture ribbon sapele?
 
Very pretty!

My local wood source just gave a presentation at my local wood workers guild. He said that much of the south american wood like Honduras Mahogany was dropping in quality, increasing in cost and becoming less viable. It appears that African wood is gaining in popularity. Sapele, and African Mahogany is starting to fill the hole. He also said that Walnut was out of style for a while but is now back in style and in high demand and prices are going up because of it. Apparently China is taking cargo ships full of Walnut these days.

That waterfall Bubinga is striking! Is the first picture ribbon sapele?

That is sapele pommele.
 
Wardsweb, outstanding work, and nice 'vintage' speakers.
 
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