SimVibe (SimXperience)

[bvillersjr]

Audio is a whole different animal. Feel free to prove out out what a 60 user trial already told us.

 

[the_greeze]

Most of you know my set-up and I'm no stranger to the world of tactile having been introduced to it by Mr Latte nearly two years ago. I've been running audio-driven tactile for about the same time; moving from those little Aura transducers that were originally in that 'backpack-style' thing from yonks ago onto Aura Pros and finally settling on Buttkicker Mini LFE's (with one Gamer 2) in an eight-way configuration. Attached is the config I was (am) using for the audio-driven tactile and it absolutely rocks.

So, I've spent some time over the last couple of evenings getting SimVibe up-and-running starting solely with engine vibration output to all four corners in Chassis mode. Am I missing something here because it just feels 'wrong'. For the record, I'm running iRacing with the Corvette C6.R. When the car is idling, the tactile is bottoming-out the BK's. If I reduce the sensitivity to lose that unwanted side-effect, I lose definition at higher revs / when driving. Is there some slider or option I haven't used? I haven't tried any other outputs yet as I figured getting engine vibration correct would be a good starting point.

Any adjustments I make seem to make the vibration much too 'buzzy' when what I'm trying to reproduce is the lower-end rumbles etc.

I have awesome feedback from my audio-based config so I'm really confused as to why SimVibe isn't at least matching it.

I will install the second soundcard tonight and try out the Extension mode. I'm not giving up just yet but in all honesty, if things don't improve I'm going straight back to audio-driven tactile as it's (for me at least) much better controlled and more refined. At the moment, I'm completely underwhelmed and disappointed with my SimVibe experience thus far.

I'm fully open to suggestions or guidance.

 

[HoiHman]

This is an easy one to solve Simon.

Go to the engine vibration tab and add a "simvibe modifier" filter.
Choose " rpm sensative" This will allow you to adjust the volume according to the engine RPM.

 

[the_greeze]

Thanks Henk 👍 I'll try this when I get home from work.

 

[Saisa58]

You only need to set your soundcard that you want to use to output normal audio as default in Windows. Simvibe can still access whatever output no matter what, but you have to manually select the correct output in the settings of Simvibe.
It is just that all games and programs tend to grab the default soundcard output as the one to use, hence only that has to be selected in windows... For the normal game audio purposes, etc.

Thanyou for your reply much appreciated.

However, no go for some reason I can't get the two to work, both onboard and soundcard. Everything in accordance with simvibe is correct that I'm very confident about.

I need to know from anyone with the same config as I :
a) uses Win7 64bit and
b) has onboard
c) i7 chip (if that means anything)
are using simvibe successfully in this format. And if so Please do tell how you got it to work.

You mentioned as I also know that Simvibe should take care of it, I don't believe it's a simvibe situation, something must be in my win7 configuation that is blocking sound to travel through to the onboard. There are many posts stating that it's not possible, (onboard and additional card) it was in XP but no go in Win7.

I have Crossfire and Xfi sound card, problem is I have no space for a second sound card if I need to go that way, have the slot for it but covered by the GPU's.

cheers

 

[bvillersjr]

It's not uncommon to bottom out the standard buttkickers with the more powerful and rapid signal that SimVibe produces.

The ButtKicker Mini LFE SE (SimVibe Edition) was designed to provide an improved result with SimVibe. It increases responsiveness, prevents end-cap impacts and reduces noise a bit as well.

You can still get a pretty good result with the standard model though, but you must understand that SimVibe's purpose is to provide accurate fine details. Perhaps a mounting mechanism that was adequate for booming bass may be inadequate for getting these finer details to you.

@Saisa58 - I use that exact config often with no issues...Core i7 + onboard + X-Fi PCI audio card.

 

[the_greeze]

It's not uncommon to bottom out the standard buttkickers with the more powerful and rapid signal that SimVibe produces.

The ButtKicker Mini LFE SE (SimVibe Edition) was designed to provide an improved result with SimVibe. It increases responsiveness, prevents end-cap impacts and reduces noise a bit as well.

You can still get a pretty good result with the standard model though, but you must understand that SimVibe's purpose is to provide accurate fine details. Perhaps a mounting mechanism that was adequate for booming bass may be inadequate for getting these finer details to you.

Thanks Berney. I wouldn't describe my audio-driven set up as having 'booming bass' but I can see your point. I will try Henks suggestion above and apply the filter and see how it feels.

 

[Saisa58]

It's not uncommon to bottom out the standard buttkickers with the more powerful and rapid signal that SimVibe produces.

The ButtKicker Mini LFE SE (SimVibe Edition) was designed to provide an improved result with SimVibe. It increases responsiveness, prevents end-cap impacts and reduces noise a bit as well.

You can still get a pretty good result with the standard model though, but you must understand that SimVibe's purpose is to provide accurate fine details. Perhaps a mounting mechanism that was adequate for booming bass may be inadequate for getting these finer details to you.

@Saisa58 - I use that exact config often with no issues...Core i7 + onboard + X-Fi PCI audio card.

Hi Berney, Vito here, did not want to trouble you with my problem. Ok then will look through my MB manual seems like something not connecting here.

 

[museumsteve]

Thanyou for your reply much appreciated.

However, no go for some reason I can't get the two to work, both onboard and soundcard. Everything in accordance with simvibe is correct that I'm very confident about.

I need to know from anyone with the same config as I :
a) uses Win7 64bit and
b) has onboard
c) i7 chip (if that means anything)
are using simvibe successfully in this format. And if so Please do tell how you got it to work.

You mentioned as I also know that Simvibe should take care of it, I don't believe it's a simvibe situation, something must be in my win7 configuation that is blocking sound to travel through to the onboard. There are many posts stating that it's not possible, (onboard and additional card) it was in XP but no go in Win7.

I have Crossfire and Xfi sound card, problem is I have no space for a second sound card if I need to go that way, have the slot for it but covered by the GPU's.

cheers

I do. I have Win7 64bit with i7 2600k and use onboard for SimVibe extension mode.

It was hit n miss for a while but works fine now.

Naturally make sure onboard audio is turned on in Bios (if required).

In windows control panel can you see all your sound cards?

What are you using for normal sounds (game etc)?

If using video card output (HDMI) then you should see all 3 in control panel/sound.

The main one should be set to default for your game/pc sound. For me it's my HDMI audio.

Then I show 2 entries for Realtek which is my onboard card. It shows Realtek Digital Audio and Speakers Realtek Audio.
It also shows 2 entries for my C-Media which is my PCI card. Again it shows as C-Media Digital Audio and Speakers C-Media Audio.
Only use the speaker option and try config. Then for extension mode select with 5.1 or 7.1 (I had to use 7.1) and try the speaker icons. Only the ones connected should make any noise of course.
Same for chassis mode but with the card selected choose quadrophonic and then config again and try them.

How do you get sound from your games at the moment?

 

[HoiHman]

It's not uncommon to bottom out the standard buttkickers with the more powerful and rapid signal that SimVibe produces.

The ButtKicker Mini LFE SE (SimVibe Edition) was designed to provide an improved result with SimVibe. It increases responsiveness, prevents end-cap impacts and reduces noise a bit as well.

You can still get a pretty good result with the standard model though, but you must understand that SimVibe's purpose is to provide accurate fine details. Perhaps a mounting mechanism that was adequate for booming bass may be inadequate for getting these finer details to you.

Hi Berney,


I just ordered 4 mini LFE SE at your webshop

It will be interesting to see how they compare to the regular mini LFE's.
I hope to recieve tracking information soon.

I will still be using the regualar ones.
Could you give me an advice what kind of effects perform much better on the SE instead of the Regular ones and what kind of effects almost perform equal?

That would save me a lot of time figuering things out.


Gr

Henk

 

[the_greeze]

I just ordered 4 mini LFE SE at your webshop

It will be interesting to see how they compare to the regular mini LFE's.
I hope to recieve tracking information soon.

I will still be using the regualar ones.

Looking forward to your findings Henk 👍 If there's improvement to be had, I'm interested

 

[bvillersjr]

Thanks for your business!

One of the first things that I noticed was a difference in precision. The engine RPM's were very granular, detailed and I could feel them at higher frequencies than I could previously. My best guess is that it simply revs better when it isn't impacting the end cap

All of the effects improved in this way.

Textures by nature are still a little noisy because they are 1:1 with the frequency of the road surface for example.

All in all though, any noises that the Se edition made were more in line with what you would expect and blended better with the audio.

I can't say that there was any area that didn't improve really.

 

[Mr Latte]

Audio is a whole different animal. Feel free to prove out out what a 60 user trial already told us.

The question is can a single unit produce 6+ different vibration effects at the same time, better than a configuration that utilises less effects to each unit but is more configured for their individual roles. What then if using whatever model of tactile is tested to work best for that role and suiting the users desired performance/wattage requirements or indeed preferred placement.

In theory a single unit also has a limited footprint or peak area for its output/performance when multiple units with controlled volumes can operate much better (4 tactile at sensible volume in a sofa Vs 1 at its max output) is a common example for home cinema of this.

Multiple effects with the users settings in Simvibe will cover a variable range of bass frequencies. Your demanding a single unit to cope with a lot at once and at high speeds. To my knowledge Buttkicker units were never designed to operate with multiple different streams of bass frequencies all running simultaneously. Yet this is what your software offers control in over audio tactile.

So indeed I will enjoy finding out how badly my ideas fail

 

[bvillersjr]

The question is can a single unit produce 6+ different vibration effects at the same time, better than a configuration that utilises less effects to each unit but is more configured for their individual roles. What then if using whatever model of tactile is tested to work best for that role and suiting the users desired performance/wattage requirements or indeed preferred placement.

I suppose it depnds on the profile and objective. The fact is that all the vibrations get aggregated. Engine RPM, road surface, etc.. is aggregated before it ever reaches your seat, feet or hands. IMO, it's more critical to have them timed correctly and oroginating in the correct location on the chassis.

Perhaps if you placed 8 transducers at all four corners and used four of them for RPM and four of them for road surface you would have the issue of vibration cancellation anway and would have wasted alot of money.

There is however some logic to your statement. A transducer can do precisely 1 thing at a time. They key is in the softwares mixing engine.

 

[Caz]

I do not think mr villers understands the amount of testing of various tactile units/ configurations that have been performed by you Mr latte as well as others on this forum.

Big edit: nevermind. Sorry.

 

[bvillersjr]

I have too many forum threads at too many diiferent sites to be able to keep track of them all at this point.

I will not be able to continue responding here as it it one of the less productive uses of my time.

If you own SimVibe and have questions, please direct them to the Q&A section on the SimXperience site, or for tech support related matters, to our customer support group.

 

[Mr Latte]

I do not think mr villers understands the amount of testing of various tactile units/ configurations that have been performed by you Mr latte as well as others on this forum.

Big edit: nevermind. Sorry.

Appreciate your comment and yes several guys on these forums have got involved in tactile and learned quite a lot about it. No doubt inspiring each other at quite a bit of self expense too.

I want to work with others here discussing as a point of interest the "new possibilities" that could be achieved with Simvibe and really getting to understand it better. A major thread detailing each of it's features and discussing what frequencies it outputs, doing tests with all major models of tactile. Im talking really getting our teeth into this and reporting the findings and testing such theories not just speculating if they should or should not work.


Bottom line though what I or others decide to do regards equipment or configuration all goes to promoting this superb software...

 

[museumsteve]

I spent this evening concentrating just on the rear L/R in chassis mode.
I moved 2 miniquakes to the rear L/R of the base.

First I tried them with everything else intact, so that means my actuators are mounted to a dampening bar. The main issue here is that the dampening bar just about killed any shaker action from travelling up the actuators. Also as I use SimXperience actuator covers, they also have dampening in them. This meant I ended up hearing more than I could feel so it was a no go for me.

Next up I tried the miniquakes fitted to the seat frame work that at the rear L/R corners. This was a non starter really cos the frame work wouldn't really differentiate between L or R so it was probably equivalent to running a 'SEAT' option in Extension mode.

Last up I decided to remove my dampening bar, fix the actuators back to the main base and then fit the miniquakes right by each actuator. At the same time I made a slight mod to the way my actuators fit to the seat and using a cross bar which now touches shoulder height on the back of the seat this gave me much better results.

It's obviously going to take plenty of time to get to grips with the various effects and settings. The tuning guide is a good place to start but it does look a bit daunting with the various options for scaling, sensitivity etc etc. It'll be much more fun for me when my other usb monitor arrives so I don't have to keep coming out of the racers to play with settings

 

[the_greeze]

I'm feeling much happier with SimVibe now, thanks to Henk's suggestion of applying the additional filter. 👍 That certainly sorted out the issue I was having, thanks Henk

Sooo, I have front and rear suspension mapped to chassis mode and after a lot of tweaking, it feels very good (really lets you feel the kerbs etc). I may well add 'Impacts' onto Chassis mode; as yet, I'm undecided.

Fitted the second soundcard as well with no issues and had a quick dabble with sending engine vibration to the shifter with good results.

Bottom line: I feel much better about the possibilities of this software now. My initial reservations have been (mostly) squashed and I'm looking forward to really getting stuck in to it over the weekend.

 

[museumsteve]

Good to hear mate 👍

 

[Mr Latte]

Steve, hope you get a good working solution but simxperience brackets cannot be far from release.
I would look forward to you comparing an Earthquake to maybe one of the Mini LFE/SE if your considering some.

Greeze, good going. More updates please on your progress as I have no free time this weekend to get stuck in. I assume I-racing is the best title to be testing for the sheer amount of effects etc?

Maybe some other games are more restricted, well, would like to use the same game if comparing experiences/feedback.

 

[museumsteve]

I dont think I'll be buying any other TT units, I'm happy with what I'm using. For me SimVibe is a nice addition to motion, it seems to fill in the gaps nicely. I think in the long run I'll find more benefit in the extension mode (pedals/shifter) than chassis mode. Saying that I reckon I fancy playing around with some motion profiles where I can remove some of the road noise/textures etc and let SimVibe do that. This could allow me to run quieter profiles, which would be nice

 

[the_greeze]

iRacing is the only sim I use on the PC; so all my testing / configuration will be related solely to that. Nothing comes close IMO

Attached is a work-in-progress V2 tactile flowchart, hopefully showing what my intentions are... 👍

 

[Kitten]

o.o no money for this

 

[Saisa58]

@Saisa58 - I use that exact config often with no issues...Core i7 + onboard + X-Fi PCI audio card.

Thanks Berney all good now. After completely disconnecting my entire setup and rebuilding from scratch and researching the globe for the answer and thoughts from Musemsteve (thanks m8) It was as simple as moving one connection to another spot.

My onboard is a 7.1 config, the Simvibe guide states use the black and green connecters, in my case all i did was move from the green into the grey which say side speakers. As I don't have any side speakers never thought this was an option but some how it does.

For the record my 9 bass shakers prior to simvibe were as I thought giving me some unreal feedback....well now and still tweaking a bit am getting some serious feedback. Simvibe has just given my rig a new lease of life.

I love that wind noise effect, and the verticle bumps...never felt them before.
Truly a Beautiful piece of software Berney, a task well done indeed.

Thanks again
Vito

 

[HoiHman]

SimVibe has been released!

The price is $79.00 US Dollars, or €62.52 Euros.


The first SimVibe certified and fully compatible tactile transducer:

Buttkicker Mini LFE SE (SimVibe Edition)

The SE ButtKicker Mini LFE is an all new ButtKicker that is purpose designed by engineers at SimXperience and ButtKicker to help you get the most accurate response and detail from the SimXperience SimVibe software while reducing undesired transducer noise.

Redesigned ButtKicker internals are optimized for SimVibe
Frequency Response - 10Hz - 250Hz
50 Watt Minimum
150 Watt Maximum (when used with SimVibe which produces a criper, harder hitting signal than traditional audio)
Impediance - 4 Ohms
Weight - 2.2 lbs
Height - 3"
Width - 4.75"
Length - 4.75"
Uses standard ButtKicker Mini LFE casing and mounting dimensions
Mounts to SimXperience Stage Series motion simulators via optional mounting plates


Available at SimXperience as well for the following price:

Price + Shipping: $95.00 US Dollars, or €72.60

I just got confirmation from Andrew from The Guitammer Company (the company who makes the butt kickers) that there is typo on simexperience website

The BK Mini LFE SE is 250w instead of 150w

 

[LogiForce]

I just got confirmation from Andrew from The Guitammer Company (the company who makes the butt kickers) that there is typo on simexperience website

The BK Mini LFE SE is 250w instead of 150w

Thank you, Henk. Edited my post to avoid confusion for people who come across it.

 

[the_greeze]

Henk, just to reiterate; I'm really interested to see what you make of those new Buttkicker SE's!

 

[HoiHman]

Henk, just to reiterate; I'm really interested to see what you make of those new Buttkicker SE's!

So am i

Still waiting on the shipping confirmation though and when shipped it will take at least a week before they arrive.

I should have had the first 80/20 profiles for building a compllete new rig by now, but they are still not delivered.When i have the 80/20 profiles, i can order the some custom made brackets, which will also take another week.

The amp i want to buy (ART SLA-4 4x 140w) is not in stock at my 'local' webshop, so now i'm checking other websites.

Than i have to start building and testing, so this could take a while.
The new rig should make testing, replacing and moving the transducers much much easier.

I will keep you updated....

Good to see you are progressing nicely. 👍

 

[bvillersjr]

We posted 150 Watts with SimVibe for a reason. 250 Watts with normal audio. 150 Watts Max with SimVibe.