SimXperience Commander For X-Sim Nearing Beta Stage

As some of you are aware, I have been working on a menu system for X-Sim for some time now. The goal of this software is two-fold. First, it is intended to make it easier for less technical users to setup and configure their simulator. Second, and most important IMHO, it is to help bridge the realism gap between DIY simulators and well tuned professional simulators.

The Commander accomlishes these goals in several different ways.

Making Setup Easier
I have developed a wizard that will install X-Sim and allow users to choose from X-Sim configuration templates. In this way, we can eliminate much of the technical work for non-technical users by pre-packaging most of the X-Sim registry entries and file configurations in a templated fashion.

Here is a video of the pre-alpha wizard, which highlights my intent for this wizard: http://www.simxperience.com/files/SimXCommanderVids/FirstRunWizard/FirstRunWizard.html

Making Daily Use Easier
The Commander is designed to be a single interface for all simulator and game related settings. With a single button click, we can set a Logitech G25 profile, alter the in-game force feedback settings, set a motion profile, start the simulator and launch the game.

See a pre-alpha demonstration of the Commander in action: http://www.simxperience.com/files/SimXCommanderVids/PreAlphaCommanderDemo/PreAlphaCommanderDemo.html

Installing Cars and Tracks can be a tedious time consuming task. The SimXperience Commander will contain SimUpdates functionality. SimUpdates is like Windows Updates but for cars and tracks.

See a pre-alpha demonstration of SimUpdates here: http://www.simxperience.com/OurSoftware/SimXperienceSimUpdates/tabid/58/Default.aspx

Enhancing Realism
X-Sim provides a superior level of motion compared to professional simulators. It is up to us to assemble the remaining details that provide the ultimate realism. In my opinion, it takes a combination of the following to achieve the best realism available with today's technologies:

-Motion Profile
-Actuator Speed/Accel settings
-Logitech G25 Settings
-Game Force Feedback Settings
-Game Car Setup

The Commander allows you to assign each of these to a single button! More importantly, it provides a mechanism for users to create and share these profiles from with the software. This is much like Race 07's ability to share vehicle setups, just on a larger scale. You will be able to rate, download or upload complete vehicle or series packs that include all of the above elements and lauch them quickly and easily.

The SimXperience Commander is scheduled to enter private beta on 03/30/2009. Contributing X-Sim members may request to participate in the beta by sending me a PM.

Much is to be determined with regard to the future of the SimXperience Commander. Two things are for certain: There will always be a FREE community edition, and there is likely to be a Professional Edition that includes some very advanced Motec / Lap analysis features for professional drivers that will not be free.

You can read more about my vision for the Commander here: http://www.simxperience.com/OurSoftware/SimXperienceCommander/tabid/57/Default.aspx

The Community Edition of the Commander is my attempt to give something back to the X-Sim community. Your thoughts / Comments / Feedback are greatly appreciated.

Sounds promising! :thbup:

Regards
Christian

Done. Thanks for reminding me about the blue logo. I think this one looks better.

OK, so I was just in a chat with Raceray that got me thinking. There are two main purposes for the SimXperience Commander. One is to make it easier, the other is to lump the following into a single application:

-Mechanism for simple sharing and rating of Logitech G25 profiles, Vehicle Setups, Game FFB setups, and motion profiles
-Ability to set each of the following with a single button click

It takes a combination of all the above elements to achieve the best possible realism. Most of this is already complete. In a future version, I will be adding league features such as a Race finder, race event calendar, race videos, race statistics, etc.. An obvious component of this league system will be some kind of voice chat mechanism. No real need for text chat becuase most games already have that anyway but I guess it would be ok to have as well.

@SirNoName

I understand that you are looking into building a chat system as well, but until today I did not understand that you intended it to be part of the X-Sim software. This does not make sense to me. Why would a user wish to chat from within his motion control software vs chatting from his league management software or game which also performs all of the the above.

I was considering adding chat to the Commander software because it will be somewhat of a game lobby where users will go to start games and find a race etc..

I think I'm a bit confused here.

Maybe you are talking about building the server portion to be more efficient than some of the current standards?

I guess it wouldnt matter if the chat existed in both places as long as it could be disabled in one or the other.

I discovered some interesting things about Logitech G25's today while building the G25 profile portion of my software.

It seems that the values that Logitech allows us to change via the Logitech Gaming Software are not the only values. Those are simple gain values (percentage increases) The real settings are stuffed further under the hood. Turns out, the G25 is capable of MUCH more force than the settings in their software ever allowed AND at a higher rate of speed. When I hit a rumble strip, the wheel can nearly force itself from my hand even though I have a tight grip on it!

I'm sure that they don't allow these options so that the product will last longer, but I think I will offer the ability to adjust these settings as part of the SimXperience Commander G25 profiles section (along with a fair warning about premature wear of course)!

Maybe some of you already knew about this, but I found the difference amazing.

:

I am working on a tutorial. I think that you could achieve around a 20% or greater strength increase, but unfortunately, it is not useful because it isn't very drivable. So far in my experimentation I have been able to achieve about a 5%-10% increase that was actually drivable. I'll do some more testing after work today and post a quick tutorial.


When I say increase I mean aside from the settings in the Logitech Gaming Software of course.

Nice! I like this single button software idea! 8)

I'd love to have the G25 with more power!

I experinced that if I set up the FF strenght to to more than round about 75%, the wheel starts to shake continously.
Would be great if the mod you are mentioning would output more power to the wheel, without that shaking effect.
I've ecxperienced this issue with GTRE, btw.

Regards
Christian

Alright, so I'm not going to offer a tutorial because I don't know enough yet to be certain and I dont want to be responsible for anyone damaging their G25. I will tell you what I know so far.

There are two registry sections that pertain to the G25. The first is the same section that you see when you edit the global settings in the Logitech gaming software. Here they are:


The above are not really the Global settings. They are simply % gain values over the real settings. The real driver settings can be found in the following registry section.


Use this information at your own risk.

Here are a few notes from what I know so far:
-By my approximation, the maximum values here are 15000. I have not tried any settings beyond this yet.
-In order to prevent the shaking mentioned above, you must have the right balance between the damper value and strength value
-Turning the damper up too high negates an increase in the strength value

I have not found the best balance yet. I was able to turn up the overall strength to 15000 and not increase the damper value. Of course this causes crazy shaking. I am working on modified game FFB files that will reduce this shaking wihile leaving the increased strength.

If I am successful in this then it would workout well as an addition to the Commander because we could launch all of these settings simultaneously.

So many projects....so little time


EDIT: Also, the settings shown above are defaults intentionally. Until I understand these values better, I do not want to publish numbers that others will copy/paste into their registry and cause possible damage.

very very very good work!!!!!!! :clap:

Guys, the initial release of this software is going to be delayed approximately 30 days. I was recently ill, plus I am moving. You may have notices that the SimXperience site was temporarily down while I moved. Everything is back online, and I am again making daily progress.

Sounds like fun

Get well soon!
Chrisitan

:yippiee: :thbup:
thanks!!!!

there are news?
:hi:

Thanks for the inquiry guys! I have had to take some time away from the SimXperience Commander for testing of the upcoming DIY motion platform series of products that I am developing. I also stepped away from the project until SirNoName released the new 2.1 software because the two products are very inter-related and I was unsure if any changes that he was making would cause me to waste time and effort. Unfortunately, we use two different programming languages, two different server platforms and also speak two different native languages, so our communication and ability to collaborate is limited.

I am continuing the development of the Commander software. The software will not support the 2.1 version of X-Sim for the initial release. However, it will include support for the X-Sim chat. In this way, the community will remain together and in communication regardless of which solution meets their individual needs.

You can read more about the plans for the SimXperience Commander for X-Sim and see a demo of it here: http://www.simxperience.com/OurSoftware/SimXperienceCommander/tabid/57/Default.aspx

Go Go Bernard!!! :thbup: :thbup:

I'm waiting first release!!!
:hi:
and...

Thanks!!!!! :clap: :clap: