Se state pensando di acquistare (fra i vari modelli disponibili) o di realizzarvi da soli (allora correte in questo topic) un bel volante direct drive, troverete sicuramente molto interessanti questi due video che ci raccontano dell'utilizzo di un volante direct drive con Assetto Corsa e con rFactor 2. Quali sono le differenze? Scopriamolo...

La olandese Cruden, già nota per il suo simulatore di guida professionale (utilizzato anche dalla Bhai Tech), recentemente dedicato anche alle due ruote, ha annunciato oggi la disponibilità di un nuovo volante professionale, replica perfetta, non solo esteticamente ma anche in tutte le funzioni, del volante utilizzato sulle monoposto di Formula E.

Cruden has developed a fully functional Season 3 Formula E steering wheel for use on its driving simulators. Teams in the FIA Formula E Championship for electric-powered racing cars can accelerate data gathering and improve their race strategies with the steering wheel, which has switches and buttons capable of altering the electric powertrain’s characteristics while the car is on the move.
The XAP-made Formula E steering wheel has an integrated dashboard display, five rotary controls, six paddles, and 10 buttons. The driver uses these to monitor and adjust the car’s energy consumption, energy regeneration, battery temperature and optimum engine speed for gear shifts.

The first customer of the fully functional steering wheel is AOTECH, a technical supplier to Formula E teams. The system has been retrofitted to AOTECH’s simulator, located near Paris, which can be hired by teams for driver training or race car development in any motorsport formula. The new steering wheel technology is available to anyone using Cruden’s Panthera ePhyse open architecture simulator software, which will communicate effortlessly with any vehicle model.

“Attaching a fully functional steering wheel to a simulator can help drivers learn these control processes, but the simulator’s greatest value is in enabling engineers to test various settings and strategies to extract the maximum performance from their car’s limited energy reserves by trying out different race scenarios. These scenarios are made all the more realistic because they are driver-in-the-loop simulations,” says Cruden CEO, Maarten van Donselaar.
In keeping with Formula E’s experimental spirit, teams and drivers are encouraged to develop individual ways of managing energy consumption by having the freedom to develop the vehicle’s powertrain, including the possibility to customise the CAN communications protocol between the powertrain’s electronic control unit (ECU) and the steering wheel. This means each team can determine what information is sent to the dashboard display and what functions are assigned to the steering wheel’s rotary controls, paddles and buttons. Although drivers are permitted to talk with their teams by radio during a race, team-to-car telemetry is banned, meaning that all on-the-go changes to car set-up must be made via the steering wheel.

“The way that dashboard information is interpreted and reacted to can make a small but critical difference during a Formula E race. Now that Cruden offers a fully functional steering wheel display and controls, teams can use their simulators with a driver as part of the tool chain to experiment with differing energy management strategies. Far more than just driver training, this is giving teams the kind of information that can give their car a genuinely competitive edge,” concludes van Donselaar.
Teams interested in purchasing a Cruden Formula E simulator with the new steering wheel, or the standalone Cruden Panthera software, should contact Dennis Marcus via d.marcus@cruden.com.

Nel video visibile qui sotto potete ammirare in azione lo spettacolare Vehicle Dynamics Simulator realizzato dalla McLaren in collaborazione con Applied Technologies. Come potete notare dal trailer, si tratta di un simulatore specifico pensato per il testing delle supercar McLaren stradali. Maggiori informazioni sono disponibili a questo indirizzo.

Sempre la Applied Technologies fornisce alcuni consigli a tutti gli appassionati intenzionati a partecipare al prossimo torneo Worlds Fastest Gamer organizzato sempre dalla McLaren.

McLaren Applied Technologies is a high-performance technology company which combines fresh thinking and innovation to solve crucial challenges and improve people's lives in industries as diverse as health, public transport, automotive and motorsport.

Interessante scoop di Inside Simracing alla fiera E3 di Los Angeles: nel video qui sotto possiamo ammirare l'anteprima della nuova base Thrustmaster TS-XW (ovvero la versione per XBox del TS-PC), con il nuovo volante mod Sparco R383, primo frutto evidentemente della partnership annunciata appena ieri.

Direttamente dal E3 Expo di Los Angeles, la Thrustmaster e la Sparco annunciano la firma di un importante accordo di collaborazione, per una sinergia completa dedicata al mondo del simracing. Sarà sicuramente interessante seguire quale sarà l'evoluzione di prodotti ottimi come il TS-PC Racer, il Thrustmaster T500 RS, il Thrustmaster T300 RS o il nuovissimo Thrustmaster T-GT Wheel, in abbinamento con la già nota ed apprezzata linea Sparco Gaming.

THRUSTMASTER® SIGNS A PARTNERSHIP WITH SPARCO®,THE HIGH-QUALITY MOTORSPORTS EQUIPMENT MAKER, TO BE EVEN CLOSER TO THE RACING COMMUNITY
Los Angeles, June 13, 2017 — THRUSTMASTER® is thrilled to announce that it has entered into a partnership with SPARCO® S.p.A. This partnership will allow THRUSTMASTER® to design, develop, produce, market and distribute officially-licensed SPARCO® products in order to add to Thrustmaster’s racing ecosystem, and offer complete high-end racing solutions for pro-level e-racers with Sparco’s gaming range. Sparco is currently celebrating 40 years in motorsports equipment, while Thrustmaster has been developing racing peripherals since 1993. Combining the vast experience of both organizations will serve the e-racing community in its goal of getting as close as possible to the real world of motorsports.

“THRUSTMASTER® ranks among the worldwide market leaders in racing peripherals, and has been in the PC and console video game market since 1993. With the emergence of increasingly realistic virtual worlds, our aim over the coming years is to support the gaming community and develop innovative solutions for hardcore e-racing fans,” explains Davide Brivio, Sparco’s Gaming Program Manager. “With this in mind, teaming up with the worldwide leader in that field felt obvious for SPARCO®. Complementing our own SPARCO® gaming range of racing seats and racing gloves, THRUSTMASTER’s officially-licensed SPARCO® products will offer the gaming community new top racing gear replicating our competition and rally model and spirit.”

“SPARCO® has been a world leader in auto parts and accessories – including racing seats, tuning parts such as racing wheels, and fireproof racing suits, gloves and shoes – since 1977. SPARCO® manufactures for all the most prestigious car brands and has unique expertise in innovative composite and fireproof textiles, having built a very strong reputation in real-word motorsports also reflected in the virtual racing world,” notes Gilles Raulet, THRUSTMASTER’s Development Director. “Our two organizations share common values of passion, quality and innovation, so teaming up with SPARCO® was a totally natural fit for THRUSTMASTER. With eSports growing faster than ever before, e-racers and eSports racing event organizers need more realistic and reliable solutions: thanks to this partnership, the leaders in both the real and virtual racing worlds are pooling our expertise to offer e-racers the most lifelike experience ever.”

Mentre si stanno spalancando le porte del nuovo E3 Expo a Los Angeles, puntualmente la Thrustmaster ci presenta ufficialmente con un completo comunicato stampa il suo nuovo volante denominato Thrustmaster T-GT Wheel.

Los Angeles, June 12, 2017 – The product of an intense collaboration between Thrustmaster’s engineers and the creators of Gran Turismo®, the new T-GT racing wheel is a powerhouse of highly innovative technologies resulting from in-depth research into all of the sensations required for an ultra-realistic racing experience. This research has been the subject of a number of different challenges conquered by Thrustmaster’s development teams.

The T-GT, a powerhouse of major innovations developed for competition, is based upon three fundamental aspects:
1. The T-GT Servo Base’s tailor-made motorization
2. A Gran Turismo® Sport exclusive: T-DFB
3. The T-GT wheel

First innovation: The T-GT Servo Base’s tailor-made motorization
From the very start, Thrustmaster had a clear understanding that in order to accurately reflect all of the sensations provided by the game for a realistic driving experience – particularly in a continuous manner during long competition sessions – every bit of information is crucial.

T-LIN Force Feedback linearity.
The wheel’s power setpoint is completely accurate and 100% proportional, providing a linear response perfectly in line with the Force Feedback commands issued by the game.
The T-GT has been fine-tuned to give exceptionally precise indications to the driver: there is absolutely no over-compensation or under-compensation, for incredibly lifelike force rendering.
Cars’ behavior and track conditions are faithfully reproduced – instantly, along with all accompanying details – throughout long gaming sessions. This enhances drivers’ ability to anticipate what’s coming up ahead in order to improve their performance, break records and win races.

The T-40VE custom brushless motor.
This need for lifelike linearity pushes the boundaries of the motor’s power: that’s why the motor combines velocity, instant responsiveness and intense torque on a constant basis, no matter how many hours the wheel is used for, or how long you’re competing. The wheel provides more refined Force Feedback and stall force – particularly by way of allowing for more simultaneous effects – than was possible in previous generations. The wheel is able to handle considerable power peaks without any reductions in terms of force output.

The T-40VE motor – specially designed, developed and manufactured by Thrustmaster’s R&D teams – meets these needs thanks to T-MCE (Motor-Cooling-Embedded – patent pending) technology, which manages heat transfer and dissipation more efficiently than ever before. The T-40VE incorporates this cooling system right in the very heart of the motor, in a highly constrained and enclosed environment. This combination ensures constant precision in terms of rendering of the T-GT’s performance and effects throughout racing sessions, allowing the driver to experience the full complexity of sensations.
This motor and its innovative cooling system – combined with the optimized T-FOC (Field Oriented Control) algorithm with Hall effect sensors (another of Thrustmaster’s patented technologies) – has the advantage of instantly sensing the wheel’s position with unrivaled accuracy. The wheel dynamically optimizes the response to intense torque demands with lightning-fast speed, switching and avoiding any losses of power.

Second innovation: A Gran Turismo® Sport exclusive: T-DFB
With the same goal of providing even more genuine car racing sensations, T-DFB (Depth Feedback) – a major innovation – introduces a new dimension with respect to Force Feedback.
As a complement to standard Force Feedback, this unique, completely novel system adds a new range of effects including tire adherence (grip or slippage) in understeering and oversteering, mass transfers, road textures and irregularities, suspension and other parameters specific to each vehicle and circuit.
This unique system is a Gran Turismo® Sport exclusive. Polyphony Digital® has encoded all of these parameters and incorporated this new information into the T-DFB system, for a level of in-depth sensations in the steering column that’s never been possible until now. In this way, these two different worlds – racing simulation, and real-world racing – are coming closer together than ever before. The T-GT is a “Real Simulator” in the truest sense.

Third innovation: The T-GT wheel
In addition to these specific sensations and overall feel, in order to create the most lifelike wheel possible, the T-GT now lets drivers be even more responsive in terms of adjusting their car’s settings on the fly during races, without losing a precious millisecond of driving time.

The T-GT wheel features:
• 4 rotary selectors, for direct control of 4 key settings: brake balancing, control of anti-skid systems, torque distribution allocation, and fuel injection mapping.
• 25 possible action buttons: an amount never before available on PS4™.
• 2 customizable mini-sticks: for faster navigation through menus, in photo mode, and more… or for interior cockpit views and peripheral vision.
• Leather specially selected in terms of its grain: the decision was made to select a very smooth texture, among the types and textures of leather available – to facilitate drifting in particular, in the same way as wheels on real race cars. Seams and stitching have been designed to be as inconspicuous to the driver as possible. The leather’s stitching pattern and positioning – avoiding the thumb-rest zone – makes a huge contribution in terms of handling comfort.

The T-GT will be available for purchase to coincide with the launch of the game Gran Turismo® Sport, at a suggested retail price of £699.99.
The T-GT will be composed of the T-GT Servo Base, the detachable T-GT wheel, the custom T-TURBO toroidal power supply, and the three-pedal T3PGT pedal set.
To find out even more about all of the wheel’s different features and the unique experience that it makes possible, be sure to check out T-GT’s website:
http://t-gt.thrustmaster.com

Con il comunicato stampa che potete leggere qui sotto, la Thrustmaster ha finalmente confermato in via ufficiale che il suo nuovo ed attesissimo volante Gran Turismo Sport wheel sarà presentato al prossimo E3 di Los Angeles, dal 13 al 15 giugno. 

Il nome del prodotto, svelato da questo breve trailer, sarà semplicemente Thrustmaster T-GT, dove GT richiama evidentemente la licenza Gran Turismo Sport.

The T-GT is a concentrate of technologies.
>> Discover them in this video
#TGTwheel #Thrustmaster #E32017

Rennes, June 8, 2017 — Thrustmaster® will be taking part in the E3 convention in Los Angeles next week, from June 13-15, with a number of exciting new products and exclusives – both at its booth, and the booths of its partners
Thrustmaster will take this opportunity to unveil four world premieres!
For the first time in the world in public, come check out and get your hands on the new state-of-the-art racing wheel for PS4™ and Gran Turismo Sport, at the Sony PlayStation® booth.
For the Xbox One® and Windows® platforms, you’ll also be able to discover Thrustmaster’s new high-end racing wheel at Microsoft’s Xbox One booth.
Some highlights not to be missed at the Thrustmaster booth:
•    Racing wheels:
o    We’ll be joined by our racing game partners, including Codemasters®.
o    We will also be announcing a new partnership with a world-class automotive supplier, including product demos.

•    Joysticks:
o    Thrustmaster will be teaming up with Frontier Developments for its game Elite Dangerous, with a product exclusive.
o    Get a chance to exclusively explore the new game DCS World F/A F18, announced by Eagle Dynamics just last week.
o    Dovetail Games will also be joining the Thrustmaster team with a demo of its game Flight Sim World®.

Be sure to drop by and immerse yourself in the worlds of both racing simulation and flight sim, with Thrustmaster’s award-winning product lines.
Four racing demo stations and four flying demo stations will be available to let you enjoy a hands-on experience with all of these exciting new releases.

Thrustmaster’s E3 booth: Show floor – South Hall – Booth 2813.
Passion, Quality and Innovation

Dopo il successo ottenuto nel 2013 con la precedente versione Sim3Pedal V2, la giapponese FrexGP ci presenta oggi il suo nuovo modello di pedaliera professionale per il simracing: la Sim3Pedal V3 offre caratteristiche decisamente gustose per ogni simdriver davvero appassionato, come il freno idraulico con sensore di pressione, sensori Hall lineari per gas e frizione, pedali in carbonio, vibrazione al pedale, svariate regolazioni e molto altro ancora.

La Sim3PEDAL v3 può essere acquistata direttamente dallo shop online Frex, al cambio attuale di circa 1200 euro. Commenti a questo link del forum.

FREX Sim3PEDALV3
Realistic Pedal Unit for a PC Race Simulation. 
Hydraulic Brake parts from real car. Linear Hall Sensor on Throttle/Clutch are for accuracy and long life.
Initial tilt angle can be adjust easily to suit to the rig.
Real Carbon Heel Plate.
Input DC 5V, Three 0V-5V Analog output. Use our USB board or DD wheel controller.
Uses real automotive brake fluid.

FREX testing V3 Pedal 26 kg TOKICO shock on Clutch it is not for kids but not strong as Porsche 911RSR clutch that I had regret.

Che Fanatec stesse sviluppando un sistema di sterzo direct drive era ormai un segreto di Pulcinella: diverse indiscrezioni erano comparse nei mesi scorsi su diversi forum, l'ultima delle quale proprio pochi giorni fa in occasione del lancio della nuova base CSL Elite per Playstation 4.
Al fine di mettere a tacere i rumors e dare informazioni precise sullo stato dei lavori, il CEO di Fanatec Thomas Jackermeier ha pubblicato un messaggio ufficiale su sito della casa tedesca. Il comunicato contene diverse informazioni interessanti:

• Fanatec ha costruito un motore direct drive da zero, così da adattarsi al meglio all'uso per cui è previsto, senza dover scendere ai compromessi di motori pensati per altri utilizzi;
• l'idea è di rilasciare motori di diversa potenza, così da soddisfare tutte le esigenze del pubblico
• l'obiettivo principale è il mercato PC, ma quasi sicura è la compatibilità XBox One (mancherà quella PS4, per la prima generazione di volanti)
• verrà introdotto un nuovo sistema di quick release: in presenza di un rim con il vecchio sistema, la potenza della base sarà limitata
• verrà posta particolare attenzione ad eliminare qualsiasi tipo di disturbo elettromagnetico, attualmente tallone d'achille di molte soluzioni fai-da-te

Fanatec conta di presentare questa attesa linea di prodotti al SimRacingExpo di Settembre, salvo poi arrivare al rilascio entro la fine dell'anno. Se volete candidarvi come beta tester potete compilare il form presente a questo link.

Fateci sapere cosa ne pensate: riuscirà Fanatec ad impensierire gli attuali produttori di direct drive?

Come sanno già gli appassionati più attenti, Rubens Barrichello parteciperà come pilota "rookie" alla prossima 24 Ore di Le Mans, in programma nel weekend del 17-18 giugno sul mitico tracciato francese. Il simpatico pilota brasiliano, nonostante la grande esperienza di guida, ha effettuato una intensa sessione di allenamento specifica per la gara di durata nella struttura dedicata del simulatore francese AOTech. Qui di seguito l'intera notizia con un interessante video di presentazione. Commenti sul forum.

Today Friday 2nd June former F1 driver Rubens Barrichello discovered the 13.6-km Sarthe circuit during a training session on the AOTech simulator as required by the Le Mans 24-Hours sporting regulations in view of his first outing in the Le Mans 24 Hours on 17-18 June.

Any driver who has never raced in the Le Mans 24 Hours or who hasn’t taken part in the event in the last five years (all the races since 2012), is classed in the Bronze category or who did not compete in the 2016 race has to spend a day on the simulator to learn the specific characteristics of the Le Mans 24-Hours circuit.  

This simulator session is obligatory no matter what the results* of the driver in question. Thus even though Barrichello holds two records in Formula 1: starts in 322 Grands Prix between 1993 and 2011, and the fastest pole position ever achieved at an average speed of 260 km/h at Monza in 2004, he had to undergo this test to take part in the Le Mans 24 Hours.  
He jokes about his rookie status with good humour: « If I am doing something new, I am rookie, and it makes me younger… (laughs) ».

The Brazilian had to take in the layout as well as the day and night-time racing conditions, traffic management between prototypes and GTs, the location of the marshals posts and the safety procedures: safety car interventions and Slow Zones, the partial neutralisation of sectors of the 24-Hours circuit in which the drivers have to maintain a reduced speed following a race incident. He also discovered a few random incidents like unexpected changes in grip, because the length of the circuit means that drivers may have to race on a track that can be both wet and dry due to localised showers in a sector.   

After a first test session, the pilot expressed what he felt on the eve of Test Day : « I can have an idea of the track and also the traffic, the flags, the Slow Zones and so on. Night driving calls a bit of attention, and the Slow Zones are very useful because you don't lose three minutes in a complete lap. There are some points I got right, others I got wrong but it is better I do that in the simulator than on the real track. For me it is a good thing that my simulator session takes place in the same week as the Test Day. At the simulator, the guys are really well prepared to give you the right piece of advice, so I can play by the rules in race.»
As for his ambitions regarding the race, he added:« The 24 Hours are always in the radar of any racing driver, I am really happy to be here and I think we can do fine.”

After each day’s training AOTech sends a report on each driver to the ACO. These enable the sporting management to keep a close eye on the evolution of the drivers in question during the test day.   

Rubens Barrichello was the last of the 2017 drivers to take the simulator test at AOTech. After the session in the Parisian region he will head for the 24-Hours circuit for the test day on Sunday 4th June. He will drive the no. 29 Dallara-Gibson entered by the Racing Team Nederland in the LM P2 category. He will share the car with two Dutchmen Jan Lammers (who also had to take the simulator test earlier in the season as he had not raced in the Le Mans 24 Hours since 2011) with 22 starts in the Le Mans 24 Hours including victory in the Sarthe in 1988 in a Jaguar, and Frits Van Eerd.