Motion-Sim 4DOF racing simulator will take your retirement fund for the ride of its life (video)
By Tim Stevens 
posted March 10th 2010 8:18AM
posted March 10th 2010 8:18AM
Race simulators like rFactor or iRacing offer the kind of gaming experience only available this side of a six-point harness, particularly when combined with a wheel like Logitech's G27, but sometimes it's a little difficult to get into the game when perched on an office chair. The 4DOF racing simulator from Motion-Sim will provides the missing link with a somewhat dangerous looking combination of pistons and articulating arms. It's been around for a few months but we're just now getting a chance to check out the thing in motion -- pitch, roll, yaw, and heave to be specific, with a harness of its own to keep the latter of those forces from sending you across the room whilst braking for La Source. It's only available to PC simmers (games like Gran Turismo and Forza don't provide the necessary output) and only the very richest ones: €18,450.00 for the home version, or $25,000 -- enough to get into a Formula Ford and onto a real track if you wanted. For everyone else we have two infinitely more affordable videos embedded below, one showing frantic F1 action, the other rallycrossing in Live for Speed.Update: We got an e-mail from David at Force Dynamics who wanted to clarify that, despite the striking similarity between this unit and the similarly awesome simulators produced by his company, they are not in any way related.
Want!
@microlomaniac You should check out the force dynamics guys.
http://www.force-dynamics.com/
their tech is also much more expensive
$25K? Hell, I can experience a dizzying, wobbly racing experience just by driving home from happy hour.
I kid.
For that price is should have a 3 screen panoramic view.
@bigsofty
For under $5k you can have a motion chair and 3 large LCDs easily. Here is an example, and I believe his setup was around $5-6k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZBN8T_7EWc
And here is the DIY forum for building them
http://www.x-simulator.de/forum/
Or you can buy the motion chair for $2k
http://simxperience.com/
@PDAisAok But the chair seems much less impressive. The steering wheel is not moving along and he is hardly moving... I don't think you can feel as much acceleration etc. as with the 4DOF thing...
"Race simulators like rFactor or iRacing offer the kind of gaming experience only available this side of a six-point harness"
are you sure that's what you wanted to say?
@mrqs Window Net could have been a little better no?
Ah yes, another item for my dream house wish list. I have a fricking amazing dream house, you should see it.
Judging from the website they are simply a distributor... It looks like it might be a unit from http://www.force-dynamics.com/
@Oli
I just took a look at the Force Dynamics web site. This unit seems most similar in function to the 401, but they appear VERY different. I don't think they're a distributor.
I also noticed that this unit seems a lot quieter than the Force Dynamics one. In the video for the 401, I heard a lot of rattling sheet metal that I just didn't hear in these videos.
Not the biggest fan of such products
but the tittle did make me chuckle!
@wolverine
LOL "tittle" made me chuckle.
On another note, does anyone else feel like the quick up and down jolting of this thing probably doesn't do that great of a job simulating the g-forces exerted on your body while hard accelerating and braking? IMO, you truly can't simulate the motion of going 0-200 in real life on a stationary device. Is there something I'm missing?
I hate where the shifter is placed. So much for realistic.
@Antithesis
That is sorta where you want the shifter i know people that have spent thousands to get their shifter up closer to eye level.....
http://www.lfs.net/
http://www.lfsforum.net/
say hello to kidcodea for me ;)
It's not that new i remember it 3-4 years ago. And company was named "force dynamics" then. I guess it's just a europe distributor.
For $25K, I'd just buy/build a REAL race car and go Auto-X and hill climb.
It doesn't cost that much to auto x, and much more to competitively road race.
The Force Dynamics rigs look smoother and less exaggerated. Thats where my $25k would go if I were to over compensate on a race sim rig :)
http://force-dynamics.com/
@sethmo That SNES Super Mario Kart video is pretty funny, and yes their rig looks great. Not sure which is better, but I'd sure like to try that SMK setup.
@phorq
Nice advertising.
I'm pretty sure Engadget doesn't like that.
what the heck... the guy is driving around a flat/blank race track.. So why in the world is the chair excessively moving up and down.. Plus, he turns left and the chair banks right... dumb.
@E2E That is how it works in real life. When you turn left in your car where does the g-force send you? To the right.
@E2E
You should try to drive a real car one of this days :-)
@E2E
lrn2drive.
okay you got me, haha.. but it's extremely exaggerated. with all the camera coverage for real racing....I dont see drivers getting tossed around unless it's off-road....
but no remarks on the up and down motion... yea, that's really realistic...not ( well at least not in a racing sim driving around a flat track.
with all the camera coverage for racing.
@E2E Up and down = acceleration and braking.
You might want to do some research before criticizing.
@wobbl
While E2E may be a little confused on lateral g-forces, I do agree that this is somewhat unrealistic. You simply can't reproduce the forces exerted on a real track under real acceleration and braking in a stationary seat. I'm sure it does a commendable job, but it's not the same.
@E2E
The tilting of the machine is not to simulate car movement (notice the point of reference in terms of the user to the screen is always roughly the same, since the screen is attached to the seat). The purpose is to simulate forces (acceleration G, braking G, lateral G) in a car. The simulator depends on gravity to provide force by tilting you.
A lot of motion simulators simply simulate car movement (suspension tilt and rumble from bumps in the road), but this doesn't really simulate the full experience of racing, where you feel a lot of different forces in all directions, and not simply car movement. This is the primary reason why a lot of video game racers can't do anywhere near the same times in the track even if they are into simulation racing: they just aren't prepared for the G-Forces they feel on the track.
@Mr Oos Its the way all motion simulators do it. Even in the military.
It works pretty well if you remove contradicting visual input. In this case you could just dim the lights so you don't notice the room that you're in. Then the brain gets the proper inputs through the eyes and a good approximation through your butt.
@E2E http://www.force-dynamics.com/motion/ This website explains how these simulators work, and why the motions the thing is going through are probably pretty realistic. The point is to let you feel acceleration too, and that happens by leaning you back etc.
Is it bad that I want one of these?
Braking for La Source??? Wimps! Real men take that corner flat out!
This thing is WAY overpriced. You can get yourself a 2DOF motion setup for under $2,000 that will work with several racing and flying sims on the pc.
http://www.simxperience.com/
or you can go the DIY route.
http://www.x-simulator.de/forum/
Either way a motion setup will cost you around $2,000 for the motion chair itself. I just discovered this DIY community about 2 months ago and it's pretty freaking amazing what they do. SimXperience is also as cheap or cheaper than building it yourself. I was going to build one myself but found it cheaper to just get one from them
So what does this thing do when you slam into a wall or go flipping through the air?
This has me pining for my old BRD Race Frame and GPL. I can't believe it's been nearly 5 years since I turned a lap in a race sim.
Now that is awesome. Since i can't have that on my Xbox, can i get it in the arcade? Is it me or in the second video does it sound like a screw falls out?
If they were offering it with 2 more monitors and Eyefinity setup, I would have taken it.
Pretty cool, but too bad the setup of it doesnt look cool. Theres strings flying back and forth, parts banging into eachother. So if they would fix the rustyness of it. Then it would be pretty sick.
OMG. That in a dark room, and with 3DTV = Heaven.