The Perfect Simulator

There was a story by Borges about cartographers who, in their obsession to design the perfect map of the Empire, ended up making the map as big as the Empire they wanted to represent. A map that coincided, millimeter by millimeter, with the real world. Borges, without knowing it, was talking about the last frontier of simulation: that the virtual mimics reality so much that it leaves no trace of doubt between the two. The Rigor of Science, he called it. Realistic simulation, we would call it.

How many real pieces would we need to recreate 100% of reality? What would be the minimum viable to deceive our senses and make the virtual pass for the real? Our Borges map is the circuits, the cars that go through them and the sensations generated by the sum of all the variables. The better this devilish, non-linear and chaotic algorithm is, the greater the fidelity between the whole of reality and our virtual passion.

Unfortunately, from an analytical point of view, we will always lose. The variables are infinite: every real nanosecond, a ton of highly complex mechanical parts react with each other to every crack, every texture and every change in level of a road that expands with heat, gets dirty with use and becomes as intricate in the chicanes as it is eternal on the straights. It deforms and wears out a tire, which in turn pushes a screw on the rear shock absorber so that its vibration finally reaches the steering wheel. Everything matters and everything influences. A thousand gears in between that end up in the driver’s sensory perception. How can we condense all this and bring it to our cockpits?

The steering wheels (rim + base) have been, for a long time, the only way to transform the simulation data into a force that could transmit the context of the circuit, from the inertias generated by the cars themselves to the counter resistances of the asphalt. In the absence of other gadgets that provide other types of haptics (vibrations, movement, wind…), in simRacing the deception must pass only through our hands. And it is them, with the help of vision (screens or VR), that simulation hardware manufacturers have to convince. Hence, during the last decade many enthusiasts devoted themselves to try to tame the industrial engines that moved the factories and abandon the ribbons and plastics of the usual “video game” steering wheels. They had to find something fast and strong enough to be able to enclose all the circuits and cars in the world. Years later, they seem to have succeeded.

SIMUCUBE 2 ULTIMATE is the latest – bolder and braver – attempt to simulate the reality of driving. Or rather, it is the best attempt to interpret the telemetry that each game/simulator software generates in real time (and here, among those data, is the key to everything). Because it is the game/simulator who decides which effects are sent to any of the bases/wheels/joystick connected to our PC.

We call this data that any simulator sends to the outside Force Feedback, and its language is defined by a protocol designed by Microsoft more than twenty years ago called DirectInput. So, when our car takes the curve, the game has programmed that if our wheel touches the piano it will use a DirectInput message to send a vibration to the base. By modifying in real time the duration of the vibration, the frequency at which it vibrates and the intensity, it will try to trick our hands so that our brain thinks that we have stepped on that curb.

Can you imagine if each game/simulator had to talk to each base/wheel manufacturer separately? It would be an impossible madness because of updates, new versions, new hardware… To get everyone on the same page, Microsoft (Windows), left an instruction manual with the intention that both game/simulator developers and gamepad/flywheel/joystick manufacturers would know what to expect.

So, when Thrustmaster, Fanatec or SimuCube create the interface of their new engines in their labs, they do it already thinking about the standard data that the games/simulators will send them. To be clear: the magic is born in the game software we use. The base just interprets.

Knowing all this, when contemplating the 15 kilos of weight of the SIMUCUBE 2 ULTIMATE and the Force Feedback (DirectInput) it will receive, several questions arise: how much of what we will feel will be generated by the simulator, how much telemetry will be lost along the way and how much will the internal algorithm of each base invent? With what degree of fidelity are we simulating reality? Is the telemetry of the game good or sufficient? Are we getting all it can do out of our equipment? And finally, the question that in our opinion sums it all up: will this base make us faster or would it be better to live without so much realism -without so much rigor, as Borges would say- to improve times?

SIMUCUBE 2 ULTIMATE

32 Newtons per meter of force maintained (and 40nm of peak) are at the service of a good amount of proprietary filters of the SimuCube software to work the magic of the simulation. These filters, in turn, drink and process the data sent by the game software while we run (Force Feedback through DirectInput). Being a chain of messages in real time, dependent, moreover, on several systems, we come to the first difficulty that all racing simulation equipment goes through: this is not a Joystick or a gas lever. It is not a device that you turn on, touch two buttons and run. SIMUCUBE 2 ULTIMATE, just like the rest of the models of any other brand, also needs a configuration that, if it fails, could well ruin all the work Granite has invested in it and turn it into a boring, weak base, or on the contrary, into a piece of immobile junk.

That’s why in all the forums the typical question is asked every day: And if it’s so complicated to configure, why don’t these bases come from the factory ready to work out of the box? The reason – though obvious – is not without its problems: every car, on every track, will send different telemetry and every user will want to feel something different. Therefore, each scenario will require a customized configuration. Hence, some games/simulators add a tab to configure each car separately. Welcome, drivers, to the crazy world of the virtual workshop.

THE SECRET IS IN THE DETAILS

Having clear the path that the telemetry of the game takes from the moment we step on the accelerator and reaches our ULTIMATE (or any other base) is key to find the profile that we like the most without touching all the values randomly hoping that the gods of Simracing will give us a hand. That, drivers, never works out well.

Each of these links – pieces of software with their own configuration menus – will affect the next one in a very decisive way, and therefore, the final feel of the hardware. As we have already discussed, everything has an influence.

In this series of articles we are preparing for you, we would like to reflect together with you on each and every one of the concepts -software and hardware- that transmit sensations at the wheel; what they do, why they do it and how it will benefit or harm us if we adjust them wrongly. We will go slowly, with examples, from the most general to the last of the screws of our base. And if you allow us, and since we are lucky enough to test the crown jewel of the simulation, we will use this SIMUCUBE 2 ULTIMATE from Granite as a common thread.

THE MYSTIQUE OF TORQUE AND WHY IN SIMRACING IT SHOULDN’T HAVE MUCH TO DO WITH STRENGTH

It’s a shared fact that when we talk about our bases with our colleagues or partners, we don’t apply terms like “it’s malleable” or “the texture feels aggressive”. In simRacing, subtleties are usually left for when we extend braking to mid-corner or insult an opponent. Off the track, we refer to our bases and steering wheels with phrases such as “that’ll kick the crap out of your hands”. Because at heart, we are brute force. The more the better. But what do we mean by power in simRacing? Why is it so important but at the same time so unnecessary from a certain point of view? Why does one engine with more torque cost so much money than another?

The force, we were told when we studied in the fourth year of EGB (the same in ESO, in the LOGSE or under the acronym that you have been given in your generation), is measured in Newtons. Put a liter of beer on the floor and kick it. If the bottle moves away from you one meter in one second, then your leg will have produced a force of one newton (and you will have run out of beer). But if it is an object that we want to rotate as the shaft of a car engine, as when your hand pushes the door of the house or in our case, when the SimuCube 2 ULTIMATE engine rotates the ring that we have attached to the Quick release?

If it rotates, the forces generated in the rotation will be called “Moment of Force”, “motor torque”, “torque” or simply: Torque. Let’s add from where we apply the exerted force (the length from where that rotating force is produced) and we have before us one of the most important concepts of daily life: torque measures the force in relation to the distance between the handle of your door and the hinge installed on the frame that makes it rotate. Or it also measures the force of tightening a nut and how far your hand grips the wrench. It also measures the most common, the strength of your muscles when you turn your neck in Virtual Reality to follow with your eyes how the first one is bending you. Now, if reading it is still not enough and you want to feel the “sensation” of Torque force in your body, go to the kitchen, hold a liter of milk with your arm extended in front of the fridge and the torque you feel in your shoulder for the tetrabrick will be -more or less- around 6Nm (65cm of arm x 1 kg of weight x 9.8m/s^2 acceleration of the earth’s gravity). Spend a minute like that and you won’t need to go to the gym today. Or imagine that instead of 1 tetrabrick you hold 6 or 7 tetrabricks like a Saolin warrior, and you will be “suffering” in your flesh the force of a SIMUCUBE 2 ULTIMATE.

As marketing knows that many of us like to simplify everything and jump headlong into anything that shines, preaching on their websites the value of the torque generated by their base suits them perfectly. That’s why, for some time now, that magic force number has become the main claim in any manufacturer’s catalog. If yours has “only” a torque of 5 newtons/metre, mine has 12. It’s stronger. It is better. And if I’ve bought two extra power supplies and installed them in parallel, it will spin harder than the drum of your washing machine when it spins. Sometimes, pilots, it seems that the torque of our bases is more a matter of balls/meters than the quality of the base itself.

How does this translate to simulation? Is it the Holy Grail of simRacing that our arms are broken and we need to race almost with four hands? How many Newtons/Meters are enough to simulate a real racing car? If you remember, above we talked about kicking liters of beer. Then we talked about the length of your arms. In physics, as in racing, everything is connected. And it has been known for centuries that knowing what a motor consumes and the force it claims to have, that can be translated into rotational speed and vice versa. And here comes the most important thing: the torque of our bases could hold the secret that makes a hardware better or worse than its opposite. The relationship between speed (number of turns per minute) and its force is the key. Do you also remember when we talked about force feedback messages, the data sent by the game/simulator via USB to our base? Having a lot of force (torque) will allow the base to react to that force feedback data much faster than one with less torque. It is, simRaceros, like everything in our hobby – both on and off the track – again a matter of speed.

With this in mind we could reflect that to interpret with reliability and agility the telemetry data of the circuit/car will not be the force, but how fast the steering wheel will “understand” that we are stepping on a piano, we go through a curve or when the game/simulator tells us that we are skidding. It is a question of reliable transmission of information. If the base has a lot of torque, it will also have reaction speed and in a hundredth of a second it will be able to tell you that you have stepped on a blade of grass at the exit of turn eight at Sebring, then move from left to right to tell you that one of the wheels is in the air and in the time it still has left over, whisper to you that you are accelerating harder than you should be. With SIMUCUBE 2 ULTIMATE, the base will even have a fraction of extra time to explain to you that the shock absorber seal is expanding.

But what would happen if we have a lower power base? A simple steering wheel, with a very limited torque, will receive the same feedback data and will try to simulate the grass you stepped on just like the SIMUCUBE 2 ULTIMATE, however it will not have enough agility (speed) during that hundredth of a second to also express the effect of a wheel in the air, how fast you are going, the bump in the asphalt or the dilation of the shock absorber. You will try your best, although the probability that, due to inertia and your lack of torque, everything will be mixed up or wrong is great. All the details will be hidden after that first sudden movement. The experience, therefore, will change radically between a base with a large torque and a base with a smaller torque.

You will say that the force also influences. That unlike in cars, in simulation the base not only has to transmit the telemetry but also fight against the user to keep the steering wheel where the telemetry says. Because during the race, your arms exert an opposing force to counteract what the car does and it is important that the base does not yield or creak under your pressure. And you’re right. When you hit the wall, a SIMUCUBE 2 ULTIMATE will allow its 40Nm peak to give you a whiplash that could have your neighbor knocking on your door a minute later to give you back half the fingers you’ve lost. Also the force will allow you to more accurately feel every bit of telemetry. However, the final force of the steering wheel is a value that in simRacing remains more on the plane of subjectivity.

For the moment, while waiting to start with the data in the next article, stay with what Borges said: the more torque, the bigger the map that simulates the real thing and therefore the Rigor of Science in driving would be greater. More details. More enriching. Because as they explained to us at school when we were punished, not everything is a matter of strength, although the SIMUCUBE 2 ULTIMATE has plenty of it.