crime

With all that independent simulations of every part of the helo, a low speed crash must be something spectacular to see. For example, hitting a building with the rotors while stationary and see how it all develops.

I play with a z800. As I said before, the small FOV and low resolution makes it a device for people who really likes these things. Not a device for the masses yet, but I prefer it over the greatest 2D display. And yes, you can get sick the firsts weeks while you get used to the stereoscopic graphics and the slightly lagged headtracking, specially if you wear it for too long. Maybe I'm not getting it right, but, is people who spent hours pretending that they fly things that don't exist, that don't move a cm from where they are no matter how long they are in a cockpit that doesn't exist anywhere but in the condensers of their RAM making fun of computer devices?

urze, you are right again. If you want to use the systems fast a touchscreen is optimum. I once had a touchscreen at work for some weeks and spent the hours thinking how great it would be for flight simulators. Unfortunately never had a chance to try. What happens is that I have always been very attracted by virtual reality and all these kind of devices got me very excited thinking in their posibilities. I was just thinking that the best part of a haptic device is that once you grab something in the cockpit the device *becomes* that thing. If it is a 2 positions slide switch, you could feel the initial resistance and then click!, the switch snaps. If it is a push button then it would be like click! clack! And levers, if it has detent positions and you have to displace laterally to be able to move it then you could feel how it is blocked till you do that lateral movement. And, so on.... I was thinking about all this and decided to reconnect to share it, and then I saw your post that opened my eyes. All these simply don't fit in a COMBAT flight simulator. But.... isn't it cool? :prop:

I think the same, but that device seems to fit specially well for a 3D cockpit manipulation, if supported by the software. And that haptics capability makes it really interesting, it would allow to feel the switches and levers.

I think that the novint falcon is a way to go. By the way, has any BS tester tried to run BS in stereoscopic?

I bet for computer controlled, I think it's quiet normal nowadays. But, maybe, it has a throttle anyway for manual control in emergencies.

Errrr... it seems that I just can't express myself properly in english and will never do :dunno: Sorry for the confusion CAT.

Anyway it seems to be a lot easier to fly than a convetional helicopter (with anti-torque rotor at the tail). Is that right?

The X52 uses non-contact sensors (effect hall sensors) on the X and Y axis. They never wear out and have absolute precission (the signals never shiver, I haven't seen that on my previous sticks). I have seen that some people changes the pots of the Cougar for effect hall sensors (I great solution for such a great HOTAS). Unfortunately none of the rest axis, including the throttle axis, use this kind of sensor (even in the pro version :-/). And, what is worst, their precission changes with temperature. You can find yourself with a throttle that shivers a lot and with a lost of about 20% of its range in a hot summer day. The characteristic x52 stick looseness makes it good for helicopter sims. Some people takes the spring off completely. A stick without centering mechanism is supposes to fit better for helicopter simulation. Yes, most people don't like how loosen it feels, but all I can say is that I get so used to it that when I try a "nomal" stick I have problems to control with precission.:joystick:

I think that a powerful home simulation system would consist of several networked PC's, each one specialized in a task. One for user input/ouput, another for physics simulation, another for graphics rendering and one more for AI, for example. The network would go like crazy with all the data that needs to be shared. A theoretical model would be needed to calculate the increase of performance over a single computer (if any) to see if it's really worth or not, but intuitively it seems like it should be. Or maybe the network bandwidth isn't just big enough, don't know. But it probably would depend a lot on the simulation design. Maybe one designed from the ground up to run in a distributed system could work. Flightgear allows to have a second computer calculating the flight model, but I've never been able to try it. I always have problems to run flightgear in the standard way.

I suppose that everybody knows about this: http://www.force-dynamics.com/ It simulates accelerations, not motion/position. I once took a ride in a motion simulator in a funfair. It only moved the seat to the position of the virtual roller-coaster wagon instead of trying to simulate the acceleration. Very frustrating. But it looks like the guys at force dynamics are doing it right, very right.

Based on what vr920 owners say, it seems that its headtracker is even worst than the one in the z800. At least it allows good stereoscopic gaming... if you don't care about reading instruments.... only 640x480 :huh:

I have the eMagin z800 from more than a year. It has a 3DOF head tracker that doesn't work very well, 800x600 and narrow FOV. Despite all that, it has changed they way I enjoy simulation permanently. There's nothing like looking around naturally in a stereoscopic 3D cockpit. But I wouldn't recommend it to anyone! I hope the future will bring a better experience, with HMD's or whatever. That device from emotiv.com looks like science fiction. Have you tried it, or anyone?

Will BS run at 800x600, at least when the 3D window is launched?

The number of buyers has increased enormously.