Great news for people who spend their spare time pretending to be racing car drivers, because after several successful shows in Germany, SimRacing Expo made its first appearance in North America at the home of NASCAR, Charlotte, North Carolina.
Gathering together some of the biggest names in sim racing hardware and software, the three-day show was an opportunity for punters to test the latest gear. Naturally, Top Gear was also there, making a very early start on the Christmas list. Here are the coolest things we saw...
1) SimCraft Apex 6 GT
Easily the most expensive piece of equipment we sampled was the SimCraft Apex 6 GT at a wallet-igniting $150,000 (around P9.23 million). According to SimCraft, its NASA-style six degrees of freedom offer the most authentic recreation of the forces experienced in a racing car.
As part of this, SimCraft engineers methodically create a unique ‘neural fingerprint’ to ensure that the movement of the sim matches your own individual sensitivity to motion. Having tried it, the result is a motion sim that melts into the background rather than just shaking the fillings out of your teeth. Of course, at that price, it’s all fun and games until you have to saw the thing in half as part of the inevitable divorce settlement.
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2) GameSir Swift Drive
At the opposite end of the financial spectrum is the GameSir Swift Drive, possibly the revelation of the entire show. Planned to cost around $200 (around P12,316) when it releases at the end of the year, this PC and console controller packs a fully featured, direct drive force feedback steering wheel into something that can be carried around without risking a slipped disc.
We were expecting to have to spend hours getting to grips with twiddling the tiny wheel with our thumbs, but instead it was immediately intuitive, and we were surprised to find ourselves instantly on the pace. What’s more, somehow it’s wireless and battery powered. If you want to combine accurate force feedback with the ability to slouch near-horizontally on a sofa, this is going to be essential...
3) D-Box
Not to be confused with the thing cricketers wear to protect their nether regions, D-Box is a motion specialist best known for shaking cinemagoers around during their screenings of action movies. The company has had a long-running sideline in sim equipment with a set of four actuators starting at around $8,000 (around P492,464) and, in a different approach from SimCraft’s offering, brings a Hollywood sensibility to simracing motion. Data from the game is fleshed out in real-time by D-Box’s software, using a vast palette of additional motion effects.
The result is a spectacular rollercoaster ride as you lunge into corners and clatter over kerbs. Do you think for that price they’ll chuck in a box of popcorn?
4) Trak Racer TRZ
Motorcycle racers have our sympathy. Not only do they have to wear a leather baby-gro to work, but they also don’t have readily available simulators to practice on. Trak Racer aims to change that with the first consumer-grade, full-sized motorcycle sim, which will release at the frankly astonishing price of just €2,000 (around P142,670).
Featuring separated leaning and handlebar controls, foot-operated gear shifting and haptic vibrations beneath the seat, it's all the fun of high-speed bike racing with none of the cartwheeling accidents. Trak Racer admits that the software still doesn’t offer as much telemetry as it’d like, but if this thing is half as popular as we think it is, game developers will be quick to adopt it. Leather baby-gro entirely optional...
5) BDH Active Shifter
If you like to flit between different sims and different cars, you’ll have run into the problem that a single sim setup can't possibly match every vehicle. British manufacturer BDH has come up with a novel solution to at least part of that problem with the BDH Active Shifter.
It’s pricey at £1,850 (around P152,766), but this robust, entirely mechanical H-pattern gear selector can be reconfigured instantly, using force feedback, to match anything from a three-speed to a seven-speed gearbox, in multiple different layouts. It can even simulate failure to engage a gear if you didn’t use the clutch properly. Just what we needed, a brand new way to embarrass ourselves in the sim...
6) Heusinkveld DisplayDash
Visible from pretty much wherever you were on the expo floor, the prototype Heusinkveld Display Dash is the Piccadilly Circus of button boxes. Combining four separate customizable touchscreens, an aluminum chassis, and more knobs than a parking attendant convention, it puts just about any conceivable setting in a modern racecar at your fingertips. And with live-updated values that can be easily read, even if you’re locked in battle with another driver and plunging towards a hairpin, there’s no need to apply a bunch of fiddly stickers to remind you what everything does.
We’ve often felt that with most simracing wheels already festooned with buttons that an additional button box is a needless luxury, but this should convince anyone on the fence about adding yet another component to their sim setup...
NOTE: This story first appeared on TopGear.com. Minor edits have been made.
