Sit down, steering wheel cabs

[Shmizzle]

Just bought a pretty cool empty sit down cab with a steering wheel. I bought it planning to build a second cab for all the car games that just aren't logical with the standard.

Just wondering if anyone here has successfully built one. What emus are you using? Steering wheel?

What are your thought on it?

I couldn't resist! Cheap, cool looking cabs are my weakness...

[NizZ8]

If you didn't want to put a PC in there, you could grab an xbox360 and the 360 racing wheel for some pure awesomeness.

For my place i got one of the playseats evolution ( http://www.playseatsusa.biz/ ) and have it setup with both the 360 wheel and the Ace Combat 6 flight stick for some overwhelming gaming action.

Games: DiRT / Forza motorsport / PGR3/4 / Burnout / Test Drive... All a blast to play (DiRT is my favorite by far though ).

[Shmizzle]

Yeah I noticed a lot of people use xbox's in these. Is that because a lot of car games run real slow in MAME?

[NizZ8]

  Shmizzle said:

Yeah I noticed a lot of people use xbox's in these. Is that because a lot of car games run real slow in MAME?

I think it is because the 360 racing games are just a blast to play ...

[shaunopp]

  NizZ8 said:

If you didn't want to put a PC in there, you could grab an xbox360 and the 360 racing wheel for some pure awesomeness.

For my place i got one of the playseats evolution ( http://www.playseatsusa.biz/ ) and have it setup with both the 360 wheel and the Ace Combat 6 flight stick for some overwhelming gaming action.

Games: DiRT / Forza motorsport / PGR3/4 / Burnout / Test Drive... All a blast to play (DiRT is my favorite by far though ).

Whoa, those are cool. Suddenly I need one. Damn you NizZ8!

Glad somebody asked about this, I've thought about building or 'remodeling' one for awhile. I think given the quality & fun of the 360 games vs. mame plus the smaller form factor these chairs they may be a better route. How $$ are they, the site is kindof crap. Could probably build something similar for less...

[NizZ8]

  shaunopp said:

Whoa, those are cool. Suddenly I need one. Damn you NizZ8!

Glad somebody asked about this, I've thought about building or 'remodeling' one for awhile. I think given the quality & fun of the 360 games vs. mame plus the smaller form factor these chairs they may be a better route. How $$ are they, the site is kindof crap. Could probably build something similar for less...

Lol nice ... Yeah make sure you get the "Evolution" model if your looking to buy now as they have a couple different types floating around... I guess they are also releasing some new models here sometime this year for Flight games and a S/V model (not sure what that stands for).

That along with one of these hooked up to the seat ( http://www.amazon.com/Buttkicker-BK-GR-But...6106&sr=8-5 ) approx 5 feet away from my 120" screen makes for some serious racing/flying madness .

I'll snap a few pix of the setup if anyone is interested--should also put some up of my cab now that it's nearing completion.

oh and price is approx 299$ or so... I picked up one of the black ones from an Ebay seller about 6 months or so back... It's a pretty slick seat with plenty of adjustments out of box along with some decent (though a bit pricey) accessories you can add to it to make it even easier to adjust (my fav is the seat slider--they have pix of it under the "Accessories" link on their site).

[bkenobi]

In case you choose to go the PC route, I can help out a bit. I built a cab based on a Championship Sprint cabinet. Let me know if you are interested in any details or help with choices. No biggie either way.

[Shmizzle]

  bkenobi said:

In case you choose to go the PC route, I can help out a bit. I built a cab based on a Championship Sprint cabinet. Let me know if you are interested in any details or help with choices. No biggie either way.

Yes! Please tell...

[bkenobi]

Well, first things first. What are your goals of this cabinet? Are you looking to play a specific game or set of games, or are you trying to play ALL racing games? I personally was most interested in games like Super Sprint, Championship Sprint, Super Off Road, Super Off Road Track Pack, Danny Sullivan Indy Heat, etc. I also wanted to play all the other games, but those were my goal initially. I did a bunch of research and found that there are 2 types of steering wheels used in games (270° and 360°). I assume you've done some research so you know that a 270° wheel is spring loaded to recenter and can rotate 135° in either direction before it hits a hard stop whereas the 360° wheels can spin continuously.

Turns out that all of those games I want to play use 360° steering wheels (duh) and they were all emulated well. The other games were purportedly playable with a 360° wheel but the reverse is not true (you can't play Off Road with a 270° wheel). I can get more into it if you want, just let me know what you are interested in hearing so I don't ramble on and on just to see myself type...

[shaunopp]

  bkenobi said:

Well, first things first. What are your goals of this cabinet? Are you looking to play a specific game or set of games, or are you trying to play ALL racing games? I personally was most interested in games like Super Sprint, Championship Sprint, Super Off Road, Super Off Road Track Pack, Danny Sullivan Indy Heat, etc. I also wanted to play all the other games, but those were my goal initially. I did a bunch of research and found that there are 2 types of steering wheels used in games (270° and 360°). I assume you've done some research so you know that a 270° wheel is spring loaded to recenter and can rotate 135° in either direction before it hits a hard stop whereas the 360° wheels can spin continuously.

Turns out that all of those games I want to play use 360° steering wheels (duh) and they were all emulated well. The other games were purportedly playable with a 360° wheel but the reverse is not true (you can't play Off Road with a 270° wheel). I can get more into it if you want, just let me know what you are interested in hearing so I don't ramble on and on just to see myself type...

I'm a big fan of Super Sprint and some other mame driving games but I can't justify dedicating a whole cab (both space and cost) just for them. Up til now I've used a usb (MS Sidwinder) clamp on steering wheel to play those games or the spinner. The sidewinder isn't 360º which sucks for games like Super Sprint, sensitivity is an issue and there isn't room for two of them for 2 players. Has anyone tried the little steering wheels that attaches to your spinner that groovy game gear sells? Looked interesting to me, making a mini 360º steering wheel out of the spinner.

[shaunopp]

  NizZ8 said:

Lol nice ... Yeah make sure you get the "Evolution" model if your looking to buy now as they have a couple different types floating around... I guess they are also releasing some new models here sometime this year for Flight games and a S/V model (not sure what that stands for).

That along with one of these hooked up to the seat ( http://www.amazon.com/Buttkicker-BK-GR-But...6106&sr=8-5 ) approx 5 feet away from my 120" screen makes for some serious racing/flying madness .

I'll snap a few pix of the setup if anyone is interested--should also put some up of my cab now that it's nearing completion.

oh and price is approx 299$ or so... I picked up one of the black ones from an Ebay seller about 6 months or so back... It's a pretty slick seat with plenty of adjustments out of box along with some decent (though a bit pricey) accessories you can add to it to make it even easier to adjust (my fav is the seat slider--they have pix of it under the "Accessories" link on their site).

Cool, thanks for the info, not as expensive as I thought. Sounds like a sweet setup. This is more intriguing to me building a cab for mame driving games.

[bkenobi]

Yeah, if you don't want to dedicate a whole cab to just racing games played through MAME and want to get others in it as well, then I HIGHLY recommend AGAINST 360 wheels. They are truly a ton of fun and I enjoy those games enough to make it worth it for me, but if you want to play other systems games, then 270 is DEFINITELY the way to go. There are a couple options on that front.

1) Pick up a Dreamcast and Dreamcast Steering wheel. There's been several cabs done this way for examples and since Dreamcast had a bunch of direct arcade ports, you would be able to play those unplayable MAME games on your cab. You would be able to play some MAME games on there too since there's a build of MAME for the Dreamcast.

2) Pick up an XBox and XBox steering wheel. Same as the Dreamcast but better. There aren't as many direct ports, but there are a ton of racing games that are a lot of fun and since it's hackable, you can boot everything off of it without the need to swap discs if you don't want. Also, since the controllers are USB (with a different plug), if you want to switch to a PC, you could do it easily with the same controls.

3) Find a Logitec or other steering wheel system for the PC. Again, 270 wheels here and since the PC has a bunch of games as well as access to MAME and all other systems, this is probably the best way to go if you don't have one of the aforementioned consoles or the desire to hack a system a different way.

4) I've seen designs for a switchable 270/360 wheel floating around and even rumors that some company might build a batch, but I don't think it's ever come to fruition. This design basically takes a 360 wheel and adds a pair of centering springs and hard stops that can be disabled. The idea is that you get both the 360 and 270 without costing extra space or swappable hardware. The concept is good, but I don't think anything was ever finalized despite the reasonably large interest for it. I don't remember where the thread was at byoac, but if you search the forum, it should pop up pretty easily. Heck, if you ask in that thread, there might even be some movement that wasn't mentioned. If you do ask and they respond, PLEASE report here so I can check into it as well!

5) Swappable controls. Get a 360 wheel off ebay and a 270 from wherever and make a swappable CP for the 2. I don't like this method because it's not intuitive for end users other than the builder to use. I suggested this concept to my wife and it looked like the cab may stay in the garage if it had 2 CP's.

Just some of my thoughts.

[LB11]

  Quote

4) I've seen designs for a switchable 270/360 wheel floating around and even rumors that some company might build a batch, but I don't think it's ever come to fruition. This design basically takes a 360 wheel and adds a pair of centering springs and hard stops that can be disabled. The idea is that you get both the 360 and 270 without costing extra space or swappable hardware. The concept is good, but I don't think anything was ever finalized despite the reasonably large interest for it. I don't remember where the thread was at byoac, but if you search the forum, it should pop up pretty easily. Heck, if you ask in that thread, there might even be some movement that wasn't mentioned. If you do ask and they respond, PLEASE report here so I can check into it as well!

Actually they do have this and it works very well. I bought the PS2 logitech Driving force pro. It plug and play on windows with the standard game drivers from logitech. It has the 270 or 360 (or almost any customizable degree you could want actually) . It was originally made with gran turismo 3 and is an excellent wheel.

A tip for anyone building a custom driving cab... If you get the steering wheel on the same bracket or frame that the seat is on, you can mount the whole thing on some rubber bushings. When the force feedback goes with the wheel, the whole seat shakes and is pretty cool!

[bkenobi]

There is a Logitech setup that allows for switching between steering wheel types? Is it just in software, or does it have some type of physical stop and recentering hardware? I'll have to take a look!

EDIT: I took a look at the CNet review here and it looks like although the wheel can calibrate itself to whatever rotation is required in software, that doesn't do the type of switching I was talking about. A 360 wheel is like a spinner and can rotate indefinitely in either direction. It may be possible to use a 270 wheel for this if you could configure the software to continue rotation if you were at the extent of the 270 rotation. Not ideal, but it might work.

EDIT 2: I found 2 of the threads I was referring to, but I can't find the 3rd (containing a second design for a switchable wheel).

link

link

[LB11]

I see what your talking about now. I didnt read the whole thread before. No it will not spin indefinately. But I do believe it can make a full 360.

Someone on this site made a cab where they had a removeable wheel that fit right on the spinner. I might look into something like that if I was to ad it to my cab. I guess it wouldnt work if you build a sit down cab (with a regular wheel) dedicated to racing games though.

[bkenobi]

You know, the 360 nomenclature of the 360 wheels is a bit misleading. It can rotate indefinitely (as you noted). But, it's not so much that it can rotate 360 as it is that you have to keep rotating it to keep turning. In most of the 360 games, you sling the wheel around madly to get the car/truck to negotiate the course (which is why it's fun to play with a group). The 270 games are more controlled and I look at them more like simulators. Meaning to me, they are fun, but not a party thing.

In other words, Mario party is not a very fun game on your own and it's not very technical. But, you throw a bunch of people playing and watching, and it's a blast.

Anyway, to play 360 games, the wheel must spin freely like a spinner. If you want, you could play them with a spinner, but don't expect it to be the same type of experience. The truth is, there are 2 types of racing games that require 2 types of setups. A casual viewing of the setup would lead anyone to beleive that they are the same (a steering wheel and a pedal or two), but they are very different internally. It's possible to play both on the same setup, but you won't have the same experience with the game play using a single wheel as you would with a dedicated wheel for each. On the up side, you can use the same pedals for both!

[shaunopp]

  bkenobi said:

Anyway, to play 360 games, the wheel must spin freely like a spinner.

From what I read of the logitech spec's it's similar to a true 360º wheel but not quite:

Realistic 900 degree Wheel Rotation (2.5 turns lock-to-lock)

I agree, the fun part is cranking the wheel frantically and letting'er rip for several rotations in games like Sprint. Don't think you get that effect with any of these wheels.

No one ever commented on the '5" Mini-Racerâ?¢ Steering Wheel' that attaches to a spinner from Groovy Game Gear. Anyone ever tried it? See it here:

5" Mini-Racerâ?¢ Steering Wheel

[bkenobi]

I saw someone talking about it once, but I've never played with it personally. As I recall, the opinion was it was better than using a spinner for driving games, but nowhere near the real thing. I guess I would look at it like the Wii "racing wheel" which is basically a plastic wheel that you fit the Wiimote into. It's not a steering wheel, but it feels more like one than the normal controller.

If I wanted to play racing games on a spinner, I would definitely consider it. If I were designing a cabinet, I would go for an actual wheel. Actually, I would ask spouse/friend/relative that might play it and ask their opinion. Although they aren't going to be able to make design decisions for/with you about the cabinet or it's technical details, I've found my wife a really good resource as far as general opinions.

[shaunopp]

Thought you might find this interesting, ran across it on YouTube and it shows the Logitech G25's 900º rotation at the beginning.

[bkenobi]

That's a nice setup! It just won't work for 360 games...

[shaunopp]

  bkenobi said:

That's a nice setup! It just won't work for 360 games...

Oh, I don't know it works to a degree (no pun intended). I mean I whip the wheel in Super Sprint but usually not much more than 3 revolutions. Sure a lot different than a 270º wheel.

[LB11]

It doesnt really have that loose feeling though. Even without force feedback you are still turning the motor.