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Driver's-Seat Driving Game Controller

Posted by timothy on from the well-that-seems-perfectly-reasonable dept.

RichardX writes "The folks at Real Virtual Car have taken an old car, hooked up a projector to the windscreen, USB on the steering and pedals, connected it all up to a PC and ended up with what may be the single greatest homemade games controller ever." Even a force-feedback steering wheel!

13 of 233 comments (clear)

  1. Heh by CypherXero · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Screw that, drive a REAL car. There's nothing like a cool, crisp day, with the wind blowing in your hair, as you shift to 5th gear, going over 70 MPH.

    1. Re:Heh by temojen · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Real cars don't reset after a crash. Going 200km/h in a game is no problem; going 150km/h on a real road makes me nervous.

    2. Re:Heh by sznupi · · Score: 1, Insightful

      The parent is joking, but seriously, the concept from news story is trash. Apparently the authors of this "controller" don't realize that the only thing you can "simulate" about driving this way are the irrelevant surface details - because the true experience comes from the physical sensations of high-speed cornering and battling with the protesting steering wheel and the frisson of genuine life-threatening danger. i personally like when authors of game/controller abandone the idea of technically "accurate" realism straight off. Instead give me a videogame that knows it's a videogame, and is proud of the fact - like for examle ridge racer or wipeout. With that conceptual hurdle out of the way, RR's designers have been free to go to town creating a work of sheer unadulterated gameplay, released from the constrictions of reality and hence - ironically - able to create a game so tense and fast and rewarding and flat-out exciting that it's a lot closer to the experience of racing a real car than any statistic-obsessed trainspottery "simulator" could ever dream of. I like to keep real life and videogames separate. After all, if you want a precise and detailed experience of what it's like to drive a real car, why don't you just go out and drive a damn car?

      --
      One that hath name thou can not otter
    3. Re:Heh by Ryan+Amos · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Why not go out and drive a real car? Because most of us can't afford cars that are fun to drive fast, nor do we know how to drive them safely at high speeds. As a graduating college student, I don't have the dough for a Ferarri Enzo, but I can drive a simulated one in a video game. For most of us, a video game is the closest we'll ever get to driving the supercar of our dreams. I can also wreck my Ferarri at 180 mph in a video game and come out unscathed, both physically and financially.

    4. Re:Heh by Moofie · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I suggest you get an inexpensive car that's fun to drive not-so-fast, and thereby learn to drive safely at high speeds.

      Go get a used Miata and take it to the autocross. I don't know where you are in Texas, but there are SCCA chapters all over the place.

      You might be one of those people that think Miatas are girl cars. Those people haven't driven one on a tight race track before.

      --
      Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
  2. Neat, but... by Reignking · · Score: 2, Insightful

    They probably could've purchased any arcade racing game for cheaper...

    --
    One man's Funny is another man's Offtopic.
    1. Re:Neat, but... by Skye16 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So? Don't you ever just want to MAKE something with your own two hands? That's what drives people like this. The whole "do it yourself" thing. It doesn't matter how much it costs. What matters is that you're enjoying doing it.

    2. Re:Neat, but... by NanoGator · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "They probably could've purchased any arcade racing game for cheaper..."

      He also could have just read a book instead. There, I was insightful to those who are disturbingly practical in life, mod me up.

      --
      "Derp de derp."
  3. Sound options by _Hiro_ · · Score: 3, Insightful

    With an entire chassis, why did they opt for just one speaker behind the driver?

    There are small, decent sounding, and (relative to the cost of the car shell) inexpensive 5.1 setups. And you'd be able to mount most of the speakers in the existing speaker mounts.

    --
    -Pope Peter Porker, S.O.W., K.M.K.R., U.G.O.A., F.S.G.S.D.
  4. Driving Simulator as a teaching aid by RobertB-DC · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Wouldn't your Driver's Ed teacher (aka the basketball coach) be much happier if he could verify your skills in one of these, rather than from the passenger seat with nothing but a second brake pedal between him and being pwnx0rd by a bridge abutment?

    It's not such a crazy idea... check out the Truck Driver Simulation Mobile Classroom. It's a full-sized full-motion multi-screen 18-wheeler simulator, designed to help train professional truck drivers. The unit -- which itself is housed in an 18-wheeler trailer -- claims to be "unlike any in the world," although the folks in the UK are trying to catch up.

    Myself, I'd like to see what it's really like to climb in the cab and say ... so we crashed the gate doing ninety-eight, I says let them truckers roll, 10-4, 'cause we got a mighty Convoy rockin' through the night...

    --
    Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
  5. The newest part of doing this... by Mikito · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ...is using actual car to surround you. I used to have a ColecoVision game system (early '80s) which had a steering wheel attachment and accelerator pedal. You would snap the joystick into a slot on the steering wheel console to use as a gearshift.

    True, the steering wheel didn't have force-feedback, but there are a number of real cars that don't give adequate feedback through the steering wheel, to my taste.

    --
    Anakin Simpson: If you're not with me, then you're my enemy--ooh, donuts!
  6. Missing feature by huge+colin · · Score: 2, Insightful

    All this, and it still can't simulate the feeling of accelerative forces which is the best part of driving.

  7. Re:Chicks dig hot cars by alecks · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Why, is dissing other people's creative work getting YOU laid?

    --
    The Digital Couture Collection