Driver's-Seat Driving Game Controller 233
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!
Heh (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Heh (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Heh (Score:2)
Re:Heh (Score:2)
Re:Heh (Score:3, Informative)
Seriously, if you want to "go fast" and not worry about breaking the law, come play with the SCCA folks. If you're limited on funds, try autocrossing. It's very affordable and there's probably an SCCA group running an evnet near you (presuming you're in the US.)
Re:Heh (Score:2)
Re:Heh (Score:2)
Re:Heh (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Heh (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Heh (Score:2)
Yeah, like I did recently. http://www.onelapofamerica.com/ [onelapofamerica.com]
Car #56, 1st in class SSGT2 SB.
Re:Heh (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Heh (Score:2)
I figure if I wreck going that fast, that's my fault and I'll pay for it. Big deal. But I'm not going to take someone else with me
Re:Heh (Score:2)
Re:Heh (Score:2)
Re:Heh - stop and go (Score:2)
Sounds like fun but.. I'd rather walk.
Re:Heh (Score:2)
You could always connect a space heater (for heat) and a fan to make it feel like a hot day.
Re:Heh (Score:2)
Re:Heh (Score:2)
Or the school time rush.
Or some gimp in a lorry trying to overtake another lorry going the same speed.
Or some cunt going 90 behind you trying to make you go faster.
Or, Or, Or, Or..
Driving on the road is fun 70% of the time, the other 30% is a drone or some wanker trying to put you in an ambulance.
Re:Heh (Score:2)
Re:Heh (Score:5, Interesting)
Being a non-average Amercian, I'll narrow your suspicion and say he's an American who barely got his license and just is nieve, or he's an American who is... just kinda clueless.
I'll append his statement to what it should be -
There's nothing like driving on a cool, dry day, double apexing a large, sweeping turn listening to the engine approach redline in 4th gear as you approach a set of compounds, blip the throttle with a perfect downshift to 3rd while straight line breaking, turning in and going over the birm on the inside, throttle steer into the tight right, and flooring it as you fly out to the left.
I get to do that about 3 times a year at high performance driving schools and racing schools. But it's very expensive and hard on my car. Enter the newest breed of racing games that are becoming more and more "driving simulators". I applaud the folks at real virtual car for trying to make the video gaming experience as immersive as possible for those of us who can't afford to make racing their career.
Re:Heh (Score:3)
Re:Heh (Score:2)
But, please also don't downplay the balls you need to do it in a car either... Over my 10 years of HPDE (high performance drivers education) I've totalled my car twice. Once from an overzealous Corvette driver on a flat track who basically "p.i.t."ed me from behind before locking fenders with me and taking us both to the wall.
The second time was at Willow Springs in SoCal.
Re:Heh (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Heh (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:Heh (Score:2)
People dismiss them as girly or gay cars, they'd change thier mind if they drove one
Neat, but... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Neat, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Neat, but... (Score:2)
Not that I agree, but it seems like everyone here makes their decisions according to the laws of microeconomics rather than what they really want to do.
Re:Neat, but... (Score:2)
I want to work as little as possible, make as much money as possible. I am pretty sure that most of the people here are of like mind. If they aren't then they are going against the natural order of things (which to the atomic level everything wants to be at rest).
Re:Neat, but... (Score:5, Funny)
Not only that, but it seems everyone generalizes on the behavior of everyone else who posts here.
Re:Neat, but... (Score:2)
Inevitably someone like you pipes up at this point and claims that 'not everyone here is a slashbot' and then half a dozen other people join you. Nobody is exempt from the laws of human nature.
Re:Neat, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
He also could have just read a book instead. There, I was insightful to those who are disturbingly practical in life, mod me up.
Re:Neat, but... (Score:2)
You mean driving isn't game enough? (Score:4, Funny)
"No, over there! On crutches! 100 points!"
Re:You mean driving isn't game enough? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:You mean driving isn't game enough? (Score:2)
You only get 30 points if the crutches don't break. Otherwise, it is the standard five points.
It's like the lady and dog, more points if the dog lives.
Re:Where the points come from... (Score:5, Informative)
Death Race 2000 (1975) [imdb.com] was a movie where killing people with your car was a national sport. You got different points for the different ages, races, etc.
Most metropolitan areas have the DVD in one of the multiple video stores, and it's an interesting movie... especially with Sly Stallone getting second billing to David Carradine. Learn your history, the fun way. Next week: Q-Tips!
Windscreen? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Windscreen? (Score:2)
-Jesse
Re:Windscreen? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Windscreen? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Windscreen? (Score:2)
Re:Windscreen? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Windscreen? (Score:2)
looks like (Score:3, Informative)
The concept seems fun, but it's kind of taking realism half way. Also seems like the images are down on that website already
Re:looks like...this! (Score:2, Interesting)
Funny you should mention that... I just noticed not one but two of these things offered a week or two back at one of the classified ad sites [amusementtrader.com] for that sort of thing. They are both in the UK.
Bandwidth exceeded (Score:3, Informative)
http://realvirtualcar.blogspot.com/ [blogspot.com]
Have a nice day =)
Delay Problems (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Delay Problems (Score:2)
Saw the site earlier linked elsewhere, before it got slashdotted. For the controls, they had the steering column linked to a IIRC logitech steering wheel where the universal joint would have been, so there were no gears. Apparently the force feedback on it still works as well. If you could get the existing steering column to move fairly freely, it should work rather well.
Want one? (Score:2)
The pics aren't loading, so... (Score:3, Informative)
Sound options (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Erm, because... (Score:2)
Chicks dig hot cars (Score:4, Funny)
If that "5V/12V variable pulse speed gauge" doesn't cut it, I don't know what will.
Re:Chicks dig hot cars (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm gonna need a bigger house! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I'm gonna need a bigger house! (Score:2)
On the plus side, you won't need buy them a real car (or worry about where they took it)
Something similar (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.smsonline.com/centers/index.html [smsonline.com]
you can ride a close to life size Nascar car that moves a little. About 10 are networked together and you race against each other. The race is projected onto a screen in front of you.
Bah! I'm not going to be impressed... (Score:3, Funny)
Sucking exhaust fumes from a sight-blocking SUV. *That* is what I'm talking about.
Re:Bah! I'm not going to be impressed... (Score:2)
p.s. SUV bashing is old and busted. (Sight-blocking, exhaust-pumping vehicles used to be called "vans").
Obligatory... (Score:2, Funny)
Future of driving (Score:2, Interesting)
Just think, now student drivers can get into a virtual car for the first time and learn the basics of driving without actually putting anyone or anything at risk. Of course more features would have to be added such as pressure controll and methods to allow the car to move up and down as it would on a real road when it encounters pot holes and such. Eventually the student would have to prac
Re:Future of driving (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Future of driving (Score:2)
What you see isn't affected very much by alcohol or marijuana, only how you percieve it (except for in extremely drunk people who get a little "tunnel vision", but you'd need head-tracking software and a virtual car interior to duplicate that).
It's pretty hard to make a program that would realistically show the effects of paying more attention to your spedometer than to the road, for instance (a common problem, since you don't
interesting (Score:2)
My 'vision' is effected by being tired or upset. Yeah, my eyes still see the same "stuff" but my "vision" is definitely a lot worse.
Driving safely requires looking ahead and "through" the objects ahead of you.. as you continue to go faster your gaze must continue to go further ahead of you, and your mind and body instinctively know how to interpret data in your for
Wrap a car around this... (Score:4, Interesting)
Seen something similiar before (Score:2, Informative)
BSM (UK group of driving schools) brought a mobile version based on a Vauxhall (Opel/GM) Corsa to my school a few months back as well.
Re:Seen something similiar before (Score:2)
Reminds of the what Disney version... (Score:4, Funny)
So when I got to high school, I was expecting the same thing. Instead, they handed me a booklet to study and told me that my parents would teach me how to drive. WTF! My Dad had a one-ton truck and he would not teach how to drive that. So I never did learn how to drive as a teenager. I was so bitter...
Re:Reminds of the what Disney version... (Score:2)
Re:Reminds of the what Disney version... (Score:2)
When I was in the third grade in the early 1970s, they showed us this movie about someone driving recklessly who crashed into fully loaded school bus, and the remainder of the movie was watching all these bloody kids being pulled out the bus. I had no idea what the adults were thinking when they showed us that,
Re:Reminds of the what Disney version... (Score:2)
Re:Reminds of the what Disney version... (Score:2)
In that scene everybody was at desks with steering wheels, and watching a film on the screen in the front showing a view while driving, while the film narrator talked about what you were and should be doing. The instructions kept getting sillier, at one point you got stopped behind a bank getaway car, where the robbers jumped in with bags of loot and sped off, and the narrator said "did you remember to get the license plate number of the getaway
Re:Reminds of the what Disney version... (Score:2)
Yeah, but I really wanted to crash the vehicle desk like the kid in the movie. I guess kids these days have to be content writing scripts to crash the computer/network.
All in all, I learned more about safe driving from watching "Dukes of Hazard".
True. But getting those nitro boosters to work was always a pain.
My car has game controllers already... (Score:5, Funny)
- Gran Turismo: I-285 Edition
- Need For Speed: GA400 Gridlock
- Project Middle Finger Racing
- Grand Theft Auto: Midtown Street Parking Edition
In Ohio, you have a car game unavailable in most parts of the country (although LA just introduced it, from what I hear):
- Freeway Sniper Spy Hunter
IronChefMorimoto
Still only a video game.. (Score:2)
Re:Still only a video game.. (Score:2)
Flight sims have the same problem, but to a much lesser degree, since much of flying is done with instruments anyway. The "feel" isn't as nec
Re:Still only a video game.. (Score:2)
"Real Virtual" (Score:2, Funny)
I want the GTA version (Score:2)
And an inflatable doll for parking.
Driving Simulator as a teaching aid (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not such a crazy idea... check out the Truck Driver Simulation Mobile Classroom [tmta.com]. 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 [trucksim.co.uk].
Myself, I'd like to see what it's really like to climb in the cab and say
Re:Driving Simulator as a teaching aid (Score:2)
Re:Driving Simulator as a teaching aid (Score:2)
The driver's ed teacher at my high school didn't even have a second brake pedal- he used an ordinary car. I can't imagine the balls it must have taken to do that. Fortunately, I took driver's ed elsewhere.
What about the winners circle? (Score:2)
Re:What about the winners circle? (Score:2)
Re:What about the winners circle? Emulation 101 (Score:2)
Emulate them? You want to be like those babes? Um, ok, kind of kinky, but just go buy a skimpy swimsuit and a banner and carry a large magnum of champagne.
I think you might have meant simulate. Simulations are way more fun than Emulations. Although hero worship is something one can aspire to
The newest part of doing this... (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
greatest ever? (Score:2)
So, why is a car the greatest ever controller for a a flight simulator? Sheesh.
Missing feature (Score:3, Insightful)
Sounds like a poor man's NADS (Score:2, Informative)
www.nads-sc.uiowa.edu
Re:Sounds like a poor man's NADS (Score:2)
From the builders - What a surprise (Score:2, Informative)
Convert my cars into one! (Score:3, Interesting)
Incidentally, one car was there first, so when I realized it was going to be a while before I fix it, I bought a second car (used). After driving that for some 25,000 miles, it broke, too. When I finished dismantling it and realized that it would be a while, I bought a third car. This is getting ridiculous.
The point of the above is this: Instead of reassembling these cars, maybe what I ought to do is sell the motor, trans, and anything else that will fetch some dough, and then convert them into a video game! That would be so freaking down!
In fact, I could set it up like a race, so you've got two people in two separate cars playing against each other!
That is probably the most exhilarating drive... (Score:2)
Re:This reminds me of... (Score:2)
Re:This reminds me of... (Score:2)
Actually, I remember there being "other cars" - but not ones you raced (I don't think) - instead, they were on the "opposite side" of the road, coming at you (head on collisions, yay!) - also, I remember there being a mountain with a cow on the edge that you could "run over", and when you did that, it wo
Re:Windscreen? (Score:2)
Re:Still not as fun as driving a real car (Score:2)
Re:Still not as fun as driving a real car (Score:2)