Tutorial GameVibe Manual

WORK IN PROGRESS...

Welcome to first public release of GameVibe!
(Please bare with me as I get all this info posted.)

What is GameVibe?
GameVibe is an application that is designed to drive transducers (butt-kickers) from the telemetry SimTools receives from games.
GameVibe is able to drive up to 2 sound cards, where each sound card can have up to 4 transducer locations.
GameVibe allows you to hand craft sounds effect to be use to drive the transducers according to the telemetry data received.
Important: Don't Skip!!
GameVibe is Only fully compatible with SimTools v2.2.5 and above.
If you are running an older version of SimTools, Please update to a compatible version.

And don't forget to turn Vibe Output on in Game Manager with an output rate of 10ms.
(Although any ms rate should work, start at 10 as that's what I used for most of my testing.)

The ‘Vibes’ included with this beta release are:

• Chassis (FL, FR, RL, RR)
• Road Detail (Heave)
• Collision L/R (Sway)
• Collision F/B (Surge)
• Rpm (Rpm)
• Turbo (Turbo)
• Afterburners (Afterburners)
• Gear Shift (Current Gear)
• Turbulence (Speed)
• Flaps (Flaps)
• Landing Gear (Landing Gear)
• Weapons1 (Gun, Cannon, or any fired weapon)
• Weapons2 (Gun, Cannon, or any fired weapon)​

Detailed Info on each Vibe
Chassis - can be run in 2D or in 3D when used with multiple transducers.
When in 3D with a 4 transducers setup, each corner plays as a ‘shock’ on the vehicle.
Creating a pretty cool 3D effect that better to just experience that be told about.

Road Detail - can be used to simulate a nice road noise effect or even to simulate bumps on the road.
(Just depends on how you tune it in the Tuning Center.)

Collision - can be run in 2D or in 3D when used with multiple transducers.
When in 3D with a 4 transducers setup, each Collision effect jumps to the side it gets struck from.
This creates a nice 3D effect when you collide with another object.

Rpm – Used to Simulate Rpm vibrations for the vehicles.

Turbo – Can be used to simulate vibrations from Turbo chargers.

Afterburners – Can be used to simulate vibrations from Afterburners being ignited.

Gear Shift – Used to simulate a Gear Shifting Effect for the vehicles.

Turbulence - Can be used to simulate a wind turbulence effect.

Flaps - Can be used to simulate the flaps on a aircraft.

Turbulence -Can be used to simulate the Landing Gear on a aircraft.

Landing Gear - Can be used to simulate landing gear on the aircraft.

Weapons1 - Can be used to simulate a fired weapon effect.

Weapons2 - Can be used to simulate a fired weapon effect.


1) Sound Card Setup
GameVibe works by manipulating a quadraphonic speaker setup.
There are a couple of ways to setup such an arrangement.

Option a) Simply use ‘quadraphonic’ mode for output
Here are screen shots of the settings needed to setup your sound card with quadraphonic speaker output.

Select quadraphonic from the Audio Channels selection box.


Make sure the checkboxes are checked ‘Full Range Speakers’.
We do not want windows to filter the low frequencies as we are not running book shelf speakers.
As we are driving a form of subwoofer and we don’t want the low frequencies to get clipped out of the audio stream. So please make sure there options are on.


Option b) Use 5.1 the surround mode with no base or center speaker. (Essentially configured for quadraphonic mode)
I find that when you put your sound card in quadraphonic mode, sometimes the rear speakers are not as loud as the front speakers.

With my sound card, I was not able to make the rear speakers any louder in Quadraphonic mode.
So I switched to 5.1 and removed the center and subwoofer speaker from the setup.
Accentually giving me Quadraphonic mode again but unlocking the room correction tab also.

Re-configure the 5.1 output mode for a Quadraphonic sound system.


Make sure the checkboxes are checked ‘Full Range Speakers’.


And there you go.
Back to a Quadraphonic sound system with quite possibly more options available for sound balancing.

For my setup, I then went into the Room Correction tab and boosted my rear outputs +5db.

This sounded pretty even when a tune was played over speakers or transducers.​

​

Depending on your sound card settings, you may or may not be able to even out the sound levels of the Front vs the Rear speakers or transducers. It’s better to find a resolution to this problem in the sound card settings, but GameVibe does allow you to address this problem in its settings, but be aware thou that you will loose some output volume when notes are played in some locations. (More on this later)

Using the Volume Balancer on the Sound Card Settings page is a great way to test you transducers for equal output volumes. It will cycles thru different sounds all in all output locations.
It can be pretty handy as most test sounds from the sound card setup is a high tone you can't here on the transducer.


2) GameVibe – Sound Card Settings
Let’s setup Sound Card #1 for GameVibe.
Select the sound card you want to use for Sound Card #1. (The ‘1’ in the pic)
(For your first time setting up GameVibe, don’t worry about the rest of the settings for now, click ‘Save’ and continue on to the next step.)

Adjust what is considered Minimum volume for GameVibe.
Then turn on the Minimum Volume audio tester for sound card #1, now adjust the slider to where you just can’t tell anything is playing. (The ‘2’ in the pic)
You are setting what you want GameVibe to consider being the Minimum volume for output. Should it take at a certain volume to achieve a minimum vibration for your transducer, you can fix that here.

Adjust the Front vs Rear output volume for the Sound Card.
(Only do this if you are not able to do it with your built in sound card settings.)
If you were not able to balance out the Rear vs the Front output volume with you sound card settings, then turn on the volume Balance audio tester and set the ‘Max Volume Front’ and ‘All’ volumes to sound the same loudness as the Rear output volume. (The 3 in the pic)


Click Save, sound setup complete!


3) GameVibe – Vibe Creator
Now on to some fun stuff!
Here you can design exactly how a sound plays and where it’s played from when it is used by GameVibe.


Let’s take a look at the RPM Vibe settings.
Here you can see that it is set to play from ALL speakers of Sound card 1.
And it will use a Square wav to create its noise.

To adjust how it sounds when it is played:
- Click the ‘Turn On’ button in the testing group box.
- Verify that the Percent Used slider is at 0%.
- Adjust the ‘Data = 0’ input sliders to how the sound should play when input is as low as possible.
- Slide the Percent Used slider to 100%.
- Now adjust the ‘Data = 100%’ input sliders to how it should play when input is as high as possible.
- Slide the Percent Used slider back and forth to see how it sounds.

Click Save, RPM Vibration effect finished!


4) GameVibe – Tuning Center
The tuning center for GameVibe works much like it does in GameEngine, with a couple of exceptions.

We now are capturing Hi / Low values, instead of Max / Min.
The Hi / Low values tells GameVibe when and how to play our Vibration effect.

Any incoming value that is below the Low value is equal to 0%.
And anything equal to or above the Hi value translates to 100%.
So you won’t here anything form GameVibe when the incoming value is below the Low value, and it will be maxed when the incoming values equals or exceeds the Hi value.

Let’s Look at RPM for Live for Speed below.
We have a 900 for Low and a 9250 for Hi.
This means that the note will start to will play when the input reaches 900.
And it will be maxed when the incoming values equals or exceeds the Hi value of 9250.

All cars in the game will top out at a bit different frequency and volume.
This provides nice settings for the whole game with a bit of a Vibe difference between vehicles.

Btw, if I was capturing Turbo, I would set the Low to 1, so the sound would turn off when it’s not active.


These numbers can be captured and/or edited live while that game is running, and it even has some options for capturing. You have the options to capture the Hi values, the Low values or No values at all.


5a) GameVibe – Profiler Editor
On the GameVibe Profiler Editor page, we can create and edit profiles for different vehicles in the game. Sliding the levers adjusts the Hi / Low by a percentage of up to -50% to 50%. With these sliders, you can either make the Vibe less or more sensitive to the incoming telemetry data.



5b) GameVibe – Volume Settings
On the GameVibe Volume Settings page, we can adjust the output volumes of each of the effects that we can use. You may be tempted to want to run them all at 100%. But finding a good balance provides for the overall best experience.

Remember that just like an axis of a simulator that can only stretch to 100% of its available length, your sound cards output volume can also only produce 100% output volume.

This means that when we use a bunch of effect together on the same transducer, we need to level them off so there is room for all effects to play evenly. This can also be done live while the game is being played.

This section also provides us with the ability to flip the Collision sound directions, should they play in the opposite direction that want we expect when played in 3D. We can also adjust the length of the ‘Shift Bump’ note that is played, depending on the type of vehicle we are controlling in the game.


You should have enough to get you started, so that’s it for now.
I will be posting more on this this week, with some tips and tricks to tuning in some of the Vibes.
Have fun!
yobuddy

Btw, You can test out GameVibe with Live for Speed built in plugin for SimTools v2.2.
(It's fully updated for GameVibe and both the retail and the demo work)
I will have a couple of more Game Plugins updated for GameVibe sometime this week.

fyi, GameVibe also silently install SlimDX so it can use its sound processing engine on newer PC.
So if you see it installed, that is where it came from and is required to make GameVibe function in most cases
Also, I believe DirectX is also required to be installed (which really should not be a problem in most cases)
.

How to tune in each Vibe
​

Hi Guy's
Here are some Insights on how to tune in each Vibe’s Hi / Low values in the Tuning Center for GameVibe.
(Or at least some of the thought process behind each one and how I get them working.)

I’m going to explain them in ways that should work for all vehicles in the game.
(With some profiling when switching vehicles in the game)

Running the game live, and capturing the limits, is by far the easiest way to tune in a Vibe for GameVibe.
I always suggest using a “medium” car in the game for best results.
(But things can be adjusted as you go should it not be possible at the time.)

Here is a little run down on how it works.
(I will use RPM in this example)

First let’s put the game in ‘window mode’ so we can also use the Tuning Center easily.
Before we launch the game…

1) Let’s Press the Capture Max Min button.
2) Set the RPM column to capture the Low values of the incoming Vibe data.
3) Change the Current low values of Rpm to zero. (Highlight the current Low value with your mouse and press ‘0’ on the keyboard.)
4) Now let’s launch the game and as soon as you’re on the track, pause the game. (press ‘P’ on the keyboard for LFS)
We should see that the Low value for RPM has been adjusted.
Subtract 200 from the value and click “Save New Settings” to save the new Low value for Rpm.
5) Now switch to capturing Rpm Hi values.
Preceded to Un-pause the game (‘P’ on the keyboard) and rev the car up as hi as it will go.
Now Pause the game again and look at the new Hi value for Rpm.
(I suggest bumping it up a bit if in a slow car and visa-versa for a fast one)
And click “Save New Settings” to save the new Hi value for Rpm.
6) Press ‘Stop Capture’ as we are finished with the Hi/Low limits for Rpm.

Although in the examples below we will be using different Vibe inputs, the basic capturing procedure is pretty much the same.
There are a few basic differences, but they will be listed under the Vibe you are trying to tune in below.


Vibe Effects (Tuning theory)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rpm (the example above)
You want a Low cutoff value below the minimum rpm of any vehicle in the game (so output is always on). And a Hi value that is around the top end of the best vehicle in the game. I used a value of 9250 (for LSF anyway) which works pretty well for any vehicle I played in the game.

An important thing to notice here is that we use a Low value that is ‘Below’ any actual rpm output from the game. This insures that RPM is always ‘On’ and making sound.

Tip: If sound is cutting off and on when the vehicle is idling, lower the Low cutoff value.

Turbo & Afterburners
These two work just like Rpm above with the only difference being that we want them to completely turn off when the input is zero.

Let’s say the incoming values for ‘turbo’ are a value of 0 to 1000.

We would want to set the Low cutoff to 1 (since we want it to turn off whenever the data hits zero for input), and a Hi value of 1000.

Tip: It you have volume for Turbo when no turbo are used in the game, increase the Low cutoff value.

Turbulence
This one is manly here for the flight sim guy’s to simulator air rushing over the craft at higher speeds.
Tune the Low value to be at a point where you think the craft should start making a slight vibration in the cockpit.
Then go as fast as you can to set the Hi value for turbulence.
A number a bit less than the top number is just fine for this Vibe.

Tip: The white noise sound does not react to frequency changes (just the nature of white noise). But the Pink and the brown do. just be careful with the brown note

Gear Shift
This is the easiest one, set the low to -1 (reverse) and the Hi value to the highest gear in the game for any vehicle. (I believe I was using 8 for LFS)
It does not matter too much guy’s for this one, I just set the Hi value to 6 or so and adjust as I see it’s needed. (Maybe because I unlocked a faster car or something)

Fyi: (I already handle games that send an ‘r’ for reverse or an ‘n’ for neutral so that we will always get a -1 for reverse and a 0 for neutral.)

Road Detail
Road Detail can be used in two different ways.
I prefer to use it for road surface feedback, but you can also tune it in for bumps. (For bumps tune it like you would for chassis)

For this one I 'live capture' me driving the car at about 50% as hard as I normally would.
Pause and take a peek at the low values, it should be a number that the car does not have a hard time hitting.
And for Hi values I would say just go hit a jump or some bumps etc..
Now take the Hi value and multiply it by 5 and click “Save New Settings”.

The idea here is we are looking at making road surface noises and not a huge bang from a bump or a jump.
(Using the live profile slider for Road Detail can really help tune it in nicely once you have some your Hi/Low values setup)

Collision
For this Vibe, set the capture for the Low value and then drive the car on the track at about 80% strength swerving back and forth, gassing and breaking etc.

Don’t need to do it for long.

Pause the game and multiply the Low value by 3. Then take your new low value and multiply that by 10 for the Hi value. (It’s a good place to start)

Tip: Raise the Low value if you don’t get collision thumps when you should have.
Tip: Lower the Low value if you are getting collision thumps when you should not be.
Tip: Increase the Hi value if all collision thumps sound maxed out with every collision.

Chassis
For this Vibe, set the capture for the Low value and then drive the car on the track at about 80% strength trying not to hit anything.
Be sure to swerve and gas and break a few times.
Now pause the game and save the setting for the low value.

Set capture to the Hi value and find a nice curb or two to run over.
Maybe cross a field or drive in the grass a bit.
(You’re tying to find the limits of what a normal bump would be when racing.)
Pause the game and click “Save New Settings”.

Tip: Concentrate on what one corner is doing for setup on a 3d setup.
(If you get one corner working correctly, and they all will.)
Tip: If you’re getting a lot of bumps from normal driving, Increase the Low value.
Tip: If all your bump sound maxed out, increase the Hi value.

That's all for now guy's
I'll try to add some pics to make things even clearer tomorrow.
Take care all,
yobuddy

@bvillersjr
Ah yes, it does look like I have it backwards.
It was quite a few long nights in a row. lol
I'll get it all straitened out tomorrow.
thx buddy,
yobuddy

The way that the processing engine works, this is all accounted for.
In fact its written in such a way that any output rate should work.
But I have had best results with 10ms so far.
take care all,
yobuddy

Yes plugins will need to be updated to take advantage of GameVibe.

The good news is that a lot of what we need for GameVibe is already being sent to either GameDash or GameEngine already, so we only need to update the output data for GameVibe in most cases.
There really isn't a lot of work needed to find anything new to make things work is all I'm saying.
Take care,
yobuddy

@Anubis9 ,
GameVibe is fully working with the built in LFS plugin that shipped with SimTools v2.2.
I get a couple of more plugins done for you guys soon!
yobuddy

If your getting errors with DirectX, your probably just missing some dx9 dependency's.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=35
I always use this on new systems to make sure dx9 stuff works without problems.
I believe it will fix the problems above also.
yobuddy