Tutorial GameVibe Manual

well it depends. some games like NLS2, elite dangerous, haves a diferent patterns. racing games have intuitive rpm vibes... generally betwen 700 and 9.000 for rpm.

I haven't been able to try gamevibe because of the regional issue. Should be fixed, but my rig is not operational at the moment.

I'm wondering if it is a good assumption that running gamevibe would provide tactile effects more in tune with a motion rig running simtools than for example using simtools for motion and simvibe (simxperience) for tactile?

Hmm, it might be I badly frased my question. Because gamevibe and simtools are part of the same application and interpret telemetry in the same way. Or atleast being created by the same person. Would it mean that the tactile effects sync better with the motion when using gamevibe, opposed to using other software alongside simtools motion to drive the tactile effects?

I can check this my self in a few weeks time, but just being curious.

That makes sense. Thank you for the insights noorbeast .

Hi, I am still in progress of figuring GameVibe out, but I am writing to report a crash I am seeing sometimes:
Application: GameVibe.exe
Framework Version: v4.0.30319
Description: The process was terminated due to an unhandled exception.
Exception Info: System.AccessViolationException
at <Module>.CoCreateInstance(_GUID*, IUnknown*, UInt32, _GUID*, Void**)
at SlimDX.XAudio2.XAudio2..ctor()
at XAudio2_GameVibePlugin.GameVibePlugin.PlayNote_GameVibe(IntPtr, System.Guid)
at GameVibe.MyAudio.Note.PlayNote_GameVibe(IntPtr, System.Guid)
at GameVibe.cls_ActiveNote.CreateNoise()
at System.Threading.ThreadHelper.ThreadStart_Context(System.Object)
at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.RunInternal(System.Threading.ExecutionContext, System.Threading.ContextCallback, System.Object, Boolean)
at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(System.Threading.ExecutionContext, System.Threading.ContextCallback, System.Object, Boolean)
at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(System.Threading.ExecutionContext, System.Threading.ContextCallback, System.Object)
at System.Threading.ThreadHelper.ThreadStart()

I feels like it has to do with order of startup of Game (rF2) vs GameVibe - I hope stack helps Note that it does not crash all the time, just sometimes - I have not figured out exact repro sequence yet.

PS: I wonder if order of available devices changes when I start VR HMD or something?

Thanks @yobuddy, I grabbed my mine from the simtools site after upgrade of license. It appears to be v2.0:

But I installed Simtools v2.4 on top of v2.3, I wonder if there's some conflict. To my surprise, I still see v2.3 in the control panel:


Lastly, I do not think I have .NET 4.6 installed, highest I see is 4.5.1, I wonder if that is the issue. Also, crash seems to be in SlimDX/Xaudio - are those built against 4.6 as well?

However, if it was dependency issue, wouldn't tool crash all the time? It crashes only sometimes, and it seems to be related to the startup order of SimTools/GameVibe/Game. I am getting my transducers/amp today and will update if I figure out the exact sequence that leads to crash.

would you recommend exactly v4.6 or the latest? (4.7.2?)

It looks like my system already has that, so that is not the cause of crashes.

Thank you for trying to reproduce it. It did not crash in multiple sessions I had (fantastic work @yobuddy and team, what a great set of lightweight tools). One thing is on my mind is that when it crashed, I had GV tuning center opened while launching rF2. Another thought maybe device enumeration got messed up because I turned on Pimax headset while GV was running (it has USB Audio device)? I'll try again when I get a chance, but I am too excited about my new addition of transducers to test anything

One thing I do not blame GV, but I had a freeze while racing (which is typically due to CPU spike somewhere), and on my PC I never had freezes, I wonder if some GV code paths need optimization. Hope this is helpful.

Edit: just crashed with the same stack I posted previously. I will try reinstall, but before I do I'd really like to catch what causes it. I could send my settings over for a diff.
Edit2: reinstalled, still crashes. Now it crashes every time I start the game, so the workaround is to start GameVibe after rF2.
Edit3: this PC has multiple versions of Visual Studio installed, however - if it was dependency issue, crash would happen all the time, but it happens often, not all the time.

Hi @yobuddy,

I wanted to suggest some Game Vibe features and report some minor issues.

The reason I got myself transducers is to get hints of when tires lock and skid. To my surprise, I did not find that in Game Vibe and, from reading docs, SimVibe cannot do that too. So there goes:

• Feature: Individual wheel lockup hints (3D): I know for sure that rFactor 2 and Raceroom expose rotational wheel speed. On top of that, rF2 exposes exact wheel size. Combined with speed of vehicle, it should be possible to detect when the wheel is locked up and issue an effect. Information about surface under the wheel is available as well, so surface could be taken into account. Such an effect would be great addition to overall realism, because locked tire is felt very strongly in real life. Wheel lockup detection works fairly reliably in the Crew Chief, so I am pretty confident wheel lockup vibe is possible.
• Feature: individual wheel skid. This one is trickier, but in rF2 vehicle orientation is exposed, so maybe something can be done by using direction of motion, orientation and steering values?
• Issue: would it be possible to mute transducers when game is paused?

Also, I wanted to ask, would it be possible to make Road Details Vibe 3D? I might be missing something, or maybe it is game/plugin issue, but I get kerbs (for example) from the Road Detail vibe. I followed Tutorial to set up my min/max ranges. (I actually do not get much info from Chassis vibe at all, but that is another topic). It would be nice if kerbs were felt on the side they are hit.

Thank for the consideration!

@yobuddy,

I think I caught what causes GV crash on my system. I have a USB Audio card that I turn on only sometimes, to listen music (it has on/off button). So, if I ever turn on that card in Windows session, GV will crash later, even if card is off when I start game/GV. The workaround is the OS reboot.

I am not deeply familiar with device enumeration in Windows, but, I noticed weird things around joysticks, for example. Depending on which joysticks I turn on during Windows session, some games lose assignments of buttons (what was considered Joy1 becomes Joy3, for example). I wonder, if something like that happens to the enumeration of audio devices.

I don't suppose device Guid changes, but maybe some order number is used for audio cards known to system, somewhere in GV? Cheers!

You are right, this will require a lot of experementation. But there's not just one on/off variable. Here are variables:
* Wheel rotation speed
* Vehicle motion speed
* Vehicle motion direction
* Surface type underneath the wheel

All that said, while I do not have a sports car with slicks to test, in regular road car locking wheel produces rumble of rather narrow frequency range, but it is strong sensation. I truly think wheel lockup vibe will be great addition. Just imagine how will it feel with ABS on - it will be very immersive. And, it will also be appreciated with ABS off, because driver will know when to ease up on the pedal.

I do agree it will be kind of artificial, because ideally, game should simply transfer such vibration via motion physics. But, I hope you would agree, transducer stuff is more artificial in general - take Vibe gear shift effect, it isn't physics based, is it? Good thing is that game vibe allows on/off and volume for each effect, so it will be up to the user.

I do not know - but suggestion comes from someone who drove GT3 car. He told me the sensation of wheel losing grip/jumping on the tarmac is strong. How to implement that, no idea - maybe something to consider on a backlog? In any case, IMHO this is lower priority compared to wheel lockup sensation.

It does not work in rFactor 2. Pausing game leaves RPM vibe on forever. Not sure if it is plugin issue or GV. If you have access to game fields, I can tell how to detect pause state in game? One of the easiest is to test if Elapsed Time changed since last tick.

Thanks. Specifically in rF2 I have difficulty getting any info from chassis. I used your guide for setting lo/hi, but range is very small: 0.08-0.12. Maybe game simply does not implement suspension dynamics well. EDIT: fixed this by manually setting lower bound to 0.001.

Yes, most likely 3rd party driver issue. I'll keep rebooting my PC before GV session. I do not have much time to test, but if you ever came up with and idea of re-enumeration of audio devices or something (maybe Xaudio has some cache that needs to be invalidated?) I'll gladly test private .exe.

Have a good weekend!