Buttkicker Gamer Plus…anyone going to jump on one of these?

Hardware & Tech Questions
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Think it might provide more feedback if it were on an arm? Looking at the product page it’s missing the long arm the BK Gamer had. Not sure why they did that (or I’m looking at it wrong). Or the advantage is only imagined…

My setup is on a metal plate underneath the seat (see pix in the article) thus moving them away from the seat post about 6 inches. Only a tiny bit of flex there.

Heat is an issue (not sure I went into that, or the cause/cure’s, in the article). Seems that this is where more power + heavier ‘puck’ can help, depending on how you set it up.

If you have constant running effects (engine usually) there’s a tendency for it to overheat. As I mentioned above (I think?) my priority is “G” and Stall effects and, with a single channel, I don’t want the engine to ‘dilute’ the feeling. This is all very subjective of course, and setup dependent.

I would think a larger puck, with a more powerful amp to match, might be working less under the above conditions versus a smaller one - you might be able to run the larger one at a lower power setting and get the same ‘feel’, but overall it’s not working as hard.

Then there’s the issue of transducer design. I think some are more prone than others. The Aurasound AST one I have never seems to seize up, and it’s not that heavy.

And I will add that it’s just different in 3D (VR) vs 2D - in 2D it’s nice but in VR it is, to me, something I have to have. Perception?

The stereo options mentioned by someone above sounds cool. I haven’t looked into it but it would seem the ideal situation, for 2-channels, would give you the ability to specify which effects go to a given channel (left or right). Then with a 2-channel amp and 2 different sized transducers you could send, say, engine stuff to the Left/smaller puck and G/Stall to the Right/Larger puck. Not sure if SSA even supports this. There’s a button for stereo but, having only a mono amp I’ve never tried it.

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I’m not sure whether SSA/SSSM supports that, but I will say that the default way L/R is used is really great. Touch down on one wheel in a crosswind, or if you shut down one engine you can tell which, fire the gun on the Viper, etc, and you can feel it on the appropriate side. It’s pretty cool.

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Nice. I only have a 1-channel amp so no dice. But, the idea intrigues me.

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I’ve had the BK Gamer Plus for a couple of weeks now, so I thought I add some feedback here for anyone looking to get one of these.

It took me a solid week of tinkering to get it working to where I was happy with it. One of the problems is that a lot of the information on setup available online is based on the older version “Gamer 2” and doesn’t consider the new features in the Gamer Plus.

One thing that tripped me up was that many people recommended using a second usb sound card and/or voicemeeter to isolate sounds and haptic feedback. I later found that neither of those are needed. The Gamer Plus has a usb connection which allows it to act as its own sound card. Now I run the Buttkicker 3.5mm audio to my motherboard sound card and also have the USB connected.

To achieve both audio sourced and game telemetry-sourced feedback I run both SimShaker for Aviators/Sound Module and HapiConnect from Buttkicker. In Simshaker I set the dedicated sound card to the 3.5mm Audion connection on my MB. In HapiConnect I set the outputs to the Buttkicker USB connection and my speakers/headphones. The result is FANTASTIC. HapiConnect produces feedback from deep bass sounds and ignores sounds from things like radio messages. Without HapiConnect you won’t get any feedback from things like flak or sonic booms. Once you have this setup go out and fly through a KS-19 100mm AAA barrage! :exploding_head:

The other thing I struggled with was a very annoying intermittent buzzing when flying the viper or hornet in DCS. At first I thought there was something wrong with my hardware setup/connections and wasted a ton of time switching inputs/outputs around to resolve this. Finally I isolated it to Simshaker produced feedback. The culprit was the “Flaps Movement” setting in Simshaker. Even though this buzzing was occurring when I wasn’t manually moving the flaps the viper and hornet make tiny corrections to flaps position in auto mode and results in this “buzz, buzz, buzz” that was driving me insane. Thankfully SimShaker has a setting to correct this without turning off Flaps Movement all together. Under special options change the “Flaps Movement Filter” setting. I currently have mine set to 40.

I have to say the Buttkicker is one of the best simpit upgrades I’ve done in a while. Although the setup was a bit frustrating it was well worth the effort. Flying through flak, feeling munitions come off the wings, sonic booms… I could go on and on about this. It’s so great feeling the aircraft react realistically. I know why people would say they can’t fly without one now.

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Great feedback! Maybe I should use a ButtKicker for bass sound, in addition to the four bass shakers I got for simshaker feedback…?

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Sounds like a good feature there. Smart of them to do so. I bought a USB sound card for ~$10.00 (been a while so don’t recall exactly) but including it in the Gamer saves people a step.

I’m hip. Had the same thing happen. My pref’s with my seat shaker rig evolved over time. About, oh, 2 years into it I settled down to just a few Must Have settings. On a single-channel/amp rig I think I have my flaps set off anymore; I want the G and Stall feels to ‘talk to me’ the most - feel the elephants start dancing on the wings. It’s all highly subjective/individual, but…

X5 to that! Occasionally something won’t ‘sync’ up correctly and when I pull away from the chokes/set flaps/lift off I immediately notice something is just wrong. I stop right there and re-start SimShaker (only takes a few seconds). The experience, in VR anyway, is like a dead fish without it…

Hey, that may be a good analogy, for those not sure what this haptic thing does? Imagine a fishing game on your PSx: when you’ve got a “…fish on!” not only do you have the sound (reel drag ‘singing’) it’s like someone is trying to pull the gamepad out of your hands? Hmm. Maybe.

I’m not sure how interested ED is in promoting this - I’d like to skip the lua scripting bit; have the exe spit data straight out to a selected audio device without the middle man. After some time I start to notice the lag, even though it might only be 0.1 of second.

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I recently picked up a Gamer Plus and very much enjoy the immersion for my racing titles. I am aware of the Simshaker 3rd party for flight titles, but understand it requires a bit of tinkering.

However, I just saw that DCS will be coming to Hapticonnect.

dcs

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SimShaker for Aviators is the software, free. Sound Module also - been a few years now and I don’t recall but I believe it was under 20$ US.

As for fiddling with it: I hardly mess with the settings at all anymore. The G and Stall feels are, to me, the best parts though the other Fx are cool too:

I know when my speed brake is out for instance cus it sends a slight rumble thru my, uh, backside (it scales too); a nice machine-like buzz when the flaps and wings move. The gun feedback can be a bit startling the first time. The G/Stall needed some tweaking at first to; not too much, not too little.

In VR it’s amazing, really. In 2D maybe not so much? I haven’t 2D’d in years so I’m not sure.

Something about coming into the break, smoking hot, yanking on the pole and feeling the stress put on the jet (fools me anyway). Then a ker-clunk when I drop the gear. Anyway, I haven’t touched the sliders (messed with my settings) in a long time; run it before DCS loads and that’s it.

The only minor annoyance: if you leave DCS and restart it you have to quit/restart SimShaker for Aviators again too. If you forget you can start it at anytime however, even once you’re in the sim, flying.

I can’t fly without it anymore. Sim feels dead.

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I just ordered a seatpad with 8 motors. Gonna see if my warbird/F-14 game is going to improve…

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I was seriously thinking of it, but recent developments mean it’s a no go for me. Shame, but that’s the way it goes.

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Strangely enough, I did the same. The Next Level Racing HF8. The Buttkicker Gamer Plus is neat, but my chair design isn’t a great match for it. The HF8 looks to be more comfortable than the old JetSeat pad I used previously, so I think it’s worth a try.

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Reviews pls when able guys. Have been lurking.

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Preliminary report, after crashing a couple dcs spitfires and one round of effects tweaking : looks like a fun addition. Needs more tweakage. Not feeling the upper shakers (yet). A thick pad on top of my old car seat does take some getting used to. I may open the seat covering and work the pad under somehow. Rather sit on fabric than on faux leather.

I can see how the haptic feedback becomes indispensable after the getting used to it period.

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:+1:

For those visiting this topic at a later time and unfamiliar:

The implementation described therein is only one method. Hopefully I described the benefits well enough to stimulate some curiosity. In 3D (VR) it seems to shine more than 2D.

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I can’t for the life of me figure out how to send certain effects to certain spots in the HF8. It has eight motors. But the simshaker aviators software seems to treat them all as one most of the time, yet… It can make the G rumble directional. Which is useless. I don’t need to know what way I’m banking. I do need to know what G I’m at while also feeling the nearing of an alpha limit (and that one I’d love to have differentiate between both wings).

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In my limited experience of experiencing buffet under a G-load (as in none whatsoever) I kind of doubt you would feel it from one side or the other. You rear end is interfaces with the airplane through the seat, which would just shake along with the whole airframe.

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Yeah that seemed odd to me too, so I turned it off. It would make sense for a car though!

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I’ve debated this with Andre in the past. There is no way to make effects directional according to him. Also, clipping is a big issue due to the relatively low power of the motors in the Jetseat.
So, once you hit 100% speed on a motor, any additional effects will be drowned out.
The balance, therefore, is to come up with a profile where there remains enough headroom for all desired effects to be translated into the motors (at the same time).
Its something he is constantly tweaking and testing as well, or at least, was when I discussed it with him.
Of note here, is that within the software there already is a ‘curve’ programmed for the effects. So for example, if you leave all effects in SSA set at the default value, there still is a form of granularity in the way certain effects are fed back over others even though all settings are at the same value in the software.

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Well said. In the article mentioned above I tried to explain this as best I could:

Effect “Clamping” and “Washout”

I’ve taken liberties here and made up the above terms in an attempt to explain settings in SSM/SSA, primarily. In the SSA software, once you are up and flying in the cockpit, you can adjust the values of the output effects (flap travel, G-feel, motor rumble, etc), all from 0-100. As I understand it, all of these effects are summed up…

Only thing I could come up with was larger transducers with an amp to match; as you say if they are too small they seize up more quickly.

Note that regardless of how big/powerful these bits are you can still get them to lock up, it just seems [to my backside] that there is more range. I keep my setup at about 50% (on the amp, the settings adjusted “to taste”) output which seems to give me that.

Latency is the only issue that I’d improve upon - My hope was/is that ED would include haptic support directly as I assume removing that middleware would reduce the issue. Would imagine this would use a similar interface as FFB joysticks.

It’s not something I noticed for a while but as my senses became more accustomed to the feedback I started to note about a 1/4 second delay. A faster system [now] helps a teeny bit but may just be me?

The best part of my particular setup is the stall feel: I don’t really have to look at the IAS, in any platform I play, to know when to stop pulling on the pole - they could remove the cockpit shake (which is helpful for sure) and it wouldn’t matter that much. Flaps, gear, guns, etc. are cool from an immersion standpoint.

The person that wrote that software should get the Flight Sim equivalent to a Nobel Prize, IMHO!

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So my HF8 arrived this afternoon. I haven’t used the NLR software yet, but jumped straight in with Sim Shaker for Aviators, which based on what Mark at SimHangar had to say, is probably the best option right now.

Anyway, after just a couple of flights tooling around in the Flying Iron Spitfire Mk9, I can say that without a doubt the effect is far better than the ButtKicker (paired with my Secret Labs chair). The design of my chair damped out a lot of the vibration, which meant I had to increase the ‘volume’ to a point where the transducer was overwhelmed.

Also, it is about 10x more comfortable than my old JetSeat pad.

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