And, just as with steering wheels, Logitech has found a niche in the $300 range. As with the steering wheel controllers, there are low-dollar units in the $100 range and high-end units costing thousands. What was required was force feedback technology.Īny number of force feedback joysticks have been on the market for a few years. While subtle, that latter problem meant that it did not feel natural when using elevator or aileron trim to remove the control forces in flight. In other words, the null force zone could not be moved. That worked well enough, but it suffered with a couple of issues: the initial resistance (the "break out" force) of spring force was too strong and abrupt, and the center was always the center. The solution to that problem was for designers to configure the spring arrangement such that there was a small zone in the center of the joystick's travel that had minimal resistance, then a spring-based resistance as the player moved the stick out of the center range. That said, if the resistance is too strong, it is hard to make the small corrections needed to perform flight operations such as holding a helicopter in a hover. Resistance is critical, of course, because without any resistance to control movement it is nearly impossible to control an airplane without over controlling and/or getting into a PIO (Pilot Induced Oscillations) situation. Typically, joysticks provide resistance through some type of spring arrangement that centers the stick. Whether it be a stick or a yoke, the "feel" of the control movements is critical to attaining a realistic level of flight control. The G25 is so good, in fact, that I have always wished that Logitech would apply the technology in the area of flight controllers.įlight simulations are another area that has been under served by standard controllers. The G25 is so robustly built that it has survived two and a half years of intense racing without any problems. As I worked my way up through the quality chain, I eventually ended up with a Logitech G25. The addition of force feedback to racing games made such an amazing difference to the quality of the racing simulations that it quickly became obvious that I would never again be able to enjoy a racing game without it. I went though a number of different force feedback wheels, all of which eventually were worn out through hours and hours of use. This in turn allows for a base large enough to house the electric motors used to provide the force. Because the controller isn't expected to be hand held, it can be made much larger and heavier than a hand controller could ever feasibly be. The reason for that is partially because the uses of a steering wheel are fairly limited, thus giving designers a fairly closed-ended set of forces that they would need to be able to respond to, but also because wheels are most commonly attached to a solid surface with clamps. Interestingly, steering wheel controllers were the first home gaming devices to see force feedback in a useful way. There's a reason drivers take their hands off of the wheel a split second before impacting with a large, immovable object after all. True force feedback can be as simple as a slightly increased resistance to control movement, although one would certainly also expect a tactile feedback for more abrupt situations the force of hitting a concrete wall while doing 180 mph in a race car would most definitely qualify as something you should be able to feel transmitted through the steering wheel. Little motors causing vibrations in controllers is response to game events was certainly an innovation, but to call them "force feedback" was an egregious overstatement. For the longest time, force feedback controllers were really more of a marketing gimmick that anything even remotely useful.
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