Next Level Racing Motion Platform V3 and VR

User Support Hub Virtual Reality (VR)
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I’m considering buying a Next Level Racing GTtrack Flight Simulator seat and having it outfitted with a Next Level Racing Motion Platform V3 for added immersion when flying FS2020 in VR on my Reverb G2.

Does anyone know if the G2 plays nicely with the V3 motion platform and its associated software in FS2020 VR? Specifically, does the motion compensation function that the V3 motion platform’s software provides to nullify head position changes for movement made by the motion platform and not you work properly in FS2020 VR using OpenXR?

Also, does anyone know if the simconnect issues with the V3 motion platform reported 7 months ago here have now been resolved through FS2020 progressive updates? I have PMed the members who identified that they had the issue, but have not heard back from them yet. If anyone can shed a light on this, I would appreciate it.

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I own an NLR GTtrack and I was going down the exact same path you are now.

I ended up getting a DOF Reality P6 and I have been very happy with my purchase. The problem with the NLR V3 is that it’s a really expensive seat mover. DOF Reality sells what is essentially the exact same thing for $749 instead of $3,000.

Notice my GTtrack chair on my P6 rig :joy:

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Motion compensation works via SimRacingStudio 2.0 (same type of software as simconnect) and a $35 WitMotion device, and I’ve heard it works well with the G2. I have a Pimax 8K X coming in the mail, and I’ll get my motion compensation set up when that comes. There’s a bug with the Valve Index that prevents it from working properly.

While I intend to get motion compensation set up, I kept hearing from folks that it really wasn’t necessary as the rig doesn’t actually throw you far enough for it to make a difference. It’s possible that once I get it set up it’ll be this religious experience for me where I’ll never go back, but I’ve not even noticed the lack of it in many hours of use.

I’ve heard the V3 is a great piece of kit, it’s just limited and very expensive for what it is. The advantage to a full DOF Reality rig is that it moves all your seat, HOTAS, pedals, and anything else you connect to the rig. The V3 just moves your seat while your pedals stay right where they are.

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Thanks for your detailed response. Yes, the NLR V3 is expensive, which is why I wanted to make absolutely sure it will work with my setup before I purchase.

You’ve given me food for thought re an alternative in the DOF Reality P6, especially after your comment that only the chair, and not the controllers and rudder pedals, moves hence you would notice the disparity. From your photo, it looks as though it takes up more floor real estate and looks a bit chunkier, which will garner scorn from my wife who is already not exactly thrilled with me having a gaming setup in the lounge room. Nonetheless, I will check it out and see if I can find a balance.

As I understand it, and from what I saw of the motion compensation software enabled vs disabled in a racing car simulation video that for the life of me I can’t find again, the head movement is enough that it makes the cockpit ever so slightly go the wrong direction when you move in a particular direction, which I think I would find distracting. I’ll be interested to hear what you think when you do get motion set up enabled.

Thanks again for your input.

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OP of the referenced thread here.

The problem mentioned in that thread has improved for me a lot. I think through a combination of sim improvements, improvements to the NLR software, tweaks I’ve made in that software, and possibly also the fact that I fly less aerobatically these days. I would suggest the problem is not solved, but very much manageable and not a reason not to purchase one.

I use a Reverb G2 myself, with the v3 motion platform. I do have the motion comp installed and I believe it’s setup, but either way, it’s never an issue - so don’t worry about that!

When I looked at getting the v3, I did consider the p6 too. Infact, I think it was the other way around, I saw the p6, that that was crazy good value, did some research, and ended up with the v3. Each to their own, and do your own research. Everything else is just opinions :smiley:

By the way, I think that basically any motion platform connects to the sim the same way (via simconnect) and that the issue with it cutting in/out would therefore be present on a P6 as well as the NLR V3, or anything else. I did contact NLR about this, and a snippet of what they said is:

“SimConnect (Flight Simulator API) works very poorly in FS2020 unfortunately, there is alot of problems with getting telemetry data correct even after a recent patch is installed. The API some point starts returning errors and we have to restart the API. This causes the cut in/out effect.”

Perhaps other software packages would handle it differently, ignoring the errors and taking a degradation on data. Who knows? But yeah, as I said above, it’s not really an issue for me any more anyway.

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Anytime :slight_smile: It really is just my $0.02, and please don’t let me talk you out of an NLR rig. My GTtrack is very high quality, and I’ve heard good things about the V3.

Motion compensation is definitely around for a reason. I guess if I’m being very exact, it’s not accurate for me to say I’ve never noticed anything. There have been a couple of times where I’ve noticed that my position in the cockpit has shifted in a way that it probably shouldn’t. But I had to go looking for it. Things are pretty intense while you’re whipping around the track, and I just haven’t noticed the lack of motion compensation in the heat of the moment. Like I said, I’m still totally gonna get it set up as soon as I can, I have my WitMotion sitting in a box on my desk.

I just checked the footprint of the GTtrack vs P6. The P6 is about 4" longer and 12" fatter than the GTtrack. So, it’s chunkier, but not by too much.

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To add to this discussion, I just received the following response from NLR support re the dropout issue:

Unfortunately due to the Telemetry data MSFS 2020 produces this has caused inconsistently in the motion experience. Recently we haven’t had any reports of this data being an issue however we’re unable to guarantee that this is working 100% correctly.

​Previously we have tried making multiple software adjustments as a resolution in the meantime while they fix this issue. We appreciate your understanding.

So, maybe, maybe not :slight_smile:

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Totally! I’d be curious to hear what your research turned up and how you ended up weighing pros and cons of different motion systems. At least when it comes to these rigs, I have no buyer’s ego to protect, and am more than willing to own up to the system’s shortcomings and compare notes.

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It’s been the better part of a year since I did my research and purchasing. So without doing the research again, I’ll be speaking from memory :slight_smile:

First things first, I’m a big guy: 1.95m tall and 120kg. I would imagine that either I am beyond the stated limits of the P6, or that perhaps I read about concerns about its robustness. Either way, this is a fairly niche (but important) consideration for me :smiley:

Next, I seem to recall that generally speaking with actuator-based systems, they are noisy … Sorry looking back at the image you posted, I see the P6 isn’t using actuators, but motors - similar to the V3. So here’s a point of me remembering wrong!

But I think I read about the P6 being noisy, and looking at the design, it might make sense that the V3 is quieter. If you imagine that the motors on the V3 are central under the seat, geometrically a relatively small movement in the motor, will cause a reasonably large deflection near the top of the chair (where your chest/head are). On the P6, a relatively large movement of the motor would be required to deflect the rig the same amount … I think. Anyway, if that’s true, then perhaps the P6 motors end up making more noise by going through larger distances.

That’s not to the say the V3 is silent, but it is fairly quiet ¯_(ツ)_/¯

I really don’t mean anything insulting at all from the next bit, but in short, I seem to recall essentially deciding that the P6 is a well spec’d and impressive entry level rig - a bloody good toy. The v3 on the other hand, was more like the cheapest of the ‘professional’ ones.

I would say however, that your are spot on, that the biggest downfall with the ‘seat mover’ is that it’s just that. It can be annoying when getting thrown around, that if you’re not careful, the controls may end up out of reach :smiley:

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Like I said, always good to compare notes :slight_smile:

The H6 and P6 are both rated for 150kg, so I think you’d be alright. While the unit isn’t silent, it’s surprisingly quiet for what’s happening. Funnily enough, my wife says between the buttkicker on the GTtrack vs the buttkicker on the P6 + all the motion, the P6 is quieter.

I’m a pretty firm believer that you generally get what you pay for. (I also believe in diminishing returns) DOF Reality rigs are definitely the lowest priced products in their class, so I’ve no doubt that you get more as you spend more. Though I have to say, it feels like a lot of the cost savings that come from operating out of a garage in the Ukraine gets passed onto the consumer.

For me personally, the biggest downsides to the P6 are:

  1. They need to be carefully balanced to operate at their best, which is not exactly an easy task. Mine is not balanced as well as I’d like, and I’m going to have to plan carefully if and how I’ll address that.
  2. The movement in flight sims is not always smooth, especially at lower rates of motion. My understanding is that having the rig perfectly balanced will help this, but not eliminate it. This isn’t an issue in racing, as those movements are much faster, which the hexapod system handles much better.
  3. While the system does work right out of the box, I don’t know if I could recommend the package to someone who’s not comfortable with a little DIY. (The Facebook group is awesome!)

For me personally, these downsides are very manageable, but perhaps I’d change my tune if I sat in a V3 and felt a butter smooth roll while flying around in the 172 :sunglasses:

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Interesting!

I’m not sure what you mean by balancing, this isn’t something I’ve had to consider on the V3, and probably one of the things that you “pay for”, it’s worked right out the box, and never needed any kind of recalibration.

You do address one thing that I had alluded to in a DM with the original poster though … there’s something about the motion in MSFS that’s not quite right. It’s hard to describe, and I do know what you mean by it not being smooth. I have in the past noticed a little un-smoothness, but I’ve managed to get that sorted by tweaking settings in the settings in the NLR software. Nevertheless, it’s hard (if not impossible) to dial in to get GREAT motion.

That’s not to say it’s bad, because I do like it … but as you say in racing games, it’s just better.

One effect that works well on the v3 actually, which was an option that I had to turn on in the NLR software for ground roll effects. They work nicely to simulate ground evenness, and just that bit of real life imperfection in the way a plane wobbles around a bit when taxing/etc. Of course, that only applies on the ground.

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I’d think the V3 would be nearly immune to any kind of balancing concerns because of how the product is designed. You’re sitting directly on top of it, so it’s not like the motors are going to be constantly fighting against a center of gravity that’s out in left field.

The P6 has 6 motors that are moving an entire platform, and if you’re light like me and you have heavy thrustmaster pedals and a DD1 wheel base, you’re going to be front heavy, and the motors are constantly dealing with that, which as I understand, affects how smoothly they operate. I’ve heard that the math required to make the hexapod work well is nightmare fuel for even Math PhDs.

I am not a racer at all, but once I had committed to the motion rig, I figured I may as well slap some racing gear on there. And it’s awesome! I love my P6 for MSFS, but… smacking into a tree in Dirt Rally in this thing… well, that’s just a whole other level.

One thing I heard mentioned in reviews as I was researching was that you get the vast majority of the total effect of motion rigs from the first 2 axes (which is what the V3 has). I’ve found this to be accurate, it’s actually kind of ■■■■ how effective a slight, persistent roll or pitch is for immersion. Adding the 3rd axis (yaw/traction loss) is nice, but you’re starting to see diminishing returns. Adding the 3 translational axes, extending full speedbrakes in DCS and feeling the rig pull me backwards briefly is pretty cool, but anyone with a 2- or 3-dof motion rig can sleep soundly at night knowing they’re already getting 70-80% of the total effect with pitch and roll.

Edit: this forum censored c-r-a-z-y above. I am speechless :thinking:

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Haha, I was trying to work out what the curse would have been, but was thrown off by “surely it wouldn’t censor that!” :smiley:

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wow,. interesting these things, but you are still not going to feel the g foces ,. just
a slanted chair , thats not the same.

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No, of course it’s not the same. But to be fair, no matter what, flying a sim, is just ‘not the same’ as the real thing.

Nor would wearing a haptic vest that lets you ‘feel’ getting shot while playing Call of Duty the ‘same’ as being in a real-life combat situation. But that’s not to say it’s not more immersive.

It’s shades of grey thing, and trying to get as close as possible to the ‘real thing’ is still worthwhile even if it’s not actually achievable. Any extra level of realism helps to trick our monkey brains into believing it just a little bit more.

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Especially true in VR I find. Your brain is quite good at filling in the gaps when you have suitably convincing visuals.

One of the absolute best immersion investments I’ve made into my rig besides the VR headset itself was adding tactile transducers and running physics based events (ie not just using audio).

I have one big BK4 Advance under the seat and one smaller mini-LFE on the back (plus a small puck on my car brake pedals to simulate ABS/traction loss). The feel when sitting in a spitfire and the engine roars to life, the rig starts humming and shaking from that big BK-4… wow, something else. Vibrations from the gear clunking up/down, turbulence bumps, flaps travel vibration, stall buffet… no it’s not quite like real life but my word the increase in immersion is incredible. It feels like the sim is broken if they are turned off!

I then added a belt tensioner which simulates braking force, and again it added a lot to my racing immersion. Flying it’s also good but not to the extent that it helps with knowing how hard you are braking into corners in a car.

My next step is full motion and I should be finished with my DIY build in the next week or so - I’m looking forward to trying it out and again I’m not expecting it to feel 100% real, but I bet it’ll be an absolute blast!

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An update on this from info provided to me recently by NLR support. I have been advised that they’ve been working towards the release of VR compensation support for OpenXR with MSFS 2020 through their latest beta version, and it has been tried with the G2, although there are some issues still to be resolved. This is good news for those that have been waiting for this.

Also, based on feedback I have received, I have decided not to change my seating setup at this time and hence will not be getting any NLR seat nor motion platform. I am looking in to getting the butt kicker, or something like it as @Zeeflyboy suggests, as this seems to be universally well thought of and is much less than a motion platform will cost.

Thanks to all who responded here in this thread and via PM :+1: :smiley:

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Thank you for this thread as I am starting research on motion platforms to use with my G2 in VR and was down this same path of the DOF Reality setups or the Next Level Racing setups. Does anyone have a view on the debate of full motion (DOF) versus just the chair (NLR) ? (I would think that for flight sim it might be nice to have all the controls roll with you on turns, climbs, etc but not sure if it’s worth the extra size and complexity of the rig for me) I also would likely stick to either 2 or 3 degrees and not the full 6 to save on cost and I feel like for flight sim that 2 or 3 axis would be enough as compared to sim racing for autos where that sliding and braking feel would be great. I suppose it’s like anything and you get what you pay for but this technology still is a niche thing and there aren’t that many posts or videos specific to flight sim and the pros/cons of various setups from NLR and DOF.

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I saw this demonstrated at FlightSimExpo this last weekend in San Diego:

Virtual Reality Motion Simulator | YAW VR

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I’ve got the Yaw VR 2 on pre-order but delivery is not till Q1 next year. Kickstarter backers should in theory start receiving theirs in the next month or so so I can’t wait to see what the reviews are like. This setup seems a lot less ‘clunky’ than other rigs but I have never used those so am not the best person to comment.

I thought the price of the Yaw VR2, for what I am hoping it will provide, was too good to miss. Not sure where exactly I am going to fit it though!

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I really like the looks of the Yaw2 in terms of range of motion (far more than other systems), the seat design and the price for what it promises. I haven’t seen a lot of reviews of the original Yaw 1 version in flight simming, for things like smoothness, noise, durability, software integration with VR (to deal with motion compensation if you want that), etc. And of course real world tests with different types of HOTAS setups etc to see what issues the design may present on mounting things to it. I will watch for any posts of early users, thanks for your reply and good luck with it!