INTRODUCTION

It was a bewildering morning when I got the Act-Labs Force RS Racing System up to my office. I was full of excitement with the anticipation of getting my hands on the latest in computer gaming hardware. At the same time I was hesitant to unhook my own controller that I had worked so hard to build such a long time ago. It was almost like betraying a colleague to switch to digital from an analog controller. I mean let's face it, which looks better? A needle on a tachometer sweeping the face of an illuminated gauge or watching red numbers flash? Digital or Analog, there is a use for both. Act-Labs has made the best of both worlds with their analog to digital input engine that should produce accurate and very consistent data input

My dealings with the people from Act-Labs have been very positive from my very first correspondence. I wasn't sure they or anyone else would be interested in outside product testing or credit the work that I had done in building my own wheel & pedal sets. I feel that I can give them some insight into the end-user's dream list and with that information help them make a better product for us. Now don't write me with your dream lists, ok? Mine is wilder than yours could ever be.... Act-Labs is building on a common platform with upgrades in the works all the time. The common platform allows them to produce upgrades to their engine as well as the hard parts with very little trouble. This makes their tooling cost lower. For us, our hardware will stay current with new technology for years to come. I hate to know I spent money for something and then just threw it away when it was no longer useful. I like the idea of adding something to what I already have..


PACKAGING

The Act-Labs Force RS comes packed in a very cool tote style box with great graphics that depicts most of the major forms of Motorsports. They did a great job with securing the items in the box. There is a transformer and also the RS Engine, pedal base and the wheel. It's hard to pack that kind of bulky stuff in one nice neat package without something getting damaged somewhere between their pick-up and your delivery. Everything in the box is neatly packaged and well protected. It also comes with a manual, written in five languages, and a CD. Yes, software for your hardware.


THE WHEEL

The wheel is a twisted turbine design with a nice looking faux leather cover and a distinctive spoke configuration that always looks centered no matter which way it's turned. The padded 10-inch wheel fits nicely and feels great in your hands. Personally, I'd like to see an add-on for a little larger wheel for stock car racing, but the 10-inch size works well. There is a four-way hat switch in the center where the horn button would normally reside. An ingenious idea, plus plenty of other buttons for almost any use. There are also two paddle style shifter levers that fit well behind the wheel and are in easy reach. In keeping with Act-Labs' continuing development, they also offer an add-on solid rocker style paddle instead of the two individual paddles that come with the stock RS. It simply replaces the old two-piece paddle with a single paddle that activates buttons #1 & #2.

The wheel base has a sturdy clamping device that secures the unit to most desks that have a ledge of two inches or less with no trouble. Now as with any new hardware you add to your system, you will have to load drivers for it to work properly. The assembly of the Force RS really only takes a few moments to connect. Once you have all the hard parts in place and hooked up, the manual suggests that you load the drivers first and then do a cold boot to get the drivers loaded. There are some newer drivers that are available here which will help with some of the newer applications of FF. I would however suggest that you load the drivers from the CD first and reboot one more time just to make sure all of the drivers have been loaded before you update. One other tip that bares mentioning is that the Force RS system comes with a USB plug and a serial port plug. You can use either one, but not both. With the RS system, you receive a control module that plugs into the back of the wheel base. With the RS shifter, you will get another module that goes in between the RS engine and the wheel base.

All of these modules make for a bit of a bulky package sitting on your desktop. One thing that adds a little more bulk to this package is the power pack that provides power for the wheel, which for me added another power strip to my office. Just what I needed ;- ! But as I said before, this product will be updateable for many years to come because of this set-up, so I guess we'll just have to make room for it.


FORCE FEEDBACK

I fought the idea of FF for a long time because of the lack of unique support for FF and because there weren't many quality units on the market. I just always felt that FF was more of a gimmick than it was an enhancement. We are still in the infancy of FF, but hopefully there will be more software written exclusively for racing and for FF that will really show all of the effects possible with the Act-Labs Force RS. The forces that are controlled by DirectX are a bit on the weak side. Here's what I mean: if you clout the wall in a real dirt car, the wheel will turn harshly and abruptly in your hand. Enough to make a nice bruise on your thumb if you hold the wheel the wrong way. This and the subtle feedback when the car loses traction are not as prominent as they could be. After reading the FAQ, I reset the return spring force to Zero as the instructions stated and even then I didn't feel the wheel go limp in my hands as I felt it should. However, this is more of a software situation than it is the wheel.

All one has to do is open up the I-Force Immersion Studio and play around with some of the preset effect values for the RS to realize and appreciate all of the things that this wheel will do. The Act-Labs RS will literally jump off the desk with the forces set properly. I got rather amused trying to hold on to the wheel while it was reacting to the effects that I was entering. I guess I never realized just how many effects you could put through the wheel that would let the driver feel every inch of the road. Each of these will satisfy even the most serious hardcore Sim Racer.

The software producers have not put their best foot forward in regards to FF yet. Sure there are many sims out there that support FF, but not many have really implemented all of the feedback effects that are possible with this product. I think many sim producers have written a basic code for the feedback, and seem to be satisfied by what they have. I won't mention any names, but some have reused the same FF coding from initial releases and never changed or updated for newer builds. This is a shame because there is so much immersion that could be added to any sim title with just a minor tweak of their feedback implementation. They say that sim racers are never satisfied.?? Probably true. We hollered for years to get FF. Now that Act-Labs has shown me what an enhancement it could be, I'll get on my soapbox again and say :"We want more!".


RS SHIFTER

The RS shifter in another one of those items that us chronically unsatisfied sim racers have been clambering about forever. Us hardcore guys like to shift gears. Why do you think there are so many trucks in the world? Because they have a cool shifter in 'em, that's why !!! Well, now I have a cool shifter. Act-Labs was the first to build a select-to-shift, gated shifter. This is something that other peripheral producers said wouldn't fly. Act-Labs so far has been the only company with the courage to try something new. The shifter quickly hooks up to the RS or Force RS system with a nicely designed 9-pin mini din connector, and it comes with a nicely padded bracket that slips under the base of the wheel for a very secure mount. The bracket is universal and will attach to either side of the wheel to satifsy our European friends on the other side of the pond. You know, the ones with the steering wheel on the wrong (right?) side of the car. The shifter also comes with a couple of overlay gates that makes it adaptable to almost any form of racing. For games that do not yet support the RS shifter, you can use the single gate that is supplied and still be able to shift as you would in a planetary transmission style shifter. I have been testing the new DTR Sprints game with the Force RS system. I have set up the shifter to move the wing back and forth since as we all know, Sprint cars don't have a shifter. Well ok they do have a shifter but it's just an in/out box and not really a shifter. Act-Labs also offers a Nascar style gate for the 4-speed tranny. It can be found here. It simply replaces the old two-piece paddle with a single paddle that activates buttons #1 & #2.


PEDALS

The pedals are made in a separate base unit that plugs into the lower plug-in beneath the wheel base. The base is sturdy and designed so that it will not tip or sway no matter how hard you stomp on it. The base is not extremely heavy, and at first I thought that there was just no way they would stay put. Well the ingenious folks at Act-Labs used their heads on this one. The angle of the pedals uses the counter balanced weight of your own feet to secure it to the floor. The base also comes with some very nice rubber pads for those folks that don't have a carpeted floor. Your feet rest very comfortably on the base which also has a terrific grooved rubber inlay with the Act-Labs logo on it. Very nice indeed. One thing Act-Labs has taken some heat for in the past is the small amount of travel in their pedals. Well, fear not because they have something very new and exciting coming in the near future.

I'm also disappointed at the resistance in each of the pedals. If you sat down in your own car, without looking you can tell which pedal goes to the brake because of the stiffness of it when depressed. Also, the further you push on the pedal, the firmer it gets. I think if both pedals had a little stiffer spring in them that the lack of sensitive travel would not be quite so critical. On the other hand, you get to a point where if the springs are too stiff then the weight of your feet on the base will not be enough to pin it to the floor. The pedals are easily modified though and with just a little work you can stiffen them up to gain some feel. Brandon Crick of Act-Labs also stated that they have a new "performance pedal system upgrade" that is in the works right now, so stay tuned for some added information on this. I'm told it will have a working clutch pedal and supporting axis. Great for those pit-out situations or to catch the car when you've overcooked your corner entry.


PERFORMANCE

The Force RS system performs very well. The input is clean and precise without the slightest hint of spiking due to the Analog to Digital conversion. When I first used the Force RS wheel, it felt stiff and almost notchy, if that's a word. I had heard this complaint before, and there is even a little blurb about it in the readme FAQ. This is because the RS uses a magnetic stator in its motor instead of a wire-wound. The reason for the magnetic style motor is simply a cost issue. If they were to use a wire-wound unit the price would likely double. I have only had the Force RS for about a week now, and after a few hundred laps driving a Sprint-car, the wheel is already starting to loosen up. DTR & Sprints are without a doubt the most demanding games on a wheel, bar none. I am constantly jerking the wheel left & right from lock to lock trying to keep the car pointed in the right direction. The Force RS handles it very well. It offers 270 degrees of turning radius which gives the middle of the wheel input very exact control. I cannot tell you how many times people have asked me about deadzone tweakers and such to keep the middle input of the wheel in check. Well, with the Force RS you can delete those from your system. I will assure you that you won't need any of those band-aides for this wheel. If fact, I found in a few games that I actually had to open up the steering ratio a bit to get enough turn at the off-center positions of the wheel. Very nice!

Another interesting feature about the Force RS is the design of the internal components. Every single button, potentiometer, light, module and even the motor are plugged into the main board via some type of pin connector. What this means is, heaven forbid anything should ever stop working on your unit, you can easily replace it without getting out the soldering iron and flux paste. Everything plugs in. All you have to do is remove the screws on the case, remove and replace the malfunctioning component. Within five minutes, your unit is back together and ready for some fender rubbing. I've been inside quite a few of these type controllers, and this is the only one I've ever seen that isn't hardwired together making it user-friendly and easy to repair.


TOTAL PACKAGE

The Force RS system is both affordable for the arcade sim-racer and beefy enough for the hardcore guys as well. There are a couple of changes I would suggest with the RS, but all in all it is a great product and one that will be usable for a long time. One of my suggestions is a module so that the shifter can be used with other wheels and not exclusively with the RS units. The modules are a bit bulky and the cord for the power pack is not as long as it needs to be. On the other hand, the modules will keep this product upgradeable, so I feel this more than makes up for the bulkyness of the modules.

The readme is very clear and concise. The drivers on the CD install nicely, and if you want the latest in driver-wear, Act-Labs has drivers that you can download from their site, either in a self-installing or manual format. The "Immersion Studio" pops up upon reboot so you know that the system is online. You even get a nice "Start-up" sequence that sounds as if you just put the key in the ignition of your family car. We do need to work on that particular wav file though because it sounds like you're starting a Yugo. I want it to sound like I just fired up a 800hp methanol burning race motor, not a little four-banger.

Act-Labs has a great product here, and I highly recommend it to anyone that has an interest in Sim-racing. I'm looking forward to testing and hopefully applying a little of my backyard ingenuity to their newest professional pedal upgrade. The Force-Feedback implementation is an essential element in Sim-Racing these days. For titles like GPL that have a good code written for the feedback, it is simply the greatest thing you can get to enhance your immersion of the game. For titles that don't yet support the Force-Feedback, you'll still get great performance, longevity and precise input. Accessories and upgrades are easily installed with a phillips screwdriver and a pair of pliers. Most importantly, if you ever have trouble with their products, they have good and thorough tech support people.

This one is a must have. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not going to throw my wheel set out the window because I worked too hard to figure it out. But I can't do the FF yet, so I may have to order some more of Act-Labs nifty modular components and go back to the work-shop.