Sim Racing Cab Cockpit Ideas

[aevans0001]

Hello all, I hope someone here has built a sim racing machine. I have the controls picked out but now need the monitor, the cockpit, and then the individual accessories, monitor stand, shifter holder, seat, etc.

Please let me know what you would do differently or any success you may have had

[Fursphere]

I had a Playseat Evolution setup for a bit.  Came with a Fanatec CSW v2.54 base I bought.   Hated it.   Stay away from center post setups.   Horrible. 

If you're going full sim (not Arcade, not SimCade), you kind of need to figure out what kind of racing your want to do, and then build the cockpit from there, as seat position can get a little crazy (F1 vs Rally vs NASCAR for example).  I do like TrakRacer stuff.  An early version of my SimRacing rig used a TrakRacer single screen holder to mount a 43" 4k TV (on wheels so its easy to move) and I have no complaints about that.   After I built the Daytona Twim, my son stole the 43" screen for his room.   

Aluminum extrusion rigs are generally the most flexable in terms of configuration options (build whatever you want).   

One thing that was REALLY fun was mounting transducers all over the rig and using SimHub to turn Sim telemetry into rig vibrations.  (Good alternative to a full motion rig because they are still stupid expensive)

Monitor?  Do you want a single screen or triples?    That'll effect the stand choice.   Ultrawide?  Do you have the budget (and stomach) to buy an appropriate GPU in this market to drive those monitors?    (And the modern PC to run that GPU including appropriate PSU specs). 

I ran triple 27" 2560x1440p screens on a RTX 3060 running NVIDIA Surround, and FPS suffered.  It 'kinda-sorta-not-really' handled it (dipped below 60 fps often).  Dropping it to 1080p helped, but wasn't the resolution I wanted.  I ended up swapping the triples for for a Samsung G9 OLED 49" ultrawide (which resolution wise is like 2k doubles without the center bezel line) and it was better, but still not what I wanted...  so I bought an RTX 5080.   And my wallet is still on fire.       But performance is great!       This is in my flight sim / space sim rig, but the same hardware rules apply to sim racing.   My SimRacing setup is my Daytona Twin cabinet and runs single 32" 2k screens.  Its more Arcade/SimCade than pure Sim Racing, but I do play a little full sim from time to time. 

Long story short - Your monitor should cost the same as your GPU, and you want to shoot for 120 fps (ish) to get a really smooth experience.  (so 120hz or higher screen)  The 50 series cards with DLSS 4 help a ton there, but they're bloody expensive.