Introduction
When you’re a member of the overclocking.com editorial team, you always try to remain impartial. For this article, that’s going to be tough, as I’ve been hired by Cooler Master, for a few month now, where I’m in charge of developing the simulation project: the Dyn X. So I thought it would be interesting for once to show what goes on behind the scenes, the challenges and so on.
Being a car enthusiast and collector, but also having worked in video games/hardware, I’ve always had a steering wheel and pedals close to my PC. In 2014, I built my first real simulator to play iRacing. At the time I was working for Millenium with Djey, and as we weren’t super satisfied with what was on the market, we had in mind to develop a cockpit. With the buyout of Millenium by Webedia in 2015, projects quickly changed and we had no time to develop a simulator. A few months ago, some friends at Cooler Master told me they were looking for someone with my profile to develop the IMX projects (immersion) I had to jump on the opportunity.
History of Cooler Master
Cooler Master has had a simulator chassis called DynX for over a year now. But why has Cooler Master ventured into a sector that is far removed from its core business, cooling? You might think that it’s because this market has been booming since Covid, and with the component market stagnating, it’s time to diversify. If we listen to the marketing team, we’ll learn that the Taiwanese brand likes atypical projects, and immersion (IMX) is their favorite word at the moment. There’s certainly truth in that, but the real reason is that Cooler Master is an R&D machine.
We all know the brand for its cases, cooling and power supplies, but did you know that this part of Cooler Master is actually quite small compared to its industrial part? The brand is actually behind the cooling systems of many other brands that I can’t name… but let’s just say that smartphones, consoles, graphics cards, servers, electric cars, 5G antennas… all the biggest brands call on CM for cooling. So the case, cooling and power supply part is really just the “fun” part of the package. And so, the immersion part is the “super fun” part.
[nextpage title=”The Dyn X”]
The simulation project
Back to the Dyn X. This product is the brainchild of an American engineer who happens to be well-connected with certain people in the automotive world. The Dyn X’s price tag is a direct indication that it was not designed for the general public, but is far more ambitious than that. Among consumers, we find brands that target the entry-level: Playseat. Or mid-range, with aluminum profile chassis. There’s also a Pro range and a “luxury” range. But objectively, there’s still a gap above the mid-range. This is where Cooler Master has decided to move in with the Dyn X.
What are Cooler Master’s key selling points?
- A welded tubular chassis that’s extremely rigid. 3 times less flex than an aluminum chassis. And therefore a better feel when you install actuators to make the chassis “dynamic”. The drawback? Like aluminum chassis delivered in small packages, you end up with two huge boxes on a pallet. This partly explains the cost.
- 14 position changes with 4 screws. Truck, Rally, GT, Nascar, GT3, LMP, Formula 1… The advantage here is that you can change position in 1 minute, without having to change the position of the pedals… the whole structure flips over. Personally, I switch between Rally, GT3 and LMP. The trick Cooler Master found to make the position comfortable without also having to change the seat is a simple cushion that is positioned with Velcro… So simple and so effective.
Accessories and compatibility ?
Aluminum profile chassis are completely customizable, and it’s a real challenge for a tubular chassis to come close. To achieve this, you need to be compatible with as many commercial solutions as possible. As far as Cooler Master is concerned, 2″ / 50mm tubes are commonplace not only in motorsports, but also in film and events. This means that a large number of accessories like clamps are already available.
On each corner of the Dyn X, there are adjustable foot brackets. If you’d like to put the chassis on castors, nothing could be simpler – the screw pitch is the same as that of a large number of commercially available wheels. Want to install a 5.1 audio system? Holes are provided for SmallRig Magic Arm-type articulated arms… A host of little solutions to make customization easy.
What’s missing now is a complete ecosystem of accessories, which is slowly being built up. Too slowly for my taste. But we intend to remedy that soon, I just can’t talk about it yet.
[nextpage title=”Challenge and opportunities”]
New market
Although the Dyn X has been on sale for just over a year, Cooler Master didn’t immediately know how to market it. It’s good to have a great product, but you also have to adapt to this market, know your target and develop it. And given that the post-Covid period has been complicated for all hardware, sales people have tried to salvage things rather than push a new product. It’s hard to sell simulators at our current resellers, for example. It’s not impossible that they’ll get round to it later, but right now, that’s not where this type of product is sold, and even less so at the top end of the market.
So we’ve come up with a new strategy. Targeting a new clientele who don’t have the desire or the knowledge to build their own simulator.
It’s the same concept as for PCs. At OCC, we like to build our own machines, but the majority of sales are made on PCs already integrated.
You can imagine that this complicates a lot of things. Given the number of components, the size and the weight. But for now, we’ll skip those details.
[nextpage title=”Component selection”]
Component selection
Today we’re offering 3 configurations, so here’s the biggest one, which costs an eye watering €30,000.00. Yes, it’s hard on the wallet for an individual. But for a driver, for example, it’s the equivalent of a weekend of GT3 testing. That’s 8 sets of tires… Not all our customers are drivers, but you’ll understand the profile of our buyers.
- Chassis: Cooler Master Dyn X
- Seat: Dyn X Racing Seat
- Steering wheel base: Simucube 2 Pro co branded Cooler Master
- Steering wheel: GSI FPE V2
- Pedal: Heusinkveld Ultimate
- Optional pedal: Simucube ActivePedal Ultimate
- Keyboard / Mouse: Rii Mini Keyboard X8
- Haptics / Cylinders: Sigma Integrale DK2 co branded Cooler Master
- Displays: 3x Cooler Master GM34-CWQ2
- Sound: Logitech Z906 5.1 Surround System
When it comes to certain components, the choice is easy. Some of the brands are leaders in technology and/or durability, such as Simucube and Heusinkveld. In a future article, we’ll come back to Simucube and how they’ve changed the world of simulation in recent years, with their consumer direct drive and now active pedals.
For the rest, there’s competition, for example in steering wheels. Cube Control would have been another good choice, easier to configure and a magsafe-type magnetic connector. For me, it’s what I’d choose for a sim center or event environment. But the GSI wheel is a cut above in terms of finish, assembly and overall quality. Customers also ask us to adapt the steering wheel or a replica of their car, as we did with Czinger.
Another important choice is the motion / haptics system. At this year’s ADAC SimRacing Expo there was a plethora of systems, at all price levels. So why did Cooler Master choose a little-known American brand? I think we’d need a whole article on the subject to explain all the qualities of Sigma Intégrale‘s DK actuators design, but to put it simply: ultra-fast, robust, over-built, no latency, and respecting the integrity of the game’s telemetry data. I should also mention that the team behind is made of awesome engineers that help go above and beyond for their clients. For me, this system is a cut above the rest, and I’m no longer the only one to think so. For the record, Sigma converts real cars into simulators for major brands, museums and others. We’ll come back to this in a separate test.
As far as screens are concerned, we’ve long had a fashion for triple-screen 16:9 format displays, but now it’s the turn of the 21:9 format, and Cooler Master has a 34″ 180Hz that’s perfect for the job. However, if even more immersion is required, we’d go for LG Ultragear 45″ and, if the customer has the space and the wallet, Samsung Odyssey ARK 55″… I’ll leave you to imagine the cost of this option.
As for sound, I chose Logitech’s 5.1 Z906. A model that has dominated this niche for far too long, if you ask me. When can we expect a Logitech update?
With all these peripherals, it’s easy to have USB interference problems. That’s why Sigma Intégrale, and now Simucube for their active pedals, use an RJ45 connection. We’ll come back to this point in a future article.
The GSI FPE V2 steering wheel is superb, but USB ports were never designed to deliver this much current. So you’ll have to use a powered hub.
Beyond the choice of components, as with a PC, we also have to think about cable management. Here, we try to arrange everything neatly and then use a cable protector to make it even sexier and easier to put on/remove if we need to intervene.
[nextpage title=”PC and Setup “]
We’re on OCC, so we’ll have to talk PC
Simulation is one of the “extreme” cases for PCs, because ideally we use a 3-screen configuration. So it’s easy to bring smaller configurations to their knees.
Here, we’re aiming for 120fps in triple 1440p gaming. So we’re opting for a 4080S, a 7800X3D, 32GB at 6000 Mhz. We’ll probably switch to the Ryzen 7 9800X3D when it’s available and tested on simulator games.
It’s common to have the PC on the floor, but to counterbalance the weight of the screens, for dust, and to minimize the electrical cables on the floor, a steel tray is fixed behind the screens. In this case, it’s not painted, for lack of time, but that’s not the case for our customers, who receive a beautiful matt black powder coating.
Settings and software
Now that everything’s plugged in, it’s time to install the games, drivers and software for each peripheral. We calibrate everything, then finish by configuring each game, and the peripherals in the games. Always with a view to ensuring that the customer can enjoy the simulator as soon as it’s delivered. Plug & play.
But that’s something any company could do. So for me, it was necessary to go one step further. By sponsoring racing cars, Porsche Cup in Asia and GT3 in Europe, Indycar and Nitrocross in the USA, we get closer to the drivers and now use their feedback to copy the real feel of their race cars.
This is the case for steering wheel force feedback, pedal force and, of course, the haptic system. You’d think all this would be simple, but it’s actually a lot of work, with a hundred or so parameters in all to configure for one type of car… So we’re just getting started, and our long-term aim is to update our database so that all our customers can switch from one configuration to another in just a few clicks.
Transport
It’s impossible to deliver the simulator in 1 block, as the aim is to pre-assemble and parameter everything for the customer. The screens and PC are therefore returned to their packaging for transport, and the simulator is separated from the screen support. 3 new connections (2 current, 1 USB-C) are required to reconnect the chassis to the monitor stand. No screws are required for the screens, which are simply fitted with the Vario-VESA system, and reconnected to the power supply and Display port.
Finally, the same story for the PC. Once it’s been placed on the display stand, each cable must be reconnected. Note that they all stay in place and are labelled. It’s impossible to make a mistake.
[nextpage title=”Conclusion”]
Conclusion
None of this is revolutionary. But getting a hardware manufacturer to make a turnkey simulator assembly line is a real challenge. I hope this article isn’t too promotional. The aim is not to find customers among you, but to show the progress of an atypical and fun hardware project . Unfortunately, I can’t go into all the current developments, but if you’re interested in this type of article, I won’t hesitate to share the progress and open the door a little more to the challenges.
