Spoilt for choice: Simucube 2 vs. Simucube 3

We at SimUl­ti­mate have put the base through its paces, ana­lyzed the tech­ni­cal archi­tec­ture, and close­ly observed the ini­tial launch issues. Is the Simu­cube 3 the new mes­si­ah of force feed­back, or does it make a need­less­ly worse ver­sion of an already per­fect prod­uct? We pit the leg­end against the chal­lenger.

A Ques­tion of Phi­los­o­phy: The Sys­tem vs. the Stand­alone Solu­tion
To under­stand the true dif­fer­ence between the sec­ond and third gen­er­a­tion, a quick glance at the new­ton-meter fig­ures on the spec sheet is not enough. You have to under­stand that Simu­cube is under­go­ing a fun­da­men­tal shift here. The Simu­cube 2 was a mas­ter­piece of iso­la­tion. It was a base that con­nect­ed to the PC via USB, and that was it. Every­thing else on the rig – ped­als, shifters, or hand­brakes – ran sep­a­rate­ly to the com­put­er. The result was often a con­fus­ing tan­gle of cables with USB hubs, poten­tial ground­ing issues, and soft­ware con­flicts from dif­fer­ent man­u­fac­tur­ers. The Simu­cube 3 breaks rad­i­cal­ly with this tra­di­tion and pur­sues a holis­tic approach. It is no longer just a stand­alone motor, but the cen­ter­piece of the new Link plat­form. The con­cept behind it is cen­tral­ized net­work­ing via the new Simu­cube Link Hub. A sin­gle, gal­van­i­cal­ly iso­lat­ed cable leads to the PC, and the base, the ActivePedals, and future acces­sories all con­nect to this hub. The stat­ed goal is to com­bine the reli­a­bil­i­ty of a closed sys­tem with the mod­u­lar­i­ty of an open one. We see here a clear attempt to move away from typ­i­cal DIY solu­tions toward an indus­tri­al stan­dard for the home cock­pit, where dri­ver con­flicts and USB band­width issues become a thing of the past.

Com­par­i­son Table

The Rad­i­cal Cut: Light­Bridge Instead of USB Passthrough
This is where things get tech­ni­cal – and for many sim rac­ers, emo­tion­al – because the con­nec­tion method has changed dras­ti­cal­ly. The Simu­cube 2 used a pro­pri­etary Blue­tooth-based wire­less pro­to­col for wire­less steer­ing wheels that was sol­id but lim­it­ed in band­width, which is why dis­plays could not be dri­ven. The Simu­cube 3 now intro­duces the Link Quick Release with so-called Light­Bridge tech­nol­o­gy. Pow­er and data are trans­mit­ted con­tact­less­ly via light and induc­tion. This means there are no more pogo pins that could wear out, and no phys­i­cal con­nec­tors that could loosen under the extreme vibra­tions of a direct dri­ve. The advan­tage is clear: you can now run a high-end steer­ing wheel with a dis­play with­out a sin­gle cable lead­ing to the base or PC. The wheel snaps in mag­net­i­cal­ly, self-cen­ters, and is imme­di­ate­ly online. How­ev­er, this inno­va­tion comes with con­tro­ver­sy, as Simu­cube has removed USB passthrough – the rout­ing of USB sig­nals through the steer­ing col­umn. The rea­son­ing lies in longevi­ty, since USB over mechan­i­cal slip rings is sim­ply not one hun­dred per­cent reli­able for pro­fes­sion­al use over many years. The con­se­quence is notice­able if you already own a col­lec­tion of old­er USB steer­ing wheels. You can still use them, but you’ll need to route the USB cable exter­nal­ly to the PC as before, or wrap it around the steer­ing col­umn. The Simu­cube 3 does­n’t ren­der old wheels unus­able, but it does­n’t inte­grate them into its new wire­less world either – which can be a hard cut for own­ers of large wheel col­lec­tions.

Teething Prob­lems and Quick Fix­es
We don’t want to sug­ar­coat any­thing here, because the launch of the Simu­cube 3 was any­thing but smooth at first – and we noticed this in our own test­ing. Ear­ly units saw reports of a metal­lic knock­ing dur­ing force feed­back under rapid load changes, severe EMI issues caus­ing con­nec­tion dropouts, and soft­ware bugs where the base incor­rect­ly switched into a safe­ty mode and damp­ened the sig­nal. But it was pre­cise­ly in this cri­sis that the man­u­fac­tur­er showed its true char­ac­ter. The response was unprece­dent­ed­ly fast and trans­par­ent. With­in just a few days, firmware updates rolled out that elim­i­nat­ed the knock­ing and resolved issues with the new Con­trol Box. The EMI prob­lems were also ana­lyzed and often traced back to exter­nal fac­tors such as faulty pow­er sup­plies, with imme­di­ate hard­ware replace­ment offered. Our long-term tests now show a com­plete­ly sta­ble pic­ture. This con­firms our view at SimUl­ti­mate that you’re not just buy­ing hard­ware here, but also one of the best sup­port ser­vices in the indus­try – one that does­n’t wait prob­lems out, but active­ly solves them.

The Dri­ving Feel: When Teleme­try Meets Physics
But how does the new flag­ship feel on track? The Simu­cube 2 was already extreme­ly smooth and pre­cise with its SPM motor. The Simu­cube 3, espe­cial­ly in the Ulti­mate vari­ant with the new, more effi­cient IPM motor, feels even more direct and respon­sive. The real game chang­er, how­ev­er, are the new teleme­try effects. Simu­cube draws on the knowl­edge they gath­ered with the ActivePedals here. The base inter­prets teleme­try data from the game – such as from iRac­ing or Le Mans Ulti­mate – and blends effects into the force feed­back that were pre­vi­ous­ly absent. This isn’t about gim­micky rum­bling, but about high-res­o­lu­tion infor­ma­tion. You feel the road tex­ture, the G‑forces in cor­ners, and the work­ing of the ABS or engine vibra­tions direct­ly in the rim. This infor­ma­tion is based on real data, not just the physics of the steer­ing col­umn. You sense grip loss ear­li­er and more clear­ly, which – com­bined with the absolute silence of the base (the faint coil whine of its pre­de­ces­sor has com­plete­ly dis­ap­peared) – cre­ates immer­sion at an entire­ly new lev­el.

Dual Mount­ing – Final­ly
A major crit­i­cism of the Simu­cube 2 was always its mount­ing, as it could only be attached via front-mount. Any­one with a rig fea­tur­ing a flat base plate – a so-called wheel deck – had to pur­chase expen­sive adapters. The Simu­cube 3 final­ly brings the long-await­ed flex­i­bil­i­ty with dual mount­ing. You can con­tin­ue to bolt it on clas­si­cal­ly from the front, or thanks to inte­grat­ed T‑nuts, mount it direct­ly from below onto the rig. Add to that the new Con­trol Box, which replaces the old emer­gency stop but­ton. It allows you to adjust para­me­ters such as force feed­back, damp­ing, and fil­ters via a rotary dial while dri­ving, with the val­ues shown in an over­lay on the mon­i­tor. These are qual­i­ty-of-life improve­ments that make an enor­mous dif­fer­ence in day-to-day rac­ing.

The Deci­sion
Are you now fac­ing the choice between gen­er­a­tions? If you already own a Simu­cube 2 Pro or Ulti­mate, you can sit back and relax. Your base is still absolute world class, will be sup­port­ed for years to come, and dri­ves beau­ti­ful­ly. In our view, upgrad­ing is only worth­while if you absolute­ly want that sin­gle cable to the PC or are keen on the new wire­less dis­play wheels. In terms of pure dri­ving feel, the leap is notice­able, but it’s no quan­tum jump. If, how­ev­er, you’re build­ing a high-end rig from scratch today or upgrad­ing from a weak­er base, there’s no way around the Simu­cube 3. The teething prob­lems are resolved, the Link plat­form makes for a tidy set­up, and the Light­Bridge tech­nol­o­gy is future-proof. Simu­cube had the courage to cut old ties in order to bring reli­a­bil­i­ty up to an indus­tri­al lev­el. It was a risk, but the result is the most advanced base mon­ey can cur­rent­ly buy.

Simucube® 2 Sport Wheel Base (17 Nm)

€ 1’209,00

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Simucube® 2 Pro Wheel Base (25 Nm)

€ 1’424,00

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Simucube® 3 Sport (15 Nm)

€ 1’239,00

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Simucube® 3 Pro (25 Nm)

€ 1’499,00

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Simucube® 3 Ultimate (35 Nm)

€ 3’189,00

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