Lacking some racing-motion in your life? Want to improve your simracing-skills, get better quickly and be way more involved in your simulated racing experience? Look no further. SR1 is Swedish technology, built out of 3D-printed plastic housing with steel-based industrial engines, electric pistons, custom software and it has, during the last two months, really impressed us here at Gamereactor. It's a superb motion system for your alu-profile racing cockpit for an incredible price. We replaced Next Level Racing's Motion V3 Platform with this and had probably never thought that it would mean such a big improvement as it did. Simrig's technology is hard to beat in the price range of £3000-6000.
The SR1-motion system is mounted on four 20-millimeter alu-profiles that are mounted under the load-bearing beams of your aluminium chassis (you can use Trak Racer, Simlab, Prosimu, Swedish Rig Design or what ever type or brand you like, here) and it's made up of four heavy, properly sized actuators that all come with their own electric motor and all are connected to an ECU that you preferably place under the chair itself.
The SR1 system is controlled by the the software Simrig Control Center and this program picks up telemetry from your simracing-games to control, coordinate and manage what is happening in perfect sync with the game you are running. Today there is support for 25 simulator games including; Dirt Rally, Dirt Rally 2.0, iRacing, Assetto Corsa, Assetto Corsa Competizione, Rfactor 2, F1 2020, F1 2019, Project Cars 2, Automobilista, Automobilista 2, Raceroom, Richard Burns Rally and Forza Motorsport 7.
Here at Gamereactor we have jumped between Kuno's simulators (Assetto Corsa and its sequel) and between Dirt Rally 2.0 and iRacing and the SR1 system and Simrig Control Center always recognises which game to start and calibrates itself to perfectly simulate movements in that particular title. After living with the software belonging to the Australian Next Level Racing Motion V3 system for just over a year, we can easily state that Simrig's Control Center is more flexible and more reliable in terms of functionality. It is also better than Simhub, more stable and easier to understand. This is thanks to Simrig's chief programmer Erik Alveflo who wrote the software. Great, great stuff and their support is magnificent.
SR1 simulates three forms of movement that you feel in a racing car; Pitch, roll and heave. "Pitch" is the rotation forwards and backwards that mainly takes place during braking and acceleration, while "roll" is the rotation to the left and right that takes place when cornering. "Heave" is movements up and down, simulation of the suspension travel in a car and here the SR1 pistons move 70 millimetres up or down, which easily creates an uneasy feeling when you throw your Lancia Delta HF Intregrale Evo 2 over a Finnish gravel crest in Dirt Rally 2.0.
Of course, there is also a fantastic amount of detail in the small movements in this system and you do not have to go rallying in any way to take part in the greatly increased realism that SR1 brings. It feels just as good to caress the curbs at the Spa in a McLaren 650S GT3 and feel how the SR1-system perfectly replicates the feel of body roll going up into the legendary corner Eau Rouge.
After almost 100 hours, there is no doubt that this system is the absolute market leader in this price range. Compact, flexible, clever, sustainable, rugged, with absolutely superb software that makes racing in various simulator games much more engaging and addictive. Of course, £3000 is a lot of money but if you ask us, right now, it is rather cheap and above all affordable for an easy-to-install, easy-to-use, superb system that makes all simracing that much more realistic. If you are serious about your simracing and want something that enhances the experience - Get the SR1. It's immersion through motion.