Next Gen System for older system to replace Red Chain

[rdh]

I was hoping to settle on a "next gen" software to have in place by this fall (side note: I have a device where the manufacturer went out of business so I need to write my own integration and that takes time) but I may wait another year. There are two options right now...TGC and Perfect Golf. I'm looking most seriously at TGC, mainly because although it has gaps, Perfect Golf currently has a lot further to go to be at the point where it would work well for a simulator. There are a few things holding me back on TGC...some echo what you've said bk1106.

Courses: I look at (on the PC game) a lot of the courses I see mentioned online, but very, very few feel authentic. Most of them are wonky and unrealistic. I'd never play them on a simulator. I bought a simulator because I want to simulate real golf. Authentic courses that look like they exist are critical to that. I'm also disappointed there don't seem to be a lot of real-world recreations coming out...that in itself would address the authentic concern. I don't think the designer has a satellite image overlay tool (?) so that's probably increasing the difficulty of creating accurate recreations.

Also on the courses, I know there are a handful for ProTee, but most others seem to be 6,800 yards and longer. As someone that only drives the ball in the 240-250 yard range, I never play a course on my simulator that is over 6,500 yards...and even those sparingly. I generally always play courses in the 6,100-6,300 yard range. I don't think TGC has too many that fit that bill that have the authenticity i'm talking about above.

Also critical for me is the ability to select a different tee for each player. Playing with my 10-year-old and 7-year-old sons just can't work otherwise...they need shorter tees. The structure of TGC course design where each "course" has a single tee length (so multiple copies of the course need to be created for different tee lengths) just doesn't facilitate this.

Other than that, I know there are things in the PC game from a usability standpoint that I think would be a real problem when using a simulator (things around mulligans, etc.) but those may be handled in the protee version...not sure how different it is. There are a number of enhancements i'd like to see as well...but those are nice to haves and wouldn't hold me back from purchasing. I'm going to wait and see what happens over the next couple months and i'll see if it's in the cards for this fall or whether i'll sit tight and stick with the red chain software (it gets more outdated looking by the day!) until next year. Fingers crossed.

[rdh]

I'm also hoping to 100% replace the red chain software with something...but that means all the practice options are needed. A decent range at minimum. Chipping/putting green would be nice. Really for practice in the red chain software, there are two things beyond the range that i'd need to replicate: 1. The ability to select what holes to play on a given course (so you can jump to hole 12 at augusta to practice hitting irons into the green) and 2. the ability at any point in a round to switch to practice mode...again, this goes hand in hand with #1...start a round at #12 on augusta and flip to practice mode so you can keep hitting shots from the tee. If you had to select mulligan after every one, that would suck.

[GSF_Admin]

Red Chain is obsolete. The engine is now part of FSX sold by Foresight.

Perfect Golf does not interface with simulator hardware. This might change in the future, but for now its classified as a golf game.

Have you checked E6?

[rdh]

I've spoken to the perfect golf guys and they plan to integrate it with simulators, but who knows if that's a year away or more/less. It may be a good option in the end, but it has a fair ways to go right now. I'm not considering E6 at this point...from what i've seen i think TGC or perfect golf are better options. Both need some simulator-specific work done though.

I think one challenge with both TGC and PG are that the development team are heavily focused on the PC/console game side and don't dedicate a lot of time/resources to the simulator side. I think PG underestimates how unique simulator requirements are...they view simulators as just another input option (i.e. mouse / controller / simulator) that will then not show a golfer animation. The simulator experience has many requirements beyond just getting the parameters for a shot in.

[Richard_Askren]

E6 addresses all your concerns and more. It just doesn't have the graphics of PG or TGC or a course editor.

[aja]

Jumping in on the discussion... rdh - can you be more specific about your "manufacturer went out of business" hardware?

I have a recently installed ProTee with the Red Chain courses and also TGC. For TGC I would echo your sentiments about course length, lack of a practice facility, usability issues for sim play and practice and lack of multiple tee-boxes. However, I think it is clear that the sim implementation of TGC is very preliminery at the moment and many of these issues and the required changes are being actively worked on. TGC is being ported to a few other hardware manufacturers units so it stands to reason that there will be a bigger push to improve the product and make it more sim-friendly.

[Js1010]

Hey RDH - one thing to note when looking at the PC version of TGC. The Protee Version of TGC is using its own back end servers to host all the course files - there are actually a good bunch of "shortened" versions of the courses that are only visible on Protee Servers . These course versions were shortened by getting the course files from the original designer and using the Course Designer within TGC to select different tee boxes to shorten the courses. Protee syncs the courses down from HB Servers around once a quarter so we do get all the courses but any published from our version of TGC are only visible to Protee TGC.

I agree with the Practice Mode - its needed desperately as well as the Multiple Tees.

[rdh]

Thanks for your reply aja. I think i'll proceed with a purchase of TGC...although I need to wait for protee to update their interface to calculate spin, since my device doesn't capture it. (They have the logic, but where it resides currently doesn't help me since I need to write my own integration program...and the logic is in the protee integration right now)

As for my device, I have a Golftek Pro 7. They went out of business 3-4 years ago now. It's actually a really great device...tracks all the club info plus ball speed / azimuth / launch angle using angled sensors...so no cameras and everything in one sensor pad (except for putting - separate sensor for that). I'll use it as long as it works, but once I have a hardware issue i'll be out of luck and will probably buy a ProTee system.

I do hope that over the next six months we see some significant enhancements in TGC for simulator functionality. The challenge is that simulator usage is a secondary focus for the dev team...but hopefully they plan to give it a fair bit of attention going forward. Fingers crossed...

[Bubba22]

Welcome rdh. You will like TGC. I agree the need stuff like real driving range and multiple the decks going forward but it should come.

[mthunt]

Js, I play a lot of console courses in my sim. I look at the HB site when new courses come out and sometimes can't find them. Is that because they are not on the ProTee server yet? Will they eventually?

[Js1010]

Myhunt - yes, Our last course sync with hb servers was about a month ago. Basically when we got the tgc 2.5 update. So any courses published by game version since then we dont have. We should be getting the next TGC "May Update" soon which should also coincide with another sync of all the courses.

I am hopefull we will get the two new course themes (Tropical and Delta) in our May update. Some great looking courses already out there.

[rdh]

Hey Bubba / js1010 - thanks for your replies. It's great to hear from you guys! Golf has been lower on my priority list the last couple years unfortunately, but i'm working to get back into it...and very much looking forward to TGC. I don't know what the arrangement with ProTee is, but I hope there's enough financial incentive in the simulator market to motivate HB studios to put a good amount of effort into building it out and improving it. That's the thing that doesn't make sense to me...I spoke with the perfect parallel guys, and their goal is to sell the software for $29 or whatever it is to simulator users just like PC gamers. While it's a noble concept, i don't think it makes sense. Significant work needs to go into the simulator functionality for it to be a smooth experience, and simulator users are generally fine with paying a fair price for that (not just $29) if they truly get something awesome. Anyway...we'll see where it goes.

For now i am waiting on protee as i need them to move their spin calculation logic to a place that i can trigger it in my own integration program.

I look forward to playing an online round with you someday once i'm set up!