SkyTrak and The Golf Club (TGC) Simulation Software

[soccerdude]

Hi Seth. I'm new to this forum but have been reading as much as I can about SkyTrak on this and other forums. It seems that many experienced sim users think that The Golf Club game is the best simulator software out there right now. In fact, if I'm understanding and remembering things correctly, Bubba22 and Zmax were instrumental (please correct me if I'm wrong) in getting ProTee to integrate their sim hardware (and gc2) with The Golf Club software. So my question to you/SkyTrak is simply this: Has there been any thought to integrating SkyTrak with The Golf Club? And if so, what are the odds that this might happen? And if so, when?

[GSF_Admin]

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[JV17]

By no means was I stating fact about he $1895, just that as I understand it, if you wanted TGC for your GC2, thats what it would cost. I may well be wrong and this was more of a question than a statement of fact.

It was more just to highlight that if anyone was hoping this sim option would just be appearing with no/minimum additional cost, and pinning their hopes on it then, they may want to brace themselves.

As Im not in the know regarding all this I am unaware of Martin, and so the price I quoted was the one off the website. Im guessing Martin therefore is in a position at Protee to offer the lesser price.

As I say, just wanted to make sure that as the system now appears to be becoming more of a viable solution, that people werent pulling the trigger hoping that this software would end up suddenly appearing one day for very little cost.

John, you are correct. You would have to purchase ProTee's software, with which you would get TGC as well.

Sorry to the rest of you guys, TGC will not be cheap via any system... SkyTrak or otherwise. Compare the cost of your major players. $2k give or take. You all admit TGC is more desirable/better. Why would it be cheap? ...Especially if it's your only Sim option for your LM. I agree with Craig, the delay from Skytrak would drive me crazy too. I hope they get that sorted for all of you ST guys.

[rbarthle17]

Then TGC and SkyTrak will get a quick lesson in the demand side of supply and demand. Because it seems that this group of people (who probably make up a decent percentage of the Skytrak early adopter user base) don't see the value in simulation for that cost. Time will tell.

[luv2golf]

If TGC pricing is the same or similar, I'm quite certain i will be waiting for the other platforms to join skytrak.

Agree 100% wbond. TGC looks great and people have great things to say about the software. I like you would like to see Perfect Golf and E6 Cloud pricing and features too before I pull the trigger.

I can always hook up the opti worst case.

[Par2Pro]

Hey All, not sure if this will be too much of a teaser, but here is our beta testing of SkyTrak with TGC:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOSYog8gRqk

PS: Sorry, but I also posted the same link in the SkyTrak with WGT thread lol

[Brettster]

MrHogan... have you hit on a GC2/Foresight sim before? If the hills and slopes are blurry - you try to play on that in a sim! You can't do it, that's how it affects it considerably. When I've played TGC on my desktop (I don't have my sim built out yet), it's much easier to see slopes and hills, especially when it comes to chips & putts.

Short game is greater than 50% of Golf, so to think anyone could give that up, or play on crappy/fuzzy course renderings and be happy with it is nuts in my book... maybe you're just on the range all day and it doesn't matter in your sim, but I'm not willing to give up more than 1/2 of my game to play a sim, especially if I'm going to drop $5K into it, and re-build my house to get there!

It doesn't matter if many will 'not go through process' to build out local courses, it doesn't take that long, and if you have the yardages, and an idea of slope on your local course, it's not that hard - and I'm going to do it. It would be a huge advantage to be able to play local courses in the Winter, and keep fresh, and especially if they are rendered in HIGH Resolution, as in TGC.

[MrHogan]

I've played on several different commercial sims, some better than others, some unable to replicate a draw shot the ball would just continue off to the right - that's infuriating.
I agree pretty graphics are pleasing to the eye but don't affect how I impact the ball. Wrt to chipping I use the dave peltz method - that is I play by numbers not feel, so a 24 yard chip is a 7.30 (clock face) 62 degree wedge for me, 32 yards is the same but 58 degree wedge and so on. If your a feel player then maybe I understand you needing to see the slope a bit more but you're still looking at your ball at impact not the screen ;-)

Let's see how long it takes to do your own course and how representative it is of the real thing first before we say how quick n easy it is!

I'm not having a barney here I can see that folks have different use cases, my sim is in the garage so in my circumstances it makes sense to spend modestly, if your building a room inside the house specially then I can also see that it warrants extra $$$ to complete the commercial sim effect. Horses for courses bruv.

[mthunt]

I didn't win a lottery but I can say the extra money is worth the new technology to me. It's not different than buying the new EA Golf or Hockey because the graphics are way better. You can easily buy NHL 2012 for 5 bucks at EB Games for your kid but they want the better graphics too. Having accuracy of the shot if crucial. Having everything is better. This, of course, is my take on it. If you like a cheaper solution that gives the accurate shot, that's great. Being able to hit a ball in your house is the best thing of all.

[Spudly]

Hey All, not sure if this will be too much of a teaser, but here is our beta testing of SkyTrak with TGC:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOSYog8gRqk

PS: Sorry, but I also posted the same link in the SkyTrak with WGT thread lol

Par2Pro, any chance you could give us an idea on the specs we will need for a laptop or desktop system to run this? also as you can see there is much concern over the price, I know you guys sell other systems software, so any insight or ball park figure would go a long way to helping us budget for this.

Thanks.

[TWiG]

The Golf Club Simulator Computer Requirements
Minimum:
OS: Windows 7 (64Bit), 8, (64Bit), 8.1 (64Bit)
Processor: Intel Core i5 or equivalent
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: DX11 compatible video card with 1GB video RAM
DirectX: Version 11
Network: Broadband Internet connection
Hard Drive: 20 GB available space
Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c compatible

Recommended:
OS: Windows 7 (64Bit), 8 (64Bit), 8.1 (64Bit)
Processor: Intel Core i7 or equivalent
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: NVidia GTX 670 or AMD 7850 w/ 2GB (or better!)
DirectX: Version 11
Network: Broadband Internet connection
Hard Drive: 20 GB available space
Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c compatible

IMPORTANT: THE GOLF CLUB GAME WILL NOT RUN IF ABOVE REQUIREMENTS ARE NOT MET!

Source : http://csc.protee-united.com/entries...Club-Simulator

[Rcush88]

Would the Golf Club simulator work with a p3 proswing?

[Brettster]

Nope - maybe you can contact P3 about that and see if they have a response? Since they already have their own Sim/software, I'd be curious if they are interested in adding TGC in hopes of increasing their sales... Let us know what you find out, call them and ask, I wonder what they will say?

[aja]

Somebody referred to "quick lessons in supply and demand"... I thought I might comment.

The market for golf sims is not really that sensitive to price, despite what you may think. Part of the reason is the small market for this exclusive product. There are relatively few suppliers and relatively few customers.

This model applies somewhat to the Skytrak as well. It's pricing is fairly exclusive as well as the market for it is also quite small. The "average" golfer isn't going to plunk down $ 2000 for a practice aid.

Very simply the quick lesson in supply and demand is that the products we are talking about, both launch monitors and golf sims are not really sensitive to price, and because of the small size of the potential market, those selling these types of products seek to maximize their return per sale with pricing that makes their participation in the market worthwhile.

In short, don't expect to get full value sim software for $ 200!

[Brettster]

aja - I see your point... however, let's not see it in the $2,000 price range as has been mentioned, $500-$700, or $300-$500 - when you've paid $2,000 for the ST unit sounds fair to me.

I know that $200 is probably not doable from Sky Golf, and I'm sure they know right where they need to be - to make a good return on it - however, they still will need to keep in mind that they can go a bit lower to attract more users to the Sim market... I'm just curious what do you think the size of the Golf Sim Market is USA (and Worldwide), and what do you think the potential could be at a lower price point?

[Brettster]

The Golf Club Simulator Computer Requirements
Minimum:
OS: Windows 7 (64Bit), 8, (64Bit), 8.1 (64Bit)
Processor: Intel Core i5 or equivalent
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: DX11 compatible video card with 1GB video RAM
DirectX: Version 11
Network: Broadband Internet connection
Hard Drive: 20 GB available space
Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c compatible

Recommended:
OS: Windows 7 (64Bit), 8 (64Bit), 8.1 (64Bit)
Processor: Intel Core i7 or equivalent
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: NVidia GTX 670 or AMD 7850 w/ 2GB (or better!)
DirectX: Version 11
Network: Broadband Internet connection
Hard Drive: 20 GB available space
Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c compatible

IMPORTANT: THE GOLF CLUB GAME WILL NOT RUN IF ABOVE REQUIREMENTS ARE NOT MET!

Source : http://csc.protee-united.com/entries...Club-Simulator

I'm running a Dell 8700 XPS, with a NVidia GTX 660 and TGC performs just fine, I guess SkyTrak (ST) would also run fine in this setup, but cannot confirm it.

I'm posting this because it's hard to find info at Dell that you can even install a NVidia card, and this one is the best performing card that will actually fit in a Dell 8700.

Other specs on this computer:
OS: Windows 7 Professional (64bit)
Processor: Intel Core i7
Memory 8GB
Graphics: Nvidia GTX 660
DirextX: Version 11
Network: Broadband
Hard Drive: 1TB
Sound Card: Realtek High Definition sound.

[aja]

MrHogan... have you hit on a GC2/Foresight sim before? If the hills and slopes are blurry - you try to play on that in a sim! You can't do it, that's how it affects it considerably. When I've played TGC on my desktop (I don't have my sim built out yet), it's much easier to see slopes and hills, especially when it comes to chips & putts.

Short game is greater than 50% of Golf, so to think anyone could give that up, or play on crappy/fuzzy course renderings and be happy with it is nuts in my book... maybe you're just on the range all day and it doesn't matter in your sim, but I'm not willing to give up more than 1/2 of my game to play a sim, especially if I'm going to drop $5K into it, and re-build my house to get there!

It doesn't matter if many will 'not go through process' to build out local courses, it doesn't take that long, and if you have the yardages, and an idea of slope on your local course, it's not that hard - and I'm going to do it. It would be a huge advantage to be able to play local courses in the Winter, and keep fresh, and especially if they are rendered in HIGH Resolution, as in TGC.

The one thing I've garnered from reading the forums and practicing on my sim, is that the sim is NOT going to improve your short game. Better resolution is something that might earn you bragging rights or "wows" from you buddies, but honestly, if TGC didn't show me the distance to the pin or the green in big bold numbers, I doubt that the clearest of resolutions would allow me to guess the distance to the pin or green.

My crappy fuzzy 728x1024 or whatever it is resolution is fine, thank you very much and I have no illusions about improving my short game solely using my sim, and most sim users will back me up.

The moment you hit your ball, the screen image and resolution is completely irrelevant. It's you, club, ball.

With TGC you have many resolutions available mostly depending on your video card, but ultimately on your projector. From experience, golf sims work remarkably well at recreating and representing shots with clubs longer that the 7 iron. With anything shorter, it's more than a bit "hit and miss". On a real course, not likely that I would leave a putt half the distance to the pin from 20 feet, nor is it likely to run it by 30 feet, but this happens regularly on the sim ('til you get used to it)!

Hope that your golf sim solution finds you and that you are satisfied with it.

[Brettster]

Thanks for the keen insights! I've come to the sorry realization that Golf Sim is not going to help my chipping, however, I still believe I can setup an indoor putting area so it can help with that... Where does that leave me - about 75% covered on my golf game over 5-6 months of Winter that we have in Northern Indiana.

That sounds pretty good - compared to not being able to swing a club previously.... however, the competition for that has heated up since we do have a local Sim/Bar where I live and I bought a 3 month Summer Pass for $100. Unfortunately it's still not as convenient as being able to play in my own house, and they have GC2/Foresight kiosks with lower resolutions.

I do believe there is more to playing on the Sim then just hitting balls into a 'crappy fuzzy 728x1024' (as you described it) course projection. I can tell from playing TGC on my computer, that it just feels a lot more 'real' at 4K picture, or even at 1600 width, it just feels more real - and that matters too.

Let me ask you this: How long do you think it takes someone to watch a SD (standard definition) television - when they can see how good a HD (high definition image) looks before they do whatever is require to watch everything in HD? Then I also wonder - do you watch SD TV now, and continue to be happy with it, knowing that you could upgrade to much better HD image quality?

[Hoosierdaddy]

I'm running a Dell 8700 XPS, with a NVidia GTX 660 and TGC performs just fine, I guess SkyTrak (ST) would also run fine in this setup, but cannot confirm it.

I'm posting this because it's hard to find info at Dell that you can even install a NVidia card, and this one is the best performing card that will actually fit in a Dell 8700.

Other specs on this computer:
OS: Windows 7 Professional (64bit)
Processor: Intel Core i7
Memory 8GB
Graphics: Nvidia GTX 660
DirextX: Version 11
Network: Broadband
Hard Drive: 1TB
Sound Card: Realtek High Definition sound.

Thats interesting that you say it works fine. A 660? NO WAY. Read the HB forums and Read the PG forums. Everyone agrees that won't run it well. But then again some say a hot dog taste better than steak. I guess it all depends on what your definition of runs it well is.

[luv2golf]

Can I hire you to write for me. That's hilarious..

[Brettster]

Hoosier you're hilarious, I have every detail turned up and it runs fine on the GTX 660. Do you want to see a video of it running on my machine? In case you didn't know the 660 is probably nearly as fast as the 670 (which is recommended).

In case you want to see a truly technical website compare the two cards (GTX 660 vs GTX 670) here you go:

http://gpuboss.com/gpus/GeForce-GTX-670-vs-GeForce-GTX-660

You crack me up! The computing power is almost the same - they both run 2GB of RAM and both cards are close to the $300 price range.

[Hoosierdaddy]

I don't need a website to tell me when the screen is lagging. Just wait. get online and play then tell me everything is ok. There once was a member on here who had virtually the same set up you described. He ended up getting 2 660's to make it work. You tell me you have it running? when did you get a system? a projector? If your talking just the PC version on a monitor. I think that will work My old computer works ok on a monitor. But it would barely even run it at all on low going through the projector. Hilarious? I guess the 10 of us that built a new rigs to run this must have been seeing things.

[Brettster]

Here's my specs:

http://www.game-debate.com/games/index.php?g_id=20562&game=The+Golf+Club&p_make=Intel&p_deriv=Core+i7-4790+4-Core+3.6GHz&gc_make=Nvidia&gc_deriv=GeForce+GTX+660+Ti+PNY+Edition+&ram=8&checkSubmit=#systemrequirements

I don't believe running this whole thing out through a projector is going to affect it that much. I'm curious, who is the member here that had to run 2 660 cards? I chatted with someone about 1 year ago from here, that was running 1 660 card without any problems, AFTER they upgraded their power supply!

[Mazenblue]

I have a crappy BenQ 621 ST with the 728X1024. I have it hooked up to a SkyTrak and Opti Shot. I also watch movies almost every night. I really like it, but maybe I just don't know any better. My short game has come along way with SkyTrak practice. I think the short game is a lot of feel. I get that for 20 to 30 yard shots which I seem to have a lot of on the course cuz I miss so many greens it's the difference between a par and a double. Fuzzy mountains and all. If we get TGC Software I'll get the right computer to run it. I'm not a Tech guy just a guy who likes to play golf.