Hello everybody. I registered in the forum just to comment this because I remembered this topic reading the webpage for the new Fanatec BMW m4 gt3 wheel. They say that the new electronics of Fanatec are compatible with can bus protocol. Maybe this is the beginning of the change you mentioned Mika?.
Keep wioth the great work Granite!!!
CAN bus is actually just a different comunication protocol that has is mainly used in the Automotive system management area… the ONLY reason why the Fanatec M4 wheel is Can is so they can use it in the real car as well and have it communicate correctly… The use of this Bus system won’t have any affect on FFB itself BUT it will bridge the gap between Real life wheels and the Sim Arena as if the devices as in the Fanatics Case use the same addressing someone can (in this Case) jump out of their M4 GT3 and take the wheel inside and do some laps on the Sim and then Jump Back into the Real car all with the exact same wheel.
Why don’t we use that communication method"CAN" in the Sim world?
I proposed this in 2014. Bodnar/Beeson said they were working on something and asked me to remove my iracing post, as my proposal was a blueprint for what they had in mind, lol. I did remove the post, but in hindsight, should have left it. But nothing ever came of it, as Bodnar changed direction, I believe, at least what I deduced after feedback from John Beeson.
As far as I am aware, the Bodnar SS2 series and SC2 Ultimate has CAN interfaces. I will study the hardware a bit to see what chip is used, but naturally I will not share any trade-secrets here, other than just basic comments. (Not that I have much yo share in this regard anyway)
It won’t take much to make it work in sims though, simply a CAN (from wheelbase/button box) to USB converter (for pc side). Of course the USB converter will need to include CAN bus transceiver chip and then the necessary software, but will be easy to do.
Maybe I should do such a button-box project:)
I think you need to make one Beano!
Then you can share trade secrets
I might get stuck onto EagleCAD a bit over the holidays and finish a little design I am busy with, Joe. But the main idea for CAN would be the pretty simple and robust high-speed 2-wire comms link, if it works in the automotive environment, it will be super-good for use in especially the motion-sim environment.
Sounds good.
It would be nice if there was a standard between wheel mfg.
Maybe Can could be it? 
I wonder what Leo is up to these days. I hope he is doing well!!
My idea was to have pedals, button-boxes, wheels etc all on CANbus, but going one step further, having a proprietary CANbus ->PCIe card and custom API to do away with MS Direct Input…
Next step would have been iRacing native Linux support, opening the door for mods to the Linux kernel (pre-emptive and gaming patches) to have an almost RTOS running iRacing.
Le sigh. Maybe one day.
Nope, this is just communication protocol between the wheel leds, buttons etc and the wheelbase for them. To get real time system where a CAN protocol could be an important part and an improvement for the force feedback, you would need to ditch Windows also entirely which is not a real time operating system.
One would need a real time OS and hardware + game/sim that is developed to function on that OS. In this kind of environment every given command and position would need to be achieved in certain time frame and the simulation would be with the given boundaries, lag free (or perhaps better say, the lag cannot be longer than what it is allowed to be).
The challenge for this is that the system would need to be more or less predefined, meaning that the solution is fixed to certain hardware and the software is developed for that particular hardware. This is a bit difficult to distribute, to sell for large audiences as it is only meant for one purpose, racing simulation. Such system would be much better for the purpose it is made for than a general purpose computer, but price tag also would differ.
Well it seems Tommi thought alot on this subject.
Thanks for the input!
In a perfect world maybe, . . . not quite there yet. 
Interesting conversation although, I wonder what would be possible within the confines of the current PC environment (FFB API limitations not with standing). The hardware has certainly evolved whereas, the API, not so much.
Yeah, Tommi is right. The real advantage of the CAN would be in professional simulator environments where the simulator itself is also a realtime system running on a realtime OS and where the torque commands and position feedback can be closed with a realtime connection. Definitively not a direction in where any of the current consumer simulators are going, but it is used in some professional simulators.