Background
One of the targets for the profile online was to move management of profiles from firmware to the online web application. This would massively simplify the management code in the firmware and in True Drive, enabling faster development and freeing up development resources elsewhere.
Proposed solution
Whenever user uses an online profile, it will get cached by True Drive on the PC.
Fallback option to go offline will be available. Drivers can create and edit profiles that are saved on PC (almost like before), and cached online profiles will be shown in the same list.
Note, that this solution is somewhere in between the current legacy implementation and the goal of the project, but we are willing to consider this due to feedback in this thread.
Directly going to offline mode will not be the 1st option to be shown to users, but lets assume that it will be available as a command line parameter.
Sounds great.
Assuming it would automatically go in āoffline modeā in some obvious cases like: Online connectivity is bad/it takes too long to connect/download is too slow/server crashes on a few automated download attempts. So avoid it not working in these cases? Then it would offer a button āgo onlineā potentially.
The cloud service providers have demonstrated ~99.95% availability while logging 60 minutes of unavailability (for good measure) even if the service was down or slow enough only for a few minutes. Iām not sure if we need to use time to automate this unless it proves to be required. Those that know that offline is needed will probably already know about it when their Internet connection is slow/unreliable.
I would agree itās prob. completely fine to just support it by the command line flag early on.
It is a ānice to haveā that will avoid a little grief once in a while for most of us.
But some people here have posted they have very bad internet almost always & at some point somebody will not know how to use one command line flags, prob.
What is the failure mode if connectivity to cloud service is unavailable (for whatever reason)? I sit down, turn on SC2 expecting to get my usual beeps, what would happen?
When is the connectivity needed? Only when selecting a profile? While using profile within sim? What about tweaking a profile by hand in TD?
A default profile will be loaded. It is planned that such default profile can be set also from the online user interface.
When using online mode, selecting profile and tweaking profile will be via the online interface. A planned offline cached profile can be adjusted also offline, but it is to be determined if it will be synched online. Likely not.
Honestly I only race online anywayā¦ so If I have no internet connection to get an online profileā¦ im not racing regardless, so who cares. (I would guess this is true for the vast majority of people? certainly anyone in iRacing obviously)
Having some default offline profiles and cached ones you used last session is enough imo.
iracing doesnāt work without internet so this wonāt bother me, I could see how it doesnāt work for people playing offline games with no internet connection (kinda strange situation but ok)
Why we have all these clunky command line parameters in such āmodern UIā instead of just adding settings to Advanced tab, font scale, tray icon launch, etc.
Mainly to hide them from wider view. For example tray icon launch (at its current implementation) is not finished feature as it needs to also have further development to be one-click solution. We need an installer and possibly an autoupdater, then we can add checkbox for tray icon launch or tray icon launch at Windows startup, done by saving the autostart related keys in Windows Registry instead of drivers having to set them manually. For sure, we want to add such features to the UI, but it needs to be something that everyone knows how to use.
Other settings, such as version or FFB effect information, are something that some users might require when contacting our/reseller support channels.
I have just discovered this post and I feel obliged to give my opinion.
If you read the whole post since then, the initial idea is to propose a place to share differents user profiles, especially for new users.
Your basic idea seems good to me but its implementation is very (too?) complex ā¦
Why donāt you create a new part of your site where we could download the files and put them in the corresponding directory? Like when you download a mod on RaceDepartment and install it in the game folder ? If I understood correctly, itās quite complex. So, in this case, why not do the same kind of thing but with screenshots? The implementation is a bit longer but personally, I havenāt created a new profile for more than 6 months so if it takes 2 minutes to copy the settings instead of 2 seconds to click on it as you would like to do, I should survive.
Also, as has been pointed out several times, what happens if the internet goes down. A solution seems to have been found, but it seems to me to be restrictive.
And no GD member has yet answered the question of whether it will pay off in the future. If it is the case and it is mandatory, you will lose current users and above all a very large part of future buyers. No matter what anyone says, a SC 2 Pro and a good steering wheel is already slightly more expensive than a DD2 and the same kind of steering wheel. Do you think that many buyers will turn to you if you have to add another subscription system?!
I repeat, the intention is good, but be very careful with the implementation or else you will lose a very large majority of your customers. Making an internet connection mandatory is already very dangerous, adding a subscription to it and the obligation to use this feature would be totally counterproductive for you.
Most apps these days just use Users/Documents for user preferences instead of messy Windows Registry. Could be a good place to store profiles cache as well as data there will not be affected by new TD installs, app folder usually have only default settings.
I love the idea of being able to easily find and try new profiles online, that is excellent! I also like the idea of being able to share my profiles and get feedback on what might make them better. That is also excellent!
I have rural DSL that has gone down 3 times in the last month for several hours each time. The concept of me not being able to use my steering wheel of all things to play an offline racing game because my lousy DSL went down again is abhorrent and ludicrous.
I understand that many places in the world have very reliable very accessible always-on internet with no (or very high) limits to usage. Iām lucky enough to have DSL where I am, but if I was even more rural and had satellite internet where Iām basically capped out at 5GB/mo, this would be insane. It is bad enough that I need a functioning internet connection to play some of my single-player games, itās beyond unacceptable to require it for my racing hardware to work, which has no business doing anything with the internet unless I want to find new profiles or something.
Iām not getting into privacy concerns here or anything, I donāt mind sharing anonymous telemetry with GD or anything. This is solely a ānot everyone has 100% reliable internet all the timeā thing. Itās great that 95% of the population apparently does have reliable, always-on, fast internet with no quotas, but itās entirely unfair to everyone else that doesnāt who purchased the product with the completely reasonable expectation that theyād be able to use their hardware without the internet. I cannot think of another piece of hardware that requires an always-on internet connection, honestly - software is not hardware. Like my mouse/keyboard have a logitech app that lets me download profiles and everything, but I can still change them and everything works fine (minus obviously online-only features) when I donāt have internet.
(Edited: accidentally lost the end of the post somehow)
Ok - I did think of hardware. An Amazon Echo doesnāt work without an internet connection, but thatās hardware that clearly relies on functioning internet to work. Same with a Roku I guess. Theyāre not comparable to a steering wheel.
Iām 100% on board with this. You need to have path for people whose internet connection is two tin cans attached by stringā¦ whether thatās the old software, or some sort of local cache, or something else. But this is going to reduce friction for a lot of people. Figuring out the Right Settings is kind of hard as it sits.
Ok, so my friend here, who is a complete idiot, would like to ask for someone to explain in good ol English, what the goal here is, preferably without ambiguous wishy-washy terms like unifying and managementā¦
Itās foremost a profiler software, and while sharing the latest and hottest FFB setting, which nobody agrees on anyway, is cool, why does it have to be in any way dependent on a cloud. Again, my friend is an idiot and doesnāt understand the modern world, so someone please explain it.
And telemetry? Why does this have to be a live feed that requires a (constant) online connection? A simple log that is uploaded once in a while, is all that is needed, no? That there is even a remote online dependency for any of this, is very odd to say the least, and begs the question of an ulterior motive. A profiler, or even firmware, doesnāt at all compare to online computing services, like it was drawn earlier, btw.
This is arguably something we agree on. There are no FFB settings that suit all, however ease of use to get an average user a nice experience to quickly try out other peopleās settings - somewhat good, strong or realistic starting point is a major benefit. For this, the system must be an online system, otherwise people continue to post screenshots on x number of forums that are just difficult to try out.
There must be a misunderstanding or something lost in translation somewhere. There is no such thing currently nor planned where device would require a constantly working internet connection for technical telemetry.
I think people still prefer posting screenshots even with the presence of Import/Export function today as it is visual representation of settings which can be compared to own setup and discarded without need for Importing anything, not because it is the only way of sharing profiles.
But as a lot of people here I am super skeptical on the value of that system and what user base itās going to target.