SimHub ShakeIt effects: what they are and how they are built

Why there is no official effect list

This is worth establishing carefully, because it explains why every guide you find on this subject disagrees with every other one.

• The official wiki page on ShakeIt V3 effects configuration documents the gain architecture, the response filters and the design guidance in detail. It never names a single effect.
• The newer manual site at manual.simhubdash.com publishes its own documentation index. Checked on 4 August 2026, that index has sections for the Motion Addon, device definition authoring, the serial firmware builder and external sim integration — and no ShakeIt section at all.
• The community knows. A SimHub forum thread states plainly that there is zero information on how the custom effects work and that formal documentation is unavailable.

The consequence is that every third-party effect list in circulation was assembled by someone looking at their own SimHub install and writing down what they saw — which is fine, except that the lists then get copied between sites, drift from the versions they were taken from, and end up disagreeing about names.

One concrete example of the confusion this causes. There is a forum thread devoted to the difference between the Road Impacts and Road Vibration effects, because people cannot tell from the names which is which. That thread existing is itself the evidence that this needs documenting properly rather than approximately.

So the catalogue on this page will be built from the interface, version-stamped, and re-checked against each SimHub release. Until then it is not here, and saying so is more useful than a confident list that might be wrong.

What an effect actually is

Every ShakeIt effect, whatever it is called, is the same four things:

1. A data source

One value from the game's telemetry — wheel slip, engine RPM, suspension travel, longitudinal G. This is what the effect represents.

2. A response curve

How that number becomes an intensity. Gamma factor, threshold, minimum force and input gain between them decide whether a light input produces a light force or nothing at all.

3. A frequency

For bass shakers, what it feels like. Either a base and high frequency range that the effect sweeps between, or a single fixed frequency.

4. A routing

Which physical outputs receive it, and at what relative strength. This is the per-channel gain layer, and it is where an effect becomes located on the rig rather than just present.

Understanding this is what lets you configure an effect you have never seen before. If you know what telemetry drives it, you know when it should fire; if you know where you have routed it, you know where you should feel it.

The gain chain, and why everything is too quiet

Four gain stages multiply. The official formula, verbatim:

Effect gain at one output = effect gain × effect per channel gain × channel gain × general gain

That table is the single most useful thing to know about ShakeIt. Setting everything to a cautious 50% does not give you a moderate setup — it gives you almost nothing, and the natural response is to conclude the hardware is underpowered.

The practical approach is to leave general gain at 100, leave effect-per-channel at 100 unless you are deliberately balancing one effect between two shakers, and do your tuning with effect gain and channel gain only. Two variables are manageable; four multiplying variables are not.

The response filters

Input gain

Scales the telemetry value before anything else sees it. Use when the raw signal's range does not match what you want to work with.

Gamma factor

Bends the curve between input and output. Below 1 emphasises small inputs — light kerbs become noticeable. Above 1 emphasises large ones — only significant events register. This is the most expressive control and the least used.

Threshold

Discards everything below a level. The cure for an effect that hums constantly because its telemetry never quite reaches zero.

Minimum force

The opposite: lifts weak signals up to where the hardware can reproduce them. Many transducers and nearly all vibration motors do nothing at all below a certain drive level, and without minimum force the bottom half of the effect's range is simply silent.

Threshold and minimum force are not two names for the same thing. Threshold removes the bottom of the range. Minimum force raises it. If your shaker is dead until an effect gets strong and then arrives all at once, you want minimum force — adding gain instead just makes the loud part louder.

Why effects differ between games

An effect can only work if the game sends the telemetry behind it. SimHub's own caveat is blunt about this:

From the official supported-games list: "Features support varies depending of the provided game telemetry, not all games can provide all the features (Data, effects, motion)."

This is why an effect that transforms one sim does nothing in another, and why a profile someone shares for iRacing may feel hollow in a game that provides less. It is not a configuration mistake — the data is not there.

The official games list marks this with footnotes: * means telemetry does not provide accurate motion data and effects are limited, ** means motion only, and *** means telemetry only, with no motion or haptics. Those three symbols carry a lot of meaning and are very easy to miss. The supported games page decodes them properly.

A per-effect, per-game availability matrix would be the most useful table in this entire subject, and nobody has built one. It belongs on this page, after the catalogue, and it has the same requirement: measured, not assumed.

The three-effect rule

The official design guidance, verbatim:

"Always remember that less is more… avoid fitting more than 3 effects on a single shaker/motor (not counting gear change effect being punctual)."

A transducer can only be in one position at any instant. Six continuous effects sent to one shaker do not layer — they sum into a single average that tells you something is happening without telling you what. Three stay distinguishable.

The exception in the parenthesis matters: a punctual effect is a brief pulse rather than a continuous signal, so it occupies the shaker for a moment and then releases it. Gear change is the example given; the same reasoning covers any short transient.

Where community practice has converged — offered as convention, not as documentation — is splitting effects by body location rather than stacking them: braking and front-axle cues to the pedal tray, where your feet already sense what the front of the car is doing, and gear shifts, rear grip and light road texture through the seat.

Common questions

Sources

• SimHub wiki — ShakeIt V3 effects configuration
• SimHub manual — documentation index
• SimHub forum — Road Impacts vs Road Vibration
• SimHub — supported games and the telemetry caveat

Related guides

• Setting up bass shakersAudio interfaces, the Windows settings that silence them, and a tuning method that works.
• ShakeIt hubBass shakers versus motors, and the gain architecture in one page.
• Supported gamesThe footnote symbols that tell you which effects a game can actually drive.