SimRaceway

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ildd
I was playing around with this earlier today and couldn't get the hang of it. I played with the settings and it was a little better, but it's so much "different" than what I've used with a wheel so far(GT6). Free game, I was only using the Evo and BMW M-something.
This is a kinda complicated question, but suppose that there is a scale of NFS-GT6-iRacing, and with each "-" is a 1-10 scale. Where would this be, in terms of realism?

For example, it's a 2 on the NFS-GT6 scale, or 4 on the GT6-iRacing scale.
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It's hard to say with Simraceway. The basic physics engine is very solid, but the cars can be hit and miss. In the past I always found the physics to be very realistic, right up there. But they have started updating a lot of cars and aspects of the physics. The thing is though that from my point of view they have just made a load of cars worse.

Examples.
Ford Sierra Cosworth : Perhaps this was not realistic for the Cossie but it was an amazing to drive car originally, where as now it has been updated with apparently more accurate data, however the result feels half assed. The handling is funky and the brakes do not work.. So going from the old model of the car (which was lets say a realistic driving car of that drivetrain/power/weight, but perhaps too stable for a Cossie) to the new model of the car, which feels.... The best word I can used to describe it is "funky". And when I say the brakes don't work it feels like the braking distances have doubled and it's not possible to lock the brakes (so almost like you're slamming the brakes and not enough pressure is being applied, and there is nothing you can change to fix it).

Mclaren MP4/4 : Similarly, they changed the physics data on the 1988 Mclaren MP4/4 F1 car. Originally it was based on the racing configuration of the car, but it appears they acquired more accurate data on the qualifying configuration and with an update they changed the car to that. The issue I have is that whatever data they have the game is not outputting a realistic car. The Mclaren MP4/4 is now running laptimes that are competitive with 2010-2013 era cars, cornering speeds are massive and braking distances are short... Something is just not right, the MP4/4 should be near 10 seconds slower than a modern car, even in its qualifying trim. For sure it's a fun car to drive and I'm sure it is capable of producing good racing, but it's not accurate to reality.

If iRacing and Assetto Corsa were a 10 on average, then Simraceway is perhaps an 8 or 9. Lets say that in that comparison GT6 or FM5 would be a 6. But like I said it really depends on the individual cars, some of the Simraceway cars are fantastic and are more than competitive with iRacing etc, others not so much. Infact the EVO X has long been considered one of the worst cars in the sim.

I was big into Simraceway for a while, they have excellent tracks and some great content, a decent community with a pretty broad range of skilled drivers (from the snails to the schumachers) and I've had some great racing there.
 
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ildd
I was playing around with this earlier today and couldn't get the hang of it. I played with the settings and it was a little better, but it's so much "different" than what I've used with a wheel so far(GT6). Free game, I was only using the Evo and BMW M-something.
This is a kinda complicated question, but suppose that there is a scale of NFS-GT6-iRacing, and with each "-" is a 1-10 scale. Where would this be, in terms of realism?

For example, it's a 2 on the NFS-GT6 scale, or 4 on the GT6-iRacing scale.
Click to expand...

Taking another view on this, I signed back up to iRacing tonight (3 months for 1 deal) for the first time since 2012. I have to say that actually my opinion is different. If I was to put Assetto Corsa at a 10, then iRacing would too be an 8-9 along with Simraceway based on the content that I own. The Williams Formula 1 car in iRacing is infact (in my opinion) quite a bit less realistic than the Simraceway modern F1 cars, they are pricey but I have to be honest I perhaps looked on iRacing with some rose tinted glasses because the F1 car is really quite off and it is an area where Simraceway really shines.

I think I had underestimated just how far Assetto Corsa had come, iRacing is in my opinion (physics wise) not even in the same league, still great but probably closer to the level of Simraceway in the end result. I'm aware that Simraceway focuses a lot more on fixed racing and iRacing is much more about the setup, but a side by side look at the physics and I'd say they are pretty much on the same level.
 
Bigbazz
Taking another view on this, I signed back up to iRacing tonight (3 months for 1 deal) for the first time since 2012. I have to say that actually my opinion is different. If I was to put Assetto Corsa at a 10, then iRacing would too be an 8-9 along with Simraceway based on the content that I own. The Williams Formula 1 car in iRacing is infact (in my opinion) quite a bit less realistic than the Simraceway modern F1 cars, they are pricey but I have to be honest I perhaps looked on iRacing with some rose tinted glasses because the F1 car is really quite off and it is an area where Simraceway really shines.

I think I had underestimated just how far Assetto Corsa had come, iRacing is in my opinion (physics wise) not even in the same league, still great but probably closer to the level of Simraceway in the end result. I'm aware that Simraceway focuses a lot more on fixed racing and iRacing is much more about the setup, but a side by side look at the physics and I'd say they are pretty much on the same level.
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Are you talking iRacing in general or NTMv5 specifically? I found that NTMv5 was a huge jump over v4. Not perfect but much better. The skippy in iRacing is currently one of my favourite cars to drive. It sounds like the coming build will further bridge some of the gap with AC.

Another Simraceway question. Does it have proper triple screen support with separate rendering per screen and adjustments for side monitor angle? I can't stand driving with distortion in the side monitors like in pCARS or DTM experience.
 
Zathra5_
Are you talking iRacing in general or NTMv5 specifically? I found that NTMv5 was a huge jump over v4. Not perfect but much better. The skippy in iRacing is currently one of my favourite cars to drive. It sounds like the coming build will further bridge some of the gap with AC.

Another Simraceway question. Does it have proper triple screen support with separate rendering per screen and adjustments for side monitor angle? I can't stand driving with distortion in the side monitors like in pCARS or DTM experience.
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About Simraceway, I don't use triple screen personally (no space nor funds for such a setup!). On to iRacing. Just the cars I've driven, which I'l list and you can take from that what you will. I'm not familiar with the different versions of the NTM. Infact when I was playing last the NTM was actually new!

MX5 Roadster
Chevrolet Impala Class B
HPD ARX-01c
Cadillac CTS-V Racecar (new for me)
Williams FW31
Radical SR8
Mustang FR500S

These are the cars I've driven today. Personally I thought the worst car was the Williams. When I was driving the Williams (and a little bit the HPD) I felt the tyres were like jelly glue bungie cords... Very soft rubbery feeling with massive ammounts of grip and a very sensitive oversteery feeling right up to the limit where it just hits a wall and then it's sliding and feels more stable.. Transitioning between those 2 phases of the tyre caused a lot of snapback and tiny weight shifts caused oversteer snaps that were very exaggerated. It's a really hard sensation to put into words and I've definitely not explained my thoughts well enough.

Also, almost all the cars had this strange back end spinning around characteristic and it's quite dramatic and felt the same over a couple of cars (Impala Class B, Cadillac, Radical, HPD and to lesser extent the FW31), while the mustang didn't do this as much it was almost like it was simply less noticeable due to the Mustangs more progressive slide over the surface, almost because the car has less grip and the front is also sliding a little more that it's less noticeable.

But then that rear end coming around oversteer doesn't feel like your traditional progressive rear loosing grip, but almost like the car is pivoting around a center point. Another thing with this oversteer spin around is that it sometimes happens pretty dramatically at low speeds, a sort of slow motion "there she blows!" moment that isn't completely uncatchable but does feel completely unconnected and unexpected to me.

I've been driving it a bit and I'l admit I'm actually quite a bit off my old records in terms of laptimes. As I said I think personally with the experience has similar ups and downs as Simraceway, but both are (in my opinion) a step below Assetto Corsa.
 
Bigbazz
About Simraceway, I don't use triple screen personally (no space nor funds for such a setup!). On to iRacing. Just the cars I've driven, which I'l list and you can take from that what you will. I'm not familiar with the different versions of the NTM. Infact when I was playing last the NTM was actually new!

MX5 Roadster
Chevrolet Impala Class B
HPD ARX-01c
Cadillac CTS-V Racecar (new for me)
Williams FW31
Radical SR8
Mustang FR500S

These are the cars I've driven today. Personally I thought the worst car was the Williams. When I was driving the Williams (and a little bit the HPD) I felt the tyres were like jelly glue bungie cords... Very soft rubbery feeling with massive ammounts of grip and a very sensitive oversteery feeling right up to the limit where it just hits a wall and then it's sliding and feels more stable.. Transitioning between those 2 phases of the tyre caused a lot of snapback and tiny weight shifts caused oversteer snaps that were very exaggerated. It's a really hard sensation to put into words and I've definitely not explained my thoughts well enough.

Also, almost all the cars had this strange back end spinning around characteristic and it's quite dramatic and felt the same over a couple of cars (Impala Class B, Cadillac, Radical, HPD and to lesser extent the FW31), while the mustang didn't do this as much it was almost like it was simply less noticeable due to the Mustangs more progressive slide over the surface, almost because the car has less grip and the front is also sliding a little more that it's less noticeable.

But then that rear end coming around oversteer doesn't feel like your traditional progressive rear loosing grip, but almost like the car is pivoting around a center point. Another thing with this oversteer spin around is that it sometimes happens pretty dramatically at low speeds, a sort of slow motion "there she blows!" moment that isn't completely uncatchable but does feel completely unconnected and unexpected to me.

I've been driving it a bit and I'l admit I'm actually quite a bit off my old records in terms of laptimes. As I said I think personally with the experience has similar ups and downs as Simraceway, but both are (in my opinion) a step below Assetto Corsa.
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The only cars on that list with NTMv5 are the Williams and the MX5. I've never driven the Williams so I can't comment on it but I felt that the MX5, street stock, skippy and SRF are all a lot better with the ntmv5. I think I might know what you are getting at with the "oversteer snaps" I find that when you counter steer to correct oversteer that the tire feels like it gets stuck for lack of a better word and then kind of snaps back. Hopefully that will be fixed in the next build. Anyway, I guess that's a discussion for somewhere else.
 
The new tire model has the same problem that the old model had. When the tires loose grip from lateral forces they will not recover any grip until their is no more lateral load. You can test it very easily by getting the tires sliding side ways from the grass to the pavement. That where the unexplainable spins come from, the game detects a bit of lateral forces and removes all grip from the tires. You can also do slow speed donuts and see just how bad the grip recovery is. For me that's Iracings biggest problem.
 
The weird thing about Simraceway is that it's essencially Rfactor with a few tweaks under the hood, and some really well made content, often using real data from the manufacturer etc. I know their new Pirelli tyre model for the F1 cars changed it a bit. Looking at Simraceway and Game Stock Car (both using the Rfactor engine) it seems that the end product of the Rfactor engine can be pretty good.

iRacing when I was playing was just in a bit of nomans land while Dave messed around with numbers to get his new tyre model working correctly, and it seems that is exactly the issue now, he's still messing around with it and it's still doing strange things. Hell I remember back in 2010 when I joined iRacing that Rfactor was considered a bit of a joke by some of those guys, yet honestly Simraceway and Game Stock Car have done stuff with that engine that from an end product point of view still competes or sometimes surpasses iRacing, without a doubt when it comes to the F1 car... The Williams FW31 is a mess (in my opinion) and that is largely down to the way the tyres react.

Don't get me wrong though, Simraceway is not without its issues. I think they have too many cars and are too understaffed to maintain a quality accross all the content. When they updated a lot of their cars it felt like to me that they simply completely ruined a load of content, I think the Rfactor engine requires a bit of fudging numbers to get accurate results and I think they have simply dumped in real world data and expected it to work.

I'm obviously just taking a big guess here so take what I say with a pinch of salt. Simraceway did have some amazingly well done cars, and I feel somewhat that a few of them have been ruined with this new data and the new tyre/suspension models.
 
Bigbazz
Taking another view on this, I signed back up to iRacing tonight (3 months for 1 deal) for the first time since 2012. I have to say that actually my opinion is different. If I was to put Assetto Corsa at a 10, then iRacing would too be an 8-9 along with Simraceway based on the content that I own. The Williams Formula 1 car in iRacing is infact (in my opinion) quite a bit less realistic than the Simraceway modern F1 cars, they are pricey but I have to be honest I perhaps looked on iRacing with some rose tinted glasses because the F1 car is really quite off and it is an area where Simraceway really shines.

I think I had underestimated just how far Assetto Corsa had come, iRacing is in my opinion (physics wise) not even in the same league, still great but probably closer to the level of Simraceway in the end result. I'm aware that Simraceway focuses a lot more on fixed racing and iRacing is much more about the setup, but a side by side look at the physics and I'd say they are pretty much on the same level.
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My 3 month free subscription ended the same day you renewed ;). Anyway I tried a few of the cars, I find iRacing physics really bad, you have been quite generous there with your ratings. I didn't end up doing a race on it, only started driving more of the cars yesterday and on a new track to me Lime Rock Park. Shocked to see that tyres don't seem to hold up one corner before they make the car feel like it has next to no grip to offer which makes car very pointy. I would put SimRaceway way ahead of iRacing personally.
 
Saidur_Ali
My 3 month free subscription ended the same day you renewed ;). Anyway I tried a few of the cars, I find iRacing physics really bad, you have been quite generous there with your ratings. I didn't end up doing a race on it, only started driving more of the cars yesterday and on a new track to me Lime Rock Park. Shocked to see that tyres don't seem to hold up one corner before they make the car feel like it has next to no grip to offer which makes car very pointy. I would put SimRaceway way ahead of iRacing personally.
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I've compared the F1 cars and I'd definitely rate Simraceway far and away the best physics wise here. I also just compared the Corvette GT2 cars at Laguna Seca. iRacings is the 2009 and Simraceway the 2010. Both cars share a great deal in common in handling characteristics and physics but again... Simraceway doesn't have the funky tire behaviour of iRacing, I'm surprised to say it but again the SRW car is better. Not only that but the steering feels more solid and the transfer of weight and grip is more progressive, the brakes lock up at the rear pretty easily in SRW but it's more predictable and there is no wishy washy floaty weird tyre **** going on.

So to be honest with the Corvette C6R... Simraceway is from my viewpoint the clear better/more accurate car. With that said... I was running 5 seconds a lap faster in iRacing for some reason but I didn't delve into it. Not sure if the SRW Laguna Seca is laser scanned, though I didn't notice any differences. Have to say that visually the iRacing track looks a lot better, the lighting engine is leagues ahead. Sounds on the iRacing car were superior too (though SRW's are actually very good too), and the cockpit was more detailed and higher quality in iRacing.

Zathra5_
The only cars on that list with NTMv5 are the Williams and the MX5. I've never driven the Williams so I can't comment on it but I felt that the MX5, street stock, skippy and SRF are all a lot better with the ntmv5. I think I might know what you are getting at with the "oversteer snaps" I find that when you counter steer to correct oversteer that the tire feels like it gets stuck for lack of a better word and then kind of snaps back. Hopefully that will be fixed in the next build. Anyway, I guess that's a discussion for somewhere else.
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I tried the SRF at Okayama and I must say it did feel a lot better (and completely different to how I remember it), a lot more progressive and actually a lot more "Assetto Corsa" like in the way it felt, it's hard to compare car to car but this was I felt the best car I drove tonight.


I was thinking about purchasing Bathurst and the RUF but I'm probably not going to bother now, I honestly had fonder memories than what I experienced tonight at iRacing..
 
Bigbazz
I've compared the F1 cars and I'd definitely rate Simraceway far and away the best physics wise here. I also just compared the Corvette GT2 cars at Laguna Seca. iRacings is the 2009 and Simraceway the 2010. Both cars share a great deal in common in handling characteristics and physics but again... Simraceway doesn't have the funky tire behaviour of iRacing, I'm surprised to say it but again the SRW car is better. Not only that but the steering feels more solid and the transfer of weight and grip is more progressive, the brakes lock up at the rear pretty easily in SRW but it's more predictable and there is no wishy washy floaty weird tyre **** going on.

So to be honest with the Corvette C6R... Simraceway is from my viewpoint the clear better/more accurate car. With that said... I was running 5 seconds a lap faster in iRacing for some reason but I didn't delve into it. Not sure if the SRW Laguna Seca is laser scanned, though I didn't notice any differences. Have to say that visually the iRacing track looks a lot better, the lighting engine is leagues ahead. Sounds on the iRacing car were superior too (though SRW's are actually very good too), and the cockpit was more detailed and higher quality in iRacing.



I tried the SRF at Okayama and I must say it did feel a lot better (and completely different to how I remember it), a lot more progressive and actually a lot more "Assetto Corsa" like in the way it felt, it's hard to compare car to car but this was I felt the best car I drove tonight.


I was thinking about purchasing Bathurst and the RUF but I'm probably not going to bother now, I honestly had fonder memories than what I experienced tonight at iRacing..
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I haven't tried simraceway, and I probably don't have time but I did recently take rF2s Marussia and Formula Masters cars, LFS F1 car, and GSC2013 Formula Reiza car for a spin. I don't remember the specifics except I had a hell of a time keeping the Marussia on the track and the Formula Reiza cars seemed the grippiest. Of course I have no idea how a F1 should feel. How does simraceway and iRacing compare?

edit: Before you decide on the Ruf wait and see how the new iRacing build turns out in a couple of weeks. It is supposed to address the above limit behaviour of the tires and hopeful switch a bunch of the cars to ntmv5.
 
Zathra5_
I haven't tried simraceway, and I probably don't have time but I did recently take rF2s Marussia and Formula Masters cars, LFS F1 car, and GSC2013 Formula Reiza car for a spin. I don't remember the specifics except I had a hell of a time keeping the Marussia on the track and the Formula Reiza cars seemed the grippiest. Of course I have no idea how a F1 should feel. How does simraceway and iRacing compare?

edit: Before you decide on the Ruf wait and see how the new iRacing build turns out in a couple of weeks. It is supposed to address the above limit behaviour of the tires and hopeful switch a bunch of the cars to ntmv5.
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Rfactor 2 is almost like the iRacing version done right, but both are more nervous and difficult to drive than the Simraceway version (which is likely very similar to the Game Stock Car version, though I've not driven it!). What I will say though is that the Simraceway F1 cars appear to be the cars that most look and feel like they can be driven the same as the real cars, under braking and in low speed grip, and under heavy throttle. It's still very difficult to get the maximum out of the cars and to keep them at the edge but below the limit they are pretty easy cars to drive, they are pretty well behaved and then as you start to push they start to feel more edgy. Also compared to the iRacing car the Simraceway car will feel more understeery (which again if you listen to the drivers and watch how they drive this is pretty accurate), where as the iRacing car feels like it is constantly oversteering.



This is a video I made of the SRW 2012 F1 car (onboard at 1:42), but it's a little old/outdated. Since then it's had a new Pirelli specific tyre model with all the different compound options which has actually made it a little faster (but at Silverstone that actually put the absolute aliens on par with the real life qualifying laptimes, where as previously it was maybe 2 seconds slower).

May not look like the best lap but for some reason this was a tough combination and though I never managed a decent lap I did rank in the top 5 for this lap and got some prize money, so maybe others had issues with it too.. The setup was fixed and it was a little understeer biased (more so than usual). Slow or not, it should give you a rough idea.
 
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Over the last two weeks a new track and car have been released. The track is Edmondton, which features two layouts, the full Indy circuit as well as a shorter 'Airport' layout.
Edmonton3.jpg


The car is the Subaru Impreza WRX STI S206, which (in my opinion) is priced rather steeply for what it is at $2.50. Haven't had a chance to drive it, but from what I've seen it's been getting some positive feedback.

SubaruSTi_SharpView_1200x450.jpg


In other news, I'm planning to start a racing series at a time suitable for players in Australia/New Zealand/Asia (players from other regions will be welcome, though it might be a very early or late start).
 
New WRX makes the Evo feel like a POS. I'll take the suby over the Mitsu ANY day of the week. I bought it at the 50% off or w/e it was on Friday.
 
The Subaru is overpriced, using their real life price system they are valuing the Impreza at $250,000... The car was priced at around $80,000 new. They used to use the "real life" price system as a defence for the ridiculously priced cars, yet now they are upping the price on the cheaper cars.

They need to stop messing people around with the pricing structure.
 
Bigbazz
The Subaru is overpriced, using their real life price system they are valuing the Impreza at $250,000... The car was priced at around $80,000 new. They used to use the "real life" price system as a defence for the ridiculously priced cars, yet now they are upping the price on the cheaper cars.

They need to stop messing people around with the pricing structure.
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Imo its worth it compared to the Free POS Evo. I do Agree tho, it should be cheaper.
 
I haven't really played this game since my G27 broke, and that's sad because it was a solid game, despite some of the car prices.
 
L8erBaby
I haven't really played this game since my G27 broke, and that's sad because it was a solid game, despite some of the car prices.
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Haven't played this in a while either. I wonder if it has 900 degree support already.
 
LogiForce
Haven't played this in a while either. I wonder if it has 900 degree support already.
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No, still the 500deg issue, also the not saving the lock for races, and No plugins still....blah....TDT is the Mp4-4 if you guys want to give that a whirl....discounted price if your into it...Imo its a fun car.
 
Nick Moxley
No, still the 500deg issue, also the not saving the lock for races, and No plugins still....blah....TDT is the Mp4-4 if you guys want to give that a whirl....discounted price if your into it...Imo its a fun car.
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Got it since I still had a bit of money on my account, but when I started the game I couldn't setup my controllers. No matter what I try there always seems to be an axis active according to SRW, which it than automatically selects. Making it completely impossible to assign the correct axis.

Using: T500+CSPv2+CSS_SQ

*grumpy*

I than went to Game Stock Car 2013 for a demo period. It was nice and felt decent. The rF1 engine stays a dated thing and also this game gave me issues with the degrees of rotation. Not assigning controls though.

After this I went to iRacing. Wow... that one really got improved a lot. No more ice racing as I felt it was a good year ago. The Lotus 49 is still a monster, but realistically controllable so. Though I better not race it with my current skills. lol


So yeah, I blame the ancient rF1 engine for all our SRW and GSC misery. :(
 
LogiForce
Got it since I still had a bit of money on my account, but when I started the game I couldn't setup my controllers. No matter what I try there always seems to be an axis active according to SRW, which it than automatically selects. Making it completely impossible to assign the correct axis.

Using: T500+CSPv2+CSS_SQ

*grumpy*

I than went to Game Stock Car 2013 for a demo period. It was nice and felt decent. The rF1 engine stays a dated thing and also this game gave me issues with the degrees of rotation. Not assigning controls though.

After this I went to iRacing. Wow... that one really got improved a lot. No more ice racing as I felt it was a good year ago. The Lotus 49 is still a monster, but realistically controllable so. Though I better not race it with my current skills. lol


So yeah, I blame the ancient rF1 engine for all our SRW and GSC misery. :(
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the active axis/button that's being pushed is usually the shifter being IN Gear. it wont let you into the controller menu if there's a button being pushed. I got caught by that one and was like WTF am i doing wrong here, Turns out the shifter was in 4th. lol
 
The good thing about that is that if/when you get 2500 credits from racing, you can suddenly afford a heck of a lot more cars.
 
Well, if you had 1000 credits, and you bought a car at 1000 credits you'd also have 0 credits. A lot of cars costing the same just means you have a bigger selection once you get there.
 
Credit earning is slow though. ''You won a race? Here's your 20 credits'' And for someone who rarely wins any races, that takes a lot of time to get anything.
 

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