"How the Right Video Game makes you a Faster Driver"

[niky]

*posted here to avoid a trollfest in the game-specific sections
Original Article

It's three in the morning and you are still glued to your TV screen with your steering wheel on your lap and headphones firmly attached to your ears. Most likely there is a lukewarm beer to your left that you have neglected in your ambition to beat that Finnish sim-racing maestro named Markku.

When your wife wakes up for her nightly bathroom break she scowls at you and calls you "childish" and "immature." But you don't care. After all, you are perfecting your skills to one day become the next Kimi Raikkonen — right?

As a professional driver and a frequent video gamer I can attest that, yes, video games can absolutely make you faster, but only if you pick the right game.

This scene above is common in my household. The big difference between you and me is that, unless you are a cab driver, I actually earn my living from driving fast, so the argument of "Honestly Honey, it makes me a faster driver. This is my work!" has some relevance to it.

But if the closest you get to harassing a real racetrack is when driving your sky blue Camry around the swooping turn on the off-ramp of I-74, just outside of Peoria, then this argument might not be sufficient to prevent divorce.

The fact is that racing video games are the only avenue most have to express their inner racing desire and compete against others in a competitive environment. They get to drive cars they have had wet dreams about and race them at tracks that are almost as arousing as the person sleeping next to them.

And if one day Sarah (now divorced) decides to splurge the remainder of her life savings to race in real-life, then all these midnight hours of playing computer games will finally pay off. She may now be poor, lonesome and homeless but at least Sarah will be fast.

There is an abundance of racing games out there, varying from the realistic to the plain ridiculous. Most are fun but only some can truly help you drive a racecar faster.

Let's start with the most common of games, such as Forza and Gran Turismo. Honestly, about all you can learn from these are the basics of the racing line and familiarizing yourself with the tracks — and even those are a little tainted.

The physics are just not that realistic and, although to the amateur it may feel rather lifelike, it is not the best representation of driving at speed. Having said that, playing these games will improve some of the basics and at least enable you to think like a racecar driver.

If you want to get the most from your sim-racing experience, however, then you need to venture up the totem pole and immerse yourself in sims like iRacing, rFactor or SimRaceway. The latter is new and well worth checking out. The physics are developed by pro drivers like Dario Franchitti, Alan McNish and the late Dan Wheldon, and as this sim progresses, expect it to be a true rival to the more established names in racing simulators.

I'm not a fan of rFactor but iRacing is fantastic. The physics are spookily lifelike and although the setups and driving styles required to go fast are as grossly misleading as one of Mitt Romney's tax returns, if you chose to stay true to reality and not get carried away trying to beat the hundreds of Markku's out there, then you'll get the most realistic racing experience available.

The tracks even embody the bumps identically and the racing between fellow ‘onliners' is amazingly realistic. Here you can truly develop and hone your skills, like perfecting the racing lines, race craft, braking and throttle techniques and more. As I said, just don't get too carried away memorizing setups in the hope that they will work in real-life — because they won't.

I know this because, during a rainy practice day for the 2011 Indy 500, my engineer and I decided we would fight our boredom by hooking up iRacing, selecting the Dallara IndyCar at Indianapolis and inputting our current car setup. I then hit the computer-generated racetrack to discover if we could make some changes that might correlate with reality. But it felt completely different and totally alien to my IndyCar that was sat just 20 feet away. To make it drive somewhat similar it required an equally alien-like setup.

Still, it is an online racing sim for the masses; you can hardly expect it to be 100% lifelike. If it were, then F1 teams like McLaren would not have invested nearly $40 million to develop their in-house, über realistic simulator that can actually develop racecars.

Racing isn't like golf, where you can head to the range to hit a few balls and swing till your fingers bleed. If you want to practice racing then you need to be prepared to spend a crap-load of money doing so and even then testing will likely be sporadic and limited. This makes racing games one of the only attainable options available, even for the pros. More than anything, they keep your brain in race mode and your reactions sharp and precise.

Of course driving flat-out around a 120 mph blind bend at Sonoma is a lot easier on a game than it is in real-life. That's why I told you how to disengage the part of the brain that advises you to lift off when times get a little scary, and creates images of greeting the barriers in a fiery, burger-roasting ball of flames.

After all, in reality there is no reset button.

Interesting article... though it's not anything new, really, to those of us who've gone on the track, even as (admittedly ham-fisted) amateurs. Though even the best games are a long ways out from being anywhere near the real thing... they're more than useful enough that even racers play them.

 

[hawkeye122]

"Nuh uh. GT5 is the real driving simulator. it says so on da box"

Oh, you wanted to avoid that... My bad.

Great write up, it confirms some things I had assumed all along.

 

[Earth]

Gran Turismo and Lucas Ordonez. Still waiting on that iRacing pro to translate his skills to the real world.

And how do I know Alex is not being paid by iRacing to say that?

And he admits it himself, iRacing is still not that realistic, especially in terms of car setup.

It's like a rat bad mouthing a roach

 

[niky]

Simply, though, Gran Turismo really isn't that realistic... but you'll note the point he makes is none of them are completely realistic. There are certain skills and knowledge sets you can bring to real life... curb-apex-curb, brake straight, drive smooth... but once you're past that, track time itself will teach you more. At this point, the utter lack of the finer points of tire modelling and suspension movement are really a let-down.

Not that GT is not good track prep. I personally believe that all that practice helped me do very well in my first track outings many years ago, and enough practice on a specific track with a specific car will help make you pretty quick in the same in real life... but the finer nuances are simply not there.

I'm of the opinion that the GT Academy works simply because someone who's dedicated, disciplined and skilled enough to come out on top of thousands upon thousands of other racers in head-to-head competition will be dedicated, disciplined and skilled enough to come out on top of a smaller field in real-life racing... and even if that person had never raced on the professional level before, he'll have a skill set and mind-set that will bring him up to speed pretty fast.

 

[hawkeye122]

Gran Turismo and Lucas Ordonez. Still waiting on that iRacing pro to translate his skills to the real world.

And how do I know Alex is not being paid by iRacing to say that?

And he admits it himself, iRacing is still not that realistic, especially in terms of car setup.

It's like a rat bad mouthing a roach

Did Ordonez have a Karting Career behind him, that never quite came to fruition? He was a bit more than just a "Gamer".

 

[peter_vod69]

Couple of points:

1. That reads like an article aimed solely at PC snobs.

2. iRacing's frankly bewildering frontend is almost enough for me to dispense with it altogether.

3. rFactor, iRacing et al are all compromised by how the controller is set up. This is not how it should be. By altering the inputs and responses of the wheel/pedals, you are messing with the interface between you and the key vehicular components responsible for distribution of g-forces. A proper simulation should have all of the vagaries of it's vehicles and their quirks pre-modelled, and a preconfigured (and professionally tested) profile for each available controller. Any adjustability is just saying that you (ie the nerd behind the wheel) knows how a Pontiac Solstice racer should feel better than the developer, which kinda defeats the purpose of a sim in the first place.

4. And finally, rFactor is only as good as the modder who made the track/car.

 

[Pezzarinho17]

Interesting read. I work for a simulator centre in the UK and we have seen our fair share of racing drivers through our doors. We run NetKar Pro currently and this is on a motion base. We get a lot of feedback about making the experience better (some people want more realism, whilst others think it is all too real!) and the common factor is fear. It's very easy to find the limit of the car when you can happily go beyond it and not lose out in anyway.

I've driven rFactor sims as well and still not sure what to make of all the simulated racing options out there. I buy the F1 games, have GT5 and a wheel and pedals. The wheel and pedals have come out of the box once though for 10 minutes and it didn't feel right somehow. The same can be said of go-karting now though, been a few times and because there is only 1 gear (and my nearest track is indoors which doesn't help) I feel really limited in what I can achieve.

What I find most interesting in the article though is the setup alienation. Earlier this month I had to get a Formula BMW like car setup for a track, and to get it handing right there are a number of errors when looking purely at the numbers. Negative camber all corners, anti-roll bars working against suspension stiffness and dampening, lower at the rear... But it all drives really well so that's how it goes.

 

[homeforsummer]

Simply, though, Gran Turismo really isn't that realistic... but you'll note the point he makes is none of them are completely realistic.

I don't personally see how GT is any worse than anything else. Or even Forza, for that matter. They may not be perfect physics-wise and iRacing et al might be better, but in the absence of heat, g-forces, bumps, noise and everything else, there really isn't a lot beyond racing lines that you can apply from games into the real world. Though I'd add that most racing games, particularly ones like GT and Forza, are immeasurably improved by using an actual wheel and pedals combo. Often makes me chuckle when I see some of the drift "experts" in the drift forums who still use DS3s...

I've no doubt that the time I've spent playing GT has made me better on the few occasions I've driven on real circuits. And no game prepares you for the physical crap-kicking that 30 minutes of karting can supply.

And yes, Ordonez, Tresson, Mardenborough and the American chap are all pretty decent examples of translating skills onto the real circuits.

 

[Robin]

I think the whole concept of racing games making you better at racing, is all tosh. Sure it may help you slightly with everyday driving but it isn't going to create world champions. Most of the worlds best racing drivers did not hone their skills in video games, most weren't even from an era when video games were even remotely realistic enough.

I bet you could stick anyone in a racing car from a non video game background and train them up to be the same if not better then than the academy grads (who are pretty average) because its not the game that's doing any of the help, its the persons determination etc that makes the difference.

 

[Luminis]

The biggest benefit one can get from playing racing games, in my opinion, is track knowledge. Even with the best of the PC sims, there still is so much that you'll experience when in a real car that you will never learn while playing a game.

You know, just imagine some guy who's a god at sim racing get into a real race car. Instead of sitting in his living room with the AC, he's no forced to cope with immense heat and the G-forces associated with high-speed cornering. I'd love to see such a person struggle...

 

[niky]

Oh, my criticism of GT is merely because I've seen and done things on the track that I feel are missing from the experience in GT... Tire scrub, bushing movements, driveline clank, etcetera, all stuff that add to the texture of the experience that other games attempt to simulate but GT doesn't. It's a terrible thing when you go into Grand Theft Auto, wrestling with the horrible driving controls and physics, yet wish that GT5 could do peg-leg burnouts like Grand Theft does or simulate the absolutely seasickness inducing movements of a body-on-frame taxi driven at ten-tenths on bumpy pavement. (look at me... I'm the one who said he wished to avoid this part of the discussion! I still love you, GT...)

But I think that simulation really does make for better drivers... The discipline involved in learning how to find the fast line and the mentality of outside, brake straight, apex, accelerate already put you above anyone else in the novice class on the track. I'd say simulation and karting together are good preparation, though not a complete substitute for track time in a full-sized car.

Yeah, the sim guy will have a lot of adaptation to do, but so will everyone else. Karting is perhaps the best preparation for the physical aspect of it... In fact, karting for fifteen minutes is a whole lot more punishing than driving a road car full tilt on the race track for an hour...

 

[Bigbazz]

Gran Turismo and Lucas Ordonez. Still waiting on that iRacing pro to translate his skills to the real world.

And how do I know Alex is not being paid by iRacing to say that?

And he admits it himself, iRacing is still not that realistic, especially in terms of car setup.

It's like a rat bad mouthing a roach

Last years USA GT academy winner was a top class iRacing user, more than he was a GT5 user. I'm pretty sure that goes for a lot of the GT academy finalists. Don't get me wrong, I love GT5, but as a simulator it cannot compete with those sims he mentioned. GT academy pulls in the drivers, drivers who may have real world experience and have probably played a whole bunch of different sims, in some cases drivers who went to GT5 specifically for the GT Academy competition.

 

[Pezzarinho17]

The GT Academy argument is wearing thin with me now as well, I didn't even bother this year. I mean, by the time I would have first got to attempt the challenge, those "dedicated" to it (the ones with nothing / little else to do) had burnt hours perfecting lines, finding grey areas, tweaking settings, experimenting different techniques and just general practice in order to gain a good time. Practice makes perfect, and even if I was better than these drivers I just don't have the time and therefore same level ground in which to prove it.

You then get the 50 people with the fastest single lap times. These are probably not the 50 fastest drivers attempting the challenge, but some of them have made it this far regardless through practice. What the academy stage then does is find who of these 50 is genuinely a talented driver. There are still likely to be a good portion of them here to progress and challenge for the prize.

Before I get hated on, compare it to a competition to find the nations best guitarist. The first stage will be hosted on "Guitar Hero" with the 50 best players then advancing to the next stage and playing a real guitar and reading sheet music... GT may be a closer simulation than GH is, but theory is still the same. They are very different entities.

I've raced a number of racing drivers at the centre, beaten most of them... But I still wouldn't bet on myself in a) the real thing, b) go karts or even c) another simulator running different software....

 

[niky]

Not if they've already been racing for real... But if you're both starting out in karts... you'll probably be better. Maybe it's time to give it a try?

Aside from the lack of fear and general g-force induced pain, sims are a whole lot harder in some ways than the real thing... Like I've said elsewhere, going back to a sim from the real thing is like trying to shoot at the pistol range with Mickey Mouse gloves and swim goggles on (the tight, annoying kind that makes your eyes bulge from their sockets).

 

[Bigbazz]

The GT Academy argument is wearing thin with me now as well, I didn't even bother this year. I mean, by the time I would have first got to attempt the challenge, those "dedicated" to it (the ones with nothing / little else to do) had burnt hours perfecting lines, finding grey areas, tweaking settings, experimenting different techniques and just general practice in order to gain a good time. Practice makes perfect, and even I was better than these drivers I just don't have the time and therefore same level ground in which to prove it.

You then get the 50 people with the fastest single lap times. These are probably not the 50 fastest drivers attempting the challenge, but some of them have made it this far regardless through practice. What the academy stage then does is find who of these 50 is genuinely a talented driver. There are still likely to be a good portion of them here to progress and challenge for the prize.

Before I get hated on, compare it to a competition to find the nations best guitarist. The first stage will be hosted on "Guitar Hero" with the 50 best players then advancing to the next stage and playing a real guitar and reading sheet music... GT may be a closer simulation than GH is, but theory is still the same. They are very different entities.

I've raced a number of racing drivers at the centre, beaten most of them... But I still wouldn't bet on myself in a) the real thing, b) go karts or even c) another simulator running different software....

As a guitarist and musician I find your comparison has no real workable comparison. First off guitar hero does not simulate playing guitar in the same way a racing sim does, its completely different, its just a gamepad shaped like a guitar and the similarities end there. Next up, there really is never such a thing as "best guitarist" and lastly being able to read and play from sheet music is again a seperate skillset to the physical ability of playing a guitar.

This isn't even an apples and oranges comparison, it's more like a screwdriver and banana comparison.


What you say about GT Academy though is true, its all about ridiculous ammounts of practice and finding out what you can get away with, but with that ridiculous practice time comes genuine skill, using the exact same skillset as is used for the real world driving.

 

[avens]

Gran Turismo and Lucas Ordonez. Still waiting on that iRacing pro to translate his skills to the real world.

And how do I know Alex is not being paid by iRacing to say that?

And he admits it himself, iRacing is still not that realistic, especially in terms of car setup.

It's like a rat bad mouthing a roach

All GT Academy winners were known rfactor, lfs, iracing and others players, who joined the competition just to win (google it if you want). But that's the first part of the history, because also all of them had an extensive real life racing background before GT Academy, and, most importantly, they improved their racing skills on the track in that event and after winning it. That was the goal.
They simply can't be considered "simracing players" anymore.

Every GT5 fan knows there are proper sims out there, so a simracing enthusiast wants to try the best and some stayed in those. Then they proceeded to try the real thing. It's simply called dedication, which is separate than a console game or a pc simulator.

 

[Mac K]

Couple of points:

1. That reads like an article aimed solely at PC snobs.

2. iRacing's frankly bewildering frontend is almost enough for me to dispense with it altogether.

3. rFactor, iRacing et al are all compromised by how the controller is set up. This is not how it should be. By altering the inputs and responses of the wheel/pedals, you are messing with the interface between you and the key vehicular components responsible for distribution of g-forces. A proper simulation should have all of the vagaries of it's vehicles and their quirks pre-modelled, and a preconfigured (and professionally tested) profile for each available controller. Any adjustability is just saying that you (ie the nerd behind the wheel) knows how a Pontiac Solstice racer should feel better than the developer, which kinda defeats the purpose of a sim in the first place.

4. And finally, rFactor is only as good as the modder who made the track/car.

Exactly, I was reading it, thinking "hey this is a decent article" then it just basically throws GT and Forza out the window, the author claims he doesn't like Rfactor, then proceeds to kiss Iracing's feet.. I sense bias. I get tired of arguing over this, you like what you like, sure GT and Forza aren't on the same level as Iracing, but honestly, who cares? Seriously? I like Rfactor, with the right mod it's fantastic, but it isn't leaps and bounds over GT or Forza, more realistic? Well I'd sure hope so, but the difference isn't as great as you might think. I play both GT5 and Rfactor with mods regularly and I love both, and can drive quite well in both. What does any game/sim actually teach you about real racing? Besides racing lines, etc? This applies to every game/sim out there. Including Iracing. Racing involves much more than just driving around.. You have to be in shape, focused, determined, and know your racecraft inside out and backwards.

 

[Ardius]

I think where people are going wrong here is that they assume a simulator is meant to transform an everyday dude into a race driver. I find it especially foolish when this opinion comes from those inside motorsports.

The whole point of GT, Forza..even iRacing and rFactor is not to teach you everything. Its to take someone who only has a fleeting interest in racing and inspire them. All of these games teach you about racing lines, different car handling charateristics, the basic gist of setup and tuning, race craft, etc. It turns people who can't relate to motosports into very knowledgable individuals.

Personally I think GT and Forza do the job just fine. iRacing and the like are a step up from that but still do the same job - just in greater detail.

Jumping in a real race car requires starting from scratch. Its like complaining about a book saying it only teaches you the theory but doesn't make you a racing driver. Of course it bloody doesn't! Video games are interactive books. You experience and learn with them. They don't give you skills but they certainly can teach you things and put across points much more tangibly than a book can.

The difference between GT, Forza, iRacing, rFactor..is kind of like the difference between different writers of books. Some will be better written than others or focus on different things with varying levels of detail. All of them can teach you something and playing all of them can give you a more balanced view of the topic.

To touch on simulators, they're kind of like a technical instruction manual. You will learn far more from it than the others but even this is still a learning tool that can only teach so much.

 

[Mac K]

I think where people are going wrong here is that they assume a simulator is meant to transform an everyday dude into a race driver. I find it especially foolish when this opinion comes from those inside motorsports.

The whole point of GT, Forza..even iRacing and rFactor is not to teach you everything. Its to take someone who only has a fleeting interest in racing and inspire them. All of these games teach you about racing lines, different car handling charateristics, the basic gist of setup and tuning, race craft, etc. It turns people who can't relate to motosports into very knowledgable individuals.

Personally I think GT and Forza do the job just fine. iRacing and the like are a step up from that but still do the same job - just in greater detail.

Jumping in a real race car requires starting from scratch. Its like complaining about a book saying it only teaches you the theory but doesn't make you a racing driver. Of course it bloody doesn't! Video games are interactive books. You experience and learn with them. They don't give you skills but they certainly can teach you things and put across points much more tangibly than a book can.

The difference between GT, Forza, iRacing, rFactor..is kind of like the difference between different writers of books. Some will be better written than others or focus on different things with varying levels of detail. All of them can teach you something and playing all of them can give you a more balanced view of the topic.

To touch on simulators, they're kind of like a technical instruction manual. You will learn far more from it than the others but even this is still a learning tool that can only teach so much.

Nice post 👍

 

[Bye Ya]

I would disagree with you, Ardius. I do believe that simulators improve hand-eye coordination which is related to real world racing, specifically when they're used in conjunction with a wheel. Even if force feedback is nothing like real g-force, you are still reacting in a similar manner to the kinds of coordinated movements that you would be using in a real car, and that applies to the pedals as well.

You said yourself that simulators teach you about racing lines, apexes, etc., so how can you then say that learning to pick out the apex in rFactor doesn't translate at least in some degree to a real world racing situation? The same applies to braking points. Sure, they will be different in a real world situation, but the skill to learn when and where to pick out those braking points can translate from a simulator to the real thing. Need I mention all of the hours that F1 drivers spend in simulators?

 

[Ardius]

^The point is that people are criticising video games because "they don't make you a racing driver/faster driver". Well thats because they aren't meant to, they're for entertainment primarily and for generating enthusiasm for cars and motorsport. They try to enhance both by being as realistic or as close to what people feel is a genuine experience as possible.

While you can learn things, its always limited by the very fact its virtual.

I don't agree that physically it improves much. I'm not sure how much proof you can really find that it improves hand-eye co-ordination - it probably only makes people better at learning what not to do in the game rather than giving them any kind of reactions.

Funnily enough I think the biggest problem all simulators and games have is providing the information to allow you to react. They rely almost entirely on visual, audio and limited force feedback cues - preciesly because its impractical to have a forcefeedback seat and surroundings. Most of the time in nearly all of these games you are learning what to do in certain situations, rather than learning how to react. You are rarely given enough information to rely on reactions, usually you have to rely on exaggerated audio cues for it.

I don't see how you're disagreeing with me here, I didn't say you learn nothing. I said you cannot learn everything. Its obvious that a video game or simulator is only a tool to learn with but it can never replace the real thing.

We haven't mentioned the very obvious difference that you do not have the same sense of fear or punishment as well..

People keep using the example of F1 simulators but neglect to mention that no F1 driver has come from only simulator experience. All of them have progressed through many years of junior formula, usually having 10 years or more of competitive motorsport experience! Even then they are not trusted with the car very often without being given some testing mileage!
Yes we have drivers mentioning practicing on the simulator, especially for new tracks. But how much really translates to the real world? We don't have any idea really, just what the drivers say. I seem to remember some drivers saying that the simulators are kind of useful to learn the sequences of left and right corners but otherwise they learn far more in the first session of free practice..

If a video game makes you faster in reality its through learning techniques, gaining an understanding of a variety of topics and altering your mindset on approaching a race/driving a car at speed. But all these can be learnt from any racing game, just some teach it better or more detailed than others. At the end of the day though, you still need practice and experience in the real world if you want to be the best.

This is where the mis-understading is. A video game cannot make you the best or fastest. But it can change a complete newcomer to the world of motorsports into an avid fan and give them a good base to start from when/if they try the real thing. If you have two people, both with no previous real racing experience but one with a racing video game experience, the guy with the video game experience will generally be faster quicker because they will understand the concepts of racing lines, car control and racecraft better. But the other guy can still end up faster. Why? Because even if you understand the theory, putting it into practice is a completely different question. It still requires real skill behind the wheel, something that cannot be learnt playing a game or simulator. The sensations are just too different.

I don't think video games can bridge the gap. But I don't think they have to. They do a fine job already delivering all this knowledge and information.
There are so many compromises building virtual physics engines and force feedback devices that I don't think you can ever really get that close to the real thing.

 

[Pezzarinho17]

As a guitarist and musician I find your comparison has no real workable comparison. First off guitar hero does not simulate playing guitar in the same way a racing sim does, its completely different, its just a gamepad shaped like a guitar and the similarities end there. Next up, there really is never such a thing as "best guitarist" and lastly being able to read and play from sheet music is again a seperate skillset to the physical ability of playing a guitar.

This isn't even an apples and oranges comparison, it's more like a screwdriver and banana comparison.

That is my argument though, in that I'm not claiming Guitar Hero to be anything like playing a real guitar... I knew people who were practicing and practicing guitar hero, and it annoyed me that most of them had never thought beforehand about doing the real thing. I did convince one friend who was playing it to try the real thing instead, and she is now loving learning to play a real guitar and I don't think will ever look back on guitar hero.

In a similar vein, I would never encourage those who can race karts or on a real track to try a simulator. Once you get to a certain level you want to get away from the simulation and try it for real. The big difference that has yet to be discussed is the cost comparison between the 2, as that is what stops 99% of aspiring racing drivers.

^ Ardius
The point about reactions, this can't be expressed enough. Most games annoy me until I've learnt the ques added to simulate reaction inputs. F1 2010 for instance had a very faint tyre squeal as the car was letting go, but still handled like it was on rails until it just let go. Again the simulators that I'm used to driving at work not only have very good force feedback, but because the whole tub is on a motion frame you feel everything through your back / backside as it's happening. It's a very strange feeling when the motion is turned off though...

 

[Bigbazz]

That is my argument though, in that I'm not claiming Guitar Hero to be anything like playing a real guitar... I knew people who were practicing and practicing guitar hero, and it annoyed me that most of them had never thought beforehand about doing the real thing. I did convince one friend who was playing it to try the real thing instead, and she is now loving learning to play a real guitar and I don't think will ever look back on guitar hero.

In a similar vein, I would never encourage those who can race karts or on a real track to try a simulator. Once you get to a certain level you want to get away from the simulation and try it for real. The big difference that has yet to be discussed is the cost comparison between the 2, as that is what stops 99% of aspiring racing drivers.

^ Ardius
The point about reactions, this can't be expressed enough. Most games annoy me until I've learnt the ques added to simulate reaction inputs. F1 2010 for instance had a very faint tyre squeal as the car was letting go, but still handled like it was on rails until it just let go. Again the simulators that I'm used to driving at work not only have very good force feedback, but because the whole tub is on a motion frame you feel everything through your back / backside as it's happening. It's a very strange feeling when the motion is turned off though...

You still don't get it though, racing simulations is a LOT like driving the real thing, you do the same movements, you control the same moving parts in much the same way, you can hone your skills and you can take that to the track and drive the real thing with a confidence and a small bit of coaching. You can learn to drive a car by using a simulator. Karting is expensive, take it from someone who used to Kart as a kid and wanted to have a racing career but had to stop because of money, its very very expensive even at that level, sim racing is not.

Since I started sim racing with a wheel in august 2010 my skill level driving a car has increased a lot, I have learned a massive ammount from simulations, skills that can be taken into a real car and used. For some people that is enough that they can take it into a career that may never have happened without simulation racing.



Now on to guitar hero, you cannot learn anything from it to take on to a real guitar, you could be the ultimate guitar hero master then take it on to a real guitar and you would be completely clueless, there are no simularities. Guitar hero is not a guitar simulator and nothing helpful can be learned that will allow you to pick up a real guitar and play, any different from someone who had never tried guitar hero.

Think of guitar hero is Mario Kart on a gamepad compared to a real car. Nothing of value can be learned. Simulators on the other hand can teach you a lot, they can improve your skills and using them is an advantage.

 

[Ardius]

You still don't get it though, racing simulations is a LOT like driving the real thing, you do the same movements, you control the same moving parts in much the same way, you can hone your skills and you can take that to the track and drive the real thing with a confidence and a small bit of coaching. You can learn to drive a car by using a simulator. Karting is expensive, take it from someone who used to Kart as a kid and wanted to have a racing career but had to stop because of money, its very very expensive even at that level, sim racing is not.

Since I started sim racing with a wheel in august 2010 my skill level driving a car has increased a lot, I have learned a massive ammount from simulations, skills that can be taken into a real car and used. For some people that is enough that they can take it into a career that may never have happened without simulation racing.



Now on to guitar hero, you cannot learn anything from it to take on to a real guitar, you could be the ultimate guitar hero master then take it on to a real guitar and you would be completely clueless, there are no simularities. Guitar hero is not a guitar simulator and nothing helpful can be learned that will allow you to pick up a real guitar and play, any different from someone who had never tried guitar hero.

Think of guitar hero is Mario Kart on a gamepad compared to a real car. Nothing of value can be learned. Simulators on the other hand can teach you a lot, they can improve your skills and using them is an advantage.

Funny, I think that Guitar Hero/Rock Band are quite similar to driving games in a way. They also encourage people who wouldn't normally take up music to take an interest more than just listening. It also teaches some basic concepts (timing, rhythm, pitch, etc) and introduces people to a wider range of music than typical radio.

People that act snobbish over this stuff are short-sighted. These are games that are getting across some of the fantastic details of music and driving that you simply can't appreciate simply reading a book or watching on TV. I know of a lot of people who have taken up real guitar after being inspired by Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Isn't that a good thing for music?

Its all about perspective. Its not about replacing the reality. Of course you don't learn real guitar or driving a car playing these games. But they do help encourage people to take a bigger interest in the real thing because they give people a much more engaging experience.

I completely disagree about driving games being closer to real life than Guitar Hero. The same problems apply - force feedback and the lack of fear make a huge difference. Then there are things like the typical gaming steering wheel being far smaller than the real thing, pedals lacking any feedback, AI acting like idiots, physics forever being imperfect, etc etc.
The only things that carry over to the real world are the same kinds of things that carry over from Guitar Hero - the concepts.

 

[1241Penguin]

Well, time to move on from GT5...

Any suggestions for a PC sim? Besides the subscription based iRacing.

 

[cgr-10]

iRacing for example, is aware that no simulation will likely ever accurately portray a car's characteristics completely. That's why they've said in the past that sim racing is an actual form of motorsport and should be recognised as such which they backed up with gaining NASCAR backing/approval/sanctioning for the World Championship Series. Despite the fact these guys may never race in the real Sprint Cup, they are extremely skilled in this field which is almost a separate enitity from motorsport, not a step on the ladder towards it.

Also, whilst professional racing drivers (a hell of a lot of them) use the service, it's 90% so they can learn tracks and get practice time getting to grips with their nuances. Whether or not the car is 100% true to life in the sim isn't going to matter, what matters is knowing exactly where all the bumps are in the turns, turn in points, braking points and generally being able to get a feel of the track they'll be thundering around on the Sunday. I have to agree in that respect that iRacing is the best simulation listed as it has the laser scanned surfaces that allow pro drivers to get that seat time.

All in all, I think people are missing the point slightly. Whilst simulations can teach you the basics of racing, it's no substitute for the real thing and they're only good in iRacing's case for learning tracks. The slight bias in the article towards it is correctly placed from my point of view.

 

[Bigbazz]

Funny, I think that Guitar Hero/Rock Band are quite similar to driving games in a way. They also encourage people who wouldn't normally take up music to take an interest more than just listening. It also teaches some basic concepts (timing, rhythm, pitch, etc) and introduces people to a wider range of music than typical radio.

People that act snobbish over this stuff are short-sighted. These are games that are getting across some of the fantastic details of music and driving that you simply can't appreciate simply reading a book or watching on TV. I know of a lot of people who have taken up real guitar after being inspired by Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Isn't that a good thing for music?

Its all about perspective. Its not about replacing the reality. Of course you don't learn real guitar or driving a car playing these games. But they do help encourage people to take a bigger interest in the real thing because they give people a much more engaging experience.

I completely disagree about driving games being closer to real life than Guitar Hero. The same problems apply - force feedback and the lack of fear make a huge difference. Then there are things like the typical gaming steering wheel being far smaller than the real thing, pedals lacking any feedback, AI acting like idiots, physics forever being imperfect, etc etc.
The only things that carry over to the real world are the same kinds of things that carry over from Guitar Hero - the concepts.

My arguement lies though that the physical activities you learn from a driving simulation directly relate to what you do in a real car, where as with guitar hero you cannot. Inspiration to pick up the real thing is all well and good but you cannot learn any technique with the guitar hero, you can with a driving simulation.

Simple way to look at it is one question.

Can you learn to drive with a simulator? yes you can. Can you learn to play guitar with guitar hero? no you can't.


Are there benefits that can be taken from guitar hero? probably yes, but then so can there from playing games in general, from playing piano or typing on a computer keyboard, anything related to precision with your hands and fingers that can develop the muscles, anything with rhythm, and hell even masterbation. But like guitar hero they are completely seperate from the act of playing a guitar, where as a driving simulator is not.

 

[homeforsummer]

Re: Guitar Hero.

I can drive, and I'm pretty good at GT5.

I can play guitar, and I absolutely suck at Guitar Hero.

The guitar hero comparison is a dumb one.

the academy grads (who are pretty average)

Totally. Those race-winning Academy grads all suck.

I think where people are going wrong here is that they assume a simulator is meant to transform an everyday dude into a race driver. I find it especially foolish when this opinion comes from those inside motorsports.

The whole point of GT, Forza..even iRacing and rFactor is not to teach you everything. Its to take someone who only has a fleeting interest in racing and inspire them. All of these games teach you about racing lines, different car handling charateristics, the basic gist of setup and tuning, race craft, etc. It turns people who can't relate to motosports into very knowledgable individuals.

Personally I think GT and Forza do the job just fine. iRacing and the like are a step up from that but still do the same job - just in greater detail.

Jumping in a real race car requires starting from scratch. Its like complaining about a book saying it only teaches you the theory but doesn't make you a racing driver. Of course it bloody doesn't! Video games are interactive books. You experience and learn with them. They don't give you skills but they certainly can teach you things and put across points much more tangibly than a book can.

The difference between GT, Forza, iRacing, rFactor..is kind of like the difference between different writers of books. Some will be better written than others or focus on different things with varying levels of detail. All of them can teach you something and playing all of them can give you a more balanced view of the topic.

To touch on simulators, they're kind of like a technical instruction manual. You will learn far more from it than the others but even this is still a learning tool that can only teach so much.

Better than I could have put it 👍

 

[Ardius]

My arguement lies though that the physical activities you learn from a driving simulation directly relate to what you do in a real car, where as with guitar hero you cannot. Inspiration to pick up the real thing is all well and good but you cannot learn any technique with the guitar hero, you can with a driving simulation.

Simple way to look at it is one question.

Can you learn to drive with a simulator? yes you can. Can you learn to play guitar with guitar hero? no you can't.


Are there benefits that can be taken from guitar hero? probably yes, but then so can there from playing games in general, from playing piano or typing on a computer keyboard, anything related to precision with your hands and fingers that can develop the muscles, anything with rhythm, and hell even masterbation. But like guitar hero they are completely seperate from the act of playing a guitar, where as a driving simulator is not.

I addressed that in that post - the physical side of driving games is not comparable at all to reality!
-Steering wheels are generally far too small.
-Most average steering wheel pedals lack any force feedback.
-Force feedback in most games (mostly console games to be fair) is nothing like the real forces.
-Holding a steering wheel and pressing pedals in the comfort of your home is completely different to sitting a shaking racing car driving at speed.

Sure you can purchase pedals that have force feedback and spend an absolute fortune on hydraulics etc. But how many people do that when they play GT? Not many. Even iRacing most people play with the standard DFGT or similar (some even still play with a pad).

Not to mention you can actually play Rock Band at least with a Fender Strat. No, not plastic buttons, but with the strings.

Yes this guitar is expensive (as its a fully functioning real electric guitar). But is that any different to spending hundreds of £s on better steering wheels and force feedback accessories?

But this still missing the point of these games. Its not to teach you the physical side of things or "train" you. Its provide an enterintaining experience with the bonus of teaching you some of the core concepts you can take with you when you try the real thing - therefore inspiring people to try the real thing. The more money you spend, such as with the above guitar accessory or with iRacing, the closer you get and the more use you can get from the game. With the Rock Band thing, you've pretty much already got a real electric guitar and from that point you just need an Amp.
With motorsport its a bit more expensive to take the next step but certainly you start to learn a bit more with it than you do starting on the cheap with Need for Speed and a pad.
Neither are close to the real thing, but they are closer and they do send people in the right direction.

 

[Ingram]

Given that I have competed in the GT Academy, I feel I am in a good position to comment on this debate.

After competing I came to this conclusion: Gran Turismo provided me with an invaluable knowledge of how to drive a fast car around a circuit, without ever having driven a performance car in anger. However, there is no substitute for gaining experience in an actual car around a real circuit.

One example I can provide from my own personal experience comes from karting. Before the GT Academy, I had only ever driven a kart twice in my entire life. The first time ever was with some friends at my local track, aged about 20 (me, not the track.) Bear in mind that this was Scotland, in winter time, so the circuit was covered in a layer of frost. Despite some of them being very keen amateurs, I beat them all. I put that down to my understanding of driving lines, race craft, and how a car behaves on the limit of grip.

However, Jordan proved to be much faster than me in the karts at the GT Academy. He had both far more experience in a kart than me, and skills learned from GT, and it showed. Despite my understanding of how a kart/car behaves on the limit, I still didn't have a feel for it, and that prevented me from setting the times that he was capable of.

One thing that I feel a racing game can provide, perhaps even more capably than real driving, is race craft. If you are competing with similarly talented sim racers, then it provides an opportunity to try overtaking moves safe in the knowledge that you are not going to kill either yourself or someone else. I know that tactically, I am very capable in this area, and I have proven so both in GT competitions and when racing karts since the GT Academy.

Robin: Lucas, after two full seasons of professional racing, finished 2nd in class at Le Mans. Jann, only a year after winning the GT Academy, wins a round of the British GT3 championship. Jordan and Bryan are doing pretty well for themselves. Luca Lorenzini, who lost to Jordan, is competing in the Maserati Trofeo World Series, and won his first race. Giacomo Cunial, who didn't even make the top four, competes in the IRC. Calling them average, after starting their careers so recently, is moronic.

Please stop with the Guitar Hero comparisons, it has not benefited my competency at playing a guitar in any way, nor will it ever manage to.