What do professional racers think?

  • Thread starter Tijee
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Tijee

Tijee

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Tijee31
I've always wondered which sim would offer the most realistic racing experience. I turned to iRacing because I've read a lot of good things about it, and I enjoy it, but I'm still wondering which sim is the closest to reality (I'm not talking about graphics or sound, but purely physics).

We can read a lot of answers to this question in various forums, but most of the time it is the opinion of people who never got into a racing car in their life (like me). There's nothing wrong with that but they can just compare a game with another, based on their gaming experience, not real life racing. I mean, how can you really know whether physics in iRacing are better than in Assetto Corsa, or vice versa?

Thus here's my question: have you guys ever seen a video, or read an article, of a professional racer comparing and giving his opinion about two or three racing sims? I'd like to see a pro trying iRacing, Assetto Corsa, Project Cars, or any other racing game/sim, and telling what he thinks about the driving feeling, the car behavior, the tires physics, the force feedback,...

Have you ever seen anything like that?

Edit: I really mean comparison, not just a racer trying a game in front of cameras for a company he's got a contract with ;)
 
here in the Land Down Under there is a lot of Pro and semi pro real world racers on iracing.

There is a bunch of V8 SuperCar drivers who race week in/week out and I am sure it is the same State side for the oval racers too.
 
noshog
@Kamuifanboy is our resident Pro/iRacer in here, not sure what other sims he has tried but sure he'll give you some input.
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Thanks for the referral. Would have missed this thread completely.

I'm currently at Paul Ricard for a race so, I won't have much time to say much until Monday or Tuesday. To me, iRacing is in an entirely different league in comparison to other rivals. Nothing even comes close. And I've tried just about everything; iRacing, rFactor, GTR2, Assetto Corsa, Forza, GranTurismo ect. Just make sure that you have a nice pair of pedals (Clubsport or higher level) in order to really get a proper impression of iRacing and just about any SIM really.

I've gone to many professional simulators that are massively expensive to make and rent out. And I can tell you that I've yet to find one that comes even close to satisfying me as much as iRacing.

Let me know if you'd like me to go more in detail. May take awhile as I'm busy this weekend, but I'll try and make the effort to do so :)
 
Kamuifanboy
Thanks for the referral. Would have missed this thread completely.

I'm currently at Paul Ricard for a race so, I won't have much time to say much until Monday or Tuesday. To me, iRacing is in an entirely different league in comparison to other rivals. Nothing even comes close. And I've tried just about everything; iRacing, rFactor, GTR2, Assetto Corsa, Forza, GranTurismo ect. Just make sure that you have a nice pair of pedals (Clubsport or higher level) in order to really get a proper impression of iRacing and just about any SIM really.

I've gone to many professional simulators that are massively expensive to make and rent out. And I can tell you that I've yet to find one that comes even close to satisfying me as much as iRacing.

Let me know if you'd like me to go more in detail. May take awhile as I'm busy this weekend, but I'll try and make the effort to do so :)
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Thanks for sharing :)👍 I didn't expect iRacing to be that superior, when you see all these articles/posts telling how brilliant the physics and racing experience are in AC or rFactor. Proof that gamers feelings are not always representative of the reality :)

@Kamuifanboy I'd be very interested in knowing more about what in iRacing makes it better than the other sims, and also what could be improved to make it even better... When you have some time of course! ;)👍

Good luck for your race!! :)

Edit: speaking of pedals, I've just started learning heel-and-toe for blipping on downshift, it's 🤬 hard!! :lol:
 
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A few days ago, I read a remark from a real race car driving whom races in iRacing and he said that cars don't do in real life what they do in iRacing. He also said "iRacing, get your **** together." Just repeating what I read. :D

A game developer, who has nothing to do with iRacing, AC, pCars etc... said to me that this person thinks that AC is more realistic than pCars "in many sense".
 
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marky5244
lol!
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Lol?


I am maybe not a pro racing driver, just a amature Motorcycle racer but if you ask me, Project cars and Iracing feel very similar. I like them both, ffb and physics wise. the one game I have trouble with for the moment is AC strangely enough.
 
PCars is a fun gaming sim...but a serious racing sim it is not (and I love me some PCars). AC has better physics than PCars in some areas, but is far less engrossing (atmosphere, etc.).

Neither PCars or AC are on iRacing's level of sim. However, what they do is hit a nice line drive down the middle between the arcadey GT/Forza group, and the iRacing serious guys. There is a huge market right there in the middle and that's what they snapped up pretty well.

If we're discussing serious real-world sim racing, iRacing is probably the only PC title I can think of that really delivers that level.
 
I really can not tell what Iracing does better than other pc sims.

The physics and ffb feels as good/bad as the other sims/games.

The only thing that is better in my opinion is the cleanness of the races compared to the other "first corner crash fest games" and the sheer size of player community/customers compared to other sims.


Or maybe people think that Iracing is a proper/best sim cus of the dated/flat graphic and therefore it must mean that the game primarly focuses on the physics compared to the other games? I for one do not think that, for me Iracing is more of a community based/ in other words subscriber based game. A community not unlike facebook.

but that is my own opinion.


But sure, it is good. and I understand why people play it. clean races, many tracks and good carfeeling/physic/ffb.
 
I'm not a pro driver but thought I would throw my 2c in here too.
I have had a bit of real life experience in my mates race car at my local Pukekohe track.
I started iRacing long before I had any real life experience, and all I really know is that when I jumped in my mates race car for the first time, it was my experience in iRacing that made me feel comfortable and confident considering it was the first time I had ever been driving a proper race car on a proper race track. I immediately felt as though everything was familiar, I was actually able to start pushing myself straight away and was able to get times very close to what my mate was setting, even though he already had many many hours of track time. In fact I actually gave him some advice on how to attack one of the corners, he tried it and said it was instantly a much better way to take the corner.
So for me iRacing can take all the credit for this, it prepared me mentally for everything that is required to jump on a real life track, and in a way prepared me physically too, not in a gForces kind of way, but in a FFB/Physics kind of way, and still believe my mate only gave me the 'keys' to his race car because I kind of proved myself on iRacing first.

For me, why I think iRacing is the best sim (apart from what I mentioned above) is because it is a total package, first is the laser scanned tracks, I think this is a absolute must for any sim ! Then is everything else, the cars appear to be the most accurate, even the 'dated/flat' graphics, for me this actually more accurate than some of the newer flashier sims, because well, really real life doesn't actually look that good, and driving flat out in real life you actually dont notice 'fully textured' trees etc etc. The actual racing experience in iRacing, for me I get more nervous sitting on the grid in iRacing than any other sim, knowing that you have to be at your best everytime you hit the grid, mistakes really do matter in iRacing. Team racing, pit stops, 'career' progression and official championships, triple monitor support, the community, frequent updates...so yea for me iRacing is the total package.

I'm not going to comment too much on FFB/Physics because well I have very little real life experience, but would guess iRacing, Assetto Corsa and Rfactor all have the potential to call themselves the best, but that would depend on the equipment you use and the time you take to tune it. Really in my opinion none of them are perfect, some do things better than others and vice versa. So I would say in that regard whatever your chosen sim is you cant really go wrong, the deciding factor is really all the other features you want to go around it.
 
To me, for a game or a sim to offer the most realistic racing experience, it should be the entire package and not just physics. Sound and graphics should be part of the criteria. To exaggerate, imagine the makers of minecraft making the best physics racing sim and playing using minecraft graphics and mono sound.
 
Pillo-san
I really can not tell what Iracing does better than other pc sims.

The physics and ffb feels as good/bad as the other sims/games.

The only thing that is better in my opinion is the cleanness of the races compared to the other "first corner crash fest games" and the sheer size of player community/customers compared to other sims.


Or maybe people think that Iracing is a proper/best sim cus of the dated/flat graphic and therefore it must mean that the game primarly focuses on the physics compared to the other games? I for one do not think that, for me Iracing is more of a community based/ in other words subscriber based game. A community not unlike facebook.

but that is my own opinion.


But sure, it is good. and I understand why people play it. clean races, many tracks and good carfeeling/physic/ffb.
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The thing about Iracing and other sims is that the physics are like peeling an onion, and I totally dont' mean to be cliche-ish about it. I've been in racing for several years and I'm still learning about the physics. It seems everytime I get comfortable with a certain car and finally get to a place where I have a good race pace, I start noticing little things about the physics that I didn't notice before and I can gain a tenth here and there because of it.

So bottom line, the complete physics package, isn't something you will be able to take in all at once, or even in a few hundred hours of racing in Iracing or in real life. It takes awhile.
 
I came to iRacing right about the time I had to step away from legends. To me iRacing wasn't the easiest to pick up right away, but rather the one that felt the most natural. Unlike other games where I do a lap then find out I could just go into the corner as deep as I wanted to, I actually had to back off and quite a bit at that. Once I took the understeer out of the baseline setups, I could get a car to naturally rotate unlike any other sim/ game at the time. There were no nonsense 1-10 scale setup sliders but rather actual caster, camber, and toe adjustments measured in these really familiar units called degrees and inches and pounds ;). Now a sim is just exactly what it is, not real life and I recognize that it never will be, but the longer it lasts, the more iRacing blurs the lines. I know it does sound cliche but really it gets better almost every quarter. I came to iRacing before pCars and AC took off but I will say nothing screams to me that they are superior in any aspect. As for iRacing's graphics, I do not own a computer that can handle demanding graphics but I enjoy that the colors aren't over saturated like many games very clearly are to compensate for a lack of graphics. I have considered picking up pCars but the lack of a beastly computer and user reviews has made it less urgent for me to pick up, but I am very curious.
 
Dale Earnhardt Jr said a few builds back that he thought it drove like the car was on glass. But that was the oval portion of the sim, so if that's not your thing you can pretty much ignore.

However the general consensus is that the chassis/aero model are on point, but the tire model needs some work
 
The latest version of the tire model seems much better to me, the car feels more stable. Hopefully it's closer to reality now...?
 
I'm no pro but I feel that it gets better and better over time.

One thing that has happened is that more and more people are getting direct drive wheels (I have one) and have commented that the the tyre model is better than it is given credit for - it has much less of the "ice racing" feel with direct drive wheels. It's almost as if the tyre model has not been fudged for the feel with the typical wheels but when you use a direct drive wheel it's ability becomes more apparent.
 
My subscription ended in July and I never bothered to renew it due to my PC being an old decrepit junk bucket that could barely handle to get above 15 fps at bare minimum graphics.

I was enjoying the sim though when i had my subscription since this time I had all my licenses done and most of my content was bought, so it was all about enjoying races.

The faster the car though the more the tire issues became pronounced, so I stuck with the lower end cars. I really enjoyed the class D late model and the advanced street stocks.

But again, I'm not much of a road guy so i can't really tell you what to expect if you want to go the road road
 

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