Nurburgring Nordschleife

The official Forza Motorsport social media accounts have confirmed what we already suspected, announcing that the Nurburgring circuit location will be part of the title at launch — but the famous Nordschleife will be coming at a later date.

It only takes a few miles for the doubt to kick in.

One of the most iconic race tracks of all time is now available for the rFactor 2 crowd. Yes, the Nurburgring has arrived on the PC sim.

If there’s one thing that’s more common than an upstart British sports car company announcement, it’s inceasingly specific Nürburgring lap time records. Mercedes is the latest to throw its hat in the ring, with the AMG GT 63 S four-door.

A new video provides an easy and direct comparison of just how accurate the daunting Green Hell is in GT Sport.

In our world of racing games, many players have different preferences as to what peripherals they choose to drive their virtual machines with. Some folks swear by using a wheel and won’t bother playing with anything else. Other people are content with using the standard controller supplied with a game console. The mouse, on the other hand, is probably something that you haven’t seen being used to play a racing game in any serious capacity—until now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlwkE93FlVc

Due to the broad range of video game conferences GT Sport has been appearing at lately, we’ve been witnessing a great deal of off-screen recordings the last few weeks. While arguably the biggest shock came from the surprisingly meaty Mercedes-AMG sounds we showed you earlier this week, the latest additions provide additional glimpses at what seems to be the latest build.

Highly sophisticated racing simulators are increasingly common these days. What racing drivers can’t learn prior the race itself can be experienced and absorbed on these high-tech platforms. This allows drivers to be highly competitive regardless of the track they are going to face next.

Team Redline is one of the world’s most prominent online racing teams, founded all the way back in 2000. Today, it claims some of sim-racing and motorsport’s fastest drivers, including iRacing star Greger Huttu and Formula 1 pilot Max Verstappen.

Marcel Pfister, creator of the popular Mixed Reality series of videos, has decided to run yet another session in the popular and distinctive racing simulator iRacing. The video once again demonstrates the ability of the Oculus Rift VR headset, an interesting accessory that in combination with green-screen technology allows for new levels of immersion in virtual racing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jjhivx90AsQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4cCKz1u1nQ

One reality against another – that is exactly how we could describe this latest split-screen comparison video, meticulously prepared by Youtube user Marcel Pfister. His Mixed Reality gameplay and tutorial videos (previously highlighted here and here) show off the advantages of owning an Oculus Rift VR headset, a device that could soon change the experience of playing a video game tremendously, driving games in particular. Just look at the level of immersion, all without going far from your sofa!

We recently spotted another video game channel – 60fps Sim Racing – pitting the virtual world against the real, featuring none other than that most illustrious of German courses, the Nürburgring Nordschleife. Using real lap footage of the BMW M4 (narrated by BMW development driver Jörg Weidinger), the channel peruses the technical achievements of one of the newer players on the sim racing block: Assetto Corsa.

There’s no such thing as “too many tracks”. Any sim racer will tell you that. Of course, just like the available garage that ships with a new title, the track roster is always going to be limited by time. Developers have to walk a fine line, including tracks that (hopefully) please as much of the player base as possible. Some, as it turns out, will end up more popular than others.

Including the famous German track Nürburgring Nordschleife in modern video games isn’t the rarity it once was. Console players were technically first introduced to the Green Hell back in 2003 with Project Gotham Racing 2, though that version was scaled up by roughly 10% to increase passing opportunities online. A more accurately-sized model arrived a year later with Gran Turismo 4, and has since spread to numerous other titles in the decade following.

Dale Lomas is a driving instructor and race car driver at the Nurburgring, and he had the chance to drive the Swiss Racing Toyota GT86 in a VLN race at the circuit last year. When he got his hands on GT6, he quickly purchased the game’s GT86 Race Car to create this comparison video.

Gran Turismo’s logo was prominent around the Nurburgring this weekend at the 24 Hour race, and Polyphony Digital  surprised viewers of the race’s live broadcast by showing off what appears to be the first-ever video of the Nordschleife Gran Turismo 6.

Last weekend was a busy one for Gran Turismo stars on real-world race tracks; in addition to Wolfgang Reip taking victory in the European GT Academy 2012, previous winners Lucas Ordoñez, Jordan Tresson, Bryan Heitkotter, and GT series creator Kazunori Yamauchi were also competing.