PC Racing Simulation

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LiquidMantis has asked that I start this thread. I will try to make it useful. I don't claim to be the fastest racer or an expert, but I do claim to own almost every one of them. I am only going to address the PC-only sims. There really isn't a PC Sim that is the equivalent to GT or Forza. These are made to experience as long (30 min - 3 hour) races and plenty of qualifying and practice. Only for the serious.

Simulations:

iRacing - There is a debate, but iRacing probably has the best feel of any simulation out there. The physics just feel "right". The latest version, 2.0, was released in August. This release was the debut of their new tire model. Responses to the new model are mixed but I love it. Most the cars still use the old model. The iRacing service is a subscription service. The basic subscription comes with a few cars and tracks but if you want additional cars and tracks, each will cost you anywhere from 12-15 bucks. That may seem pricey, and it is, but the tracks are meticulously created with laser scanners and each car feels very unique. Additionally, other than testing and time trials, there is no single player mode. This is a pure multiplayer simulation. Be prepared to get your ass handed to you as well. Many people make the mistake of stepping into iRacing and buying every single car and track, almost treating it like a very expensive Forza. As fun (and expensive) as that may be, you really need to approach iRacing by attacking one car at a time. Pick a series for the current season and practice, practice, practice. A new track will show up every Monday night for the series. Practice, qualify, and race throughout the week. You can race as many times as you want. The service will average your results and give you a score each week. Also, there is a safety rating system in place which works fairly well. Any incidents in a race, even going off track, will reduce that rating. If you get your rating low enough, you will be prohibited in participation from many series. If you want to tackle iRacing, you probably need to decide that will be your sim of choice. It can be messed with casually, but to get your money's worth, it requires dedication, hours and hours of dedication. Right now, the first two months are free. Support for all FFB wheels on the market is fantastic, by far the best. Triple-screen works without a hitch. We have a GWJ catch-all here. We wanted to get something going but we only got a few races in. Nyxs Optare is hard to beat but pleasant enough, for a Texan The best part of iRacing is that there is always someone to race.

rFactor - This is the best value sim on the market. It uses the gmotor2 engine which is used in GTR2, Race 07, and several more. The gMotor2 engine is one of the easiest things to work with and provided 3 screen support years before others figured it out. After purchasing the base game, there are endless quality tracks and mods available at sites like rFactor Central or No Grip Racing. In my opinion, the best tracks come from http://virtua-lm.com/ and the best cars from Enduracers. It will take a while to get your wheel feeling right. There is a need to play with the options as you change cars. There are several recommended mods out there such as RealFeel to make the experience complete. Single player AI is pretty good. Multiplayer is fantastic but not regulated like iRacing.

Game Stock Car - This is also gMotor2 engine, but heavily modded. It was created by a team that built quite a few quality mods for rFactor. Don't let the name fool you, the focus of this game is Brazilian stock car racing which looks nothing like Nascar. This is road racing at its best. These cars are beasts and you will not find the same tracks (except Interlagos) in any other game. The cockpit motion and sound is fantastic, better than Shift 2 IMHO. I love this simulation. AI is phenomenal.

Race 07 - Sometimes referred to as GTR Evolution, which was an early expansion. More gMotor engine. I prefer the STCC and STCC 2 cars and tracks more than anything else out there. Available through Steam, along with all its expansions. Steering wheel setup seems a bit easier than rFactor, even if it is the same engine. I would love to see a GWJ group that races STCC.

GTR2 - You can still find this and it is well worth your time. Also gMotor2. A very polished sim. Graphics are starting to look old against current sims but it still is beautiful from the cockpit.

netKar Pro - Arguably the best physics in PC racing simulation. The UI is a bit to wrestle with but much better than it used to be.

Live for Speed - A unique physics engine that feels different than anything else. Once you get used to it, it is hard to go back to anything else. Many folks like it best of all the PC sims. AI is weak but the multiplayer can be fantastic. I have had some epic duels in this one. Well worth the money.

Richard Burns Rally - BUY THIS NOW, while it is still available. Simply the best off-road racing sim on the planet. After you get it, immediately go here to install RSRBR 2011.

Sites:

VirtualR
SimRacingWorld
GTPlanet (this subforum can be helpful for PC sims)
Inside Sim Racing
Race Department

I need a new desk for my pc before I can dive into PC sims. Got the wheel, need a desk.

I built mine out of an IKEA Poang chair and about $50 in lumber at Home Depot. Works fantastically.

Richard Burns Rally - BUY THIS NOW, while it is still available. Simply the best off-road racing sim on the planet. After you get it, immediately go here to install RSRBR 2011.

How is the Fanatec wheel support in this one? Also, is there no where to get a digital download version?

I generally feel like I get most of what I want in terms of sim racing from Forza, but obviously it is completely lacking in terms of rally racing. I suppose I ought to check out Dirt 3 as well, but something more on the sim side would certainly be fun to check out (especially for at the price Amazon is currently offering).

The Fanatec works great with RBR. When you use your Fanatec in PC sims, you will find that it works better than Forza. This is simply because MS limits so much in terms of FFB. While I am very happy what they have done with Forza 4 (astounded actually), the PC drivers just offer more. I think Fanatec's partnering with MS for Forza 4 may have allowed them better access to some functionality. Forza 3 was fine but much weaker feeling.

Hell, it's only $12 for the one shipped by Amazon. For that it's worth it just to have something else to putz around with on the wheel. Stock has now gone from 7 to 6.

zeroKFE wrote:

something else to putz around with on the wheel.

Good luck with that RBR will teach you how to drive fast.

Just tagging in for now. Thanks for the awesome OP, Static!

Not a sim, just shows how hard it is for real.

Aw, this thread was still-born. While drinking and browsing the Internet, I seem to have ordered a racing seat in anticipation of Forza Horizon. Can't wait until it gets here, hopefully later this week. I've started dabbling with some PC racing games to see how they work with my three monitor setup and I'm starting to think that PC racing is really wehre it's at. Has anyone been checking out Assetto Corsa?

Considering how much you've put into that three monitor setup what more is the cost of a racing seat?

I'm not sure that's the right rationalization approach to use when my wife wants to know why exactly we have a big black chunk of metal with a car seat on it.

Almost forgot about the free RaceRoom Racing teaser on Steam for the upcoming F2P racer.

Moving this out of the Forza thread, but MisterStatic you mentioned running SLI'ed 670s for surround, how's that working for you? After doing some reading I'm leaning toward saving money over the 680s and going with two 4GB 670s. The savings is appreciable, especially if I end up needing to go tri-SLI down the road. It seems that going with 4GB cards is sensible for being able to really push things. Although I'm still reading to see if 4GB cards will really make a difference before I'd want to upgrade again. While a lot of people claim it's a good idea for surround setups, the only benchmarks I've seen it make a difference have been artificially exaggerated to cripple the system.

I test ran SLI'd 570's at 5760x1080 in iRacing and it ran solid, I was in the step-up queue for 680's at the time and did move up to those over the summer. When comparing games and simulations at that resolution iRacing was easier on the hardware than others.

Regarding spanning multiple monitors for game-play, say 2, do you need multiple cards to do so or can you accomplish this with a single, say GTX660 3GB?

groan wrote:

Regarding spanning multiple monitors for game-play, say 2, do you need multiple cards to do so or can you accomplish this with a single, say GTX660 3GB?

I believe all 600s only need one card.

LiquidMantis wrote:

Moving this out of the Forza thread, but MisterStatic you mentioned running SLI'ed 670s for surround, how's that working for you? After doing some reading I'm leaning toward saving money over the 680s and going with two 4GB 670s. The savings is appreciable, especially if I end up needing to go tri-SLI down the road. It seems that going with 4GB cards is sensible for being able to really push things. Although I'm still reading to see if 4GB cards will really make a difference before I'd want to upgrade again. While a lot of people claim it's a good idea for surround setups, the only benchmarks I've seen it make a difference have been artificially exaggerated to cripple the system.

I have 2x 4GB 670s. Phenomenal, very smooth at 5040x1050 in almost anything I have hit it with, including ArmA 2. Only thing that had a noticeable frame rate was Max Payne 3 with EVERYTHING turned to max.

iRacing is smooth as silk.

Edit: as to the 4GB question,I do t have any solid metrics, but if your viewport into the virtual world is expanded, it makes sense that more texture memory is required for the viewable area. Of course, the software needs to take advantage of this. I can only say that I see an appreciable difference in texture loading over my 480 setup; I don't know if that is due to processing increases or available memory.

Arise, thread! Well this weekend I finally got my PC rig put together. I still have some clean-up to do to make the room presentable again, but I have a functioning racing setup. So, who's interested in some PC racing? I bought a year of iRacing during I think a Black Friday sale, plus there is Project CARS, Raceroom Experience, Assetto Corsa, rFactor 2, and some others all in the pipes. And man, the CSW with the BMW wheel feels goood. I haven't tried the F1 wheel yet but will shortly to give F1 2012 a run.

Why, oh, why did I move away from Colorado? Party at the Mantis household!

LiquidMantis wrote:

Arise, thread! Well this weekend I finally got my PC rig put together. I still have some clean-up to do to make the room presentable again, but I have a functioning racing setup. So, who's interested in some PC racing? I bought a year of iRacing during I think a Black Friday sale, plus there is Project CARS, Raceroom Experience, Assetto Corsa, rFactor 2, and some others all in the pipes. And man, the CSW with the BMW wheel feels goood. I haven't tried the F1 wheel yet but will shortly to give F1 2012 a run.

I'm interested. Do you have 'Game Stock Car 2012'?

Not yet but it's one I wanted to check out. But eww, limited activations.

LiquidMantis wrote:

Not yet but it's one I wanted to check out. But eww, limited activations. :(

It's great.

garion333 wrote:

Why, oh, why did I move away from Colorado?

Good question!

http://www.mainperformancepc.com/product/obutto-gaming-cockpits/obutto-r3volution-gaming-cockpit

I want this soooo bad!! I am trying to save up for it so that I can get back into iRacing, which at the moment is the only sim I use. I have a DIY rig that I made using 3" diameter PVC pipe, particle board, and a seat that I pulled out of an early 2000's model Mazda 626 almost 2 years ago. The computer I had at the time could run iRacing on the lower end but that was pretty much it. Once I built my first gaming rig about a year ago, and started PC gaming for the first time, I discovered that my rig was great for racing but AWFUL for extended gaming sessions on anything but iRacing. Since then, I have been forced to move my PC from my computer desk to my rig when I want to race, and then move it back when I'm done. That lasted all of about a month before I got tired of doing it and stopped. So it looks like what it is going to take is getting something, like the Obutto R3volution, that can be used for sim racing as well as gaming. It will also make the eventual move to a triple monitor setup easier, since I can just order the triple monitor mount and change it out.

That's what I just switched to. Like I said, I need to finish detailing and cleanup, so please excuse the mess. I still need to mount my Warthog's flight stick, but the throttle is mounted. I wanted something that I could use as a workstation (well general gaming as I now work exclusively from my laptop anyway), driving setup, and for flight sim'ing. The R3volution isn't perfect, but it is amazing for the money and the only thing that meets my needs. My only complaints are just the garage engineering design. Of course that's the reason it's not a $1500 cockpit too.

Next step is to grab Simvibe and start adding transducers as I have more toy money.

IMAGE(http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a254/Liquidmantis/cockpit-1.jpg)

color me jealous........very....very...jealous

Holy crap. I think that setup would take up half my apartment.

***

Anyone here plan on running the Lotus 49s when the new season of iRacing starts?

At the moment I stick to the oval side, but I keep saying I'm going to venture into the road side. I've been saying that for a year, though.

Road is definitely where my interests lie. I'm not sure that I see the appeal in oval racing but I'm starting to appreciate that maybe I just don't understand it. In watching some iRacing coverage I'm starting to see that maybe it's about the reduction to just strategy and maneuvering rather than optimizing brake points and cornering lines.

LiquidMantis wrote:

Road is definitely where my interests lie. I'm not sure that I see the appeal in oval racing but I'm starting to appreciate that maybe I just don't understand it. In watching some iRacing coverage I'm starting to see that maybe it's about the reduction to just strategy and maneuvering rather than optimizing brake points and cornering lines.

You're also always re-optimizing your brake points and cornering lines to the changing conditions of your tires and the line you might be forced to take to pass or be passed.

ChrisLTD wrote:
LiquidMantis wrote:

Road is definitely where my interests lie. I'm not sure that I see the appeal in oval racing but I'm starting to appreciate that maybe I just don't understand it. In watching some iRacing coverage I'm starting to see that maybe it's about the reduction to just strategy and maneuvering rather than optimizing brake points and cornering lines.

You're also always re-optimizing your brake points and cornering lines to the changing conditions of your tires and the line you might be forced to take to pass or be passed.

It works the same way in oval. Hitting braking marks and changing them with deteriorating grip, finding the right line through the corner, and finding the right combination of brake, cruising, and level of throttle to get the most out speed out of every corner. The main difference in cornering between road and oval is that at most tracks there is no apexing the corner. It's usually finding what line through the corner gives you the most speed. That could be apexing, it could be riding the bottom through the corner, it could be riding near the wall.

So I fired up the Raceroom Racing Experience sample on Steam and immediately after exiting I got my beta invite email. Anyone else in it?

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