iRacing.com Motorsport Simulations

Bram Hengeveld · Feb 20, 2008

iRacing.com Motorsport Simulations check it out

Péter Bártfai · Mar 30, 2009

My trial will expire on Saturday, and that's the end for my iracing career I think. It's nice but in my opinion it's not worth that much money. For 1,5x of that price I could go and do some real life go-kart racing... I don't like the idea that I have to pay for every car&track also. Way too expensive! 1 track = 1 expansion for Race 07.

If I was a millionaire (in HUF) I would buy iRacing but I'm not.

Dave Robinson · Mar 30, 2009

Yes I was refering to the Rookie class.

dcully · Mar 30, 2009

Dave Robinson said:
Yes I was refering to the Rookie class.

Fair enough Dave.

As for expensive, yes it is but no other sim comes close so its worth it imo.
You dont need to be a millionare, ive spent €300 on all the content.
For that i get 30 or so laser scanned tracks,far more accurate than anything else on the market.
I get laser scanned cars, the best physics,the best netcode,all included servers [no need for donations

] professionally sanctioned racing, i also get to race with and against the best in the cleanest online racing ive ever experienced [the includes leagues]
Right now i race for my country but very soon private leagues are coming.
To me its more than worth the cost.

I realise the price doesnt suit everyone, id prefer if it was cheaper ofcourse but i see it as a very cheap hobby.
I enjoy all my other sims like rfactor, GT legends,LFS,GTR2,GTR,GTR Evo etc but after experiencing iracing in all its glory [ie after you get promoted up the ranks] i just cant go back to anything else for my online racing.
You just cannot compare them therefore its not fair to compare them

I still race other sims offline running championships against the ai.

Dave Robinson · Mar 30, 2009

Yup it is good but not worth it but thats just my opinion. My opinion is not based on my financial staus yes I can afford it no problem however when I get to race online maybe 3 nights a week max then it just is not worth it. I loved the FFB but when rfactor2 comes out I am sure they will get it somewhere near. Again these are just my opinions, I have raced alot in real life and ircaing physics are closer than rfactor but then again we all know that.

As for the best netcode well its good but again imo its not as solid as rfactor. I had a few cars vanish and then appear again and that was in servers with just 10 guys. On rfactor I can race againt 30 plus guys with no issues.

Anyway glad you enjoy it.

John Bergqvist · Mar 30, 2009

how long did it take for the code to arrive, its been over a day now?

John Bergqvist · Mar 30, 2009

well ive got a welcome message from the cheif steward but no code!!! what do i do?

Péter Bártfai · Mar 30, 2009

for me it was 2 days

Gareth Hickling · Apr 2, 2009

Im not much of a road racer nowadays but if I was I would probrably not be doing it in iR because of the pricing structure. GT evo was perfect for me when I was racing on the roadies.

Im a big stockcar fan and iRacing beats any stocker sim/mod hands down due to the fantastic modeling of the tracks, All the bumps are there in the right places, all the best tracks. Good stuff! Ive raced Dale Jr before in a silverado race. Its pretty cool to be able to do that even if you are not an alien.

Unfortunatly it does cost a hell of alot of cash to race it, I think ive spent around £170+ so far and my subscription will run out in 2 months! (I would honestly not like to know how much ive spent on it so im not going to work it out)
After it running out I would not even be able to access the forums or site!
I dont find that very fair considering it has already cost me the price of 6-7 decent games but if that is how they want to do it so be it.

iRacing is good, but thats all. Something else will come on the scene and hopefully it wont be subscription based!

iRacing is like Marmite, You love it or you hate it.

Ohh and to stay ontopic:

Why didnt subscribers get a chance to try the Radical for free? I would of loved to give it a good thrashing! It seems twised to me letting Joe Public have a go but not there loyal subscribers!

Ricky Willox · Apr 2, 2009

Here comes Dega

Just announced on Iracing site.

April 02,2009 - Talladega Superspeedway Coming Soon!
You want fast? Really fast? The day Alabama International Motor Speedway opened in 1969 it was the fastest closed-circuit race track in the world. Now named Talladega Superspeedway, this 2.66-mile high banked tri-oval is still the fastest race track around and soon iRacers will be able to confirm this fact for themselves.

Constructed by the France family's International Speedway Corporation ten years after Daytona International Speedway, Talladega was built longer and with steeper banking which guaranteed record-setting speeds. The pole speed for the first NASCAR race was 199.466 mph, almost 30 mph faster than the IndyCars lapping at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Rule changes in 1987 mean Bill Elliott's 212.809 mph lap will stand forever as the qualifying record at Talladega and for NASCAR. Talladega Superspeedway is still the fastest track on the schedule and produces the most exciting fender-to-fender racing every year. Competing in high-speed packs at Talladega should prove both challenging and exciting for iRacers as well.

Gareth Hickling · Apr 3, 2009

Awesomeness! With the Nationwide version of the COT out soon aswell its looking good for stockcars at iRacing!

Dave Robinson · Apr 3, 2009

Legsy you have gone to the Dark side m8, Oval Racing man alive lol :shock:

John Bergqvist · Apr 7, 2009

Damien Culleton said:
Fair enough Dave.

As for expensive, yes it is but no other sim comes close so its worth it imo.
You dont need to be a millionare, ive spent €300 on all the content.
For that i get 30 or so laser scanned tracks,far more accurate than anything else on the market.
I get laser scanned cars, the best physics,the best netcode,all included servers [no need for donations ] professionally sanctioned racing, i also get to race with and against the best in the cleanest online racing ive ever experienced [the includes leagues]
Right now i race for my country but very soon private leagues are coming.
To me its more than worth the cost.

I realise the price doesnt suit everyone, id prefer if it was cheaper ofcourse but i see it as a very cheap hobby.
I enjoy all my other sims like rfactor, GT legends,LFS,GTR2,GTR,GTR Evo etc but after experiencing iracing in all its glory [ie after you get promoted up the ranks] i just cant go back to anything else for my online racing.
You just cannot compare them therefore its not fair to compare them
I still race other sims offline running championships against the ai.

€300 is A LOT of money. especially when you can get plenty of cars and tracks for just £14.99. and anyway, who cares if their laser scanned, as long as they're fairly accurate you'll still have FUN.

Péter Bártfai · Apr 7, 2009

300€ = 88000Ft, that's why I said if I was a millionaire...

I bought GTR Evo (full) for 5600Ft. Compare the price!

For 300€ I could buy a car.

Or if we stay at simracing, a G25... (and that still leaves 28000Ft to buy something else too) Which is a lot better choice I think

Play GTR Evo with G25 or play iRacing with Formula Force EX? Which one would you choose?

Trebor901 · Apr 8, 2009

Paypal next season (AT LAST!!)

At last iRacing will have paypal as a means of payment from next season and i understand that the new season starts in 3-4 weeks. Which will (should) be the start to my time with iRacing

Ricky Willox · Apr 14, 2009

2 new cars announced for Iracing

Two fords to join the garage

Mustang FR500S and Ford GT First to be Added

BEDFORD, MA (April 14, 2009) –iRacing.com Motorsport Simulations, LLC announced today that it is developing digital versions of a series of Ford competition cars for use in the iRacing simulation service.

The first two vehicles announced as part of this new digital line-up of Ford race cars are emblematic of Ford’s storied racing history, the Mustang and the Ford GT. iRacing engineers have begun the process of gathering the data necessary to produce digital duplicates of the Mustang FR500S and the Doran Ford GT-R.

“It seems fitting that among the first Fords we’ll produce are the current racing versions of a pair of 21st century production cars that trace their lineage back to the 1960s,” said Scott McKee, iRacing’s vice president of marketing. “The private Ford teams that campaign these cars in the American Le Mans Series GT2 class and Grand-Am’s Ford Racing Mustang Challenge will find the simulation a useful tool as they prepare for races, and all iRacing members will enjoy having these cars available for our own internet racing series, and the thousands of enthusiasts who are already iRacing members – including pros, amateurs and fans – will have a lot of fun competing in these cars when they are added into our sanctioned racing series.”

The Mustang FR500S is an assembly-line produced high-performance version of the legendary Ford model that is literally race-ready when it is delivered to a customer by any Ford dealer. With the exception of a roll cage and other safety equipment – added at a nearby facility – every FR500S rolled off the line at Ford’s AutoAlliance International assembly plant in Flat Rock, MI ready to race. Ford Racing Mustang Challenge competitors will find that six of the eight tracks on the 2009 schedule are already in the iRacing circuit inventory or currently under construction, including Homestead-Miami Speedway, Barber Motorsports Park, Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, Mosport International Raceway and Miller Motorsports Park.

"We at Ford Racing are proud that iRacing selected the FR500S as one of the first two Ford race cars to be available to its subscribers, said Jamie Allison, Manager, Ford Racing Performance Group. “Our guys here are determined to help iRacing make sure the car is as realistic as it can be. We're also excited to have the opportunity to hone our own FR500S driving skills online against the pros already racing the real thing. It should be fun,"

The Ford GT is an ultra-high performance road car inspired by Ford’s legendary four-time Le Mans-winning prototype sports-racing car from the 1960s. So it’s not surprising, and it’s totally appropriate, that someone would take this street car and prepare it for the race track. That’s exactly what veteran race car builder and team owner Kevin Doran has done. The Doran Ford GT-R is eligible for the Le Mans GT-2 class, and is currently doing battle with entries from Porsche, Ferrari and Aston Martin in the American Le Mans Series.

Bram Hengeveld · Apr 14, 2009

Mustang :woop:

Gareth Hickling · Apr 15, 2009

Dave Robinson said:
Legsy you have gone to the Dark side m8, Oval Racing man alive lol :shock:

You know it! Im an oval junkie!

Also the new nationwide car is not a COT like people thought!

Here is a picture found in Dale Jr's photobucket account! Yeaaahhhh! :rotfl:

Ricky Willox · Apr 25, 2009

New build release notes

Heres what coming in the next build in iRacing

Race Control:

Crashes on the final lap of a race no longer cause a full course caution.

Cars:

The Class B Chevy Impala has been added

The SCCA Enterprises Spec Racer Ford has been added

Physics:

Wheels now have a more correct friction against walls.

The tires have been adjusted for the Impala, Class B Impala, and Silverado.

The transmission ratios are changed depending on track type for Impala, Class B Impala, and Silverado. There is a road course, short track, and speedway gearing, which is selected for you—you can’t change those. The diff ratio is still adjustable in the garage, although several of the ratios have changed. Third gear is a bit shorter than it was (it was a 1.23 gear, is now a 1.33, except at the road courses where it is a 1.17). That should make shifting less of an advantage at most ovals.

The Silverado has more horsepower now from new data we have received.

The Silverado aero model has been substantially improved.

Race Week Scoring:

We have changed the way your race week points are scored. We now only average the top 50% of your races run in a given week in a series instead of all of your races run.

Spotter:

The spotter warns you when you are running low on fuel.

The spotter provides pace order instructions similar to the on-screen display.

Tech Inspection:

The Tech Inspection now allows the car to settle a moment longer and is more tolerant of borderline values. This should allow any setup that passes when loaded in the garage to pass tech.

Hardware compatibility:

If you are suffering from stuttering graphics in the sim, try the following: In the sim’s sound options, set your microphone to ‘None’. If that solves your graphical problems, set your mic back to what it was and open the file My Documents\iRacing\app.ini. In app.ini, change micAlwaysActive=1 to micAlwaysActive=0 and save the file. This may limit the graphical stutters to only occur when speaking over voice chat, however it may make the problems worse when speaking. If you are not experiencing graphical stutters, or setting your mic to ‘None’ does not affect the stutters, then you should not change this setting from its default value.

Server:

The code that breaks race sessions up into multiple run-groups when there are too many drivers for a single group has been tweaked. It is now more likely that drivers will be placed into a run-group with a Strength Of Field appropriate for their iRating.

Web:

Paypal has been added as a payment option.

The Results page has been greatly enhanced and also moved. It now resides in a new primary nav section called “Events”. This is the first of many pages to come to the new Events section of the site. The Results page is now filterable and sortable in a variety of ways. It is also a one-stop location for you to look up the results of all of all other iRacing drivers… no more page jumping.

New feature-loaded Customize Car page introduced. Car paint may be applied to one or more cars at a time. Color and font choice for car number is now offered as well as choice of 2 sponsorship logos.

Bug fix on replays page to properly display stats according to the Author of the replay when more than one replay may exist from the same subsession with different Authors

A new World Records page is available under STATS

Registered user count re-implemented on Series page.

Net Code

Improvements have been made to the Net Code and in particular the prediction of remote cars location with lost packets.

Graphics

Video memory is now managed vastly differently. Lookout for “loading failed” type errors or any new graphical problems. You mignt try alt-tabbing in full screen mode to see if it works better/worse/same than before.

The available texture memory slider can now be set up to a max of 768MB. The auto-detect will still max out at 512MB though, for safety reasons. If you have 1 GB video card (this does not include 2 cards each with 512 MB) you might try setting it to the max and checking if any loading or performance problems result.

A new graphics option, “High Resolution Car Textures” has been added. This option raises the priority of the car paint jobs textures causing them to keep more detail when very large on screen. Every few frames, the 3 cars closest to the camera (and visible on screen) will have their high-detail textures swapped into video memory if necessary. The downside of this option is that the simulation may consume more system RAM, but video RAM usage will remain about the same as before.

Tracks

Road Atlanta has been added

Garage

Cars are run through Tech Inspection at the beginning of each Qualifying, Time Trial, Race (warmup and the race). If your car fails tech, you willl need to go to the Garage to fix your setup before you are allowed on to the track.

When trying to load a new setup the sim will not save your current setup if it is not legal.

The Garage screen no longer responds to your steering wheel angle.

During Qualifying and Time Trial sessions, your pit crew will no longer service your car. Use the Garage to make changes to your setup.

Resets

Exiting your car now counts towards the reset limit.

Class C, B and A now have no resets allowed. Unofficial seasons always allow a reset for now.

Ricky Willox · Apr 25, 2009

Volkswagon In iRacing.

This would be a great chance if A: I could drive B: lived in the states and C: well lets just say im a little off on the age requirements

Still pretty interesting news for simracing in general.

April 25,2009 - Volkswagen of America and iRacing Announce Internet-Racing Path to Real-World Pro Series: iRacers To Qualify for Jetta TDI Cup Driver Selections
Since before the service opened to the public last year, professional and amateur real-world racing drivers, including last year’s Volkswagen Jetta TDI Cup champion, Josh Hurley, have been using iRacing.com’s motorsport simulation service to learn new tracks and get up to speed before testing sessions or races. Today, a partnership between Volkswagen of America and iRacing has been announced, which will see an iRacing-organized internet racing series serve as a portal to the real-world Jetta TDI Cup series.

iRacing’s virtual Volkswagen Jetta TDI Cup series will kick off during 2009 Season 3. The online series will be open to all members with a Rookie 4.0 or higher competition license and will feature the Jetta TDI Cup car (which is currently under development) as well as several of the tracks from the real-world TDI Cup schedule.

At the conclusion of Season 3, the top ranked driver in the series meeting Jetta TDI Cup entrance requirements (between the ages of 16-26 and a resident of the United States, Canada or Mexico) will earn a spot among 100 aspiring professional racers invited by Volkswagen of America to compete in the Driver Selection event for the real-world 2010 Jetta TDI Cup series. From those 100, 30 series entrants and five alternates will be selected. Should the virtual Jetta TDI Cup qualifier be among them, he or she will enjoy a FULLY FUNDED season behind the wheel of the iRacing.com-liveried Jetta TDI Cup entry.

Next year, iRacing becomes even more central to the Jetta TDI Cup driver selection process. The virtual Jetta TDI Cup series for 2009 Season 4 and 2010 Seasons 1 – 3 will be the primary gateway to the Driver Selections event. Top-ranked iRacers from all four seasons will receive invitations to attempt to qualify for the real-world series’ 2011 season and compete for the $100,000 champion’s prize.