iRacing Review

[OverTake.gg]

Bram Hengeveld submitted a new blog post:

iRacing Review

More than five years after its initial release, I feel it’s finally time to give iRacing the professional review treatment. Five years is more than enough time for one game to sort out all of its issues, the game costs several times more than your traditional boxed PC game available on the shelves at Best Buy, and deciding whether to take the plunge based on biased forum ramblings is never a good idea. Six hundred million laps later, it’s time to finally take a look at iRacing, and determine...

Continue reading the Original Blog Post

 

[Arkadiusz Wawrzyniak]

Yeah... iRacing is really weird at low speeds. Actually it is overall weird. Kunos... be quick with AC!

 

[Chronus]

Jokes aside, yes it feels harder than it probably would be in real life, but it IS possible, I HAVE done it.

Some of the iRacing PROs say the exact same thing Bell, Milner, Basu and W. Reip have said.

I find it funny some (lol) simracers claim they can "save it" after all...

...but then again, that may not be surprising, considering that the way most race (again, not RL pros nor some of iR PROs) is ludicrous and bears little resemblance to how people would actually race/drive in real life. This is exactly the point some of us are making here: some claim they're über-fast, save UN-saveable spins, etc, ad nauseam, but they're only exploiting the weaknesses iR still has.When DK finally weeds out the remaining issues, will see how these drivers really drive.

 

[Kjell Eilertsen]

Not claiming I can save it, or that I do so every time, I'm stating that I HAVE saved slides. Neither am I claiming that said IRL drivers and iRacing PROs are wrong, I'm just saying that people need to balance their opinions, it's hard to save a slide in iRacing but it's not impossible.

 

[Austin Ogonoski]

I just made the mistake of playing NR2003 for an extended period of time, and coming back to iRacing is just a nightmare now. How people call iRacing a "simulation" is beyond me, the only way it resembles a simulation is that you have to slow down for turns. Every other aspect of simply driving around the track at speed is totally wrong and I can see why all real drivers have abandoned it in favor of NR2003 or gMotor2 powered sims.

 

[Arkadiusz Wawrzyniak]

As I am driving a cadillac I noticed that saving high speed slides is easy but saving low speed slides.... let's say it is pretty hard. Where is logic in here ? You may say it is because of downforce, but the same thing is with mazda mx5. And not catchable slides at 60kph is ridiculous (actualy sliding at 60 kph is ridiculous).

 

[Antonio Crinò]

so, we have 2 options:
1) I am a pro, and you are all noobs (far from realty lol)
2)some of you are talking out of their shoes

As for the caddy, the settings for the differential on the default setup are wrong, get a proper setup.


btw is a FACT that the iR tires are OVER sensitive for weight transfer because they lose grip too fast. This problem need to be fixed asap because every time you make a mistake it's very hard save it compared to real life. But, claim that someone can't enjoy the sim because of this problem IMO is just too much exaggerated.

You have to overdrive the car, go over the limit to be in this situation, but the first answer should be: "learn how to drive, and learn how to manage weight transfer", but I understand it's too difficult, everyone in front of a monitor feels like Senna, Prost, Alonso, the problem of frustration is the sim. AC did a very good work on this aspect.

 

[Arkadiusz Wawrzyniak]

I like driving cadillac. I got 1:32,xxx on zolder with some random setup. But first corner is a nightmare. It looses grip just like that. And I have no clue about setups But mazda is ****.

 

[William Levesque]

The MX-5 is piss easy to drive, lol....

 

[Kjell Eilertsen]

I like the caddy too, as well as the MX5, which I don't find that hard to drive. The caddy was a nightmare when I first started iRacing, and I struggled a bit with the MX5, but once I learnt to back off and not be so agressive I found both cars manageble.
Edit: That said I'm still a terribly slow and bad driver xD

 

[Arkadiusz Wawrzyniak]

I did not said that mazda is hard. It is easy, but feels shitty. Gives no feedback. With Cadi I can feel what is going on but with Mazda I can't feel much. It makes it harder to be fast (I mean like near to the world records fast). In Assetto I can feel everything.

 

[Wojciech Swirydowicz]

I got totally opposite impressions in regards to these 2 cars. Can't drive Caddy and can't feel it, but I feel great in mx5 - it gives me all feedback that's needed to enjoy it.
I think it always comes down to time spent in each car and each sim, the longer you stay with it the better it feels.

 

[Kjell Eilertsen]

I got totally opposite impressions in regards to these 2 cars. Can't drive Caddy and can't feel it, but I feel great in mx5 - it gives me all feedback that's needed to enjoy it.
I think it always comes down to time spent in each car and each sim, the longer you stay with it the better it feels.

I felt the same towards the caddy when I just started out with iRacing, but after having raced the MX5 for some weeks (and loved it once I got to grips with it!) I revisited the Caddy and while I still think it's a hard beast to tame, I find it very much fun and extremely rewarding to drive!

 

[Arkadiusz Wawrzyniak]

Well... after setting my FOV to 95 degree with my single 24" monitor, things changed for good. I also changed braking curve. Now I am very consistent with my laps. Mx5 now feels much better but still not as good as I'd want it to.

 

[Kjell Eilertsen]

Yeah changing the FOV did a lot for me too in terms of consistency and feel. Used the ingame calculator and got it set "as it should" but then chose to pull it out just a little bit to gain a little more side to side vision.

 

[Tom Van Put]

FOV of 95 with a single 24" monitor is very high, should be around 50-60...

 

[Kjell Eilertsen]

That depends on the distance from the screen, but yeah it'd probably have to be on his nose to justify a FOV of 95
Btw, I can highly recommend trying to get the monitor as close as possible to the back of your wheel, then adjusting the FOV using the ingame calc, makes a big difference.

 

[Arkadiusz Wawrzyniak]

60?! WTF? It feels like my chest is on steering wheel. 90-95 degree feels like I am in my car. And with 60 i can't see **** beside the top of steering wheel....

 

[Niel Hekkens]

My FOV is 63 with a 24" monitor.
I have a much better feeling for what the car is doing.

The view in the rectangle is what you should see

 

[Kjell Eilertsen]

I'd say you should be seeing a little more than that but yeah, that's about right. Just try to imagine your monitor being your view into the world, like a window instead of a monitor, and try to visualize how much you would actually be seeing of you had a wall covering everything in front of you except the window that your monitor is, then you'll quickly realize that you really shouldn't be seeing much else than the road in front of you and the top of your steeringwheel and dashboard.
This gives you a terrible sense of what is happening around you, but it puts you behind the wheel of the car, it makes finding brakepoints easier, hitting the apex easier etc and it will feel a lot more natural than a FOV of 95 (once you get used to it). For peripheral vision you need a broader image, like triple monitors, projectors or a Oculus Rift etc.

 

[DewCrew88]

This is worth the read from the Official Forums on a discussion regarding bringing back the OTM for the FW31
Not from me btw...

Lately I've been testing the F1 cars from various other sims. rf2, Netkar pro, Pcars, game stock 2012, Ferrari Virtual academy, and the iracing Williams is the worst of them all by FAR. It is the ONLY one that cannot use realistic gear ratios because of the laughable lack of grip, which forces us to use arcade gear ratios. This issue has existed from the car launch even with the OTM, which is absolutely disgraceful. ​

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You would think during initial testing, the 'engineer's' would have noticed how undrivable the car was with realistic gear ratios, and that it maybe was indicating there was insufficient rear grip issues, but no, apparently they did not notice or think it was important, and have not addressed this issue in the 3 years since it was released, which really puts into question the ability and dedication of the physics staff, which does not correlate with the hype and image of the service if they can tolerate such clear and crucial physics flaws for so long.​

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Have not even got to the best part yet. At least the above issue was tolerable with the OTM, but with the introduction of the NTM to the F1, an even worse physics flaw was introduced with the excessive lateral grip drop off with wheel spin. So without enough lateral and longitudinal grip, the F1 car slides around like a rally car on dirt, with the throttle acting like a rudder on a boat. Its so bad that realistic race starts are not even possible and require the drivers to slip the clutch with the excessively tall 1st gears, to avoid spinning out because any wheel spin results in the car losing all stability and spinning out, and even exiting the pit lane is a challenge because of the cars desire to want to spin out with even the slightest combination of steering and throttle. ​

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The handling would be an embarrassment for a rf mod, let alone for the self proclaimed pinnacle of iracing with direct support from Williams. What a joke. None of the other F1 sims have these major issues not one of them, and its really mind boggling how iracing with so many resources has been able to achieve them, and force its members to tolerate them for so long, not weeks or months but years, its an embarrassment. ​

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I think they should stop wasting their clearly limited resources in releasing new cars and instead focus on FIXING the already existing cars until they are of a competent standard. We are not asking for anything fancy like weather, live track, flat spots, realistic tyre wear and temps, god knows how many decades that will take, we just want the basics done right, and if you can't do it right then fudge it until you can do it right because members deserve a lot better for their money. ​

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Iracing If you don't know what you are doing, just install Ferrari Virtual Academy, and use that handling as your template, and play around with the physics until you get it as close as you can, and there you go. Was watching the DWC Silverstone race, and the amount of hack sawing at the wheel and sliding that was occurring in the last sector was hilarious. It was literally totally opposite to a real life fast lap which is smooth and almost devoid of countersteer. They just line up the corner, with precision and sail through it, which is why they are a joy to drive, while ours is a nightmare.​