The online racing simulator
iRacing
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I'm going to put a hosted race up around 1pm GMT today. It'll be Jetta @ Sebring. I'll stick an..........I don't know.......15 lap race or something up, after a long practice session.

Just posting here to see if anyone is interested.

NOTE: It'll be called "LFS Forum"

EDIT: Fail. It'll be Sebring instead
So did anyone ever get an iRacing survey sent to them a few weeks ago? Funny how when they asked "what other sims do you race" LFS was never mentioned. Maybe they are afraid that if people find out about LFS and try it, they will realize that iRacing isn't the only realistic sim and that it's not that much further ahead in terms of physics as everyone made it out to be

Not to mention the introduction of more real cars and laser scanned tracks.

I'm still awaiting the day that they introduce a car without slicks or racing tyres so people can really judge it's realism. Pity such a powerful physics engine is going to waste without demonstrating it's full potential for modeling road cars.
Except that's the thing, chances are the physics engine isn't that powerful, it just has good values put in for what it simulates. LFS has a more complete engine with the ability to simulate dirt/gravel (and ice :hide.
Quote from ScoobRX :So did anyone ever get an iRacing survey sent to them a few weeks ago? Funny how when they asked "what other sims do you race" LFS was never mentioned. Maybe they are afraid that if people find out about LFS and try it, they will realize that iRacing isn't the only realistic sim and that it's not that much further ahead in terms of physics as everyone made it out to be

Not to mention the introduction of more real cars and laser scanned tracks.

I'm still awaiting the day that they introduce a car without slicks or racing tyres so people can really judge it's realism. Pity such a powerful physics engine is going to waste without demonstrating it's full potential for modeling road cars.

As far as I now the Skip Barber F2000 has street legal tyres and it is a really good sim car.
Quote from ScoobRX :So did anyone ever get an iRacing survey sent to them a few weeks ago? Funny how when they asked "what other sims do you race" LFS was never mentioned. Maybe they are afraid that if people find out about LFS and try it, they will realize that iRacing isn't the only realistic sim and that it's not that much further ahead in terms of physics as everyone made it out to be

Usually the simple explanation is the best; LFS is very different from big titles and it has hardly any exposure outside the simracing "community". Also you can't ignore the fact that oval racing is big thing in US and that's not something LFS excels at.
Quote from Crommi :Usually the simple explanation is the best; LFS is very different from big titles and it has hardly any exposure outside the simracing "community".

That arguement doesn't really make sense since 99% of people who paid for iRacing are members of the "simracing community". IMO.
I'm in my first week with Iracing driving the 'rookie' Solstice car, I could happily drive that car for the rest of my life, the feeling of weight transfer when you start to push it is beyond words, combined with tracks that have bumps and cambers that seem to mimic closely the real life track( lime rock) is a potent combination.

It seems very quiet though , not many races happening? but the races I've had have been 100% clean and positive , a very pleasant experience.

The only thing I don't like is the exaggerated tyre noise ,wish I could calm that down a little.
Quote from zeugnimod :That arguement doesn't really make sense since 99% of people who paid for iRacing are members of the "simracing community". IMO.

I have to disagree with you on that one. Login to LFS World and look at the online activity, it has remained steady at ~400 racers each day all for past 600 days. There is no major ups or downs, other than those caused by major LFS updates. If we had same kind of history graphs for other sims, it would tell the same story. Maybe the impact was bit more significant on oval racing sims, but generally people seem to pick one sim and stick to it. There's also the weird hostility towards other sims, but that's present at any online gaming genre.

Point being, iRacing's current subscription numbers seem way too high to be 99% of long-time simracers. Even on forums you frequently see posts from people who are new to online racing. It is also hard to imagine that all the media exposure didn't have any effect.
Quote from Martko :As far as I now the Skip Barber F2000 has street legal tyres and it is a really good sim car.

Oh... I thought that was the only car that felt right

Thing is though that you still can't jump to conclusions about how a RWD saloon on road tyres would handle in iRacing. I'm just really curious to see how the car and ffb would respond to power oversteer, it just feels so right in LFS, and if iRacing were the same then it'd be a winner to me.
Quote from ScoobRX :So did anyone ever get an iRacing survey sent to them a few weeks ago? Funny how when they asked "what other sims do you race" LFS was never mentioned. Maybe they are afraid that if people find out about LFS and try it, they will realize that iRacing isn't the only realistic sim and that it's not that much further ahead in terms of physics as everyone made it out to be

iRacing doesn't afraid of anything
Quote from SilverArrows77 :
Sometimes people put too much importance on what is right and wrong (with physics etc) and they forget to simply have some fun...


too true...

glad you're having fun. Let's do a Spec Racer race sometime Limerock starts tonight there for a week, though I'll be doing some Solstice Laguna racing too. Love that combo
Quote from SilverArrows77 :Definitely up for some racing with any of the LFS guys floating around the iRacing grids.....that SRF is proving to be a feisty biatch for me so far (..is it just my wheel/driving or is this thing twitchy as hell?), so a set and some advice is always welcome from the more experienced racers, but i think i will find it much more manageble around Lime Rock than Summit.. and looking forward to Laguna in the Solstice too, such a great track in almost any car!

iRacing name/statspage is linked in my sig here, so with any luck will catch ya on track for a race

It depends a lot on the set that you use. I can do 1:23.1's on summit in the SRF with an easy to drive setup.

I know I could go faster with a less stable set. But It's not worth it. I'll post that setup later. I think it will work good at lime rock too.
Quote from SilverArrows77 :Sometimes people put too much importance on what is right and wrong (with physics etc) and they forget to simply have some fun...

What if 100% of the fun is derived from accurate physics and car behaviour? I get no pleasure out of car sim that don't handle properly. If the point of the game isn't handling or accuracy - i.e. in my book a game rather than a sim game) then that's a different matter. Toca Race Driver, Grand Theft Auto etc are all fun because they aren't even close to being realistic. But iRacing claims to be as real as it gets. So if it isn't realistic it's zero fun. For me.
Quote from tristancliffe :What if 100% of the fun is derived from accurate physics and car behaviour? I get no pleasure out of car sim that don't handle properly. If the point of the game isn't handling or accuracy - i.e. in my book a game rather than a sim game) then that's a different matter. Toca Race Driver, Grand Theft Auto etc are all fun because they aren't even close to being realistic. But iRacing claims to be as real as it gets. So if it isn't realistic it's zero fun. For me.

Then you can't have fun simracing (yet.) Not in LFS, not in iRacing, not in SimBin titles... You can have more fun in certain titles because they are more realistic, but you're still not going to have a lot of fun :>

I think for non-drivers such as myself (I'm not a car owner, I don't have a license and I've never raced anything other than poof-poof 30mph karts in my life) the fun in sim-racing comes from:

- The effort it takes to properly drive whatever you're driving in.
- Competing against others whom have dedicated a similar amount of effort into properly driving whatever it is they're driving in.

The physics can be 95% or 99% to me; as long as they make sense and are based on newtonian mechanics I'm perfectly happy competing with others. I could be racing hippopotami for all I care - as long as they handle 'properly' and there are others willing to race me on them! It's not so much the immediate accuracy of the physics for me; it's the desire of the developers of the sim to reach the impossible goal of complete accuracy, and a community that is willing to make due with what is on offer at the time. That's what got me into LFS, and that's what is keeping me at iRacing right now.

I've had great fun in the OWRL league in LFS - based on the two aforementioned prerequisites - but I can have that fun much more often and reliably in iRacing right now, so it's easy pickins.

To each their own though; some people have fun being the best, some have fun just racing, and others have fun when the physics are as accurate as possible.
Quote from Jertje :Then you can't have fun simracing (yet.) Not in LFS, not in iRacing, not in SimBin titles...

Why not? LFS, nKP and iRacing aren't that far from reality within the limits of computing power and controller hardware (and financial constraints). I agree about Simbin titles though.
Quote from Jertje :You can have more fun in certain titles because they are more realistic, but you're still not going to have a lot of fun :>

Again, why not? Are LFS, nKP and iR rubbish that don't even simulate anything close to realistic?

Then you go on to state that you want accuracy in your sims. Which is what I want. Sure, racing against other people is a factor, as is nice graphics and sounds. But it mainly comes down to the handling for me.

That's what got me into LFS, and it's what is keeping me from iRacing at the moment.
I think there's some miscommunication going on, let me explain my point more clearly.

Quote from tristancliffe :Why not? LFS, nKP and iRacing aren't that far from reality within the limits of computing power and controller hardware (and financial constraints). I agree about Simbin titles though.
/ Again, why not? Are LFS, nKP and iR rubbish that don't even simulate anything close to realistic?

That's exactly the issue though, isn't it? From what I've heard you say in most forum discussions on simracing it is absolutely not comparable to real racing - so how can you have fun when you desire realism?

My point is that simracing is not a replacement for real racing, which is - I believe - something we agree upon. So it all depends on what you consider realistic and accurate. Currently, simracing can only be accurate and realistic if you accept the limits of computing power and controller hardware as a given, and focus solely on what can be accurately simulated. My misconception (I suppose) was that you did not accept those limits as a given in the first place, so I assumed that you can't have fun in sims yet
Quote from Jertje :That's exactly the issue though, isn't it? From what I've heard you say in most forum discussions on simracing it is absolutely not comparable to real racing - so how can you have fun when you desire realism within the constraints of a computer simulation?

Fixed, I believe.

Couple of the inaccuracies in LFS' physics bother me to the point of having less fun than I think I would be having otherwise. I cringe IRL every time I get passed by a locked-diff-huge-front-arb-fwd-hero. The reason I stick around isn't because LFS is perfect, but because I expect it to strive for - if not a perfect - a very accurate physics model (among other things like race availability, cost, community, etc.). That to me is entirely different to quasi-sims that don't do proper research and perhaps cut corners in implementation. Personally, I have nothing against iRacing and if I had a wheel and more €s I would give it a go immediately, because it looks like they're actually working the physics, even if some of the non-physics related approaches are a bit strange (to me).
Quote from Jertje :From what I've heard you say in most forum discussions on simracing it is absolutely not comparable to real racing

Quite the opposite. My experience is that so much is DIRECTLY and TOTALLY comparible and transferrable, from car control skills, setup reactions/results, race craft, strategy, concentration, pressure, damage limitation, how to crash.

LFS (and I use that example because I'm most used to it) is so damn close in so many aspects (within the limits of real world computing budgets, game hardware, monitor sizes etc etc etc) of real racing that I find it nearly as satisfying as the real thing.

Sure sims aren't quite there. LFS's current tyre model is particularly lacking in how the tyres lose and regain grip. Niels would say that all tyre models are rubbish - although my experience is that rFactor CANNOT simulate a tyre, whilst nKP and LFS get damn close. Kunos and Scawen are totally clueless about the settings and terminology used to setup real cars - the F3 car in nKP doesn't use any/many settings/numbers that a real F3 car uses. No monoshock settings for instance, or ride heights that need to be about a metre higher than they use in real life to avoid bottoming. Scawen insists on using "Ride Height Reduction" which has as much relevance to real racing as filling tyres with marmalade. iRacing has gone to far with forcing people to race at specific times - times that don't suit me - but it does show imperfect corner weights (this is wonderful in my opinion).

But no, sims are pretty darn close in terms of handling and feedback. As long as you choose the right ones. That's pretty much nKP and LFS in my opinion. So far my iRacing 'career' has been filled with disappointment (based on the Radical and the Formula Mazda at a variety of circuits). rFactor is a joke. GTR/2/GTL is a joke.

If you play for other reasons - pretending you're in a racing car, where graphics are important; or you want as many tracks as possible; or you insist on only driving cars that were made before 1980 - then other games might be for you. rFactor has a LOT of cars and tracks. None of them are any good in terms of realism, but you might not care too much. GTR2 makes you really feel like you are in the car with the graphics and sound. It's great until you get to a corner.

Pringles/NAI makes a good point about the locked diff 'bug' in LFS. Hopefully the tyre model updates will sort that. As I say, you can point to any computer program and find flaws if you look hard enough. But on the whole LFS and nKP (beta update 2/3) are the closest to the feel of a real race car (and a real road/tintop car).
I hate to say it but I no longer hold LFS in top regard when it comes to how right it feels. Because it just "feels" so empty in comparison. Particularly with the road cars; only the FBM feels okay. The whole "regain grip" thing is huge with the result feeling like the tires have no bite and just kinda mush around the track.

Iracing feels more believably immersive than lfs 90% of the time.

NKP gets a 99.
Tristan regarding iR - what's your thoughts on the Solstice, or have you given it a fair go?

I really wish the Skippy was basic content, I'd be very curious to hear your thoughts on that car specifically.

I haven't really set foot in the Radical or the Mazda, I'm all about the non-downforce cars.
Quote from Ball Bearing Turbo :Tristan regarding iR - what's your thoughts on the Solstice, or have you given it a fair go?

I really wish the Skippy was basic content, I'd be very curious to hear your thoughts on that car specifically.

I haven't really set foot in the Radical or the Mazda, I'm all about the non-downforce cars.

I know you asked Tristan but IMO the Solstice is actually very believable and genuine to drive at the limit. The tyres react pretty much how I'd expect in RL. I do think all cars in iRacing have too little rotational inertia, but it's less noticable in the Solstice, and the Skippy, which I also like a lot.

The Mazda, Radical and Dallara IndyCar are horribly unpredictable and snappy on the limit of adhesion, as I've said all along, be it a tyre physics issue or a physical inertia issue (feels like a combination).

Edit: I actually have a theory as to why a lot of guys in iRacing use shitloads of throttle under braking.. I think it's because lift off oversteer when it happens is so violent and fast (low inertia?) that it's impossible to control unless you avoid it happening in the first place, i.e. with loads of throttle.

Edit 2: The Corvette is about as far as I'm gonna go ATM with the race cars in iRacing. It doesn't feel anywhere near weighty enough for a big GT car, but at least it's catchable on the limit if you pretend you're driving a 2 stroke Kart and react as quickly: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmuGzGOPoKY&fmt=22
I hear what you're saying about inertia I just don't see how they could mess up something that obvious. The C6R really isn't a heavy car; it weights less then my Hyundai Elantra by a fair amount (!). Seems reasonable to me that a car lighter than my compact with super fat slicks would act like it's on rails and have a lot of mechanical grip alone, nevermind adding some downforce to it. It's not just the car's inertia that matters, really it's the ability of the car to overcome it's own inertia... Racing vehicles are designed to do that as top priority right?

I agree that the solstice and skippy are extremely convincing. Therefore I would say the problem (if there really is one, I'm not convinced there is either way at this point) probably has to do with downforce & load sensitivity (really just the latter). You don't seem to have any beef with non downforce cars... how do you feel in the Lotus and/or the DP?
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iRacing
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