The online racing simulator
#1 - isamu
iRacing vs LFS: Which has the biggest most active online community?
As someone considering which sim to invest my time in next, I'd like to know between iRacing and LFS, which sim has the biggest most active online community? Is LFS arrive and drive the way iRacing is?
#2 - Sobis
LFS for sure, it has a very nice community. Also it's much cheaper and has better physics with less bugs I think.
Quote from isamu : arrive and drive the way iRacing is?

Since when is it arrive and drive there?

Why don't you know what LFS is like when you already are a member for seven years?
Not sure about how big Iracing is now, but it got a very active community.
LFS community is still active, but no where near as much as it was before.
LFS is the best choise if you don't want to spend much money and just want some casual racing + leagues, while Iracing is for the more dedicated people that does not mind paying for playing.
Iracing has the most members (I'm pretty sure of this.) and the most active community, But honestly I couldn't get into iracing due to the feel of "must-race-before-time-expires" And could never enjoy it.

LFS has a little bit less community than Iracing, But is much better ... I like to own my games.. Not lease them (even though I love steam, So I'm kinda hypocritical, But you get what I mean. :P
Quote from isamu :As someone considering which sim to invest my time in next, I'd like to know between iRacing and LFS, which sim has the biggest most active online community?

How deep are your pockets?
Hmmm, I can't speak for LFS as I haven't raced it for the better part of 5 years, but iRacing is very much alive. It's not cheap though, and if you're just interested in racing every once in a while and not sure yet how you feel about SIM racing then iRacing is not the product for you.

The benefit of iRacing for me is that most races (at least in the higher 'splits') are very clean. You could compare it to league racing in LFS from the last time I remembered. There's no silly restart spam and people are generally a lot more careful around the track during a race. Of course there are still inept and borderline dumb racers, but they are much less prominent than they are in LFS.

iRacing is a very serious sim with not a lot of room for playfulness such as cruising and/or messing about, but the competition is absolutely killing in most of the classes and I don't think you can find a better sim right now where the very best in sim-racing land can battle it out like in iRacing. The pro series (although the broadcasts are still a bit cheesy) are a great prospect if you're very ambitious and if you're less ambitious - well, there is plenty to battle for in the other classes and competitions. There are also huge events based on real racing for which thousands of iRacers sign up. Needless to say you will always find some people at your skill level to exchange blows with.

All this is going to cost you though. If you race weekly you can get some iMoney back to spend on subscription and/or cars/tracks, but expect to lose $200-$400 if you want to keep cruising up the ladder and get all the content. You can do it with less money spent, but I'm not going to lie to you - it sucks to miss a week because you don't 'own' a certain track. If you have the cash you will end up buying anyway
Quote from Jertje :
All this is going to cost you though. If you race weekly you can get some iMoney back to spend on subscription and/or cars/tracks, but expect to lose $200-$400 if you want to keep cruising up the ladder and get all the content. You can do it with less money spent, but I'm not going to lie to you - it sucks to miss a week because you don't 'own' a certain track. If you have the cash you will end up buying anyway

I wonder if iRacing ever had payment per races number not period of time? This would suit weekend racers... as I would
Quote from AndRand :I wonder if iRacing ever had payment per races number not period of time? This would suit weekend racers... as I would

Nope, unfortunately not. I'm a bit of a weekend racer myself since I usually don't feel like racing after work. The subscription fee itself has gone down quite drastically since the launch however. It used to be $199 per year, or something along those lines. Now I think you're good to go for a year with $99, and good for two years with $179. You're still not getting away with a full wallet, but imo it's worth it. That's not going to be the case for everyone though!
I just sign in to 3 month for 1, and.. I'm very disappointed about iracing. I don't like the way it works.. LFS is by far the best of both in many points. But the community is more active in iracing, because there's a lot of new stuffs (cars, tracks..), "big names" help to that to. LFS is not very active to the scene of simulation since couple of years and thats the main problem. When S3 will come out, LFS should have a new life.. (I hope).

Long life to LFS, Scawen, no news about tyre physics or something else?
Quote from maxpower85 :
Long life to LFS, Scawen, no news about tyre physics or something else?

There was a new progress report a couple months ago. In a nutshell, after three years of testing, Scawen has settled on a round shape for the tyres.
They both have their pros and cons. iRacing has the best feeling tracks. Period. The new tire model is coming along, but I still enjoy the feel of the LFS tires. LFS is (or was, considering the last time I was very active) great for casual pick me up racing; especially when you get to know other racers. iRacing is much better with the competitive aspect, and you will find yourself battling for championship points whatever your interest.

Expect to spend $300 for a solid racing season in iRacing, but once you've got the tracks, the price drops quite a bit, to 'just' the subscription. Worth it? Well, that is arguable, but to me I haven't regretted my decision to do so. I didn't like it when I had some but not all tracks of a season, that was very annoying.

I don't like the idea of not being able to communicate with the iRacing community when my subscription ends, but for now, I don't see my subscription ending for a few years. They do have incentives that help a bit, honestly. Take $500 and tell me how far you get racing in real-life?

LFS on the other hand, suits the casual person/racer much better. If you're looking for a race here, or there. Then it is the right call. Setting up LFS is much easier, and you can easily turn it on/off without hesitation. I find in iRacing it has taken much longer to setup, and I can't always race on my own personal 'pick it up' schedule, I may have to wait 5 minutes, or run a time-trial while waiting for a qualifying/race session. But the racing is, in my experience, much cleaner; like the league racing in LFS.

So, they are each amazing in their own aspects. LFS in simplicity and casual pick-me-up racing. iRacing for real environment, competitive racing.
Quote from Yuri Laszlo :There was a new progress report a couple months ago. In a nutshell, after three years of testing, Scawen has settled on a round shape for the tyres.

Why not go for the hover conversion instead.
While iRacing probably has bigger community, it's not necessarily better community. On LFS forums you might have one or two members who dedicate their lives to spouting nonsense and trolling forums, but on iRacig forums there's way more of them. Then you have those hardcore oval/road guys who turn decent threads into "oval vs road" arguments.

But, thankfully the forums are also split into car specific forums and that's really where the good parts of the community are found. People are really helpful and keep posting setups and replays every week, some cars even have user created setup guides to help newbies get started.
I think lfs is more bigger. Because lfs have a demo. iRacing not have.
Goodbye!
Quote from Yuri Laszlo :There was a new progress report a couple months ago. In a nutshell, after three years of testing, Scawen has settled on a round shape for the tyres.

win
Quote from isamu :As someone considering which sim to invest my time in next, I'd like to know between iRacing and LFS, which sim has the biggest most active online community? Is LFS arrive and drive the way iRacing is?

I think iRacing has less registered members than LFS, but the online activity, in terms of online players online at the same time, is probably much bigger.

LFS maybe has 2 or 3 really crowded S2 race servers, but the rest is either drift, cruise, stunts, etc. iRacing is exclusively racing.

IMO iR is not "arrive and drive" at all, since unlike LFS, it's hard to catch a random race and drive. You have to stick to one/several series, buy the appropriate content, then wait for a race, etc. You have to train because you can't afford being a fool in races, as iR has an automated system called Safety Rating that can downgrade you to a lower series.

Some hate the system as it requires commitement and it can be a bit stressful at times, but some like it as it ensures pretty clean racing once you reach a certain level and stick to the proper series. At this point you don't really care about Safety Rating anymore, since as long as you don't spin every 2 corners it's not that hard to maintain a good enough SR to keep yourself in the series you want to race.


LFS is more "arrive and drive", you pick a server and you catch a random race, maybe there are some systems like Airio that tracks lap times and "points" but you're free to ignore it at the end of the day. The downside is, the racing isn't always clean, and sometimes it's hard to find a server with the cars or the tracks you like. And, the most crowded server is multiclass, so it can be problematic if you don't like multiclass.

There is also league racing but IMO the standards have gone downhill over the last 2 years or so, maybe the pace is better overall, but the racers aren't as clean as they used to be, sometimes I have the feeling it's harder to pick a good clean fight in midfield these days.


Just my 2 cents, hope it helps.

Quote from Yuri Laszlo :There was a new progress report a couple months ago. In a nutshell, after three years of testing, Scawen has settled on a round shape for the tyres.



Quote from Crommi :While iRacing probably has bigger community, it's not necessarily better community. On LFS forums you might have one or two members who dedicate their lives to spouting nonsense and trolling forums, but on iRacig forums there's way more of them. Then you have those hardcore oval/road guys who turn decent threads into "oval vs road" arguments.

But, thankfully the forums are also split into car specific forums and that's really where the good parts of the community are found. People are really helpful and keep posting setups and replays every week, some cars even have user created setup guides to help newbies get started.

True. But you're free to avoid the forums, at the end of the day. And in fact, as you say, the car specific forums are usually pretty much useful.

Quote from Jertje :Nope, unfortunately not. I'm a bit of a weekend racer myself since I usually don't feel like racing after work. The subscription fee itself has gone down quite drastically since the launch however. It used to be $199 per year, or something along those lines. Now I think you're good to go for a year with $99, and good for two years with $179. You're still not getting away with a full wallet, but imo it's worth it. That's not going to be the case for everyone though!

You can have the suscription fees for less if you catch good promos.

The real expensive stuff are the cars/tracks($11 per car, $11/$14 per track).

Quote from cargame.nl :Since when is it arrive and drive there?

Why don't you know what LFS is like when you already are a member for seven years?

Could it be because the guy has only 1 online mile...? Probably an offline racer who don't know how the online stuff is like.
Quote from GreyBull [CHA] :I think iRacing has less registered members than LFS, but the online activity, in terms of online players online at the same time, is probably much bigger.

LFS maybe has 2 or 3 really crowded S2 race servers, but the rest is either drift, cruise, stunts, etc. iRacing is exclusively racing.

IMO iR is not "arrive and drive" at all, since unlike LFS, it's hard to catch a random race and drive. You have to stick to one/several series, buy the appropriate content, then wait for a race, etc. You have to train because you can't afford being a fool in races, as iR has an automated system called Safety Rating that can downgrade you to a lower series.

Some hate the system as it requires commitement and it can be a bit stressful at times, but some like it as it ensures pretty clean racing once you reach a certain level and stick to the proper series. At this point you don't really care about Safety Rating anymore, since as long as you don't spin every 2 corners it's not that hard to maintain a good enough SR to keep yourself in the series you want to race.


LFS is more "arrive and drive", you pick a server and you catch a random race, maybe there are some systems like Airio that tracks lap times and "points" but you're free to ignore it at the end of the day. The downside is, the racing isn't always clean, and sometimes it's hard to find a server with the cars or the tracks you like. And, the most crowded server is multiclass, so it can be problematic if you don't like multiclass.

There is also league racing but IMO the standards have gone downhill over the last 2 years or so, maybe the pace is better overall, but the racers aren't as clean as they used to be, sometimes I have the feeling it's harder to pick a good clean fight in midfield these days.


Just my 2 cents, hope it helps.




.

That helped tremendously GreyBull, thanks. I will keep your comments in mind.

Oh and you mentioned drift servers. I like drifting a lot. How active or full are the drift servers here? What kind of cars do you drive in the dirft servers? A youtube link would be cool
It would be easier to launch the game for a 10 minutes and check it out yoursef, saves a lot of time and effort.
Just a little friendly advise.
Quote from isamu :Oh and you mentioned drift servers. I like drifting a lot. How active or full are the drift servers here? What kind of cars do you drive in the dirft servers? A youtube link would be cool

The drift community is quite active, it's not hard to find 2-3 crowded S2 servers(like 10+ people on it) at peak hours.

The XRT is by far the most used cars by drifters on S2, followed by the FZ5. But you can also drift with the XRG, the RB4, the LX4 and the LX6

If you're still not familiar with the cars, there is more about them here:

http://www.lfs.net/?page=contents
http://en.lfsmanual.net/wiki/Cars

iRacing vs LFS: Which has the biggest most active online community?
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