Re: DriverSports and Iracing

[HWKII]

I typically hang out on my TS server while iRacing, Wall, mentioning it since I know you're one of the guys who does like to use it.

[Wallhugger60]

K, thanks. FR accepted. Prolly back on tomorrow during the day.

Wall

[clacksman]

When signing up for iRacing, I remember it saying "wheel required" and I thought, oh, cool, at least the only people playing will be people who want to make that investment and have good control of their cars. Finding out that a lot of people are getting around that by using DS3/XBox controllers plugged in to their PCs. Kind of a pity, the game should be able to tell the difference, might be good to sort the divisions (splits, as iRacing calls them) by wheel vs controller. Controller driver might be reasonably quick but... I don't want to spend any time in traffic with them!

Don't blame the tool, blame the tool holding it.

[robiker]

I'm not having that much luck. In two out of three oval races, someone spun right in front of me and I couldn't avoid hitting them, so my safety rating is below what's required to graduate. I'm going to play it safe and do TT's to get my rating up before graduation day.

[Forgetful]

Not getting caught up in other people's wrecks is the name of the game in short track racing. Next week should be Charlotte again, so you should have a chance to get back up to 3.0

You can usually get away with once instance of 4x contact and still gain .01 or .02, but the payoffs come when you get a race with 2 or less incidents. Have you tried starting from the pits? Don't grid and you don't do the pace laps. you avoid a lot of the early carnage.

[Forgetful]

I'm not having that much luck. In two out of three oval races, someone spun right in front of me and I couldn't avoid hitting them, so my safety rating is below what's required to graduate. I'm going to play it safe and do TT's to get my rating up before graduation day.

I see you're at 3.4 road, go get your D class before the graduation day. Once you reach 4.0 rookie you lose 1.0 and are graduated to D class automatically. Then if you get you keep your D rating above 3.0 you should graduate to C once you complete 4 D races or TTs.

[robiker]

Have you tried starting from the pits? Don't grid and you don't do the pace laps. you avoid a lot of the early carnage.

No. Both incidents happened with lappers about halfway through the races, so I don't think starting from the pits would help. I also lost a lot of time in the pits waiting for tires or repairs. After some forum reading, I now know that the first time you pit for repairs it only takes a second. Also, you can use F4 and F5 while gridding to bypass fuel and tires in a pit stop.

[Forgetful]

I've got my wheel buttons mapped to scroll throught the options menus, so ya, uncheck fuel and tires going in, and don't take the tow unless you have to.

I was just 'that guy' I spun and trying to right myself I got in the way of someone else. He FREAKED. It was funny. Short track racing is brutal.

[Rooster722]

I don't have enough PC to run iracing at the moment, but that may change. Anyone know how well, if at all, the Logitech G25 or G27 works with this sim ? Still using nearly 5 year old G25 at the moment, with the bearing case JB-Welded together. When the time comes to replace the reliable old workhorse, I'm thinking about sticking with Logitech and just getting a G27. My Fanatec experience so far has been far less than fantastic.

[clacksman]

I know several people from another board that use a G25 on iRacing with no issues and generally describe it as working better than in GT. My G25 has felt better on both other PC sims I've spent time in (LFS and Rfactor) than it does on GT5.

[robiker]

When I first started on iRacing, I had a problem with my G25 shaking violently whenever I would stop in the pits. I found a thread about it in the forum and used the recommended settings for the Logitech profiler. Haven't had any more problems.
My only complaint now is the lack of feel in the brake pedal, since there's no ABS. iRacing is a little better than GT5, since you can better hear what the tires are doing. I just ordered a brake mod spring that is similar to the Nixim mod. Hoping that will be a big improvement.

[Wiz]

Sent FR's to everyone listed here. Hope to race with y'all sometime.

[Forgetful]

Hello Oval class D!

[timneyb]

When I get a chance to race, I'll be sticking with GT5 for the foreseeable future. I like the idea of the participation of iRacing, the leagues and licenses without having to do it ourselves. But, as practical matter, I just don't have the space to set up a PC in the living room (since Owen has my previous "driving room"). Basically, iRacing will have to wait until we're in a bigger place where I can have a dedicated spot for my hobby.

I certainly have a frowny face over how much they get away with charging for everything. Question though. I was decidedly unimpressed with the graphics of their shots of the game/cars. It looked very flat and cars lacked in lighting and texture on their movies. Basically very "comuter-gamey". Is this real, or are they just bad reproductions?

[Wallhugger60]

I use the G27 and it seemed to work just fine. Took a few times of calibrating it cuz I do it right the first time (that's never happened before ). I know I could do more with the mapping, but only spent an hour and really wanted to see if I even liked how the game played. Definitely a lot of info to be learned.

The graphics are not GT5, so don't expect them. It reminds me a lot of the Code Masters games from a while back. The driving part, and the sound and feel are very good though, so if you can get past the look (not easy from years of GT and PS3) you'll be fine.

And can you change the view?

Wall

[clacksman]

I certainly have a frowny face over how much they get away with charging for everything.

Second, but such is life when there's a comparatively small active userbase - 30,000 or 35,000 depending where you look on their site. And, about 45,000 'like' them on facebook. However much fudging you think is in any of those numbers, iRacing sells to far fewer people than the millions that buy each iteration of GT/Forza.

[Wiz]

And can you change the view?

Unfortunately, no. However, you can change the FOV by pressing the ] or [ buttons on your keyboard.

[Goes_To_11]

I don't have enough PC to run iracing at the moment, but that may change. Anyone know how well, if at all, the Logitech G25 or G27 works with this sim ? Still using nearly 5 year old G25 at the moment, with the bearing case JB-Welded together. When the time comes to replace the reliable old workhorse, I'm thinking about sticking with Logitech and just getting a G27. My Fanatec experience so far has been far less than fantastic.

I'm using the G25. The wheel itself works great. no complaints. I don't use the shifter. My pedals have the nixim mod which is an improvement but the pedal placement doesn't work for me for heel toe shifting so I'm using autoclutch and autoblip. The nice thing about PC racing is that you can mix and match peripherals. You can run the G25 wheel with Fanatec pedals and Thrustmaster shifter if that's what you want to do. I've been considering replacing my pedals with Fanatec CSR Elites. I have a sinking feeling that the new CSP pedals are going to be a disaster with their replaceable oil thing.

[Forgetful]

On the higher settings iRacing looks decent, but it does have that flatness. From in car it's not bad at all. The physics and functions are what it's all about.

As for pricing, yeah, it's not cheap, but the base content is more than satisfying. The rate at which you progress will spread the need for DLC out. There's no sense in buying all the cars and tracks too soon, as most of the Rookie stuff uses the base content. The next few series will require some investment, but once you buy in to one or two series' then you'll have more and more tracks, meaning you'll need to make less purchases for higher series.

By the looks of it they always have one of the Road and Oval series at D class running on a base content track, so you can earn your participation credits to use towards DLC as well (you get credits for running in official races above rookie and below pro).

Unfortunately they are committed to the cockpit view, but I've got used to it pretty quick. I removed the steering wheel, which is neat because you can see the gear it mounts to and the mechanicals in the steering column. I'll have to go in to their forum and give a dissertation on 'bumper cam' vs. cockpit view.

[clacksman]

Unfortunately they are committed to the cockpit view, but I've got used to it pretty quick. I removed the steering wheel, which is neat because you can see the gear it mounts to and the mechanicals in the steering column. I'll have to go in to their forum and give a dissertation on 'bumper cam' vs. cockpit view.

lol don't bother introducing yourself, they'll know you're from a console game just from that position. 'bumper' isn't a better view, GT5s interior view is just too lousy to use.

[HWKII]

When signing up for iRacing, I remember it saying "wheel required" and I thought, oh, cool, at least the only people playing will be people who want to make that investment and have good control of their cars. Finding out that a lot of people are getting around that by using DS3/XBox controllers plugged in to their PCs. Kind of a pity, the game should be able to tell the difference, might be good to sort the divisions (splits, as iRacing calls them) by wheel vs controller. Controller driver might be reasonably quick but... I don't want to spend any time in traffic with them!

Don't blame the tool, blame the tool holding it.

Oh, I fully blame the tool holding the controller. But for the past week I've been wondering why it is so many drivers at the Rookie level struggle to keep their car going straight on the straightaways and take 3 or 4 different lines in the same corner. DS3 controller isn't causing this to happen, but it's a good bet the ones driving like this, have a DS3 in their hands. Since you get the same penalty for being hit as you do for hitting someone, I want to give those guys as wide a berth as possible.

[vkaifh]

iRacing got my interest about one year ago when SpecMiata got into it and wrote about it at TPRA.
It turned out that my current laptop can't handle iRacing; I almost bought a new one but then didn't.
Reading about iRacing here sparked my interest again and I read about the minimum requirements for hardware but what do I need to actually enjoy it?
I'm not a computer expert and would buy a ready machine from Dell or BestBuy or what ever. I'm wondering if anyone can give my some advice on laptop/PC. Ideally I would get a laptop and connect to my HDTV.

What are you guys using and how much is that approx.?

[HWKII]

My laptop is a year old, but was rather on the expensive side. It runs iRacing at 1080p resolution on 1 notch down from the best settings with enough framerate that I don't have to worry about slowdown. If investing in a new computer for any kind of gaming, I recommend a desktop: They are less expensive, heat is generally less of a concern, and you have the ability to more easily upgrade them as necessary. iRacing has received a lot of graphical improvements over the years, so even if you're only ever planning to play 1 sim, having some flexibility to upgrade is nice.

If you're concerned about having a desktop PC in the living room, resulting in serious amounts of significant other rage, the good news is you can find some pretty sharp horizontal cases which look more like a piece of stereo equipment than a PC. I'm a big proponent of building your own PC, as this will also help you to save money, and it's really not very difficult. It also helps to have the experience when performing future upgrades.

Had a look around Dell's website this morning and found this, which to my mind is a great bargain: http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=dxdops2&model_id=xps-8500&c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19& from Dell, is right out of the box going to be able to play just about anything on the market, for $850. From what I saw on their website, stepping down to a PC in the $500 range means integrated graphics card and those are very, very bad for gaming. Getting a good graphics card is going to bump the price up ~$200-$250 anyway, and the components included in that XPS 8500 more than make up for the $100 difference. If you have more money than that to spend, look at Customizing that deal to include one of the higher end graphics cards. A laptop with comparable performance to that 8500 is going to run you at least $1500, and it probably won't really be all that comparable.

[timneyb]

Unfortunately they are committed to the cockpit view, but I've got used to it pretty quick. I removed the steering wheel, which is neat because you can see the gear it mounts to and the mechanicals in the steering column. I'll have to go in to their forum and give a dissertation on 'bumper cam' vs. cockpit view.

Before I went online I used cockpit view all the time, so I'm sure I'd adjust. Maybe in a while, but not yet.

[Forgetful]

If you only knew the depth of the data they store... You can view the results of every official session you do, and in those results you can review your individual lap times, complete with notes of any infractions. They use a lot of averaging and scoring systems to determine iRating, TTrating and championship points for each series. There's a Strength of Field to determine just how valuable your position is in relation to the other divisions. It's all very nerdy. They use acronyms for every series car or track with more than one word in the name.

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