Physics/ffb in assetto corsa vs iracing vs real life

So I attend track days about once a month on average (in real life) and I fill my in between time driving sims. I really want to spend more time in iRacing because they have 2 of the 3 tracks I drive locally and driving the same track in a sim and in real life is very helpful. However I've noticed that the physics and force feedback in iRacing are just terrible. The FFB feels just like Forza on Xbox with a wheel setup. I have to spend hours in iRacing just to start to get a decent feel for the cars.

Whenever I jump into Assetto Corsa, the cars behave just like they do in real life. I feel instantly at home and in control of the cars. The physics feel great and the FFB is spot on compared to the numb iRacing.

Anyone else with experience in all three areas feel the same? I guess my point is to praise how great Assetto Corsa feels and also wish that it was possible for Kunos to license the laser scanned track data from the guys over at iRacing.

 

Just curious, what car do your drive at track days IRL? Is it in AC? How does it compare?

 

I drive an E92 M3 which is actually in the game, but feels quite difference because it is highly modded (everything but the motor and about 300lbs lighter than a factory one). Funny enough I can't stand driving the E92 in Assetto Corsa, but that's probably because it feels like a stock one.

 

when i played iracing i felt that the FBB felt very good but was slow to respond, oversteer was pretty difficult to manage especially snap oversteer.
But also the Iracing inmersion is great IMO, the sounds of the track, the way the FBB respond to kerbs, etc. Plus its multiplayer are the strong points of iracing.

AC at the other hand has a very responsive FBB but lack a lot of calibration, we can correct that with the anti-clip APP but still we shouldn't deal with this at every car/track we want to play, also i miss some fuss over the kerbs in AC not just some wheel shaking, but there is a distint feel over different types of kerbs.

& as IRL, cars really have numb steerings, no matter what car you take to the track, the steering is numb & lacks everything in the feel department, off course there are great cars with great steering, but these are not the kind of cars you could find easily. I had drove a nice selection of sports cars on our local track (megane RS, subaru BRZ, peugeout RCZ, cayman, etc) & none of those cars are on AC but those all had very light & numb steerings... so in that regard AC or Iracing are pretty close to Real life, even a little better at it.

& in physics AC pretty much is N°1 on Sim racings IMO, LFS is pretty damn close & Iracing feels a like older Simbin's products, nothing wrong with simbin Sim, i love GT legends & still is one of my favorite Sim but feel like a 7 years old sim engine.

 

Yes, oversteer and snap oversteer are very hard to feel and correct in iRacing. That's my biggest issue. I think bad FFB is the reason for it. I can feel what the car is doing in AC much better and I feel exactly what the car is doing in real life. I have fairly decent car control in real life and in Assetto Corsa, but I spin all day in iRacing. And I've never spun my car ever in real life (aside from when attempting to drift).

Some examples of my car control:







(last video is from an early track day and my rear sway bar was set too stiff.)

 

I was thinking about this the other day, IRL most of the 'feel' comes from the g-forces and vibrations in the car, not the actual feel / forces from the steering wheel, and most cars these days have very little of the force feedback 'feel' that we get in sims.

Example: Sitting in the passenger seat of a car at a track day, or even driving fast on road, you can still feel what the car is doing pretty damn accurately, the back end slipping slightly, the front end understeering, locking up etc., all this without even touching a wheel. Obviously we (most of us) don't have a motion sim rig, so don't have any g-forces to help give this feel, so the sims have to try and reproduce this with the wheel FFB, as that's the only connection to the driver to 'feel' what the car is doing.

 

davegreengo: That's very true. But I still think the wheel does react in real life. I'm not talking so much about the vibrations that come from the wheel, but when you go into a corner, you can feel the wheel reacting. When you start to go into a slide and counter steer, the wheel is willing to rotate with different types of resistance and I feel like Assetto Corsa does a much more accurate job of that than say iRacing. Those are more of the FFB qualities I'm talking about rather than feeling curb bumps, etc.

 

Ohh definitely, I agree, I love the way the wheel rotates itself when needing countersteer etc. in AC and I think it replicates this much better than iRacing, and I also imagine your v2 CSW will replicate the forces better / quicker than most Logitech / Thrustmaster wheels.

 

Do steering wheels in real life also have some kind of force/strength deadzone in the center when going in a straight line? Like moving the steering a few degrees left or right but you don't get much feel, unless you turn a bit more and then feel the tyres force? Asking because never drove a car and want to know how unrealistic the logitech G27 can be...

 

You guys made some excellent points. I also agree that most real car steering are actually rather devoid of road feedback. I drive a E46 M3 and to be honest I think AC is doing a pretty decent job in terms of FFB.

Iracing is actually very good for FFB, it's just the snap oversteer which seems very unnatural and hard to correct. A friend who autoX all the time in his E36 M3 and Miata loves Iracing though and he doesn't like AC, so I guess it's impossible to quantify if AC or Iracing have more realistic FFB. I think they're both pretty good, but I'll give the road/curb feel a better grade in Iracing, it really feels like driving on a real surface while AC is slightly lacking. But for weight transfer feeling I think AC is a bit ahead.

 

No, not unless something is wrong with your car. Although some have a slight deadzone where you can move the wheel and the car will not react, but the wheel doesn't feel like it has any 'feel' of a deadzone.

 

For the most part yes, but it really depends on the car. Suspension setup has a bit to do with that dead center feeling as well.

 

E46 M3 was also my last car and I would have loved it to be in AC to see the difference.

 

There's hardly any "feel" just off center, the wheel returns to center, that's about it. There's hardly any "tire force", in a real car the forces you feel are the G forces acting on your body, the steering wheel weight doesn't change a whole lot even when you corner hard. Sure it'll get a bit tighter as you are at the limit of cornering but that's pretty minor in comparison with g forces you feel with your body.

 

I should clarify, I was talking about just normal regular driving, not hammering it round a track on the limit, on the limit you'll always get that feel when pushing, that the tires just bite and you get that good feel through the wheel.

 

A stock E9x M3 has a few degrees around the center where it does nothing. I think it was one of the original complaints when Chris Harris first drove the car as well. But I think bushings/suspension setup has an effect because most of that feeling was eliminated on my car after I went with solid mounts.

 

Yeah, but you don't actually feel like theres a deadzone in the force of the wheel do you?

Like we do in sims with our cheap wheels (not sure if you've ever used a G25/G27), there's completely no FFB feel at complete center (until you tweak the settings etc)

 

Thanks for the quick and clarifying answers The deadzone of some logitech wheels is about the strength around the center, but there isn't actually any steering of the tyres deadzone, but the force feedback. Minimum force % can help minimize that effect and maybe make it feel more real.

 

Ah ok. I've had logitech wheels in the past, but I guess I forgot the feeling.

 

This, although IRL it's more common to be the opposite, i.e the steering wheel still feels fine around center, but the tyres (wheels) don't actually move until you pass a few degrees around center.