Let's discuss iRacing - attempt #2

Has anyone else spotted the pattern? Each time he tries the AMG in a new sim, its better than the last one. AC was better than PC2. RR was better than AC. iR is better than RR. What's the betting he tries rF2 and its better than iR?

 

I just had first serious race in iRacing. Multiclass Pontiac vs Mustang at Nords. And I can say that the legent of super clean iR races is not entirely truth. It was worse than it would have been in AC Minorating AB server. From people who doesn't look at their mirrors to people who block and later divebomb...

 

I've watched a few live streams of iRacing for the banter and have noticed this quite a lot on every stream. There are always pile ups at the back of the grid, especially in bigger fields of 20+ and even the faster people at the front randomly going off track because of the 'snap' handling of cars.
From what I've seen it's no better racing quality than SRS... which is free.

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True I also think that SRS actually offers more continuous racing, as in iR schedule is really weird. Sometimes nothing is going on, then later event overlaps, or there is not enough time to jump from one to another.... it is just, not as good as I have expected.

Judging from SRS experience, I am predicting that in higher classes of iR, there really is not going to be much less crashings. Perhaps even more. Perhaps there will be less noobish errors, but ego stuff, and aggressivity inflicted incidents will be happening, pretty sure. It is not a miricle, that iRacing thing. Better, but not the real answer. I also do some mistakes, but I don't really repeat them.

You can really feel that some people are racing for better licenze, they nearly freeze and stop just to let you by, which is also annoying. There are some good drivers. And there are those I'm gonna be in front, I'm just going to be. I have been sticked to the guys bumper for whole Nords lap, been blocked. And when I have overtaken him, he divebombs me. Jast casual stuff, nothing different. iR racing quality is good, but not always. First real race, and first massacre all over the place...

P.S.

today I haver raced in SRS Okayama, such a terrible track to overtake. I have raced one guy side to side, and bumper to bumper the whole 20minutes, except first two laps maybe. There was really obvious respect and real fight at the same time. It is not that rare in AC really.

And iR tires really are on/off switches... But I think it also depends on suspension physics model, which in some cars I really like (Miata). Lotus 49 terrible + or tires. Ford Spec Racer was pretty bad, but softer arbs really helped.

By the way... oh by the way. I have talked to some guys in iR forum, in Lotus 49 thread. They are all really nice guys there, I'm sure plenty of nice people in iR. A lot of them aren't totaly happy about Lotus 49. Also it turns out, that the car really has "modern classic tires". It turns out that the car once had even more grip. I think they have ruined the car . It is very questionable if they did it right in the first place, and seems like they tried to make it more popular by adding more grip.

Drove it in Nords yesterday... it was a nightmare. It gets upset almost in every turn, every camber change, every undulation.

I have a thought... maybe they doesn't have very much active users ? their "UI" shows that there are 4300 users at the moment, and I think it shows those who has UI open, there really are less racing. AC steam charts now shows 3000 users, I think majority of them are playing AC now, some might be hanging on the UI, but not majority.

 

Yes, as a matter of fact, that's exactly what it is. A dev posted about this in the irFFB thread a while back, but it's 50 pages long and I don't want to look through it all haha - so I'll try to summarize from memory:
Basically, iRacing is an old sim, so 60Hz was the highest output rate they could really have when the service was first created. And now everything is so interrelated within the coding that to upgrade the FFB signal rate would require a near-complete overhaul of the whole service. It's much easier for them to allow 3rd party apps (like your simcube example and irFFB) to filter the signal at this point, for those who are interested in doing so. They could obviously implement a "Band-Aid" solution like this themselves, but they don't want to introduce the small output delay that would result. The dev basically said that they really would like to up the signal output, but need more of a reason to overhaul the entire system than just that.

I'll be the first to say that I HIGHLY dislike iRacing's native FFB, and wouldn't still be on the service if not for the irFFB app. IMO, the above is a sort of weak excuse from the devs. BUT - because there exist ways to fix the signal ourselves, it doesn't bother me too much. Yes, I would prefer it to be native, but irFFB does such a stellar job that I'm very okay with it for now.

 

A lot to respond to here, so I won't try to hit on all of it, but just a few things I'd like to share:

• iRacing provides far more continuous racing than Assetto. I'm not sure what your license level is, but as you increase that, there will be more and more for you to race. Unfortunately, that probably requires buying cars and tracks - so essentially, it can be very expensive to be able to race whenever and whatever you want. There's a set schedule for when each series goes live, so it's very easy to plan a bunch of races back-to-back-to-back well in advance. Again though, expensive to be able to truly race everything. Which is a bummer.
• Out of curiosity, what's your iRating? The lower splits are a mess (very much due to the on/off tires, like you mention), but the top splits tend to be pretty clean....depending on the series. GT3, for example, can be pretty messy. But in general, it's fantastically close and clean racing in the top splits. Moreso than Assetto in my experience. But the lower splits are messy as hell.
• Did you drive the Nord fun series? That's the worst of all of them, because it doesn't count for anything. So it's all of the dregs of iRacing haha. When official series go there, it's a blast.
• As I said in another post, the older cars can be pretty bad. The Skip Barber is one of the few good old cars. Lotus 49 drives terribly these days. I hate the Spec Racer Ford too.
• I don't think it's fair to say "I have a thought... maybe they doesn't have very much active users ? their "UI" shows that there are 4300 users at the moment, and I think it shows those who has UI open, there really are less racing. AC steam charts now shows 3000 users, I think majority of them are playing AC now, some might be hanging on the UI, but not majority," as you have no basis for this.

 

Maybe there will be more... I'm nearly C at the moment. Been racing mostly Spec Ford lately, really not my car. Got some nice advices from one kool guy in the chat, who won the race. Can't wait to try it out again. Because I'm unusually crazy off pace.

I suppose I will only be able to tell how iR really is few months later, but it already seems quite dependant on luck, who you will get to race.

I have bought Mclaren to participate in Nords fun series, and now I see that it doesn't count for anything, damn... Thanks for pointing out. Though it makes sense, if racing with Pontiac Solstice is getting edgy there, then I can imagine the mess with GT3 lol

Probably will buy Skip Barber, if I'll continue.

Maybe it is not fair to say that iR has not much active users, but I suppose not much more than AC. I also think that high prices are giving out that too. But maybe thats just their politics...

 

iRacing FFB is a funny one for me, and I was thinking about it recently. If you race a lot of iRacing and no other sims, it's fine. I think you get the information you need when you need it, and it's not a barrier to enjoyment or performance in my opinion. BUT: if you do a session of Assetto and then jump in to iRacing... boy, can you tell the difference. It feels like the wheel is broken for a few laps. To me, anyway. There is a general lack of detail, it feels 'dull' in comparison. But, you focus on racing and before you know it you've adapted and it's not a problem.

I think a geed phrase for iRacing is "when it's good, it's really good." No level of cost will completely exclude every *****. But incidents that you'd sigh and swerve in your average public server elsewhere feel much more like major events in iRacing - I've been using it off and on since 2012 or 2013 and if I recall correctly I've seen maybe two or three deliberate wrecks in person in that time. At times I question the cost and I often let my membership lapse for a while if I'm not interested in anything coming up, but eventually I always end up coming back (of course, all the purchased content does remain).

P.S. @mantasisg 2 - I used to race the Solstice a lot, before getting distracted by the Kia and then the Porsche, but I've been using it again lately. Still provides some of the best racing I've had on the service, when you get a good bunch of guys who know how to get the most out of the car. But since it's free content you also get a lot of folks fresh out of rookie who mistake the promotion to D license for a "You've done your time and you are now definitely an invincible pro", and head out into races despite being 5sec off the pace and cause all sorts of trouble.

 

I have raced AC in SRS yesterday and iRacing too, no trouble for me. But I agree that iR feels like it has less detail in it. However i really like how iR suspension is simulated, I guess, or something about all sorts of "tiny" slides and feel of wheels is a little bit dynamic the way they loads up and unloads perhaps more individually. I don't know. The first impression with Miata was indeed very good. Not so good with L49.

Exactly how it was yesterday with Solstice. There were a few "invincibles". At first some tried to block and race hard against higher class mustangs lol, witnessed few terrible crashes... then at the end the guy tried reovertake me and crashed me out. The sad thing is that it should have been so obvious to be careful at that particular situation, and I was doing very gentle steering, just to give him time to react just in case, and he still raced like it was last turn, and critical position for his championship...

 

Not only that. Don't race iR for a few months, and then get back to it, and, you will totally fail every corner on the first laps. Not only doesn't the FFB give you enough feedback to keep the car on the road, also, there's something really weird about the peripheral vision, which always was hard to get used to for me in iR. The steering is also much more sensitive by default. It's really weird. I don't have that in any other sim. AC, Richard Burns Rally, Race 07, all didn't pose a problem when i didn't drive them for weeks or months. iR is a rather strange one.

 

I was going to say that it will be better next week in GTC, but then I saw that it's a free track as well... another x on the 'chance of idiots' multiplyer. Just got to drive smart and get around them, same as any other sim. Higher participation means the sessions are more likely to split though, so it can work in your favour if you have the irating.

 

Interesting comments about iracing FFB. In some ways I prefer it to AC. You can feel the weight of the car a little better. In the ND cup miata, you can really feel the tire scrub/slip angle. In AC, the FFB feels a little simulated to me; you get more information than iracing, but I think iracing is more accurate to what you feel in a real car. My main issue with iracing is the physics in many cars. They just don't throttle steer or trail brake like a real car. The weight transfer fore/aft just isn't right for some reason. It's so easy to spin while trail braking. I think AC feels much more like real driving (based on my real life experience with some of the cars in AC). The physics just feel much more natural.

 

Most important thing is that you get above 2000 Irating and out of the rookie splits, then you’ll probably have much cleaner races. The Skip Barber is a great car and I had a lot of good races there!

 

Yep, and also remember that when you're racing free content it means all the riff-raff can join so you're more likely to run in to nonsense. And even real racing has their fair share of idiots and lap 1 pile ups so those will never be completely gone.

 

This must be an exception:

 

The game looks like there's vaseline on the camera lens

 

So he complains that in both iR and rF 2, the AMG Gt3 is rather oversteery, where he rather think it should be rather understeery. Hear hear.

No, seriously, i think in iR especially, all the cars are too loose and oversteery. Especially the Pro/Star Mazda with a fast setup is ridiculously loose.

 

If that's the case the real AMG GT3 must be an absolute pile to drive.

 

I am amazed any of the decent sims out there can be compared. Given that FFB implementation seems different between them. I find it extremely difficult to adjust the settings between all three to get a similar feel. AC and R3E feel the closest although R3E has little nuances when cornering that AC lacks although AC feels much better to me especially when the rear end steps out and I can feel the steering load up.

iRacing and PC2 are the weakest IMHO

 

Watching him drive AC AMG doesn't look better, the car is understeery when it should (entering corner too fast etc) however at the same time rear steps out aggressively on corner exit & throttle application, despite understeer on entry, which to me is even more annoying handling character compared to a car which is always slightly oversteery (consistent) and also the reason why I am not fond of AMG in AC but love the SLS. He complained/questioned cornet exit behaviour of AC AMG default setup too. Dialing out this behaviour is harder than a few clicks on the rear wing.