Let's discuss iRacing

I found out when iRacing system was down. Instead of the login page there was a page with info on the scheduled maintenance and this link

https://testdrive.iracing.com/

I don't think there is a time limit. I ran about 25 laps at Road Atlanta, no problems. Several other track as well. Only difference I've noticed from the normal access is I don't have the option to change the time of day at the track

 

I expect a bit more considering the monthly fee and price of the DLC. Tire clipping with the default setup

 

Their mirrors in vr quite good the way the reflection moves with your head movement and your can see parts of car in them, and the way the netting and stuff flaps about inside the car those are the only things I liked about iracing..

 

i love thje idea of iracing, and i dont mind subscriptions (been a big eve online player) but to have a subscription and to charge through the roof for tracks and cars is taking the p***

an assetto corsa setup the same with just a subscription alone would be amazing ans would easily be more popular than iracing

 

Only during maintenance unfortunately.

 

Aah, that's too bad. I'd really like to try out a few cars some day. Thanks for clarifying

 

Maintenance is over and I still have access to test drive. Curious. Perhaps if I login normally it will disable test drive access. Hmmmmm.

 

Their ruf rt12 r is a porsche cup car or a gt3 car. The one in AC is the actual street car you can buy in real life. AC is a sim with more types of cars but iracing will exclusively use race cars so that's why they transformed the rt12 r in one.

 

There are 3 versions of the Ruf RT12 R in iRacing. Two appear to be street variants the other two track and C Spec version. The RWD version in AC weighs 1495kg which translates to 3295 lbs. HP is 730bhp with 940NM of torque which is 693 ft lbs of torque. Top speed is 370 plus km/h or 229 MPH. The basics line up exactly with the RWD Ruf in iRacing.

The Porsche GT3 Cup car in iRacing is quite tame with only 485HP in comparison to any of the Rufs. I've driven all three quite a bit a Road Atlanta they are considerably more powerful than the GT3 Cup.


Front end grip seems a bit higher in the Ruf and Porsches in general in comparison to AC. Track grip levels in iRacing seem to be comparable to 100% in AC. iRacing doesnt seem to model cold tires much if at all. I can rip outta the pits with no problems and set a fast lap pretty quick. Can't do that in AC, haha. AC seems more sophisticated in that regard for sure.


Ruf RT12 R RWD

Simply stated, the RUF RWD is among the highest performing of of the world’s high performance automobiles. At the heart of the RWD’s performance is a 3.8 liter, twin-turbo flat six engine producing 730 horsepower and nearly 700 lb/ft of torque. That’s no misprint: 730 bhp and 700 lb/ft of torque in a sleek sports car that tips the scales at less than 3300 lbs/1500 kg. Small wonder that, when coupled with a six speed transmission, the RUF RWD hits a top speed of 230 mph.

Ruf C-Spec car

The RUF C-Spec is a full-on race car, but one tailored to the single make, spec-class sports car series which have found increasing favor around the world in recent years. There’s plenty of power on tap from the normally-aspirated flat six, while the beefy six speed, sequential gearbox and twin, independent brake systems underline the C-Spec’s staying power in the “level playing field” environment of spec series.

Ruf Track car

The RUF Track is a powerful and durable yet reassuringly nimble sports car. With its normally-aspirated, four liter flat six cylinder engine pumping some 500 bhp through a six speed, sequential gearbox and dual ABS braking systems, the 2645 lb (1200 kg) RUF Track is more than capable of giving cars like the McLaren MP4-12C GT3 a run for their money.

Ruf RT12 R AWD

The RUF AWD ranks among the world’s most versatile high performance cars. Not only does its 3.8 liter, twin turbo pack a 685 horsepower punch, those ponies are delivered to the road via a six speed transmission and all four wheels. Couple that AWD power with ceramic brakes and a sophisticated aero package and you have one seriously capable sports car, no matter the environment.

 

Donington is a bit different than the very good mod we have in AC. Its close although a few of the turns are much tighter on the LASER scanned iRacing version.

 

Thing is, i don't feel much inertia in iRacing on the skippy, or any other car, while i feel a lot of inertia in AC. Maybe that's also the reason why you totally overdrive the car in iRacing in the beginning, and slowly, slowly, get a feel when more and more time progresses. Still feels unrealistic how much you can bring the car to oversteer, with very minimal steering input. Oh, and, judging the grip, and slip angle by tire noise is also totally unrealistic, and is very contradictory to iRacing's "get real" approach. Noone judges grip level by tire noise in reality, it's all about feeling. So, yeah, iRacing, please gives us some feeling. Via the FFB, like everyone else does.

And, contrary to what you wrote, i read from a real life Skippy driver that the lift off oversteer in iRacing is exaggerated. He actually wrote that a rFactor mod of the Skippy feels more realistic. Of course, i can't tell if this is true or not, so, FWIW.

 

No idea who that Skippy driver is but unless he's any good IRL and in the sim it's a bit of a moot point.

Also: "Noone judges grip level by tire noise in reality, it's all about feeling." Depends on the tyre and car.

 

William knows more than any real life Skippy driver, just ask him.

EDIT: Ninja'd

 

@Orne, the RUF street versions on iR are kinda sh*t. Mainly the tyres, they're way too grippy and strange. Just feels like they shoved the cars in there just for the contract but haven't really worked on them at all.

@Michael Hornbuckle, considering most suck IRL, and even more so in the sim... It's always like that anyway with real life drivers. Even good ones. Unless they've spent some time getting any good virtually any kind of "limit driving dynamic" feedback is worthless.

 

I won't argue with that. The grip levels feel far to high for a 700HP , 700 torque rear engine car. The GT3 Cup in iRacing feels more reasonable and closer to the version in AC.

 

With a sim the only way to know you're at the edge of traction is via tire screech. Its a necessity since most of us here don't have access to full motion rigs that would give us that seat of the pants feel. The tire squeal in most racing sims is totally fake IMHO. In real life its more tire scrub sound when approaching or at the limits. iRacing nails the tire scrub sound although the FFB doesnt seem as informative as Assetto Corsa regarding load transfer. Its much easier for me the know the limits in AC, iRacing takes a bit more trial and error and more time spent in a particular car it seems.

A Road Atlanta in iRacing when approaching turn 12, in every single car, just a small amount of trail braking rotates the car almost exactly the same way each time. I can't believe its that easy in real life and in similar turns in AC its not, at least not to me.

Trail braking seems too easy in iRacing IMHO, its too predictable me thinks. In Assetto Corsa the cars response to trail braking feels slightly more varied and different in each car. From my little experience AC feels more sophisticated in the tire model and physics department, much more nuance and FFB is more detailed than any other sim I've driven thus far. iRacing has its merits for sure and I have friends who have used it to train at a particular track then visited that track in real life and had a very positive experience because of their practice sessions in iRacing. Take ACs physics, FFB, cars, apps and graphics and add them to iRacing with its track selection, robust multiplayer, FOV calculator and camera editor. This would be about as close to perfection as I could ask.

iRacing is quite light on my system, with max settings I can maintain about 90 fps. I only have a lowly GTX 960 although my CPU is a i7 4.2

 

All I can add here is that I tried it out once with iR in a 3 months membership and I can agree on the mediocre handling/physics/FFB some report here. I mainly drove the Miata cup car and the other smallish car...some Pontiac.

The first couple of times I lost a car I was completely caught off-guard because there was no indication, really. It even happened as I drove very careful and in situations where I wouldn't expect it - under steady speed cornering with neutral throttle or just by steering a bit too abruptly.

Once I had gotten the hang of it it was good fun and even though the handling didn't convince me 100 % it was consistent and learnable/predictable. During the weird situations I just learned to "follow the rules" and it was fine.

So yeah, I didn't extend the deal because SRS popped up in AC and even though MP is still not as good in AC as it is in iR, the huge cost isn't worth it for me.

 

I'm quite happy with Iracing as it provides my dosis of regular online racing with no need to join a league. Imo the handling of the cars has much improved since I joined it 3 1/2 years ago and is not as bad as many describe it here.

 

I enjoy iRacing and at the moment I'm just hot lapping, checking out different cars and tracks. Interestingly enough iRacing seems to have improved my driving in AC. Go figure ! haha

 

In some tin cup cars in AC, i hardly even hear the tire screech. In a F1 car, you won't hear the tire screech in reality either, because the engine is way too loud.

"iRacing nails the tire scrub sound" Ew... sounds totally synthetic in iRacing. As i mentioned though, it's kind of the only indicator in iRacing about grip level, because the FFB gives you hardly an indication at all. And that is not very realistic. Because real life drivers don't depend on tire screeches to judge about grip level.