The Dark Side of sim racing- nothing serious

High level sim races are about doing so many laps that you almost do not react to the car anymore but instead already have "recorded" all the possible car reactions over every single slightly different line. What seems like ultra precision is simply knowing beforehand exactly where the car tends to get out of shape and always be prepared to react accordingly or entirely avoid it. You could watch the first 30 laps driven on a given combo by the same ultraprecise drivers you saw in your race broadcast and you would not see precision in there.

Real life drivers don't have the luxury to go into this highly repetititive learning mode in quasi static conditions so it's a lot more about reacting to the car on the spot.

 

See, this is the problem with slower drivers. They think they have to 'memorise' all possible scenarios to be quick. Truth is - it's impossible to do. Doesn't matter how hard you try, there are so many variables in play in a sim (even more so in real life). A good driver does not run on rails, he reacts to what he sees. Again, people in this thread don't seem to realise that there is a talent gap that is impossible to overcome. You can diminish it with practice but there will always be that 1%. Hard cold truth of life I'm afraid.

 

The fact that you are not memorizing this stuff is the very reason you somehow always end up 1 second off the best in AC. You can get reasonably fast without it, yes. But you won't reach the apparent "ultraprecision" level that the post was about.

 

Although I do agree to a large degree about what you are saying , i do believe that 1% is not inert talent but state of mind , if you believe that there are people that are born with a talent to drive faster than yourself , that is almost always untrue. Almost all the best drivers I believe have been driving since they were children and have far more experience of driving than one would give them credit for. If you are a racing driver and believe a that there are people who will always be better than yourself , then you have immediately put yourself at a disadvantage. This is the unresolved nature vs nurture debate. When racing, even against aliens , you have to believe that you can win, otherwise you have condemned yourself to Lose. When listening to racing drivers after winning a race, I have never heard any of them say its because I have a god given talent, they almost always put it down to skill determination, concentration etc. A true racer never lacks confidence and expects to win , otherwise they WILL fail

 

I remember seeing Ayrton Senna saying somewhere that his first go kart race under wet weather was a complete failure, so after that, every time it rained he went to the circuit to practice, and as we know, he later became one of the best F1 drivers in the world on the rain.

So I think it's quite easy to say some are more talented than the others, in fact a lot of people think Ayrton was born with a gift to be a fast driver.
I, in the other hand, think that when people are good at what they do, it's either because they worked really hard, or worked really efficiently to get there, probably both. So when I feel like I want to improve, I just practice, I may never become a fast simracer, but making excuses won't help either.

 

When you practice, dont practice driving the same lines, braking points accel points etc. You must experiment with different things to get faster.

 

In some simulators if i turn my T300 spring and damper options in control panel (hardware post proceses) some driving elements seem to get easy, but, i don' t like the unrealistic feel of that.

As far as i know the force feedback channel coming directly from the simulator software contains all the physics info for the wheel. My question is ¿What is doing hardware posprocess here?

As you see in many config posts many simracers deactivate spring and damper as hardware post processes.

 

i agree with you guys
we are learning machines
the more training the better
talent helps speeding the process up but hard work gets us where we want to be.

this works for me

 

It's about racing,

Racing is partly addictive because of the frustration it brings.

Why do some people like racing? I don't know, but what I know is that if you like racing,
it is not only about winning, or fastest lap times,

It's about measuring yourself against various opponents and/ or time on a track.

The adrenaline dump it brings when a race starts, or you make that impossible overtake, preventing accidents at the last second. This scenario with constantly changing tracks, conditions and opponents keeps that cycle "fresh"

In order to be able to compete at a higher level we practice, if however, we're satisfied with our current level of competing, the progress slows down

Do you know how satisfying it is when you have practiced, and you've improved accordingly in "the race"? That is part of its appeal for me.
We are a minority and that will always be because of its nature I suppose. Its a very strong long-lasting base, because "racing" is in our blood. (addiction perhaps)

When it comes to the global leaderboards of lap times, its brilliant and should always be a part of racing, that does not mean that it is everything. It's just part of it, it indicates skills at hot lapping, not racing.
After all, it might very well be that the best "racer" is not even in the top 25 of the global leaderboards or vice versa. Again, part of its appeal.

Even more so, if you want to compare it to RL:

As stated before, I have been in the fortunate position to support my son with his racing endeavors for years and this is what I learned coaching and teaching kids how to race on their bikes:
It hurts. RL is not "fair" and will never be.

The difference of available funds per individual is just too much. In that respect, many really talented drivers just "vanish" after a while, due to lack of funds and yes, that was also the reason I had to stop, the financial burden was just too high. No shame in that and that did not diminish my desire to race one bit, even though my son needed a long time to adjust to this reality (still does actually). Lesson learned.

That's where sim racing kicks in:

It totally levels the playing field when it comes to available equipment to race and suddenly, you're only "concern" is your own driving capability, while the "pool of excellent drivers" grows exponentially due to its low entry cost as opposed to RL.

In there lies its strength, it’s not privileged.

I know what it takes to occupy top positions or win races against others and therefor I will always have respect for the winners of races or positions in the global leaderboards, even when it is "only" sim racing. Don't care.

As far as I am concerned: sim racing is part of RL too.

Will I never be able to occupy "the top spot" into the global leaderboards? Who knows? but it sure as hell is fun trying.... knowing that I gave it all.


I hope you have a great weekend and see you @the track.

 

Uh Huh, OK, Like everyone believes CNN is real too.

My point was clear, many people whose lives are so wrapped up in this Pseudo world called SIM Racing or other games are so wrapped up in it, its all they know, all they do, all they breath and yet just a few actually make money at it and a very thin % of those make BANK. Why because they spend their every waking our playing a game. I dont judge that, what ever they wish, and how they make a living is OK by me. I mean look at the Kardashions, they make BANK on being skanks

What a world this is

 

Life is tough, Its tougher when your stupid
-- John Wayne

 

I actually disagree.. if you are stupid it less tougher

 

Sorry folks that's just denial and lack of appreciation of others' talents. If you think you can just memorise certain wheel movements is like saying you can memorise all quadratic equations, that way you can solve them all in a blink of an eye.... That's just ridiculous. I understand, it makes you feel good that you're not so not wound up in a sim and you got a life outside of PC gaming.. Yeah that's fine. Truth of the matter is - regardless of how much one practices, the talent gap can NEVER be overcome given equal conditions. Just look at the world of competitive sports. There's always that handful of people that will always rise on the top. Simple as that. I understand some people may be butthurt about that fact but such is life...

My 2 pennies to all who struggle with pace is that they should concentrate on improving their consistency. There is a reason why @Minolin made it a separate ranking - it is THAT important. In 30min + races consistency is so much more important and the longer the race the more important it becomes. And this comes from a fairly quick guy. I have 99PC and 95CN. I KNOW that my strong point is not pace. I just know it. But I can safely say, regardless of how quick you think someone is - you never know how many laps he can put down with that pace one after the other.

So, keep composed, don't let that half a second per lap get into you too much and focus on your consistency. It's an endurance sport - endurance is so much more valuable than raw pace over a lap. Let them have that pole position and grab them by the neck in the coming laps. 9 times out of 10 you'll be a winner.

 

Of course practice is a key....and being the best is always a combination of talent and hard work.....either will take you so far but you need both to be the best at anything.

 

Not according to this lot in here.. It's all practice nothing else... Nice day dream but you know... Far from reality.

 

The illusion of talent arises because we only see a tiny proportion of the work that goes into the construction of virtuosity . If we were to examine the incalculable hours of practice; the thousands of baby steps taken by world class performers to get to the top, those skills would not seem quite so mythical or so inborn. extensive research has shown that there is not one Top performer who as been unable to bypass at 10 years of hard work necessary to reach the top, this was a quote from a document, that tries to explain the illusion of talent. Talent is like magic, a mystery until explained.

[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...-be-learned-or-is-it-preordained-2279690.html] There is so much scientific research of

 

Wow I actually read all of this and enjoyed it. Now I need to go and focus because my best time at Monza is still in the 1:49s.

 

@Minolin I might be missing the point here, or doing something stupid - but the ratings aren't doing anything at all any more. I'm pretty much only running quick races right now, not sure if that's a factor? I'm sure that previously the ratings system was "grading" me on every corner, and I'd occasionaly get track medals. Both of which I found helpful. But now nothing happens at all?