The learning curve

Thanks. That's very helpful. Clearly I've been expecting too much too soon. It just gets frustrating when what you know doesn't seem to be working.

 

My steam reckons over 5000 hours iirc but that counts time the launcher is open too.

A better estimate is that i have 110,000 km recorded by Minorating and probably another 30,000 km before MR.

After all that I am still improving, and also still get my arse kicked by a number of people consistently

They say it takes 10,000 hours to truly master something; I can't argue with that as I am definitely not even half way to mastering simracing

 

Maybe more than 10.000. I've got close to 12,000 driving at Pitt Race and I still did a little better last year than the year before. Right now I'm just interested in how long it takes to become reasonably competent in AC and the message is a lot more than 50 hours! Therefore, I'm not going to worry about it for several more months.

 

The 10000 hours is for people having talent doing it It's a joke really, but if you think about it most people will never get to the top no matter how many hours they spend on improving themselves.

I'm almost 2000 hours in, but I stopped improving a while ago, and I really don't see myself any better. One thing that really had a significant impact was switching to VR.

 

Still very strong in sim racing...


Do you need VR to get good lap time?
no

Do you need to adjust you FOV to get good lap time?
no

Do you need 1000 hours to get good lap time?
no

Do you need skill to be good in a game with a forgiving physic?
no

 

Do you need a decent PC so that you have at least a steady 60 fps to get a decent laptime? Yes
Do you need proper FFB settings for your wheel to get a decent laptime? Yes
What is a decent laptime? No idea, hopefully anything within two or three seconds of the best counts, otherwise I'm SOL.
Should you immediately put @MrDeap on your ignore list? If his previous posts doesn't finally get him booted out of here for good, yes.

 

@PhilS13 called me a retard & you bring people to put on me on ignore list by pointing my username.

You don't need 60fps nor need good FFB either to get good laptime. It's possible to pull a good laptime with a gamepad. It's an non issue really.

in a nutshell, almost feel like a private golf club..
​

 

lol I had to click on the show ignored content to see who is @Michael Hornbuckle responding to.

@MrDeap, not sure if your reply was directed to my post as you did not quote it, but if it was, I never spoke about lap times. If that's all what you care when you're sim-racing, all I can say it's: enjoy The same way me and many others will enjoy the immersion a well configured rig can offer.

Duh, this forum should not have Show Ignored content feature...

 

Hey if you had been on my ignore list you wouldn't have been called a retard. Michael is just being proactive so maybe less of that happens. Tagging me with your crap... **** off.

People are sick of you bringing up retarded points like you always do. You don't understand **** about driving, you don't understand **** about physics. If only you were actually a decent driver in real life...maybe we would be forced to say : "ok he is dumb as **** but maybe he's onto something." But no, you suck at driving in real life just as much as you do in sims. The persona you have created that is amazing in real life but needs to find justfication for sucking so bad in sims needs to die. You suck in both, no need to find excuses for why people are faster than you in sims.

It's been more than a year of this crap, get lost.

 

The reason why it might be taking you a long time to get a hold of AC might be because it takes longer to "unlearn" old stuff that to learn new stuff. What you have learned over your 10,000+ hours of real driving might need to get unlearned in AC because a simulator, albeit an excellent one, cannot replicate real life 100%.

If you plan to keep driving on real life, I would be careful with getting too involved with AC as it might affect your real-life driving skill. AC could be used as a platform to practice some skills, but it could be counter-productive to rely on it too much for the reason mentioned earlier.

I would love to know: if you clearly have access to real-life driving, why are you trying to get into AC? I guess it's because the possibility to drive different cars and tracks?

 

I'm not trying to put AC down, it is a fantastic product. I'm just saying that real-life and simulator are different beasts.

The reason of the learning and unlearning statement comes from what I have personally experienced as a martial arts instructor. Developing body-eye coordination, reflexes and muscle memory takes a lot of time and practice to learn. Once you have learned it, it becomes extremely hard to unlearn. E.g. trying to perform forms (stances, moves, kicks, etc) after years of doing it one way becomes very difficult to later do them in a different way. In this respect driving (an art by itself) could be similar.

However, and having said that, everything could be developed through practice. I believe that if you practice hard enough, you would be able to switch back and forth between simulator and real-life without issues. Do note that this might require a lot of time, which you might not have, thus my earlier comment of perhaps not getting too involved with AC could be a good idea.

 

You should could calm down. I never called you with any offensive word or anything. I don't even know why you bring this up... Although we will probably never know the answer for that one, like the usual...

 

I'm pretty damn calm.

The words are offensive because nothing else works.

Smart people have tried to explain some basic physics to you.

Fast people have tried to explain why your driving tips don't work.

Everyone has tried ignoring you. Over and over you keep posting the same ****.

Nothing works. You are so deep in your delusion you don't even see people who have genuinely tried to help you before they turned to hating you as expected. Snap out of it ffs.

 

@PhilS13
Stop lying

 

I didn't read everything here but to answer OP:

How long did it take?

1,014 hours up to now. To get overall down to a science, it takes more. Of course, I've racked up many many hours in other sims as well.

I would say that, overall, it takes years. As I'm sure it would take the same amount if not more (because of money as well) in real life.

 

It depends a lot on you. How you drive, what do you want.
I started simracing in February, first laps with keyboard, then old wheel, old pedals.
And i had fun from the beginning.
Now i had my first frustrating times. Nearly 1000 Hours, and the fun is gone. Did a lot mudding at spintires. And after some weeks the fun is back.
I am far away from the best lap times but i learn day by day, week by week.
ATM i have must fun with old beasts. Porsche 3.0 RSR, Countach - i struggled a lot, and now i am falling in love with the "difficult" cars.
So - for me - it will take years to become a good simracer. After 1000 hours i am 20-30s off the pace at Nords. 2-5s off at normal race tracks. Thats okay for me.
I enjoy every moment and its not the primary goal to be faster. My primary goal is to drive

 

Just drive for fun...the speed will come with time and practice .

 

@Bob Peirce: IMO, putting FOV considerations aside so lightly is a massive mistake and will block your attempt to have an experience close to RL. It's been mentioned before in here but I simply need to underline it.

If you run the mathematically correct FOV, all objects, corners etc will be displayed in the correct size like in RL. Do you not see how this is essential regarding what you want to achieve? Many on single screens use an increased FOV for improved immersion and awareness reasons (and that's fine) but since your goal is to match the sim to RL as closely as possible, you can not do this.

It's so crucial...you don't need to open another thread meta-discussing your progress before you haven't gotten this right.

 

It takes time but I wouldn't say you need thousands of hours and years of simracing. It all depends on each person too so it's impossible to put any number in here.

I made a step up from a pad and bought a wheel two years ago. Although I had a lot of hours (over 700) in AC already, driving with a wheel is completely different experience. I was slower at the beginning for a while. With a pad I was OK and after some practice I was decent with a wheel. Now I'm competitive, but I wouldn't say I'm any faster than a year ago. It would be interesting to actually compare lap times from now and the past, but due to AC's constant development it's not possible.

Like others have said, don't be too focused on lap times and gaps to fast guys, just enjoy the game. It will come with time and practice.