Sim racing

[Goodspeed]

This is a long shot but are there any sim racers here?
I bought a wheel recently and been playing Dirt Rally 2.0 and Assetto Corsa Competizione. Can recommend, especially if you already enjoy racing games with a keyboard or controller.

[voigt1240]

I have a wheel with manual gear and pedals, plenty of fun. But it has just been collecting dust after i moved out. havent really had the time.

[harcha]

I've been playing NFS Shift on hard/minimal assists since 2016 with a xbone controller. Still haven't finished it though.

[Jam]

This is a long shot but are there any sim racers here?
I bought a wheel recently and been playing Dirt Rally 2.0 and Assetto Corsa Competizione. Can recommend, especially if you already enjoy racing games with a keyboard or controller.

I want to try this with my VR headset. Looks like you're actually inside the car.

[Goodspeed]

Do it. Racing games are probably great for VR because you're actually stationary in a car so there's no issue with movement. For the wheel I can recommend Thrustmaster T150, great force feedback for the price.
For games, a lot of racing games are very arcade-y so do your due diligence when picking one. The games I mentioned earlier are both good sims though, where you can actually feel the car/road through the wheel and you don't have unrealistic levels of grip etc. ACC multiplayer races are also relatively clean once you join the servers with high safety rating requirements.

[harcha]

@Goodspeed do you have a way to solve this problem i have: watching other people play games and chat is more fun than playing games?

[Goodspeed]

@Goodspeed do you have a way to solve this problem i have: watching other people play games and chat is more fun than playing games?

Find a game you actually like.

[harcha]

@Goodspeed do you have a way to solve this problem i have: watching other people play games and chat is more fun than playing games?

Find a game you actually like.

I have like 3 games i really like, I just don't like playing games like i did... I guess streaming helps but that takes too much effort.

[Goodspeed]

@Goodspeed do you have a way to solve this problem i have: watching other people play games and chat is more fun than playing games?

Find a game you actually like.

I have like 3 games i really like, I just don't like playing games like i did...

So you don't like those 3 games enough, then? How long have you played them? Maybe you should try something new.

The only game I've played consistently for years now is Go. Other than that, I find myself uncharacteristically switching games much more often nowadays.

[harcha]

@Goodspeed no, I like them, it just feels less fun/more meaningless than say listening to music or shitposting on forums or participating in the very high iq twitch chat. so i think i'd have more fun playing them while streaming but that takes too much effort

[Goodspeed]

Racing games are great for listening to music. I used to play rally games only when I wanted to listen to music. I would mute the game and just slide across the track while listening to stuff.

[Djigit]

Project Cars 2, rFactor2, iRacing and for the most hardcore sim racing fans: Midtown Madness.

Shift 2 Unleashed is a nice upgrade to NFS Shift. I really disliked the squeeky tyres in the first series. The soundtrack is very immersive in the second edition and the same goes for PC2.

Call me a hippie, but I've played all my sim racing games with a flight stick since Gran Turismo 2 and I'm only 12 btw.

[rsy]

Midtown madness was fucking fun ngl tbh

[harcha]

oh I also really enjoyed Gran Turismo but I also didn't finish that one
@Djigit hippy

[Goodspeed]

Bump

Now playing iRacing. It is indeed, as they say, the pinnacle of sim racing and quite addicting. It's really not as expensive as they say it is, you get a bunch of free stuff with the subscription (around $10 a month but 50% off up to 2 years if you're a first-time sub) and with just a couple of additional car/track purchases (each around $10) you can have plenty of variety already (more than most other racing games). I don't understand why people say it costs hundreds of $ to even get started etc.
@Jam no VR headset (yet) but a friend has one so I'll try it out at some point. He claims racing in VR is amazing

[InsectPoison]

I've got a Logitech G29 that I use, mainly playing F1 2021 at the moment. really fun game.

[iNcog]

I got hardcore addicted to trackmania for a few days. uninstalled it quickly because it's too good of a game and I don't have time for it.

I definitely sort of want to play iracing, but I wanna do F1 and I know you need to be licensed to do that. plus I'd need to buy a wheel and it's just a bit much. mostly the time investment

[Goodspeed]

In trackmania you're not even really driving cars. If you like that, you will love driving actual cars with proper driving physics and force feedback.

Getting the license to drive F1 is honestly not that hard. Yeah you need to be a clean driver but there's no point driving F1 cars if you're not clean anyway. Also, F3 cars are fast too, fun to drive (so they say, I've been doing GT3 mostly) and have a much lower safety rating requirement.

I've been playing it for 2 weeks and am already almost at the safety rating needed for F1 so if you really want it you can definitely get there.

iRacing also has really cool special team events where you race for many hours (spa 24h being the most popular) and swap drivers and shit. Can't wait to partake in that. Its biggest strengths though are the large player base and rating system, which do a really good job putting you in lobbies with similarly skilled and clean drivers. Clean is relative there, but compared to the official F1 games for example it's night and day.

[iNcog]

In trackmania you're not even really driving cars. If you like that, you will love driving actual cars with proper driving physics and force feedback.

Getting the license to drive F1 is honestly not that hard. Yeah you need to be a clean driver but there's no point driving F1 cars if you're not clean anyway. Also, F3 cars are fast too, fun to drive (so they say, I've been doing GT3 mostly) and have a much lower safety rating requirement.

I've been playing it for 2 weeks and am already almost at the safety rating needed for F1 so if you really want it you can definitely get there.

iRacing also has really cool special team events where you race for many hours (spa 24h being the most popular) and swap drivers and shit. Can't wait to partake in that. Its biggest strengths though are the large player base and rating system, which do a really good job putting you in lobbies with similarly skilled and clean drivers. Clean is relative there, but compared to the official F1 games for example it's night and day.

when you race in F1 or F3, is everyone using the same mclaren or are there different cars? that's something else I considered

I honestly do want to give it a go. maybe when I get back from vacation

[Goodspeed]

Everyone has the same car. There's only one current-gen F1 car in the game (the merc from last year) and F3 is a spec series irl too, using the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallara_F3_2019
Afaik, all of the formula X series have identical cars in a race. Some of the other series have multiple cars in the same class, such as GT3.

The problem with this hobby is the large initial investment because you need equipment costing >$250. It's definitely one of the better purchases I've ever made, but it's hard to tell if you're gonna be into it beforehand. If you have a way to try it out somewhere, I'd recommend doing that. But in my xp, if it just sounds like a lot of fun to you, it probably will be.

For budget wheels I can recommend the Thrustmaster T150/TMX, anything cheaper than that and you're supposedly losing a lot of quality (and often don't even get FFB). Of course, you can get a lot better shit for more money. I kind of regret not spending more initially, but it was (and I suppose is for you) impossible to know that I'd be this into it.

I wouldn't start with iRacing. Depending on what attracts you I'd start with one (or multiple) of the following, then if you like it and are looking for a better MP experience move on to iRacing.

- Assetto Corsa Competizione is a proper circuit racing sim (GT3 and GT4 only but these are fun classes) with good enough multiplayer. You get a lot more content for your buck than in iRacing and it's not as serious so it's a good entry point for multiplayer circuit racing.
- Dirt Rally 2.0 is a great rally sim. This one has the advantage of being playable with a controller, but it's a single player game and rally, while fun, is very different from circuit racing.
- F1 2021 is more of an arcady game than a sim and multiplayer is bad but it has an enjoyable single player career mode, and the cars are fun to drive despite limitations in the physics model (not as fun as the merc in iRacing but yeah).

But there are lots of racing sims I haven't played. This youtuber knows what he's talking about and is entertaining:

[Mr_Bramboy]

God damn it is GS making me buy a €250 wheel which I'll maybe use a few times?

[harcha]

see if you can get it used

[princeofcarthage]

God damn it is GS making me buy a €250 wheel which I'll maybe use a few times?

250 euro for driving wheel? That's insane

[Goodspeed]

I accept no responsibility for you spending money on something that just ends up collecting dust in a closet somewhere

It's honestly just a tough purchase to make. Even for me, who was always into rally games, the possibility that I would get bored of it quickly was very much there. It's probably common for people to buy wheels and not use them much. Maybe trying Dirt Rally 2.0 with a controller first is a good idea. The amount of fun I had playing that game with a controller is what ultimately convinced me I should get a wheel. To be fair though, having other people to play with who also bought wheels at the same time as me was probably a big part of what kept me interested.

Have you played and enjoyed racing sims before? Have you always wanted to drive a fast car around a circuit irl? Do you have friends you could convince to buy a wheel and get into it with you?

[Riotcoke]

I did the catering for a Forza Horizon 5 event in the UK and got to use the setup they had there with a wheel + pedals and have to say, even though I don't play them at home, it was incredibly enjoyable for the 10 minutes I was on it and how realisitic the controls felt, even though I believe forza is pretty arcade based when you compare it to dirt etc. Maybe try it out at an event if you can before you put down £250 on a setup Bram.