tyre sim has nothing to do with wear on the tyres that is governed by the damage setting tyre sim off means your grip and temp levels change when its on the tyres are always at optimum temperature and when its off you have to heat the tyres on your own they start cold and gradually heat up also they effect grip when the track is wet and combined with damage full the wear on the tyres effects your grip levels.
Also when the tyres are really hot and tyre sim and dammage is on the tyres wear away faster
Hope this helps
That really hasn't been my experience. For one thing, I am running the HD tyres mod and with tyre sim on, come around lap 15 or so at Bahrain, the tyres were showing considerable wear and tear - I wasn't able to go round corners as well as before, and the AI were getting away from me - even cars comparable to mine.
So, I tried with tyre sim off. Not only was I able to keep pace with the AI, but other faster AI seemed to be taking an age to catch me up. Also, come lap 15 on the same track with the same tyres (options) and the same weather conditions, there was no visible wear on the tyres, I could go round corners just as fast as I could at the beginning of the race, and the AI were unable to get away from me as well.
For me, at least, this clearly shows that tyre sim is governing not only whether the tyres show visible wear, but also whether they wear physically as well as cosmetically - with it on, they don't wear and with it off, they do.
This is damned annoying. Even turning the AI up a level will not help, as driving without tyre sim feels like an arcade game, I can go round corners stupidly quickly with complete abandon. With tyre sim enabled, I have to drive carefully. If I do have to turn tyre sim off to be competitive, then I could really do with a mod that reduces the grip a little. Not as much as that 25% extra damage mod did, that was stupid, but reduced a little, so driving has some challenge to it. Right now, I feel as though I can drive to the end of the race without going off, without even trying and that's just boring.
Unmodded, the game was probably at my level, even with tyre sim on - but the problem was the AI was far too slow round corners and as well as that, they never made any mistakes, let alone DNF.
Edit: Would it make enough of a difference if I lower traction control settings a bit - without making me spin off all the time?
