Fairly new to simulators - advice please?

[JamesU]

Hello all,

As it's my first post - i'll introduce myself.

I'm a huge racing fan, love following the F1 and the lower GP teams.

I've always enjoyed playing racing games on consoles, a few years ago i bought the Microsoft Racing Wheel to play Forza and F1 2012/2013, which i was constantly on.

Recently moving out from my parents i have a spare room, the boss (mrs) hasn't kicked up any form of a fuss when i've said i want a racing simulator setup in our spare room...on the condition i decorate our bedroom first. Result.

I've only been looking and pricing things up for a couple of weeks, but so far i have a budget of:

Wheel setup: £300-£400 - been looking at the Thrustmaster TX but i'm massively open to opinions, as i said above i've had the Microsoft wheel before which i was impressed with as it was my first wheel, but reading reviews on the Thrustmaster i'm aware that it is even better than the G25 wheel which i've always thought was fairly good.

Racing seat/frame: I have the same budget of £300-£400 for this, but i've only looked on eBay - are there any specific websites anybody can recommend for this? The room that it will be going is is bare, so i have no desk and i'm starting from scratch, i also want 3 screens so is it best to have them all attached to this or buy a desk and have them all on that?

Screens: I've been looking at some online, i have thought around £130 each for these, i'm fairly clued up on televisions but with monitors i'm not sure of the differences. The size i'm after is 24", any bigger with 3 screens may be a bit overkill but anything smaller is too tiny.

And then of course the game, i'm looking to get the whole setup sorted first and then try demo's - i have been looking at rFactor/2 and iRacing, but many reviews online seem to not have a clear winner. I haven't looked at anything else but i'm open to suggestions!

Thanks

 

[Blkout]

Right now for that kind of resolution, to enjoy the experience, I would recommend at least one AMD R9 290X or Nvidia GTX 780ti, or if got the money, two R9 290's or two GTX 780's. For the CPU, I would recommend an Intel i5 3570k.

 

[JamesU]

Wow, cheers. Pretty expensive kit.

 

[Blkout]

Triple screens are very demanding. Its the price you have to pay for a high end setup.

 

[JamesU]

Thanks.

In that case i might start with a single screen and then expand when i can, rather than spending another £260 on screens and £600 on PC hardware.

 

[Blkout]

That would be my advice. I wouldn't go into it full bore with triple screens until you decide you want to stick with sim racing and how much time you invest in it. You can get a lot of mileage out of a single screen.

 

[JamesU]

Cheers, will do.

I'm a big car/racing fan, loved all the hours i spent on the two F1 games and Forza and GranTurismo. But i do agree, i'll slowly lower myself into it, but i want a good seat and wheel so i'll use the recommendations above.

 

[Blkout]

If you haven't played Assetto Corsa, RaceRoom Racing Experience, Game Stock Car Extreme or iRacing, I hate to say it but you haven't really experienced sim racing yet, and I say that in a good way. I love the Forza series and somewhat like the F1 series and GT series, but they don't compare to the games I listed in terms or realism, FFB, and physics. I've been there and its a bold new world that's seriously addicting once you get a taste of it.

There's a thread on GTPlanet titled "Can't go back to GT after playing AC." You'll find a lot of people that are ruined by playing Assetto Corsa making it nearly impossible to go back to playing console racing games and even many PC racing games. And even then, its not so much that you won't play those other games again, but you'll always find them lacking a lot once you experience how good a top notch sim racer can be.

 

[JamesU]

Haha i do understand, i'm a big racing fan and as i've never had a proper racing setup i've never been able to experience anything past Forza or the F1 games, so they were as close as i can get.

I tend to pick driving things up quite easily, good at controlling wheelspin and brake lock ups on single seater things i've done before so i'm getting fairly excited

Thanks once again for advice!

 

[Chronus]

@JamesU,

if I may add one little piece of advice.

If you find a way to purchase GP4, GPL, NR2003 or GTR, you can't go wrong (regardess of age), as their creators were/are some of the best minds (read: experts) in simracing development. NR2003, for instance, is the percursor (code wise) to iRacing, which is an online simulation service.

Then you have more modern alternatives (though far from the level of gfx quality you can experience with GT6 or FM5), like rFactor, GTR2, NetKar Pro, Live for Speed, Race07, ARCa Racing, Racer and, more recently, iRacing, X-Motor Racing and Game Stock Car.

With the sims above, any of them, you'll have some of the best physics engines, netcode and AI available to simracing. None of them have the eye-candy nature of FM5 or GT6, the unbelievably photorealism of its graphics, but they more than compensate with proper, well researched and developed physics.

Choose wisely and have a boat load of fun.

 

[Blkout]

Well, arguably many of those games even the older one's meet or exceed GT5 or GT6's graphics which really aren't impressive at all since about 2008.

 

[JamesU]

I was massively disappointed with GT5

 

[Blkout]

To be honest, GT5 or GT6 hasn't been impressive given the date of its release. GT4 was the last one that was released that was impressive for its time, in my opinion. Forza 2 still looks almost as good to me as GT5 or GT6.