iRacing.com Motorsport Simulations

[Bram Hengeveld]

iRacing.com Motorsport Simulations check it out

 

[Daniel Pettit]

Tuning Graphics in iRacing

One thing everyone seems to be having an issue with is getting the right balance of iRacings graphical settings and FPS performance. I must admit playing aorund last night i noticed some options that i tweaked made little difference on screen but a massive difference to FPS, i've seen others mention tips too. thought it would be a good idea to open a thread to get everyones graphics optimiation tips all in one place.

For starters i would suggest dropping Trilinear filtering and Triple buffering and setting the FPS to no limit. On a single lap on lie rock this took me from 50 to 80 FPS alone and kept me in the low 40's online at that track.

 

[Ricky Willox]

Shadows

One thing I have seen mentioned a lot is the shadows.

Turning of the more shadows option seems to give a big jump in frame rates with little degradation in quality.

 

[Simon Trendell]

Cockpit mirrors seem to reduce it as well, but I think I really need to drop the shadows

For anyone else my 8800GT is rated class 1 for graphics

 

[Ricky Willox]

Rookie Solstice Limerock

Not the best vid bit heres the rookie solstice at limerock

Solstice at Limerock

Not the best driving either

 

[Peter Eriksson]

Nice vids, cant wait to try it

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

New attachments at RD forum: .sto files for iracing setups

Hi guys,

Just wanted to let you know that we enabled .sto attachments so you can start uploading your setups without zipping them first or host them offline.

If you need any extra stuff in this section drop me a pm please

 

[Ricky Willox]

Rookie Legends

A few laps at a nearly round thing.

Rookie Legends

 

[shenken]

Shadows are always a GFX killer so by far I can live without that kind of feature and therefore shadows are turned of for me. It´s only visual and not horny about shadows but physics and racing and for this to be real you need as much FPS as you can get.

 

[shenken]

Howto meet friends online on the same server?

Hi all,

is it possible to meet with friends online on a same server? That´s what I want to know. Or decides the system where everyone is going? Is there a meeting point or something? I mean what should I do with friends in iRacing if I cannot race them

 

[Ricky Willox]

As far as i know the system makes up the fields. But i believe it will try to match you with people in your friends list if possible as long as they have a similar rating.

Only other way is to join the same practice or maybe even time trial session and if there is not lots of peple signed up i think you would end up in same session.

As alaways I could be wrong

 

[shenken]

I understand Ricky. So unlike we wouldn´t meet on Teamspeak to plan our meeting, the iRacing system puts you where you belong to

 

[Simon Trendell]

We'd be able to get a practice, tt or qualifying group together. Races is luck of the draw because large numbers sign up to them.

We could always create an RD chat room with the racing club password

 

[Ricky Willox]

Yea pretty much.

But if say we both joined the practise session for the solstice at limerock at 13:40GMT we would be able to practise on the same server i think. So you could have sessions with friends just not official races unless there are only a few signed up and then it just fills the server. So you could improve your chances of racing each other by signing up to the race at an agreed on time.

 

[Ramon van Rijn]

Thx

 

[Simon Trendell]

Radical @ Silverstone

Not as good a Huttu's vid

[iRacing] Radical @ Silverstone GP

 

[Yoeri Gijsen]

They probably don't want to overcrowd their system at first and spot glitches in it before the large crowd comes rushing in. Patience is a virtue.

 

[Yoeri Gijsen]

I signed up just now. Let's see what comes in a couple of weeks.

For those that are in already: I'm curious to hear more...

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

Moderator/Newsposter

Who is going to be our new moderator for iracing? Who has the knowledge and the skils to be up to date about this sim and share the info with the community?

Let me know by sending a pm please

 

[Nils Wijk]

It really depends on what system you are running, but wow dropping trilinear filtering? Going back to the 80s or what? Triple buffering is only usefull when running v-sync. I do not have the fastest system but higher graphics setting do make me feel more comfortable.

 

[Daniel Pettit]

Daniel Pettit - iRacing Review

As one of the lucky few to make it into the early release of iRacing I have had a chance to get a look at one of the most anticipated racing titles for some time. So how does iRacing stack up. Is it the long awaited step forward or just another mid field runner.


-E=MC Squared-

Ok first lets start with what iRacing does well, very well. The physics are everything you hoped for and every bit as good as all the reviews are saying. Until Karts are included I can’t compare with my own real world experience but even those of us who are not phyics buffs can sense that this is ‘right’. That said the other games on the market whilst not perfect are still in the right ball park and as such the real improvement in iRacings physics becomes evident only when driving the car hard and in other more subtle elements. However all of these physics suffer initially because you are given the Pontiac Solstice to drive. Taking a well crafted physic’s engine and then getting it to simulate a very average American roadster is a bit like hiring the finest chef in town then asking them to cook you cheese on toast.

-We’re on track for something special-

The other headline feature from iRacing is the laser scanned tracks. I headed straight to Silverstone to assess this and having been to the British track many times I can verify that you are now driving the actual track. Every inch of the scenery seems to be 100% and again the reports from the sim/real racers tell us that on track it’s the same story. Your going to notice some differences on tracks you know and this is one piece of technology that shows us a window to the future.

-Feeling Game?-

Online iRacing’s netcode is also strong, It happily supports close racing and the only major problem is that the frame rate seems to take a more than reasonable hit from going online. It can be quite weird to see your nicely tuned settings of 60fps drop to near 20 just because a handful of others are now on track with you. The graphics themselves are very nice. There are times when the graphics are less than spectacular but that is more down to the fact that there are no shadows and very little scenery to paint at that particular moment in time.

-Thou shalt not!-

Unfortunately here’s where we turn the corner and start looking at the problems. iRacing limits drivers to entering one of 2 championships (Soltice or Legends). Within these there are online practices and hotlap competitions every few minutes, Qualifying every hour and a race every 2 hours. Access to higher series are limited by the safety rating. The principle behind this is to act as record of drivers safety to keep the wreckers at bay. However what it actually does is act as an overly puritanical barrier to entry. The slightest clip of the grass renders you with an ‘indicent’ point and accidents that see you clip the grass as speed then spin multiply up horrendously. As a result your rating is just as likely to go down as it is up at a given race. “But that keeps wreckers away” I hear you cry, yes your right it will, along with the rest of us too. Lets not forget theres a big difference between 'clean racing' and 'mistake free racing'....

-Big Business-

Forget the hype, iRacings prime market is gamers not real racing teams looking for driver development. iRacing has been based on 2 success commercial principles; the subscription model of MMORPGS like world of warcraft and the expansion pack culture of MS flightsim. Unfortunately its failed in both respects. Subscription games like WoW succeed by making players want to play as often as possible, by making them feel every minute played counts and moves them towards their goal. iRacing’s stict safety rating on the other hand encourages drivers to stay away and only pitch in for the online event if they are feeling really on it. The limit on the races availale is also a major restriction and is bound to frustrate people.

In the second area it also struggles, Flightsim offers a large body of content then cheap addon packs that give reams more. iRacing’s big beef in the build up is its pricing structure and its here that it really hurts it. iRacings addon’s just don’t feel like good value for money and players will soon tire of having to dig out the credit card every time you want an additional car or track.

These points are compounded by the way the online races are organised. It will take drivers a long time of very dedicated perfect racing to get the safety rating up to a point where they can use this content and being stuck in the Soltice or Legend night after night is soon going to get frustrating and that could be a problem in a months time when the game is going to ask for players to fork out for month 2…

-Damage irrepairable?-

This is the most frustrating part, iRacing does all the difficult bits really well. Under it all is a superb sim with excellent tracks and cutting edge physics, but a few poor business decisions are crippling it. It would not be hard to fix though, more leaniancy and less dependency on the safety rating would be a good start, races every hour not every 2 would further help and a few more series with additional cars at each level and the ability to run in concurrent championships would be the clincher. Lets hope the boys at iRacing can realise this before the ‘new game’ hype wears off and the paddocks become deserted

-Post race discussion-

Overall iRacing is a formidable entry on the sim racing grid and promises to move the competition forward. However the setup is bad and its on the wrong tyres, in its current form the older competition is still going to run rings around it. Unless the iRacing team pull this one in for some much needed adjustment its going to find itself out of the race far sooner than everyone thought.