Starting iRacing Simple and Easy

[Eduardo Pimentel]

Just thought I'd share with you guys a pointer...


I hate having a useless service running in the back and hate even more having to turn it on and off and have various shortcuts on my desktop or start menu.


So i invented a shortcut that will Turn on iRacing service and launch the website if the service is off. Clicking on the shortcut again will stop the service (you'll have to close the browser by yourself). This way it becomes more like a game, where things start up when you want it to and not all the time. The only difference is you have to click on the shortcut again to turn off the service when you are done.


After installing iRacing, make sure you have the service installed by going to:


C:\WHATEVER\iRacing\Start_iRacingService.bat


If you happen to use the Stop_iRacingService.bat to stop the iRacing service whenever you need it, know that it not only stops the service, it de-registers the service as a valid windows service.
So if you're going to do this, run the Start_iRacingService.bat, when that's done, go to the Windows Services and you can go ahead and set the iRacing.com Helper Service to manual.


After doing that open the notepad, type in the following:


For Chrome users:
NET STOP "iRacingService" || (NET START "iRacingService" & start chrome http://members.iRacing.com)


For Firefox users:
NET STOP "iRacingService" || (NET START "iRacingService" & start firefox http://members.iRacing.com)


For IE users:
NET STOP "iRacingService" || (NET START "iRacingService" & start iexplorer http://members.iRacing.com)


Put save as and write down "iRacing.bat" save it on the iRacing folder and create a shorcut to it. You can change the icon if you want to make it pretty and show up with the iRacing icon, however that's purely visual.

 

[Lars Strijdonck]

In all honesty i find it a pretty complicated way to start and stop iracing, and i would only recommend it if your really on the edge with your system resources(assuming that is a reason to do it) As for a process that only takes about 3mb to run and uses zero cpu cycles when idle I find the way it start stops now a lot easier? But maybe i am missing something obvious? Dont mean to be rude or anything

 

[Dazmaniac]

So you've created a batch routine, that is then placed as a shortcut on your desktop, although you said....

"and hate even more having to turn it on and off and have various shortcuts on my desktop"

Why not just have the shortcut to the iRacing service on your desktop? If you have things setup right it will open in the browser you have set as default anyway.

Like Lars, not sure if I'm missing something obvious with what you have created, but to me you have a 'shortcut' that behaves just like the service icon does, so I'm not quite sure what your batch routine is eliminating from the process of starting/stopping the iRacing service.

 

[Eduardo Pimentel]

Currently I have about 30 services running (out of about 150 on Windows 7), without chrome on, I have 9 running processes and even when you show processes from all users (ie: hidden) I have around 25 which is hellishly low if you have ever bothered to look. It is a minimalistic point of view.. and by doing this I have the best of both worlds... Sure iRacing doesn't draw alot of attention by itself, but if you do this for every little app, program, service or driver soon you'll be blaming Windows that it stalls and freezes all the time. When I had Vista I never had any issues with it, it ran beautifully (albeit Windows 7 runs even better). It's all about how you tackle your problems. To me, an average game or sim (like rFactor or GTR and the like) don't need a service to be running, so why should it in the first place....
It may be a bit obsessive, but I work in IT and this kind of thing is part of my job... I'd do this kind of optimization for client's solutions, why not do it for myself on my hobbies...
I know you meant no rudeness, but it's just to make someone's life easier if they so choose to...
By the way, it's not like I'm running on fumes, I have a 12 Gb x 1600Mhz RAM, Intel i7 2600K machine with a Radeon HD 5970, but again... it's principle...
Can you guess if I have iTunes installed or not?

 

[Lars Strijdonck]

Thank you for explaining your reasoning.

The main reason i am slightly critical about it is that i dont want new members to think iracing is a pain on your system and you need to do all kinds of tricks to make it run smooth.
Thats not the case imo.

 

[Dazmaniac]

I see where you're coming from now that you explained a little more clearly what you were meaning by 'useless service running in the background'.

I initially thought you were referring to iRacing.

Whta you appear to have created is something along the lines of the GameBooster program that effectively shutsdown all un-necessary applications/services running in the background whilst you are gaming.

I would agree with Lars that iRacing is not a drain on the system, I find I can run it just fine without the need for shutting down other background processes that may be running.