What iRacing does best | Opinion Piece - Ben Harrison

Kyuubeey said:

Hm, reasonable enough. I do have to say some things because I think this is a bit of a misconception, or at least it's not well explained whenever this notion gets said.

Based on everything I've seen the current physical tire models are not really capable of making tires that have most things accurate at the same time. They also require data that nobody has. On top of that they're quite difficult to work with.

They are in theory more sophisticated and thus should bring better results, but I think people don't understand how many millions of dollars would need to be pumped into one just to make it as good in practice as a brush model. Just doing some quick head-math I ended up at a hundred million or two if you do it properly.

However they do produce emergent behaviors and have some minor benefits like self aligning force not necessarily being consistent with lateral force due to more than just the contact patch being modeled typically. It won't affect the car behavior really, but it's part of why some people prefer the feel. Semi-empirical models can produce really accurate tire behavior in terms of driving forces, but they're a bit less vague than real tire information, while a real tire will output more contradictory information. Most of the time the tire isn't actually even more dynamic, it just produces more dynamic steering forces.

The Skippy and SRF in iR seem to have reasonable data input based on my own research when making them for AC and I'd be amazed if the MX5 is inaccurate. Hard to say if all the other cars are made as well. Even the new hyped F1 car has a ton of easily visible issues that likely exist because they didn't have the dynamic roll stiffnesses and didn't have the guts/time/ability to start correlating them.

Tire slip (or heat?) behavior over the limit is also incredibly off but that's not unique to just that car. I think it's probably iR's biggest issue. It doesn't seem to be a problem on the dirt tracks, so either the asphalt model has some kind of problem making accurate slipcurves, or iR staff are making some creative liberties in the wrong direction.

By the way Project Cars/AMS2 also use a physical based tire model. I think it has a tread modeling and a flexible carcass. Technically BeamNG also has an object-based tire modeling but I'm not sure if it's actually physical based or just hacked together.

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I'm not sure how you came up with millions of dollars?

There is a post from Dave Kaemer over on the IR developers blog about how he setup an instrument at the University of Kentucky to test to destruction and measure exactly how a racing slick interacts with different racing surfaces. He also describes the trepidation he felt when he realized he was going to have to go ask the powers that be for another 6 figures worth of budget to go buy a bunch of different racing tires he was going to turn around and destroy.

IRacing have spent more time and money gathering data on how a racing tire interacts with a racing surface than anyone on the planet outside of an F1 team. Probably more than at least 1 (looking you Haas).

That along with tracks that are continually laser scanned down to sub millimeter precision and it's as close of a simulation as your going to find unless you're involved with a manufacturer.

Now the cars are off by a bit. I've heard many racers say that it's not of much use for trying out setup changes. But Chad Knaaus also said that the young guys who cut their teeth on Sims actually know more about what they'd like changed than the guys who came up the old fashioned way. I imagine he means they can tell the difference between say being tight because of weight distribution vs front end geometry but that's just speculation on my part.

Dav_Daddy said:

I'm not sure how you came up with millions of dollars?

There is a post from Dave Kaemer over on the IR developers blog about how he setup an instrument at the University of Kentucky to test to destruction and measure exactly how a racing slick interacts with different racing surfaces. He also describes the trepidation he felt when he realized he was going to have to go ask the powers that be for another 6 figures worth of budget to go buy a bunch of different racing tires he was going to turn around and destroy.

IRacing have spent more time and money gathering data on how a racing tire interacts with a racing surface than anyone on the planet outside of an F1 team. Probably more than at least 1 (looking you Haas).

That along with tracks that are continually laser scanned down to sub millimeter precision and it's as close of a simulation as your going to find unless you're involved with a manufacturer.

Now the cars are off by a bit. I've heard many racers say that it's not of much use for trying out setup changes. But Chad Knaaus also said that the young guys who cut their teeth on Sims actually know more about what they'd like changed than the guys who came up the old fashioned way. I imagine he means they can tell the difference between say being tight because of weight distribution vs front end geometry but that's just speculation on my part.

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I don't think you understand how off the modeling is compared to how much money has been put into it. Take into account you will need to also test road tires, industrial tires etc. if you want to start making a general tire model that'll actually generate you a good tire and it'll just work for everything from a narrow Skip Barber roadcar tire to a wide Prototype slick.

I think they can even adjust the outputs after the fact and the model still can't do basic things like a slipcurve.

PS: You should ask track builders if laserscan data for tracks actually comes out as, and is usable as to that accuracy. Realistically it's more like tens of centimeters for a consumer sim although OEMs have been known to throw what is likely raw data into their sims, and those run even a few times faster than IR's already fast model does, at least if the 3000hz~ thing is true.

Dav_Daddy said:

Actually the Prius is only more efficient if you ignore all of the wasted energy refining the crude oil, transporting both the crude then the refined product to the station, etc, etc it's not even close even for 100% coal.

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I was trying to keep things simple. Sadly it gets much more complicated now.

Some projections say that we will start running into Li supply issues in the next 4 years.

The US has now authorized strip mining Lithium in Arizona and Utah. Utah currently has the largest known Lithium deposits in the world. Current BEV initiatives would require a 12 fold increase in Lithium production in the US.

So now all the people who were fighting against strip mining coal, have to deal with a very similar and messy mining for Li. Germany just pulled back on their goal for electric cars for 2030 because projections are that we won't have enough Li for batteries to reach those goals.

The good news is that there are a number of alternative battery technologies under development right now and we might switch gears to a different battery technology. I also don't know if the projections take all the new mining projects into account.

Other good news is that Tesla and many others have moved the Li battery tech away from very limited supply metals like Cobalt that only have one significant source in the Congo that uses slave labor for mining.

Bonehead said:

AI is the best I have seen in twenty plus years of sim racing. iRacing has made the AI exciting by not knowing if or when a car is going to go off track, spin, or tap the car next to it causing a wreck. It keeps the excitement level pretty high for me.

EDIT/ It's 5:14 PM in Florida where I live. I just loaded up iRacing to see how many people were on the iRacing server and I wasn't shocked to see that there are currently 13,000+ people racing. To those of you that constantly squawk about the pricing and that one doesn't own the content; you obliviously are in the minority.

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its only because the people running rfactor 2 literally have zero clue about games

edit the AI in that and set them to make mistakes. And lower their brake ability. rf2 gets great. but remove all flags cept black for races.

anyway... which leads me into a point - it may sound plausible give the competition and how they are able to behave, that iRacing may have more chops than we think.

13,000 people! lol

give me a break.... more like this is the entire user base, they just stat the numbers off high - I.e only 500-1000 on but they are given the number 14,000-15,000.

You don't see the queue's.

look at all the metrics, and I guarantee you they are very opaque about playing numbers.

Eg. steam users (which is not the main way to access iracing) 150.

Threads on Race department Assetto corsa 30k....iRacing 1.5k.

They are trying to make themselves appear more popular. Its the classic walk into a bar but no one is drinking, model.... see


BUT you look again... then you see the hottest girl walk up and buy a beer or wine and yell out wow its the best ever!

You will get guys at least going over there to talk to her or have their interest in the alcohol piqued.

Don't fall for it. I have had some of the hottest girls want to sit in my lap and I am not ugly BUT I know they are wearing 'beer' brand shirts and will gladly sit in my lap (years ago when I was single) since they are in the club to 1. mingle, 2. chat, 3. sell their product indirectly.

You won't forget brand x, y, z once some super hot chick does that.

It is literally a product in the same realm in digital as Final Fantasy Online - it 'wants' to be world of warcraft, so it does everything it can to seem more popular. But you ask anyone and they will tell you it is basically unbearable and unplayable since its such a poor game. The players stand around in the city's, making it seem more populated. Its my understanding in world of warcraft players are out doing things.

There's many more examples. Kunos for example has done a lot of work like fanatec on branding and association. The moment iracing is tarnished you will see them appear or censor things.

Their whole schtick is to be associated with all those things - check out their twitter - lol they are some of the biggest name droppers in all of digital entertainment. The coca cola 'let me be seen' for the sake of being seen of the racing world. Even their logo is a blatant copy of more famous logos.

Its simply not good enough to have even 7k concurrent players. And paying good money to be on, at that. Literally every other racing title is more accessible than iRacing - yet they want you to believe they have people lining up desparate to throw money at their feet.

The latest is the ermin hamsandwhcih guy - they got to him and the other spruicker Broadbent, too. In the case of ermin he is more than likely trying to pony up to them, as in his words "I want to make this channel even more of a business in 2022".... No sir he is NOT doing things for free...nice words don't reel in the coins - concession does...

You need to ask yourself if 13k people are stupid enough to sign up for good money to something that looks like its from 2005. The answer is a veritable no.

Most people are NOT willing to provide concessions to irace when they could do forza horizons or something. This is WHY iRacing markets itself so hard and pounce on dissent to the notion its ' the greatest thing since sliced bread '

Ask yourself why all those supposed people waiting in line to play iracing are doing? They are not online itching to talk about it on race department. They are merely being kept in the consciousness of it all by the stream of press coming out of iRacing because the one thing they do do fine with is the news-cycle.. .. like I said, I doubt there's even a couple of thousand due to its lack of quality overall. Oh - and would you look at that - they are improving it a lot, suggesting they know its not up to snuff..

Make the quality, get the people, make the money. But also advertise and blab about it like they do. Now they just need more quality (which if you look at the wider industry iRacing are doing ok lol)

iRacing pounces on dissent?

That's pretty funny because as was mentioned earlier until this last year, the dissent within the ranks of iRacing over their tire model was pretty loud!

RCHeliguy said:

iRacing pounces on dissent?

That's pretty funny because as was mentioned earlier until this last year, the dissent within the ranks of iRacing over their tire model was pretty loud!

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Try not to limit your memory.

Well no one likes to look bad - they are not a dictatorship they did their best to silence what they could. They love to interfere with public debate - we could even say your comment is that very thing.

WHY?

You omitted the fact that you were pouncing on my dissent. You , lol...ok, ready? Dissented rather than supported the notion, you omitted you were doing it, so you could be one of them or a patsy. But you admit there should be critique, right?

EDIT: but nor do you need to explain yourself and I am not trying to give you a hard time. If a person wants to pay them for a standard and they gain enjoyment out of paying and playing that is fine by me.

While I was not part of the vocal dissent, I will agree that the way the tires let go all of a sudden was frustrating when it happened. iRacing has definitely become more fun now that slides are easier to control and recover from.

I heard all the arguments back and forth about the tire model a couple years back but have no track experience myself to comment with authority about it.

All the sims are improving and iRacing is doing things that others are not doing at all so it is disingenuous to suggest that they are only improving to keep up with other sims.

RCHeliguy said:

While I was not part of the vocal dissent, I will agree that the way the tires let go all of a sudden was frustrating when it happened. iRacing has definitely become more fun now that slides are easier to control and recover from.

I heard all the arguments back and forth about the tire model a couple years back but have no track experience myself to comment with authority about it.

All the sims are improving and iRacing is doing things that others are not doing at all so it is disingenuous to suggest that they are only improving to keep up with other sims.

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I, too liked how they were consistently improving when maybe others were not. Most are now, but at least they with the subs had a means to proceed forward with solid plans, knowing they could to a degree. It should be expected, so I am not saying I am thankful, they should be doing it. Who knows where it could be in several years time. Not sure, but this is why those people in F1 racing spoke up - and yet they were chided for it.

Neither was I a part of it, just an observer - I found it amusing from a consumer point of view, afterall, I have played iRacing and they always seemed like they were trying but that it was not something I would personally devote a lot of time to. They did take a lot of jibes for its 'ice-racing' moniker. Its not a difficult game to nit pick. It was only an issue because of the monthly subscription and that brings with it a lot of 'standards and quality issues.' People probably believe it should be more pound for pound apt, and moreso than other titles.

However when the racing drivers sought to improve it and got caught out for speaking out, that was funny.

I felt too that future-looking titles like ACC show it up, for quality and price, and then now raceroom, which is less egregious and a lot of fun/quality-esq.

I didn't mean to mention it about the dissent; just a device to speak about the game, its not a massive deal in my mind since I am not an Iracer who is subbing. I personally think rfactor 2 has a lot of troubles but is a better sim and raceroom, and acc, but whats most important is as a game if people like playing it, they should.

I personally uninstalled for example the other day the f1 20xx series from steam as I cannot handle how bad it is anymore. But previously I did consider it a lot of fun, usually another title takes a games place in peoples spare time but with iRacing I think it has enough chops to remain a thing, so I am not putting down iRacing so much in intention at least.

Some may think well I would just fill in that slot for my leisure/spare time with another racing game, no lol it would probably be youtube and Football Manager.