iRacing 24H of Spa Showcases Strange Exploit

Article Discussion
iRacing Spa 24H Tire Exploit.jpg
Viewers of iRacing’s 24 Hours of Spa event saw a strange approach to racing lines over this weekend’s event.

Many of the top level sim racers participating in this weekend’s 24 Hours of Spa event in iRacing utilized a not-so-subtle approach to managing tire temperatures.

The exploit was known before the event, but had not been showcased to this extent before. Drivers utilized a tactic that involved deliberately driving with the outside tires on the grass.

The method was on full display as the cars made their way up the Kemmel straight at Spa Francorchamps. Long trains of cars could be seen driving with two tires on track and two on the grass.

The method seemed to work very well, with some estimating that it saved a much as a half second per lap.

Because it was known beforehand and every car in select splits seems to be using this technique, it seemed unlikely to have affected the finishing order. But, it does seem to highlight a gap in realism for a sim that works hard to mitigate differences versus real racing.

What are your thoughts on this tactic? Is it an immersion-breaking exploit, a clever workaround, or something in between? Let us know in the comments below.
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About author
Mike Smith
Mike Smith
I have been obsessed with sim racing and racing games since the 1980's. My first taste of live auto racing was in 1988, and I couldn't get enough ever since. Lead writer for RaceDepartment, and owner of SimRacing604 and its YouTube channel. Favourite sims include Assetto Corsa Competizione, Assetto Corsa, rFactor 2, Automobilista 2, DiRT Rally 2 - On Twitter as @simracing604

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N
BP said:
While I agree with pretty much everything you said (I’d have to see the video about the curbs, as curbs don’t necessarily murder cars IRL depending on the speed, angle, setup and attitude of the car)…there is something that people don’t seem to consider when talking about “realism” in consumer sims: how realistic can the experience be, when most sim racers aren’t using hardware that’s closer in speed, strength, resistance and response time as real cars? You could have Mercedes F1 “accurate as it gets” multi-million dollar sim software running on their network of supercomputers…but if you connect it to a G27 or similar wheel clamped to a wobbly desk, how realistic is that experience? It goes both ways IMO. (Please don’t be offended if this describes your setup; I’ve been there for a long time)

I say this because lots of people make comments about iRacing’s snap oversteer, but over the years many of them came from people driving gear or belt driven wheels (people have been talking about this for years, long before direct drive was mainstream). As I’ve gone from G27 to Fanatec CSW to now VRS Direct Drive over a 6 year period, I’ve noticed that catching slides can be directly linked to the ability of the hardware (all other things being equal). When you incorporate tactile into the equation (transducers on rig and/or motors on the pedals) or motion, it gets even more intuitive. Slides are easier to catch IRL life because your entire body feels the signals, not just at the wheel. I’ve caught slides in iRacing that I know would’ve wrecked me in years past thanks to wheel and tactile pedal motor upgrades, as I drive predominantly by feel, as opposed to most aliens who seem to drive predominantly by sight and audio clues (guys who are top 1% but drive with G27 with FFB really low or off).

This is not necessarily in defense of iRacing (as it seems you equally can’t defend iRacing without being labelled some blind cult follower), but ask yourselves which is more “realistic”:

A) software with minimal artificial FFB aids (or none) connected to hardware not capable of reacting fast or detailed enough to slides.

Or

B) software with lots of artificial FFB aids designed for catching slides with slower, less detailed wheels, but driven using faster, more detailed wheels?

Obviously the answer is neither, you should want perfect hardware and perfect software, but the world isn’t perfect in consumer-land (unless you have couple million to spare lol). No sim is perfect, there’s always room to grow and improve.
Click to expand...

It might be the case, I don't know for sure, but.. How about feeling and catching slides in other sim titles with the exact same lower budget gear, but don't in iRacing?

What explains that? To me, iRacing rears always was an on/off grip switch, nothing in between. Just like the F1 series from Codemasters, while I can drive perfectly fine by feel on the rest of the well established sims, with my low budget belt driven gear.

Now, iRacing die hards will come to me and say iRacing FFB is tailored to direct drive wheels, transducers, motion rigs, blah, blah, blah. Yep, sure :rolleyes:
 
M
Premium
Austin Ogonoski said:
My how things have changed.

Once upon a time, to suggest iRacing had issues was treated as blasphemy. I will never forget the first waves of iRacing disciples and how they operated across a variety of sim forums. You were NOT allowed to talk about these things and if you did, you "had an agenda," were "crazy", trying to "discredit the finest sim available."

Now it is (rightfully) the subject of widespread ridicule.

I am extremely thankful to have gotten a full refund from these guys. It's unfortunate that most people are stuck with their purchase subscription rental.

For $60, this kind of thing would be irritating, but eventually fixed in a patch and people forget about it. There are builds of normal games that are borked, people are irritated for a bit, maybe it holds you off buying the devs next game until a sale, but everything generally goes back to normal within a few days.

For what they charge and how they posture themselves, it's slightly more worrying that things like this exist. These guys are claiming that every professional driver uses their sim to practice, but routinely there are these weird gremlins indicating the software is actually quite dated and simple under the hood.
Click to expand...
There are a lot of people over at iracing unhappy to find out about this.

There is also some perspective that could be had about it. I am happy for you got an opportunity to jump all over it, an opportunity that you have likely been waiting or. I don't know what sim you use, which one is without faults or some exploits. I can't come up with one.

I dont think iracers are happy or complacent when they see something silly like this.

Some perspective though - There were 45 splits, with an average of about 48 teams per split, with an average of >3 drivers per team. That is thousands of people that got to participate in only one of iracings special events on the calendar this year.

The vast majority wont have seen the exploit, known about it or had it affect their enjoyment of the race. I will never be in the topsplit, and I am glad as I can still feel like I am doing well and never know about these exploits.

Thats the majority of the > 6000 racers that participated over the weekend.

You dont get that in ANY other sim.
 
T
v4v474 said:
You used the appropriate expression: "marketing itself".

There are plenty other examples which people select to gloss over, such as Jardier and Jimmy Broadbent duel for the fastest lap around Nords on the Mercedes W12...

Just watch how they drive an F1 as if it was a BTCC car, hitting huge curbs at virtually any speeds on their fastest laps without being flown out into the barriers.

Basically, all sims have flaws as there isn't enough CPU power to simulate everything at a pro simulation level on a home PC and...

iRacing gets away with bold claims of realism because its tyre model has an unrealistically difficult "snap point" when grip simply vanishes with little to no warning... when, in fact:

Difficult does not equate to Realistic

Many pro drivers with experience on the Porsche 911 Cup (model 991 and before) are on the record saying that iRacing's Cup car was absurdly difficult to drive and unrealistic.

Yet, iRacing users love it and considered the 992 version that came last year (early this?) as much worse, too easy, etc... when clearly in this case iRacing seemingly got much much closer to the real deal...

Go figure :-D
Click to expand...
I have talked several time to one of the guys who has helped iracing refine the Porsche Cup car. He is a former U.S. series champion with the car in real life. That doesn't mean it's perfect but his feedback has improved it and he was lobbying for more grip, which is what it has now. Personally, I think it feels like it now has too much grip and the last tire model for it was more fun but he thinks it is more realistic now. It definitely has more grip than the ACC Cup Car.

There is a pretty vocal set of people complaining about the speed of the GT3 cars being too fast, too grippy in iracing. I do think the balance has swung a bit that way with the current tire model on many cars.

As far as the Mercedes F1 W12, you need to listen to the podcast with the Mercedes team that helped design it. Nothing is perfect but that collaboration is easily the most extensive one I have ever heard about in devloping a publically available sim car. Nothing is going to equal their custom sim, obviously, but the Mercedes guys were quite happy with where the iracing version landed.
 
V
Premium
BP said:
While I agree with pretty much everything you said (I’d have to see the video about the curbs, as curbs don’t necessarily murder cars IRL depending on the speed, angle, setup and attitude of the car)…there is something that people don’t seem to consider when talking about “realism” in consumer sims: how realistic can the experience be, when most sim racers aren’t using hardware that’s closer in speed, strength, resistance and response time as real cars? You could have Mercedes F1 “accurate as it gets” multi-million dollar sim software running on their network of supercomputers…but if you connect it to a G27 or similar wheel clamped to a wobbly desk, how realistic is that experience? It goes both ways IMO. (Please don’t be offended if this describes your setup; I’ve been there for a long time)

I say this because lots of people make comments about iRacing’s snap oversteer, but over the years many of them came from people driving gear or belt driven wheels (people have been talking about this for years, long before direct drive was mainstream). As I’ve gone from G27 to Fanatec CSW to now VRS Direct Drive over a 6 year period, I’ve noticed that catching slides can be directly linked to the ability of the hardware (all other things being equal). When you incorporate tactile into the equation (transducers on rig and/or motors on the pedals) or motion, it gets even more intuitive. Slides are easier to catch IRL life because your entire body feels the signals, not just at the wheel. I’ve caught slides in iRacing that I know would’ve wrecked me in years past thanks to wheel and tactile pedal motor upgrades, as I drive predominantly by feel, as opposed to most aliens who seem to drive predominantly by sight and audio clues (guys who are top 1% but drive with G27 with FFB really low or off).

This is not necessarily in defense of iRacing (as it seems you equally can’t defend iRacing without being labelled some blind cult follower), but ask yourselves which is more “realistic”:

A) software with minimal artificial FFB aids (or none) connected to hardware not capable of reacting fast or detailed enough to slides.

Or

B) software with lots of artificial FFB aids designed for catching slides with slower, less detailed wheels, but driven using faster, more detailed wheels?

Obviously the answer is neither, you should want perfect hardware and perfect software, but the world isn’t perfect in consumer-land (unless you have couple million to spare lol). No sim is perfect, there’s always room to grow and improve.
Click to expand...
I also don't disagree with what you say, but the tyre model in iRacing is well known to be quite limited and the FFB info has a very low refresh rate, which makes, as you say, top echelon hardware to feel "organic/ connected" a must.

Here, it must be said that you are even going beyond the wheel base, with motion, transducers, etc... which is well beyond what the average consumer can have at home, due to cost, noise, space, etc.

But the bottomline is that with that state of the art hardware and a more complex tyre model and a better FFB, the immersion will be even higher.

I don't have a G27 and only tried iRacing with the CSL Elite that I had at that time and, as you said, I came away with the impression that people drive on iRacing almost exclusively with visual cues and repetition as feeling is extremely limited.

I did an honest attempt at liking iRacing and after some - guess what - repetition, I was lapping Lime Rock on the MX5 at a really decent pace while being perfectly in control of the car... but it felt "empty".

That is absolutely not for me as I could not give a damn about ratings and meaningless pickup races with people I never met and almost certainly never will meet.

I enjoy simracing first and foremost as an illusion of driving a race car and I clearly would not get them from iR.

I get that with my sim of choice - rFactor 2 - which has it's own flaws, but on that aspect - illusion - which in VR reaches levels of complete detachment from the real world, with the FFB info being conveyed absolutely matching the visual cues.

Note: check Jimmy and Jardier's videos around Nords with the W12, then compare to what happens with any current age F1 when they go over a sausage curb, which is still smaller than most curbs on Nords that they were riding.

iRacing is a brilliant software and an incredibly successful business/organisation due to its rock solid multiplayer platform around a pretty competent - albeit lacking - simracing platform.

But the reality is that the "realism" element is not the most important, provided that they don't let this type of things slip by, as the market is theirs to lose...
 
V
Premium
traind said:
I have talked several time to one of the guys who has helped iracing refine the Porsche Cup car. He is a former U.S. series champion with the car in real life. That doesn't mean it's perfect but his feedback has improved it and he was lobbying for more grip, which is what it has now. Personally, I think it feels like it now has too much grip and the last tire model for it was more fun but he thinks it is more realistic now. It definitely has more grip than the ACC Cup Car.

There is a pretty vocal set of people complaining about the speed of the GT3 cars being too fast, too grippy in iracing. I do think the balance has swung a bit that way with the current tire model on many cars.

As far as the Mercedes F1 W12, you need to listen to the podcast with the Mercedes team that helped design it. Nothing is perfect but that collaboration is easily the most extensive one I have ever heard about in devloping a publically available sim car. Nothing is going to equal their custom sim, obviously, but the Mercedes guys were quite happy with where the iracing version landed.
Click to expand...
On Mercedes you are believing the hype. It's marketing, pure and simple as there is nothing accurate about how the car rides curbs which are higher than sausage curbs on current F1 circuits.

Just check the videos that Jimmy and Jardier posted. They even laughed and it was one of them that said that they were driving it as if it was a BTCC car.

On the Porsche Cup, I can only relay what I heard directly from people that drove the 991 Cup.

The 992 has a much wider wheel base so the grip could come from there.
As for ACC's having less grip, well, the "grip model" on ACC does not feel organic to me, so I would not accept it as correct by default.

911 Cup cars are historically extremely fun cars to throw around in real life, which does not mean that you do not have to be tidy to be fast, but they have literally tons of mechanical grip and should not, under any circumstance, just "take off" like a wild bull.

In relation to the GT3, I have been told by some people at a very high eSports simracers that the grip comes from a lot more aero, as the tyre model, itself, has not evolved in a significant way.

PS: the guy that helped develop the Cup car on iRacing is the last guy who would bite the hand that feeds him by saying anything more than what he already did to you. Specially looking at how historically aggressive iRacing has defended itself from criticism.

I am 100% sure that his contract prevents him to say anything negative under penalty of him having to pay back what iRacing paid him x10000 :-D
 
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V
I would like the iRacing naysayers to explain to me where else I can mostly-clean public server racing with matchmaking in:

-short track oval racing
-sports car racing
-american open wheel racing
-european open wheel racing
-dirt track racing
-short course off-road truck racing
-rallycross

Because surely another sim must offer all these! Oh wait, no other sim does and online racing is a complete dumpster fire outside of cliquey leagues that only race once a week? Whoops!
 
BabyGotBackmarker
Vadara said:
I would like the iRacing naysayers to explain to me where else I can mostly-clean public server racing with matchmaking in:

-short track oval racing
-sports car racing
-american open wheel racing
-european open wheel racing
-dirt track racing
-short course off-road truck racing
-rallycross

Because surely another sim must offer all these! Oh wait, no other sim does and online racing is a complete dumpster fire outside of cliquey leagues that only race once a week? Whoops!
Click to expand...
So that means it should be immune from criticism when a pretty obvious boner comes to the fore? The attitude of "look at what we offer, how dare you criticize" is how you become EA Games.

If I had put 24 hours of my weekend into halfsies of a John Deere race, I'd be a little irate.
 
BP
nangu said:
It might be the case, I don't know for sure, but.. How about feeling and catching slides in other sim titles with the exact same lower budget gear, but don't in iRacing?

What explains that? To me, iRacing rears always was an on/off grip switch, nothing in between. Just like the F1 series from Codemasters, while I can drive perfectly fine by feel on the rest of the well established sims, with my low budget belt driven gear.

Now, iRacing die hards will come to me and say iRacing FFB is tailored to direct drive wheels, transducers, motion rigs, blah, blah, blah. Yep, sure :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
It’s because, like I implied before, most other sims add artificial FFB signals that you wouldn’t feel in the wheel of a real car (this is well documented for years now)…this is to give sim racers that “seat of your pants” feeling in the steering wheel. So if the rear is close to snapping, it exaggerates the FFB to help with countersteer…that’s why it works well with non-DD wheels, signals are sent stronger and earlier so that even a G29/27/25 can detect it.

As for iRacing being an on/off switch: that’s not my experience once you setup the FFB right (a lot of people struggle with this part) and have a capable wheel. These days I drive mostly the W12 I will say that not every car in iRacing has the same level of detail in FFB, but most of the newer cars, especially open wheelers (except the iR-01), feel excellent. That said, not every car in iRacing should have the same feel since some have power steering and some don’t (and AFAIK iRacing only gives FFB from the steering column and nothing else).

Also, you are doing exactly as I said: I’m not a cult follower of iRacing, as I own and play all the big sims released since AC1. I’m telling you not that it is “tailored” for high end gear, but why it works better with them.
 
C
Vadara said:
I would like the iRacing naysayers to explain to me where else I can mostly-clean public server racing with matchmaking in:

-short track oval racing
-sports car racing
-american open wheel racing
-european open wheel racing
-dirt track racing
-short course off-road truck racing
-rallycross

Because surely another sim must offer all these! Oh wait, no other sim does and online racing is a complete dumpster fire outside of cliquey leagues that only race once a week? Whoops!
Click to expand...
FH5? Physics looks about the same... :whistling:
 
wolftree
BP said:
It’s because, like I implied before, most other sims add artificial FFB signals that you wouldn’t feel in the wheel of a real car (this is well documented for years now)…this is to give sim racers that “seat of your pants” feeling in the steering wheel. So if the rear is close to snapping, it exaggerates the FFB to help with countersteer…that’s why it works well with non-DD wheels, signals are sent stronger and earlier so that even a G29/27/25 can detect it.
Click to expand...
No, they really don't. Almost every modern racing sim has moved to the "pure-steering FFB only"-model, including rF2, ACC, R3E and AMS2. The whole "your sim has canned FFB effects therefore it sucks" argument is just slander and does not correspond to reality in 2022.

And SoP effects have nothing to do with making slides catchable on a G29, that is entirely dependent on how strong is the self-aligning torque and some games indeed allow you to artificially strengthen the SAT by compressing the FFB range or changing the curve linearity. But you don't need to do those things to make slides catchable when the steering rack and pneumatic trail are correctly modelled, as they are in both rF2 and AMS2.
 
V
Premium
BP said:
It’s because, like I implied before, most other sims add artificial FFB signals that you wouldn’t feel in the wheel of a real car (this is well documented for years now)…this is to give sim racers that “seat of your pants” feeling in the steering wheel. So if the rear is close to snapping, it exaggerates the FFB to help with countersteer…that’s why it works well with non-DD wheels, signals are sent stronger and earlier so that even a G29/27/25 can detect it.

As for iRacing being an on/off switch: that’s not my experience once you setup the FFB right (a lot of people struggle with this part) and have a capable wheel. These days I drive mostly the W12 I will say that not every car in iRacing has the same level of detail in FFB, but most of the newer cars, especially open wheelers (except the iR-01), feel excellent. That said, not every car in iRacing should have the same feel since some have power steering and some don’t (and AFAIK iRacing only gives FFB from the steering column and nothing else).

Also, you are doing exactly as I said: I’m not a cult follower of iRacing, as I own and play all the big sims released since AC1. I’m telling you not that it is “tailored” for high end gear, but why it works better with them.
Click to expand...
rFactor 2's FFB is exclusively the output of the steering column.
There are zero canned effects and there aren't even any sliders to work with to introduce any canned effects.
The only thing you can do - outside of increasing or decreasing intensity - is to lower the resolution via smoothing, not to increase.
 
kart1
Vadara said:
I would like the iRacing naysayers to explain to me where else I can mostly-clean public server racing with matchmaking in:

-short track oval racing
-sports car racing
-american open wheel racing
-european open wheel racing
-dirt track racing
-short course off-road truck racing
-rallycross

Because surely another sim must offer all these! Oh wait, no other sim does and online racing is a complete dumpster fire outside of cliquey leagues that only race once a week? Whoops!
Click to expand...
the typical response of the iracing player who doesn't like criticism even when it's a nasty bug...:thumbsup:
-we are the most numerous so iracing is the best....:rolleyes:
 
BP
v4v474 said:
I also don't disagree with what you say, but the tyre model in iRacing is well known to be quite limited and the FFB info has a very low refresh rate, which makes, as you say, top echelon hardware to feel "organic/ connected" a must.

Here, it must be said that you are even going beyond the wheel base, with motion, transducers, etc... which is well beyond what the average consumer can have at home, due to cost, noise, space, etc.

But the bottomline is that with that state of the art hardware and a more complex tyre model and a better FFB, the immersion will be even higher.

I don't have a G27 and only tried iRacing with the CSL Elite that I had at that time and, as you said, I came away with the impression that people drive on iRacing almost exclusively with visual cues and repetition as feeling is extremely limited.

I did an honest attempt at liking iRacing and after some - guess what - repetition, I was lapping Lime Rock on the MX5 at a really decent pace while being perfectly in control of the car... but it felt "empty".

That is absolutely not for me as I could not give a damn about ratings and meaningless pickup races with people I never met and almost certainly never will meet.

I enjoy simracing first and foremost as an illusion of driving a race car and I clearly would not get them from iR.

I get that with my sim of choice - rFactor 2 - which has it's own flaws, but on that aspect - illusion - which in VR reaches levels of complete detachment from the real world, with the FFB info being conveyed absolutely matching the visual cues.

Note: check Jimmy and Jardier's videos around Nords with the W12, then compare to what happens with any current age F1 when they go over a sausage curb, which is still smaller than most curbs on Nords that they were riding.

iRacing is a brilliant software and an incredibly successful business/organisation due to its rock solid multiplayer platform around a pretty competent - albeit lacking - simracing platform.

But the reality is that the "realism" element is not the most important, provided that they don't let this type of things slip by, as the market is theirs to lose...
Click to expand...

Here’s the thing: I won’t disagree with saying iRacing is not a perfect sim, it definitely has its flaws like all other consumer sims, and as I said many times I drive all the sims and enjoy them all in different ways…but to judge the W12 and all of iRacing based on how one single car handles curbs that are higher than any one curb its IRL counterpart had to deal with, and ignore how the car feels everywhere else seems like cherry picking the worst case scenario to fit a conclusion. The same Jimmy has also said that the W12 set a new standard for modern formula 1 cars in sims, so which opinion is the real one lol? Maybe it's halfway between: that the car feels great but there are a few small quirks to it like the curbs (which is an assessment I can agree with).

wolftree said:
No, they really don't. Almost every modern racing sim has moved to the "pure-steering FFB only"-model, including rF2, ACC, R3E and AMS2. The whole "your sim has canned FFB effects therefore it sucks" argument is just slander and does not correspond to reality in 2022.

And SoP effects have nothing to do with making slides catchable on a G29, that is entirely dependent on how strong is the self-aligning torque and some games indeed allow you to artificially strengthen the SAT by compressing the FFB range or changing the curve linearity. But you don't need to do those things to make slides catchable when the steering rack and pneumatic trail are correctly modelled, as they are in both rF2 and AMS2.
Click to expand...

Oh boy...y'all should read my comments a bit more clearly before accusing me of slander: I said "most other sims add artificial FFB signals "...which was in response to what @nangu said: "How about feeling and catching slides in other sim titles"...he wasn't specific about a title and I never said all sim racing titles. @wolftree You yourself said "Almost every modern racing sim has moved to" ...so that implies that 1) there are some that still do it (that's a fact) and that 2) at some point, some...SOME of the sims you named did indeed use additional effects (also a fact). If my impressions of those sims are not up to their current July 2022 standard then fine, I am misinformed, but to call it slander implies malicious intent, of which I have none. Also misinformed btw are many of the "iceRacing" type comments that still linger about iRacing even though it has substantially improved for quite awhile now.

Come on guys, I'm not doing this sim war argument with you...I have no dog in that fight as I appreciate all the many choices we have. They all bring something great to the market and I applaud them all...and they all fall short of the glory too (as I've said many times) including iRacing...but most of what I saw in the comments were bitter insults thrown at the title, not constructive criticism (which some of you seem to think are the same thing)...it comes off as 'see, told ya that expensive sim was trash and everyone who buys into it are idiots"...actually some of you say pretty much that regularly on any iRacing thread. I was just trying to offer some perspective.
 
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David Faraday
BP said:
While I agree with pretty much everything you said (I’d have to see the video about the curbs, as curbs don’t necessarily murder cars IRL depending on the speed, angle, setup and attitude of the car)…there is something that people don’t seem to consider when talking about “realism” in consumer sims: how realistic can the experience be, when most sim racers aren’t using hardware that’s closer in speed, strength, resistance and response time as real cars? You could have Mercedes F1 “accurate as it gets” multi-million dollar sim software running on their network of supercomputers…but if you connect it to a G27 or similar wheel clamped to a wobbly desk, how realistic is that experience? It goes both ways IMO. (Please don’t be offended if this describes your setup; I’ve been there for a long time)

I say this because lots of people make comments about iRacing’s snap oversteer, but over the years many of them came from people driving gear or belt driven wheels (people have been talking about this for years, long before direct drive was mainstream). As I’ve gone from G27 to Fanatec CSW to now VRS Direct Drive over a 6 year period, I’ve noticed that catching slides can be directly linked to the ability of the hardware (all other things being equal). When you incorporate tactile into the equation (transducers on rig and/or motors on the pedals) or motion, it gets even more intuitive. Slides are easier to catch IRL life because your entire body feels the signals, not just at the wheel. I’ve caught slides in iRacing that I know would’ve wrecked me in years past thanks to wheel and tactile pedal motor upgrades, as I drive predominantly by feel, as opposed to most aliens who seem to drive predominantly by sight and audio clues (guys who are top 1% but drive with G27 with FFB really low or off).

This is not necessarily in defense of iRacing (as it seems you equally can’t defend iRacing without being labelled some blind cult follower), but ask yourselves which is more “realistic”:

A) software with minimal artificial FFB aids (or none) connected to hardware not capable of reacting fast or detailed enough to slides.

Or

B) software with lots of artificial FFB aids designed for catching slides with slower, less detailed wheels, but driven using faster, more detailed wheels?

Obviously the answer is neither, you should want perfect hardware and perfect software, but the world isn’t perfect in consumer-land (unless you have couple million to spare lol). No sim is perfect, there’s always room to grow and improve.
Click to expand...
What hardware people use is absolutely irrelevant. If the car physics is modelled such that cars can do (or can't do) things that are possible in real life then there's a problem. 100% accuracy is never going to be a thing, but ridiculous exploits only show that either a) the physics are fundamentally flawed or b) they don't care enough to fix the loopholes.
 
David Faraday
Vadara said:
I would like the iRacing naysayers to explain to me where else I can mostly-clean public server racing with matchmaking in:

-short track oval racing
-sports car racing
-american open wheel racing
-european open wheel racing
-dirt track racing
-short course off-road truck racing
-rallycross

Because surely another sim must offer all these! Oh wait, no other sim does and online racing is a complete dumpster fire outside of cliquey leagues that only race once a week? Whoops!
Click to expand...
Iracing is an incredibly successful multiplayer game. Thats about all.
 
A
v4v474 said:
rFactor 2's FFB is exclusively the output of the steering column.
There are zero canned effects and there aren't even any sliders to work with to introduce any canned effects.
The only thing you can do - outside of increasing or decreasing intensity - is to lower the resolution via smoothing, not to increase.
Click to expand...
There are no sliders, but there are settings in .json file
 
A
v4v474 said:
On the Porsche Cup, I can only relay what I heard directly from people that drove the 991 Cup.
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A quote from Eliot Skeer : “In terms of the car itself, it is the best of any simulator on the market. Chassis flex, attacking kerbs, downforce/drag, bias adjustments, suspension feel, changes to setup, all feel the closest to the real car. How the differential reacts to instant throttle changes is correct, the car’s race-ability and feeling when inside the real car is there.”

He admitted there are tire issues though.
 
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v4v474 said:
On Mercedes you are believing the hype. It's marketing, pure and simple as there is nothing accurate about how the car rides curbs which are higher than sausage curbs on current F1 circuits.
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I think it’s somewhere in between. They indeed worked very close with the Mercedes team (e.g. to the point iRacing changed some aspect of its physics engine as it turned out they got it wrong whole time)
 
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avenger82 said:
There are no sliders, but there are settings in .json file
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more and more some of the rf2 user base is/are(?) discussing whether those json edits actually do much anymore in the FFB area. I'd be relatively certain that most rF2 users have never looked at any of the json files.(although it can be fascinating all the little things rF2 has to keep track of.)
 
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What's needed for simracing in 2024?

  • More games, period

  • Better graphics/visuals

  • Advanced physics and handling

  • More cars and tracks

  • AI improvements

  • AI engineering

  • Cross-platform play

  • New game Modes

  • Other, post your idea

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