Race Simulation - iRacing

[Ron Earp]

Anyone tried out the iRacing simulation?<o></o>
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www.iracing.com<o></o>
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I have a setup at the house and thus far I’m loving it. The physics are good and the gaming system behind it seems quite sophisticated. Lots of pro race teams are incorporating it into their routine training sessions. With a good force feedback wheel, three pedal system and shifter it is the closest thing to driving a real car that I’ve ever tried. <o></o>
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They have contracts to model over 60 tracks and have about 20 available right now, including VIR, my local favorite. Mapping a track is expensive for them and it is done with GPS survey equipment and a rolling rig with many digital cameras mounted on it. Detail is incredible and for those that have driven a particular track you’ll find ruts, holes, missing grass and so on right where you’d expect it to be.<o></o>
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Here are some Youtube vids of the driving. In car at VIR from the driver’s perspective in a Skip Barber car:<o></o>
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YouTube - iRacing - Skip Barber 2000 - VIR Full hotlap - 2:12.950<o></o>
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And one comparing driving a Skip car on iRacing and the real thing (perspective is a camera perpective in iRacing, you drive from the cockpit, not outside the car):<o></o>
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YouTube - iRacing vs. Real - VIR - Skip Barber<o></o>
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Bear in mind the Youtube videos look poor compared to the real thing on the computer screen.

Being a simulator the main thing is driving, not the number of cars you can drive. Therefore there are fewer cars and they are modeling very accurately. About the closest car I can find to what I drive is the Pontiac Solstice spec car. Other cars you can race are here:

http://www.iracing.com/carsTracks/cars.php?lc=1

Looks like the SCCA Spec Racer Ford is coming and I bet the Spec Miata won't be far behind.

Tracks are here:

http://www.iracing.com/carsTracks/tracks.php?lc=2

Neat stuff.<o></o>
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[Randy V]

Great simulator and have driven it a lot... Good friends of mine create the full blown simulator that uses iRacing and rFactor software.. Check out Wagner Race Products here;
Wagner Race Products

GOOD STUFF!!!!!

Certainly better than just visualization exercises...

 

[Ron Earp]

That is the way to do it!

That is cool stuff Randy and similar to what I want to build. Right now my computer and 30" LCD are on a desk. I'm using this pedal setup which is reported to be the best thing going:

http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/gaming/playstation_3/devices/131&cl=US,EN

I have Jeff's old TR8 seat I'm going to use in a sim station like that the one your buddies make. Mine will be wood though and certainly clunky, but, on the other hand I'll only have about $1500 in it with a fantastic computer I put together.

I don't think it drives like real car but it is a good tool. Apparently a lot of professional racers think the same - Dale Jr. was online on iRacing in the oval race the other night (I wasn't racing, just read about it on the community forums). iRacing requires the use of your real name so you can spot some folks you'll recognize on there. I've checked out some stats for a few World Challenge guys as well as a few ex-SCCA pro drivers.

 

[Randy V]

I'd be in line to buy one from Wagners but my budget just isn't tolerant right now... The G25 is what Wagners use on their sim setup... The monitor is pretty expensive but the clarity is really key in bringing the reality of the sim to life..

I've put the entire Sim on my Christmas wish list but more realistically the G25 wheel and an old 19" TV is more like it... ((sigh))...


Oh and yes - Dale Jr does frequent it... I believe Tony Stewart and Paul Menard do as well..

 

[David Sturch]

Ron,
You could use an Nvidia SLI Board with a Intel Quad Core processor. Run a couple of the lower priced SLI video cards. Use the DVI or HDMI connection on a 24" flat panel. That would give you half decent frame rates at high resolution. It would motor along if the software is 64 bit compatible and you can set it up that way. Just make sure you have 64 bit drivers for your wheel and pedals.
Dave

 

[Pat Buckley]

Our own Bob Childress is manufacturing a pretty high end racing simulator.....maybe he can chime in?

 

[Malcolm]

I just bought a Miata to build back into a car. It has never seen the road but has 170,000km on it. It had the steering, pedals and gear shift connected to a computer in the engine bay and and whopping screen up front. It spent its life in a gaming arcade! Never saw it in action but it sounds like what Ron wants to get set up!

 

[Paolo-LoveGT40 Modelworks]

wow...never thought so many of u (including Big Ron) love to game my videogames.
IMHO iracing is very nice, also if a little too expensive.

I still enjoy Rfactor, but hope to meet some of u somewhere in servers (usually I live at Nordschleife..for obvious reasons, or in italian tracks as Mugello).
Trashed many nights with german players..they are soo strong in such games!

Btw, my name online is...Bruce Mclaren

 

[Ron Earp]

Ron,
You could use an Nvidia SLI Board with a Intel Quad Core processor. Run a couple of the lower priced SLI video cards. Use the DVI or HDMI connection on a 24" flat panel.

That is about what I have. I've got a 64 bit version of Windows Vista, NVidia GeForce 8600 card, Intel Quad at 3GHz, HDMI out to a 30" LCD I bought refurbished a couple of years ago from a LCD outlet. Works good thus far with frame rates over 130 fps 1024x768 with high detail. I might select a better resolution but this is all I have tried thus far.

Got about $700 in the computer, $250 in the hardware, monitor was $400, and I bet I can scrabble together the rest of the goodies to build the frame etc. for $100 or so.

Ok Malcolm, the cat is out of the bag. Yes, the seats for the 13hr race at VIR you signed up for are at my house on iRacing. We figured this would be a better deal all around.

 

[David Sturch]

Ron,
That should work sounds like an older quad. Use a good power supply Class 3 475Watts(HEC) at least and an Intel aproved chassis TAC 1.1v with good fans. You can run 4 gig of ram too memory is cheap right now.
Dave

 

[Ron Earp]

Ron,
That should work sounds like an older quad. Use a good power supply Class 3 475Watts(HEC) at least and an Intel aproved chassis TAC 1.1v with good fans. You can run 4 gig of ram too memory is cheap right now.
Dave

It is, it was also cheap! I've got 4gig of memory in the rig as well. Most of the expense of the components I used were the hard drives. Since this setup doubles as our house storage system it has a RAID 1 deal with two terabyte drives, so that ate up $370 right there.

 

[David Sturch]

Ron,
I take it you used the Seagate enterprise drives with 32 meg cache. Running a Mirror is a bit slower but safer. My machine is using an older I 975 board and has raid 0,1and 5 on board. I am using an older Chembro Workstation chassis with 4 bay SATA hot swap drive bay with three 250 's under raid 5. Older dual core 3.0 2M cache, Quattro FX1500 2 gig DDR 667 CL4 (Syncmax Elpida). The first thing I did was pull all the cheap fans and I use Etri or Emb Papst. Nexus for the lower end stuff. My machine runs quiet and moves alot of air 24 hrs a day.
Dave

 

[Ian K]

Too bad its Windows based, otherwise I might be able to get someone to pony
up the money to join, and run it on this:

Research Projects: HIPerSpace - GRAVITY

or this:

Virtual Reality: UCSD's StarCAVE Is a Real 3D Super-High-Def Danger Room

The latter is a pretty cool fully immersive 3-D system

Ian

 

[Ron Earp]

Too bad its Windows based, otherwise I might be able to get someone to pony
up the money to join, and run it on this:

Research Projects: HIPerSpace - GRAVITY

But that is a Windows system. It runs on 18 Dell machines with nVidia graphics cards.

R

 

[John Milmont]

I don't like the subscription business model iRacing has. I would never play it enough to justify paying the price. I like rFactor since you only have to pay once and there's so much content for it. I actually have been working on a Porsche 917 for the game.
I wish there were more online races. It seems there's only one or two types a cars raced online. If anyone wants to get an online game going, shoot me a PM.

 

[Ron Earp]

Hey John,

I see that comment on the board a lot regarding the subscription service as well as price per track and so on. I don't mind it, but I don't think anything of dropping $20 on a track. A lot of the teens and 20 somethings do mind the $20.

One good thing about the model is that it tends to draw a more serious type of person to the game. You're forced to use your real name via the payment process and the points/license system seems to keep "gamers" out of the system. I remember a few of the older online flying and racing games in where you'd get some joker on the system who simply enjoying wrecking cars/planes and it spoiled the fun for the others.

The types of cars available also tend to limit the interest in iRacing. Both good and bad. Since it doesn't have lots of exotic cars there is a limited appeal to the GT3/GT4 crowd and so on, but, there again it is somewhat negative because there aren't a lot of cars in the game for the sim enthusiasts to drive.

That said I tend to agree with you. I'm not sure I'll get $170 worth of enjoyment out of it in a year. But, we'll see. I know I've gotten at least $20 worth of enjoyment over the last five days so if this keeps up I'll make it!! I'll have to check out the r Factor game too.

Ron

 

[Ian K]

But that is a Windows system. It runs on 18 Dell machines with nVidia graphics cards.

R

Nope - Linux.

Ian

 

[Ron Earp]

I'd completely forgotten about Linux despite having an old machine here that runs it!! Not too much in the way of games for Linux and Mac platforms, at least not the sort commonly played by most folk.

R

 

[John Milmont]

Ron, definitely check out rFactor if you get the chance. I think it might be a superior simulation from what i have read. I do like the idea of the pay model filtering out the non-serious people, as i do find 'wreckers' in some of the rFactor games. There's only a few things I don't like about the game, and that's probably the biggest one.
I think the 'openness' of rfactor is one of the greatest things, for instance; I have been developing this 917 for a while and have used the aid of the motec interpreter (downloadable from motec) to help with the design of the car. It logs everything just like it would on a real car. I even based the suspension design off of what I know from the real machine and what suspension theories were popular at the time.

 

[Paolo-LoveGT40 Modelworks]

guys...THIS is serious hardware for our gaming:

BlueTiger

too cool, also for plane simulations