iRacing - my opinion based on a short sampling

A neighbor used the PR-RADICAL-ONE-MONTH try out iRacing recently and I got the
oppurtunity to do a few test sessions at various tracks.

The Radical drove OK, but some of the cars, have deliberately diffcult setups
that can't be fixed. The SRF (scca Spec Racer Ford), was particularly difficult
to drive but after about 2 or 3 laps I figured out waht the issue was. The coast
side of the differential is too loose, while the power side is too tight. In
Grand Prix Legend terms, the differential felt like an 85/85/4.

We couldn't find any garage option to adjust the differential so the issue
can't be resolved. Trying to mask the lift throttle oversteer via the other
suspension settings will adversely affect the power side of things.

As such the SRF is a pain to drive. You have to take corners at about 1/2
throttle or in a higher gear in order to keep it stable. If you right foot
brake, it makes the situation even worse. Compounding this is that the
incidents bound to happen with the SRF affects a players ability to advance
in the game.

Looking at the forums I saw similar complaints about the Soltice, but it's
difficulty paled in comparason to the SRF. Still it seems way to difficult
for novice players. Without the ability to set the differentials, it's
not easy to make reasonably fast but easy to drive setups.

iRacing has a way to go before I get interested.

< Solstice - rookie

I didin't check out the normal Soltice, just the Solstice rookie. Will
try it next time I visit my friend. The Solstice was just too slow (power
and grip) for it to be any fun for me. I'm not sure why new players
are punished with this car.

< Legends

The car seems overly throttle sensitive, but I didn't mess with suspension
setups. It seems beyond a differential issue, as I doubt a solid rear axle
would be as power senstive as the Legend, so this may be a suspension issue,
and this car could be tamed (unlike the SRF).

< more on the SRF - engine sound

The engine sound seems to be all or nothing. There's no smooth transition
in the audio between engine braking and engine power. It transitions from
what sounds like full lift to full throttle at partial throttle settings.



< Radical

Note the Radical displayed no ill effects that I could tell, but apparently it
takes a long time for a iRacing victim to advance to the point that he/she can
race in the Radical class. The Radical was the easiest of the cars to drive
that I tested.

(jeffareid) wrote:

> As such the SRF is a pain to drive.

Until I discovered Ian Lake's 3rd setup (somewhere in the SRF thread in the Rookie
Cars section, IIRC) I thought the SRF was a horrible combination of great potential
and horrible handling. His setup changed that experience hugely, and I'm not the
only one who thinks that.

The SRF is, in retrospect, a strange choice for the Rookie class. It's a big step
up in twitchiness from the Solstice, and makes the Skip Barber feel like a pretty
tame ride (to me anyway). Still, with a decent setup it's a lot more fun than the
Advanced Solstice ever was.

Since getting my G25 I've started to appreciate the Solstice more though. At Lime
Rock it's quite entertaining now. At Laguna it's still a tedious, frustrating slug
of a car though. :-)

Andrew McP... suffering from iFatigue after some lousy experiences in the Late
Models yesterday.

"jeffareid" > wrote in message
...
>< Solstice - rookie
>
> I didin't check out the normal Soltice, just the Solstice rookie. Will
> try it next time I visit my friend. The Solstice was just too slow (power
> and grip) for it to be any fun for me. I'm not sure why new players
> are punished with this car.
>
> < Legends
>
> The car seems overly throttle sensitive, but I didn't mess with suspension
> setups. It seems beyond a differential issue, as I doubt a solid rear axle
> would be as power senstive as the Legend, so this may be a suspension
> issue,
> and this car could be tamed (unlike the SRF).
>
> < more on the SRF - engine sound
>
> The engine sound seems to be all or nothing. There's no smooth transition
> in the audio between engine braking and engine power. It transitions from
> what sounds like full lift to full throttle at partial throttle settings.
>
>
>
> < Radical
>
> Note the Radical displayed no ill effects that I could tell, but
> apparently it
> takes a long time for a iRacing victim to advance to the point that he/she
> can
> race in the Radical class. The Radical was the easiest of the cars to
> drive
> that I tested.
>

They should have done a less powerful radical that you could race sooner.
The R8 is the only car I'm interested in, but I'm not paying all that money
to get there. I'll just wait until the rFactor mod comes out instead, or
iRacing drop their prices to a more sensible level, or allow league races.

>> As such the SRF is a pain to drive.
>
> Until I discovered Ian Lake's 3rd setup (somewhere in the SRF thread in the Rookie
> Cars section, IIRC) I thought the SRF was a horrible combination of great potential
> and horrible handling. His setup changed that experience hugely, and I'm not the
> only one who thinks that.
>
> The SRF is, in retrospect, a strange choice for the Rookie class. It's a big step
> up in twitchiness from the Solstice, and makes the Skip Barber feel like a pretty
> tame ride (to me anyway). Still, with a decent setup it's a lot more fun than the
> Advanced Solstice ever was.

That's the problem. Real track cars aren't setup to be twitchy, especially the
rental track cars, which would be an analogy to a rookie car in iRacing.

iRacing claims to be realistic, but the differentials, which can't be tuned by
players, are setup unrealistically difficult in some of the rookie cars, but mostly
an issue for the SRF. An ex-co-worker spends a lot of time at the local tracks, and
he and his friends get a chance to try out various cars (mostly Button Willow where
there's nothing to cause damage if you go off track). He's also tried iRacing and
had the same opinion about the SRF; that no real track car would ever be setup
that badly.

jeffareid wrote:

> That's the problem. Real track cars aren't setup to be twitchy, especially the
> rental track cars, which would be an analogy to a rookie car in iRacing.

Sim racers tend to be very competitive though and the other complaints
were the setups aren't competitive enough requiring tinkering in the
garage to be as quick as the fastest drivers have already discovered.

The "problem" is many people don't like to think of themselves as
requiring a school car whereas in RL there often isn't the choice.

Personally I found after driving a bit with a more understeery setup the
SRF felt very manageable and nicely lively using the provided setups.

iRacing do note the members comments though and hopefully the feedback
received will be taken on board and setups to ease drivers into the car
will be provided.

Cheers
Tony

>> That's the problem. Real track cars aren't setup to be twitchy, especially the
>> rental track cars, which would be an analogy to a rookie car in iRacing.

> The "problem" is many people don't like to think of themselves as requiring
> a school car whereas in RL there often isn't the choice.

The point of some school cars is to be difficult, or at least to force certain
driving styles, that is why drivers start off with an instructors driving these
cars, because the cars have deliberately bad setups. Some of these school
cars are inherently unstable, or are driven in adverse conditions such as
wet skid pads. No one would put a novice driver at the wheel of such a school
car.

On the other hand, many car clubs offer rental track cars to use on track
days or track weekends. These are intended to be used by novice drivers and
have very stable setups.

This is my point. A novice car's default setup should be one that is easy
to drive. For example in Grand Prix Legends, the default 85/30/4
differential setting is very stable compared to an expert or left foot
brake setup such as xx/60/xx.

Novice setups should be inherently easy to drive. In the case of Iracing
the "basic" setups should be inherently stable, and the advance setups
faster, but not to the extreme that consistency is compromised.

However iRacing's default setup for the SRF is very unstable under lift
throttle. The lift throttle oversteer response in the SRF, combined
with the apparent tightness (no oversteer) under power seems exaggerated
beyond the point of being realistic.

On a side note, the cars seem incapable of spinning the tires while
going straight, as if there was some internal traction control enabled,
yet cars like the SRF are easily spun with lift throttle.

> Personally I found after driving a bit with a more understeery setup
> the SRF felt very manageable and nicely lively using the provided setups.

The issue is the exageratted open differential response. Suspension setups
just end up trying to mask this.

Why iRacing choose to include open differential cars in any class, much
less a novice class, in a racing game doesn't make sense to me.

Anyone who thinks the SRF was a good choice should go to the Live For
Speed web site and join the

"We're glad LFS is harder and more realistic now club"

Currently it seems that iRacing punishes it's new members with slow and
or ill-handling cars, apparently part of some poor marketing scheme
designed to keep the players playing for several months to be able to
drive reasonably fast and stable cars. I'm surprised that the early
drop out rate or at least lack of participation in race events
isn't worse.

jeffareid wrote:

> Currently it seems that iRacing punishes it's new members with slow and
> or ill-handling cars, apparently part of some poor marketing scheme
> designed to keep the players playing for several months to be able to
> drive reasonably fast and stable cars. I'm surprised that the early
> drop out rate or at least lack of participation in race events
> isn't worse.

I am not sure about the diff settings, there are real SRF drivers
reporting the iRacing version feels about right. I guess it all depends
who you speak with and how dialled in they are to the sim, which can
make determining realism tricky.

The SRF racing, at least in the higher race splits, has been great this
season. I planned to run the Skippy season and use the SRF races as pick
up races as and when. Yet I have found the SRF series to be just as
compelling. In that respect the SRF seems an inspired choice - a tricky
enough car for rookies to develop their teeth on and a cracking series
for drivers who are either at the next level or simply looking for short
competitive races.

I have never been very good at running multiple sims as I find the
underlying engine provides so much of the feel regardless of the vehicle
or setups being simulated. As sims develop the sensation of "really
driving" is typically limited to one sim and as a new one emerges as the
best the old ones feel somehow wrong.

GPL for many years provided this feel be it a 67 3 litre Ferrari or a 65
1.5 litre Cooper and I think iRacing has reached a similar position of
convincing my mind so adapting to the different traits of the cars seems
quite easy. Whereas jumping into rFactor or LFS is like learning sim
racing all over again. For me iRacing has become the definitive sim and
beyond that the whole service seems to work.

That is just me and a little over twelve months ago, although not quite
matching GPL's dominance of everything in the early 2000s, a PnG/GTR2
Abarth was my choice of sim racing weaponry.

Cheers
Tony

> I am not sure about the diff settings, there are real SRF drivers reporting the iRacing version feels about right. I
> guess it all depends who you speak with and how dialled in they are to the sim, which can make determining realism
> tricky.

It's difficult to tell because few pedals sets produce the same
"feel" as real pedal sets, and this is part of the issue.

In the case of the SRF, the audio feedback from the engine is all or
nothing. There doesn't seem to be any partial throttle audio. At
partial throttle settings, the sound transitions from whas sounds
like full throttle off to full throttle on, with just a slight
movement of throttle, which is a bit disconcernting while trying
to drive the car.

I've also read a few comments about the effect of open differentials
being exagerrated in the SRF and also some other games.

On the other hand, the Radical SR8 seems very happy to use lift
throttle oversteer, countered with driver induced understeer, to
control the speed scrub rate and turn in during corner entry, much
like GPL. I made a video of the SR8 happily drifting through the
turns at Silverstone.

http://jeffareid.net/ir/irssrad.wmv

> I have never been very good at running multiple sims

Depends on the person. Obvious Greger Huttu has had no issue in the
trarnsition from GPL to ISI based games, and then from ISI based
games to iRacing. The skill sets are close enough that it's not
an issue.

I'm not a "alien" like Greger Huttu. My best lap times will be 5% to
7% slower than world records, depending on the game or particular
car and track combination within the game.

jeffareid wrote:

>> I have never been very good at running multiple sims
>
> Depends on the person. Obvious Greger Huttu has had no issue in the
> trarnsition from GPL to ISI based games, and then from ISI based
> games to iRacing. The skill sets are close enough that it's not
> an issue.

Yes, some people run in leagues and are very competitive in multiple
sims - just not me