Help a beginner get into sim racing

Sandman

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I have all the parts for my first gaming pc arriving tomorrow. After years of console gaming I have swapped to pc and one of the main reasons for doing this is I want to give sim racing a go.
I had no idea sim racing would be so complicated and have no idea where to start. What I am looking for is online racing in a realistic simulator. I’m not interested in any single player modes.
Is iracing the best option out there? It certainly seems the most popular on YouTube. My concern with iracing is I have no idea how much it will cost to play. I know it will cost $55 for a years subscription but does that include enough cars and tracks to move up to higher classes of car?
What other options should I consider?
For info I will be playing on a G29 wheel setup and will probably buy a playseat at some point.
 
ACC (Assetto Corsa Competizione) is one of the best (and my favourite).
Its a one off payment, but is limited to GT3 cars at the moment.
You could also get the original AC (Assetto Corsa) really cheap now which comes with lots of free downloadable content (tracks and cars etc).

iRacing costs a few hundred for the first year or so if you buy the cars and tracks you need.
This YouTube video gives you a good idea...
 
Thanks, I think iracing is just a bit too expensive to jump straight into it. I think I will try AC first to see how I get on and if I get into it will go for ACC or iracing if I’m still enjoying it in a few months time.
 
Not sure how experienced you are at sim racing but please don’t try to win the race on the first corner as that is a sure way of getting people’s backs up and you won’t enjoy it and will soon lose interest.
Take your time, practice practice and practice some more.
if you start P14 be realistic and aim to finish higher than you started at maybe P10.
Sit behind people lap after lap to watch how they race. Even let them overtake you so you can try and get back past them safely.
Don’t dive bomb on corners.

Out of interest, here is my rig...

833B8932-83C5-49E8-BECF-75F2119D189E.jpeg
 
Not sure how experienced you are at sim racing but please don’t try to win the race on the first corner as that is a sure way of getting people’s backs up and you won’t enjoy it and will soon lose interest.
Take your time, practice practice and practice some more.
if you start P14 be realistic and aim to finish higher than you started at maybe P10.
Sit behind people lap after lap to watch how they race. Even let them overtake you so you can try and get back past them safely.
Don’t dive bomb on corners.

Out of interest, here is my rig...

View attachment 1320427

Is it wrong that I get a little bit of a semi on every time you post this picture??
 
Same happens to me.

what monitor are you rocking there? I am on a 3440x1440 which is great but that looks like a whole different level
 
Its a Samsung 43" Ultrawide 3840 x 1200
I actually only use it for CoD MW or Wreckfest (the only 2 games I play that are not sims).
For sim racing use VR only.
But having said that, I have just got F1 2019 (but not ran it yet) which isn't in VR, so will be using it sometime soon.
 
oh very nice... I was considering upgrading to that but wasn't sure if I would gain anything. I am very happy with 1440 and I reckon what I'll gain with a wider vision I'll lose out on with the clarity when I am working (which is a lot from home these days) ...

Good news is I can still race in VR although I still haven't really adjusted to it.

how is ACC in VR? I have heard mixed reports.
 
On a 1080, I've failed to make ACC run in VR to a playable level. It's either 40fps unplayable or 90fps but looks like the 90's!
 
Well I decided to give iracing a go to after finding a 70% off code for new subscribers. I went for a 3 month membership and it only cost about $5 (I am in the UK but the pricing is in dollars). I won’t be buying any additional cars or tracks with this account then if I am still enjoying it at the end the trial I will use a new email address and use the 70% off code again but on a 12 or 24 month membership.
So far I have to say it is great. I started just by practicing on my own in the mx5 so I could learn the track and the handling of the car. I then started joining public practice sessions to get used to other cars being around then last night I finally last night joined my first race.
The race didn’t go to well, lining up on the grid Ready for the formation lap the lights changed and my engineer shouted ”green green” so I drove off. I was then given a lengthy stop and go penalty because the lead driver has to move off first. By the time I served my penalty I was 2 laps behind. Oh well I caught some cars and got by them and didnt crash into anyone or spin off the track and had a lot of fun. I came last but at least I know what to do next time.
 
I’m now five or six races in dap day this happened.
7CF54901-8EE9-435A-91FF-7F6C75C5E61E.jpeg

Now I know what I’m doing I think you could get to Class D in about 4 races. Just stay out of trouble and keep it clean is all that’s needed at this stage. i have spent all my time in the MX5 and am going to stick with it. It’s great for learning the tracks and car control.
if anyone’s thinking about getting into iracing I say go for it! It really is great fun.
 
I love iracing but not raced on it for a month or two as I'm trying to get some fanatec gear but it's pretty hard to get hold of at the moment from the fanatec website and missed out on a few auctions on ebay.

I was hoping to have this sorted before the release of F1 2020 but that's not going to happen now!

Ah well I'll keep looking.
 
Display wise, check out a VR headset before you invest in a monitor.

I found VR sim racing was much much much better than PC sim racing.

My general experience is:

Valve Index > Samsung CRG9 > LG OLED with custom ultrawide resolution > AW3418DW

for sime racing.
 
I love iracing but not raced on it for a month or two as I'm trying to get some fanatec gear but it's pretty hard to get hold of at the moment from the fanatec website and missed out on a few auctions on ebay.

I was hoping to have this sorted before the release of F1 2020 but that's not going to happen now!

Ah well I'll keep looking.
I have fanatec kit and love it. Expensive though. If you can wait till black Friday they always have about 5 deals on.
 
i was having an absolute blast with ACC earlier. The new GT4 cars are great. Still not braved up to race in VR but will be soon. I did try out AMS2 in VR and that was pretty good.
 
I have fanatec kit and love it. Expensive though. If you can wait till black Friday they always have about 5 deals on.

I managed to get some V3 pedals, 2.5 wheelbase and a formula rim for £850 (my mate done me a good deal on the base and rim) so i've been back on iracing for the last week and really enjoying it again!
 
I am still plugging away in class D For the time being. I have met all requirements to gain a class C licence but I need to wait till the end of the current 12 week season before I gain my licence. I believe if my safety rating reaches 4.0 I will be bale to take part in class C races with my current licence though. my safety rating is 3.97 so one more race should do it.
I still haven’t bought any additional content as I didn’t want to invest in class D cars/tracks as I knew I wouldn’t be hanging around in there for long. You get a class d car and 2 tracks that are used in the series as standard and that is all you need to progress your licence.
I will start to invest money once I decide on what class c series I am going to join. I’m currently thinking about the Porsche series and am hoping there will be less people rear ending me on the entry to tight corners than there is in rookies/class d.
 
I’m now at the stage where I really need to invest money into iracing to progress into faster cars. The best road racing series in class c looks to be the sports car championship and to compete in a season of that I would need to purchase 11 tracks and a car. The total cost of this would be £118 after the bulk buy discount.
This would be a pretty big investment for something I have only been doing for a few weeks and looking around I can buy ACC for £18 which gets me racing the same type of cars. There is also a GT4 pack you can add to ACC for another £18. This seems like far better value than iracing so I think I am going to change direction and go down that route for a while now.
I should have listened to @Thug at the start of this thread. :)
 
Back when I was into sim racing, I did something similar. I paid $5 to try iRacing but didn't take it any further than that. I ended up doing online racing at RaceDepartment using AC. Did it for a couple of years, had many fun races :thumbsup:.
 

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