So I've noticed we don't have a thread dedicated to SimRacing. So here is is. Assetto Corsa, Project Cars, rFactor, iRacing, Nascar 2003 (the last good SP oval sim), whatever you race you can post it here.
Me I mostly do iRacing as I really can't stand racing against AI, and the cost wasn't really an object to me at the time I got most of the content (Being on college break with no living expenses will do that). So now I mostly just keep my subscription current. Just finished painting this baby up a week ago and released it as a free download to other drives, as most iRacers use a third party app that lets you upload your skin to a server to download automatically at the start of a race if you have the 3rd party app.
The main difference is they attempt to accurately simulate the physics behind the cars, and the various adjustments to the setup you would make. Most sims will rely on real world telemetry from race teams to build their versions of the cars. Things like wing adjustments, tire pressures, gear ratios, etc are relevant, and you can't manhandle the car though the turns like a drunken monkey. Also many of the current market sims are turning to laser scanning of the tracks they represent, in order to get milimeter precision of the tracks, which also captures their peculiarities (such as the repaved section of Watkins Glen fucking you if you hit it just right) As a consequence of course, it tends to mean you need a more complex controller like a racing wheel instead of a gamepad, least of which because proper braking is a lot more of an issue. You can of course use a gamepad in most sims it just isn't the best experience, same as using a gamepad for a flight sim.
Most sims also have communities that are based around more clean racing than you'd normally get online in public play (iRacing instead keeps itself clean by a combination of being rather expansive and having penalties for contact and straight up suspending accounts of intentional wreckers for increasing periods of time for repeat offenders).
Came up in chat so I'll bump. iRacing, my sim of choice, finally had the Nurburgring added, as well as changes to the particle effects system, marble physics, etc.
This is the guy I usually watch for updates on most simracing things, as he is pretty good about content updates for most of the full sims like Assetto Corsa, rFactor, iRacing etc, and he does a far better job than I can explaining the updates.
That said I do disagree with him on the chassis torsion update being a good change, but I haven't had much experience with custom setups yet, so it may simply be me being unable to adapt.
I've decided to become a professional SimRacer now that the entire professional motorsports industry is getting absorbed into it.
Dug out my old G27 and started playing Assetto Corsa (both Competizione and regular). The Linux port of DIRT Rally by Feral Interactive is quite good. Ask me anything about my new career.
