I know there are at least a few simracers out there. What are you guys into? I just got an OSW wheel, which seems pretty amazing once dialed in.. I've been getting back into the hobby a bit. I was running some light sims like Forza Horizon, which is just plain fun. But, my favorite has been iRacing when I'm able to get some practice and make it worth while. Anyone else?
Anyone? I've wanted to start a league in iRacing for a while.. if we could get some people together, maybe we could make that happen.
I used to play iRacing a few years ago, it was really fun. Even had an Obutto cockpit. Problem was:
a) the obutto was uncomfortable after a few hours
b) the races only took place every hour, so you had all this dead time
c) the most fun races were the stock cars in the D level, moving to C the races were less fun I thought
d) the road races had the potential to be fun, but the mazda handled so terribly it just wasn't fun
I think I ran 150 to 200 races, but after I got rid of the cockpit I never set it up again. Their scoring system for safety was also a little over the top, it's really hard to keep the road cars on the course, you almost have to drive like a grandma.
Quoted from taylor34:a) the obutto was uncomfortable after a few hours
b) the races only took place every hour, so you had all this dead time
c) the most fun races were the stock cars in the D level, moving to C the races were less fun I thought
d) the road races had the potential to be fun, but the mazda handled so terribly it just wasn't fun
They may have made updates to the tire model since you played. The Mazda handles very much like the real thing.
I also have the obutto revolution. I don't find it to be too bad, but really only spend an hour or two at most in it.
I was running different series due to the timing. I would run the mx5 cup on the hour, and then something like legends at :35 (or whatever it was). I definitely prefer road racing, but oval was still a lot of fun.
You don't really have to move up in licenses if you don't want to. I have the same feeling about the mx5 cup, I still prefer that to most others I've raced. I just rejoined, and it looks like they have quite a few more series since the last time I played (a couple years ago).
That's cool, I love GT2, that game is one of my all-time favorites. The mitsubishi GTO with performance upgrades was an absolute monster!
I've played alot GT6 with my old logitech G25 but for now I'm waitting for the Playstation VR headset and the Gran Turismo Sport.
I'm planning to buy a cheap playseat and a Logitech G29 or the official GTS wheel from the Thrustmaster.
Quoted from MPierce:How is the OSW? I was looking at a Accuforce wheel.
It's really good. I didn't have the means to test the AF against it, but there are some good comparison videos online.
I ultimately decided on the OSW somewhat reluctantly. I didn't want to have to build an open source wheel and spend all my race time adjusting or messing with it. But, I decided I would wonder what I was missing if I went with the AF. The AF is a stepper motor, rather than a servo. Most that had the opportunity to make a comparison agreed that the OSW is the best you can buy.
Quoted from woody24:Motor City Online is where it was at. Miss that game.
Agreed. Loved that game. I was on uptown server.
Before pinball I was hardcore into SimRacing. Started with Nascar2003, GT Legends then to rFactor then finally to iRacing. I built many rigs and this was my last one. I have since sold my wheels and disassembled my rig (now is my camera rig for pinball) Short of it is I don't have room for my rig anymore. I do miss it. I even road raced for a while back in 2009-2012. Owned an SCCA ITA car with my brother. Too much of a money sink though and the closest track was 4 hours.
I still have my custom hydraulic set of pedals for sale if anybody is interested, along with a DSD Bent shaft sequential shifter.
Quoted from Goalie:Gran Turismo for Life!
I'm a bit biased, I worked on the first 3 games. lol
I spent some serious time on the first two. Thank you for your work, sir!
I haven't competed in an official race in a few years, but I've been on iRacing since 2008. Changes to the tire model made a mess of the Corvette for me, and I really preferred running in a single class series rather than multi-class where you are really only racing against a small number of people despite the large numbers of cars on the track. I feel like leagues contributed in further watering down the numbers in official series as well.
I keep trying out the new cars as they come out, still considering running in a GT3 series, where there will be a variety of cars but all running the same class. Also REALLY like the new Nissan GTP ZX Turbo, as that's a car I got to see racing back in the 80s. It looks, sounds, and drives amazingly. The huge time-suck of getting back up to a pace commensurate with my rating keeps me away, though.
I used to be a Gran Turismo fan, but after trying GTR2, I never went back to anything on the consoles. The sounds were always terrible, the physics were much more geared to the arcade crowd, and the supported hardware was both lacking and "exclusive", with each of the consoles only supporting their favored wheel. The biggest thing the consoles lack is the multiscreen support, as once you drive with a panoramic three screen view, where you can actually turn your head to see your apex and track out in that hairpin turn, it is hard to go back to a single screen. That's really the nail in the coffin for the console sims, IMO. Eventually, when they get powerful enough to run a VR setup effectively, this limitation will go away. I am actually considering a Vive for iRacing, but after trying one out, I'm not convinced that I like the resolution it runs at, and even today's best graphics hardware isn't capable of pushing any more than what they are using anyway.
My setup is one I built myself, using a G25 wheel that I've had since they were first introduced, and a set of CST pedals (before he went AWOL). Computer was bleeding-edge in 2010, with a Corei7 980x CPU, three Dell U2410 monitors, and recently upgraded to 24GB of RAM and a GTX1080 video card (from a pair of GTX480s). It pulls 200-300fps most of the time at 5760x1200 resolution, even at big tracks like Nurburgring Nordschleife with crazy far view distances (There is always "pop-up" going on with the consoles as it only renders objects as they get close - this is not the case on a powerful PC).
I was in the iRacing Beta when it started (when it was originally called FIRST-Racing).
Also did several Nascar Heat & NR2003 leagues before that. But I was never a serious racer. (classic Logitech Momo wheel was as hardcore as I got). Was never more than a mid-back-of-the-pack racer.
I quit iRacing during the late-Beta, because people were just wayyyyy to aggressive. (I did have one early race with John Henry. 
)
I was much happier doing paintjobs in Nascar Heat & NR2003.
Still have my old site up:
http://www.racepainter.com
Quoted from Gov:hydraulic set of pedals for sale
What are you looking to get for those? I'd guess you want more than I'm willing to spend on sim stuff right now, but doesn't hurt to check.
Quoted from neurokinetik:The huge time-suck of getting back up to a pace commensurate with my rating keeps me away, though.
That's really what got me out of it, too. I loved spending the time running practice laps and making custom tunes (I even read through an entire text on tuning to understand the ins and outs). After a while though, learning all of the tracks and keeping up with that schedule was too much. I have some time at the end of the night, and I've been a little burnt out on pins lately.
I thought there were a lot of series I may be interested in, but it seems a lot of them are probably a little involved to get into for me right now. I may just settle back on the MX5 series and get into some races soon. It would be nice if there were an easier path to progression. I can't imagine competing in something like the corvette. It will take me a while before I'd be able to get there. The racing on the lower level stuff is really fun, I wish they didn't punish you for hanging out there (contrary to what I said before, there really aren't as many options as I thought).
Quoted from Deaconblooze:What are you looking to get for those? I'd guess you want more than I'm willing to spend on sim stuff right now, but doesn't hurt to check.
I would like to get $400 out of them. I have over $750 in them. I had the pedal assembly made by a race shop in the UK with the wider brake pedal and powder coated white. Right now they are just a two pedal setup, but the clutch pedal is there if somebody wanted to put a spring/master cylinder and pot on it.
Quoted from grbgemen:Agreed. Loved that game. I was on uptown server.
I don't remember what server I was on I guess. Was there a Midtown Server? That sounds right...I think. Really wish they'd go back to something like that. The current state of NFS is terrible.
I picked up an Oculus Rift last month and started using it with a Logitech G27 and Project Cars. I'm using a Wheel Stand Pro for the G27 that allows me to fairly easily setup / store the wheel.
So far the immersion with the headset + wheel is pretty damn awesome. I have a 4K monitor and while the Rift headset isn't as sharp / vivid as playing on the monitor I would take playing it in VR over the monitor due to the immersion factor alone. Playing a racing game in VR with proper native VR support is incredible.
I tried last night to get Assetto Corsa to work with the Rift, which has native support for it, but I haven't had much luck getting it to run properly.
Quoted from Gov:I would like to get $400 out of them. I have over $750 in them.
Sounds like a fair price, but I really don't like using cars without the clutch, and don't have a lot of time to research a project like that.
Quoted from PanzerFreak:I picked up an Oculus Rift last month
I'll be keeping a close eye on the VR trend. I'm hoping the 2nd generation makes some strides. I'm pretty happy with 3 monitors. My next upgrade will probably be 4 bass transducers.
Forza Horizon 3 was released today. I really liked the others in the series. One of the exciting things about 3 is that they added Win10 support. I still don't know if the OSW will work with it... I guess it's worth a try.
Quoted from PanzerFreak:I picked up an Oculus Rift last month and started using it with a Logitech G27 and Project Cars. I'm using a Wheel Stand Pro for the G27 that allows me to fairly easily setup / store the wheel.
So far the immersion with the headset + wheel is pretty damn awesome. I have a 4K monitor and while the Rift headset isn't as sharp / vivid as playing on the monitor I would take playing it in VR over the monitor due to the immersion factor alone. Playing a racing game in VR with proper native VR support is incredible.
I tried last night to get Assetto Corsa to work with the Rift, which has native support for it, but I haven't had much luck getting it to run properly.
I had a DK2 for a while and I think it is the way of the future in regards to sim racing, but the tech just isn't quite there yet. We need better resolution and much better optimization/horsepower to make it viable. I am excited for it though and the smaller footprint with VR is nice.
Quoted from Gov:I had a DK2 for a while and I think it is the way of the future in regards to sim racing, but the tech just isn't quite there yet. We need better resolution and much better optimization/horsepower to make it viable. I am excited for it though and the smaller footprint with VR is nice.
I hear ya. I was a DK2 owner as well and sold it after the pain in the ass it was to get it to work with games and the low resolution of the set (in VR terms) didn't provide for a great experience with a lot of games. However, DK2 was a development product, is now over 2 years old (Oculus SDK has come a long way since then) and the consumer Oculus Rift is a completely different story I'm finding.
I just got out of playing some more Project Cars with my consumer Rift after tweaking some wheel / headset settings and wow. The immersion really sucks you in. Displays and dials are much easier to read compared to the DK2 (CV1 is higher res, different lenses, newer tech). Also, getting the game to run in VR is easy. It helps big time that the dev team at Project Cars did a great job with Oculus integration as otherwise I'm sure it wouldn't work as well. When launching the game from Steam you are presented with the option to launch the game in standard or in VR mode, it's that easy. With the DK2 I remember having to launch a game, drag it over to the VR headset that was acting like a second monitor, yeah...pain in the ass, lol. Those days are thankfully long gone.
If VR is already this good and the Rift and Vive are the first consumer VR headsets I can't wait to see what the tech looks like 5 and 10 years down the road. The tech and experience will only improve from here. I'm not sure if VR will catch on big with games in general but I think it's definitely hear to stay with sims, educational experiences (like Apollo 11 VR), and VR movies.
Quoted from Deaconblooze:Here's a quick pic of my new setup.
These setups are sweet.
About how much would a setup like this cost? Are we talking $4-5k with everything?
Racing equipment
Obutto (frame) - $1,000
OSW Wheel - $1,500
Pedals - $300
Shifter - $150
Other hardware
Computer - $1,000
Monitors - $500
Button box and mount - $150
Bass transducers - $800
So yeah, right around 5k is about the price to get into a pretty well setup rig. That wheel is high end, there are others that are substantially less. There are plenty of places to upgrade or cut costs. Here's a motion rig I've been kicking around for quite a while:
http://simxperience.com/en-us/products/motionsimulatorkits/stage4motionsimulatorkit.aspx
I think I'll probably just be upgrading my bass transducers, instead.
I bought a pallet of assorted 8020 pieces from a previous job for $200. All of my cockpit and the monitor stand was built from that, and some Lexan. The seat came out of my Miata (switched from leather to cloth) and has headrest speakers and a bass transducer built in. That was $50. My PC was bleeding edge in 2010, and cost me $3000 to build at the time, with $2000 of that being the CPU and two video cards (I didn't need to spend that much, but I wanted to build that monster machine with the best of everything at least once in my life). The monitors were $500 each, as they are good quality IPS screens. The G25 was $300 when I bought it, and the pedals were $700. The Bose setup was a gift, and I hacked the subwoofer to provide power for the bass transducer. I have a $20 Lepai amp to run the rear speakers.
So all told:
Cockpit: $200
Seat: $50
PC: $3000
Monitors: $1500
Wheel: $300
Pedals: $700
Rear amp: $20
Figure you could knock off more than $2000 off the PC and screens alone with some smart choices these days.
Yes, I agree the 80/20 is a really good material to make a rig. A lot of people have gone that route recently, there just didn't seem to be much documentation about it when I was looking for a new rig.
You don't need a whole lot for a PC, but it depends on what game you're running. IRacing is starting to look pretty dated, so I won't bother upgrading my PC until they polish it up.
I really want to get 4 bass transducers for each corner of my rig... has anyone done that? My buttkicker amp finally blew, so I'm without any transducer at the moment. The challenge with the Obutto is mounting those transducers..
Some very cool setups posted here, wow! Nice.
I replaced my two GTX 970's this past weekend with a GTX 1080 and that has really improved FPS and play ability with all settings cranked up in VR (as well as playing games at 4K on my monitor). Just got out of a race in Project Cars with everything cranked up (using Oculus CV1 so 2K res) and it ran smoothly without any hiccups. I think I'm done with SLI going forward as only a portion of games seem to take advantage of it.
Quoted from Deaconblooze:You don't need a whole lot for a PC, but it depends on what game you're running. IRacing is starting to look pretty dated, so I won't bother upgrading my PC until they polish it up.
Have you tried it since they added DX11 and 64 bit support? The lighting certainly looks much better than it did before, and it actually runs better with all the shadows on than it ever did previously, finally using the GPU to better advantage and not being CPU bound like it has been for so long. It's not really all that obvious where you enable those features (it's a small icon on the web browser interface before you launch the sim).
I played the hell out of Gran Turismo growing up. Forza as well. In college we would bet money, and most everyone in our dorms had a racing set up for their PC or PS3. Forza horizon was just flat out fun as shit, even if it wasn't as realistic. I won a lot of money playing that. But GT4 and GT5 were what everyone insisted on playing. And they took it very seriously. We'd have spec races with very strict rules. I probably made a few hundred bucks a month. And I lost a lot of money as well.
What a time to be alive.
Going to dig this one up from the grave 
I noted years ago that VR wasn't quite there yet. I just picked up a Rift S cheap of of Facebook and tried it out in iRacing and rFactor2 and WOW, it has come a long way in a few years. I can only image how good the Valve Index or Pimax 5k is.
I am currently building my racing rig back up and even purchased a Simucube 2 wheel that should be here around the end of next month. Looking forward to it. I have missed racing a lot.
reviving and following.
my plan when we hit PA is to start building a motion rig for racing and possible flight.
it's something i've wanted to do for a long time. been researching a lot lately to keep my mind occupied during the moving stress process.
hopefully a little sub forum club like the 3d sharing thread could get some momentum.
i'm premature here but wanted this on my favorites and always enjoy reading, ingesting, learning, what others have to say here.
i also posted the same verbiage on this thread and maybe get enough momentum it can turn it into one dedicated section/sub. https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/anyone-into-sim-racing#post-5927071
r/
Mike
awesome setups . i occasionally take a casual ride in Project Cars, Project Cars 2 and Assetto Corsa with my Oculus Rift. and i swapped out my racing seat for a bumper car where i built in the wheel and pedals and even a handbreak.
My rift died awhile back and I haven’t done anything since. I don’t have a full cockpit just a wheel stand with an accuforce v2. Thrustmaster pro pedals with load cell on the brake. Thrustmaster shifter.
I Really enjoy when I actually get to use it. Still have triples but their so old the only way I could use them and get above 60hz is to buy a bunch of adapters. One of these days I want to build a proper setup that is more permanent that I can just sit down and play when I have the time.
Quoted from YZRider926:My rift died awhile back and I haven’t done anything since. I don’t have a full cockpit just a wheel stand with an accuforce v2. Thrustmaster pro pedals with load cell on the brake. Thrustmaster shifter.
I Really enjoy when I actually get to use it. Still have triples but their so old the only way I could use them and get above 60hz is to buy a bunch of adapters. One of these days I want to build a proper setup that is more permanent that I can just sit down and play when I have the time.
i wanted to use a shifter as well, but sadly i couldn't get it to work, guess it was broken from delivery, sent it back and never looked into it again.
are you planning to use a Rift in your setup again, or with monitors?
what i hate about driving in Rift, is that i have to take it off to set everything up in the menu, then put it on, then choose a new course, so take it off again.. well it depends on the game menu... or have a long cable for the mouse that sits beside me on the seat. which hurts my hand...
but for the experience it is definitely worth it.
I need to get my rig fired up again. I really enjoyed the Skip Barber in iRacing. I keep thinking of moving into a different series though as the Skippys are just soooooo popular with even experienced drivers. It gets a bit frustrating always being a mid-pack finish, IIRC I caught a 3rd place once but that was sheer luck.
-Hans
Quoted from HHaase:I need to get my rig fired up again. I really enjoyed the Skip Barber in iRacing. I keep thinking of moving into a different series though as the Skippys are just soooooo popular with even experienced drivers. It gets a bit frustrating always being a mid-pack finish, IIRC I caught a 3rd place once but that was sheer luck.
-Hans
I just raced the Miatas for the first time the other day and had an absolute blast. I was into iracing a for a little bit before lockdown, then kind of drifted away from it. I just resigned up for a year though so now I have the bug to build a real rig instead of my crappy desk setup.
Quoted from stefanmader:i wanted to use a shifter as well, but sadly i couldn't get it to work, guess it was broken from delivery, sent it back and never looked into it again.
are you planning to use a Rift in your setup again, or with monitors?
what i hate about driving in Rift, is that i have to take it off to set everything up in the menu, then put it on, then choose a new course, so take it off again.. well it depends on the game menu... or have a long cable for the mouse that sits beside me on the seat. which hurts my hand...
but for the experience it is definitely worth it.
I think I liked the VR route better than triples. Don’t get me wrong they both have their pluses and minuses. I do plan to get another VR but will probably go higher end this time. I was running a first gen rift on a 970 so pretty much as low end as you can get with VR.
I could see getting triple monitors but with higher res once I get a real rig setup. Part of the reason I don’t/didn’t play much was the amount of crap to had to mess with to get ready to race or practice. I only have one Desktop in the house so I can’t leave a wheel sitting in front of it constantly.
Glad to hear it's not just me that struggles to get motivation to get over some of those setup hurdles. I have a dedicated rig, but it's not at all easy to move in front of my triple monitors. It's basically just a VR rig now ( or I guess I could utilize a single monitor). Add to that the bass transducer I use, and I'm going through several minutes of setup to get everything working as it should. When it's been a while since setup, there are inevitably little things I forget about that might necessitate in me climbing out of my rig and back in.
It doesn't sound like much, but it can get really irritating. The kicker is when I have to do something like recalibrate my buttons in iracing. I do love it once I get into it though. The immersion with VR and the bass transducer really puts it over the top. I plan to build that out further and do all 4 corners.
IRacing is such a blast. I was running the Miata leagues for a long time. I find the racing to be really fun and the skills learned seem more transferable to real world conditions I may actually encounter. I ventured into the skippy and enjoyed that much more than I thought I would. I've had a hankering to get into something else, but the learning curve becomes really steep. I'd like to find something that utilizes an H-shifter, has pretty tight racing, and a good amount of popularity to help with splits. The problem with iRacing is that car may have existed at one point, but its since been cannibalized by new releases. The cost to keep chasing after that unicorn of a series to me is pretty high.
The other piece of it is I really don't have a ton of time to practice. Before I had kids I was able to run some of the modified series. I was spending a lot of time learning tracks, tweaking setups, and honing in on my racing line. To really be competitive that takes several hours of dedicated practice a week. That's fun for a while, but eventually it can become a bit of a grind. At the end of the day I really just want to race. Some of the lesser series offer me that same experience on tracks I'm already fairly familiar with.
Quoted from Deaconblooze:At the end of the day I really just want to race
If you just want some silly fun, not super serious simulation...... Myself and a few others you know get together on Saturday nights (some other nights too sometimes) and get some quality Xbox time in..... Right now our drug of choice is Need For Speed Hot Pursuit Remastered. Just outright fun. Hit me up if you have interest, I can add you to the text list.... We usually just send a text out and see who is in or out.... Not a big deal either way, but it may scratch some of the non-simulation racing itch with people you know.
Quoted from ralphwiggum:If you just want some silly fun, not super serious simulation...... Myself and a few others you know get together on Saturday nights (some other nights too sometimes) and get some quality Xbox time in..... Right now our drug of choice is Need For Speed Hot Pursuit Remastered. Just outright fun. Hit me up if you have interest, I can add you to the text list.... We usually just send a text out and see who is in or out.... Not a big deal either way, but it may scratch some of the non-simulation racing itch with people you know.
That sounds like a good time. Yeah add me to the list. Looks like that game is currently a part of gamepass too.
Quoted from Deaconblooze:That sounds like a good time. Yeah add me to the list. Looks like that game is currently a part of gamepass too.
Will do... It goes on and off gamepass with regularity. I think I paid 20 for it last time it went off gamepass. The remastered is glorious. I have owned this game on three different systems, it never gets old.
Might have to buy one of those 49” monitors. Had 3 27” but not really feasible. One day I wouldn’t mind getting a rig I can put in the basement and get some nice larger monitors to run triples again.
Now that my Wifey has taken a liking to Formula 1 (She insisted we start watching races), I'm really getting the itch to start running IRacing again.
Seems the Miata has been tweaked since the last time I drove it, and it's clicking a lot nicer for me than it has in the past. I may start in the advanced Miata series again. At some point I'd like to move into endurance racing but I just can't find a car that I like.
Quoted from HHaase:Now that my Wifey has taken a liking to Formula 1 (She insisted we start watching races), I'm really getting the itch to start running IRacing again.
Seems the Miata has been tweaked since the last time I drove it, and it's clicking a lot nicer for me than it has in the past. I may start in the advanced Miata series again. At some point I'd like to move into endurance racing but I just can't find a car that I like.
Let me know if you end up finding anything - seems like we have some pretty similar tastes.
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