Community Question | How Long Have You Been A Sim Racer?

[morsify]

I think there should have been a 25 or 30 years + vote too. I played other race games in the early 80s, but one of the first that I could really call a sim was Indy 500 by Papyrus. I actually managed to do a full 500 with mouse and keyboard, and finished 3rd. I was ecstatic. And knackered.

They were great times, when every small step forward in graphics and 'car physics' were just astounding to us.
Back then I never dreamt we could be looking at any of today's sims and actually criticising them for graphics or one thing or another!

EDIT I only just saw the post that arrived before mine - there it is! Commodore Amiga, Indy 500. Way ahead of it's time, 1989.

 

[rubaru]

I still have my PC copy of F1 2000.

 

[Spinelli]

Only including playing with an actual wheel, I started with F1 2002 in 2002 or 2003.

I started initially to get some "training" before venturing off into real-life seasons of F1600 and F2000.

Although physics are quite different to real-life - even sims to this day - the basics of balancing the car, moving the weight around to change the balance, bringing the car close to the limit where it's very sensitive to driver inputs, dealing with front/rear slip, throttle application & control, getting on the brakes, getting off the brakes, turning in, etc. etc. all can be applied to real life, generally speaking. It really made me understand how performance driving works way before getting in the real car rather than having to learn it only once I got in the car. This means when I first ever got into the car, I was ready to drive hard and push decently close to the limit, and consistently, without getting into all sorts of rookie oversteer/spin, understeer, and brake-lockup scenarios.

Thanks to the sim-games, I felt like I was just playing a different game but on a much better physics engine (real life)...plus there's all the feelings & noise overwhelming your senses, that part was of course totally new and incredible. Oh, and having to properly shift gears and rev-match downshifts while using all 3 pedals at once while trying to maintain perfect brake pressure, that's something incredibly difficult that was new too and fairly difficult (and still is especially in sims which are more forgiving in this area).

 

[morsify]

And after Indy 500, the stand out sound for me, from back then was : (in a rich US accent)

'I'm Paul Page........From Papyrus,.......THIS.....is....Indycar Racing!!!!!!' Absolutely Fantastic!

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

It's really weird to think of, as I wasn't simracing in the way we think of. But...

Was born in 91. My first non-NES games were IndyCar Racing 2, NASCAR Racing 2 and SODA Off Road Racing, so probably around 96/97 I started. Then my next racing game were Sports Car GT, then Grand Prix Legends and Grand Prix 3.

So even though I didn't know it was simracing and simulators, I've basically done sim-stuff since I became old enough to understand throttle, brake and steering. Back in those years I used a joystick though. My first proper wheel was bought together with Gran Turismo 4, and that's also when I went online for the first time. 13 years old and jumping in to GPL league. Never looked back.

 

[Frank]

Ever since 1995, when 7 year old me got introduced to Grand Prix 2. I raced before that with wheel in Indianapolis 500: The Game and Grand Prix 1, but very limited. Grand Prix 2 got me hooked and I never let go.

 

[blot]

1st sim was Geoff Crammond's GP1 on an Amiga 500! Got into PC's in 1999, Got Toca2, Then all the simbin stuff, GTR, GTR2, Race07 and all the extra content, Pcars1,2, AC, ACC, RF2, Dirt rally1 and 2, AMS1 and 2, Wreckfest and BeamNG, Also Spintyres and Mudrunner!

 

[Toonces]

Exactly the same here. I've played racing games since I was 5 years old using Dad's C64 on Pit Stop 2 in the late eighties, but GPL was my first recognisable sim in terms of what we understand by the term today.

Personally I wouldn't really categorise anything I played pre 1998 as meeting the definition. To me, the baseline is realistic physics and controlled by a steering wheel and pedals.

Even the Geoff Crammond games, good though they were, were held back by the lack of any decent controllers. I'm sure many will disagree, but if you can't give the sim inputs that are akin to what you put into a car, then the software can't simulate the right responses. Ergo you can't really have a sim if you haven't got good analogue inputs.

Probably a controversial opinion but I don't think anyone could have been a 'sim racer' before the mid nineties because sim controls weren't available, at least on the consumer market.

Disagree with your last point. Having 'graduated' from flight sims, I brought my CH Flightsticks with me. Used the one in my left hand for steering (laterally) and the one on my right for accelerator/brakes (fore-and-aft). Robert Wickens would do very well with this setup. Salud!

 

[Omer Said]

If we count TOCA 2 (The classic one with BTCC 1998) as simracing, then that was my beginning. I consumed that game day and night.

If not, it should be Grand Prix 3.

 

[jacobc62]

Started out with Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec edition on the PS2, alongside the old NASCAR Thunder titles by EA in the mid 2000s. After a few years without access to any racing titles mainly due to my father throwing out my PS2 as punishment for something or other, i've forgotten at this point I found NASCAR Racing 2003 Season in late 2010, and have more recently been playing iRacing and the F1 games by Codemasters.

 

[Ryno917]

Growing up, my father had an (already old) Intellivision, so there were a few titles on that that I played from time to time. But I guess it didn't really start until we got our first computer and Papyrus' "Indianapolis 500: The Simulation." Originally released for DOS in '89, it's considered the first true sim racing title. That's probably what started my journey. I must've been 6 or 7 years old at the time (few years after it's release).

I still remember the 'Copy Protection' the game had was having to enter a particular word from the manual to play it. When you launched it'd give you a page, paragraph, line and word number. Entering the correct word would launch the game.

Following that was probably Papyrus' Indycar Racing. I think the first non-Papy title I had on PC was probably SCGT, though by then I'd also had Gran Turismo on the original Playstation as well.

 

[Leone]

I fell in love with SIM Car, driving the ICR2 Indy Car Racing 2

 

[RikusPRF]

I think the first games I really spent a lot of time racing were Indycar Racing 2 and Grand Prix 2.. fond memories of racing 100% distance championships in hotseat mode with friends, running in 320x240 VGA at 25fps (SVGA in GP2 was really heavy at the time lol).

 

[miezcom]

I used to play my dad's copy of Nascar Racing on MS Dos.

 

[azaralamouri]

SHOCKING

The 1988 sim you showed has features that doesn't exist in iRacing 2008.

Example: No way to know the real shifting method in a car because there is no gear shift animation... But in 1988 you had it.

The list is big..

I know different sims from the same era can have different features, but iRacing has no excuse, as it continuously charges its users millions of $ (according to those who like it).

Compare it to the average 5-50 $ that a modern sim charges you for all its laser scanned tracks and licensed cars.

I have big respect to all sim developers and this is why I buy them all.

 

[Wayne Hutchison]

If every sim isn't charging its users millions of $ they aren't in business.

 

[DopeSmokerDoom]

Hard Drivin' (c) 1988 Atari Games.

 

[ivanalesi]

Wow, I didn't expect almost 60% to be over 15 years sim racing...
I had my start with some F1 for season 1986 on a PC in around 91/92... Then F1 93 for Sega was my first seriously obsessed game

 

[danclark]

Disagree with your last point. Having 'graduated' from flight sims, I brought my CH Flightsticks with me. Used the one in my left hand for steering (laterally) and the one on my right for accelerator/brakes (fore-and-aft). Robert Wickens would do very well with this setup. Salud!

Actually I think we agree, you had analogue inputs so it passes my definition of a sim. You were ahead of the rest of us.

 

[manu68]

First online race with grand prix legends with a 33 k "singing" modem !
Good time of aol and altavista !

About 10 years of about exclusively GPL.
Then about all what came after that. But never in such extent as grand prix legends.