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

[Jimlaad43]

F1 Championship Season 2000 on Mac, which I got in 2006. A brilliant game which I pumped so many hours into. That green Jaguar will forever be one of my favourite Formula 1 cars of all time because of that game.

 

[João Silva]

the poll should have options for 20+, 30+
we are mostly oldies apparently

 

[Metla]

So it would appear anyone who touched a gamepad back in the 80/90s are "sim racers" since then. I beg to differ.


Sim racing proper, since 2003 or so, with LFS and a Ferrari challenge racing wheel.

well no, we didn't have game pads, We had joysticks with a single button, or when I got my Amiga and played Indy 500 it was with a mouse.

It was still the closest visual and audio simulation to racing that the technology at the time could get to, Just as what we are using now is.

And even now the vast majority of sim-drivers are using plastic input devices and staring at a screen, Its just had 30 years of development.

 

[Ramjet]

I think grand prix legends from 1998 was the first real race sim. I got a wheel around 2001, the red logitech Momo. I have had GP1-GP4, GPL, F199-02, GTR, GTR2, GT Legends, rFactor then a break until GT sports and Assetto Corsa. Currently using a Fanatec Porsche GT2 wheel.

 

[Dan Costa]

Driving NASCAR by Papyrus on DOS, changing setup values, to make it more lose or tight for specific tracks was pretty sim-ish. They have nailed tyres for this time, i can tell you that without remorse! Also Grand Prix Legends was approaching a field of adapting car and driver to track and situation of a never before seen level. So saying 2000s are the beginning is not particularly the truth. Also afaik the ISImotor engine, which should form a whole sim racing department for so many titles, was born in 1998 already. The borders are blurried...

I played the Papyrus games and gp4 in the 90's. They had aspects of sim racing. I would call the birth of sim racing around ~1998 with gt legends, where the driving skills actually translated to real life if you played it with a wheel.

Its blurried like you said, but no way people playing ATARI are "sim racing" since then like people above claim. No way.

 

[Bob Gnarley]

Chequered Flag, Zx Spectrum - 1983. Crude but it had Paul Ricard & Silverstone, puddles and oil patches (Turbo era). At least it made an attempt to simulate real world stuff, just with sprites!

 

[Dan Costa]

well no, we didn't have game pads, We had joysticks with a single button, or when I got my Amiga and played Indy 500 it was with a mouse.

It was still the closest visual and audio simulation to racing that the technology at the time could get to, Just as what we are using now is.

And even now the vast majority of sim-drivers are using plastic input devices and staring at a screen, Its just had 30 years of development.

Did any of that skill translated to you real life driving? That is what I'm saying. There is simulating and there is playing "simulation"

 

[Koen Verlinde]

Just over 15 years, before that it was mostly racing games, but no sims. The original GTR1 basically started it all off on the serious level.

 

[Paul Joseph]

Speedway! - Philips G7000 Videopac (1978) Spin Out! - Philips G7000 Videopac (1978) Chequered Flag - ZX Spectrum (1981)

I'm sure these don't count as sim racing, but they certainly got me interested in racing in the first place!

After countless racing games on the ZX Spectrum, Atari ST, Sega Master System, Sega Mega Drive, Playstation 1, 2, 3, 4 the first true simulation I would say I played was Geoff Crammond's Formula One Grand Prix on the ST and then PC from 1991/92. I remember thinking how the circuits actually looked like real circuits with hairpin bends and chicanes instead of the featureless and repetitive left and right bends of previous games. I still have it set up on my PC using DOSbox and it's just as enjoyable now as it was then!

Here's my first pedal set from the early 90's for the Atari ST, used with a normal joystick for steering!

After that, Grand Prix 2, 3 and 4 followed along with Indianapolis 500, Indycar Racing, Indycar Racing II, Nascar 1, 2, 2003, Gran Turismo 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and Grand Prix Legends. I stayed with Grand Prix Legends for about 8 years, designing alternative program covers primarily because I was so bad at driving it! I loved trying to get my rank down though and eventually crept into a negative GPL rank! I only ever had one online race in that time, which I now regret.

When rFactor came along it was a game changer for me. I started racing online in 2008 and then never looked back. Now, it's a difficult choice which sim to play with ACC being the favourite at the moment.

I've been painfully slow over the years compared with most other racers, but I've really enjoyed it and still enjoy it!

 

[Petteri Viitala]

With the recent increase in exposure for our hobby thanks to the worldwide lockdown, I'm curious to know how long our community has been sim racing.

For me, I've been a racing fan for the entirety of my life, but a relative latecomer to the world of virtual motorsport entertainment. Starting my personal racing journey on the trusty original PlayStation with Gran Turismo, before migrating to the Xbox and Xbox 360 for a stab at Forza Motorsport and my first online racing clan - TMG (of which I cannot now remember what that stands for), although I certainly did dabble via friends at such classics as IndyCar by Papyrus and the original Grand Prix series.

While enjoying the whole wheel and pedal thing in an online environment, I quickly discovered SimBin's GTR franchise, bought myself a PC and Logitech G25, and I've never looked back since (although the bank balance regrets my quest for added immersion).

If I start counting from my ownership of the original Gran Turismo games on PlayStation, my racing game obsession began as early as 1997, with a migration to 'serious' PC gaming coming around 2006 - 14 years ago!

When do you first get engaged in the world of sim racing, and how have you enjoyed the experience so far?

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I think it was 1991, with Microprose's GP. Those were the days! Then GP2, GP3 and GP4 and later who knows how many others.

 

[BazzaLB]

Since Revs on the C64. First real sim passion was the original Grand Prix followed closely by Indianapolis 500 (Papyrus). Indy is what convinced me to upgrade from my Amiga 1000 to a 286 PC with Turbo button (16mhz) and never looked back.

Can't believe running games at 10 fps used to be acceptable.

I have fond memories of cracking the original GP1 on the PC for myself as I was sick of getting the manual out. That's when I discovered debug register detection and self modifying code

Compared with what we have today (FFB wheels, VR, graphics), these were laughable, but oh so much fun!

We seem to have quite a few of these types of threads, but they never get old! (unlike me)

I'm not counting arcade games.. Otherwise I would include some drag race game on a TRS80 Pocket computer where you typed in your throttle values

 

[Metla]

Did any of that skill translated to you real life driving? That is what I'm saying. There is simulating and there is playing "simulation"

Let me just hand it over to wiki as they hit the exact same milestones in Sim racing that I referenced. They are still games, The technology (and thus the user experience) has just improved.


Early arcade years

Prior to the division between arcade-style racing and sim racing, the earliest attempts at providing driving simulation experiences were arcade racing video games, dating back to Pole Position,[7] a 1982 arcade game developed by Namco, which the game's publisher Atari publicized for its "unbelievable driving realism" in providing a Formula 1 experience behind a racing wheel at the time. It featured other AI cars to race against, crashes caused by collisions with other vehicles and roadside signs, and introduced a qualifying lap concept where the player needs to complete a time trial before they can compete in Grand Prix races.[8] It also pioneered the third-person rear-view perspective used in most racing games since then, with the track's vanishing point swaying side to side as the player approaches corners, accurately simulating forward movement into the distance.


Emergence of sim racing genre
Sim racing is generally acknowledged to have really taken off in 1989 with the introduction of Papyrus Design Group's Indianapolis 500: The Simulation, designed by David Kaemmer and Omar Khudari on 16-bit computer hardware. The game is often generally regarded as the personal computer's first true auto racing simulation. Unlike most other racing games at the time, Indianapolis 500 attempted to simulate realistic physics and telemetry, such as its portrayal of the relationship between the four contact patches and the pavement, as well as the loss of grip when making a high-speed turn, forcing the player to adopt a proper racing line and believable throttle-to-brake interaction. It also featured a garage facility to allow players to enact modifications to their vehicle, including adjustments to the tires, shocks and wings.[17] With Indy 500, players could race the full 500 miles (800 km), where even a blowout after 450 miles (720 km) would take the player out of the competition. The simulation sold over 200,000 copies. It was around this time that sim racing began distinguishing itself from arcade-style racing.

 

[JonnyCombat]

Since this really, me an my mates would take turns seeing who could survive the longest.

I've only really gotten into the more realistic stuff over the last few years, mainly as I've gotten older and my taste in games has changed dramatically. I suppose the first true driving sims I played were GTR2 and Race 07 (I loved the V8 Supercar mod in Race).

 

[nezeiges]

First real game with a steering wheel was Grand Prix 2

 

[graham123]

I've dabbled over the years, but only been taking it serious for about a year

 

[VirtuaIceMan]

Over 35 years, I guess 3D Grand Prix on the Amstrad CPC, the first track in the game was Zanduoort I think, typo tastic!

On PC would be from borrowed copies of Grand Prix Circuit and F1GP onwards.

 

[bgil66]

1992 with Virtua Racing in the arcade, spent sooo many coins in that thing and got me hooked
But when I got my first Computer(Gateway) I believe the first Sim was Indycar Racing 2, then Microsoft Cart Precision Racing loved it and then picked up GP2(WoW)

 

[BazzaLB]

The result of the vote shows us that sim racers are mostly old

Surely that's evident by the mature way we all conduct ourselves on the forums

 

[BazzaLB]

It was a huge step in experiencing car physics on a home PC, indeed! But it was also such a hardcore experience, that it could've scared away newcomers, to be honest...

It scared away Jackie Stewart I believe

 

[mopro]

I can't remember game's name, I played this rally game in my dad's IBM PC/AT (the one with large 5,25 inch floppy drives!). There is only one car to drive: Ford RS500