Is iRacing worth it?

[William Moody]

I have rfactor 2 and AC i am thinking of getting iracing just for the open wheelers is it worth it just for that?
If so how much would it be for 1 year membership and the open wheelers?

 

[Blkout]

Dinca, iRacing doesn't look bad at all with all the graphics details set to their maximum. It isn't quite as pretty as AC, but then again no racing game is right now except Forza 5 and R3E not far behind.

 

[Dinca Andrei]

I have graphics at highest possible and i didnt say it looks bad in relation to other titles...i said the engine is outdated and it shows..its irelevant to compare with AC since there are years between them.The only thing i mentioned AC was the similarity in multiplayer system,not graphics.
That was my opinion on the game and as i said..i dont dislike it..its just..it does not deliver enough for me to get hooked...and the fact that i need to subscribe ....for life...to continue playing it whenever i want.

 

[Bakkster]

I find it interesting you think the lighting is good, I think it's the only thing holding iRacing back graphically right now. Though I am glad it's not the over-HDR mess we often see now to put a gloss of paint over sub-par visuals.

Check your memory sliders and PC. iRacing will automatically scale down the textures when it loads if they won't all fit into memory. Set the sliders to just a little below what your system has. Also make sure you turn on 2048 textures, which I don't think is on by default. Your system might not be capable of running that smoothly, though.

EDIT:
You're right, though, the base content is not the most impressive. Okayama is the newest, give that a look.

 

[Dinca Andrei]

Well i have 8 Gb RAM and 2Gb VRAM...in game set is 2 Gb from RAM and 1.5 Gb from VRAM...

 

[Pär Öqvist]

I got a one month membership recently (having a 6 month some years ago) and I would say it´s not worth it. rFactor 2 is clearly better and feels better for me despite all the bugs in it´s code that make it quite a love/hate title. But the feel and racing with it when it works beats anything out there.

I also never liked the concept of having to pay for exactly everything and never owning anything and being penalized for others misstakes and just racing random dudes all the time if you don´t pay a league fee

It just costs way more then it tastes though particularly when it was released I did like the physics of it. But it´s behind titles like netkar Pro, FVA, rFactor 2 and maybe also Assetto Corsa by now I feel.

 

[Bakkster]

Well i have 8 Gb RAM and 2Gb VRAM...in game set is 2 Gb from RAM and 1.5 Gb from VRAM...

Did you set the graphics settings custom, or just go to the preset high? I don't think that one maxes things out.

Though at older tracks like LRP, that won't help when the textures were designed for a 6 year old PC instead of today.

 

[Murray Hibble]

I love iRacing for a few reasons. Primarily, it's the most populated racing sim I've ever come across. Sure, there are leagues but they're all specific to a type of vehicle.. with iRacing, if you own the content you can race whatever you please.

It was expensive to begin with, but over the years I've collected all the content and now get a discount for owning all road cars... and if you buy three things or more you also get a further discount.

The main pull for me is the SR system. I know that's not something everyone likes, but it has meant the hardest, closest, fairest racing for me in any racer, ever. People push it to the limit every time and sure, you get the odd idiot here and there who can't control his temper, but for the most part it's just so thrilling to be neck and neck with a guy and know that he's not going to use me to brake on the next corner.

The biggest negative for me is how quickly a series can die... I remember buying the Jetta early on only to find that no-one raced it anymore... it should have been pulled from sale (or pulled from the minimum requirements against the 'own all cars' discount). This also extends slightly to my favourite car, the Lotus 49.. I've just withdrawn from my 3rd race because no-one else showed up... yet you can hop in to any GT3 race (ever 2 hours) and it there'll be at least 2 splits (with everyone driving the Z4 atm).

My tip would be to watch Empty Box on youtube... Matt Orr is his name, does nothing but race and hotlap every sim he can get his hands on but his main one is iRacing (probably due to the same reason as me.. it's populated). He'll give you a good idea of whether you'll like it or not.

 

[Lou Sytsma]

Good points Murray.

BTW, though it may not be the same for you, but the Lotus 79 series is apparently becoming pretty active.

 

[Blkout]

I got a one month membership recently (having a 6 month some years ago) and I would say it´s not worth it. rFactor 2 is clearly better and feels better for me despite all the bugs in it´s code that make it quite a love/hate title. But the feel and racing with it when it works beats anything out there.

I also never liked the concept of having to pay for exactly everything and never owning anything and being penalized for others misstakes and just racing random dudes all the time if you don´t pay a league fee

It just costs way more then it tastes though particularly when it was released I did like the physics of it. But it´s behind titles like netkar Pro, FVA, rFactor 2 and maybe also Assetto Corsa by now I feel.

rFactor 2 is bug filled mess though. Sure it has potential, but it has for years and still isn't close to being sorted out.

 

[Bakkster]

BTW, though it may not be the same for you, but the Lotus 79 series is apparently becoming pretty active.

They do a really good job with the Classic Team Championship.

For the less popular cars, it's really about the community to promote them and make them worth running. At their worst, they're like a league anywhere else with just one official race a week. Cars like the V8SC show how that can lead to half a dozen regular timeslots as people get interested by the action in the 'big show'.

 

[Kevin Watts]

I don't think iRacing looks that bad, the textures are pretty crisp and detailed and it'd playable on a wide range of PC's. Contrast that to rFactor 2 which continues to disappointment me visually despite upgrading and running it with all graphics options set to full. Small niggles like the poor low res mirrors and the recent Indy track where the barrier texture noticeably loads in a few metres ahead of me. The track texture doesn't look as good as iRacing or Assetto Corsa in my opinion, it looks more like a plain grey blanket and some of the cockpits are really awful to look at. I don't want to sound like I'm just running rFactor 2 down because since my upgrade I do enjoy firing it up for a race against the AI (online seems dead) the Honda Civic BTCC car is really good fun to drive and the AI is pretty good but it's the FFB that is really well done.

 

[Eckhart von Glan]

... and just racing random dudes all the time if you don´t pay a league fee

well, if you turn up at pretty much the same time every week, you run into pretty much the same people, which gives you at least a semblance of community feel and takes away the "random dudes" flavour.
as for paying a league fee: there are dozens of great leagues out there which do not cost a cent at all, you just sign up, behave like a gentleman and that's it.
the crowded series are actually where the gameplay is best, for instance the gt3 runs 7 splits at times, which means the chaps around you will be pretty much your strength, which in turn means i recently had a 70 minutes event with hardly a minute of playing more or less alone, there was always another chap within reasonable distance, no other sim can get you that without a commitment to a league, just on a public server with no frills attached.

 

[yusupov]

iracing is expensive, but if you dedicate some cash to it its not nearly as overwhelming as it seems to be. ive had membership for a little over a month & after buying 3x bulk packs im already astoundingly close to having all the content i 'want'. gramted, still talking a couple hundred bucks worth, but as long as yr fairly disciplined & space out the purchases its not bad.

re graphics, i find iracing pretty astonishing, part of it is the performance, which is unparalleled, but it also has a remarkable uniformity that AC definitely lacks. R3E rivals it, but its also grainy, & leaves a heavier footprint without much to show for it. i really can't knock iracings graphics, & of course since its contstantly evolving theyre only going to get better over time.

 

[Bakkster]

iracing is expensive, but if you dedicate some cash to it its not nearly as overwhelming as it seems to be. ive had membership for a little over a month & after buying 3x bulk packs im already astoundingly close to having all the content i 'want'. gramted, still talking a couple hundred bucks worth, but as long as yr fairly disciplined & space out the purchases its not bad.

The way I thought about it when I began was of each 6 pack of content as its own game. I was paying about the price of another retail racing game, so I asked myself if I would get as much enjoyment from that as I would buying another sim. In general I think I have.

 

[Blkout]

Same here, I own a lot of iRacing content, and some of it I don't use regularly but its hard to argue with the a sim that can do almost everything I need it to do and have such a large variety of content that I can play whenever I want. I've got far more money tied up in iRacing than any other sim or racing game, but I don't feel cheated. I find time to play iRacing every day.

 

[DewCrew88]

I feel cheated when a $49 sim is light years ahead of it in terms of physics.

 

[yusupov]

idk if thats rf2 or AC, but either way i wonder how many people confuse ffb with physics. maybe i just havent found a magic setting though i do vary it up car to car etc, but iracings ffb isnt exactly jawdropping.

 

[Blkout]

I feel cheated when a $49 sim is light years ahead of it in terms of physics.

To each their own. Thats why they make different games for different people and opinions vary of course.

 

[DewCrew88]

idk if thats rf2 or AC, but either way i wonder how many people confuse ffb with physics. maybe i just havent found a magic setting though i do vary it up car to car etc, but iracings ffb isnt exactly jawdropping.

iR's physics are not good, but the FFB being bad doesnt help the cause either.

 

[Frank]

I only have it a day now, but for now I am impressed, I am spending a lot of time in it, more then any other new sim I ever bought. I'll report back when I have it a month or 2 ^^.