My iRacing experience thus far.....

[G2Jason]

I have about/almost 2 months of membership completed. I have been having a blast. This and Raceroom are my favorites.
Up until iRacing I was finding it difficult to race online. I joined this site hoping to race often. I finally accepted that due to my 60 hour work weeks, Pacific time zone, family life, playing in 2 bands that rehearse and gig, and my other outdoor hobby of cycling, that I just didn't fit in with the race times not only here but everywhere. I spent weeks looking for a league but I just could not either get home from work on time or commit to a specific time and day permanently. So back to solo racing in Raceroom for me it was unless I took a day off of work.
But then I decided to give iRacing a shot and I committed to a year subscription. I figured a year would be a good way to measure its worth to my schedule. I have raced online more in these first couple of months than I have my whole first year of sim racing period. And I have been really enjoying it. I am currently focusing on the oval side of things because I already own all of the Raceroom content and I am more interested in their road car offerings at the moment vs iRacing. And in order to spread the cost I have to just focus on one at a time.
And now the cost. For a person with my schedule it has been worth the cost. To be able to come home in the evening and still find races with people in it after 9pm PST every night of the week has been awesome. It has justified the cost and the racing experience has been top notch. So far its still my cheapest hobby, including the cost of building my PC and the iRacing pay model when compared to my road and mountain bikes and 4 drumsets hahaha. Plus downloading sims is way easier to hide from the wife! I wish I did't have to add another expense and I envy those who have more flexible schedules so they can race online in other sims.
Thanks for letting me share! Peace to all!

 

[Eckhart von Glan]

sounds good. this is ecaxtly what iRacing excels at (and must be difficult to do because noone even comes close to it). same reason here why i play 90% iRacing, there is simply always a good online race on and playing against real people just beats playing ai, no matter how sophisticated it has become, at least for me.

 

[sebduloiret]

the difference between iracing and the price of your bike is that once purchased, the bike belongs to you, while on iracing, no subscription, all the content you paid no longer serves you for nothing ...
personally, I spent 500-600 euros on iracing in 5 years, and without subscriptions, I can not even enjoy what I bought. for me this is the big negative point of iracing
moreover there are online people but in some good categories ... many series are mostly empty (lotus for exemple)
I realized another big negative point on iracing since I have AMS is the control of the glide of the car at low speed: on iracing, it's very hard and almost impossible to drift and to control his car with the accelerator while on ams it's very intuitive! (I did 2-3 stages of gliding in real on bmw 2.0L and I find in ams the same sensation of "control" as in reality)
the most important is that you take a lot of fun with the simulation that you like but I confess that, even after 800 races on iracing, I was bluffed races against the AI that I made on ams, the AI is incredibly strong, respectful and intelligent: D
have fun and good day to u ^^

 

[Rob]

I just bough my very first gaming PC (I have raced in real life and on the console for 5 years) and THE biggest reason I did was because of iRacing. Since I live in the states, love IndyCar, like NASCAR, only league race, and am leaving F1 (Halo), this is a perfect fit. I could care less what it costs. But more specifically, I pay $10 a month for the pleasure of being hooked into XBO Live, which is not just for racing, by any stretch. Then I pay $200/yr for games. In two years, I'll never have to buy another game again and I'll only be paying at most $15 a month, no? I have to do that anyway, for the crappy console.

BUt when you add in all the extras for me (replays, ranking system, tracks, ovals, IndyCar focus, unlimited key assignments, 2x better graphics, a massively skilled community, etc etc. I could go on forever.

So, today I bought the iRacing membership for three months. I can't wait. I have a TX and a single monitor, so FPS will not be an issue, and my PC only cost $500. Each car and track has a forum!!! lol.

 

[G2Jason]

I added VR to the rig. Vr is iracing is amazing. Digging the Nascar stuff and plan to slowly buy the Skippy tracks soon.

 

[Rob]

I added VR to the rig. Vr is iracing is amazing. Digging the Nascar stuff and plan to slowly buy the Skippy tracks soon.

I considered VR, but I wear glasses, and it's still a WIP with them, right? Also, when I reference my actual racing, my head didn't move that much, but my eyes did. I hope they develop eye tracking with VR. That would be incredible indeed. It's a pain, but I'd probably go triples first. However, everyone who has tried VR raves about it.

 

[G2Jason]

You can get custom prescription inserts for them. I wear glasses but my eyes aren't that bad so I can get by without but I plan on getting the inserts after Christmas. It is a wip but the payoff to me at least is worth the hassle. I do spend a bunch of time looking for that sweet spot to squeeze as much as I can out of gpu. I plan on getting a 1080 TI in the Spring. I did use the trackir with a big screen and that was cool for a single screen setup. I don't have the room for triples as I play in a 4k TV so VR was my option. But seeing these small town short tracks in VR has been awesome. And recently picked up Pc2 which has Long Beach. I live near LBC, been to the Grand Prix several times more for the beer and scenery. I had no idea how much fun it was to actually drive the course!

 

[Rob]

You can get custom prescription inserts for them. I wear glasses but my eyes aren't that bad so I can get by without but I plan on getting the inserts after Christmas. It is a wip but the payoff to me at least is worth the hassle. I do spend a bunch of time looking for that sweet spot to squeeze as much as I can out of gpu. I plan on getting a 1080 TI in the Spring. I did use the trackir with a big screen and that was cool for a single screen setup. I don't have the room for triples as I play in a 4k TV so VR was my option. But seeing these small town short tracks in VR has been awesome. And recently picked up Pc2 which has Long Beach. I live near LBC, been to the Grand Prix several times more for the beer and scenery. I had no idea how much fun it was to actually drive the course!

Tracks are what make racing racing, to me. Cars come and go. I forgot about the track IR! Thanks for reminding me. That's exactly what I was looking for, since "look to apex" (for some reason) gets left out of many games. Assetto for instance, looks the wrong way. Certainly triples are the way to go, and you can then add butt kickers and moving seats w/o getting you VR thrown off your head, but in the meantime, I bet it's a blast. Rx inserts would do the trick...another fact you taught me. I'll definitely look into them.
Long Beach is priceless. One of the great appeals of iRacing is that it has a lot of content that gets ignored by the British and European makers. I can't wait to dirt track and RallyCross. I have played long beach for a while now, since Forza and PC2 have it. I have not played forza in a while though, and dont' own the current one because they de-emphasize physics. You simply can't put a price on tracks like Summit Point, VIR, and Road Atlanta, where I raced for fun. RA could not get IndyCar because of "the dip" and the parking, which are largely solved now. Someone at iRacing really did a good job in selecting tracks. What about modding on iRacing? I suppose that's not possible because it's not a piece of stand alone software.

 

[Eckhart von Glan]

What about modding on iRacing? I suppose that's not possible because it's not a piece of stand alone software.

yep, as far as i know it's a nogo. the popcorn anti-cheat software was added last year, so i suppose people found a way of modding/cheating, so far i have never witnessed it, but then again i a) do not spend that much time on their servers and b) am usually so far off the pace i wouldn't notice a person cheating somewhere at the top of the field, lol
as for modding / changing with no view towards cheating: as far as i understand the technology, if you allow the one you open the door for the other. what people do is prepare wonderful skins to be swapped and automatically installed via tradingpaints. the moment you become an iRacer, join tradingpaints as well, makes the field look soooo much better
https://www.tradingpaints.com/showroom/filter/from=everyone,sort=popular,ad=DESC,pos=0

 

[Sharpy Bonfire]

I am another one hooked to iRacing because of -50% sale for new members and VR support for WMR headsets. Enjoying it lot, but surely is expensive - mostly because "anything worth doing is worth going bananas" and decided to heavily mod my old trusty G27 instead waiting to have 1k+ euros to buy one of the top of the line wheels...

Only frustrating thing I have with WMR is that for some reason the controller pointer keeps missing 4/5 times when I try to center the view.

 

[Brandon Wright]

the difference between iracing and the price of your bike is that once purchased, the bike belongs to you, while on iracing, no subscription, all the content you paid

When I go to the local karting place I pay ~$18 for ~10 minutes of driving and after that time is up I have to give the kart back since I don't actually own it. I look at iRacing the same way except I get far more track time and much better racing for less money. Sure, I have plenty of other sims where I paid once and get to keep the content forever but none of them offer the amount/quality of online racing that iRacing does.

I considered VR, but I wear glasses, and it's still a WIP with them, right? Also, when I reference my actual racing, my head didn't move that much, but my eyes did. I hope they develop eye tracking with VR. That would be incredible indeed. It's a pain, but I'd probably go triples first. However, everyone who has tried VR raves about it.

WIP? Not really. Is there room for improvement? Sure, there always is, but in its current form it's quite good. I could find things to complain about with my Rift but I'm too busy enjoying the incredible immersion and looking around the interiors of beautifully crafted cars or shooting homicidal robots to notice or care about them. I've been a triples user for many years and I'd take VR 10 times out of 10 over triples.

As for my iRacing story, I tried it 3 years ago when I first moved to PC racing. Found it all a bit overwhelming and didn't like the way the cars felt or how hard they were to hold at the limit. I also may have been experiencing hardware/wheel problems. Decided to give it another try to see if I wanted to get the Black Friday deal since other sims weren't scratching my racing itch. To my surprise the cars feel much better now, feel firmly planted to the ground and are easier to control at the limit. Done about a half dozen races in the MX5 Cup so far and they were hands down the best races I've had this year. Got the year sub, we'll see how it goes.

 

[Rob]

Just got my computer. I love iRacing.

 

[Rob]

Someone said VR takes a lot more horsepower than triples but ideally if everything were free, VR plus look to Apex would be ideal. And they are more portable

 

[Brandon Wright]

I don't think you'd want look-to-apex in VR. That would totally screw with your brain having your head move when your head didn't actually move, would probably cause a moment of motion sickness too. It's unnecessary in VR because you just turn your head to look at the apex like you naturally would.

 

[Włodek Traczyk]

I have one monitor, once I checked TrackIR 5, it worked. If someone has to recommend to see. iRacing is the best racing game. The best multiplayer. Now, I do not play a monthly subscription much.

 

[Rob]

I don't think you'd want look-to-apex in VR. That would totally screw with your brain having your head move when your head didn't actually move, would probably cause a moment of motion sickness too. It's unnecessary in VR because you just turn your head to look at the apex like you naturally would.

Except you don't turn your head. You use your eyes. I've been there. Interestingly, assetto tries to mimick the g-forces that take your head in the opposite direction, and do a pretty good job. They just need to combine both now.

 

[Brandon Wright]

Except you don't turn your head. You use your eyes. I've been there. Interestingly, assetto tries to mimick the g-forces that take your head in the opposite direction, and do a pretty good job. They just need to combine both now.

No. Any good driving instructor will tell you that your car goes where your head is looking and it's very important to move your head to look where you want to go, and it's much more effective moving your whole head than just your eyes. Motorcyclists know this too as they're often told to "get your head up" which means to move your head in the direction you want to be turning instead of just looking at it with your eyes.

 

[sebduloiret]

When I go to the local karting place I pay ~$18 for ~10 minutes of driving and after that time is up I have to give the kart back since I don't actually own it. I look at iRacing the same way except I get far more track time and much better racing for less money. Sure, I have plenty of other sims where I paid once and get to keep the content forever but none of them offer the amount/quality of online racing that iRacing does.
.

dude , do you really make a comparaison between a video game and drive in reality ?

wow ...

( and for make a bad comparison , i can say that real karting is less expensive : if i count my wheel , my computer , my three 47' monitor , and all the money i've spend in iracing , that really really more expensive that the Rotax i had buy at another people 900 euros ... lol )

 

[Brandon Wright]

dude , do you really make a comparaison between a video game and drive in reality ?

wow ...

( and for make a bad comparison , i can say that real karting is less expensive : if i count my wheel , my computer , my three 47' monitor , and all the money i've spend in iracing , that really really more expensive that the Rotax i had buy at another people 900 euros ... lol )

Why not? It's a simple equation of dollars spent vs. hours of enjoyment gained. My iRacing races (so far) have given me very similar levels of thrills to my karting adventures but at a far cheaper price. Even when I figure in my gear, sim racing has still given me a far better return on hours of enjoyment per dollar spent than pretty much any other form of entertainment I participate in.

 

[Włodek Traczyk]

OMG... I need only $ 13 to be happy.