Mate I had that deliberation for nigh on 2 years, and from first getting Race I loved the in car view for the immersion factor, but still found/find it a bit unrealistic and more restrictive than a real car view would be ... still, I stuck with it for a couple of years and a tonne of online racing, including 6th overall in the 2008/9 RDGTC Pro league ... but in the end I gave in and have mainly switched to hood cam
Hood cam to me gives me far better feeling of speed, and despite not having the steering wheel, windows and doors around you, I think the view is slightly more akin to what you experience when driving a proper motor in down the street ... ie looking down the bonnet with quite a broad perspective and viewing pane.
Negatives of hood cam for me - sitting in the middle of the car rarely happens unless you are of course driving a single seater :wink:
Personally ... if the cockpit view could be skewed/biassed slightly to even realistically resemble what you see when you actually drive a car, then I would use it all the time without a question ... IMO the view through the windscreen needs to be magnified to almost hood view, and then the wheel/dials etc more like a small border ... if everyone used retinal trackers/scanners or track-ir, then we could actually look down then have the screen pan down like you are looking at the dash in real life and then back up to see the road once more ... but as I don't use this lot then we have to make compromises.
At the end of the day its what does it for you and what you feel comfortable driving ... and the only view I
really object to personally is swingman as I personally don't think there is anything even close to sim racing about it (unless you are racing radio controlled cars :wink
... but therein lies a totally different argument that I am not going to enter into (again!) :tongue: