IRacing

every other post from people new to sim racing you see people recommend Iracing, and that's fine, I racing is peak sim racing. but I'm just always thinking, why Iracing? Iracing is the most realistic, competitive, and expensive sim racing title out there. so why do so many people recommend it for complete beginners who've just bought their first entry level wheel?

I understand that Iracing is really intuitive for online racing, and from what I've heard has some of the best AI if you want singleplayer racing. but it's price point, physics, and the importance of the sporting code means Iracing is an enthusiast product, and it's marketed as such (from what I know). since when is a beginner who just bought his first thrustmaster considered an enthusiast?

that's like giving your seven year old son a 3000$ E-bike. you wouldn't do that, would you? no, you wouldn't. you give your kid a cheapish kids bike with training wheels so they can learn, and if they really enjoy riding bicycles, eventually they can step up to an really expensive E-bike. and it's the same for sim racing, isn't it?

edit: a lot of people keep saying Iracing has a lot of free content. how? Iracing has 31 cars and 27 tracks included. for AMS2 it's over 50 tracks and over 100 cars (this might be inaccurate, but should be close enough) that's way more than what Iracing is offering.

I've played sim racing on and off for 15+ years, mostly on iRacing. I guess i've played pretty much every major sim and simcade game. They all have their pro & con, as usual. I'm even writing my own simulation. I'm a RL race marshall, but not a pilot (i never owned a car actually, and i'm 47. Biker for life, yo)

Today i decided to replay some of them, old & new, iRacing is still my main sim, but i've been wondering... is iRacing doing the right thing ? Are they getting lazy or are they the most "correct" a general-purpose sim can be ?

I can't "judge" how realistic it is, nor do i really care that much. We don't have G-Force anyway so I believe it's "alright" the tweak the FFB/Sound/Visual a bit to compensate for the lack of the most important feedback a car give you and somehow "transmit the G-Force into something else". eg: I believe iRacing should provide realtime tire temperature, because we can't have the information from sound (because it's crap) and G force (because we can't have a noisy $100k rig at home).

After retesting most major sim, i've noticed a few things:

• iRacing tire sound is pretty much useless as an information medium. It feel like it have 3 sound: going straight, slipping, screaming (locking, extreme slip angle, doing 720 merlin flap variable flip skateboard trick)

• It's pretty much impossible to recover from a slide in iRacing, while in some other sim (not all, not in every situation) it's possible to recover (more or less realistically), to have the tire lose grip and snap back a second later. As a marshall, i've seen this thousands of times happening IRL. In iracing ? never ? Some other sim do it with some success.

• I don't see wreckfest IRL. It happens sometimes with the most hardcore and crazy pilot (eg: twingo race or eurotruck). Which sim is the most "realistic" for this ? I'm not sure. Being more difficult doesn't mean it's more realistic. Always driving on a cliff ridge with little hope of recovery is ruining a lot of race and this doesn't happen that much IRL even with beginner.

• However, the FFB in iRacing totally is enjoyable imho. It "feel" good. BUT: given that we have very limited visual info, that the sound info feedback is kind of useless. I believe it might deserve "tweak" here and there. Give up some of that "realism" (allegedly) so that it can compensate for the lack of other proper feedback.

• Some simulation kind of force you to recover automagically by giving a large FFB push in the right direction, some "self alignment" magic. I've heard that it's not realistic. This self-alignment does exist, but not with that much force. And given that the whole tire temperature skyrocket on every mistake (which is not a thing irl, not to that extent), i don't think it would help that much in iRacing anyway. Realistic or not, this "FFB trick" help A LOT to compensate for the lack of car feedback in other sim.

Now... I can hear the downvoters screaming: But Verstappen ! All the RL GT Drivers ! All the sim racing aliens !

Well, i've talked (and drank) with countless RL drivers. I have 0 confidence in their feedback. Not because they're "bad", hell no ! Because they're so good ! Because they're adaptation machines ! You can give them the most broken car, broken simulation, on an unknown track. Let them try a few laps and they'll be like: "yep ! i've got it, all good, let's race this junk !".

The only one whining about every little thing are people like me, who are not adaptation machine.

Iracing does have a lot of positive (and that's why i play it). But is it the best simulation ?

How come other simulation are pretty much all doing the "same thing" in car behavior (with some minor difference) and only iRacing feel completely different ? Are they all doing it wrong except iRacing ? Or is it iRacing doing it wrong but we stick with it because of "everything else" it provides (iRating, SR, community, lobby, etc...) ?

I'm open to discussion.