Help with a Driving Sim Choices - learn left foot braking

I appreciate this question gets asked plenty, but would really appreciate a heads up from the experienced hands here.

I'm in my mid forties and have played all the Gran Truismo games up to 6. Always loved them (and Colin McRae Rally 2) but couldn't justify a wheel setup because I was away from home so much with work. I still enjoy GT5 & GT6 on my PS3 but the hand controller sucks!

My aims:
> Improve my road (and possibly rally) driving by using a realistic sim.
> This to include learning left foot braking. (I already have heel & toe down and will want to use it on the sim)
> I haven't tried online racing, I may just be happy with single player stuff.

I understand I will want a load cell brake pedal.
Most likely I would be looking at a lower end direct drive wheel. I've looked at the Thrustmaster T-300 RS GT kit and it seems to be wanting a bit.

The best sim games for immersion, realism and my aims would seem to be Assetto Corsa & Richard Burns Rally (possibly DiRT 2.0 or WRC 8/9/10?)

I do really fancy a VR set up if possible.

At present we are completely a Mac household plus my PS3. I'm thinking a Trak Racing or Next Level wheel stand with my IKEA Poang chair through the living room TV after the missus has gone to bed.

Do I

a) Buy a used gaming PC, used Fanatic/Moza kit and a used wheel stand + maybe and Occulus Rift for VR. Run with Assetto Corsa & Richard Burns Rally.

b) Buy a used PS5 with PSVR2 & GT7, and run it with a used Fanatec Gran Turismo wheel & pedals?

I think I could get both set ups for under £1000 if buying used. There is a knowledge gap for me with PCs, and I think option b might be easier to source.

What would you choose?

Am I better to spend ~£250 on a stand & Thrustmaster T-300 set up with GT6 & PS3 to see how much I actually use it?

Have I made any serious miscalculations?

Thanks very much in advance!

A few pointers.

- PC - 3070 is plenty. I have one. I played iRacing VR on my Quest 2 with a 2060 with no issues at all.
- If you want to properly race multiplayer - iRacing.
- VR is pretty much non-optional if you want to properly race. I know, I know, some people with triple screen setups love it, I had that, but VR gives you 3D. Don't underestimate the advantage of actually being able to judge distances, which you can't do in 2D but instead learn corner tightness by experience (crashing). 3D is a total game changer.
- VR will give you lower resultion and detail compared to screens - but - who cares - the experience is infintely better. It's almost like VR was made for sim racing. If you do care - buy a console and play solo racing on your TV,
- Second hand Fanatec gear is out there and worth it. I had clubsport wheel and pedals (load cell) with a chair-side mounted sequential shifter. Awesome.

Oh, VR. Do VR. :-)

I've not kept up but the Quest 2 (now the 3) was by far the best value for performance at the time, and has solid wirlea pc streaming, though you ll prob tether for driving simply for the fact the battery won't last long enough.

Don't underestimate the simplicity of the PS5/PSVR2 + Gt7 setup compared to setting up an adequate PC rig with VR etc... It's a total joy to use and for me the best gaming experience I've had in 30+ years.

I've put 300+ hours into GT7 so far and still have quite a bit of single player content to complete. I am now getting into the online racing as well which is frustrating but a lot of fun.

I ran iRacing in VR on a Quest 2 with a 3060, although I always had to shrink the view to make it run smoothly. It did mean you'd get a kind of letter box effect, but in a race you don't notice it at all. I upgraded to a 4070 and found I had to also upgrade my CPU from a 5600x to some sort of 3DX process (can't remember which one) in order to get the benefit as the CPU was holding it back. Even now though, I still shrink the view so I can have higher graphic settings. I've getting 80fps on the quest 2, it struggles if I try to increase to 90fps.

AMS2 is awesome in VR, but whilst it's fun, but I'm not a fan of how the tyres feel like they don't grip to the road, you have to slide through the corners rather than balancing your speed etc with available grip.

ACC - great for GT3's, I think they have GT4 as well. Decent SIM, but in VR it struggles, you can spend hours trying to nail down your settings and the graphics still seem to look blurry.

iRacing - Doesn't look at good as AMS2, but runs great in VR too. I prefer how iRacing feels over the other SIMS. It is however the most expensive... by far! The rain in iRacing is superb though.

Good point about about the battery still running down whilst plugged in.

Personally, I would SIM race without being tethered to the PC. Whilst the quest does work wirelessly in SIM racing, the quality does suffer a bit. Given that you're sat down anyway, there's not reason not to get the cable other than the cost, but you can get decent cheap ones from Amazon.

Yeah - I used the cable for racing, and wireless for everything else. With a 5Ghz wifi lan set up properly there is no noticeable compression. I had to tweak settings a bit. Being tethered whilst sat down is no hardship.

I don't doubt you, but if you want actualy real racing where it's ALL down to the driver, and people actively avoid contact (due to the penalties) then iRacing has it sewn up (expensively!). I downloaded AC but never got much into it as the match making system didn't seem much, but that was a few years back. If it's godo now then I can see the appeal of console racing in VR.

Go and try a VR system before buying. Some people can't get on with it and become really ill with motion sickness.

Or buy a bucket at the same time, just in case.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with buying a console and something like a Logitech G29 (or whatever model it is now) as a way you try it out. If you can pickup a used wheel/pedals you'd be able to sell them if it didn't work out, or you'd also be able to use them on PC if you switched over from console.

SIMS racing can get expensive depending on how far you want to go, but it doesn't need to be expensive. There's no reason a person can't be competitive on something like iRacing with a half decent PC and a G29 wheel/pedals. As long as you don't want to use VR, you don't need a power house GPU either.

I started off with a single monitor and a G29 connected to a fairly basic gaming PC. Sadly it went downhill from there, to triple monitors, SIM rig, direct drive wheel, load cell pedals, wide monitor, VR and various base shakers on the pedals/seat/rig. Even with all of this, I'm still not that good!!!

I would never recommend someone jump in feet first and buy expensive stuff. Dip a toe in, and upgrade as you go.

I jumped in a GT3 race on iRacing last night, in the wet, it's a great experience trying to find the best line while fighting with real people and not AI. AI is good for fun, but you quickly learn their weakness. When you're racing against real people, it's a whole different challenge.