Discussion
I realise Bert's fine with VR, but just for future record on this thread it's worth saying that VR makes many some people barf within minutes. I'm one of those people! I love my OR, but I've got 10, maybe 20 minutes out of it a day tops. Even my wife, who can read in the car, had to stop using the OR after a few minutes in FSX.
I struggled with VR originally but i'm ok now. 144hz triples are now the goto for the e-sport guys but I love the immersion of VR and i'll just wait it out the next vr step.
Good luck OP, I use iracing purely for the competition, endurance racing and quality of circuits, but I guess if you're looking for historic's then you might end up elsewhere.
And Phuzzy, i've been in the sim industry for 10yrs + and wouldn't hesitate to recommend PRS to a domestic user who doesn't have the time or ability to spec/setup a rig and who would need a service provider to do it. Some of the best experiences of my career/hobby is having yesterday's hero's get into a rig and experience a bit of sim racing.
Good luck OP, I use iracing purely for the competition, endurance racing and quality of circuits, but I guess if you're looking for historic's then you might end up elsewhere.
And Phuzzy, i've been in the sim industry for 10yrs + and wouldn't hesitate to recommend PRS to a domestic user who doesn't have the time or ability to spec/setup a rig and who would need a service provider to do it. Some of the best experiences of my career/hobby is having yesterday's hero's get into a rig and experience a bit of sim racing.
Edited by ribiero on Wednesday 20th November 17:33
BertBert said:
Thanks all for the info. Looks like lots of choice and some budgetary decisions to make.
One thing that does concern me is how to get a sim model setup that has the same characteristics as my ff2000 race car. I drove one that was set up to be the same lap time around croft based on an f3 car and it wasn't well balanced at all.
Bert
I'm afraid I don't know of a car on a sim that'll provide a good match, but it's worth noting that from experience I've found just driving a lot on sims has had a huge positive impact on my real life racing. Many years ago on the sim "Grand Prix Legends" I once got embroiled in an intense three way hot lap battle in Lotus 49s; we were taking tenths and hundredths off each others times. At the time I was racing a FWD hatch, so it couldn't have been more different, but I noticed that the more sim hours I did that my driving did definitely improve, both in terms of lap times, but also consistency and other more subtle ways. I've since raced all sorts of cars and yes, it helps if the car on the sim is similar, but actually just getting fairly close does wonders. Assetto Corsa has some historic single seaters and I'd definitely recommend checking those out.One thing that does concern me is how to get a sim model setup that has the same characteristics as my ff2000 race car. I drove one that was set up to be the same lap time around croft based on an f3 car and it wasn't well balanced at all.
Bert
The other thing with sims is you can't feel the slip angles, so it'll never be exactly the same, even if the car is identical. I have in the past owned cars that are in sims (for example, Assetto Corsa has a 2-Eleven and an Elise, cars I owned and drove on track for many years apiece; plus a Tatuus Formula Abarth, very similar to my Tatuus Formula Renault), and because of this difference between real life and sims I've not found I'm able to train specific facets of my driving in how they relate to the car (for instance particular characteristics of the LSD, suspension geometry etc).
The trouble with motor racing is that most of us just can't do enough of it, unlike say running or squash, so sims really help to just build the volume of driving up and train your brain.
RobM77 said:
I realise Bert's fine with VR, but just for future record on this thread it's worth saying that VR makes many some people barf within minutes. I'm one of those people! I love my OR, but I've got 10, maybe 20 minutes out of it a day tops. Even my wife, who can read in the car, had to stop using the OR after a few minutes in FSX.
On sunday my daughter who also races FF2000 lasted about 4 minutes until she barrel rolled (which frankly is not a-typical
) and then she had to lie down for an hour!Yes - a significant number of people do not get on with VR and became nauseaous / sick surprisingly quickly. My brothers' built a number of sims for various competitors, ranging from an expensive one fitted into a written off Formula Renault tub down to much cheaper, so they've all had to have some testing before being delivered. I don't get affected but one of my colleages can only a manage a lap of Brands Indy before quitting and having to sit still for half an hour.
It's intriguing, because I've raced for nearly 20 years in a wide variety of cars and instructed in a few, but have never felt motion sickness on track. Using 3 monitors I feel a little giddy after an hour, and using VR after 5-10 minutes I'm so giddy and disorientated that I feel sick for many hours afterwards. It's so horrible that I don't use my OR at all any more, although I respect it as something truly marvellous! There was a game/sim years ago called 'Race' that had a helmet view, so you saw the inside of the helmet on the screen, and that made me sick using monitors within 5-10 minutes as well. It's clearly quite a subtle thing.
BertBert said:
RobM77 said:
It's so horrible that I don't use my OR at all any more.
Do you want to sell it? ETA: I say maybe because there is a fantastic Apollo 11 experience where you get to ride to the moon. For some reason that doesn't make me at all sick.
Edited by RobM77 on Thursday 21st November 10:53
BertBert said:
It was just a thought, so no pressure! I'm thinking that getting started with a VR headset and a desk based wheel and pedals, not going for a big (to me) budget setup off the bat is a good way to proceed and get started to learn stuff.
Bert
I reckon that's a good approach, yes. I've enjoyed using expensive sims (I think we've both been to Pro Sim?), but my setup at home is surprisingly close for far less outlay. Be aware that if your desk chair has wheels you may need to lock it in position to use the pedals properly. I've screwed wooden stops to the skirting boards and use a piece of oak worktop upstand behind the chair - matches the floor and does the job well.Bert
I'll let you know about the OR. It's only worth about £50-£75 and I may just keep it for the Apollo thing
RobM77 said:
I reckon that's a good approach, yes. I've enjoyed using expensive sims (I think we've both been to Pro Sim?), but my setup at home is surprisingly close for far less outlay. Be aware that if your desk chair has wheels you may need to lock it in position to use the pedals properly. I've screwed wooden stops to the skirting boards and use a piece of oak worktop upstand behind the chair - matches the floor and does the job well.
I'll let you know about the OR. It's only worth about £50-£75 and I may just keep it for the Apollo thing
Good point about the wheelie chair!I'll let you know about the OR. It's only worth about £50-£75 and I may just keep it for the Apollo thing
BertBert said:
RobM77 said:
I reckon that's a good approach, yes. I've enjoyed using expensive sims (I think we've both been to Pro Sim?), but my setup at home is surprisingly close for far less outlay. Be aware that if your desk chair has wheels you may need to lock it in position to use the pedals properly. I've screwed wooden stops to the skirting boards and use a piece of oak worktop upstand behind the chair - matches the floor and does the job well.
I'll let you know about the OR. It's only worth about £50-£75 and I may just keep it for the Apollo thing
Good point about the wheelie chair!I'll let you know about the OR. It's only worth about £50-£75 and I may just keep it for the Apollo thing
Assetto Corsa models are editable to some degree - power is easy, gearing is easy. Other things such as suspension wishbone pickup points, spring rates, roll bars, ride height, CoG without fuel, position of fuel tanks can also be edited. Tyre models can be tweaked as well. Easiest to start with a car thats been modelled reasonably well professionally and then make edits based on that. Visually it will still appear as per the 3D model used, but will drive closer to your FF2000.
There are a number of guides out there on how to unpack the data, make adjustments and to re-pack it.
And there are various people out there in the Assetto Corsa world who are happy to give advice on what the numbers mean, what units they are in, in order
to make the various tweaks necessary.
There are a number of guides out there on how to unpack the data, make adjustments and to re-pack it.
And there are various people out there in the Assetto Corsa world who are happy to give advice on what the numbers mean, what units they are in, in order
to make the various tweaks necessary.
Edited by andrewcliffe on Thursday 21st November 13:41
RobM77 said:
The "game rather than sim" comment came for a number of reasons. I've got them all jotted down at home and am happy to elaborate when I'm next back home. From memory though I can remember two of the main reasons:
1) When I got iRacing I bought my car for it, a Formula Renault, but then found I was limited to solo practise and couldn't race because I needed to complete races in a low spec car like an MX5 first to gain credits or somesuch - that's not a sim, that's a game with 'levels'.
You can practise with other people in public sessions even when you don't yet have the license. It's just racing you can't do. With that said, you can of course enter private league events at any level, depending on the requirements of the organiser. I'm pretty sure in real life you need to go through a series of exams in order to even race entry level series, and to rack up several reasonable race finishes in order to race something higher up (like Formula Renault 2.0).1) When I got iRacing I bought my car for it, a Formula Renault, but then found I was limited to solo practise and couldn't race because I needed to complete races in a low spec car like an MX5 first to gain credits or somesuch - that's not a sim, that's a game with 'levels'.
RobM77 said:
2) Secondly, the modelling of the FR was completely unrealistic, which for a paid extra in a so called 'simulation' is pretty substandard. The real car has a rollstack/monoshock front suspension design (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Formula_Renault_front_2.jpg), which separates roll and pitch, having a conventional spring and damper in pitch, but only a spring (the "roll stack" of Belville washers) in roll. This is a fundamental of chassis design and completely omitted by iRacing; from memory I think they modelled it as a twin damper setup, like an F3 car. From memory I think they also modelled the anti roll bars wrongly too. Furthermore, the tyre pressures of the FR, in fact any 500kg car (single seater, Radical, Caterham etc), would typically be set between 15 and 20psi cold - the pressure range on iRacing doesn't even start that low, so they've got that wrong for every single seater, Radical, Caterham, Sports 2000 style car etc that they model. The wing settings were also wrong, spring rate choices, LSD settings, gear ratios, etc. I, and many others I'm sure, would have happily taken my car to meet the iRacing team and let them spend days measuring it to get everything correct - furthermore the user handbook with full specs is freely available online. In summary, in no way can that be classed as a 'simulation'. I was expecting to be able to put my setup on the car, whereas in reality I couldn't even start to do that. Also, if you think about it, if the tyres in the lightweight cars are reaching operating temperature at completely the wrong pressures, what does that tells us about their physics model and/or tyre model?... Not a simulation by any means.
Not sure what car you drove in iRacing, but the Formula Renault 2.0 over there has a monoshock setup, which correctly models anti-roll bars among everything else, and allows minimum pressures of 14.5 psi. I have no reason to believe that the spring rates, diff, ratios, wing settings etc are modelled incorrectly either. Please see the attached screenshot from the garage.
RobM77 said:
The other thing with sims is you can't feel the slip angles, so it'll never be exactly the same, even if the car is identical. I have in the past owned cars that are in sims (for example, Assetto Corsa has a 2-Eleven and an Elise, cars I owned and drove on track for many years apiece; plus a Tatuus Formula Abarth, very similar to my Tatuus Formula Renault), and because of this difference between real life and sims I've not found I'm able to train specific facets of my driving in how they relate to the car (for instance particular characteristics of the LSD, suspension geometry etc).
I absolutely can feel the slip angles just as well in a sim as in real life. Sure, you need to rely on sight, sound and force feedback alone (unless you use a motion sim but I've never tried one I liked enough to justify the expense), but it's absolutely possible. As for setup tuning, again while this usually isn't a 1:1 match to real life due to differences in tyre physics and conditions, the fundamental principles work just like in real life, and I can absolutely feel the difference when I've made a setup change, even in a sim....
To the OP, Fanatec is indeed a good place to start, and VR is also great, not only because it's immersive, but also because you needn't worry about calculating the correct FOV (which most people neglect), nor do you have to worry about display lag etc, which can really ruin a sim experience. Just make sure your PC can comfortably run VR at the required framerate (usually 90fps or more).
I'd also highly recommend a sturdy, adjustable rig. Aluminium profile is a very good choice, places like https://sim-lab.eu/ do kits, or you can try and DIY it. If you can afford it, a direct drive steering system and high end, load cell pedals (such as Heusinkveld) will blow you away - and you can always sell them if circumstances change and get a lot of your money back.
0versteer said:
RobM77 said:
The "game rather than sim" comment came for a number of reasons. I've got them all jotted down at home and am happy to elaborate when I'm next back home. From memory though I can remember two of the main reasons:
1) When I got iRacing I bought my car for it, a Formula Renault, but then found I was limited to solo practise and couldn't race because I needed to complete races in a low spec car like an MX5 first to gain credits or somesuch - that's not a sim, that's a game with 'levels'.
You can practise with other people in public sessions even when you don't yet have the license. It's just racing you can't do. With that said, you can of course enter private league events at any level, depending on the requirements of the organiser. I'm pretty sure in real life you need to go through a series of exams in order to even race entry level series, and to rack up several reasonable race finishes in order to race something higher up (like Formula Renault 2.0).1) When I got iRacing I bought my car for it, a Formula Renault, but then found I was limited to solo practise and couldn't race because I needed to complete races in a low spec car like an MX5 first to gain credits or somesuch - that's not a sim, that's a game with 'levels'.
RobM77 said:
2) Secondly, the modelling of the FR was completely unrealistic, which for a paid extra in a so called 'simulation' is pretty substandard. The real car has a rollstack/monoshock front suspension design (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Formula_Renault_front_2.jpg), which separates roll and pitch, having a conventional spring and damper in pitch, but only a spring (the "roll stack" of Belville washers) in roll. This is a fundamental of chassis design and completely omitted by iRacing; from memory I think they modelled it as a twin damper setup, like an F3 car. From memory I think they also modelled the anti roll bars wrongly too. Furthermore, the tyre pressures of the FR, in fact any 500kg car (single seater, Radical, Caterham etc), would typically be set between 15 and 20psi cold - the pressure range on iRacing doesn't even start that low, so they've got that wrong for every single seater, Radical, Caterham, Sports 2000 style car etc that they model. The wing settings were also wrong, spring rate choices, LSD settings, gear ratios, etc. I, and many others I'm sure, would have happily taken my car to meet the iRacing team and let them spend days measuring it to get everything correct - furthermore the user handbook with full specs is freely available online. In summary, in no way can that be classed as a 'simulation'. I was expecting to be able to put my setup on the car, whereas in reality I couldn't even start to do that. Also, if you think about it, if the tyres in the lightweight cars are reaching operating temperature at completely the wrong pressures, what does that tells us about their physics model and/or tyre model?... Not a simulation by any means.
Not sure what car you drove in iRacing, but the Formula Renault 2.0 over there has a monoshock setup, which correctly models anti-roll bars among everything else, and allows minimum pressures of 14.5 psi. I have no reason to believe that the spring rates, diff, ratios, wing settings etc are modelled incorrectly either. Please see the attached screenshot from the garage.On your first point, in real life racing there are indeed grades of license, but you only take one exam and test, right at the start; thereafter grades are earnt through competing in races; if you want to upgrade you send off proof of your race completion and pay the extra fee for the higher grade of license. That works all the way to the top, or at least it did last time I looked into it (F1 has/had a 'superlicense', which requires the driver to have competed in a qualifying championship). Generally speaking, club level events in the UK are all the same grade, so for the most part you can race an FR or F3 at club level (for example in the Monoposto championship) with a 'National B' license, which is the same license required to race a Mini - most club racers stay at that grade their whole racing lives. I raced everything from a Metro to my Formula Renault 2.0 on a National B license, which I gained when I was 23 years old and have had ever since. The only reason to upgrade as a UK club racer is if you want to race abroad at somewhere like Spa, which requires proof of completing a few races and a slightly higher fee.
I'm not too sure how professional level motorsport works, because I've never had even a fraction of the money required for it. I'd be surprised if you needed more than the basic license for Formula Renault when it existed in the UK, but I may be wrong. A season was about £250k, so I never paid much attention as a driver
There were other concerns that I had with iRacing - as I said the other day I've got them all listed at home if you're interested.
Edited by RobM77 on Thursday 21st November 16:57
0versteer said:
RobM77 said:
The other thing with sims is you can't feel the slip angles, so it'll never be exactly the same, even if the car is identical. I have in the past owned cars that are in sims (for example, Assetto Corsa has a 2-Eleven and an Elise, cars I owned and drove on track for many years apiece; plus a Tatuus Formula Abarth, very similar to my Tatuus Formula Renault), and because of this difference between real life and sims I've not found I'm able to train specific facets of my driving in how they relate to the car (for instance particular characteristics of the LSD, suspension geometry etc).
I absolutely can feel the slip angles just as well in a sim as in real life. Sure, you need to rely on sight, sound and force feedback alone (unless you use a motion sim but I've never tried one I liked enough to justify the expense), but it's absolutely possible. Edited by RobM77 on Thursday 21st November 16:56
0versteer said:
As for setup tuning, again while this usually isn't a 1:1 match to real life due to differences in tyre physics and conditions, the fundamental principles work just like in real life, and I can absolutely feel the difference when I've made a setup change, even in a sim.
Again, this is related to my other point about feeling things. The changes have an effect, yes, but because you experience it via different senses it's just different. Changing a ramp angle on the LSD for example has a noticeable effect in real life and in the sim, but that change comes at you via different senses. Because of this, it's very hard to get a perfect 1:1 relationship between the real car and the sim and you can't hone those senses, because you're honing different senses. Sims are jolly useful, and they've been improving my driving for years, but they're not perfect, purely because they're a sim.RobM77 said:
I'm not too sure how professional level motorsport works, because I've never had even a fraction of the money required for it. I'd be surprised if you needed more than the basic license for Formula Renault when it existed in the UK, but I may be wrong. A season was about £250k, so I never paid much attention as a driver
Different series can stipulate different license levels, but thats it and anyone can obtain the necessary licences, certainly at lower levels simply by fulfilling the requirements. Nothing to National B - pass medical, pass ARDS test
Nat. B to Nat. A - get 6 signatures from club level events, 1 of which can be for marshalling.
Nat. A to Int. D - the holder of a National A can upgrade to International D without any further criteria, just the cost of the upgrade (the difference between the two plus an upgrade fee)
Nat. A/Int. D to Int. C. - get Signatures from: 3 National A races OR 2 National ‘A’ plus 2 National ‘B’ or Clubman Races OR 6 National ‘B’ or Clubman Races. All from three different venues.
Int C to Int B and Int. B to Int. A. - compete satisfactorily in at least 10 national races or international races within the previous 2 years, and if you've finished in the top 5 of those races and finished within the top 5 of a suitable important championship, then you can get Int. A rather than Int. B.
Int. A to FIA Super Licence - accumulate at least 40 qualifying points within three years. Winning GP2, Indycar, F3 European series gives you 40 points. Winning national F4 gives you 12 points.
Upgrade costs is an admin fee and the difference between the two licences. (2019 prices below)
National B - £ 64.00
National A - £ 101.00
International D - £ 214.00
International C - £ 214.00
International B - £417.00
International A - £ 1158.00
FIA Superlicence - kerching...
Formula Renault BARC was national B - so just basic ARDs test.
Formula Renault UK was national A, which a well funded driver could achieve in a matter of weeks after obtaining their National B (5 meetings races and one day marshalling), by arrive and drive deals over 6 days where qualifying and race happen on the same day.
Edited by andrewcliffe on Thursday 21st November 18:13
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