Can you learn to race just playing video games? I find out.

[Dr JonboyG]

Can you go from just playing GT5 and Forza 3 to actually racing a car? Will it help you be quick? Are the tracks accurate? In the interests of science, journalism, and having a damn good time I went to find out: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/reviews/2011/04/ars-...

The answer for me was yes, they were quite helpful for some aspects, and probably helped me not be slow, but the real thing was so much more fun. The most fun I've had with my clothes on, in fact.

Anyone else made the same transition (straight to the track from gaming, no trackdays or tuition)?

[croyde]

Wasn't there some young bloke who won a season's real racing by beating everyone in some on-line racing game simulation.

I seem to remember that he was pretty good at the real thing even though he had never done it before.

[Regiment]

I would have thought that apart from learning the tracks and the racing line, it wouldn't help at all?

[croyde]

Found him:

http://www.gizmag.com/lucas-ordoez-the-first-virtu...

PS. Ah! he did race karts when he was younger.

Edited by croyde on Wednesday 27th April 12:46

[anonymous-user]

croyde said:

Wasn't there some young bloke who won a season's real racing by beating everyone in some on-line racing game simulation.

I seem to remember that he was pretty good at the real thing even though he had never done it before.

The GT academy.

[Dr JonboyG]

croyde said:

Wasn't there some young bloke who won a season's real racing by beating everyone in some on-line racing game simulation.

I seem to remember that he was pretty good at the real thing even though he had never done it before.

There's a guy competing in the ILMC in a challenge car I think. iRacing also gave the top ranked player a test in a single seater at Road Atlanta last year, he was quick but so unfit he threw up in his helmet and had to stop.

[Chris71]

Lucas Ordonez [mentioned above] has done very well indeed. He's racing at Le Mans this year in one of the prototype classes I believe. He was certainly at Sebring.

I don't think 2D video games are a complete substitute for the feel and balance a racing driver needs, but they provide a useful head start. Virtually all professional racing drivers (no pun intended) now use simulators for training...

[renrut]

I'd imagine it would depend on the type of racing a lot.

If it was with manual boxes and proper clutches then I could see it being a completely different kettle of fish as clutch control and proper gearshifting and general pedal dancing wouldn't be well covered in a racing simulation.

Similarly if it was little single seater you'd not have experienced the actual forces involved which might leave you feeling a bit sore afterwards.

And I suspect you'd also come a cropper if the weather was bad or unpredictable.

Or you had a badly setup car.

I do think it would help though as it would teach racing lines and track layouts.

[Bill]

No idea, but in my first season racing I tried a friend's sim at Donington and failed to make the second corner on every attempt On the actual day I qualified straight into the main race and IIRC gained 13 places, admittedly part of that is due to not qualifying well as I didn't test and had never seen the circuit before so I was improving every lap

[RobM77]

I think the OP's results and findings would be more in favour of video games if he'd used sims, rather than games designed for kids and blokes to play whilst beering it up before a night out. There is a huge gulf between something like NetKar, iRacing or RFactor and Forza, Gran Turismo etc (as good as the latter are at being fun games).

I've been racing in real life for ten years, currently in single seaters, and sims pretty much since the start with Geoff Crammond's F1GP1 (my current favourite is Netkar), and find a great deal of interplay between the two. After all, it is a technique based sport. I did feel to some extent that I hit the ground running in racing because I'd played a lot of sims, although there are still things to learn in order to be quick. I still find that I'm quicker if I've practised on a sim beforehand, and the other way round.

The only thing you need to be able to do is learn to drive from visual cues on a sim, and from feel in real life. Unless you can swap between the two, you won't be able to use simulators for training very effectively. the other thing I've found is that in real life I'm much consistent, and about 5% faster, which comes from actually being in the car.

[Dr JonboyG]

RobM77 said:

I think the OP's results and findings would be more in favour of video games if he'd used sims, rather than games designed for kids and blokes to play whilst beering it up before a night out. There is a huge gulf between something like NetKar, iRacing or RFactor and Forza, Gran Turismo etc (as good as the latter are at being fun games).

I don't doubt that the PC sims are more realistic, but the point of the exercise was to see how good the console games are.

[RobM77]

Dr JonboyG said:

RobM77 said:

I think the OP's results and findings would be more in favour of video games if he'd used sims, rather than games designed for kids and blokes to play whilst beering it up before a night out. There is a huge gulf between something like NetKar, iRacing or RFactor and Forza, Gran Turismo etc (as good as the latter are at being fun games).

I don't doubt that the PC sims are more realistic, but the point of the exercise was to see how good the console games are.

Fair enough

I'm very surprised at the results in that case. I find console games rather confusing to be honest; the handling innacuracies get in the way quite a bit. Just a personal opinion though.

[Dr JonboyG]

RobM77 said:

Fair enough

I'm very surprised at the results in that case. I find console games rather confusing to be honest; the handling innacuracies get in the way quite a bit. Just a personal opinion though.

Yes, but you can play them from the couch!