Sim Racing: What setup is required for Skills?

I picked up and Xbox 360 and Forza 3 (it came with the Xbox) in hopes of keeping the driving skills fresh and the winter boredom at bay.

What I'm finding: It's difficult to place the car accurately on the course, So I tend to early apex lots of corners. With just a single view out the front of the car windshield, it's hard to get a sense of how fast the car is going. Result: I'm driving "fast in, fast off the track" a lot.

My hope was that a casual sim like Forza would have some value as a winter time skills sharpener. But I can't get much situational awareness with this setup, so my driving is mostly E36 M3!

What's required to create a sim setup that has some value as a skills sharpener in the off months? Do I need to spend $$$ on 3 screens, dedicated gaming PC, rFactor / iRacing? Or is there a cheaper alternative that has value?

I don't use Forza (I have GT6), but I find iRacing a better simulator than GT6. I only have a single monitor (don't have space or graphics power for more than one right now).

I prefer GT6 for a casual drive (hardly any setup time) compared to iRacing that requires lugging the steering wheel around and all that. But I'm confident that I learned more about Lime Rock (a track I've never been to) on iRacing.

For the ultimate in situational awareness, just get an Oculus and a good set of headaphones. If you are using a fairly low system requirement racing game like LFS, you can push the Oculus without crazypants hardware.

LFS? (goes and googles it) Never heard of Live For Speed. How does it compare to iRacing?

I'm interested in this discussion as well. I enjoyed Forza when I had an xbox 360 and have been missing that entertainment but a realistic sim setup sounds like more "fun" to me.

GT6 is a lot of fun (I run with the GRM group here). What I have found is that it is much less about the graphics quality and what not as it is about the physics. GT6 has some definite issues with this especially how cars react when they are in close proximity to each other but over all the $$$$$ for the fun is is hard to beat. I use a G27 wheel an have one of the racing seats that go with it. There are times when I am looking to cinch down my belts at the start of races.

If you are looking just to keep sharp for the real thing then I think that it really does not matter what sim you have it is seat time that matters and keeping the basic reflexes sharp is really what is important.

In reply to LuxInterior:

You have to mentally force yourself to brake early. Because of the lack of immersion. It just takes practice. Keep backing your braking points up until you never overshoot an apex. Then after 150 laps or so, start adjusting your braking points.

Are you on a wheel or controller?

Nick (LUCAS) Comstock wrote: In reply to LuxInterior: Are you on a wheel or controller?

I'm using the Xbox Speed Wheel

I'm pretty big into sim racing. I would go far enough to say that I'm probably one of the most knowledgeable members here on the subject.

First of all, if you want to get any benefit at all out of it, I would recommend you get a wheel and pedal setup. Playing with the controller is just video games and wont train your brain at all. If you want some recommendations on setups, just ask.

Now second, an Oculus Rift or triple monitor setup would be the best way to give you that feeling of situational awareness, but you can also get very good results with a single monitor. The trick is to place the monitor as close as you can stand, and then adjust the field of view to compensate.

You basically want the monitor to be a window into the virtual world, and you want everything to appear in the monitor the same size as it would in real life. Imagine your wearing a helmet, and the monitor is the only area you can see out of.

See all the sim games on the PC offer a parameter to adjust FOV because they know how key it is to getting the sim to feel right. I'm not sure if GT6 or Forza have this option, but its worth looking into. There are FOV calculators online that ask the size of your screen and the distance it is from your eyes to calculate proper FOV.

Anyways, there are all sorts of awesome sims on the PC. Assetto Corsa is good. Game Stock Car Extreme is another that you will want to check out (they even have gokarts). All of them are in a league above the console stuff.

Finally, if its wheel-to-wheel racing you want, your best bet is iRacing. Its expensive, but no other sim comes even close to being able to replicate real life racing like that sim can. That "game" has gotten my adrenaline pumping more than any other game I've ever played. The way it simulates racing is incredible.

In reply to LuxInterior:

I'm not familiar with it.

Another question, what size screen are you playing on and how far away from it are you?

The reason I ask is it does help to do everything you can to increase the immersion. Lights out in a dark room, use headphone to block ambient noise. After someone gave me a pointer, I moved my 42" screen directly behind my wheel on my dedicated rig. My eyes are about to feet away from it. Now I actually have the ability to turn my head and look through the apex.

The speed wheel...is a step above the controller I guess haha. If you're interested, a setup like mine can be had for around $250-350. Check it out:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/hxuqypxoehU

If you're having problems with situational awareness, I'd start by switching to the hood/roof cam so that you can actually get a decent field of view.

Holy crap, I need to get into some of this stuff. I've always played the hell out of forza, had a wheel for a little while but damn y'all are talking about the major leagues of driving sims. Hey Desmond, what's that rally game called that you linked? I've been looking for a good rally game. Ahem,simulator.

MCarp22 wrote: If you're having problems with situational awareness, I'd start by switching to the hood/roof cam so that you can actually get a decent field of view.

For me the hood/roof cam makes things worse. Yes I can see more track, but it feels bizarre to be driving the car from that vantage point. I want more immersion, the "Hovering Race Deity View" give me less. -- If that makes sense.

Nick (LUCAS) Comstock wrote: In reply to LuxInterior: I'm not familiar with it. Another question, what size screen are you playing on and how far away from it are you? The reason I ask is it does help to do everything you can to increase the immersion. Lights out in a dark room, use headphone to block ambient noise. After someone gave me a pointer, I moved my 42" screen directly behind my wheel on my dedicated rig. My eyes are about to feet away from it. Now I actually have the ability to turn my head and look through the apex.

I'm 8 or so feet away from a 50" TV. Tonight I'll try getting much closer.

Indoor kart racing.

Best summer simulator I've ever tried.

In reply to chiodos:

That one's called Dirt Rally, by Codemasters (yeah, surprising, they actually made something good). Its freaking amazing. If you've ever played and enjoyed Richard Burns Rally, you'll need to pick it up. The tarmac stuff isn't great, but everything else is incredible.

ProDarwin wrote: For the ultimate in situational awareness, just get an Oculus and a good set of headaphones.

I like the idea of a "wearable screen" like an Oculus. But at $500 or so, it's not a great option for the budget right now. Are there more affordable VR glasses that are worth checking out?

Desmond wrote: In reply to chiodos: That one's called Dirt Rally, by Codemasters (yeah, surprising, they actually made something good). Its freaking amazing. If you've ever played and enjoyed Richard Burns Rally, you'll need to pick it up. The tarmac stuff isn't great, but everything else is incredible.

I agree. My problem is that I'm barely able to run it with all the graphics turned down to ps2 level and it becomes un playable if there is any weather. I really need a good computer. I'd like to run that and iracing with all the candy turned on.

LuxInterior wrote:

ProDarwin wrote: For the ultimate in situational awareness, just get an Oculus and a good set of headaphones.

I like the idea of a "wearable screen" like an Oculus. But at $500 or so, it's not a great option for the budget right now. Are there more affordable VR glasses that are worth checking out?

"Affordable" options would be limited to something like the Samsung gear (there are generics out there) that allow you to insert your smartphone to use as the screen.

I don't know of anything that would work with an x360 though. Maybe a head mounted display + kinect?

Ah, yeah forgot the price went up a bunch. Still not a bad deal when you consider the realism difference vs. spending $500 on 3 decent sized monitors. And it doesn't take up a ton of space.

Live For Speed is an excellent sim that is $cheap. Its old so its graphics aren't going to blow you away, but it has great physics.

Short of more screens/more FOV/VR, the only other way I can think to get better awareness is to program and make heavy use of the 'look left' / 'look right' buttons in whatever game you are playing so you can quickly glance that direction and check the mirror at the same time.

It sounds like the answers for now are:

1. See how Forza 3 feels with my sitting super-close to the screen

2. Try out Live for Speed or iRacing on my MacBook Pro and do a lot of look right/left

3. Save up my marbles for an Oculus and a PC + Video card that can drive them both. That'll be a while given that Oculus Video requirements call for a $350 video card (NVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD 290)

LuxInterior wrote: It sounds like the answers for now are: 1. See how Forza 3 feels with my sitting super-close to the screen 2. Try out Live for Speed or iRacing on my MacBook Pro and do a lot of look right/left 3. Save up my marbles for an Oculus and a PC + Video card that can drive them both. That'll be a while given that Oculus Video requirements call for a $350 video card (NVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD 290)

I've run a DK2 off a work laptop with a Quadro 1000. I don't think mega hardware will be necessary for older games, unless they lock the resolution to something high.

Intermediate step would be: build cheaper gaming pc, 3 monitor setup using 3 budget monitors. I bet you can build the whole setup (minus the wheels) for not much more than an Oculus.

ProDarwin wrote: I've run a DK2 off a work laptop with a Quadro 1000. I don't think mega hardware will be necessary for older games, unless they lock the resolution to something high. Intermediate step would be: build cheaper gaming pc, 3 monitor setup using 3 budget monitors. I bet you can build the whole setup (minus the wheels) for not much more than an Oculus.

Looks like the GeForce GT 650M video card in my MacBook Pro gets better 3D mark scores than the Quadro 1000M. Also, a DK2 can be had for ~$350 on ebay.

There might be sorta-cheap immersive sim racing in my future!

In reply to LuxInterior:

I had a DK2 and, while impressive, the resolution was not great enough to make it work well. First of all, the screen has some blind spots on either side of the aparatus. This means that you still cannot truly see hairpins and stuff unless you turn your head and look right at them. So its weird, because with the oculus (at least DK2) you find yourself moving your head around a lot, more than you would with a single monitor or even in real life.

Also, as I mentioned, the resolution isn't great, so you are playing a blurry version of the game through a grid view. It wasn't unplayable, and after ten minutes or so you more or less got used to it, but it definitely needed some improvement.

Anyways, these issues appear to have been addressed in the consumer version. The resolution has been upped (going to need a quality GPU to drive it for sure), and the inside screen has been better placed, eliminating the "blind spots" inside.

If you can manage to try one out before you buy, I would really recommend doing so. I sold mine and stuck with my single monitor setup.