I got it a couple of weeks before I got the November issue. I heard about it hear etrscca. I never knew anything like this existed. I am completely hooked because it's letting me live out my dream of driving a racecar because I will never ever be able to afford it in real life unless I win the lottery.
I'll be there just as soon as I scrape together the funds for a new computer... which on the priorities list is below "new tires for the Cobra", "new tires for the Celica", "new windshield for the Celica", "brakes for the Bronco", and, um, about 10 other things for my various and sundry vehicles.
I am.
Tim and I share his name.
I will be. But I also need to scrape together the $300 or so that it will take me to build a computer that will play it without turning graphics down. And that $300 will probably be used for a second track day in November.
(Or new parts for the Miata if I break it on the first track day.)
Yeah, I'm Mac-based, which kind of rains on my LFS and iRacer parade.
Duke, if you've got an intel mac, you can run it through Parallels or Boot Camp.
I'm hoping Santa givs it to me, and that it works with my wheel setup
what is iRacing? that link you posted doesn't help me much...
Autolex wrote: what is iRacing? that link you posted doesn't help me much...
yeah...no kidding
Maybe this one will: http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/iracing/
ahh, yes, I need to sign up for that then!
sounds like a good winter hobby since I cant autocross again until April!
Tim Baxter wrote: Duke, if you've got an intel mac, you can run it through Parallels or Boot Camp.
I don't... yet. But I figured that might be in the future. Are they leagues better than the old SoftPC was? What about video cards? I assume this is pretty card-intensive, and my next new Mac will probably be a full-up iMac, not a desktop, because of the huge price difference.
I would if my PC was built for it, but it's not. Upgrading falls behind new Toyos, a HANS device and a transponder for the Spec E30. So I guess real racing will have to come first.
Leagues better. Not even the same thing. Both Boot Camp and Parallels run your windows install direct on the intel chip, just like a windows machine, not in emulation like the old SoftPC junk.
Can't comment on video... don't really know. I imagine a brand new imac would be more than capable, but don't take my word for it.
I imagine that iRacing will thrive in this economy. Its a lot cheaper than the real thing.
The big thing keeping me from it is my 3 year old computer. I was pricing a rig a few nights ago and ended up "spending" over $1000. Not too grassroots, but I tend to keep computers for a long time.
VanillaSky wrote: The big thing keeping me from it is my 3 year old computer. I was pricing a rig a few nights ago and ended up "spending" over $1000. Not too grassroots, but I tend to keep computers for a long time.
My comps about four years old. I put a cheap nvidia card in it and have been able to run. I only get around 16-19 fps in a race but I am able to race.
Tim Baxter wrote: Can't comment on video... don't really know. I imagine a brand new imac would be more than capable, but don't take my word for it.
The upgrade 8800GS is a decent "midrange" video card, it won't win any awards; but it should run racing sim games ok.
OK, so now that its been out a while someone answer how "much" better it is than GTR2 at nasasimracing.com... iRacing has made a big deal out the hype with the "don't call it a game" stuff but... its a game, based on an engine with a crappy physics model. GTR2 is still pretty state-of-the-art, nasasimracing has thousands of users and I can jump into a race just about any time of day/nite without having to "develop my career". I don't need to go and buy anything else to race Bathurst in a Motorsports Elise or Watkins Glen in an E30 Evo.
So, does my $20 a month truly buy me an awesome experience that I'm not getting for $12 right now?
People who I've asked so far... this was their 1st experience with online racing so they have nothing to compare to.
my only problem with nasasimracing is that you need 30 different games lol. I have most of them though, really the only thing keeping me from joining there is trying to find the right mods to race in the series they have. I think I may try iRacing for a month, then talk my girlfriend into buying me a year for xmas!
I might give it a try as well if I can find more than one person who is a regular online racer and says its a must do for $240 a year. Personally, I want the hype to be true but... so far only GRM has come out big for it... and didn't compare it to anything else. I want to hear from the converts.
You don't need more than just GTR2 ($11) and some downloads from nogripracing to race on nasasimracing. You "can" use about 100 games but its easy to search and find a race for a track, game etc... and its cheap to join. They have a new entry level for $7 a month.
Tim Baxter wrote: Duke, if you've got an intel mac, you can run it through Parallels or Boot Camp.
It runs great in BootCamp, not so much in Parallels. Actually it will run in Parallels, but the framerate is waaaaaay slower and hardware compatibility becomes an issue. I don't think USB devices like switching systems on the fly.
Oh, and it's really fun. In addition to Tim and Tommy, Scott, Tom H and me are all on there (at least I am when I'm not leveling my Paladin). The racing is pretty good, too, if you can avoid the brakeslammers and sleepyheads.
jg
I've played a lot from the Gran Turismo and Forza series, and dabbled with some of the PC stuff. They are a different breed compared to iRacing, IMHO.
The biggest difference is the quantity and quality of race competition. This is the first (only?) sim that has real consequences for people who drive poorly. This makes a win sooo much more rewarding than other options.
iRacing is the only non-real car experience I've had that gives me the sort of adrenaline shot that I get when driving hard. No matter what my lap times are, the system seeds me with drivers that are roughly similar, so there's always a way to scratch my competition itch.
Regarding running the system on a Mac- I chose to recycle a cheap PC instead. 1 or 2 year old PC's are available on craigslist for 300 bucks or so all day long, and I bought my monitor for $15. I get about 50-60 frames per second with most of the pretty stuff turned off. If there's another stimulus package, I'm considering something a bit less ghetto.
I have GTR, GT Legends, GTR2, and Race. I still want to try out rFactor but I've heard it's a freakin resource hog. I have a ton of downloads for each, I just feel like when I get on to play it's going to crash because I don't have everything that person does or the right things, ya heard me?
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