Ok First thing to state is.

I only want replies from people that have actually driven in iRacing !!

I'm looking for opinions on the Driving Experience only compared to LFS (and other sims), not about the rest of the iRacing setup.

Just:

How does iRacing feel to drive compared to LFS. How do you think the physics are different/better/worse compared to LFS.

This is an information gaining exersize only so...

Opinons please, (please try and be analytical not just say unhelpful things like xyz is crap or great etc):

Why did you make a new thread?

http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=54056
http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=37853

Unless this is some kind of school thing ("information gaining exersize"?).



.

It's very good!

Quote from Intrepid :

It's very good!

The physics are good yes

It's better than this thread.

I have no experience of the current version of iRacing, but the version they had last summer was very nice. Paid for a one month subscription to see what it was about.

iRacing felt more mechanical and somehow more precise, and more difficult when on the limit of adhesion. At the same time, the physics model felt to be less complex than LFS, especially the tyre dynamics (LFS tyres change more over different situations than the iR ones). Track surfaces and the sounds cover much of the simplicity feeling though, bumpy tracks with decent engine sounds and vibrations when going over kerbs means a lot.

I guess iR is only a souped up NR2003 but still it manages to be good. If I had the money, I'd probably change over to iRacing. Maybe it was just the change from LFS to iR that felt so nice and right, maybe I've grown bored with LFS. Who knows.

Shell out the $20 or whatever it was and try out for yourself, the feel is quite hard to describe

I thought the Solstice felt very believable, but it was a frustrating car to drive (understeer at low speeds, oversteer at high speeds - practically the opposite of what I want), I didn't drive any of the other cars.

I think it's the best sim I've tried, it's just a shame the multiplayer organisation sucks, you have to pay monthly, and pay extra for cars and tracks, and I'm not actually interested in most of the content.

Played in December, left me surprisingly cold.

it is very unforgiving and very precise but i always end up coming back to lfs its so much more fun and at the same time brilliantly realistic

It's bearable. No more realistic than LFS or nKP, but costs several times as much to use. Not good enough to warrant £50 one-off, let alone more than that per year PLUS content.

I've really only driven the solstice In iracing.. And so far It's really terrible. I feel absolutely disconnected from the car. It's been better since I changed the "limit wheel turn at speed" option to 1080* It at least makes the car drivable.. I'm going to try the other beginner car next time I'm on to see how that feels. But I still cant see myself subscribing to iracing again after my month is up. They took a good idea and totally f-ed it up.

IR feels good. Better than LFS in my opinion. LFS simply feels too bland after experiencing IR. Every lap in LFS feels the same, there is nothing new to discover in the tracks. IR is not perfect, but somehow a bit more raw and life-like than what LFS feedback is. It is very hard to explain like Huru said, you really have to try it yourself to understand.

There are a few requirements for having a jolly good time in IR though;

1. You have a thick wallet, or you make some sacrifices and save a bit cash in other things like I did.

2. You don't drive like arcade wussies with crappy 180 degree wheels, G25 @ 900 deg is required for the FFB to feel as good as possible.

3. You can adapt to more challenging physics and way different (limited) multiplayer.

4. You aren't a brainless fanboy zealot only committed to praising LFS.

5. You like development progress.

The oval racing on IR is excellent. I havent done much road racing (mainly because I suck at it) but the oval racing is almost worth the monthly cost.

It gets annoying when I have a little while to get a couple of races in only to find the next race on IR doesnt start for another hour and a half. I wish there was a open server system like LFS has.


So thanks, IR for bringing me back to LFS.

It's really interesting to hear some difference of opinions here.

Personally I love it. The FFB is awesome and the track surface is unrivaled in anything else I've tried (LFS, rFactor, nKp, etc.)

LFS feels very static and dead now that I'm used to iRacing. Of course each has it's merits but in iRacing I feel more connected to the car and subsequently the road than any other sim, bar none. In iRacing the car actually feels like it is on the ground, like it has some weight to it. LFS feels like the car is floating right above the ground.

iRacing still has a long way to go before it can rival the features of LFS, but the interaction between the driver, vehicle and the track is way better in iRacing IMO. This coming from someone who this time last year swore that LFS was the end all of sims.

Quote from th84 :

It gets annoying when I have a little while to get a couple of races in only to find the next race on IR doesnt start for another hour and a half. I wish there was a open server system like LFS has.

That's the thing that kills it for me. Paying a monthly fee to have shockingly infrequent scheduled races you can join. Stuff up on any given lap and oh well, you can have another try in two hours.

Track and vehicle immersion are far ahead of LFS, and the driving experience in general is quite excellent (especially the brakes, which are light years ahead of the mash-it-and-forget-it experience we have here). Still not worth the cost to me, though.

Quote from AjRose :

I've really only driven the solstice In iracing.. And so far It's really terrible. I feel absolutely disconnected from the car. It's been better since I changed the "limit wheel turn at speed" option to 1080* It at least makes the car drivable.. I'm going to try the other beginner car next time I'm on to see how that feels. But I still cant see myself subscribing to iracing again after my month is up. They took a good idea and totally f-ed it up.

You are driving a car with power steering, the ffb in it doesn't represent the ffb in the rest of the cars whatsoever.


On topic: Track and car detail by far the best. Cars feel much more connected to the road than the ice rinks in LFS. Like said above the driving experience (especially the brakes) is excellent.

Also look at Toni's (Matrixi) requirements, so true.

Quote from deggis :

Why did you make a new thread?

http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=54056
http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=37853

Unless this is some kind of school thing ("information gaining exersize"?).



.

Because those threads are about iRacing in general. I have specifically asked for user experiences of how the game compares in the fundamental aspect of being a realistic sim from a driving experience perspective. Whilst that information may well be contained in those threads, it's hidden amongst the chaff.

I thought it would be useful to have just one thread without all the argument about iRacings business model etc that concentrates purely on what it's like to drive. After all isn't that what Sims are about, when you get down to it??

To everyone else that has replied constructively, thanks for you're opinions. Please keep them coming.

Quote from Intrepid :

It's very good!

Quote from Chrisuu01 :

The physics are good yes

Would you guys care to expand on those comments, if you wouldn't mind?

In what way would you say it's good? compared to other sims is it something specific or just a gut feel about the way the car drives?


By the way, I am currently giving it a go via the SR8 Trial, but I haven't driven it enough to form much more of an opinion than that it is different from LFS, (haven't really driven other sims to do a fair comparison).

Initial thoughts though are as follows:

So far I'd say it's an interesting comparison with LFS. At first the (tyre) physics do seem to be very similar to ISI Games and very different to LFS, but that was in the SR8 moving to the more road oriented cars brings a completely different feel, with a lot more suspension movement (chasis flex??) going on but without the total lack of grip that goes on in LFS if the suspension is really soft. For example comparing the XRG (non turbo) with the Pontiac Solstice is very revealing. Whereas the XRG handles like a boat and the rear end is all over the place unless you're very careful with the throttle, (with pretty much any set up I've ever tried), the Solstice is far more composed and handles far better with a far more progressive rear end despite being 500lbs heavier and having nearly 40bhp more. I've always questioned the realism of the XRGs handling and the Solstice proves it to me. Feels far more like my real car which has near identical power output and weight, (taking in to consideration the fact my car is FWD of course). So after about an hour messing around on a test track in the cars I'd say iRacing has a (considerably) better car handling model than LFS. It just feels more right to me as a real life car driver. What LFS is definitely better at though is the feedback through the wheel of what the front tyres are doing. But in terms of how the car responds to steering/brake/throttle inputs I'd say iRacing is closer to reality. At least compared to my experience of driving a car purely on the road.

Quote from Huru-aito :

iRacing felt more mechanical and somehow more precise, and more difficult when on the limit of adhesion.

Quote from Matrixi :

LFS simply feels too bland after experiencing IR. Every lap in LFS feels the same, there is nothing new to discover in the tracks. IR is not perfect, but somehow a bit more raw and life-like than what LFS feedback is. It is very hard to explain like Huru said, you really have to try it yourself to understand.

Quote from titanLS :

Personally I love it. The FFB is awesome and the track surface is unrivaled in anything else I've tried (LFS, rFactor, nKp, etc.)

LFS feels very static and dead now that I'm used to iRacing. Of course each has it's merits but in iRacing I feel more connected to the car and subsequently the road than any other sim, bar none. In iRacing the car actually feels like it is on the ground, like it has some weight to it. LFS feels like the car is floating right above the ground.

Quote from DeadWolfBones :

Track and vehicle immersion are far ahead of LFS, and the driving experience in general is quite excellent (especially the brakes, which are light years ahead of the mash-it-and-forget-it experience we have here). Still not worth the cost to me, though.

Yep, that's exactly what I think too.


To me, the fun of sim racing is in getting as close to real racing as possible. I've always used heel&toe in the road cars in LFS, and I'm doing the same in iRacing with the Solstice. However in iRacing I almost had to relearn it completely, because the brakes are so much more realistic. You have to be really careful not to lock up during heel&toe motion, and it seems that you need to blip a lot more heavily to prevent a lockup when you're braking near the threshold, due to the inertia in the gear mechanism. When you get it "right" it feels sooooo satisfactory! Much more so than in LFS, where you can get away with almost anything.

I applied for a free trial, never received any email..

Quote from DeadWolfBones :

... driving experience in general is quite excellent (especially the brakes, which are light years ahead of the mash-it-and-forget-it experience we have here)...

Could you tell us a little more about the brakes? How exactly they are better than in LFS?


Also, ISI-like physics and great feel mentioned in the same post, what's up with that??

Quote from Not Sure :

Also, ISI-like physics and great feel mentioned in the same post, what's up with that??

It was an initial reaction to the feel of the brakes and grip characteristics. It's been a long time since I drove any ISI games to be honest I wouldn't put too much emphasis on my comment.

Quote from Not Sure :

I applied for a free trial, never received any email..




Could you tell us a little more about the brakes? How exactly they are better than in LFS?


Also, ISI-like physics and great feel mentioned in the same post, what's up with that??

The fact that it's possible to lock up, combined with the very bumpy and detailed road surfaces, makes braking a whole different ballgame compared to in LFS. Also the sound feedback is very good, always telling you how close you are to locking up the tyres. So you have to constantly be ready to adjust your braking pressure through the corner (entry-->trailbraking).

So you're saying you can't lock up in LFS?

Of course you can lock-up in LFS, it just doesn't feel as good as with iRacing.

I've always used ABS in all kind of driving games and sims (in LFS, i've always set the brakes so they would barely not lock-up when i fully press the brake pedal). It's not like i would have been a huge fan of ABS, but it never felt good enough to go without it (there was just no feel to it).

IR is the first sim where it feels good enough for me. I wouldn't use ABS, even if it was available.