Secret in Iracing?
10-16-2022, 08:18 PM
#1
Burning Brakes
Thread Starter
Secret in Iracing?
What is the secret in iracing to making it not feel like a bucket of ****? I'm running some simcraft type pedals, a good wheel, simucube pro and triple monitors. And I still can't get the braking to feel like anything other than *** in the game. Are there any tricks? I just want a Clubsport to feel some what remotely like it does in real life.
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mikew968 (01-09-2023)
10-18-2022, 03:30 PM
#3
Rennlist Member
I'd recommend to post your question in the Hardware sub-forum in the iRacing Member Site. You have access to this as a member. There are some hardcore users in there that know their stuff and can probably help with your specific configuration... https://forums.iracing.com/
10-18-2022, 07:56 PM
#4
I agree with the previous posts about the iRacing Hardware forum and that you need to just keep fiddling. It took me lots of trail and error but my HPP brake pedal feels very much like my ClubSport pedal now. I started too soft and I would say start at full stiff and work down.
Does your car have assisted or unassisted brakes?
Your pedal vendor may have a Discord server to check.
Good luck.
Does your car have assisted or unassisted brakes?
Your pedal vendor may have a Discord server to check.
Good luck.
Last edited by mlct; 10-19-2022 at 07:00 AM.
10-19-2022, 12:51 PM
#5
Burning Brakes
There is also the need to "learn the sim." Yes, it's very realistic (IMO the most realistic option out there) - but you are still missing a lot of physical cues you'd normally get while in the real thing. When it comes to braking... real life, if ABS kicked in, tire locked, etc. you'd feel a change in the rate of deceleration, you'd feel a shudder from the corner of the locking tire, etc.
Since we generally don't have that - you have to tune in to the audio cues that iRacing gives you. Listen for the lockup sounds - they start faint and get louder as the lockup gets more pronounced.
Since we generally don't have that - you have to tune in to the audio cues that iRacing gives you. Listen for the lockup sounds - they start faint and get louder as the lockup gets more pronounced.
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mlct (10-19-2022)
11-06-2022, 03:23 PM
#6
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Word of caution - it's best to use iRacing for what's it's good for, and a realistic car feel is not that. Once you dial in the feel of pedals (it's probably possible), you will run into other limitations that you cannot possibly dial out because they are iRacing choices. I race Radical in real life and tried to drive one in iRacing for practice, and it made my IRL driving worse. iRacing is a great practice for racecraft, though, so I still drive it, but I intentionally drive a car that's different enough from my real-life one not to confuse my brain.
Some things to watch out for - the loss of traction at higher slip angles in iRacing is massively bigger than in real life. I even did an experiment, to make sure data is objective and not "a better-skilled driver would not have this problem" (typical response to critique of their physics) with locking up wheels IRL and in iRacing (same car, spec tires), and locked-up deceleration in iRacing was drastically worse than in real life, while non-lockup deceleration was close and slightly better in iRacing. Sideways slip has an even bigger difference with real life. So to counter this quirk, you start driving with much less slip, and then bringing that habit to real life results in leaving performance on the table. To make matters worse, a high slip angle or scrub in iRacing, even for less than 0.1s, makes the tire lose grip for up to several seconds. In real life, the effect is the opposite - momentary sliding or high slip angle gives a short-term grip boost by heating up the contact layer of the tire and making it softer. Of course, it will blister and lose grip if you overdo it, but it takes orders of magnitude more sliding in real life than in iracing to degrade grip this way. Radical spec tire is a hard slick that cools down on straights due to the car's low weight and power, so a fast technique is aggressive corner entry that gets more temperature and grip through the corner. Try that in iRacing, and you have the directionally opposite effect - any momentary slip reduces grip rather than adding it, and the tire "remembers" that reduced grip for some time after. The same technique having directionally opposite effects in life and sim is a total mindfk, so I gave up on driving the same car in iRacing.
To sum it up, iRacing is not good at all for the realistic car feel on and above the limit (below the limit, it's very good!) but it's a very good way, possibly the best sim, to practice racecraft, vision, focus, and endurance.
Some things to watch out for - the loss of traction at higher slip angles in iRacing is massively bigger than in real life. I even did an experiment, to make sure data is objective and not "a better-skilled driver would not have this problem" (typical response to critique of their physics) with locking up wheels IRL and in iRacing (same car, spec tires), and locked-up deceleration in iRacing was drastically worse than in real life, while non-lockup deceleration was close and slightly better in iRacing. Sideways slip has an even bigger difference with real life. So to counter this quirk, you start driving with much less slip, and then bringing that habit to real life results in leaving performance on the table. To make matters worse, a high slip angle or scrub in iRacing, even for less than 0.1s, makes the tire lose grip for up to several seconds. In real life, the effect is the opposite - momentary sliding or high slip angle gives a short-term grip boost by heating up the contact layer of the tire and making it softer. Of course, it will blister and lose grip if you overdo it, but it takes orders of magnitude more sliding in real life than in iracing to degrade grip this way. Radical spec tire is a hard slick that cools down on straights due to the car's low weight and power, so a fast technique is aggressive corner entry that gets more temperature and grip through the corner. Try that in iRacing, and you have the directionally opposite effect - any momentary slip reduces grip rather than adding it, and the tire "remembers" that reduced grip for some time after. The same technique having directionally opposite effects in life and sim is a total mindfk, so I gave up on driving the same car in iRacing.
To sum it up, iRacing is not good at all for the realistic car feel on and above the limit (below the limit, it's very good!) but it's a very good way, possibly the best sim, to practice racecraft, vision, focus, and endurance.
