dwaldi

Hey guys!

I'm looking to begin my sim rig journey as a means to better myself as a real life track driver. I have a 992 GT3 that I drive on the local CA tracks like Willow Springs, Streets of Willow, Buttonwillow Raceway, etc. I'm interested in buying a sim rig that will most accurately represent driving dynamics, tracks that I'd like to learn or master, etc. Not so interested in F1 or rally, etc. Just looking for 'track day' type sims -- VR is also fine with me.

I'm happy to buy a prebuilt rig or build one from parts. Ideally PC-based. I have room for a seat and ideally I'd like to keep the budget around $5k.

Thanks so much for any input.

ELange0322

Subscribed. I would love to get a sim, but always seems so complex and expensive when builds being discussed

shizzle

I've had a sim setup for about 2 months now. For $5k, you can get a really good set up (not including PC). I would say start with the best pedals in your budget. I started with the Fanatec V3 pedals that are good for street-car like feel, but since I'm running a TCR car in real life, I upgraded to the Asetek Invicta pedals, which feel much closer to the pedals in a real race car. As for the wheelbase, get a direct drive wheelbase. I would say to get something with at least 10nm of torque, so you can have headroom for whatever wheel you want to run (you'll want more torque for some of the fancier wheels since they are heavy, and a weak base with dampen the feel). Something like the Fanatec DD1 would be ideal (Simucube bases are nicer IMO), anything over 20nm is honestly excessive and just likely to mess up your wrists.

sonorous

I assembled my own sim rig for a similar purpose as you. I basically use it for practicing a track or learning a skill (like heel and toe). I like the idea of sim racing with it but have not been motivated to devote the time to it in light of my other time intensive hobbies. I mainly use iRacing software as the experience is most realistic IMHO. I can't comment on plug and play (pre-built) hardware systems but they exist.

I agree with the hardware suggestions thus far. The most important hardware component is the pedals followed by wheel base and then in my opinion, the visual immersion. If you can deal with VR go for it. It makes me sick, even a good setup, so I went with triples. The immersion is not as good, and they take up a lot of space, but I prefer them over a single ultrawide myself.

I currently have Fanatec hardware, inverted V3 pedal's and a Clubsport V2.5 base. I was pretty happy with it until I drove my son's CSL DD (8Nm). DD is way better and I will be upgrading at some point. I think the CSL is enough but I am sure a DD1 is that much better. CSL's and DD1's have been sold out forever however. For me, the critical benefit of DD is the detail and resolution it provides, not necessarily the max torque.

PC's can be costly especially with enough power to run VR well (depending on the headset and resolution). You can go crazy with a chassis but it just needs to be strong enough for the wheel base torque and pedal base support while being comfortable.

In my experience you need to achieve a minimum level of immersion with the hardware to have a valuable experience with sim driving. Each person has a different min level. I need a lot of help from the hardware to feel immersed. Without that I am lost and can't put together consistent laps. My son on the other hand can be fast and consistent on bare bones hardware. YMMV

I shopped for very good deals on all of the components. My total cost was $4600 including PC about 1.5 years ago.

ProCoach

You can buy secondhand rigs and components and save quite a bit. Lots of folks buy or build and don’t use it as much as they think they will,

Like anything, buy the best you can afford and you won’t regret it. I prefer the Simucube 2 Pro over the Fanatec DD’s, as said above pedals ARE the most important component and if you get good pedals, you’ll need a good frame and seat. Heusinkveld’s are my favorite, but there’s some good stuff out there.

I prefer screens over VR, but I’ve been using sims for coaching and training for almost twenty years.

They’re great tools!

Rich.

Welcome to Sim racing! As others mentioned, you can certainly get most of the parts you want within your budget especially if you find a used parts. Should you wish to explore the possibility of getting a new PC, let me know if I can assist. I would be happy to help you find some good accompanying hardware by searching for new/used deals.

You can find my Facebook business page by searching for RichD-PC I cannot link you directly to the page for some reason.

ragerard

It will cost you more (I think they start at about $13K)) but a turnkey solution from the guys at Spark Virtual Racing (drivesvr.com) could be another option. They are really terrific and what you end up with is truly turnkey. You specify the cars, the tracks.

race7117

Sim rigs are a black hole to pour money into , be careful!!!
I started with a small budget and it grew and grew. The other replies have been great and really appreciate the posts on here so I will throw in my experience, not saying I'm right just what I've experienced. I am a track day guy too with an RS on the way and really wanted something to improve my driving during the winter months here in Colorado.
If you are looking for an immersive experience a Direct Drive steering hub and respective wheel (GT3 or Formula) is the way to go but that alone can run 5K. I have a Simucube 2 Ultimate set up with the GT3 wheel, its very similar to the GT3 wheel in the actual 992 Cup car. No one really needs the Ultimate but I like the level of quality and the ultimate is designed for commercial uses so I know it will last. I really think Direct Drive is the way to go if you want to improve your driving. Next for me was Monitors, the VR headsets are crazy and very immersive but hurt my eyes and I don't wear corrective lenses and don't want to! I wear computer glasses while in the sim to limit the amount of eye strain. I looked at triple screen vs wide screen curved and found the triple screen to be more immersive and very similar in price if not cheaper. I just found this to be the best best price point for the best experience. The problem is you then need a solid dedicated high speed video card that the monitors directly connect to. The speeds of these games mean higher refresh rates and more computing power needed for the best resolution. I went with 32" triple screens and after a while you don't even notice the bezels as they are easy to align with the A column of the GT cars. Next for me were pedals, I like the simucraft pedals as they are used by a lot of pro drivers and they have a GT car style hydraulic brake pedal with a little more play but still very race car like. The formula pedals are much more stiff with limited movement just like the actual formula race car pedals. If you have a manual gearbox then you will want a good shifter unit and I am not familiar with them. I really think those elements are really needed for a good experience that you would be happy with considering you are an experienced track car guy. Also the PC world is very different and a lot of setup is needed so if you aren't into downloading drivers and configuring software with each game you may what a turnkey solution with a pro doing the setup. I did everything myself and I am not a computer guy but there where a lot of glitches and I had to figure out a bunch of stuff. But if I can do it anyone can, it just takes time.
Now I wanted as true an experience as I could have so I went further. I went with a Next Level Racing Rig with Racing seat, you really need a solid platform to mount the Direct Drive wheelbase to as you are putting a tremendous amount of force into it. I wanted a simulator rig so Next Level Racing has a series of products that easily mount together. There are a lot of great rigs out there I just wanted an easy integration. If you want to mount an actual racing seat OMP Sparco Recaro you can but they are very expensive and not needed for the experience. I added the Next level Racing Motion Platform V3 and the Traction Plus platform. This really adds a level of oversteer understeer and motion of the seat that gives you the feel of really driving. Its not perfect and different but the immersion is excellent and the simulation of lost traction understeer and oversteer allows you to really "catch" the car in a way that is similar to real life, similar but not the same. These systems in my view really provide the best simulation with the smallest footprint and at the most affordable price point. To get better you really have to go up to 30 to 40K just for the motion control systems. At least that's what I found. The only thing missing right now is the simulation of brake and throttle. Simucube is currently developing a force feedback pedal system to replicate ABS, brake and throttle simulations and hopefully that will really add to the experience!
I'm not that experienced in the sim world and I don't do a lot of online racing I just wanted a tool for my track driving. I really feel like my system has really helped my driving in the real world and not just with vision and learning tracks but actual car control, trail braking smoothing out inputs to the throttle and steering, etc. Its not perfect and its not the same as actually driving on track but its as close as you can get and getting better. And you can use it anytime any weather with no money spent on new tires and brake pads!! I like to use Assetto Corsa Competizione. It doesn't have a huge track and car selection like iracing and it doesn't have as much opportunity for real competition. But I feel its level of immersion and simulation is the best. You really feel like you are driving a real car, as much as one can in your basement! The 992 Gt3 Cup car is very difficult to drive and really gives you the feel of learning how to control it on the track great for real world application to track driving but very very humbling and frustrating. iracing has more American tracks and I use it to learn new tracks and the shear amount of online racing, carsand tracks is very impressive. ACC is less of everything but way more details in what it does provide. I may need to adjust my software integration with iracing to get a better experience but right now ACC really provides the best simulation and iracing provides the best online competition.
Sorry for the long reply and I hope this helps you, again just my experience and there are plenty of others that have more than me

grega99

I was right at the $10K mark for a full system that I put together last year using the buy once/cry once mentality. Advanced Sim Racing ASR-6 rig with Simucube 2 Pro and Heusinkveld Sim Pedals Ultimate forms the foundation. I also use 3x27 monitors as thought that was better than VR options. I love the setup and am very happy with it. Like others have said, I think it really helps the visual cues of learning a track quicker and more efficient perhaps. I use both ACC and iracing. I can see definite correlation to learning on the sim to what to do on the track. Hoping that continues with the start of this race season with a cup car. I think one of the biggest challenges in the sim has been feeling when the car is getting on the edge, wheel lock up, etc. I don't see that getting solved unless there's motion added which isn't in the plan at the moment.

dwaldi

Thank you all for the input! I will post when I start assembling the rig

ragerard

I'm just going to throw in a last plug for Spark Virtual Racing. Before last Friday, I'd never seen a SIM rig in real life. Spark delivered my middle of the road rig: 3 55" screens, lots of haptics, but no motion. Matt and Joe, the founders and owners, drove down to Long island from their base near Hartford CT, installed it, fitted pedals, etc for me. They use R Factor 2. They think it's the most realistic experience, especially if one's objective is better track driving, not SIM racing. It has every current Porsche race car (not the 963) plus the street GT3RS. Also, an amazing collection of tracks, including my old home track--Bridgehampton--which closed in 1997. Although Im still getting used to it (it's not the same as driving a car) , it's going to be fabulous!!

After a great race coach (who I won't name) recommended the guys at Spark, I Googled them and found this video withPCA: . In cooperation with the SCCA, they just came out with a new video: .
I'm pretty tech savvy (my wife accuses me of being the ultimate early adopter) and car savvy (although I haven't been inside a Porsche engine bay since in 1963 I rebuilt the 1600 engine in my 1957 Speedster (which I later sold for $400 (not 400K!!!)). But I'm neither a race engineer or a software engineer. According to Spark's tagline, unless you're both, let them deliver a great SIM rig.
So what's the bottom line? My Rig cost me about the same as the WP on a new GT3RS. The top of the line, with motion, is about the same as a well-equipped base Macan. Worth it? For me it was.

Jeremy Hazeltine

I just started the sim journey. Building mine with the rseat p1 rig, simagic alpha wheel base, gtc wheel, simagic p2000 pedals, buttkicker haptics, and samsung 49” ultrawide. Im at almost $7 in a week. Just waiting on it all to arrive. I am having custom pc built now. Here is the start

BFT3.2

I've had the Simagic Alpha (15nm) and their GT4 wheel now for about a month and they're fantastic! At $1,250 for the pair it's one of the best deals out there in the stronger direct drive base category. I've read that their p2000 hydraulic pedals are great too and a step up from Fanatec V3. If you're running ACC I'd be happy to share my settings as a starting point for you. As far as the FFB goes I have the Simagic wheelbase software set to 95% and ACC's FFB set to 44% when driving the 911R. The Cayman GT4 CS needed a little more, around 53%

Jeremy Hazeltine

ya any tips or settings you want to share would be helpful as this is all new to me

jid2

This is a topic I'm also super interested in right now, consumer sim racing rigs have really made massive improvements in the past 2-3 years in terms of being driving development tools. I'm in the process of updating my stuff, old Logitech G27 wheel/pedals, an amazon wheel stand, and Project Cars and moving to a direct drive wheel and hydraulic pedals, with a proper chassis and running Assetto Corsa and iRacing. There is so much new stuff now, it's not just Fanatec.

For me personally, I'm big into customization and getting all the details perfect. What I've noticed from my digging around is that most of the focus is still on gaming, and a bit less on driver development and creating a simulator of your actual track car. To me it seems like there would be interest to create a rig that is very faithful to your actual car in both the way it feels as well as how it looks. I think it would be killer to mount the same Porsche seats, steering wheels (or replicate it for the rig), and then calibrate the ergo and force characteristics of pedals exactly. And then color match the chassis and add some other details to tie the aesthetics to the actual car. That said, you pay for that amount of faithfulness in both look and feel.

I'm planning to go down the Asetek route for hardware right now as I really like the company and the plan to round out the eco-system while keeping it open and not locked down. And everything they have done so far seems to be very good. But I'm also really interested in Simucubes new pedal that is completely digital, and can be tuned via software to feel like anything. With the Simucube pedal you could install a loadcell and potentiometer onto the pedals of any real car and quickly "map" the stroke and force and then recreate it 100% in your sim rig with very little effort.

Anyway, I'm super excited to make this big update to my setup as I think we've really crossed from gaming to simulating!