iRacing.com Motorsports Simulations

Yeah I drove the Radical at Montreal and man that thing has changed. Really fun car to drive. Had a few good races with it to. Started 16th and finished 4th. Shame it was unofficial, but I still had a blast. I'm trying this season the F1 which so far has proved troublesome. Timezone doesn't really help me with strong fields and I haven't found a race yet so I might just give up and go enjoy the Radical.

Also yeah the 49 is a bit iffy to me. I can't believe it has that little grip in real life. I took it out and just insta spun at like 1/8th throttle on Mosport. But seemed a little bit better at Zolder, but was quite far of pace. I hate seeing vids of the aliens with that thing. It's crossed up sideways every corner and sliding and somehow that is faster than smooth and precise. I don't get it. Still think tyre model is le suck.

Still a good build this season I think. Haven't seen many finalgearers online for a while either. Hoping to bump into some of you guys soon!
 
I think the latest tire model is fantastic. I used to despise the skip, and now it's an absolute dream to drive. I don't think I'll bother racing any other cars until they're updated to use NTMv5.

The Lotus 49 sure lacks grip but, unlike it would be with previous iterations of the tyre model, I find it quite driveable. Slides are relatively easy to control, albeit common. If you're gentle with your inputs it's oodles of fun.
 
Yeah I drove the Radical at Montreal and man that thing has changed. Really fun car to drive. Had a few good races with it to. Started 16th and finished 4th. Shame it was unofficial, but I still had a blast. I'm trying this season the F1 which so far has proved troublesome. Timezone doesn't really help me with strong fields and I haven't found a race yet so I might just give up and go enjoy the Radical.

Also yeah the 49 is a bit iffy to me. I can't believe it has that little grip in real life. I took it out and just insta spun at like 1/8th throttle on Mosport. But seemed a little bit better at Zolder, but was quite far of pace. I hate seeing vids of the aliens with that thing. It's crossed up sideways every corner and sliding and somehow that is faster than smooth and precise. I don't get it. Still think tyre model is le suck.

Still a good build this season I think. Haven't seen many finalgearers online for a while either. Hoping to bump into some of you guys soon!

I didn't notice you during the race but when looking the result of a B class race I won at the glen I noticed your name. Hope to race against you sometime.

http://members.iracing.com/membersite/member/EventResult.do?&subsessionid=8844323&custid=48390
 
So iRacing has just released the Lotus 49. Anyone picked it up yet? Thoughts?

Bought it straight away - very tough to drive. The baseline setup they provided is junk, get someone else's or work on your own.
The car is the most challenging in the game, the most intense and demanding, and one of the most fun. Just don't enter official races if you care much about your safety rating - it's very hard to be consistent even if you're running well below your maximum pace.
Like the 79, the difference in times between the guys at the front and the back is huge - 5-10 seconds a lap.
You just have to put the practice in and stay under your limit and not care about your position so much and you'll enjoy it massively.
 
I didn't notice you during the race but when looking the result of a B class race I won at the glen I noticed your name. Hope to race against you sometime.

http://members.iracing.com/membersite/member/EventResult.do?&subsessionid=8844323&custid=48390

Yeah to be honest. I was just looking at friends online and saw you had signed up for it. So thought why not. Did maybe 3 laps of practice (only 1 clean haha). The car felt pretty different to what I remembered it being. But was comfortable enough to give it a shot. But coming up on the back street. I think I'm just not used to left hand drive cars so much and put a wheel maybe an inch on the grass. Hit the brake and it just threw me into the wall. Shame really. I felt I could have gotten quicker over the race and maybe challenged for a win. But I will look at doing more races this week in that class once I get more practice with lol. Good win though fella!
 
Finally made it! Just got +60 for my license in a Mazda Race at Sebring. Have now a 4.47 license, which mean I'll get into B and now can race the Prototype and GT Challenge.

Tried iRacing in december with the three for one month-trial, have then driven until april. Reactivated my account in june and since then I've been struggeling to get into GT racing. Since the GT Challenge got closed (for whatever reason) the only way to do so is with C 4.0+ or a B license. Months of crashing with rookies, getting innocently into accidents. And now I've made it.
My god that feels god now. :)
 
We should try to set something up within the next month or two

I get my house at the end of october so then I can start building my seat and such.
 
2013 Season 4 Release notes.

Here are the release notes for tomorrow's new season's update.


Website:

My Account

My Account has been updated to be easier to use, and to allow you to manage your information and personal data faster. You may also now manage more email notification preferences.


Weather Indicators

You may now see weather settings for race series, league sessions, hosted sessions, and popular races in your What's Hot widget.


Driving School and How-To Videos

The Driving School and How-to video sections have been overhauled and redone. They're faster, more reliable, and easier to use now.


Multi-Platform Downloads

Anywhere you see a download link to get the software, you are now able to download all alternate versions of the software we offer. Just click on "Other Download Options" to see more!


League Page

Add a Session:

- When creating a session, there will be a new "NOTIFICATION" section at the bottom of the page as the last panel. Opening the panel will reveal a form with four notification options:
? Don't Send - This is the default action. No notifications will be sent when this option is checked.
? Send Now - This will send out a notification to the distribution list (see below) at the time the session is created.
? Send at Time Before - This will allow the League Admin to select an amount of time before the session starts to send the notification. The times are from 15 minutes to 2 hours in 15 minute increments.
? Send at Set Time - This option will allow the League Admin to set a specific date and time to send the notification.

- When a notification option other than Don't Send is selected the following distribution options are revealed along with a place to type a message and a time selection control:
? Send to All League Members - Choosing this will send the notification to all who are members at the time of the session being created. Deleting a member from the league will have no effect.
? Send to League Members In Grid - This option will send the notification to all members in the grid setup for the session. If any member(s) is/are added or deleted from the league, the notification will be sent to all current members at the time of notification.
? Send to Specific League Members - Choosing this will display a list of league members to choose from. Simply click on a member to select/deselect.


Automatic Disqualification

All hosted sessions including tournaments and league sessions now support an optional maximum incident setting that will result in drivers being automatically disqualified from sessions once they accumulate the configured number of incident points. To configure this setting look for a new checkbox inside the hosted session's "OPTIONAL SETTINGS" area. You will need to check the checkbox and enter a number greater than 0.


League Racing

The system now supports three additional session configurations:
- Open qualifier only
- Open practice + open qualifier
- Open practice + lone qualifier

This affords league administrators the flexibility of running qualifiers without a race component. They can then use these results to configure the grids for subsequent league races. This is only relevant when the subsequent league race is configured as an open practice + race.

For example you could do the following:
1) Create an open practice + open qualifier session
2) Create a subsequent open practice + race session. When configuring the session click on the "Click here to configure your field and grid" link to open the grid builder. Inside the grid builder select "Load from prior session" and select the prior qualifier and click on the "LOAD DRIVERS" button. That pulls the drivers from the qualifier into your race field. Then you can select the grid algorithm you want to use, then click on the "APPLY GRID NOW" button to arrange the grid. Don't forget to click on "DONE" when you are done. This is the step that actually saves the grid to the database.


League Requests Bug Fix

The applications section of the league requests section of the league details page had a bug and was incorrectly processing requests to accept or deny applications. As a result any request to accept or deny an application would be applied to the last item in the list. This should now be resolved.


League Wall Bug Fix

Large league helmets now show up again on the League Communication page. This bug fix also fixes an issue where some users were unable to reply to wall posts.



Simulation:


Graphics

- The sim now supports up to 2048x2048 car textures. There is a new graphics option to enable this.

- Allow the system mem slider to go all the way to 3GB.


- Remove uncompressed car textures option and always force it off.

- Remove prefer shadow maps option and always force it on.

- Add in app.ini [Drive Screen] UIOffsetBottomPct=0 to allow you to shift the bottom of the driving screen up so commercial simulators with a car body in the way can still see the black box. Note that this is an integer so 10 is 10%.

- Fixed several bugs related to the biasing of dynamic shadow maps that were causing dark bands (zebra stripes) on cars and other dynamic objects, especially when viewed with highly zoomed cameras.


Oculus Rift

- Updated to the 2.5 version of the Oculus SDK.

- Turn off manual calibration of magnetometer now that the new Rift software takes care of it for us.

- Add an additional renderer.ini option for the rift headset that disables it completely (forces detection to fail). The Oculus VR SDK apparently recognizes some TVs/monitors as rift HMDs when they're not, and setting "RiftEnabled=0" allows customers with these devices to disable the Rift prompt that appears when launching the simulator.

- Added a simplistic neck/head model so that the eye locations translate properly with the currently tracked head orientation.


SDK

- Added an IsSpectator flag to the session string.

- Added LapDeltaToSessionLastLap parameter.

- RadioTransmitCarIdx now clears when the UI indicator clears.


Race Control

- Added a new rule that will disqualify a driver in a race session if their incident points reach an incident points limit defined in the event options. By default there is no limit defined. In a race the message you see when you get an incident point will show you your total incident points for the race so far, eg: "Off Track (1x) Total 14x" If there is a limit, it is displayed after the total, eg: "Off Track (1x) Total 14x/25x" if there is a 25 point limit.

- At a few of our tracks the actual finish line where lap timing is scored is not at the front of the starting grid, it can be towards the back of the starting grid. We now support doing these lap timing and finish lines properly. Tracks that we have updated to support this are Suzuka, Spa Francorchamps, and Mount Panorama.

- We now make a better computation of when to release cars who missed the start from the pit lane to prevent situations where drivers starting from pit lane were being released into the middle of the pack, unless there are people who are just really slow getting started.


Controllers

- The joystick code now supports hot plugging of joysticks. Devices can be plugged in after the sim starts, without forcing a recalibration, or unplugged and plugged back in at any time without causing issues. And secondary devices, like a joystick mapped to the cameras, can remain unplugged if they are not currently needed, again without losing any joystick mappings.

- The joystick code has been reworked and optimized to remove the chance that there could be a conflict between iRacing and the joystick drivers. Force feedback effects should now behave consistently from run to run.

- Added in a centerSpringPct option to the app.ini file, so you can activate a center spring force while driving. This is not recommended for use, but was added in to better support members who are already modifying the drivers to support this.

- Most joysticks will now auto calibrate, so you should not need to use the calibration routine when setting up a device to control the cameras or the in car adjustments. Devices, like analog knobs, that don't have a centering spring may still need to be manually calibrated.

- Manual calibration should now be more reliable for joysticks and low resolution devices. The calibration wizard has also been extended so that the reset button properly resets both the calibration and detection of the device.

- The joystick calibration data has been split out of the controls.cfg file into a text base JoyCalib.yaml file. So you can now edit the calibrations by hand in order to better support short calibrating your pedals.

- We now support 32 physical joysticks, up from 8 previously.

- Hat switches (d-pads) now support diagonal motion.

- Added in app.ini [ForceFeedback] disableAutoCenter=1 option, this allows you to keep the auto center effect enabled if you need it on your force feedback joystick. Note that auto center is a feature that only works on FFB joysticks and will have no effect on a FFB wheel.

- Split the trigger buttons on the XBox 360 controller into two axes using the XInput api. This can be turned on or off with the app.ini [Force Feedback] seperateXBox360Triggers=1 option.


Force Feedback

- The minimum force parameter now smoothly compresses the forces below the minimum force level instead of applying a hard cut-off. This provides some buffer in case the slider is set wrong, and allows the minimum force to work with any device, not just G27 wheels. You can return to the older behavior with the app.ini flag: [Force Feedback] FFBUseSimpleMinForce=0

- The range of the minimum force slider was boosted to a maximum of 40%, up from 20%. This was put in place to help members running the Fanatec CSW v29 firmware to remove their rather large force deadzone.


Drafting

- Many of the road course cars have a more realistic aerodynamic drafting response to other cars.


New Tire Model - v5 Updates

- There is now much better rolling drag computation, which gives more rolling drag and more tire heat.

- Improved the low speed vs high speed grip levels. Now there is a little less low speed grip, and a little more high speed grip.

- Improved/increased the loss of grip that occurs the thinner the tire tread rubber gets.

- Cars that have been updated to the v5 model this season are:
? Legends Ford '34 Coupe
? Mazda MX-5 Cup
? Mazda MX-5 Roadster
? Pontiac Solstice
? SCCA Spec Racer Ford
? VW Jetta TDI Cup


- As a reminder, the cars that were already on the v5 model are:
? Lotus 49
? Skip Barber Formula 2000
? Street Stock
? Williams-Toyota FW31


Sponsors

- Added a new sponsor in remembrance of Morgan Schooley.


2048x2048 Textures

- All cars now have 2048x2048 textures, up from 1024x1024.


Cadillac CTS-V Racecar

- Wheel strengths have been increased to match other vehicles in the simulation.


Chevrolet SS-Gen6

- Grille tape limits have been changed so that overheating can occur to a greater degree and reduce tandem racing.

- Green light on fuel ignition box added.


Dallara IndyCar

- Updated external engine sounds.


Ford Fusion-Gen6

- Grille tape limits have been changed so that overheating can occur to a greater degree and reduce tandem racing.

- Green light on fuel ignition box added.


Ford GT

- The front suspension physics modeling has been improved.

- Revised the fuel level increments so they're at 5 liters (1.34 gallons) per increment, rather than 7.8 liters (2.068 gals) per increment.


Ford Mustang Class B

- This car is now available for purchase. This car is in the same class as the Chevrolet National Impala and should drive identically, and setups should be interchangable, just like how the Chevrolet SS-Gen6 and Ford Fusion-Gen6 behave.


Legends Ford '34 Coupe

- This car and its Rookie counterpart have been updated to NTMv5 along with other physics refinements.


Mazda MX-5 Cup

- This car has been updated to NTMv5 along with other physics refinements.

- Raised minimum allowable ride height to 5"


Mazda MX-5 Roadster

- This car has been updated to NTMv5 along with other physics refinements.

- Raised minimum allowable ride height to 5"


Pontiac Solstice

- This car and its Rookie counterpart have been updated to NTMv5 along with other physics refinements.


SCCA Spec Racer Ford

- This car has been updated to NTMv5 along with other physics refinements.


VW Jetta TDI Cup

- This car has been updated to NTMv5 along with other physics refinements.


Williams-Toyota FW-31

- Tire pressures now adjusts at 1/10th psi per click.


Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps

- The Grand Prix and Endurance configs now have a correctly placed finish line, about half way along the upper grid area.


New Hampshire Motor Speedway

- Now has a Legends oval config.


New Jersey Motorsports Park

- This track is now available as a Tech Track.



Mount Panorama Circuit

- This track is now available.


Suzuka International Racing Course

- This track now has a correctly placed finish line, about half way along the starting grid area.

On a side notes Reddit has a racing league I've been taking part in every Sunday. Recommend it to others on here, it only races to base cars so you don't need to buy any content.
 
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The Rufs are out!
I wasn't really looking forward to this as I thought it was only going to be the 730hp car RWD, which I don't think I would enjoy racing. However, they have a couple of 450hp versions, so yay! Porsche!


Edit: omg yes. I have been wanting to get a 911 in real life, and have established a budget and criteria on what I want (997 Carrera S manual, preferably a 997.5). I just sent this text to my g/f: "FYI, if the 911 in real life is half as fun as it is in this game, you can NEVER let me test drive one because I WILL buy it"
 
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^ Oh my, that has peaked my interest for the first time in a long time.
Mine too. So there are currently 3 cars. The C-Spec, the Track, and the RWD. The C-spec and Track both have 450hp but are 2600 lbs and 2900 lbs respectively. I don't know what the difference is other than that. The RWD is the turbo model, so it has 730hp, 3300 lbs, and is RWD. The AWD version isn't going to be released till next year. After driving the Track and RWD, I have to say I love the Track and hate the RWD. The RWD is massively fast, but you have to brake so far ahead of the turn. Plus I put it into the wall getting out of the pit at Daytona.
 
Anyone tried the BMW Z4 GT3 yet? Or COTA?

I'm starting a new project. I'm building a new iRacing rig. I have been thinking about an 80/20 setup based on the spec racer ford. I went to Sonoma raceway today to take some measurements of the frame of an SRF. 'Lo and behold, while talking to the shop owner, he asked me what my budget for this thing is. I gave him the number and he asked if I'd like to buy a damaged bare SRF chassis. They had one they were using for large bits as needed. I have purchased this chassis and will be using it to make a new rig. The sidepods will come out to make it narrower, and the stuff ahead of the driver's feet and behind the roll bar will be cut off as well, so It will just be the cockpit section. I'm excited to get this underway. Planning has begun.
 
Hah that sounds pretty cool.

Yeah I got COTA and tried it in the F1 (which feels a lot better this season thanks to the damping changes). I still can't bloody hit my turn-in/apex points, just like I can't on any other game COTA is in.
 
I recently fired up iRacing again after a few years of neglect to get myself prepared for a COTA track day in December. It was fun enough that it encouraged me to build a new gaming rig (my first Windows machine since an Athlon XP in 2002 or so) and stop using a rolling office chair and Boot Camp Mac Pro to play. I finally got everything all set up this past weekend. It barely registers on the scale of "kickass iRacing rigs" but it's a huge improvement for me.

No monitors, I'm using an Oculus Rift DK2 (impossibly fantastic, I can't wait for the consumer version release). And I used the old seat out of my car for a chair. Feels very familiar while racing.

I got everything plugged up, and then spent the whole weekend in Elite Dangerous instead of iRacing. But still... It's going to take me a while to find my sim legs again, right now I'm just tooling around on the ovals and being impossibly slow, but I think it's going to stick. Looking forward to building my ranking and getting onto the road courses.
 
I still play occasionally. I realized that my setup has a couple of flaws that are really irritating. Mostly notably is the fact that, because of my upgraded pedals, my chair leans back under hard braking. I embarked on building a new chassis in June and, because of life, haven't finished it yet. Well, life and Destiny on the XBoxOne. Here is the basis for the chassis though:

IMG_20140707_130900977_HDR.jpg

Used to be a Spec Racer Ford.
 
Is... is this a thread worth reviving? Because I'm totally playing iRacing now.
 
If there are enough people racing, then yeah. I putter around when I can now that my rig is operational. I think I see cdbob on occasionally, but I haven't committed to a car this season, so I'm just messing around in practice sessions.
 
I've just resubbed for 3 months after a year away. Man it's changed. Haven't really decided to do a season or anything. Just trying out cars and tracks again. Feels good now.
 
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