iRacing

Alec Moody · **Joined:** Fri Feb 15, 2013 9:02 am **Posts:** 299

It tracks your head's rotation and position so it all feels natural as you look around. I naturally find myself turning my head to look at the exit of a slow corner.

Cash Davidson · **Posted:** Wed Nov 18, 2015 9:57 am

So is anyone still doing this or has enthusiasm waned? Have you moved from PCs to Consoles? I noticed some folks have sold their iracing setups. Wifey is asking if I'm interested in a wheel/pedal set for X-mas. Not sure how much use I'd get out of it. What's the latest?

FrancisChan · **Posted:** Wed Nov 18, 2015 10:38 am

I still do a lot of PC sim racing/rally. But rarely online, I'm currently working on building an improved cockpit as the one I have made of PVC is a bit wobbly under the weight of the triple screens. I also want to add in a handbrake for some rally action.

I'm running a Logitech G27 which is a good entry level with with H-pattern shifter and clutch pedal, but they're discontinuing it for an updated version which is double the price and forces you to buy the shifter separately.

Do you have a budget in mind? The Thrustmaster T150 is an entry level wheel and 2 pedals for $200, it'd be ok to start out on and you can then upgrade with a 3 pedal set and external H-pattern shifter down the road. For $300 you can get the Thrustmaster TX wheel and pedal set which is mostly the same, but allows for changing out the wheel and it has slightly stronger force feedback.

Roger McDaniels · **Posted:** Wed Nov 18, 2015 3:34 pm

I still use iRacing to prep for races and HPDE's.

As Francis asked, what's your budget?

You can still find new G27's on Amazon for $250, and that's probably the baseline setup for sim racing. I'm still using my G27 wheel and shifter, but upgraded my pedals to a Fanatec CSR Elite, which is about 10x better than the G27 pedals. Robert upgraded his shifter to a Fanatec Clubsport, and he says it's a big improvement. That will probably be my next upgrade.

At some point I'll probably get $1K together that my wife doesn't know about and finish upgrading my setup to something good, but for now the G27 wheel/shifter and Fanatec pedals get me around the track.

Whatever you get, one thing that I can't recommend highly enough is a load cell brake system. When I changed from distance-based braking to load cell braking, it started to feel like I was actually driving a car instead of playing a game. Ricmotech makes load cell conversion kits for Logitech and Thrustmaster pedals; I've still got my old G27 pedals with their V1 kit sitting around the shop if you want to try them. It's not as good as the V2 kit, but it's much better than a stock G27 brake. Fanatec stopped making the CSR Elite pedals, and now just make the base CSR pedals (no load cell) or the uber-expensive pedals.

Zach Hill · **Posted:** Wed Nov 18, 2015 3:49 pm

I still have my rig and play as much as I have time for (couple races a month). Definitely use it to practice before races in real life, though.

Richard Casto · **Posted:** Wed Nov 18, 2015 6:12 pm

Cash Davidson wrote:

So is anyone still doing this or has enthusiasm waned? Have you moved from PCs to Consoles? I noticed some folks have sold their iracing setups. Wifey is asking if I'm interested in a wheel/pedal set for X-mas. Not sure how much use I'd get out of it. What's the latest?

This is still on my "to do" list. I currently do some console racing, but really want to get into iRacing. My current sticking point is primarily lack of space (no clue where I will set it up) and a bit of cost issues (other places to spend money at the moment). But... I eventually will be pulling the trigger. I saw that they are going to be adding the Nurburgring Nordschleife soon. So that is close to pushing me over the edge.

Richard

Roger McDaniels · **Posted:** Mon Dec 21, 2015 8:00 pm

I just connected a Rift to my iRacing computer today. After the first 30 seconds of nausea and before the screen starts shaking uncontrollably, this is probably the most awesome thing that you can do on a computer. My system has a Core 2 Quad processor and an AMD R7 video card, which are well below the minimum specs for running the Rift, which may account for the uncontrollable shaking, but I'll be upgrading soon.

FrancisChan · **Posted:** Mon Dec 21, 2015 9:11 pm

I got my R9 280x used on ebay for $150. The bit miners must have been dumping them since ASICs got more efficient for mining.

They run triple screens at 60fps so should run an rift setup with aplomb.

Roger McDaniels · **Posted:** Mon Dec 21, 2015 10:24 pm

I've got a AMD FX8300 PC with a GTX960 at home that I'm going to take to the shop in the morning and try. That should be more than enough. My family never uses it since I bought them all laptops.

Roger McDaniels · **Posted:** Wed Dec 23, 2015 12:22 am

After much screwing around with this, I have found the following:

-iRacing in VR eats a lot more CPU/GPU cycles than a 3-monitor setup. My R7 ran my 5760x1080 setup, but was nowhere near enough for this. The faster computer does a much better job. Head tracking is much smoother and it's nowhere near as blurry, even in extended mode. This seems to reduce the nausea-inducing factor significantly.

-iRacing will not work with a runtime/SDK later than 6.x beta. Anything newer (7.x or 8.x) will cause iRacing not to recognize the Rift.

-6.x beta will not work with Windows 10, or at least not in a form that will allow Direct mode, which seems to be the best performing way to use the Rift. I can get 6.x to work in extended mode, but direct mode would be better

So my options seem to be:

1: Run it on my new Win 10 PC with 6.x beta runtime/SDK in extended mode. That's what I did today and it's pretty good, much better than the old PC in direct mode. Theoretically the new PC in direct mode would be the best, but that's not happening with Win 10.

2: Load Win 7 on the newer PC and run it in direct mode with the 6.x beta drivers. I'll try and find a copy of Win 7 and a hard drive tomorrow and try this.

The intermittent bad shaking of the video was caused by the flimsy head-tracking camera mount shaking when the compressor in the garage kicked in. I zip-tied the camera to the mount and used the tripod head for aiming, which seems to fix the problem.

I turned a few laps around Barber today with no incident. I took a second off my best 3-monitor time without trying too hard. Even with the problems and sub-200 pixel density, this is still much better than using 3 displays.

I really hope that the consumer version of this thing has a much higher pixel density, as the current DK2 has about half the pixel density of a decent cell phone, and it shows in the image quality. Some time in 2016, Sony, HTC, and Oculus should all release consumer VR rigs, so this should only get better.

Roger McDaniels · **Posted:** Wed Dec 23, 2015 6:25 pm

Win7 works well, I got it set up and fine tuned today. After using the Rift, I can't see going back to screens. This is about 10x better. I got stuck in a corner and turned around to look behind me to back up. It was pretty amazing.

FrancisChan · **Posted:** Thu Dec 24, 2015 11:46 am

Does the rift accommodate glasses wearers? Or will this be a contact lens only kinda thing?

Finally biting the bullet and ordering some 8020 framing to redo my PVC pipe rig. So any VR upgrades will have to wait until next year.

Roger McDaniels · **Posted:** Thu Dec 24, 2015 12:52 pm

My glasses fit inside it with the standard "A" lenses. You can try it if you want to stop by the shop some time.

FrancisChan · **Posted:** Thu Dec 24, 2015 1:18 pm

Cool, I'll take you up should we have a bus day sometime.

Roger McDaniels · **Posted:** Thu Dec 24, 2015 3:26 pm

And ours isn't 8020, but Robert bade it out of some steel c-channel stuff (brand name "Superstrut") with holes in it (and accompanying brackets, t-nuts, etc) that he got at Lowes for cheap.

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