The iRacing Experience - Part 4 - The Pros and Cons

For part 4, I thought it would be a good time to reflect back on the pros and cons of iRacing.  For the 5 months I have now been playing, there have been a whirlwind of different emotions, both good and bad.

Firstly, lets look at the Pros:

1. There really isn't an experience you can buy (well for the subscription price anyway) that will give you the accurate feel and experience that iRacing does.
   It is hard to explain the feel this game gives you.  It is hard to go back and play much else after playing iRacing.  From the force feedback to the accuracy of the pedal inputs, there is nothing on the market today which has done it as well as iRacing have
2. There is a community there with people who are serious and you can have genuinely great races with.
   In too many cases I have jumped online to play a racing game, to only discover that half the people would rather ram you off the road than race you.  This happens far less in iRacing (sadly it still does happen) and you will find a genuine racing experience because of this.
3. There are always races happening.
   If you enjoy jumping into a variety of different cars, and racing on several different tracks, then iRacing happily accommodates.  For example, last night I raced Street Stock Ovals, followed by V8 Cadillac circuit racing, followed by a Pontiac Solstice circuit race.  All vastly different cars and track types, and didn't have much of a wait time between races at all.  Note these series' all come free as well (as long as you get the Cadillac promotion deal, otherwise you still get the other two for free) - and by free I mean you do not have to pay for the cars or tracks, they are included in the subscription fee.
4. There is always a challenge to be had.
   If you think you are a pretty fast racer, there are probably a number of people who will kick your butt all over the place just waiting for you to race them.  Some racers have many years of sim-racing experience and it is something you can not just learn overnight.  This means that you will still have a good challenge no matter the skill level.  And for those 'less hardcore' players, there is still many other players out there who will be about as fast as you, so you won't feel left behind every time you race.
5. Track and Car Variety.
   While maybe not quite the variety as something like rFactor can offer, iRacing still does a great job of offering a wide variety of cars and tracks, each which have been reproduced to near perfection.  Every track is professionally laser-scanned to ensure that it is millimeter perfect to the real thing.  And trust me, you will feel every bump these tracks have.

Now lets look at the Cons:

1. For new people, the learning curve is really high.
   From my real-life Motorsport experience, and previous experience with sim-racing games like rFactor, I thought I'd adjust to iRacing pretty quickly.  And I was wrong.  This game is not easy to get the hang of and be fast at the same time.  It takes a lot of practice initially to get the hang of it, and then a lot more to get faster and move up the ladder.  For me it was especially hard adjusting to an 'in-car' view
2. It starts to feel like you need to have the very best hardware to compete with the top players.
   When you begin to find that your steering wheel has its limitations, you have trouble seeing out of the windscreen of the car your are driving, and you feel quite uncomfortable after an hour or two of playing, you realise that the only way to fix it is to upgrade, and upgrade pretty much everything.  Firstly you want to buy the best wheel/pedals/shifter kit - that will set you back over $1000.  Then comes the triple screen setup to get that full immersion.  This puts a huge load on your computer, so that could mean an entire PC upgrade, and unless you have a really new video card or run a multi-video card configuration, you can't plug three screens in at the same time.  Oh and all the screens need to be the same size for it to work properly.  And don't even get me started on cockpits...
   
   Remember though that a lot of speed can be found by simply practicing and watching replays of others - YouTube can be your friend here too.  I am sure that a lot of time can be gained by doing just that.  I have only just bought my first upgrade, a $30 brake upgrade spring from GTEye for my G25 (as I am having trouble with lock-ups on breaking) - so some things can be done cheaply too.  Once I get the GTEye spring I might do a review too, so if you are interested in that, stay tuned.
3. Silly driving can really wreck your otherwise great statistics.
   I have had some seriously frustrating experiences with other drivers in iRacing (which I suppose is to be expected).  I have had to sadly report two drivers, one who is no longer a member of the iRacing due to what he did not only to me, but several others too.  The other was given an official warning (which I was happy with) but it does show that some silly things to do on.  It also can be quite intimidating when you are new and people are yelling at you for things you may or may not even be doing wrong.
   
   iRacing works on a model where if someone hits you, both you and that person are penalised by having a 'car contact' mark against you.  This ultimately reflects a score which determines whether you are able to advance to the next licence class.  So if people continually do this, you can see how frustrating it can be.  In addition, if the person who runs into you causes you damage, you then have to pit for repairs, wrecking your entire race.
4. It can get expensive.
   And I am not just talking about the hardware here.  If you want to race in many different series, or you want to keep upgrading your licence, you have to start purchasing other cars and tracks which do not come with your base subscription.  While you do get a discount for buying multiple items at a time, it can still be a pricey affair.  For example, I wanted to race an open wheel series called the 'Skip Barber Race Series'.  As I did not own many of the tracks, or the car, it cost me $120 to buy all that I needed (and that was with the discount!)  This was one of the series which I had to choose to race in to get my licence upgrade as well (there are a few to choose from at each level).  After my purchase, I really struggled with the car and ended up not really racing it much as a result, so in part it feels like a bit of a waste of money (although many of the tracks are re-used across series' so I am sure it will pay for itself eventually).  You sort of have to dive in when looking for a new series to race.  You might own one of two of the tracks, but that is probably it.  At the least you will have to buy the car to even try it out.
5. The frustration can get a bit much.
   I am sure many players have just given up getting to frustrated either with the cars they drive, or other players.  While the first is normally resolved with practice, for some people they just don't have the time.  I suppose it is called sim-racing for a reason though!  The second one (with a hint of the first) was the one that nearly caused me to quit.  I am really glad I didn't now as I have become much better and the practice has really paid off.  I would say to those people now playing that your really need 6 months to truly know whether or not to stick around, as 3 months probably isn't quite long enough.

For those hardcore racers out there, I am sure iRacing offers plenty of depth for you.  For those less hardcore, racing in the lower tiers can still provide great fun at a low cost (just the subscription fee).  Anyone who has a passion for racing should at least give it a go, and for most, they will be glad they did.

Thanks everyone for reading.  I am not sure where the next blog post will take me, I guess we will have to wait and see :)

Linksys WAG54G V3 - Beware the Firmware Pain

After the recent pain I have gone through with my Linksys WAG54G Modem/Router, I thought it would be good to share my experiences and solutions, as I found no concrete ones online when resolving this myself.

Firstly, my model had come with Firmware version 1.00.22.  This seemed to be a great version of Firmware, and the Modem was very stable and I had no issues - until I tried to single port forward last week.  No matter what I did, the ports did not actually forward.  I pulled my PC's firewall to pieces, and still the forwarding didn't work (I was trying to set up a dedicated server for online racing game RFactor):

Single Port Forward page on the Linksys WAG54G V3

So after filling in all of the information and saving it, I went back and ran the RFactor dedicated server, only to find no one could connect to it over the internet. Great.  After checking all the details several times, and then turning my firewall off (and disabling a number of other things) on my PC, it was still no better.  Eventually, I decided to use the Port Forward Range screen to enter what is the identical information:

Once I did this, everything worked straight away, even after re-enabling everything (firewalls etc) on my PC.  Thanks Linksys.

So, after that debacle, I thought this would be a good opportunity to upgrade the firmware on my WAG54G, to hopefully prevent this happening again.  I jumped onto the Linksys/Cisco website and found that an updated version (1.00.65) was out, and so downloaded this one and upgraded my modem.

Except for the fact that as soon as the Firmware upgrade started the modem dropped connection rather than use the progress bar that was actually on the page, the Firmware upgrade seemed to go well, and all my 'home screen' settings were still there.

A couple of days later, I noticed that my WiFi for my Android smartphone was not connected when I was only a few metres away from my Modem.  I hadn't really taken any notice since the firmware upgrade, but it seems that the WiFi network was no longer there.

After looking in the settings, the WiFi had indeed not copied into the new firmware version.  Taking this as only a minor hitch, I set it up again with the same settings.  To my surprise, my smartphone would still not even find the WiFi network.  I then tried another smartphone, and that was the same.

Puzzled at what was wrong, I began testing different WiFi channels and different configuration settings, but nothing made any difference.  The only other WiFi device in my house was my PS3, so I went gave that a go. Surprisingly, that could see the network no problems at all!

By this point I was having a pretty big WTF moment.  I did some reading online, and the small amount I did find, didn't really help.  Someone mentioned setting the modem up again from a factory reset, which with all my custom settings I wasn't very keen on doing.  I also couldn't roll back the firmware as I couldn't find a file online for that version...

Biting the bullet, I did a factory reset on the modem.  As soon as it came back up, my phone could see the WiFi network!  All the settings were defaults from the factory reset, but it did work.  I thought I might try restoring the backup of my config I took before the firmware upgrade, but as soon as it loaded back in, the WiFi was dead again on the two smartphones.

So, after another factory reset and putting all my custom settings back into the modem, I was up and going again.  Looks like it was another 'fail moment' from Linksys/Cisco there...

Hopefully this will help someone who is having similar issues!

The iRacing Experience - Part 3 - my first race with the MX-5

So, after a good amount of practice, it was time to enter my first race.  I followed the necessary steps to enter, and once the time counted down, I joined into the server.

A five minute warm-up session greets me when I finish logging into the server.  I quickly jump into the car and cruise out onto the track.  These times are a great opportunity to follow around a few others for as long as possible.  From this you can learn where they might possibly be quicker (and try their brake marks or race lines to see if you can match them) or where they may be slower (and then if you do find yourself racing them in the race, you may find making that crucial pass a little easier).

I was both nervous and excited - I had qualified 3rd fastest for my first race, and was hoping for a good result.  As the warm-up timer reached zero, everyone was forced out of their cars and had 60 seconds to place their cars on the grid.  This meant no proper roll-up laps, and that brakes and tyres were going to be cold.  Just something else to add to the tension!

I quickly got my spot on the grid and waited for the countdown to expire.  The race was 25 laps, and I knew that I was going to have to stay 100% focused for the entire time to have a good result.  Once the countdown finished, it was time to grab first gear, put some revs on the car, and wait for the green...

And the race started! I got a pretty good start for my first go, and came roaring down into turn one - a 90 degree right hander.  I negotiated this ok, trying to be really careful not to take anyone else out through cold tyres, brakes, or silly driving.  I came out of turn 1 in 4th place, feeling pretty good.  My heart was pounding in my chest, I swear I had never felt so nervous, even in my real-life Motorsport career.  We came down the short straight towards turns 2,3 and 4.  This involved a right hander over a crest into a tight s-bend (right/left).  This had been a classic 'tricky' corner, as the camber tends to push the car wide through the first right hander, either wrecking your run through the s-bend or sending you off the road completely.

I managed to negotiate this section ok, and followed the cars in front of me up the short straight into another slower section, involving a left hander, into an up-hill right hander (turns 5 and 6) - the latter being the other 'tricky' part to the lap.  It is a corner where you have to be very patient, as getting on the throttle too early can send you off the road on the exit.  Patience is key.  Under brakes into the left hander I got a little out of shape, giving the car in front of me a light tap and ending up very sideways into the corner.  Managing to gather it up ok, I kept going, and managed to keep 4th place in the process.

Up over the crest of the hill comes a full hook right hander, into the final turn of the lap, another right hander which requires perfect braking and entry to get right.  The main straight here is really long, and a bad exit here means watching the other cars go past you down as you take the agonising journey back towards turn 1.

Having negotiated my first lap ok, I was feeling pretty happy.  Unfortunately for me though, it didn't last.

Heading into turns 2,3 and 4 on the second lap  I braked to hard and ended up locking up, hitting the 3rd place car and ending up off the road.  Thankfully I didn't completely take out the car I hit, but I was now at the back of the pack, and to add insult to injury, I now had damage, and was told that I had to pit to repair the damage.

I made my way back to the pits as quickly as I could - my car was no longer steering very well so this wasn't an easy task.  I crawled into pit lane and slowly made my way to my own pit box, the speed limit in pit lane making it seem an eternity.

After the agonising wait, my car dropped back to the ground and I was finally able to get back out there.  I now had to be extra careful, as there was lapped traffic around me and the last thing I wanted to do was wreck one of their races in the process.  Thankfully, the car felt 100% again and I was able to push and try to get some good laps in.

A couple of laps later, I noticed (with the in game information) that I was in fact catching the next placed car, and at the rate I was going, should be able to catch him well before the end of the race.

As I approached lap 11 of the race, I had gotten really close to the car in front.  By this point, my car felt a little squirmy, as I had been trying to push quite hard to catch the car, and it felt like my tyres were no longer at their best.  I was able to make an easy pass during lap 11, between turns 4 and 5 thanks to a good exit from turn 4, and even though I was still running almost last, getting that place felt fantastic!

I knew now I had to remain focused and not panic.  I didn't want to lose the place I had gained.  I kept my focus and was able to go on and finish in 9th place (out of 10) - setting my fastest lap on lap 16 while I was at it.  Although disappointed with 9th when it could have been much better, I still came away happy and excited for my future races in iRacing.

The next part of my blog will focus on the various highs and low I have experienced in the last 3 months of iRacing, the things I have really enjoyed, and the frustrations that have made me feel like I didn't want to renew my subscription. Stay tuned!

The iRacing Experience - Part 2 - taking the MX5 on the track

Now I have the boring part of of the way, I can get to the interesting bit - getting out onto the track.

Like may sim racing games, you cannot just go out onto the track for the first time and expect to be fast - the game will hate you until you show it some respect.  Taking it easy and learning the track is the way to go here.

For many people - myself included - the restriction of having the in-cockpit view as the only option can be quite frustrating at first.  Personally, I have always used the bonnet view with many sim games, as it provides a much greater vision of the road ahead which just isn't there when you are sitting in the car.  People with multi-monitor set-ups may find this less of an issue, but for the rest, expect it to take an hour or two to get the hang of car position in this view.

Around 10 laps in, and you will have the hang of the track, and this is where you can start to push a little more, and throw the car around.  It is now time to find the limits of what the car is willing to take, particularly when it comes to hard-braking and cornering.  This will no doubt result in a number of spins and visits to a number of walls around the track, but that is one joy of sim racing - you don't have to pay for the repair bill!

The Mazda MX5 in particular requires you to be apex-perfect, it typically understeers in high speed corners, and due to its low power, your lap times will be crucified by bad corner exits due to the fact you missed the corner apex (even by a small amount).  While frustrating at first, this car will teach you how to consistently hit apexes, which in faster cars becomes even more crucial.  In a slow car, missing the apex means you will probably suffer corner exit speed and may run a little wide of the exit of the turn - do it in a faster car, and you will almost certainly be a long way off the road, or in the wall.

This is where these types of games can become quite frustrating.  As you push harder, you find that you keep making mistakes, and keep running off the road.  Even when you do manage to keep it all together for a lap, sometimes it just isn't faster, even though you thought you did better, and you cannot always understand why.  

When it comes to being fast, there is something to be said for being a 'smooth' driver.  When I say smooth, I mean turning the car in a little more gently, not being forceful on the steering wheel, and being smooth on your clutch, brake and throttle inputs.  When it comes to pedal inputs, remember to treat it like a real car, you can not just stand on the brake as hard as you can - a real car will just lock the brakes and send you sailing off the road, and iRacing is no different.  Similarly, stamping on the throttle can cause wheel-spin, particularly in low speed corner exits, and even in a car like the MX5.  Low power cars suffer worse than faster cars from a bad corner exit due to the car sliding around.  This is certainly something that takes time and discipline to learn, but will be more than worth it in the long run, particularly when it comes to longer races where tyre wear becomes a real factor.  

So, onto my actual on-track experience.  The car and track physics felt more realistic than any other sim racing game I have played.  I had better feel of the car, and felt like I could push and understand what the car was doing.  Occasionally, the car would do something quite unexpected compared to what I would expect in real life, however this was for the most part a rare occurrence.  As mentioned above, I struggled with the view for a short while, but soon got the hang of it and it began to feel very natural to me.

There were a few things I noticed in this game that made it stand above other sim racing games:  

• You can feel the tires start to wear - the car begins to slide, and doesn't turn in as well as you complete more and more laps
• The bumps in the road can really upset the car, and bumpy race tracks create a whole new challenge
• I could feel the lock-up of the car under brakes, I wasn't just relying on the sound of the lock-up in order to know what was going on
• It wasn't too hard to control a bit of a slide - again smooth inputs help here - by feathering the throttle or applying some 'opposite lock' on the steering

As always, there were also a few things that I wasn't so impressed with:

• No matter how I played with the brake settings, the car would well and truly lock up with only about 70% brake applied - this means that I had to always press the brake pedal about 65% of the way down to obtain full brake pressure.  When pushing, it is easy to push the pedal just a little bit further, resulting in a lock-up and a ruined lap (or car)
• As mentioned above, on the rare occasion the car would do something quite unexpected - however this may have just been my driving and lack of understanding
• Working in a full manual mode with no clutch assistance, the car would occasionally 'miss a gear', even though I pushed the clutch down at the time I changed.  Again, this may have been me, but it seemed I had to slam the clutch to the floor to ensure I clean change, which feel a little unrealistic

This sums up part 2.  Part 3 will look at my first race in the MX5 at Okayama Short.  Thanks for reading!

The iRacing Experience - Part 1 - Getting started

Hello and welcome to my first blog post!  I thought this would be a good place to start talking about my personal experience with arguably the most hardcore 'sim' racing game out there - iRacing.  In addition, I want others to be able to use this guide as a bit of a reference, and will help to provide a little bit of a guide as I go.  As a real life Motorsport competitor, in both Go-Karts and Race cars, I was always a little sceptical of how real these games can feel, and whether or not it is worth investing the time or money in such a virtual world.


iRacing falls into a category of 'expensive games', not only to do you have a monthly fee to deal with (between $8 and $13) depending on how long you purchase a subscription for, you also have to pay a one-off fee for cars and tracks which you do not own.  At least the iRacing developers provide you with enough content in your subscription to race 2 different series', however it doesn't take long until you want to race other cars and series, when mean new car and track purchases as a result.  An additional cost of a game like this is having good physical hardware - gamepads aren't going to cut it, and really anything less than a Logitech G25/27 race wheel/pedal/shifter combo is going to make life pretty frustrating as well.  For the people that really want the edge, you would end up looking at other hardware as well, including a better race wheel/shifter/pedal combo ($1000), triple monitors, which for many would require and entire PC upgrade ($2000+), a full cockpit with speakers and other 'real-feel' bits and pieces ($2000+) and you see it all begins to get VERY expensive.  Thankfully though, you don't need to go to these sorts of levels in order to get plenty of enjoyment out of iRacing.


Personally, I use a standard G25 wheel/pedal/shifter combo - and for the cost (can be found for <$200) you really cannot beat the value.  Sure it won't give you the feel of a real car (and honestly there probably isn't a product on the market that will give you a feeling as good as the real thing) but it will provide enough feel to be able to race hard and competitively while still feeling what the car is doing.  I also just mount my wheel to my computer desk, so no fancy simulators here.  Thirdly, I only have one screen (22") when I race, and find that it still does the job, but obviously you would have more 'vision' with three monitors compared to one.


For those of you who maybe looking to purchase some additional monitors for any game, remember to check that your computer can actually work with three monitors plugged in at once (many computers require 2 video cards to do this), and remember that this will put MUCH more load on your computers processing and video capabilities.  It is probably only something you would do if you had a fairly new computer and knew for sure that it could cope with this change. One extra note to include as well, the monitors all need to be the same size to actually use them properly in-game.  No 'digging up whatever you can find' type scenarios will work here.


So now with all of that out of the way, we can start to focus on the actual game.  Head over to www.iracing.com and start the process.  The initial sign-up was very straight forward, and the iRacing developers have great deals going all the time for new members.  I personally was able to join on a '3 months for the price of 1' deal.  iRacing currently offer a half price on all memberships which is still a great deal.  Once all of the sign up is out of the way, it is time to log in.


The quickest way to log in is to navigate straight to http://members.iracing.com and log in straight from there.  Upon logging in for the first time, you are presented with a little setup wizard which helps you get setup for playing iRacing.  This takes you through downloading the initial game (290mb), installing updates (2.1gb - note that the initial game is only the base files, much of the content comes from these files), calibrating hardware, setting game options, and providing some tutorials on how the games works, and how you should be thinking about approaching the game.  If you are new to the racing genre, these are definitely worth watching.


Once the setup has been completed, you will be presented with the member's area 'home screen' - this will become the hub for all your iRacing activities, and from here there are many different things to look at.  I won't bore you with the detail now, and for those eager just to get out onto the track, the bar towards the top of the screen is where you should be looking.


Depending on your own preference, you can choose to begin your iRacing adventures either on the oval or on the circuit.  For me personally, I have no interest in oval racing, so the circuit was where I wanted to be.  You can use the options on the bar to choose 'Test' or 'Race Now' - for first timers it is vital you do a good amount of testing first to get the hang of things - and then you can select the car and track you would like to use for the test session.


iRacing offer a few options out of the box cars wise, and a logical starting choice for the circuit racers out there is the Mazda MX5 (either cup or roadster, but I would recommend the cup as it is the car that is used for the Mazda series) - a low power vehicle, but still requires precise cornering and power delivery on tight bends in order to keep it straight and fast.  Personally, I also recommend Okayama short as a good starting track, it isn't too long, and has a good variety of corners in it as well.


Once you are done with you selections, you can click the 'Start Test' button which will launch you directly into the game.  Unlike most other games, iRacing is always started from within the iRacing members area - you don't just start the game directly from your computer.


This concludes part 1 of the iRacing Experience.  Sorry this one has been a little on the boring side.  Part 2 will be begin to focus on the actual racing with the Mazda, and the entry into my first race.


UPDATE: Part 2 is now up, to view it, click here