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
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