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Just joined iracing

Discussion in 'Technology' started by speedy_sam, Jan 8, 2015.

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  1. Bas

    Bas Four Time F1 World Champ

    Mar 24, 2008
    41,300
    ESP
    Full Name:
    Bas
    Have barely played since I bought it unfortunately...Quite busy (good thing in grand scale of things).

    do quite like the game overall. But in reality (applies for all my racing sims), I seriously need a playseat of some kind, have it always plugged in so that all I have to do is line it up in front of my monitor.

    Right now, on a swivel seat and desk mounted wheel, and the whole faf setting it up all the time is irritating me.

    And I need more time :eek:.
     
  2. singletrack

    singletrack F1 Veteran

    Mar 16, 2011
    5,767
    Pittsburgh, PA
    I had a similar setup for a while and it drove me nuts. Fanatec has a pretty cheap seat setup relative to play seat. That's what I use now. The pedal setup is not great, but you can brace it to make it pretty good.

    Also waiting to see what Heusinkveld Engineering comes up with - releasing a cockpit in late March. Will probably be expensive I would guess however.
     
  3. IamRobG

    IamRobG F1 Rookie

    Jun 18, 2007
    4,092
    NY
    I was wondering where everyone has been. I was on this weekend for a while putzing around in the Miata. I switched back to rFactor 2 after and did some more runs on there.

    William, I PMed you a while ago, I was curious how the DP in the game compares to real life on a physics scale? Also like I said, especially with a guy of your caliber, PEDALS make all the difference. The fanatec's are ok, but a good set of pedals makes the whole sim more realistic.

    Bas- https://www.mainperformancepc.com/product/obutto-gaming-cockpits/obutto-ozone-gaming-cockpit/

    That's about the price most of the cheap ones go for. I bought mine on amazon for 399 and just kept modifying and rigging it until I got it. It has cardboard, extra screws, a TV mount and zip ties ;) but its setup perfectly now.
     
  4. singletrack

    singletrack F1 Veteran

    Mar 16, 2011
    5,767
    Pittsburgh, PA
    What pedals do you have again man? Thinking of picking up the Heusinkveld ultimate when they become available again.
     
  5. IamRobG

    IamRobG F1 Rookie

    Jun 18, 2007
    4,092
    NY
  6. singletrack

    singletrack F1 Veteran

    Mar 16, 2011
    5,767
    Pittsburgh, PA
    Digging the Renault 2.0 and working on my left foot braking ; )

    Picked up the Heusinkveld Ultimate pedals and also enjoying those so far; but still tweaking.
     
  7. IamRobG

    IamRobG F1 Rookie

    Jun 18, 2007
    4,092
    NY
    It definitely makes a difference in feel. The G27 I'm a consistent half a second faster but there's no feel and no realism.
     
  8. speedy_sam

    speedy_sam F1 Veteran

    Jul 13, 2004
    5,559
    TX
    Full Name:
    Sameer
    I picked up the PT-1 pedals a few months back. It took me a good 2-3 weeks to get used to it. Now it feels quite natural to me.
     
  9. singletrack

    singletrack F1 Veteran

    Mar 16, 2011
    5,767
    Pittsburgh, PA
    Those look quite interesting - great price!
     
  10. IamRobG

    IamRobG F1 Rookie

    Jun 18, 2007
    4,092
    NY
    We have to get that fchat race going soon. Once the weather hits a constant 65-70 I disappear
     
  11. IamRobG

    IamRobG F1 Rookie

    Jun 18, 2007
    4,092
    NY
    Almost iRacing time. I did about an hour worth of updates today and started practicing.
     
  12. spirot

    spirot F1 World Champ

    Dec 12, 2005
    14,501
    Atlanta
    Full Name:
    Tom Spiro
    what is the best computer to get for I racing.. I really want plug & Play and not have to build it on my own... any suggestions?
     
  13. bobzdar

    bobzdar F1 Veteran

    Sep 22, 2008
    6,367
    Richmond
    Full Name:
    Pete
  14. peterp

    peterp F1 Veteran

    Aug 31, 2002
    6,510
    NJ
    Full Name:
    Peter
    I'd like to know this as well. I set up iRacing using a maxed out gaming laptop that has an i7 processor and a fairly high-end graphics card. I thought that would be more than enough power, and it was good for a while, but now it's struggling to keep up (the frame rate only averages about 30fps). Apparently there are new or recent changes to the graphics used in iRacing that make it run even slower. I don't know the details, my son is the one who uses it, but I do see the frame rate struggling to get above 30 when he's driving and he's using only 1 monitor.
     
  15. singletrack

    singletrack F1 Veteran

    Mar 16, 2011
    5,767
    Pittsburgh, PA
    Disclaimer - I also build my own rigs, so no first hand knowledge of these. But, go to this page, scroll to bottom, go to retailer of your choice, see what bundles they have broken down by power and price:

    https://www3.oculus.com/en-us/oculus-ready-pcs/

    ...out of those brands, I would lean toward Asus personally.

    Good luck!
     
  16. peterp

    peterp F1 Veteran

    Aug 31, 2002
    6,510
    NJ
    Full Name:
    Peter
  17. bobzdar

    bobzdar F1 Veteran

    Sep 22, 2008
    6,367
    Richmond
    Full Name:
    Pete
    It's about 2/3 of what it is at 1080p with the same settings. As long as you don't go under 45fps at any point, the experience is very good. Ideal is to maintain 90fps at all times, but I'm usually in the 50-60fps range at race starts with 10 cars visible and then after a few corners it's usually at 90fps and stays there. So if you set your graphics settings to mostly be in the 150-160fps range at 1080p with occasional dips to the 70-80fps range at race starts or certain corners, that will be right around what you need to run the settings at with the Rift for a very good experience.

    My system doesn't meet minimum specs (my processor is ancient), but I have a good video card and plenty of ram so it runs well even with a decent amount of graphics options turned up as the eye candy mostly hits the gpu and not the cpu.

    That said, I'll be upgrading the cpu in the spring as I'm waiting for the new AMD's to come out to hopefully compete with Intel and at least make Intel lower their prices.
     
  18. peterp

    peterp F1 Veteran

    Aug 31, 2002
    6,510
    NJ
    Full Name:
    Peter
    #243 peterp, Dec 8, 2016
    Last edited: Dec 8, 2016
    Thanks for the feedback. It sounds like his current system would die with the Rift. He currently gets around 70 fps if he is alone on the track with no rear view mirror, but it drops to about half that with rear view mirror enabled and is even worse with races.

    I think you're right that it's mostly GPU load, his CPU is pretty powerful and I don't think it is stressed (though we haven't really found a way to monitor CPU load while iRacing is running).

    I really like using a laptop because it's dead silent and we use the same room for movies, so the fan noise of a gaming desktop would drive us crazy while watching movies. It doesn't sound like a gaming laptop will cut it though. Alienware offers an external box for about $200 that allows you to connect a desktop graphics card to their gaming laptops, but it is proprietary to Alienware hardware. My son's laptop is an Asus gaming computer. Asus announced a similar device for adding a desktop graphics card earlier this year, but it doesn't seem to be shipping yet.
     
  19. peterp

    peterp F1 Veteran

    Aug 31, 2002
    6,510
    NJ
    Full Name:
    Peter
    This looks like it might be a pretty good recipe for a "quiet" desktop gaming computer:

    The $1,250 Quiet Gaming PC Build | The Tech Buyer's Guru

    It uses the Nvidia GTX 1060 6gb graphics card, which seems to be pretty high performance, but not sure that that would translate to in iRacing FPS.
     
  20. singletrack

    singletrack F1 Veteran

    Mar 16, 2011
    5,767
    Pittsburgh, PA
    It will handle it very well. I run a 970 GTX w 4GB and I have all settings maxed out in iracing without issue.
     
  21. peterp

    peterp F1 Veteran

    Aug 31, 2002
    6,510
    NJ
    Full Name:
    Peter
    Thanks for the feedback. I'm going to stop by a MicroCenter and see if they can spec out a machine matching that configuration. Last time I had them spec one, they maxed out everything and, I don't remember the exact config, but I'm pretty sure they needed water cooling to keep it quiet. This config seems sensible with an overclocked i5 that (I assume) produces less heat combined with a pretty fast graphics card. I'll probably bump up the graphics card even higher if it doesn't raise the noise level.
     
  22. singletrack

    singletrack F1 Veteran

    Mar 16, 2011
    5,767
    Pittsburgh, PA
    Sounds like a good plan - the GPU will give you the most life out of the system. I have what is technically an "unsupported" CPU per Oculus (i7-3770K), but it makes no difference. In fact, it's actually faster than some of the "supported" CPUs.
     
  23. bobzdar

    bobzdar F1 Veteran

    Sep 22, 2008
    6,367
    Richmond
    Full Name:
    Pete
    My machine is running a 1060 6GB, so it works very well in iRacing.
     
  24. peterp

    peterp F1 Veteran

    Aug 31, 2002
    6,510
    NJ
    Full Name:
    Peter
    That's good to hear. I think (not certain) the graphics card has fans on it -- do you know if they run a lot or are loud?
     
  25. peterp

    peterp F1 Veteran

    Aug 31, 2002
    6,510
    NJ
    Full Name:
    Peter
    #250 peterp, Dec 8, 2016
    Last edited: Dec 8, 2016
    I brought the printout of the gaming build above (The $1,250 Quiet Gaming PC Build | The Tech Buyer's Guru) to Micro Center and used it as a guideline. I stepped up to the i7, the GTX 1070 graphics, and 16gb of memory and reduced the 1 Tb SSD to 512Mb. They didn't have the same case, but they had a case that is specifically designed to be quiet and we replaced the stock single fan in the front of that case with 2 Corsair mag lev fans. We also bumped up the power supply to 750 watts, way more than needed, but the rationale was that the power supply fan would be less likely to come on since quietness was my top priority . They charge $130 to assemble, but the whole thing with tax and Windows 10 and 3 years anti-virus was just a little over $1700. Seems like an amazing value to me. It takes a few days to build, so I'll reserve judgement until I check it out, but it seems like it should perform well.

    Thanks for all the helpful advice.
     

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