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Comment by W-Stool | Hacker News Reader

As someone who has raced formula race cars and who has been an enthusiastic participant in racing simulations since way back in the old days of Grand Prix Legends let me assure you - a simulated race car has almost nothing in common with the real experience other than your hands are turning a wheel and your feet push pedals. The sensations in a real race car are simply overwhelming - the noise, g forces, heat, and the lack of being able to see much other than straight ahead. Grand Prix Legends and iRacing were/are both tremendous fun and a real achievement - but they are nothing like the real thing.

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> As someone who has raced formula race cars and who has been an enthusiastic participant in racing simulations since way back in the old days of Grand Prix Legends let me assure you - a simulated race car has almost nothing in common with the real experience other than your hands are turning a wheel and your feet push pedals. The sensations in a real race car are simply overwhelming - the noise, g forces, heat, and the lack of being able to see much other than straight ahead. Grand Prix Legends and iRacing were/are both tremendous fun and a real achievement - but they are nothing like the real thing.

Counterpoint:

In 2013, TopGear took a top rated iRacing competitor (Greger Huttu) and put him in a proper race car. Yes, he had to bow out due to the physical stress eventually. However, He did really well while he lasted. I think it's a stretch to say "they are nothing like the real thing".

https://www.topgear.com/car-news/gaming/geek-rebooted

That's honestly not much of a counterexample, since you're talking about a 260hp car. Good on him for doing as well as he did, but it seems unlikely he'd be physically able to handle a Formula 1 car at all.

The thing you have to remember is that it takes a demanding and specialized workout routine to get an experienced race car driver to the point where they can hold their head up through a turn in an F1 car. Some of the other demands put on a driver's body during a race are pretty crazy as well, particularly on a hot day.

Sure. But he went into that 260hp car effectively (physically) untrained. Give him a couple years of actual appropriate physical training and then what kind of car and for how long, is an interesting question. Ultimately, if you've got the brain/reaction times/feel for driving at a high level, what percent of the population has a genetic ability to do the physical parts of it, assuming they are trained? I dunno.

The problem, of course, is that the testing for this is expensive, so it's all theoretical.

This is such a ridiculous discussion, the skills + physical training go hand in hand. You can't tack one on just like that. Many people don't have the drive or fortitude to survive the training let alone the race.

Oh please. The physical component does not require elite genetics, just proper training. Sure, hard work, but nothing out of the ordinary. The reaction time and the general talent for driving however, that's another story.

> That's honestly not much of a counterexample, since you're talking about a 260hp car. Good on him for doing as well as he did, but it seems unlikely he'd be physically able to handle a Formula 1 car at all.

That was 260 hp car that weighed 607 kg. Power to weight ratio is key here, and trust me, this is nothing like your usual full size car that also sports ~250 hp, but weighs 4 times as much. It might not be F1, but it is a real deal.

True, but an F1 car is on another level with 900+ hp (including ERS) at 740 kg with driver but not fuel.

It’s in the downforce. Up to 6G sustained lateral cornering. That’s worse than fighter pilots, which have their Gs applied vertically.

My car has g-force sensors. I know from experience, it can only handle 1 lateral G before it starts to slide (in a 4-door sedan wrighing around 3500 lbs). Thats with Z-rated tires. What F1 and Indy cars can pull off is absolutely amazing. Most of what they can do is purely because of the aerodynamics and the insane downforce they produce. I remember hearing somewhere that an Indy car produces enough downforce at speed, it'd be able to drive upside down and stick to the inverted road.

Ok so why are there not upside down tracks in formula 1 this just seems like the obvious next step.

Imagine the leader car having any kind of issue at all, thus bringing the pack to a stop. The lift would disappear and everyone would fall to the ground. With nets it might be quite a spectacle but still safe!

It would make an already dangerous sport even more dangerous. Also, just because it may be theoretically possible it doesn't mean it is practically achievable. Think about what would happen if the driver can't approach the loop that turns the car upside down with enough speed, or within the angle range that's needed for the car to stay on it because of another car, or some problem... Basically any small mistake would be fatal.

Seems like some would have done it as a stunt at least, for sure. I agree with you that having it in an actual race would be infeasible.

Because you'd have to ensure you're going a minimum speed before that section of track.

Means you can't continue I'd you're slowed down for a yellow flag or someone threw you off your line.

The physics works, it just doesn't add to the race other than spectacle.

We should just go full Trackmania

I would pay to watch a remote-piloted robotic Trackmania if there were good enough systems to transfer track feel to the remote controls.

I hope 0G F1 racing becomes a thing in the space age (basically in space but in an arena filled with air where the only force that keeps the cars from floating is the downforce). Imagine roads at any angle!

You see it on the necks of the Formula 1 drivers, they're quite massive. Doesn't come for free of course, some hard work-outs behind that: https://youtu.be/t0SoPeY8zE8?t=67

I remember reading once they generate more a G of force just letting off the accelerator. Back in the day, Nigel Mansell had to leave for a few months for an injury. His next race back he retired because his neck muscles had lost conditioning despite working out every day.

Top Gear actually did that experiment too [0], and you are proven correct.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGUZJVY-sHo

My bike has a power to weight ratio of 1000ps per ton.

Watching the formula one show on prime was pretty enlightening as far as physical training goes. He spent a lot of time in the gym maintaining his body.

Link to show?

I'm not sure if it is the same thing that this commenter was thinking of, but the show "Formula 1: Drive to Survive" was a breakaway hit on Netflix (not Amazon Prime) when season one was released last year (which followed the teams across the 2018 season) and brought a ton of new fans to the sport. It is really well done and very engaging. Season 2 just released in February and follows the teams across the 2019 season.

Heres the Netflix link: https://www.netflix.com/title/80204890

I spent quite a bit of time with NASCAR last year (I attended the Daytona 500 and previously visited their HQ and archives). Most of the up and coming drivers are previously accomplished eRacers, but the transition to experiences in a real car are enormously different. Not many make the cut, the tracks rote memory is very useful but real life is exceedingly different

Yeah remembering a NASCAR track is hard.

apart from Netflix's Drive to Survive, there is also Amazon Prime's GP Driver.

https://www.amazon.com/GRAND-PRIX-Driver-Season-1/dp/B078WFL...

That's the one I was thinking of. Thanks!

There's no real control variable, though, so it's hard to tell how well he really did. But, of course, the simulation is something like the real thing and is better than no preparation at all.

Exactly. It could be that this guy was just born to be a real racing driver but never realised until too late, or just didn't want that career. And that a good racing driver is likely to be a good simulation player.

Being born with magic special powers isn’t high on the list of explanations I’d reach for.

I guess I worded it weirdly, but isn't that the same as just having an innate talent?

Or maybe the simpler example is that simulations do indeed provide some pretty good experience for at least some parts of the real thing, lol.

The issue isn’t so much that skills aren’t transferable — they are. F1 drivers even practice with sims.

The question is whether you can keep that level of focus and consistency for 2 hours of a real race under all that physical strain. And most people just can’t. That’s what’s impressive about real racers, doing all this stuff at 6 lateral G.

They really are like fighter pilots.

It's a risk thing too, i don't think it's just physical exertion. F1 drivers could literally die if they make a mistake. Not so much a problem in a sim

Or someone else making a mistake like in F2 recently where a crash lead to a death and severe injuries. Car that slammed (survived) into car that stopped (dead) at 300kph had zero seconds to react. Full speed over a blind crest into a stopped car.

But if you don’t go full speed over a blind crest, you won’t be in even the top 10.

Takes a special kind of person.

I wonder if technology could fix that, some sort of HUD display that signals a crash on a part of the track. Could update faster than it takes for the safety crew to get out there.

At 300kph you cover 83m per second. Almost a full football pitch.

In this instance the cars were less than a second apart. A HUD won’t help, human reaction times just aren’t fast enough. Doubt even automatic braking would stop in time.

"The danger? Well, of course. But you are missing a very important point. I think if any of us imagined - really imagined - what it would be like to go into a tree at 150 miles per hour we would probably never get into the cars at all, none of us. So it has always seemed to me that to do something very dangerous requires a certain absence of imagination."

This is a good thing, as it allows you to learn where the limits are without dying, and discover that there is more that you can do without having to risk significant pain to find out. Breaking the mental barrier to discover the true limits is important.

A personal anecdote, my bouldering skills (no rope technical rock climbing) improved tremendously once I started top-roping (climbing much higher walls with a safety rope), as the rope gave me the confidence to try moves I never would have without the safety rope.

Hahaha racing on an empty track in a car that’s built to handle like a go cart is nothing like the stress of a circuit race with other cars.

I used to race my modified turbo 500hp and I can tell you that game racing is nada to real life racing. Even knowing that taking a risk can cost you $$$ or your life is stressful enough.

With other cars on the track it’s many more variables to calculate and consider.

So let’s not kid ourselves. The delta is larger than one can anticipate without even factoring the physical stresses.

I’m not a race car driver but I do track my car pretty often

There are people out there who use simulators and very detailed data logging in their track cars to try and experiment with things like braking habits.

Saying it’s “nothing alike” honestly feels like gate keeping.

Obviously a video game played from your couch is not going to feel like hurtling thousands of pounds of metal around a track, but if you can’t drive in a sim, you’re probably not going to make it around the track.

And before you scoff at such a low bar, there are plenty of people who enter a realistic sim, try and go full throttle with 0 counter steering, and immediately lose control

Likewise, if you’re one of the best players in the world on a sim, you can probably hack it at commonly accessible levels of racing

After all, why is everyone in this thread acting like F1 is the only kind of racing? There’s stuff like SCCA Road Racing series that won’t require you to withstand 5gs of braking force...

This is kind of like saying “nothing from a flight sim translates to flying” because the risk of dropping out of the sky to a horrible death isn’t there

The article is about F1 so that’s the benchmark people are using. Other types of races have their own specific issues. NASCAR for example has lower absolute peak physical demands, but longer races turn into a much larger test of both physical and mental endurance.

Given say 3 years to prepare I suspect many could make the jump, but it’s likely well below half.

The article is about gamers also...

The jump to F1 and even NASCAR is ridiculous...

Again, SCCA is a 50,000 member organization. NASA is another large racing org.

You should imagine that most NASCAR racers are not racing for the first time when they first enter a stock car, things like Spec Miata and even competitive go-karting are not any less “real” racing, to say otherwise is gatekeeping.

It’s not about how real the sports are, or even the level of competition. It’s about what abilities transfer. A world class marathon runner needs serious endurance like a world class biathlon athlete, but they don’t need very good vision.

Physical abilities can be improved within a range, but once the competition gets good enough you need a baseline genetic competence to be competitive. As in you don’t need to be 6’10” to play in the NBA but you can’t be 3’2”. Further, being extremely tall reduces the difficulty in competing in the NBA.

On example not mentioned, is professional F1/Indycar/NASCAR drivers benefit from being able to rapidly change visual focus in ways that video game players looking at flat screens don’t need to. On it’s own not a big deal, but that’s just one difference among many.

Instead of having a circular argument where you continuously make the obvious point “simulators are simulations”, I’ll leave it at how is this any different from a flight sim, which are widely accepted as letting you get transferable skills.

Realistic racing sims will give you skills that transfer to racing. Period.

They will not give you _all_ the skills you need, they will not train your neck muscles to withstand 6gs, but they will let you understand the concept of a racing line, they will help you understand how shifting mid turn can unsettle a car even if they can’t replicate realistic shifting and a host of other useful lessons.

What this thread seems hellbent on doing is pointing out the sim won’t give you all the skills needed to race.

Well duh?

Especially if you set the bar at skills needed to race at a level .000001% of people who even race will ever be exposed to.

The average driver in any sort of competitive driving event (read: race) is probably doing something closer to a HPDE than an Indycar race...

Ahh, ok I don’t think the skill portion is that relevant. I am saying that something like 20% of people are capable of competing at that level based on the genetic lottery and general health after training. That’s mostly true of both racing sims and F1/etc but while there is overlap it’s still a significantly different 20%.

Aka 30% of the population could do either, but only 10% could do both. (Percentages picked from thin air.)

Flying is extremely skilled focused, but you also need to pass an eye exam. The bar for airline pilots is low enough most people could do either, but with fighter pilots it’s less useful. With them people fail out of high g training before setting foot in a fighter, or have hay fever, or are to short or to tall, or etc etc.

The difference is the skills a racing sim enthusiast has would take literal years to cultivate even if you have the ability to learn it.

Here’s a guy who went to Spec Miata as his first exposure to racing other cars from a sim:

https://www.mazdamotorsports.com/2018/02/21/john-allen-trans...

To put into perspective how insane that is, at High Performance Driving events (non competitive events where you get to drive around a track), you might expect someone to move to the advanced group where you’re still not allowed to pass in turns, and have to be pointed by after multiple years!

Some places would actually require you to take a year's worth of events just to get into a group where passing is allowed at all without an instructor in the car

This guy went straight into full on Spec Miata with purpose built cars and full on passing for his first event!

That would be like someone playing baseball for the first time in Minor League Baseball, it takes some extremely real and difficult to develop skill to do so even if it isn’t MLB...

My vary first post had, given 3 years to prepare as a benchmark for people to make the jump. Anyone can get training. I don’t question how long it takes to reach the top, but if people can get there at all. The games are selecting for reflexes and spatial awareness so I don’t even question if their more likely to make it than the general population.

My only question is what percentage could make the jump if given time and training. And if we’re already giving people time and training as a basic assumption then the skills they already had are irrelevant for that question.

I'm sorry I should have been more clear that my car was built for the race track. Came on 2 bar of boost really hard and with a twin plate clutch meant only few people managed to drive it without stalling. A car built for the race track is not the same as your normal car. This is the difference I was trying to allude to.

But yes if you have a stock car and you take it on a race track you'll most likely be ok as long as you follow the rules.

... yeah literally changes nothing.

Bone stock vs track prepped literally makes no difference (for the record my car is as track prepped as it really needs to be for the events I run and my goals on consumables, coilovers, roll bar, upgraded intercooler, fuel injectors for E85, ultralight brake kit)

I mean subie bros are out there running race clutches in street cars for no reason other than to say they do (even if they’ll never admit that).

None of this has anything at all to do with the fact simulators let you practice _a lot_ of very important lessons.

Saying “nothing transfers” is 100% an ego play, because you’re really saying “oh yeah racing lines and all that textbook stuff is meaningless it’s all about if you can push it with the nerves of steel when you’ve got tens of thousands on the line in damages and possible injury”

... I mean there are people who unironically think that, but having those fundamentals that a sim can and will leapfrog you over someone starting from scratch.

Even just learning the track layout and markers is an incredible advantage that you can find in a realistic sim (and the friend I mentioned who treats racing much more like a science project than I have the time or funds to does this)

I mean, otherwise in what universe would someone be able to be compete in Spec Miata as their first door-to-door racing experience ever and not make a mess of literally everything:

https://www.mazdamotorsports.com/2018/02/21/john-allen-trans...

But would a real racing car driver be able to compete in the game? It's kinda obvious that the other way around wouldn't work very well, but what about this?

I wish they posted his times vs expected racers who compete at that level instead of "sickly boy does better and better."

He’s not sickly...

The forces are just a lot for a normal person.

And they compare his speeds to pro speeds, what you’re missing is the average person would kill themselves entering corners at 100 mph.

The experience doesn't translate, but the skills certainly do.

It's not just those hardcore simulations that translate well. Even standard console games like Forza and GT are good at predicting real world talent. Yeah, the first time these people get behind the wheel of a real race car, they will be sore af and probably puke all over the place. But a workout routine will build physical endurance and most people overcome the nausea eventually.

A dozen or so people have graduated from Sony's GT Academy (online racing competition) and gone on to racing professionally.

This reminds me of the studies done on how experience in video games and virtual training translates to practice in surgery.

The basic finding was that just having played a lot of video games helped immensely because it means practice in careful hand-eye coordination. Also, real surgery is obviously different from virtual surgery, but there is strong skill transfer.[1]

full disclosure: I used to work for Surgical Science, primarily on the development of LapSim, their simulator for laparoscopic surgery.

[1]: https://surgicalscience.com/systems/lapsim/lapsim-validation...

Counterpoint: as someone who's also raced both to a sufficient degree to know (from well before GPL to rFactor and iRacing in terms of simulators, and in KT100, Super Comp and other real-world categories), the skills are far more transferable than you're indicating.

There's still a big difference between the two, but "almost nothing in common" is not an accurate description. And there's a reason the top guys on either discipline can switch over and still be quite competent–if not world-beating–on the other side.

All of the top teams use simulators based on commercially-available simulation engines to develop the car and solicit feedback.

The skills are largely transferable for many drivers. There are a few odd cases–Michael Schumacher famously became too motion sick in the simulator to use it–but those are exceptions. Maybe you're one of them (and if so, you're in very good company!)

Not raced cars but raced motorcycles and the very real difference is the vast sensory overload when you’re approaching corners, while in traffic, late braking trying to overtake, trying to stay in the power, being in the right gear, while protecting. By the way all of this is on the edge of your ability, you walk a line crossing back and forth between triumph and catastrophe. The heat is a very real thing and really wears you down physically and mentally. While physically able there were times I approached corners in traffic at very high speeds when my brain felt overloaded like I couldn’t process quickly enough everything that’s happening. My speed was more limited by my brain getting used to the speed than it was to ability to lean, apex, etc... In the real world there is physical danger and real significant consequences to making a mistake. A mistake can end your life. In a game you just lose.

Interesting, as I'm on the opposite end of that one. I've never found sensory overload to be a significant issue in anything I've flown/driven/ridden/raced (including motorcycles). The fastest stuff has required a session or three for my brain to come to grips with the rate of sensory input and get fully on top of it, but after that it's never been an issue and it normalizes to no longer being stimulating just for the sake of the thrill of speed. (Which isn't to say there isn't something fast enough to saturate my brain's ability to process my sensory inputs.) Rather, it's the competition and pursuit of excellence that keeps it interesting.

What I will say is that maintaining full situational awareness and keeping my racecraft sharp is more difficult in a sim, because the quantity and quality of the inputs just aren't as good as the real world.

Sims obviously aren't nearly as physically demanding (though a full-length grand prix will still leave me in a sweat by the end from concentration), but I find I have significantly more mental overhead in the real world as it's far more intuitive. And if the physical risk is a persistent stressor that takes attentional overhead while racing, then congrats, you're wired like a functioning human, not a racing driver!

> In the real world there is physical danger and real significant consequences to making a mistake. A mistake can end your life. In a game you just lose.

Games can also get immersive and your adrenaline pumping. Now I'm not a racing pilot, and have very little track experience, but I know a few people who have, and have a nice setup for iracing at home, which according to them allows them to hone their reaction speed and try out moves and train moves. Yes you remove the physical part, but you do get immersed in the situation.

Point in case, Max Verstappen trained a specific overtake move on the Spa circuit at the Blanchimont corner on iracing with his teammates there [1]. And then he pulled off exactly that same move in a real race [2], which was one ballsy move to pull off irl.

But it's a very good example of the sims allowing them to fail without much risk gives them the possibility to experiment at will, and at least partially train their brains to handle such a situation.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Y5-DZNjBOg

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=788IiRsxMqM (sadly potato quality)

On the contrary: there is probably no sport where the sim is so close to the real thing. Being good at FIFA 19 in no way will make you good at real football. But if you put a decent sim racer in a real race car, they are often able to put together a decent lap pretty quickly. See for instance some of Jimmy Broadbent's recent adventures in real-life racing. Conversely, real-life drivers tend to be good at simracing (e.g. Max Verstappen or Lando Norris in iRacing) because so many of the skills carry over. By contrast I wouldn't expect Lionel Messi to be any good at FIFA 19.

FIFA is a football simulator as much as Mortal Kombat is fighting simulator.

FIFA is a game.

The difference is simulator's main focus is reality, games' main focus is fun.

If FIFA was for reality it would be closer to first person QWOP than isometric view of half of field where you have perfect information and you press a key and your player does whatever trick the key was designated to perform.

The substance of the game is lost and only visuals are left.

I wonder if you could achieve something vaguely approaching reality with vr and limb tracking, and some weird "soccer ball on a string" gizmo tied into the simulation.

Soccer seems like it's on the other corner of the "implementation difficulty" matrix from racing.

It's pretty easy to hook up a ffb steering wheel and pedals to a computer, actually simulating the cars and track is the hard bit.

In soccer the actual simulation would be pretty simple - it's an elastic sphere bouncing around a fairly uniform surface and being hit by mostly solid body parts/boots without too many interacting parts. But putting the user into the world in a way that they get the necessary physical feedback is much harder.

Cars have artificial controls that are relatively easy to simulate. Any sport where the primary impact is full human body mechanics is not likely to have a sim with transferable skills.

Car racing. In car racing as a driver you typically get your input through your seat and steering wheel. Due to lack of g-forces in typical simulator this is all compressed to force feedback in steering wheel. There are really powerful steering wheels that have very high definition of vibration and forces they can transfer and this gives a lot of information about how the car is doing on the track, whether you are loosing or already lost the grip.

I’m not saying a sim is like real racing. I’m saying that human-car interface allows for play-control that maps to the real activity in a way a soccer or snowboarding game never can.

To be fair there's quite a big difference: Lionel Messi is an individual footballer whilst in Fifa you have more control over the team strategy.

I think there's only one thing that comes closer to reality: MS Flight Simulator...

It is, as they say, As Real As It Gets.

I used MS FS5 when I got my IFR endorsement, and was able to do it in the minimum hours needed, saving me at least a grand.

MS FS was the engine for some military sims in the early 2000's, and Qantas pilots did IFR currency practice on it when I was flying in NZ.

Although the terrain was pretty good, what made MS FS acceptable for pro use were the excellent instrument panels.

or X-Plane?

Having purchased X-Plane 11 while waiting for the new MSFS, and previously coming from an unmodded copy of FSX, I have never been more disappointed in a simulator product. I don't know how a system made with more than 10 years of extra effort can fall so far behind the competition. The terrain looks like garbage and doesn't make sense (Why did you generate a high voltage power line IN the road, you know exactly where both are!?) and the roads look amateur at best, the built in planes are mediocre and uninteresting, with half of them feeling nearly unimplemented at best, ATC that is completely unusable, and somehow worse performance, with a VR mode that feels not even quarter-assed. The minimum I can say for it is the interface seems okay and usable.

I guess it's not the market leader for a reason

Sport sims help with mental strategy and positioning aspects. Being good at something isn't one dimensional.

> Being good at FIFA 19 in no way will make you good at real football.

Not that I would consider FIFA a sim, but I have to assume that, like racing, at least some knowledge of the strategy carries over.

Beside it not being a real sim, the viewpoint is completely different and the football most people play for fun is not played by the rules of the pro game.

FPV Drone Racing is a good contender I'd say. DRL uses the simulations as qualifiers for real life events.

Another sports sim that is incredibly close to real life is Virtual Pool 4. It looks quite dated, but no other game has more realistic billiard physics that I know of.

Platforms like Zwift give professional cyclists a platform to practice their skills. It's widely used and fans ride with professionals on a daily basis. You definitely can't feel the wind, but you can get the benefits from the simulation.

To me, the interesting question is not whether the experience is the same for the driver, because obviously it cannot be. What's interesting is whether the skills transfer. I would assume they do to some degree, but there are probably bits you can't learn except by doing.

The reason why the question is interesting is because I love the notion that you can train in a less expensive context and then perform in a higher stakes one. I'm interested why some domains allow that and others do not. Flight simulators are another interesting case where mechanical skills transfer, but that's only a small part of what real world flying really is. On the other hand, by all accounts, drone racing sims are quite good for learning how to fly the real thing, since it's almost all mechanics.

The Netflix F1 series includes a segment of driving the sim blindfolded and calling out each turn as it was happening.

Time code? I watched this show in the bakckground while working on my House and must have missed it. Genuinely interested to see this segment

> Flight simulators are another interesting case where mechanical skills transfer, but that's only a small part of what real world flying really is.

Do you mean for combat flight simulation? Because flight simulation for commercial flight can pretty accurately replicate the whole experience, not just the mechanical skills, when you include people playing the role of ATC etc.

I've driven on tracks on touring days, so not exactly a race driver, but still. the lack of proper feedback from g forces make harder on sims to understand what the car is doing. a good wheel can help since you get back part of the wheel loading/unloading and at least you know how to navigate the last 20 meters of corner entry properly, giving enough warning of when the front is letting to, but for what the rear is going to do you're just left guessing.

that feeling of the center of rotation shifting is extremely helpful when loading the car, and sure you can just go by track memory on sims, but it's not the same thing.

I would disagree that it's impossible to tell what the rear's doing in a sim. I've never driven a real vehicle outside of a few times in a low-powered kart, so I don't know what it's like in that scenario. I assume there's some physical feedback through the seat about what the car's doing.

But when I'm driving in VR in iRacing or Assetto Corsa I can tell when the rear is about to step out. It can't be track-based memory because I can tell on tracks I've never driven on before. I don't think it's through the wheel, but rather some sort of visual cue about how the car is moving.

I would assume that visual cue is there in a real car as well, but isn't needed because you have the physical feeling.

> driving in VR

ah well that's something I never tried; do you have the same sensation of control while driving on a standard monitor?

It's been several years since I last drove with a monitor (my sim rig doesn't have one nearby), but from what I remember not as much. One of the biggest things I remember noticing when I switched to VR was I very quickly got better at car control. I had a much better sense of where my car was, what it was doing, where the edge of the track was, and where other cars were.

This actually had a fair effect on my race performance, too. I was typically around the middle of ACRL's second split in performance for GT3. You can see the effect VR had on my results (split 2 unless noted otherwise):

* Imola: 18th

* Red Bull Ring: 19th

* Monza: 6th (split 3)

* Spa: 16th

* Paul Ricard: 10th

* Bathurst: 4th (got VR the week of this race)

* Silverstone: 2nd (my first podium)

And then from the season 3 months later:

* Mugello: 8th

* Donington: 3rd

* Zandvoort: 8th

* Nurburgring GP: 5th

* Interlagos: 21st (got into split 1 for the first time)

interesting, thanks!

A flight simulator with a good instructor is a great way to build familiarity with systems and processes without the Hobbs meter running.

A flight simulator without a good instructor is a great way to learn dangerous fundamental habits you'll spend many dollars in an airplane to correct. (Ask me how I know.) Some people can never fully correct those habits.

Felix Rosenquest (IndyCar driver) was talking about sim racing and he said that it depends on the driver. Some drivers feel the car by their body/ass and they will struggle for a while in a sim because there is no feedback from G-forces and the sort.

Other drivers which mostly take their information visually, they tend to do much better and have less issue adapting.

Obviously the feel is not the same, but many drivers use it for training and find it quite enjoyable and useful. To dismiss it because you don't smell fuel and tyres or get g-loads in the corners is too simplistic.

If you have a dual motion platform ( https://www.nextlevelracing.com/motion-platforms/ ) on an 8020 rig ( https://sim-lab.eu/product/p1-x-sim-racing-chassis/ ) with a direct drive wheel ( https://fanatec.com/au-en/racing-wheels-wheel-bases/racing-w...) and loadcell pedals (same site) , perhaps with added wind simulator (fan reacting to in game speed), you'll be getting a lot closer. This with a high end PC and triple big screens or VR for complete immersion.

You'll also be significantly out of pocket. Still, it's being done.

(I'm an iRacer, not a very good one, but I've also been on racetracks in a modded road car on V8 ute supercar training days doing ok to mingle / being traffic with the fast guys and can say 100% that the skills transfer).

These are too low-end. The first simulator I used that you could actually feel the car correctly was ~ 100k euros...

Yet properly tuned in 2020 it can get incredibly good for the money paid. Check Barry's channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT_50ZiRFWSm7oziV1OZloQ , he's done some amazing work with his content.

The last 5% will cost 95% of the money, as with anything.

I've driven fairly high end rigs (higher than the linked one) and found them very difficult to drive compared to the actual car and actual track. If you want to play around or aren't trying to learn a competitive edge, I'm sure these are great though.

Lucky you:)

Yes the feeling and even smell of the race track, that's beyond emulation. Had a GSXR600 a long time ago, after a CBR250RR. went to the track a number of times.. Scraping my knee on Philip Island doing 180km/h, starting to have the rear slide out and catching it by only gently rolling off (#1) the throttle ... the sheer thrill of the realisation that I mastered my fear of death... Impossible to put into words, and definitely impossible simulate.

Yet, this is all we have for the time being. A number of high profile drivers were already using the laser scanned tracks and iRacing to practice their race craft prior to races. They've spent a lot of time customising their rigs and settings to their exact preferences, I'm sure this also becomes a factor.

VR is also getting better, although FOV is a limiting factor we're only just starting to improve on. (I've only tried Lenovo Explorer, immersion is amazing but struggle to see the other guys.)

With the increased attention, this is a huge opportunity for growth in the sector. One thing is for sure: ESports will never be the same.

#1) the more natural untrained instinct to chop it would have caused a high side which at that speed would very likely have killed me

Real drivers face death and that's something simulations will never give you. You make balsier moves when you don't think you'll fly into a wall.

The safety rating system in iRacing makes the stakes feel very different to just loading up Mario Kart. You play with your real name, and safe driving is rewarded - to get A rated you have to treat other drivers with respect.

Another counterpoint (although I totally understand where this sentiment comes from):

Pro Gran Turismo players have been banned from competing as gentlemen drivers because they're too good.

For folks not familiar with the concept of a "gentleman driver", there are plenty of racing series that pair amateur drivers with pro drivers to compete in teams. Historically, the gentleman driver provided the funding for the team. These were wealthy enthusiasts who were often quite good, but not good enough to be professional.

However, it's not actually required that the gentlemen driver fund the team. This encouraged teams to seek out the best non-pro drivers possible, which in this case, happened to be some pro Gran Turismo players.

https://jalopnik.com/expert-gran-turismo-drivers-cant-race-i...

Considering that pro race drivers were able to transition to sim racing and win, and that pro race drivers already extensively use sims for practice and testing claiming that "a simulated race car has almost nothing in common with the real experience other than your hands are turning a wheel and your feet push pedals" seems like a bit of an exaggeration, no?

I will acknowledge that Formula One (and similar like IndyCar) are on a whole other level compared to most other 4 wheeled motorsport though.

I always sucked at driving games. Obviously,I could do the racing, however, I always struggled to understand how on earth it's so difficult to do it really well. I haven't played any racing games for at least 10 years.Darn it,I only drove a real car a few times.Then, a few months ago all my team from work went to do electric Go-Kart. Some of them do drive cars,some did a fair share of Go-Kart driving and etc.I think I was the only one who never did it before. They run the training session on rules and safety.I put my helmet on and I can't even strap it properly.Then I get into the Kart. I'm also the only one who's got this particular colour racing suite,because I'm the biggest one(6.1', 277lbs)...So now the whole thing starts sinking in.All my bravado is gone..How bad will I crash?Will they put my picture of the wall with a title " lamest driver ever"? Oh, and I'm also the first one in the line to start..Darn in..And then it starts.I'm a bit hesitant to push tje pedal completely to the ground because I'm not sure how it'd react. But I feel it.I feel the track,my whole body reacts to every turn and twist.It feels like I'm part of the track itself.I enter high risk high reward mode and push the little thing on four wheels to the limits. I finished 3rd, after my colleague and some lady who was sharing the track with our group. It felt extatic. I told my colleague,who came 2nd,that I think I found my new hobby. Driving in a computer game doesn't give even 2% of what it feels like in a race.

I just want to publicly announce:

    I was a winner at Playscape Racing

(and had the T-Shirt to prove it).

There's also a chance that you've got lucky with a car. Sometimes the cars at Go-Carts vary a lot with a power. On my last team meeting everyone on a car #6 was winning. It was just much faster than everybody else.

I used two different cars, as there were two sessions.The point I was trying to make wasn't about the fact I came third but rather that you have so much more info and senses when driving in real compared to a simulator.

This brings to mind, when Jeremy Clarkson did this segment on Top Gear, where he "practiced" going around a certain turn in a certain car on a Sony Playstation (forget which model, maybe a 3?) and then tried to do it in real life.

Totally different! IIRC, the biggest thing was, that he knew he didn't have his life on the line on the game, and he totally knew that in real life.

I've had the experience of having a rifle pointed at me during a street robbery. (I was the victim.) There's something very visceral, something operating at a level way below verbal consciousness, where you KNOW your life is on the line.

Seems like most of that should be fixable. You’ll not get more than 1G sustained (and usually a lot less since they won’t tilt more than a bit) in the simulator of course, but any sound volume and heat level should at least be doable. Steering feedback in the most expensive controllers systems should be realistic enough to be able to mimic the real thing (if the simulation is up to it).

A good simulation obviously only lets you see from the eye position of the driver, so the complaint is usually that you see less than in a race car because you only have a small screen and a poor sense of depth. Today I hope anyone serious about “pro” level simulation just uses VR. It gives stereo depth, you can look out side windows etc.

Obviously if you run a racing sim in an office chair with a cheap pair of pedals and a cheap steering wheel then it’s not going to be close to the real thing.

> a simulated race car has almost nothing in common with the real experience other than your hands are turning a wheel and your feet push pedals.

Real life engineer made a data analysis between a virtual F3 car vs real F3 car, keep in mind rfactor is an old sim from 2005, sure you can't (Yet) replicate the g-forces of the real thing but everything else is pretty close.

https://drracing.wordpress.com/2014/01/03/how-close-is-close...

"From lap time simulation to driver-in-the-loop: a simple introduction to simulation in racing"

http://racingcardynamics.com/lap-time-simulation-to-dil/

A virtual race driver beat two real drivers in a real race:

https://f1esports.com/news/esports-star-enzo-bonito-defeats-...

As someone who has run around spastically and sweated a lot and forgotten to breath and lost my balance then fallen over flat on my face because I got a boner, I found Severe Running extremely realistic and pretty much exactly like the real thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrUWFo2D1Xs

Wow, that was pretty much Fortnite. Silly swag and dances and chats. Very prescient game, that Severy Running, a decade in advance.

The first "Running Simulator" I remember playing was "Microsoft Olympic Decathlon" on my Apple ][, where you run with your two fingers repeatedly pressing two keys on the keyboard as fast as you can. But I remember seeing more elaborate, challenging Flash "running simulator" games with physics simulation like "Severe Running". Muscular twitch micro-management sims.

[Apple II] Olympic Decathlon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Slm2oHqD1ik

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_Decathlon

[begin marketing bullshit]

>Reception: Decathlon received the Creative Computing Game of the Year Award at the 1980 West Coast Computer Faire.[4] BYTE in 1981 called Decathlon "a great party game"[5] and "a remarkable simulation ... challenging and entertaining", praising the adherence to the real decathlon's rules and the TRS-80 and Apple II versions' graphics.[4] Computer Gaming World stated in 1982 that Decathlon "has all the characteristics that are required of a long-lasting, quality game". It described the game as having "superb graphics and sound", and concluded that "it is an important contribution to the computer gaming hobby".

>Former decathlete Douglas Cobb wrote in PC Magazine in 1983 that "this impressive, realistic game brings back vivid memories and provides exciting entertainment through all ten events. The jumping and throwing events are particularly authentic, applying theories used in actual competition. Strategies combining speed, timing, and direction are authentic enough to help an Olympic hopeful train on the basic principles behind the individual events". In 1984 InfoWorld stated that "no one's topped it yet. If I were Microsoft, I'd market the heck out of [Decathlon] this summer."

[end marketing bullshit]

>Legacy: Olympic Decathlon preceded Konami's Track & Field and The Activision Decathlon, both of which were released in 1983 and have similar gameplay.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromanagement_(gameplay)

>Twitch vs trick: Some forms of micromanagement involve continuous input of a large number of commands over a short period of time. This is known as twitch micromanagement. For example, a micromanagement technique known as kiting requires continuous input from the player in order to keep their character at an optimum distance from a target. Another example of twitch micromanagement can be found in racing games whereby a player is required to keep making split second adjustments to the position of their vehicle.

>In contrast to twitch micromanagement, some game elements need only occasional input from the player in order to exploit tricks in their behavior. In these situations, quick thinking is rewarded over continuous, quick reaction. This is known as trick micromanagement.

>Other types of games are based entirely on micromanagement, such as pet-raising simulations and games like Cake Mania, where the player's ability to micromanage is often the only skill being tested by the game.

Game Helpin' Squad does spot-on parodies of actual games (and entire genres)! The chat messages and menu trees and popup texts that fly by are hilarious and worth pausing and reading!

"Time Travel Understander" is a parody of Braid:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fABGyVzVwI

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braid_(video_game)

"World Quester 2" is a parody of all D&D/RTS/RPG games:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Gy9hJauXns

"Pretend Gas Station" is a parody of SimCity:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPMeWas4kXM

"Solitaire Party" is a parody of all card games:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBbMb3X2R8A

"Burgers and Guns" is a parody of GTA:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2VaHd29DEc

"Chronochores" is a parody of I have no idea what, some kind of housecleaning simulator:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vu5MrYzVbY

They also did "A Pissed Off Tutorial For Google Wave":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z4RKRLaSug

Your comment speaks to whether someone who enjoys racing an actual car would enjoy the simulation.

But in the context of sports-as-trillion-dollar-entertainment-businesses, what is interesting here is not whether simulated racing is the same as racing IRL for competitors, but the degree to which it is the same for spectators.

Your comment still stands, though!

That said if the simulations are good enough for real F1 drivers to train with them, and for the skills of sim racers to pretty quickly translate into the real world once they get some seat time, they must be more than superficially similar.

>let me assure you - a simulated race car has almost nothing in common with the real experience

Once again, random person on HackerNews, or the words of someone who has successfully made the leap:

"Of course you feel the G-force which you don't in the game, but you're so tightly strapped into the seat, that it's not really an issue."

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/gamesblog/2014/apr/07...

Here's another eSports star on the track:

https://futurism.com/sim-racing-virtual-motorsport-beat-form...

https://f1esports.com/news/esports-star-enzo-bonito-defeats-...

These guys are not down at the local track on the weekend, lapping grandpa; they are racing competitively at a high level. Obviously sitting in your living isn't the same as the track, but stating "almost nothing in common" is certainly not the case.

It's basically true of anything using physics. There are very good pinball simulations, and being reliable digital games they are actually a better, more fair competitive venue, but people who really play pinball still crave the real game because of all the analog parts of it, the nuance of pressing your weight down on the table and how that changes across different games, and how you adjust your play to the specific conditions as things wear down.

So I was invited to speak at Goodwood FoS in 2018 and I ended up using a simulator that I could actually sorta almost drive by feel - it had a specific rail to let it rotate around the nose (to simulate the tail getting out) and bladders in the straps (to simulate braking.) But normally, when I try tracks I am used to, I go off in places that I normally have zero trouble with.

(What did you race?)

What separates some of the new generation racers from the old is that the new generation F1 racers are better at translating between sim and on-track. This was very clear with the Vettel/Hamilton generation, but even more so now.

It isn’t so much a question of realism, but usefulness as preparation and working out a plan and a rythm.

Verstappen is probably the best example of this in F1. He is both a world class real world racer and a frequent online player as well. His reason for not joining the new virtual Grand Prix is that he apparently hasn't had a chance to get into the F1 2019 they're using for it.

He thinks the game is shit and he is not wrong. F1 2019 is mostly a single player career mode game with multiplayer bolted on. It's not really a sim, it might even be pushing to call it a simcade.

Max is competing all the time in more serious sims like IRacing, rFactor2 or the like.

Lando is taking it a bit more casually so he is racing in F1 2019 as well, but he participates in iRacing races as well.

This goes back a long way. Obviously, Chess is a kind of wargame, but the Germans invented Kriegspiel specifically to simulate war well enough to train officers in strategy.

Of course, playing Kriegspiel is nothing like actually standing on the battlefield in the era of Bismark, but nevertheless, the generation of officers who were trained in the simulation were better prepared for their first battle than those who weren’t.

While I'm sure there is skills transfer, to highlight the above:

The Discovery channel had an episode of "On The Inside" where they profiled the Benetton F1 team. There was a lot of talk about how going into a turn and pressing the brake was like doing a one legged weight press while going side ways at multiple Gs. They showed all the conditioning that went into preparing for this etc etc

Then, they interviewed the team doctor who described how he got a chance to sit in the cockpit during a wind tunnel test. His recollection: "Everyone talks about the side to side Gs but honestly, after just a few minutes sitting in the cockpit with race condition wind speed, I could barely hold up my head. These guys really are super men."

Well... this guy would like a word with you: https://interestingengineering.com/a-gamer-just-beat-a-profe...

Luck exists

Dude has some amazing luck then, to be able to pull this off twice against seasoned championship drivers, Wow!

https://twitter.com/RaceOfChampions/status/10870836895221555...

Yeah, seasoned, with no motivation whatsoever...

I have beaten a seasoned champion in a Rally competition a couple of times (means I arrived before him), but he won the championship that year, I was in the lower 20% of the rankings at the end of the season

Being a champion is not about the single performance, is about consistency over the years

he won the championship that year, I was in the lower 20% of the rankings at the end of the season

What was the cause of that? You mention "no motivation whatsoever" but I know nothing about the racing world or what kind of preparation-mental or otherwise-goes into being a competitive driver; what does that mean here in terms of how it affected the results so disparately for the two of you at the end of your season (not sure if "season" is the proper word for your sport, apologies if there's a more correct term), and how would you compare it to Enzo Bonito's two victories?

I know very little about the racing world other than having an appreciation for the mechanics and engineers who create such marvelous machines, but otherwise I know absolutely nothing about what it means to be a racer, if that makes sense.

> What was the cause of that?

Well in my case it's quite easy to explain: I'm not a professional driver, but I've been competing in the same races over and over, there are tracks were I have good runs, because I know the place since when I was a kid and I remember every curve and know every trick, others I just try to get to the end safe and am generally terrible with regards to timing.

The other thing is experience in difficult conditions: if my gearbox get stuck in fourth gear I just retire, I don't have the skills to drive in those conditions and still enjoy it, professional drivers know how to handle it to get to the end of the special stage without losing too much time, get the car fixed and keep going.

Every single point counts when you're racing for the lead.

Another aspect is the kind of risks you're willing to take.

In rally competitions in Italy, especially the smaller ones, local drivers usually get out on top after the nightly stages, but when the sun comes up the real pro start climbing the rankings and fight for the victory.

They don't wanna risk anything when it's dark and are simply so much above the average that their "night strolls" allow them to be in the first ten positions, without too much hassles.

Having dealt with pro drivers as a technician on the field and as an hobbyist pilot, the real difference is the attitude.

A professional driver can make mistakes, like everybody else, but won't get easily distracted or get down by them and consistently race at the best of their abilities even when it's not the best day.

That's why they win championships while I simply try to look good when I race in my hometown in front of my friends :)

Do you feel that this also applies to the high end racing rigs that people build? My understanding was that these were basically the race car equivalent of flight simulators used to train pilots.

The fundamental limitation is that you can't properly simulate g-forces with a rig that isn't moving around a large track. So it will never be fully immersive. But it's good enough that there is plenty of skills transfer between disciplines.

I am surprised they don’t yet have a good “drone” car circuit with F1+ speeds on a physical car, with the driver in a simulator.

Aw shucks. Here I thought it was going to be totally identical.

Haha, right. That comment had literally zero information value. Obviously playing Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 is nothing like ollying your skateboard let alone any of the other tricks.

Thinly veiled attempt to use online comment forum as a personal blog.

>Obviously playing Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 is nothing like ollying your skateboard let alone any of the other tricks.

Simulator racing is pretty different from Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2. There's so much shit that you can buy to get you closer to the real deal. Not really so much the case with Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2.

https://youtu.be/o1V8QEAdGNM

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