maxx77

@mouse: Oh don't worry, I'll probably be the one who wrecks on the last turn this time. Can't wait to do it all over again though. That race was a blast even before it ended. Are we keeping the session open or just for GB racers?

Oooh snap.

Looks like I'll end up missing this week's race, but it's for a worthy cause! Going to go see Mad Max that night. An entire movie devoted to a single car chase? Nothing can stop me from seeing that.

If I end up attempting to survive Indy, it'd probably be on the weekend.

@connorpoz: I really hope so too. The virtual mirror is something you don't really see in other sim games, but when the sim is 100% racing against real people, it's absolutely crucial to have. The reason why they disable it is because the virtual mirror is a 2D rendering. The in-car and side mirrors are actually 3D renders. You can't tell from looking at a monitor, but in the Rift you can move your head around and see the image in the mirrors shift accordingly, just like how actual mirrors work. iRacing has been doing 3D rendering on the mirrors all along. But since the virtual mirror is static, they didn't think it would look right in VR. The guy who implemented Rift support didn't have an easy way to code the virtual mirror to behave like the others, so they just disabled it and decided to come back to it someday. Maybe whenever they finally get the DX11 version working they'll revisit this.

That was a lot of fun. I think the practice session should definitely be longer though. I spent the first 14 minutes setting everything up (just installed iRacing onto a new computer), and even then managed to not get the spotter to an audible volume. Went half the race before I realized I wasn't hearing my Australian buddy (although I could hear Khann, so that sorta made up for it I suppose).

Since this was a test race, I went ahead and risked using the Rift for it. The Rift is great for open cockpit cars, but sucks for being able to see anything behind you. There's still no virtual mirror in iRacing in VR mode. You have to rely on your side mirrors. I had unprecedented view in front and beside me, but was almost completely blind for anything behind.

Anyway, I had no clue anyone was behind me at the start. I didn't pay enough attention to the Relative box when we gridded up. I'm amazed I didn't kill anyone. I sorta ran poor 44 off the road at turn 1, but there were cars on both sides of me so I don't feel too awful about it. That was a blast racing with @slowbird for a while, going side by side through the turns and passing each other a couple of times before he finally got past. Slowbird, you either must have thought I was doing a good job holding you off, or you thought I was driving like a mad man. It was a little bit of both. When you were directly behind me you might as well have not existed. I could only see you when you were beside me. I somehow didn't ever hit you though, so there's that at least.

I'm up for more next week. Gonna stick to the headset, but I think I might skip the qualify sessions to hopefully grid up on the back row. 30-45 minute practice is what I'd recommend for the remaining races. Also, thanks for hosting @mouse!

@iron1c: I loaded the game up one more time before heading to bed last night and I think I found some good settings for my wheel. Mine is the Fanatec CSR Elite. I set the wheel to 270 degrees, which did seem to be pretty close to the in-game wheel (hopefully there'll be an option to disable driver arms so that we can see the true wheel rotation). I also set the Wheel Weight to 0%, with the other two settings at 100%. And finally, I set the wheel saturation to 100% since that's what the pedals defaulted to, though I'm not sure what effect that has (need to do more testing).

With those settings, racing on pavement felt pretty good. Racing on gravel/dirt felt better than it did before, but still not great. It's like the car is rotating from the center rather than being guided by the wheels and suspension, which was a problem in the older Codemaster rally games. Force feedback, no matter how you configure it, is almost non-existant, resulting in an almost complete lack of road feel. I'm not worried about FF though, I'm sure they know it's not fully implemented. I just hope they don't forget to keep working on the steering and underlying physics. With the way it currently exists, this game plays great with a controller, but doesn't feel much like a sim with a proper wheel.

I just played it and it seems promising. It's definitely Early Access though. The navigator never once talked to me, which is a bug others are experiencing as well. Kind of like driving blindfolded without being told what's coming. The steering wheel support is only half-baked at best. No matter how I adjusted the various sliders, I never got the steering to feel correct. The previous Dirt games had excellent wheel support, so I assume it's just a matter of time before they figure it out again. It at least correctly recognized my wheel immediately.

It's very difficult to judge a game when the most important piece of audio is missing, and the car never steers correctly or gives you good force feedback. For anyone planning on playing this with a wheel, I'd recommend maybe wait a while.

I just did a couple of laps around Interlagos with the Skip and it's definitely more drivable than I remember. It's possible to go sideways around corners and still manage to save it. I remember that car spinning around on me constantly when I first raced it. I was new to iRacing at the time though, so it's hard to say if it was mostly my bad driving or the car. Seems controllable now at any rate. I dare say that racing with it might actually be... fun?

Side note, there's a new Dirt game on Steam. There's your random public service announcement since Codemasters hasn't advertised it. A couple of GBRL members are saying it's good on the game's forum here. I'm about to try it myself. Side note end!

Wow, I thought they pretty much abandoned this IP. I'm the kind of weirdo who really liked all the non-rally racing they put into the first three games more than the actual core race mode. I prefer side by side racing, but I might check this out given how much you guys are saying you like it. If I don't hear a "long, left, maybe" out of my navigator though, I'm going to be really disappointed.