Rfactor2 or iRacing (1 Viewer)

[Cornworld]

Hello.

I’m looking to eventually get in to more gt3 and endurance racing, like the team based competitions. I hear a lot about iracing and rfactor2. Witch game is more suitable to what I would like to do?
Are there plans, or even running leagues, where I can get into when I receive my green badge?

Looking forward to to hear feedback.

Greets, Corné.

 

[Pamellaaa]

IRacing is great because even without community organised events you can still get a competitive race, just about whenever you want to, it's definitely better racing with mates but it's still good if it's just you with an hour to kill. It is very expensive though, I really enjoy it but you need to consider the cost ahead of time and be aware that it's an ongoing commitment if you want to keep using it (rough maths subs + a couple of cars + 20 ish tracks can easily be $500 in the first year) as you gain content and get to the point where you have everything you need then it's just the subscription but it is still a cost. Can't comment on rFactor as I have never used it but I would recommend iRacing if you don't mind spending the money.

I know @Battenberg and @t0daY have driven both fairly extensively, they are probably best placed to directly contrast the two.

 

[Tom]

Aside from cost, I would say iRacing is a better option than rFactor 2 for team racing. Opinions incoming!

• iRacing's events and championships are centrally organised, whereas for Rf2 you will need to find a league (like SimRacing.Club, where we've entered some teams) to find good races.
• Rf2 has paid DLC, and loads of mods (both free and paid), so quality varies. iRacing's cars & tracks are of a high standard, but are a bit expensive to get started.
• Physics and feel wise, it's a personal preference. The hive mind's opinion is that rF2 has better physics, but the feel differs from mod to mod. I find iRacing less intuitive at first personally, but once you've adjusted your approach it's fine - in fact their Ferrari GTE car was a dream around Le Mans.
• iRacing's team setup & method of swapping drivers is more robust & nicer to use than rF2.
• For the team endurance events in iRacing you will need the appropriate licence (usually C class and above), but these can be achieved fairly quickly with a bit of work. For rF2, some leagues will let you in straight away, but for SRC we had to pass their 'Academy' to get their in house licence, so it depends where you go.

If I wasn't constantly strapped for cash, I would probably use iRacing more often. So rF2 and SRC's VLMS championship will do for me for now.

Also, you don't need a green badge to race with us in these games, that only applies to our organised pCars 2 events.

 

[Blue Monkey]

Aside from cost, I would say iRacing is a better option than rFactor 2 for team racing. Opinions incoming!

• iRacing's events and championships are centrally organised, whereas for Rf2 you will need to find a league (like SimRacing.Club, where we've entered some teams) to find good races.
• Rf2 has paid DLC, and loads of mods (both free and paid), so quality varies. iRacing's cars & tracks are of a high standard, but are a bit expensive to get started.
• Physics and feel wise, it's a personal preference. The hive mind's opinion is that rF2 has better physics, but the feel differs from mod to mod. I find iRacing less intuitive at first personally, but once you've adjusted your approach it's fine - in fact their Ferrari GTE car was a dream around Le Mans.
• iRacing's team setup & method of swapping drivers is more robust & nicer to use than rF2.
• For the team endurance events in iRacing you will need the appropriate licence (usually C class and above), but these can be achieved fairly quickly with a bit of work. For rF2, some leagues will let you in straight away, but for SRC we had to pass their 'Academy' to get their in house licence, so it depends where you go.

If I wasn't constantly strapped for cash, I would probably use iRacing more often. So rF2 and SRC's VLMS championship will do for me for now.

Also, you don't need a green badge to race with us in these games, that only applies to our organised pCars 2 events.

Adding to all that:

• rFactor 2 has clearly better physics engine (doesn't mean it is more realistic, this depends on the car provided) (rfactor 2 is a sideproduct from rFactor Pro, which is used by many real life teams, as in Formula 1)
• rFactor 2 has a proper day/night cylce
• rFactor 2 has rain and with a plugin you can have real time live 1:1 weather
• rFactor 2 allows multiples tire compounds
• rFactor 2 can be modded a lot, if you want you can put in your own cars, tracks, even have special number lighting
• Both games look graphically the same and have both great netcode

 

[Tom]

• rFactor 2 has a proper day/night cylce

• rFactor 2 has rain and with a plugin you can have real time live 1:1 weather

Oh yeah, this is a big plus for rF2. The Spa race we entered had live weather, which added a whole other level to it. Racing into the night is cool af too.

 

[Cornworld]

Tnx for all the reply's so far.

I'll take a closer look at both games before making a choice. The money thing is not the most important motivation for me as long as price and quality is in good balance.

Is endurance and GT3 something that will be organised for PC2 as well?

 

[Tom]

There will most likely be some endurance races with the nice guys at PRD sometime in the future, the longest we've done is 2.4 hrs at Le Mans. Also GT3 cars will be raced at some point (we did recently at Daytona), but I don't think we'll run a full championship with them. We like to have a lot of variety with our official events.

 

[falcon2081]

If you want to compete against the best then iRacing is where you want to be.

 

[m4nu]

If you want to compete against the best then iRacing is where you want to be.

After Worlds Fastest Gamer, it showed that damn fast people are on rFactor2. On the other hand, iRacing has "only" (as far as I know) between 10k and 20k active drivers.

Every game has his elite but after diving a little bit more into rFactor2 myself I find it hard to believe that the best of the best are driving iRacing. That's their advertising but surely not to 100% true

 

[falcon2081]

@t0daY 95% of the people who made it to the finals are from iRacing. Yes, during the qualifiers they showed people who only did rF2 but in the end the usual names from iRacing made it to the finals. You are correct every Sim will have their elite but none have more than iRacing and that translates well when they compete in another Sim competition wise. Hell look what happened in the F1 2017 esport race not too long ago. Who got top 2 and blitz the field? Rasmussen and Heinrich and there were a couple other iRacing guys who finished top5. This isn't a knock on rF2 btw. Every sim has it's pros and cons.

 

[Bassetts]

+1 Mario Kart (SNES) has to be the best racing game ever. the ffb and physics are in a class of their own.

Makes me sad when it ends up as a pissing contest, we all have our preference, but all of this is purely subjective.


(Group Hug)

 

[Cornworld]

Hmm. After 2 spending three hours in open lobbies on PC2 and for hit in every single race maybe Mario kart would be the best option.

Tnx so far for all the feedback. I just have to try them both I think to make some sort of a decision. Clearly I want to race with fast (and fair) drivers so that I'm able to have fun and improve myself. I really like pc2, don't know how that game will develop with some form of leagues. At the moment you really need a club to be able to drive around without ending up in a crash fest.

 

[Pamellaaa]

I really like pc2, don't know how that game will develop with some form of leagues. At the moment you really need a club to be able to drive around without ending up in a crash fest.

I honestly believe that every sim has this problem except iRacing (or at least, it's massively less prevalant in iRacing), without a licence system that is always on or some additional ruleset that is externally enforced (by a club, with bans etc) you will always get this sort of behaviour.

This is why iRacing can charge the money it does, because the service has several layers that a non subscription sim will never be able to offer. Some aspects of this get replicated by external clubs but even with the biggest and most active communities you are probably limited to 3 races a week, with iRacing it's a race every hour or two all the time and (with GT3 and IMSA at least) at the popular times of day you usually get seeded splits ensuring you are racing people of similar ability.