Racing simulators have never really been popular with casual gamers. The accurate replication of real-life car physics can overwhelm them, severely impacting the ‘fun’ element.
To satiate your need for speed without having to learn complex car handling behaviour, you can always rely on arcade titles. These prioritise a holistic gaming experience over accurate handling characteristics.
Some examples include Need for Speed and Forza Motorsport. And should you desire the experience of using a steering wheel, there’s always Maximum Tune at your local arcade. But these games are just that – games. Designed purely for entertainment, with little useful transferable skill to reality or any potential career advancements in the e-sports world.
Which is why most diehard car enthusiasts choose to do their virtual driving in a simulator title of sorts.
What Is a Racing Simulator?
At its core, these are still video games. However, their developers pay great attention in ensuring the accurate replication of real-life car behaviour. Suspension, engine and even tyre data is collected from actual vehicles, and then fed into the virtual world.
Some titles also have laser-scanned tracks. This is a process in which each race track is meticulously replicated in 3D space with the use of laser technology. Every bump, kerb and imperfection is then represented as such in the simulator.
This attention-to-detail means the car interacts with the track in a very similar way to what its real-life counterpart would. And we happen to have an industry colleague that can vouch for this – a certain Mr Melvin Moh from Legion of Racers.
The LOR founder competes in real-life GT races himself, so he is in the best position to compare the simulator to reality. According to Mr Moh, the cars in simulators like Assetto Corsa are quite realistic. They have accurate physics models that replicate their actual counterparts.
He cites the example of how several cars have virtual counterparts that understeer at a similar rate. This however, is also dependent on how accurate the mods that you have installed are. Notice we mentioned ‘similar rate’ – you’d never be able to replicate the true driving experience to 100%. However, there are similarities, and the skills, habits and muscle memory learnt here can be transferred to reality.
This is the reason why so many simulator drivers can successfully make the jump to racing in reality – you’ve never heard of an arcade racer being able to tame a kart or a race car haven’t you?
I Want to Start. But How do I do so?
With so many steering wheel options on the market, it can be daunting for a newbie to start. Belt and gear driven wheels are cheaper, but they lack the sheer torque and accuracy of a direct-drive wheel.
But these wheels are very expensive, and you need to make doubly, or even triply, sure that this would be a hobby that you’d actually enjoy. Which is why a place like Legion of Racers comes in clutch. You can experience the thrills of sim racing first hand at their venue, and try out various different pieces of equipment to see if you’d really want, or need, said DD wheel.
For those who are interested, you can head on down to the Legion of Racers office at 2 Kallang Ave, #06-01 CT Hub @ Kallang, Singapore 339407 today! They are open from 1 – 8 pm from Tuesday to Friday, and 11 am to 6 pm on weekends!
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