How To Start Sim Racing As Cheap As Possible

[Music] like pretty much any pastime simracing can get expensive if you let it it's all too easy to look at the shiny rigs on display eSport events what those used by similar influences and come to the conclusion that simracing is a great way to turn a small amount of money into a large overdraft in the blink of an eye but that's really only one part of the story hello father simmer ASIS I've lost count of the number of comments that I receive telling me that I could go out and do some real racing for the cost of my simmering those people are way off of the mark but that's a story for another day but there is merit to the underlying premise though you really don't need to spend a lot of money to get started simmer a sink and based on my experience spending a lot of money really doesn't gain much if any competitive advantage either I'm not going to be covering that aspect here but if you're new to the channel then you should check out my video about whether Sim Racing's pay2win to hear my thoughts on that subject and to see me test my high end wheel and pedals against an entry level setup spoiler alert my lap times were pretty much identical with both so if selling your soul at the crossroads or your kidney to a back-alley surgeon isn't necessary then what is the cheapest route to entry and sim racing I'm gonna be breaking down the options in the following areas platform controllers rig and software as well as taking a look at the most budget-friendly options and discussing the merits of each this is probably going to be the most convoluted of the subject areas since most people interested in starting out sim racing will probably have somewhere they can start from and of course there are big pluses and minuses to each option the big debate for most people getting started out is whether to go console or PC and this may be heavily dependent on what you already have available it's no secret that PC is the platform that's best catered for in the sim racing world the open nature and the flexibility of the hardware integration that comes with windows-based pcs provides an ideal environment for sim racing to flourish and that means that there are more software and hardware options available for PC than there are for consoles on top of that the open nature of many PC titles allows for third-party software and community-generated monster be use which further enhance the experience but that doesn't mean that you can't start out simracing on a console far from it both Xbox and Playstation offer a range of driving games from outright arcade racers to fully fledged Sims for example the popular assetto corsa and project house 2 are available on both Sony and Microsoft consoles and each has their own exclusives that are worthy of no when I got back into sim racing again around four years ago it was on a Playstation 4 and it was really only the modding scene that eventually dragged me over to the PC platform so then if you're starting out with nothing then a console is by far the cheapest route to entry and with both of the platforms due for a generational refresh next year there's a strong argument for buying secondhand these are localized prices that will likely vary based on where you live but the prices on pre-owned current gen consoles are very reasonable these days that being said a lot of people have a PC in the house that may well be capable of playing some racing sim titles one of the real positives of the sim racing community is that they've traditionally favored physics performance over shiny graphics which means that many older titles are still very popular despite not looking quite as spectacular as the newest of the new and many of these can be run on older hardware but more on that later so you may be able to run some racing Sims on the PC you already have or perhaps with a modest upgrade with the thorny issue of gaming platform out of the way let's look at input devices which broadly breaks down into joypads verses of wheel and pedals while there are a number of fast drivers out there making use of the Humble joypad I think it'd be fair to describe this setup as less than ideal and the majority of users will perform better with the wheel and pedals and that's mentioning nothing of the immersion factor driving racing Sims particularly those with more representative real-world physics is all about precise measured control inputs and the degrees of rotation most wheels provide definitely encourages smoother and more deliberate control inputs than the handful of millimeters of travel on a thumb stick or other joystick and the same goes for dedicated pedals moreover if you want to drive cars with manual gearboxes it quickly becomes nightmarishly difficult to do so on a controller but if your budget won't stretch to a wheel then don't let that put you get stuck in and see if some raisins for you beyond the precision of input that wheel and pedal set provides is the small matter of force feedback if you've not used a sim racing wheel before it could be easy to overlook this as similar to the vibration you feel in a gamepad but this is a very different beast when you're driving a real car out on the road your body provides information about how the car is interfacing with the environment you feel g-forces and vibrations etc that let your brain know how the car is behaving when you're sat in a chair playing a video game you've got none of this which can make driving games quite tricky however if you have a force feedback wheel racing Sims provide highly useful information through that wheel about how the cars interfacing with the road surface when everything's going well and with other objects when things are going less well the resistance of the wheel increases with the loads on the simulated car giving you essential feedback about how that cars behaving without force feedback feeling the grip limit is near impossible and you have to rely on visual cues which is simply put much more difficult but with a force feedback wheel you can feel the car go slightly over the limit the wheel feels lighter and you can instinctively correct the car with the appropriate control input usually counter steer so most people will be looking at some sort of wheel and pedal setup and the two big players in the entry level space a thrust master and logitech at the moment in the UK at least it's hard to recommend anything other than the Logitech G 29 or G 924 budget-conscious buyers the new processor of what is pretty much an all-time low and the pre-owned prices have followed suit I recently spent a month with a brand new G 29 in preparation for an upcoming review and honestly it's hard to fault it for the price you get a lot of wheel for the money furthermore older models like that G 25 and G 27 are also suitably inexpensive on the second-hand market and are functionally very similar to the new models just to avoid any confusion the G 29 and 920 are pretty much identical with the 29 being set up for PC and PlayStation and the 920 being PC and Xbox compatible as a final note in the past I've recommended that perhaps spending a little bit more on equivalent Thrustmaster offering would make more sense but with the logitech prices being so low right now I don't think it actually makes a lot of sense for a budget conscious consumer of course your mileage may vary for me this is the easiest section you don't need a dedicated sim rig most wheel and pedal sets including the recommended Logitech offerings include a desk mount of some sort so all you need to do is make a bit of space and start racing oh and if you're using a desk lamp make sure your chair isn't gonna roll away when you stamp on the brake pedal using well whatever method you like really but if you do want some sort of dedicated sim rig there are some great budget conscious choices and then of course there's always the DIY route I've seen some great sim cockpits made from wood PVC pipe steel tubing or whatever the makers most comfortable working with often paired with an old car seat from a scrapyard or from ebay and it's probably fair to say that many of these rigs are probably much more robust than the entry-level commercial offerings obviously software is going to be pretty much platform dependent if you're going down the console route in terms of full-blown Sims project cars to Aniceto Corsa are available on both of the main platforms as are the slightly more accessible f1 and dirt games from codemasters furthermore both Microsoft and Sony have their own flagship exclusive racing series Fortson Gran Turismo if I were starting from scratch I would opt for PlayStation on the basis that GT sport is superior to Forza Motorsport 7 from both of physics and a competition perspective though of course this may change with the next generation of consoles as I mentioned earlier the PC platform has a lot of choice in the sim racing sphere with titles like R factor I racing assetto corsa competency Oni race room auto mobile Easter dirt rally and the aforementioned a set of course from project cars as well as a number of other older titles that still hold up I have a separate video comparing the merits of the main racing Sims for those new to PC based sim racing which you should check out to get a feel for the landscape especially if budget isn't your primary concern however if you're using an older PC titles like race room assetto corsa iRacing are factor too Ultimo ballista can be run on pretty humble equipment if you're willing to turn some of the settings down newer sims like project cars - and especially assetto corsa compensates ena need a bit more horsepower to support their more modern visual engines so it's very much a case of looking at the minimum specs and seeing if your setup meets the requirements as for the actual cost of the software again the age of some of the sims really does lead to some great bargains especially when it comes to the time of the steam seasonal sales assetto corsa AMS and our factor in particular frequently have deep discounts and great content bundles so it's worth keeping an eye on historical prices on a site like Steam prices calm to look out for potential future deals the two outliers of race room and I racing the former is free-to-play with limited content and the expectation that you'll purchase more cars and tracks as you go this is great for giving it a try without spending any money but buying content can get expensive if you buy it piece by piece if you like race room and want to buy more than a handful of content the massive discount offered by buying everything at once or one of their packs is the most cost-effective option but it's a pretty big outlay but that outlay ain't got nothing on the monster that is iRacing there's a subscription for you to use the service which is far from insignificant and on top of that you'll need to buy all of the content you intend to race after you get out of rookie class which is typically priced between 12 and 15 dollars per item there are of course discounts to be had especially if you add more content but it does add up now fans of iRacing will point out that they get great value for money for their outlay and I consider myself in that group but if you're on a tight budget iRacing may not be the place to start like any hobby sim Racing's gonna cost but presuming you're starting out with literally nothing you could easily pick up a pre-owned console wheel pedals and some games for under 300 pounds in the UK now that's not an insignificant amount of money but I think it's also fairly in line with the costs associated with a lot of other pastimes or to put it another way it's about one and a half beers a week for a year of my local if you've already got a PC that's moderately capable then things get even cheaper you can save even more money by forgoing the wheel and pedals but at that stage you run the risk of starting to harm the quality of the experience obviously pay your money take your choice finally it's important to acknowledge that cost and value are highly subjective and what seems reasonable to me may well be prohibitively expensive for someone else or if they're lucky pocket change whatever the case if simracing is a hobby that you truly enjoy it will likely find a way of extracting as much money from your wallet as it physically can this is very much gateway drug territory consider yourselves warned so then that about brings things to an end here I hope you guys enjoyed the video if you did it would be great if you could hit the like button and subscribe to the channel so you can see more content like this again in the future it's all that's left to say is goodbye thanks for watching and enjoy the rest of your day you

Channel: Chris Haye

Views: 1,608,254

Rating: 4.921227 out of 5

Keywords: sim racing, get started sim racing, start sim racing, start sim racing as cheap as possible, sim racing on a budget, budget sim racing, cheap sim racing, racing sim, driving game, driving sim, simulator, chris haye

Id: Tbjl1IZL6ms

Length: 12min 5sec (725 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 13 2019