100% agree! It would be a great way to try content and see if you like the way it races before you buy it and take it to the official servers. I would have loved the option of trying out a few different GT3 cars before taking part in the Bathurst 12HR, instead of just blindly committing to one and hoping for the best.
@@ZachReifsnider well I guess you can't take all of iRacing out of iRacing, or transform it into R3E for that matter... At least you could progressively grow your collection up to the point where you're comfortable committing, or just save a few months worth of subscription before pulling out. They could also offer free content on rotation, if free AI membership ain't enough still.
Just got iRacing yesterday and yeah, I probably would've gotten it waaaay earlier if I tried an AI race rather than stick to AMS2 for such a long time!
Very well put together video. The message I took from this embodies my entire outlook on sim games as a whole. Whether the game is to online or it’s the real world. They teach you how to do things in a competitive or problem solving way and allow you to truly learn the craft of the said skill. For games like IRacing you learn a lot about defensive driving while learning your surroundings and being able to act and react accordingly in areas of unknown territory while games that involve casual driving like American Truck Sim teach you life skills of awareness in a whole different aspect while also teaching you crucial skills like backing trailers and taking care of cargo. When I’ve done any task that involves any game I devoted quite a bit of time to, people in real life tend to be surprised at just how much you can actually do solely to the fact that even though you might not have the true hands on experience. You make up land learn more from it with the skills you’ve already learned by practicing in the solo virtual world.
Thanks for the kind words, very much appreciated! Completely agreed with the point you make about learning defensive driving and spatial awareness as these skills are so valuable in a racing situation and the best way to gain confidence is by actually doing it. Having the opportunity to do so with AI is invaluable as the only person's day you'll be ruining with a silly mistake is your own 😆 and even then, it's still a valuable learning experience that can be remembered and applied when racing online!
Just get my fanatec wheeel last week, with the 3 month subscription for Iracing , never played this sim before but I really like it. Some of those guys are really hardcore, but to train with the ai with different conditions and cars it’s really nice and how you sad in the video I’m also forget sometimes I’m racing against AI, nice video by the way, keeep it up ✊
"Some of those guys are really hardcore" might be the biggest iRacing understatement I've ever seen 🤣 but you're absolutely right, there are some people who take it very seriously indeed. It's a great sim if you want to jump online and be guaranteed a race at any time but can often feel overwhelming if you haven't had much practice at that particular week's car/track combo...which is where this AI mode is so useful. I feel like it gets overlooked a lot but with all of the improvements iRacing are making, it's genuinely one of the best ways to prepare for the official servers without any of the pressures or responsibility of ruining someone else's day in the process if you make a mistake.
This is exactly what I love about the AI in iRacing! I've prepared for several online races by racing against them in the exact same combo and it's helped me out a lot when I've transferred over to the server for the actual race because the behaviour of the opponents is so similar to what you get in reality. Being able to set nice laptimes is one thing, but going wheel to wheel and surviving a race with as few incident points as possible is what really matters at the end of the day 👍 PS. You can do that F3 race mate! As much as the AI prep can be useful, there's nothing like doing the actual thing to get up to speed 😉
the iRacing AI is genuinely second to none. as you mention they drive realistically, they don't just take the same line through the corners like they're on rails and they can make mistakes. as you mentioned there's still a couple hiccups that could be ironed out, but there's not a single better AI racing system out there. One of the coolest things about how customizable the AI are is the ability to create a fantasy league. I've been running one with some friends and followers where they submit a driver with custom stats and a little lore for their driver, and then I paint up the cars and put them on teams. Then we watch them all race while I call it like a racing broadcast. It's nerdy as all hell, but extremely fun. Turns out, the AI is so good you don't even have to play the game to have some fun with it! Pro tip: Try racing in the Late Model Stock against AI in the same car at road courses like VIR North Course, Road Atlanta or Barber Motorsports Park. The car sounds amazing, and you can throw them around really nicely. It has just the right weight, power and grip to make them really fun to hustle around without being an uncontrollable handful!
If that's nerdy as hell then count me in too 🤓 I used to do _exactly_ the same with an offline league back in the Grand Prix 3 days. Custom driver names based on my friends, custom liveries as per their suggestions and 0 human drivers so the AI would race themselves. I'd spectate, keep track of the standings and put up the championship results with little video clips and screenshots. Ha, wow, thanks for bringing back those memories!
@@DDFRacer haha lets goooo, that's awesome! im not the only one doing it either, there's a fantasy league im in that takes it pretty seriously, so you get an attribute limit and you can improve attributes with each season, drivers can get injured if their crash is severe enough, you have a budget to spend on engines, chassis and drivers (which the admin simulates with attribute buffs or debuffs manually) and all the players roleplay their characters and teams. the fantasy leagues are certainly alive and kicking on iRacing lmao
This is a great video that touches on many interesting points. The i-racing AI has been a pleasant surprise, and you touch on the negative points accurately. Now that I've 'retired' from competitive on-line racing the adjustable AI here provide good sustained value for money for those of us who have gone 'all in' on the content. I'm able to run almost full simulations of real world race series. Basically...if i-racing keeps adding AI compatible tracks and cars they'll always remain my go to sim. But they certainly need to keep pushing for improvements.
That pretty much sums up my feelings about iRacing's AI...a very pleasant surprise indeed. Not what I was expecting from a sim advertised as the premier experience in online sim racing but something I'm very happy to have discovered. You make a great point about being able to continue getting value out of purchases beyond the official servers, especially in my case the USF2000 car. I love that thing but you'll hardly get more than a handful of people turn up to race it anymore which is a massive shame...unless you fire up an AI race and do it on your own terms of course 😉
I'm an offline only racer. I really don't have a big issue paying the monthly fee given the amount of work they obviously put into getting AI right. AMS2 and Raceroom may not have the the resources to match what iRacing has done (although AMS2 is still under a lot of active development in this area).
You can really see the attention to detail when you're going wheel to wheel with the AI in iRacing, although I'm sure that having the actual data from thousands of drivers on the official servers helps 😉 it makes for a very good experience when you have a large sample size to work with, something I'm sure that AMS2 and RaceRoom would love to have like you mentioned. Traditionally RaceRoom has always been a standout for me, although I'm keen to see where AMS2 goes. I used to have a lot of love for rF2 a few years ago but sadly that sim has fallen by the wayside for me.
Thanks for the vid! I haven't sim raced since before iRacing added their AI, and I'd forgotten about their plans of doing so until just recently. Looks like they've done a good job with it. I've been looking to get back into racing soon and was already going to resub to iR, now I'm really looking forward to the AI portion.
The feature has been around for a while but it started out with a very limited number of compatible cars and tracks. These days it's safe to say the majority of content is covered 👍 and every update they drop tends to expand what you can use in AI racing too.
I'm the kind of person who enjoys creating custom races, and all these options are amazing, especially editing the opponents, i wish this in others racing games.
Don't worry, VR racing will always be what I do on this channel (save for the occasional pancake monitor race or video here or there where VR isn't possible) and I always seem to come back to RaceRoom no matter what else I do. I'm enjoying iRacing these days not for the official servers, but more for the occasional AUSNZ league race and, as featured in this video, the occasional AI race for practice purposes. Thanks as always for the kind words though mate 😎 plenty more to come on the channel very soon!
Same here, but a great experience nonetheless 😁 especially having recorded all these videos a few weeks back too so we could make the most of this time together.
Great video, Dan. I've been struggling with the lack of on track time due to my fifo work schedule. I'm on site 20 out of 28 days, and the driving standards of a lot of real-world racers make it extremely frustrating. Losing 100's of irating most races and losing more and more, I've been thinking about giving the AI a try. Your video has convinced me to give it a try. Cheers, mate, Brett👍
Mate, it's almost as if you're exactly the kind of person I made this video for 😁 glad you found it and that it helped tip you over the edge! Going up against the AI in iRacing is the perfect solution for when you have limited time and just want to jump in to get some wheel to wheel action under your belt without having to worry about schedules or other human beings who get cranky when you inevitably make a mistake due to the lack of opportunity to put the practice laps in. Especially now it's of such a good standard you can get consistently good and exciting races 👍 all the best Brett, cheers for watching.
@DDF Racer I just wish I was still racing with you and the aus/nz guy's. Unfortunately, when I injured my back a few years ago, I got locked out of my discord channel and had to delete it and make a new one. Those races where awesome, I was still slow but 😂 👍
Most definitely 😉 if not for a way to practice for official races then at least to just have some fun away from the servers and enjoy iRacing for what it is without the stress of driving around randoms and worrying about iRating.
Thank you Devin 😁 much appreciated mate, all the best for your iRacing journey! The channel is a bit of a mixed bag here though to be honest, sometimes I'm in iRacing but sometimes it'll be RaceRoom or perhaps DIRT Rally 2.0...or maybe even AMS2 or BeamNG. Who knows 😉 there's so much to experience in sim racing and only so much time I can put into making content, it's a wonderful problem to have.
Just incase you didn't know. You can also race as a ghost in real races. Once a race has started, select your car and go into "Watch" it, jump in and race without anyone knowing you're there
I actually did this by accident the very first time I tried iRacing 😅 I thought I'd joined my first official race and then wondered why everyone was ghosting out around me. Needless to say a quick search on the forums highlighted the error of my ways but also made me go "wow, that's actually a really cool feature".
100% agree with this 👍 using the AI is a great tool for learning a car/circuit before heading onto the actual servers. No consequences to binning it and you can do things on your own time instead 😉
Spot on! Exactly my thoughts about iRacing. The only thing I would like to add, is that seeing it costs a hefty penny, and being an AI driver only, because of how people can be.. I think I'm entitled to all the tracks and cars I have bought. Except for the ovals, dirt ovals and the non Indycar cars, I have all the content. So I think I should be able to use all that content in AI. It's a matter of time I know, but I guess they try to force people into procuring certain content every now and then. Beside all that I love driving my personaly setup multiclass races or whatever. I have all the major racing sims, but iRacing tops them in general. Like you said. Keep up the good work!
I hear what you're saying 😉 but on the other hand, I'd also want the AI experience to be a good one. Generally speaking the newly released content is compatible straight out of the box on release but it's the older stuff which is missing, most likely due to the fact that AI racing wasn't even an option when it was originally released. I'm sure that most of the older cars in iRacing _could_ be compatible already, but they could very well be a hot mess too. One of the good things about iRacing's AI is knowing you can fire up any available combo and it'd provide good quality racing. I'm happy to be missing a few cars and tracks off the roster if it means having a little more peace of mind...but I can't disagree in hoping for the dev team to find the resources to go back over the older stuff to add it in 👍
I never RACE the ai in iracing but I have used it to practice for leagues. Risk free to try overtaking lines, feeling the car in draft and blocked vision trying to follow. With 50 cars driving around getting it rubbered racing in to get it closer to what I will see on raceday which is a state the pracise server never really reach
Same here 👍 I've found it incredibly useful to practice for league races too. Gives you a great understanding of what might happen on race day and helps you prepare for that wheel to wheel action.
I do practice off line racing in solo sessions, as well as on line racing, but once I feel I have a good grasp of both off line, and on line, I hop into a practice session and simulate the race to see how I do with traffic. I do this when I am either learning a new car, or a new track, or both. It helps to bin it into an AI turn one, and not a real person. Sadly I have most of my races ruined by other drivers, and the AI does not prepare you for that, you just gotta hope.
Binning it against the AI is actually one of the most useful things about it, especially if you're not too invested in the race, as there are no consequences to your actions. It's an abuse free way of finding out what works and what doesn't 😉 but like you said, that only applies to the official servers when you're the one making the mistake. When someone else goes bowling and collects you in the process there's nothing you can do to avoid that really 🤷♂️ no amount of defensive driving can prevent idiocy.
i just ordered my first sim racing setup and really want to play iracing but i dont want to ruin races for people as i learn so im glad to know there is some hope for me yet lol
If you want to race with others with absolutely zero chances of punting them off the road then you can also use the ghost feature in iRacing 👍 instead of spectating, you can actually join the track of any live official race that's currently in progress and they won't see you but you can see them, collisions are disabled as well. In addition to using the AI, this is a really useful way to get used to being on track with others.
Another great video. I am not a fan of on line racing. But like to AI race. I've seen several creators rank IR AI very high. I think the issue is the cost for most people. Between tracks and cars, that is a lot to fork over for solo racing. I think IR should create a cheaper tier for solo racers. Like have the monthly fee, but allow you to race any car on any circuit solo. I would bet you get a number who would then start to buy cars and tracks to race on line.
I couldn't agree more with this idea...or at the very least have some kind of 'test drive' mode so you can see what a car or track is like before you purchase it. It seems odd to have the content behind both a paywall _and_ subscription fee, with only the reviews of other people to rely on before you commit to spending your money...and it's not exactly a small amount of money either.
It's interesting to me that some people have a lot of problems with the netcode. I never shy away from door to door battling and never really have any netcode contact 🤷♂
I think it depends on a lot of factors but mostly location and the strength of the connection to the iRacing server (either based on the quality of the iRacing server or the person connecting to it). Personally I haven't had too many issues either but that's because I mostly race in leagues against fellow Australians and Kiwis, but even then I've seen some terrible netcode with other cars in the session at times. Also, iRacing themselves have admitted recently that the quality of the servers have dropped a little for this region, due to the recent DDoS attacks they've switched over to cloud hosting instead of using a direct connection from their main servers in Boston to Sydney over here.
Couldn't agree more, nothing more frustrating with a bad connection to the servers and either blinking all over the place or, even worse, getting disconnected from the race entirely! You have a lot more control over your experience in offline mode 👍 although some people will argue it lacks that adrenaline from racing wheel to wheel with other humans.
You sure can 👍 and in great depth too. You can choose the calendar and the cars down to details such as each individual session length for each round and specific characteristics for each AI opponent...if you want to. If you can't be bothered or just want to go racing, iRacing will do all of that for you, but it's completely customisable if you have the time. Including the points scoring system too which is pretty cool.
Definitely! Most AI in other sims tend to get into the habit of following nose to tail in the longer races, not because they don't know how to fight, but because they generally sort themselves out in pace order and then spread out with very little deviation in performance or errors. Using the AI in iRacing is a great way to practice battling and try out overtaking moves, see where the grip is (or isn't) when you go offline. Like you said, you can definitely learn a lot 👍
First, the baby shot was spectacular. Perfect in every way, the look on both your faces and flashed for the perfect time. iRacing, for some reason, has the overall feel of real racing experience (I worked the pits at Summit Point for a while). Maybe it's the rules seeming arbitrary or how much luck can affect your race day? Maybe it's the fact that the huge majority of real racers pay to race, just like iRacing.
You're the first person to mention the baby shot actually, but glad you liked it 😆 she's 5 months old now and pretty chill but those first few months were pretty all consuming as I'm sure you can imagine! In terms of real racing, that's something I'm yet to experience personally so it's always great to hear from people like yourself who have that perspective and can make a direct comparison. iRacing definitely stresses me out/gets the nerves going more than any other sim I've used, so I can definitely relate to that aspect 😅
Whats so great about the AI for me is how unpredictable they can be, which is exactly what a human being is like in Iracing. No other racing game out there has gotten AI right, even fan favourites like ACC the AI is abysmal and either doesn't put up a fight, or will drive into you like you arent there. And because of how unpredictable they are its a great place to learn race craft. Whenever I buy a new track I always do probably an hour of hotlapping to learn the breaking points, racing lines etc, and then I normally do 3 or 4 20ish minute races with AI to learn how to race on the track before I then step into multiplayer races
I can't say I have much experience with the AI in ACC but another fan favourite seems to be AMS2 which...yeah, can be awesome at times but will always have their 'moments' which break the immersion such as awful blue flag behaviour, odd pit strategies and massive divebombs etc. iRacing is an all rounder when it comes to AI and you can really tell the devs have put a lot of time into fine tuning it 👍 Great practice routine by the way, that's a really good method for getting up to speed quickly 😉 I do the same here whenever I need to hop in to a new car/track combo.
Hey Bob, I haven't noticed it to be that much of an issue to be honest so I'm not sure what advice I can offer you unfortunately, but it does take a little trial and error to get that AI difficulty dialled in initially. Maybe you're just a one lap specialist? 😉
When the AI is actually decent and drives a proper racing line then it's super useful! Unfortunately in some other sims it can be a bit hit and miss, meaning you have to drive around them or compensate for corners where they might not take the right line or have grip beyond what is possible. Thanks for the follow too 😎
Hey Camus 👋 I'm using the Oculus Rift CV1 which is the first model they released about 6 years ago and has been discontinued now. I've had many people suggest that I get a new headset but, to be honest, this one does a fine job and is rock solid so until it actually dies it'll stay in service. If you're running a 4080 then you'll find most headsets will run smoothly, I'm running a 3080 and hardly have any issues, although VR will always be graphically intensive so you'll always need to run lower settings than if you were just using a monitor or triples. I'm based in Brisbane, by the way.
Ha yeah, agreed on that one. Anyone who can match the AI with the difficulty slider above 80% is a bit of a weapon in my books. That said, I think other sims set the bar high and inflate the ego, having to regularly push it above 100% for a good race. If you try that in iRacing it literally changes the opponent description from 'Aliens' to 'Cheaters' 😆 so I think even _they_ know it's a bit unrealistic. That said, does it really matter what the actual number is once it's dialled in and provides good close racing? 😎
Isn't iRacing the old Papyrus crew anyways? I seem to remember back in the days of the Nascar and Indycar series the A.I. being not too bad actually. Considering how long ago that was. Maybe not as quite good as GeoffCrammond's A.I. in F1 Circuit series, but still.
I believe so, yes, although I'm not sure how many of the original Papyrus crew are still on board with iRacing. Regardless, whoever is responsible for the AI is doing a great job and turning what should be a redundant feature into a big positive. Very fond memories of Geoff Crammond's work here too, those titles were the foundation of my childhood 🤩
Absolutely not 😎 anything you do against the AI doesn't affect your ratings making it the perfect place to practice before you head out on the official servers.
Since a year or 2 the AI has become so good in Iracing - and with every season-update, one per 3 months, it just keeps improving. I race AI a lot in other sims too, I think Raceroom has the best AI out of the rest, but none of them even come close to Iracing. Yesterday I had a race on the Nurnburgring with a lot of 3-wide situations - the AI handled that perfectly. About your complaint that the AI only gets back on the road after everyone passed - that's how it should be.. letting them judge if it would be safe to rejoin with ongoing cars is a bit too much to ask from AI I think since even real-life drivers have a hard time with that ;) Honestly.. Lately I'm enjoying racing the AI even more than doing online races.
But I want my realism and unsafe rejoins 😆 that's the proper iRacing experience, right? In all seriousness, you're absolutely spot on about the whole "I went three wide and survived" thing though, it's a great advert of how good AI can actually be if it's done properly and gives you confidence to race _hard_ when going wheel to wheel. On the same hand, with the 'Avoid collisions' box unchecked, you know that a bonehead move against the AI is probably going to result in being punted off the circuit so it really is a good indicator of acceptable driving standards and, again, highlights how good iRacing's AI can be.
@@DDFRacer Exactly :) I haven't even tried that 'avoid ai' option. The AI in Iracing is fair and back off when they need to. Most of the times I have an accident with the AI - it's my fault ;)
Do the AI get as much car and tire damage as you? I was pretty frustrated with AMS2 that I would have a collision with an AI car, and I'd have to pit for repairs while the AI goes along its merry way like nothing happened.
That's a good question and honestly one that I don't have an answer for, I'd have to go and do some research and find out! I do share your frustrations though about the lack of damage simulation in the AI opponents in AMS2 sometimes, especially coupled with their aggressive nature on the brakes which tends to put them in a position to cause a collision anyway.
I know IRacing is very good online game racing against other competitors. I just don't have the dedicated time to get my money's worth. Plus I don't like doing the monthly subscribe fee. Question on AI: How many Nascar Oval tracks provide racing with AI??? Doing a google search, looks like there are a little over 20 oval tracks that support AI - which is pretty good. I am going to wait till the NEW Nascar PC game comes out in 2025 which is being developed by IRacing and another company. I hope it brings into the game allot of the realistic features of IRacing. The new Nascar for PC probably will sell on STEAM. Thanks for the video. Take care.
Absolutely agreed, an iRacing membership is kind of like a gym membership. It's only worth it if you can actually get the use out of it, otherwise you spend your money each month, turn up a handful of times and then feel guilty about the days that you don't. That said, if you _can_ commit to it then it's superb in terms of the amount of people you can race against and, as pointed out in this video, the AI isn't half bad either 👍 but when someone sigsn up for iRacing I doubt it'd be solely for the offline aspect.
After having a few events in RaceRoom recently, I've been using the AI to practice my starts and also general ability to follow another car in traffic when the downforce gets washed out. I used to love the AI in RaceRoom and, as much as I do really enjoy spending time in that sim, my practice sessions really highlighted how much of a step above the AI is in iRacing 😅
It's actually surprising just _how good_ iRacing's AI can be, a really good practice tool for actual races against humans or just a fun way to enjoy iRacing without the stress of losing any rating due to netcode or less than ideal opponents out on track 😉 Completely agree with you about AMS2 AI as well, I've always found that to be very un-immersive, whereas RaceRoom can be very good indeed.
It's an interesting point you make since the quality of racing with the AI can be significantly better than dealing with rookies at times 😅 however that's not necessarily always a good thing. Sure the AI will make mistakes but they won't make 'bad' decisions like an awful rejoin or a move that was clearly not on. It might be frustrating at the time to be taken out in rookies but it's invaluable experience for anticipating the actions of others, these situations only make you a better driver in the long run provided you look at the replay, see how things could have happened differently and learn from the experience 👍
Its unfortunate because Ive used the Ai to practice my racecraft for the week and the AI races just like a real race!, but am gonna be cancelling my sub because I dont play iracing enough to warrant the prices, I might be back some day, but I hope they can have a separate payment plan for offline racing.
It makes so much sense to have some kind of discount or maybe even free AI racing options within iRacing 🤔 I can only hope they make this available too but unfortunately I doubt it.
I'd like to try iRacing... but I know me... I'd want to buy everything and simply can't afford it. My addictive personality trait means I never will. 😂
The cost of iRacing content is both a blessing and a curse. I find myself only buying a select handful of cars that I _really_ want to drive and then spending a lot of time in them to become familiar and make the most of my purchases. On the other hand, I also find myself buying far more tracks than I ever actually end up racing at 😅
Rage/cursing sessions 😂 love it! All too relatable though unfortunately. Will definitely check out AMS2 AI again in 1.14, have been hearing many great things about so many different areas of the sim now.
Completely agree with you. I get FAR more pleasure from AI than multiplayer in iRacing. It's very fraustrating getting penalty points for just touching a few blades of grass or being t-boned or tail-gated in Multiplayer. The AI behaviour as you say is extremely good compared with any other sim. I'm hoping the devs will eventually offer AI at every track and with every car. I think that is what should be offered if you still have to pay a subscription.
Although there's nothing quite like the adrenaline rush of racing against other humans, especially in a league situation with people you know and respect, there's certainly a lot less frustration and resentment when racing against the AI. Completely agree about having every combo available to drive though, but the devs are expanding the AI compatible list with each update it seems 👍
IRacing is great and all but Raceroom is just as fun to race against the AI. Honestly IRacing struggles just as much to push modern hardware as Raceroom does but I don’t necessarily see that as a bad thing though. They both run flawlessly on triple screens even when I still only had a GTX 1080
A year or two ago I may have agreed with you on the RaceRoom AI comment but, after having set up some RaceRoom AI races recently to record some clips for a video, I had a bit of a surprising experience...and this is coming from a big RaceRoom fanboy as well 😅 it's my most played sim and will always be up top as my favourite but I just couldn't get an enjoyable race or opponents that would behave in a believable manner. Running at 110% I can match them on laptimes and they definitely race you harder than in iRacing but seem to take much slower speeds on corner entry, yet have superhuman grip on exit and unfair advantages down the straights. Like I said, rewind a little bit in time and they'd definitely be up there as the best AI (which was also one of the major draws that got me in to Raceroom in the first place) but, compared to the advances that iRacing have made recently, I feel the AI in RaceRoom is definitely not at the level they used to be unfortunately.
Why AI? It’s on my schedule - I race what I want, when I want. I crash out? Restart in five seconds. I wreck another car? No profanity laden scolding. Seems obvious to me.
In iRacing it's an obvious choice since the quality of the AI is so good these days, especially for those on their own schedule like you said, however I've spent a fair bit of time racing against the AI in AMS2 and RaceRoom recently for various reasons and I could see why it would drive people online. Quality of racing is definitely a big factor and when you have your opponents pulling stupid stunts or driving like they have completely different grip levels it shatters the immersion. That's what really impressed me with iRacing's AI, they're incredibly believable 👍
Agreed, although you do see the occasional AI running wide, locking a brake or spinning off to the side of the track, it's quite rare to see a _'big'_ incident or a multi car pileup.
getting into iRacing to race against AI is like getting into a stripclub for the food buffet.. it may actually be not that bad, but you could get the same food cheaper and freshier from the restaurant on the other side of the street... anyways...since you already payed a feel bucks to get inside... why not just sit and enjoy some chicken wings...
Sure, you wouldn't buy iRacing _just_ for the AI racing, but if someone offers you complimentary chicken wings that actually turned out to be some of the best you've ever had, you're not going to say no 😆
How does iRacing not have good physics/FFB? Do you say that, because hitting a curb while on full throttle unsettles the car? Have you every tried that in a real life GT3 car? Trust me, you only make that mistake once. From all the Sims out there I am convinced that iRacing has no competition in terms of Physics/FFB. I mean, real world racing teams use iRacing to train their driving skills. And the teams who use Rfactor, put many thousands of dollars into creating a digital replica car of their real car.
I can't say I've ever driven a GT3 car in real life, as much as I would dearly love to get the opportunity, so I don't have that reference point unfortunately. However, the feeling I get from the physics/FFB in iRacing is not that I'm driving a car and trying to find lap time, it's more like the feeling that I'm constantly trying to avoid losing control of the car and having an accident. There's no satisfaction in that for me as I never feel like I can push the car or find the limits. Maybe it's a confidence thing or a familiarity thing but I certainly don't get as much enjoyment out of the sensation of driving in iRacing as I feel like I should, it all feels very restrained to me. That's not to say that iRacing physics/FFB is necessarily _bad_ though because, like you say, a lot of pros invest a significant amount of time into it.
Real-life racing drivers have also criticized iRacing's tyre model as too unforgiving. And those who use the sim for training do so because of its accurate track models.
Thanks for your opinion mate, always good to hear the other side of the argument 😉 so if you're not a fan of iRacing, what other sim would you recommend in terms of good AI and physics? I've quite enjoyed running against the AI in iRacing and have definitely found them useful and engaging but if there's something better out there then I'm all for it, at the end of the day I just want to have the best sim racing experience possible and I'd be happy to be proven wrong 👍
@@DDFRacer Assetto Corsa AI is more realistic because it uses the same physics model as the user. Unfortunately, because it is using the realistic "real world" physics model, unlike iRacing, the AI is simply not as skilled, i.e. quick. So, e.g., I can't really race Assetto Corsa AI as I'm much faster, perhaps 2 or 3 seconds per lap on a 2:15 lap at Silverstone GP, even with AI at 100%.
Might be worth taking a look at the content on this channel and the amount of iRacing videos/streams compared to everything else 😉 I'm not exactly what you'd call an iRacing fanboi, just someone who enjoys this particular aspect of the sim (and was quite surprised by it to be honest) and wanted to share my thoughts. I've tried the AMS2 1.5 update and absolutely loving it, the VR and graphics have always been superb and I've always been a big fan of the whole AMS2 experience, although I've hardly had any free time recently to actually put some proper hours into it and enjoy the updated physics. My main problem with the AI in AMS2 is how incredibly inconsistent it is. It changes between quali and race, between all the different types of car, from circuit to circuit and most obviously in between weather conditions. How can I be matching race pace in dry/wet conditions but be three seconds off the pace when it's transitioning from one to the other? I've poured hundreds of hours into single player/career mode and I can't tell you how many times I've had to quit a session and change the difficulty settings because I was either running away at the front with no challenge or getting absolutely smoked.
Said it before and repeating it now: AI racing in iRacing should be free. That would attract quite the user base IMHO.
100% agree! It would be a great way to try content and see if you like the way it races before you buy it and take it to the official servers. I would have loved the option of trying out a few different GT3 cars before taking part in the Bathurst 12HR, instead of just blindly committing to one and hoping for the best.
Just look for car reviews. Took me 1 minute to find out which GT3 car is best for my driving style
Yea but there’s still that annoying thing where you have to pay $12 a car and 15$ a track.
@@ZachReifsnider well I guess you can't take all of iRacing out of iRacing, or transform it into R3E for that matter...
At least you could progressively grow your collection up to the point where you're comfortable committing, or just save a few months worth of subscription before pulling out.
They could also offer free content on rotation, if free AI membership ain't enough still.
Just got iRacing yesterday and yeah, I probably would've gotten it waaaay earlier if I tried an AI race rather than stick to AMS2 for such a long time!
Very well put together video. The message I took from this embodies my entire outlook on sim games as a whole. Whether the game is to online or it’s the real world. They teach you how to do things in a competitive or problem solving way and allow you to truly learn the craft of the said skill. For games like IRacing you learn a lot about defensive driving while learning your surroundings and being able to act and react accordingly in areas of unknown territory while games that involve casual driving like American Truck Sim teach you life skills of awareness in a whole different aspect while also teaching you crucial skills like backing trailers and taking care of cargo. When I’ve done any task that involves any game I devoted quite a bit of time to, people in real life tend to be surprised at just how much you can actually do solely to the fact that even though you might not have the true hands on experience. You make up land learn more from it with the skills you’ve already learned by practicing in the solo virtual world.
Thanks for the kind words, very much appreciated! Completely agreed with the point you make about learning defensive driving and spatial awareness as these skills are so valuable in a racing situation and the best way to gain confidence is by actually doing it. Having the opportunity to do so with AI is invaluable as the only person's day you'll be ruining with a silly mistake is your own 😆 and even then, it's still a valuable learning experience that can be remembered and applied when racing online!
Just get my fanatec wheeel last week, with the 3 month subscription for Iracing , never played this sim before but I really like it. Some of those guys are really hardcore, but to train with the ai with different conditions and cars it’s really nice and how you sad in the video I’m also forget sometimes I’m racing against AI, nice video by the way, keeep it up ✊
"Some of those guys are really hardcore" might be the biggest iRacing understatement I've ever seen 🤣 but you're absolutely right, there are some people who take it very seriously indeed. It's a great sim if you want to jump online and be guaranteed a race at any time but can often feel overwhelming if you haven't had much practice at that particular week's car/track combo...which is where this AI mode is so useful. I feel like it gets overlooked a lot but with all of the improvements iRacing are making, it's genuinely one of the best ways to prepare for the official servers without any of the pressures or responsibility of ruining someone else's day in the process if you make a mistake.
The AI really helped me build my racecraft to a point where I might actually join an F3 race someday soon. :)
This is exactly what I love about the AI in iRacing! I've prepared for several online races by racing against them in the exact same combo and it's helped me out a lot when I've transferred over to the server for the actual race because the behaviour of the opponents is so similar to what you get in reality. Being able to set nice laptimes is one thing, but going wheel to wheel and surviving a race with as few incident points as possible is what really matters at the end of the day 👍
PS. You can do that F3 race mate! As much as the AI prep can be useful, there's nothing like doing the actual thing to get up to speed 😉
Please go test at a track by yourself first
the iRacing AI is genuinely second to none. as you mention they drive realistically, they don't just take the same line through the corners like they're on rails and they can make mistakes. as you mentioned there's still a couple hiccups that could be ironed out, but there's not a single better AI racing system out there. One of the coolest things about how customizable the AI are is the ability to create a fantasy league. I've been running one with some friends and followers where they submit a driver with custom stats and a little lore for their driver, and then I paint up the cars and put them on teams. Then we watch them all race while I call it like a racing broadcast. It's nerdy as all hell, but extremely fun. Turns out, the AI is so good you don't even have to play the game to have some fun with it!
Pro tip: Try racing in the Late Model Stock against AI in the same car at road courses like VIR North Course, Road Atlanta or Barber Motorsports Park. The car sounds amazing, and you can throw them around really nicely. It has just the right weight, power and grip to make them really fun to hustle around without being an uncontrollable handful!
If that's nerdy as hell then count me in too 🤓 I used to do _exactly_ the same with an offline league back in the Grand Prix 3 days. Custom driver names based on my friends, custom liveries as per their suggestions and 0 human drivers so the AI would race themselves. I'd spectate, keep track of the standings and put up the championship results with little video clips and screenshots. Ha, wow, thanks for bringing back those memories!
@@DDFRacer haha lets goooo, that's awesome! im not the only one doing it either, there's a fantasy league im in that takes it pretty seriously, so you get an attribute limit and you can improve attributes with each season, drivers can get injured if their crash is severe enough, you have a budget to spend on engines, chassis and drivers (which the admin simulates with attribute buffs or debuffs manually) and all the players roleplay their characters and teams. the fantasy leagues are certainly alive and kicking on iRacing lmao
This is a great video that touches on many interesting points. The i-racing AI has been a pleasant surprise, and you touch on the negative points accurately. Now that I've 'retired' from competitive on-line racing the adjustable AI here provide good sustained value for money for those of us who have gone 'all in' on the content. I'm able to run almost full simulations of real world race series. Basically...if i-racing keeps adding AI compatible tracks and cars they'll always remain my go to sim. But they certainly need to keep pushing for improvements.
That pretty much sums up my feelings about iRacing's AI...a very pleasant surprise indeed. Not what I was expecting from a sim advertised as the premier experience in online sim racing but something I'm very happy to have discovered. You make a great point about being able to continue getting value out of purchases beyond the official servers, especially in my case the USF2000 car. I love that thing but you'll hardly get more than a handful of people turn up to race it anymore which is a massive shame...unless you fire up an AI race and do it on your own terms of course 😉
I'm an offline only racer. I really don't have a big issue paying the monthly fee given the amount of work they obviously put into getting AI right. AMS2 and Raceroom may not have the the resources to match what iRacing has done (although AMS2 is still under a lot of active development in this area).
You can really see the attention to detail when you're going wheel to wheel with the AI in iRacing, although I'm sure that having the actual data from thousands of drivers on the official servers helps 😉 it makes for a very good experience when you have a large sample size to work with, something I'm sure that AMS2 and RaceRoom would love to have like you mentioned. Traditionally RaceRoom has always been a standout for me, although I'm keen to see where AMS2 goes. I used to have a lot of love for rF2 a few years ago but sadly that sim has fallen by the wayside for me.
Thanks for the vid! I haven't sim raced since before iRacing added their AI, and I'd forgotten about their plans of doing so until just recently. Looks like they've done a good job with it. I've been looking to get back into racing soon and was already going to resub to iR, now I'm really looking forward to the AI portion.
The feature has been around for a while but it started out with a very limited number of compatible cars and tracks. These days it's safe to say the majority of content is covered 👍 and every update they drop tends to expand what you can use in AI racing too.
I'm the kind of person who enjoys creating custom races, and all these options are amazing, especially editing the opponents, i wish this in others racing games.
The level of detail you can go to in a custom championship in iRacing is impressive 👀 really lets you fine tune things to be exactly the way you want.
Big fan of yours, hopefully iRacing doesn't distract you from RaceRoom and VR racing. Love your channel, keep it coming.
Don't worry, VR racing will always be what I do on this channel (save for the occasional pancake monitor race or video here or there where VR isn't possible) and I always seem to come back to RaceRoom no matter what else I do. I'm enjoying iRacing these days not for the official servers, but more for the occasional AUSNZ league race and, as featured in this video, the occasional AI race for practice purposes. Thanks as always for the kind words though mate 😎 plenty more to come on the channel very soon!
RaceRoom is just another pay to play sim just like Irenting
Most unique and strangest experience, watching this across the hallway under the same roof !
Great you finally (or Finney-ally) got there. ❤
Same here, but a great experience nonetheless 😁 especially having recorded all these videos a few weeks back too so we could make the most of this time together.
Great video, Dan. I've been struggling with the lack of on track time due to my fifo work schedule. I'm on site 20 out of 28 days, and the driving standards of a lot of real-world racers make it extremely frustrating. Losing 100's of irating most races and losing more and more, I've been thinking about giving the AI a try. Your video has convinced me to give it a try. Cheers, mate, Brett👍
Mate, it's almost as if you're exactly the kind of person I made this video for 😁 glad you found it and that it helped tip you over the edge! Going up against the AI in iRacing is the perfect solution for when you have limited time and just want to jump in to get some wheel to wheel action under your belt without having to worry about schedules or other human beings who get cranky when you inevitably make a mistake due to the lack of opportunity to put the practice laps in. Especially now it's of such a good standard you can get consistently good and exciting races 👍 all the best Brett, cheers for watching.
@DDF Racer I just wish I was still racing with you and the aus/nz guy's. Unfortunately, when I injured my back a few years ago, I got locked out of my discord channel and had to delete it and make a new one. Those races where awesome, I was still slow but 😂 👍
Great video buddy - I am going to have to explore this!
Most definitely 😉 if not for a way to practice for official races then at least to just have some fun away from the servers and enjoy iRacing for what it is without the stress of driving around randoms and worrying about iRating.
What a great video, I'm a new I racer, just broke out of rookies today. You gained a new sub /daily liker.
Thank you Devin 😁 much appreciated mate, all the best for your iRacing journey! The channel is a bit of a mixed bag here though to be honest, sometimes I'm in iRacing but sometimes it'll be RaceRoom or perhaps DIRT Rally 2.0...or maybe even AMS2 or BeamNG. Who knows 😉 there's so much to experience in sim racing and only so much time I can put into making content, it's a wonderful problem to have.
Just incase you didn't know. You can also race as a ghost in real races. Once a race has started, select your car and go into "Watch" it, jump in and race without anyone knowing you're there
I actually did this by accident the very first time I tried iRacing 😅 I thought I'd joined my first official race and then wondered why everyone was ghosting out around me. Needless to say a quick search on the forums highlighted the error of my ways but also made me go "wow, that's actually a really cool feature".
Im doing a season with late mod;es to get used to tracks ive never driven so i get a feel for how the car drives its a great tool
100% agree with this 👍 using the AI is a great tool for learning a car/circuit before heading onto the actual servers. No consequences to binning it and you can do things on your own time instead 😉
First time here. Your delivery is excellent; you earned a sub.
Cheers Eddie 😁 thank you for the kind words, much appreciated!
Spot on! Exactly my thoughts about iRacing. The only thing I would like to add, is that seeing it costs a hefty penny, and being an AI driver only, because of how people can be.. I think I'm entitled to all the tracks and cars I have bought. Except for the ovals, dirt ovals and the non Indycar cars, I have all the content. So I think I should be able to use all that content in AI. It's a matter of time I know, but I guess they try to force people into procuring certain content every now and then. Beside all that I love driving my personaly setup multiclass races or whatever. I have all the major racing sims, but iRacing tops them in general. Like you said. Keep up the good work!
I hear what you're saying 😉 but on the other hand, I'd also want the AI experience to be a good one. Generally speaking the newly released content is compatible straight out of the box on release but it's the older stuff which is missing, most likely due to the fact that AI racing wasn't even an option when it was originally released. I'm sure that most of the older cars in iRacing _could_ be compatible already, but they could very well be a hot mess too.
One of the good things about iRacing's AI is knowing you can fire up any available combo and it'd provide good quality racing. I'm happy to be missing a few cars and tracks off the roster if it means having a little more peace of mind...but I can't disagree in hoping for the dev team to find the resources to go back over the older stuff to add it in 👍
@@DDFRacer You have a point. I guess patience does it.
I never RACE the ai in iracing but I have used it to practice for leagues. Risk free to try overtaking lines, feeling the car in draft and blocked vision trying to follow. With 50 cars driving around getting it rubbered racing in to get it closer to what I will see on raceday which is a state the pracise server never really reach
Same here 👍 I've found it incredibly useful to practice for league races too. Gives you a great understanding of what might happen on race day and helps you prepare for that wheel to wheel action.
If you add some AI to a hosted session, you can also practice starts with genuine folks. Just use the same buttons to reset the session.
Oooh I didn't know that, thanks for the tip! I've never hosted a session before but that's handy if the grid needs to be filled out a bit 👍
I do practice off line racing in solo sessions, as well as on line racing, but once I feel I have a good grasp of both off line, and on line, I hop into a practice session and simulate the race to see how I do with traffic. I do this when I am either learning a new car, or a new track, or both. It helps to bin it into an AI turn one, and not a real person. Sadly I have most of my races ruined by other drivers, and the AI does not prepare you for that, you just gotta hope.
Binning it against the AI is actually one of the most useful things about it, especially if you're not too invested in the race, as there are no consequences to your actions. It's an abuse free way of finding out what works and what doesn't 😉 but like you said, that only applies to the official servers when you're the one making the mistake. When someone else goes bowling and collects you in the process there's nothing you can do to avoid that really 🤷♂️ no amount of defensive driving can prevent idiocy.
i just ordered my first sim racing setup and really want to play iracing but i dont want to ruin races for people as i learn so im glad to know there is some hope for me yet lol
If you want to race with others with absolutely zero chances of punting them off the road then you can also use the ghost feature in iRacing 👍 instead of spectating, you can actually join the track of any live official race that's currently in progress and they won't see you but you can see them, collisions are disabled as well. In addition to using the AI, this is a really useful way to get used to being on track with others.
Another great video. I am not a fan of on line racing. But like to AI race. I've seen several creators rank IR AI very high. I think the issue is the cost for most people. Between tracks and cars, that is a lot to fork over for solo racing. I think IR should create a cheaper tier for solo racers. Like have the monthly fee, but allow you to race any car on any circuit solo. I would bet you get a number who would then start to buy cars and tracks to race on line.
I couldn't agree more with this idea...or at the very least have some kind of 'test drive' mode so you can see what a car or track is like before you purchase it. It seems odd to have the content behind both a paywall _and_ subscription fee, with only the reviews of other people to rely on before you commit to spending your money...and it's not exactly a small amount of money either.
It's interesting to me that some people have a lot of problems with the netcode. I never shy away from door to door battling and never really have any netcode contact 🤷♂
I think it depends on a lot of factors but mostly location and the strength of the connection to the iRacing server (either based on the quality of the iRacing server or the person connecting to it). Personally I haven't had too many issues either but that's because I mostly race in leagues against fellow Australians and Kiwis, but even then I've seen some terrible netcode with other cars in the session at times. Also, iRacing themselves have admitted recently that the quality of the servers have dropped a little for this region, due to the recent DDoS attacks they've switched over to cloud hosting instead of using a direct connection from their main servers in Boston to Sydney over here.
Some of us with poor internet having iracing with the ai is pretty good and being able to build your own opposition roster is nice too
Couldn't agree more, nothing more frustrating with a bad connection to the servers and either blinking all over the place or, even worse, getting disconnected from the race entirely! You have a lot more control over your experience in offline mode 👍 although some people will argue it lacks that adrenaline from racing wheel to wheel with other humans.
@@DDFRacer or the human pile up at the first corner if u get a bad group of human racers lol
can you do custom seasons/championships using the ai?
Yes, you can.
You sure can 👍 and in great depth too. You can choose the calendar and the cars down to details such as each individual session length for each round and specific characteristics for each AI opponent...if you want to. If you can't be bothered or just want to go racing, iRacing will do all of that for you, but it's completely customisable if you have the time. Including the points scoring system too which is pretty cool.
The best part is that they actually fight, mostly realistically and are fast if you set them to be. You can learn A LOT from them.
Definitely! Most AI in other sims tend to get into the habit of following nose to tail in the longer races, not because they don't know how to fight, but because they generally sort themselves out in pace order and then spread out with very little deviation in performance or errors. Using the AI in iRacing is a great way to practice battling and try out overtaking moves, see where the grip is (or isn't) when you go offline. Like you said, you can definitely learn a lot 👍
First, the baby shot was spectacular. Perfect in every way, the look on both your faces and flashed for the perfect time.
iRacing, for some reason, has the overall feel of real racing experience (I worked the pits at Summit Point for a while). Maybe it's the rules seeming arbitrary or how much luck can affect your race day? Maybe it's the fact that the huge majority of real racers pay to race, just like iRacing.
You're the first person to mention the baby shot actually, but glad you liked it 😆 she's 5 months old now and pretty chill but those first few months were pretty all consuming as I'm sure you can imagine!
In terms of real racing, that's something I'm yet to experience personally so it's always great to hear from people like yourself who have that perspective and can make a direct comparison. iRacing definitely stresses me out/gets the nerves going more than any other sim I've used, so I can definitely relate to that aspect 😅
Whats so great about the AI for me is how unpredictable they can be, which is exactly what a human being is like in Iracing. No other racing game out there has gotten AI right, even fan favourites like ACC the AI is abysmal and either doesn't put up a fight, or will drive into you like you arent there.
And because of how unpredictable they are its a great place to learn race craft. Whenever I buy a new track I always do probably an hour of hotlapping to learn the breaking points, racing lines etc, and then I normally do 3 or 4 20ish minute races with AI to learn how to race on the track before I then step into multiplayer races
I can't say I have much experience with the AI in ACC but another fan favourite seems to be AMS2 which...yeah, can be awesome at times but will always have their 'moments' which break the immersion such as awful blue flag behaviour, odd pit strategies and massive divebombs etc. iRacing is an all rounder when it comes to AI and you can really tell the devs have put a lot of time into fine tuning it 👍
Great practice routine by the way, that's a really good method for getting up to speed quickly 😉 I do the same here whenever I need to hop in to a new car/track combo.
How do you get the opponents at the same level you are? I always seem to qualify on pole, but then get smoked in the race.
Hey Bob, I haven't noticed it to be that much of an issue to be honest so I'm not sure what advice I can offer you unfortunately, but it does take a little trial and error to get that AI difficulty dialled in initially. Maybe you're just a one lap specialist? 😉
Fuck the RF2 moment killed me. Especially given recent events. You get a like from me.
Best part is I made this video months ago 😅 I would say "never change, rF2" but I don't think we have to worry about that...
I use the AI to practice the lines, tracks and my own style of racing. I love the AI. Just followed you too.
When the AI is actually decent and drives a proper racing line then it's super useful! Unfortunately in some other sims it can be a bit hit and miss, meaning you have to drive around them or compensate for corners where they might not take the right line or have grip beyond what is possible. Thanks for the follow too 😎
What’s the vr headset you use. I built a pc with a 4080 and just wondering what might be competible. Where in au are you?
Hey Camus 👋 I'm using the Oculus Rift CV1 which is the first model they released about 6 years ago and has been discontinued now. I've had many people suggest that I get a new headset but, to be honest, this one does a fine job and is rock solid so until it actually dies it'll stay in service. If you're running a 4080 then you'll find most headsets will run smoothly, I'm running a 3080 and hardly have any issues, although VR will always be graphically intensive so you'll always need to run lower settings than if you were just using a monitor or triples.
I'm based in Brisbane, by the way.
@@DDFRacer thanks mate. Planning to start on acc and join some leagues like lfm and/or octane. Migrating from GT7
So good they set low 2:14’s at Spa set at 50% 🤣🤣
Ha yeah, agreed on that one. Anyone who can match the AI with the difficulty slider above 80% is a bit of a weapon in my books. That said, I think other sims set the bar high and inflate the ego, having to regularly push it above 100% for a good race. If you try that in iRacing it literally changes the opponent description from 'Aliens' to 'Cheaters' 😆 so I think even _they_ know it's a bit unrealistic. That said, does it really matter what the actual number is once it's dialled in and provides good close racing? 😎
Maybe we'll see a little GT4 /GT3 session from Mr. Finley in I-Racing soon, I think this would be awesome ;-)
I think that would be rather awesome too 😁 I shall add it to the to-do list.
when you drive vs AI does it count against your irating or saftey?
Nope 😉 you can bin it as much as you like and your stats don't get affected at all.
Which headphones do you use? That mic sounds amazing 👀
I'm using an Arctis 5 headset but with the Antlion Modmic USB microphone attachment 👍
Good stuff, all the best!
Thanks 😎 you too!
Isn't iRacing the old Papyrus crew anyways?
I seem to remember back in the days of the Nascar and Indycar series the A.I. being not too bad actually. Considering how long ago that was.
Maybe not as quite good as GeoffCrammond's A.I. in F1 Circuit series, but still.
I believe so, yes, although I'm not sure how many of the original Papyrus crew are still on board with iRacing. Regardless, whoever is responsible for the AI is doing a great job and turning what should be a redundant feature into a big positive. Very fond memories of Geoff Crammond's work here too, those titles were the foundation of my childhood 🤩
When i drive against them and crash does my irating go down?
Absolutely not 😎 anything you do against the AI doesn't affect your ratings making it the perfect place to practice before you head out on the official servers.
@@DDFRacer ohh cool thank you maze
Since a year or 2 the AI has become so good in Iracing - and with every season-update, one per 3 months, it just keeps improving. I race AI a lot in other sims too, I think Raceroom has the best AI out of the rest, but none of them even come close to Iracing. Yesterday I had a race on the Nurnburgring with a lot of 3-wide situations - the AI handled that perfectly.
About your complaint that the AI only gets back on the road after everyone passed - that's how it should be.. letting them judge if it would be safe to rejoin with ongoing cars is a bit too much to ask from AI I think since even real-life drivers have a hard time with that ;)
Honestly.. Lately I'm enjoying racing the AI even more than doing online races.
But I want my realism and unsafe rejoins 😆 that's the proper iRacing experience, right? In all seriousness, you're absolutely spot on about the whole "I went three wide and survived" thing though, it's a great advert of how good AI can actually be if it's done properly and gives you confidence to race _hard_ when going wheel to wheel. On the same hand, with the 'Avoid collisions' box unchecked, you know that a bonehead move against the AI is probably going to result in being punted off the circuit so it really is a good indicator of acceptable driving standards and, again, highlights how good iRacing's AI can be.
@@DDFRacer Exactly :) I haven't even tried that 'avoid ai' option. The AI in Iracing is fair and back off when they need to. Most of the times I have an accident with the AI - it's my fault ;)
Do the AI get as much car and tire damage as you? I was pretty frustrated with AMS2 that I would have a collision with an AI car, and I'd have to pit for repairs while the AI goes along its merry way like nothing happened.
That's a good question and honestly one that I don't have an answer for, I'd have to go and do some research and find out! I do share your frustrations though about the lack of damage simulation in the AI opponents in AMS2 sometimes, especially coupled with their aggressive nature on the brakes which tends to put them in a position to cause a collision anyway.
I know IRacing is very good online game racing against other competitors. I just don't have the dedicated time to get my money's worth. Plus I don't like doing the monthly subscribe fee.
Question on AI: How many Nascar Oval tracks provide racing with AI???
Doing a google search, looks like there are a little over 20 oval tracks that support AI - which is pretty good.
I am going to wait till the NEW Nascar PC game comes out in 2025 which is being developed by IRacing and another company. I hope it brings into the game allot of the realistic features of IRacing. The new Nascar for PC probably will sell on STEAM.
Thanks for the video. Take care.
Absolutely agreed, an iRacing membership is kind of like a gym membership. It's only worth it if you can actually get the use out of it, otherwise you spend your money each month, turn up a handful of times and then feel guilty about the days that you don't.
That said, if you _can_ commit to it then it's superb in terms of the amount of people you can race against and, as pointed out in this video, the AI isn't half bad either 👍 but when someone sigsn up for iRacing I doubt it'd be solely for the offline aspect.
I've always found iRacing's A.I. really good, I use it as practice for particular upcoming races 👍
After having a few events in RaceRoom recently, I've been using the AI to practice my starts and also general ability to follow another car in traffic when the downforce gets washed out. I used to love the AI in RaceRoom and, as much as I do really enjoy spending time in that sim, my practice sessions really highlighted how much of a step above the AI is in iRacing 😅
@@DDFRacer sometimes I'm sure there are humans driving the A.I. 🙂.
IMO iracing has the best AI out of all sims. i did couple of AI races on my channel. had very bad experience with AMS2 AI on the other hand.
It's actually surprising just _how good_ iRacing's AI can be, a really good practice tool for actual races against humans or just a fun way to enjoy iRacing without the stress of losing any rating due to netcode or less than ideal opponents out on track 😉
Completely agree with you about AMS2 AI as well, I've always found that to be very un-immersive, whereas RaceRoom can be very good indeed.
Iracing does have some really good AI. I use the AI to practice all the time.
Same here, iRacing's AI really give me a nice feel for what to look out for before taking part in the proper race against real humans 😎
1 reason to AI racing while paying iracing subscription. Waiting the technician to fix my internet connection hahaha
This made me laugh more than it should have 🤣 but very true.
I pay monthly for the Sim. To race competent drivers. If that means ai cool. Better then getting Daled in rookies all the time.
It's an interesting point you make since the quality of racing with the AI can be significantly better than dealing with rookies at times 😅 however that's not necessarily always a good thing. Sure the AI will make mistakes but they won't make 'bad' decisions like an awful rejoin or a move that was clearly not on. It might be frustrating at the time to be taken out in rookies but it's invaluable experience for anticipating the actions of others, these situations only make you a better driver in the long run provided you look at the replay, see how things could have happened differently and learn from the experience 👍
I find myself only doing ai in iracing atm
Beats going on the official servers, waiting around for hours and then getting yelled at over voice comms for something that wasn't even your fault 😅
Its unfortunate because Ive used the Ai to practice my racecraft for the week and the AI races just like a real race!, but am gonna be cancelling my sub because I dont play iracing enough to warrant the prices, I might be back some day, but I hope they can have a separate payment plan for offline racing.
It makes so much sense to have some kind of discount or maybe even free AI racing options within iRacing 🤔 I can only hope they make this available too but unfortunately I doubt it.
I'd like to try iRacing... but I know me... I'd want to buy everything and simply can't afford it. My addictive personality trait means I never will. 😂
In the beginning at least there won't be much to buy, but if you're decent at racing then yeah the cart piles up fast lol
The cost of iRacing content is both a blessing and a curse. I find myself only buying a select handful of cars that I _really_ want to drive and then spending a lot of time in them to become familiar and make the most of my purchases. On the other hand, I also find myself buying far more tracks than I ever actually end up racing at 😅
Yeah - AI races is my go to vs doing online human rage/cursing race sessions.
Btw - Automobilista 2 AI has gotten a ton better with the v.1.14 update
Rage/cursing sessions 😂 love it! All too relatable though unfortunately. Will definitely check out AMS2 AI again in 1.14, have been hearing many great things about so many different areas of the sim now.
Completely agree with you. I get FAR more pleasure from AI than multiplayer in iRacing. It's very fraustrating getting penalty points for just touching a few blades of grass or being t-boned or tail-gated in Multiplayer. The AI behaviour as you say is extremely good compared with any other sim. I'm hoping the devs will eventually offer AI at every track and with every car. I think that is what should be offered if you still have to pay a subscription.
Although there's nothing quite like the adrenaline rush of racing against other humans, especially in a league situation with people you know and respect, there's certainly a lot less frustration and resentment when racing against the AI. Completely agree about having every combo available to drive though, but the devs are expanding the AI compatible list with each update it seems 👍
When you're paying a billion dollars a month you would expect to have relatively good ai.
True that, although by the same logic you'd also expect to have pretty good netcode by now as well and...well...yeah 😅 we know what that can be like.
i dig this channel
Thank you Jesse 😎 glad you like it! Plenty more coming soon mate.
IRacing is great and all but Raceroom is just as fun to race against the AI. Honestly IRacing struggles just as much to push modern hardware as Raceroom does but I don’t necessarily see that as a bad thing though. They both run flawlessly on triple screens even when I still only had a GTX 1080
A year or two ago I may have agreed with you on the RaceRoom AI comment but, after having set up some RaceRoom AI races recently to record some clips for a video, I had a bit of a surprising experience...and this is coming from a big RaceRoom fanboy as well 😅 it's my most played sim and will always be up top as my favourite but I just couldn't get an enjoyable race or opponents that would behave in a believable manner. Running at 110% I can match them on laptimes and they definitely race you harder than in iRacing but seem to take much slower speeds on corner entry, yet have superhuman grip on exit and unfair advantages down the straights. Like I said, rewind a little bit in time and they'd definitely be up there as the best AI (which was also one of the major draws that got me in to Raceroom in the first place) but, compared to the advances that iRacing have made recently, I feel the AI in RaceRoom is definitely not at the level they used to be unfortunately.
Why AI? It’s on my schedule - I race what I want, when I want. I crash out? Restart in five seconds. I wreck another car? No profanity laden scolding. Seems obvious to me.
In iRacing it's an obvious choice since the quality of the AI is so good these days, especially for those on their own schedule like you said, however I've spent a fair bit of time racing against the AI in AMS2 and RaceRoom recently for various reasons and I could see why it would drive people online. Quality of racing is definitely a big factor and when you have your opponents pulling stupid stunts or driving like they have completely different grip levels it shatters the immersion. That's what really impressed me with iRacing's AI, they're incredibly believable 👍
Love AI but there needs to be a manner of setting random wrecks/cautions...they are too good...
Agreed, although you do see the occasional AI running wide, locking a brake or spinning off to the side of the track, it's quite rare to see a _'big'_ incident or a multi car pileup.
getting into iRacing to race against AI is like getting into a stripclub for the food buffet..
it may actually be not that bad, but you could get the same food cheaper and freshier from the restaurant on the other side of the street...
anyways...since you already payed a feel bucks to get inside... why not just sit and enjoy some chicken wings...
Sure, you wouldn't buy iRacing _just_ for the AI racing, but if someone offers you complimentary chicken wings that actually turned out to be some of the best you've ever had, you're not going to say no 😆
@@DDFRacer lol, great point!! and great video as always btw! keep it up =D
Ficou top
Not anymore. No more AI multiplayer
How so? I know iRacing released an update recently but I wasn't aware that it broke anything with the AI 🤔
How does iRacing not have good physics/FFB? Do you say that, because hitting a curb while on full throttle unsettles the car?
Have you every tried that in a real life GT3 car? Trust me, you only make that mistake once. From all the Sims out there I am convinced that iRacing has no competition in terms of Physics/FFB. I mean, real world racing teams use iRacing to train their driving skills.
And the teams who use Rfactor, put many thousands of dollars into creating a digital replica car of their real car.
I can't say I've ever driven a GT3 car in real life, as much as I would dearly love to get the opportunity, so I don't have that reference point unfortunately. However, the feeling I get from the physics/FFB in iRacing is not that I'm driving a car and trying to find lap time, it's more like the feeling that I'm constantly trying to avoid losing control of the car and having an accident. There's no satisfaction in that for me as I never feel like I can push the car or find the limits. Maybe it's a confidence thing or a familiarity thing but I certainly don't get as much enjoyment out of the sensation of driving in iRacing as I feel like I should, it all feels very restrained to me. That's not to say that iRacing physics/FFB is necessarily _bad_ though because, like you say, a lot of pros invest a significant amount of time into it.
Real-life racing drivers have also criticized iRacing's tyre model as too unforgiving. And those who use the sim for training do so because of its accurate track models.
Uh, no, AI in iRacing is crap. The physics model is garbage and completely unrealistic.
Thanks for your opinion mate, always good to hear the other side of the argument 😉 so if you're not a fan of iRacing, what other sim would you recommend in terms of good AI and physics? I've quite enjoyed running against the AI in iRacing and have definitely found them useful and engaging but if there's something better out there then I'm all for it, at the end of the day I just want to have the best sim racing experience possible and I'd be happy to be proven wrong 👍
@@DDFRacer Assetto Corsa AI is more realistic because it uses the same physics model as the user. Unfortunately, because it is using the realistic "real world" physics model, unlike iRacing, the AI is simply not as skilled, i.e. quick. So, e.g., I can't really race Assetto Corsa AI as I'm much faster, perhaps 2 or 3 seconds per lap on a 2:15 lap at Silverstone GP, even with AI at 100%.
Another Irenting fan boi, you should try AMS2 after the 1.5 update Best sim and best Ai by far 👌
Might be worth taking a look at the content on this channel and the amount of iRacing videos/streams compared to everything else 😉 I'm not exactly what you'd call an iRacing fanboi, just someone who enjoys this particular aspect of the sim (and was quite surprised by it to be honest) and wanted to share my thoughts.
I've tried the AMS2 1.5 update and absolutely loving it, the VR and graphics have always been superb and I've always been a big fan of the whole AMS2 experience, although I've hardly had any free time recently to actually put some proper hours into it and enjoy the updated physics. My main problem with the AI in AMS2 is how incredibly inconsistent it is. It changes between quali and race, between all the different types of car, from circuit to circuit and most obviously in between weather conditions. How can I be matching race pace in dry/wet conditions but be three seconds off the pace when it's transitioning from one to the other? I've poured hundreds of hours into single player/career mode and I can't tell you how many times I've had to quit a session and change the difficulty settings because I was either running away at the front with no challenge or getting absolutely smoked.