I can't drive a GT3
 

Well sort of.....Went to "Uber Fest" with my grandson yesterday. We saw more Porsche's than I have ever seen in one place in my life. There was a 3D simulator setup you could try (waited in line for an hour). It was a full blown GT3 911 race car with 700 BHP on the Barber Motor track in Birmingham AL. The simulator was awesome , full wrap around visual with X, Y axis. You got 4 laps or 4 restarts, every time you did a restart the car started out with cold tires. I never got out of 3rd gear, spun the car into the sand on every lap and I really tried to take it easy. It gave me some indication what too much HP really is. My 21 year old Grandson posted the third best time of all....go figure 1:24 around Barber Track.

I feel your pain! I find simulators very hard to drive - they seem to take a specific type of input and hand/eye calibration that I suck at!

Most kids in their 20's are naturals at the video game thing after playing them for thousands of hours over 10-15 years when their brains are the most adaptive.

Simulators do not provide a totally accurate experience of driving around a track. Sure, you may be able to visually "learn" a track, and experience a muted sound, but the "seat of the pants" kinesthetic is totally absent.

Trust me, if you were in a real GT3 on a real track, you wouldn't be spinning every lap.

Unless you're a real hammer.

Just sayin'..............

TO

That's true about simulators. A while back I invested a little money in a sim "rig" to have some fun on tracks I'll never get to drive on and quickly learned it was very hard to run around without crashing. I always played with no assists like traction or stability for the "ultimate" experience.

http://i1314.photobucket.com/albums/...pszqrgi8nb.jpg

I play Assetto Corsa which is one of the most realistic racing sims and one of my favorites because the force feedback is stellar on the steering wheel. They even have every little bump on track felt through it which helps immersion and the sounds are top notch. But even with all of that for the first sessions I sucked pretty bad until I got the hang of it. It's great for learning the tracks, counter steer practice, brake and throttle usage but man oh man.. that "seat of the pants" action missing makes it pretty darn hard. Another thing with simulators is that you would drive a lot faster than you would in real life on a track because.. virtual cojones :D so you're more likely to crash.

Still good cheap fun :)

Sims are great for learning... I am using Microsoft SIM X to keep myself from getting rusty whenever I am not in my airplane. You would be surprised at how accurate that game is when you know what your doing... again throw caution to the wind as all sims have their flaws and downsides. End of the day, just have fun and drive F A S T!!!

Forza 7 on Xbox One - a group of us use multiplayer every Wed night. Big fun, but hard to get used to.

CrisZenithBlue your set up looks great.

A while back I was looking to buy a driving simulator. I had done a lot of investigating and learned a lot.... then I went to the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana (CA) to watch Tom Stone race. They had several real nice simulator set up with multiple units set running. I waited in line and for fifteen minutes an "drove" the a simulator. Very cool.... but I got "car sick". The motion sickness was bad.

I have always had an issue with motion sickness. When the kids were young I couldn't take them on a merry go round. When I attended a driver's training at work and I would get sick after a session on the track. I skydived once and got sick.

Harry Callahan said it best, "A man's got to know his limitations."

Ugh.... my plans to get a simulator were over.

Feel your pain Chuck
 

I have a rare eye disorder , my left eye only has about 15% visibility in a slender curtain at the top...I hve very poor depth of field in close....but really good out past 6 feet..The huge wrap around monitors made me queasy. This simulator was around 50 grand.....it was not for me at all. I drove a NASCAR last year for my birthday at Talladega ...I had no problem with that and even posted faster times than the speed limiter was supposed to allow...the guy on the head set said my laps were the smoothest of the day with no wasted motion.....but I was only turning left in the M&M's Car.

Talk about raw brute power

Dwight