Does sim racing make you a better driver?

Well, I can certainly say that driving the laser scanned Nordschleife (converted from AC) for like 500 times in rfactor2 helped us a lot to drive the real Nordschleife very well. In VR we couldn't see any differnence. So we all did very well driving the real Nordschleife. To be honest, if we would have driven the free but in our opinion totally wrong Norschleife we really whould have had a lot of problems. So for us laser scanned tracks are the future - because of not being wrong overall but even more because of real track details!!
 
It'll allow you to learn the layout, but even on a laser scan you're not going to get a true 1:1 representation of the circuit
 
I suppose it depends on the situation. For me, a few months in simracing help me to be a better kart driver, but I was a complete beginner in simracing and karts.
 
Marek Lesniak said:
Also, when I have fun with a real car, I feel I have plenty of time to react, compared to simracing.
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I know it's old thread, but this is interesting that even physics developer admits real car is more forgiving. Of course more time to react or better ability to catch slide, is significantly easier because of seat of the pants you can get IRL. Still in general in rf2 it's easier to catch slide and drive on the limit( which I think is closer to real life) than in other highly regarded sims like iRacing or even AC. I never played Live For Speed but I've heard that it really got some things close to reality like over the limit handling, powersliding etc., which often are not so realistic in rF2. I know at least race cars are not designed for powersliding but for example in Super V8 it's possible IRL at low speeds.
 
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vittorio said:
So for us laser scanned tracks are the future
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I think for vast majority of gamers(I'm one of them) it's just nice to have feature, because in 99% of cases we're not going to race on the real track. There are some other advantages of laser scanned tracks but I'd rather developers spend resources on other things like improving tire, or handling physics in general.
On the other hand for racing drivers who want to learn track or practice before real race it's almost mandatory to have accurate laser scan.
 
Track modeling artists won't develop physics and vice versa. There are certainly different groups of customers in rF2. For me the most unique selling proposition of rF2 is realism. And I want tracks to be most realistic too.
 
I actually believe being a driver makes you a better sim racer though (in the beginning anyhow)....That said, I would imagine the main benefit to being a sim racer before racing an actual car, would be braking points and apexes along with general track familiarity. Other than that, driving and racing irl is very vehicle specific, as well as the forces on the driver and "butt" feel to tell you what is going on at the moment.

Now, I'm pretty sure shifting with a clutch on a simulator would give a novice an idea how to approach a manual irl etc. As long as the simulator is a quality one.
 
I “taught” my son who was 11 at the time how to use citycar driving simulator, all manual controls, and he had his first real driving lesson when he was twelve, the instructor said has your mom and dad been teaching you in their cars, because he never stalled it once in the entire 30min lesson, he changed up and down the gears no problem.

It actually blew my mind away to see my little man, driving like he’d been doing all his life, I was so proud.

He did all his mirror checking, handbrake, awareness at junctions etc like it was not a new thing to him

So I’d say it really can help teach the basics, he has progressed so far so quickly, I’m getting another lesson for him this Christmas.
 
I am sure it would have helped me a lot back when I was taking my first steps in karting because I was young and intimidated by the little beasts and not able to practice more than 3 times a month.
As things stand it was my experience racing karts when young that has helped me with simracing.
 
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