Discussion I suck at racing games. Anyone have advice?

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bluechris

Member
Sep 19, 2014
28
3
71
There is no magic solution

1. Buy a wheel
2. Practice a lot alone

Im my old days when i was serious racing online full f1 races (monaco gp, f1rst with rfactor & rfactor2 etc) i was practising at least 4-5 hours per day and that and only that maked me better and the results came.
 

JTsyo

Lifer
Nov 18, 2007
11,709
871
126
The license portion in GranTurismo games provided a good place to practice one driving skill at a time.
 

ItsFlybye

Member
Apr 30, 2018
84
11
41
My suggestion? Drive a real car at a track. Sure there are people that have learned to race on a video game then take it to the track, but unless you have an almost 100% realistic simulator, it will never be the same as driving at the track. But it does works the opposite direction. Driving a real car makes you want to not hit anything. You have real spectators. You have a real asset that will cost you $ if you crash it. The track forces you to be as fast as you can while still being careful at all times. You begin to learn how to counteract over steer, how to counteract under steer, etc. Then when driving digitally, change to cockpit view. Sitting in the car will help you almost feel what the car is doing as it actually does on the track. The habit of not trying to plow into everything in real life will also come into play in the game. No need to give 100% throttle on corners. No need to pretend the wall is your brake replacement.
 

Modular

Diamond Member
Jul 1, 2005
5,027
67
91
Smooth is fast.

Smooth braking, turning and accelerating are key to keeping the balance of the car. If you are mashing the brakes/turning in hard/mashing the throttle, the car will never be balanced and will always feel out of place.

I see you've started coasting into turns. Very good place to start, but I'd say take a step farther back...are you familiar with what "Apexing" a turn means?

I would focus more on hitting the Apex of each turn, and perfecting your turn in and track out points. Do this as slowly as you can and build your speed up each time you do it well.

If you really want to get better at driving, you have to slow down and be smooth.
 

looper

Golden Member
Oct 22, 1999
1,655
10
81
There are some good You Tube vids on sim racing driving improvement. And you need to get a decent wheel/pedals setup. Consider the Logitech G29.

Also, sounds like you're only racing in arcade-style racing games. Consider some of these... Assetto Corsa, Project Cars 2, and Raceroom Racing Experience. If you improve and like it, then consider getting iRacing... best online racing. (monthly fee... 50% off right now).
 

CuriousMike

Diamond Member
Feb 22, 2001
3,044
543
136
I worked at a company years ago that licensed the Need For Speed software and we put them in Arcade Cabinets.

As part of that work, we would put demo builds at a certain arcade location (Dave & Busters) and go on a Friday/Saturday night and watch people play the game to generate feedback on how to improve it.

One of the fundamental issues we found is people over-correcting when they steer... which we traced back to a feature almost all driving games have. That is, there is camera inertia for 3rd person camera.
When you turn the car, there is an inertia before the camera starts to follow the car... i.e., the car is actually turning on in the game, but the overall scene doesn't appear to move in sync .. it takes (for example) 1/10th of a second before the world turns and matches the car. But in that 1/10th of a second, the player doesn't think he's doing anything, so turns harder.

It ultimately creates players who would ping-pong off the walls on many circuits.

The solution for these players is one of two options
- In our 3rd person perspective cameras, we turned the inertia almost completely off.
- Play in 1st player camera perspectives... the hood camera is a good one to start with.

By turning off the camera inertia, players success rate with the game went up significantly, and instances of players ping-ponging off the walls diminished greatly.
 

looper

Golden Member
Oct 22, 1999
1,655
10
81
I worked at a company years ago that licensed the Need For Speed software and we put them in Arcade Cabinets.

As part of that work, we would put demo builds at a certain arcade location (Dave & Busters) and go on a Friday/Saturday night and watch people play the game to generate feedback on how to improve it.

One of the fundamental issues we found is people over-correcting when they steer... which we traced back to a feature almost all driving games have. That is, there is camera inertia for 3rd person camera.
When you turn the car, there is an inertia before the camera starts to follow the car... i.e., the car is actually turning on in the game, but the overall scene doesn't appear to move in sync .. it takes (for example) 1/10th of a second before the world turns and matches the car. But in that 1/10th of a second, the player doesn't think he's doing anything, so turns harder.

It ultimately creates players who would ping-pong off the walls on many circuits.

The solution for these players is one of two options
- In our 3rd person perspective cameras, we turned the inertia almost completely off.
- Play in 1st player camera perspectives... the hood camera is a good one to start with.

By turning off the camera inertia, players success rate with the game went up significantly, and instances of players ping-ponging off the walls diminished greatly.

Interesting. Good post!