Quote:
Originally Posted by CSG Mike
Don't underestimate sims.
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I don't. And never did. I did a lot of laps in WGI, VIR and Road Atlanta in iRacing before I drove them in real life. I think you're reading into things that I wrote and drawing too many conclusions because of my specific complaints of Project Cars.
There are a lot of advantages to using a simulator that translate into the real world, even if you've never driven on a particular track, or even ANY track before in your life. You have to understand basic line theory. You have to have some idea of what it takes to get around a track, and quickly. You have to be able to think quickly, and critically, monitoring multiple senses of input. You have to be able to adjust and adapt while being precise. You have to be somewhat smooth. And you have to be able to keep track of cars in front of you, behind you, and potentially along side of you, while keeping up a good pace, while looking out for flags, debris, fluids, all while monitoring grip levels, brakes, fuel level, etc. All things being equal, if you spend a lot of time on a simulator before turning any real world laps, you're going to start off on a much higher level than somebody who hasn't.
What it can't simulate, and you've already pointed that out, is the effect of centrifugal forces on your body, combined with stress and fatigue. Along with an element of self preservation. And in the real world, you have to learn to incorporate and interpret g-forces through the 'seat of your pants' rather than through the steering wheel. Because of this, I think it's actually easier to turn more consistent laps IRL than it is in a rig.
But I've seen too many inconsistencies in Project Cars in the relationship in distance, speed, grip levels, etc, to ever trust it to improve my lap times. If you get to the point that you're really trying to gain time and fighting tenths, one should probably be using a custom simulator with data that can be backed up and correlates to the real world. The priority should be accuracy and not a marketing department's wishes of how many cool cars they can squeeze into the game.