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That Cockpit… My 3 monitors… Will make love and bring such joy to my heart….

The only issue with iRacing is that it allows people with 3 monitors to have an advantage. If iRacing had the ability to change views while racing, it would be a much more attractive Sim. That cockpit view leaves A LOT to be desired. In terms of accuracy and graphics, it’s superb. In terms of visibility, it downright sucks. How is anyone supposed to see the road, let alone other cars in that thing? This highlights a much deeper problem with iRacing, which I stated above. The lack of different driving views is iRacing’s biggest flaw.

Some people will say “The cockpit view is the most realistic view there is!!!”. To that I respond with this…

When you are sitting at home behind your desk with your wheel in front of you, your shifter beside you, and your pedals down at your feet you are sitting in the cockpit. The monitors are your windscreen (so to speak). Why would you want to sit in a cockpit, look through a windscreen into another cockpit and out of another windscreen? It’s like being outside your own head watching yourself do things. Ever held a mirror up to another mirror? Same idea here, although a bad example.

Yes, the cockpit view is nice. However, this particular view is absolutely useless until Sim cockpits become so realistic that it’s like actually sitting in the car you are driving with as much to view as possible. Think about it this way. Go get into your car. Now take a small cardboard box and cut the top and bottom off. Now tape that Cardboard box to your head facing forward. Depending on how long the box is, this is basically what you are seeing in modern Sims when using only one screen. Still, even when using three screens you are just widening the opening of the cardboard box from left to right. You are still severely limited on what you can see in that cockpit.

While triple screening gives you a much wider view in iRacing, having a cockpit in your direct line of sight blocking your view of the road ahead is not exactly beneficial to the experience. This is why other Sims have the option to switch views while actually racing. This gives the player the ability to see as much or as little as they would like.

The argument that the cockpit view is the most realistic is only half right. Until we are able to see MUCH more of the road and outside world using the cockpit view, there is no point in using it. It actually hinders your ability to race properly and effectively. Of course, some of this can be countered by proper FOV settings. However, this is only a bandaid and does not address the larger issue.

In my opinion, iRacing’s racing view is in the dark ages. They need to get with the times.

The cockpit looks awesome! Quite limited view to the left, but amazing detail!

This will be incredible in 3D :D Cant wait to try it out.

a realistic driving view is not too far away, google oculus rift… ;)

the simracing future looks good. :)

agreed. I love rFactor’s free-cam which I always use – to move further forward and a little higher.

I’ve never had an issue using FOV settings. If you’re barking up the realism tree how about you put a helmet on while sim racing and then see how much your perifery is obstructed. In my time at track days and time attack in my own race car, the iRacing view isn’t flawed. The obstruction comes from your helmet. You need to move your head quite a fair bit in order to see anything outside of about 90` FOV.

I also can’t wait for this Oculus Rift which looks more than promising compared to similar existing products. Racing sims and Flying sims won’t be the same if this is well integrated.

The helmet is yet another thing that obscures your vision while racing. However, if you are going to use that excuse, then I’ll respond with the fact that you can turn your head in a real car to look around. Now, let’s be honest here. You can’t exactly do that in a Sim except for TrackIR which is even less realistic because you have to turn your head in order to turn the camera when in reality it’s the opposite. In reality you turn your eyes, not your head to look around. TrackIR is also flawed in that you have to move your head to look around, but you have to keep your eyes facing forward. That’s incredibly unintuitive. Who does that?

The point is, no Sim can get close to the real thing yet as far a views go. The cockpit view in a Sim is not realistic in my opinion because the amount of “outside” realestate that you can see is severely limited with the use of a computer screen. Even when wearing a helmet, you can see much much more of the outside world in a real car, in the real world.

Realistically, the cockpit view should be much MUCH closer to the dash. So much so that you’d probably only be able to see the dash and windscreen and that’s about it. Again, I go back to my point about the monitors being your windscreen (if you have your own cockpit). Who wants to look at two steering wheels? I suppose some people find it enjoyable, but again, it’s not very realistic.

You are NEVER going to get realism in a Sim. It’s simulated realism, which isn’t realism. That being said, we can come close to it. That being the case, I’d really like to be able to see more outside realestate as you can in a real car. iRacing’s cockpit view just doesn’t give you that. It gives you an outside view that is about 30-40% of the entire screen. That’s not much when driving on the limit with multiple cars (real players) around you. The option to use a different driving view in order to see more of the outside “simulated” world should be present as it is in ALL other major SIms on the market. But not iRacing. Nope. You are stuck with 30-40% viewing realestate that makes it extremely difficult to accurately and safely drive without using 3 screens. Again, I go back to my original statement. Those with triple screen setups have a clear advantage. The more of the outside “simulated” world you can see, the quicker you can respond to things.

Race how you prefer. Don’t let anyone tell you what’s better and what’s not. It’s all subjective anyhow. Personally, I prefer being able to see more of the road and other cars so I can react quicker. I don’t need some simulated cockpit getting in the way.

Wow! After looking at that image again of the cockpit view, the outside view is much smaller than most other iRacing cars. It’s probably closer to 20% total outside viewing. The other issue is that you cannot adjust the seat far enough forward and you’d almost have to set the FOV to about 15-20 to make it worth while.

Don’t be such a baby. Modern GTs have awful visibility, get used to it. They’re sitting the driver behind the B pillar sometimes and right on the firewall for weight distribution purposes. if you don’t want a car like that in sim, drive an open cockpit car. Don’t give us this ‘boo hoo, I can’t see, I need a hood cam because the real seating position is too hard’.

Haven’t you heard of the ‘look left’ and ‘look right’ buttons?

Can’t move the seat far enough forward? How far forward do you think it can go?
http://blog.creativeaction.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Unknown-2.jpeg

You clearly don’t understand FOV if you think it changes by car.

Isn’t the Rift the same thing as these, but a fully enclosed version?

http://store.vuzix.co.uk/acatalog/Wrap_1200VR.html

I too was excited for it, until I realised I wanted to still be able to use a button box, or the existing wheel buttons.

So to be the advocate, imagine you are sitting in a real MP4, what would you see? Disregard your wheel for a moment, pedals, whatever is in front of you, this is what you would see if you were sitting in a MP4.
My biggest gripe is the lack of “movability” in the cockpit. Honestly, if a guy was 4″10 and the best driver in the world but he cant see the road, they will fix the height. In iRacing you *cannot* go up or down realistically (adjust the seat). Instead you have people using a program like glovepie just for the ability to move a foot up or down so we can feel more comfortable in the car, just like they can in real life. I can lift my head up in a real mustang and see the hood, in iRacing I can’t move up without glovepie, this I still think needs to be addressed, and it’s realistic to be able to move the seat up some (foam inserts in race cars is what I am referring to). I’m 6’4 so I am not use to sitting anywhere near as low as iRacing always puts me in a car, and especially in the Vette, I can’t drive it without glovepie, it feels like there is no seat in the car and I am sitting in the floorboard. Looks like I am going to have to use it again for this car, too low for me.
I think that MP4 looks sweet but I am really looking forward to the RUF!

well it’s very different from the Vuzix models as the field of view is much wider (35degree diagonal vs 110!) and the refresh rate is light years faster, no lag felt while moving our head. Sony also did an attempt at it recently but it fail short from what the Oculus should bring. They is a version for developers right now for 300$

Perhaps sim racing isn’t your thing then. May I suggest going to Woking and ordering an MP4-12C GT3. Only then will you get the realism you demand.

bla bla bla bla bla bla bla…… bla bla bla…
4000 iR guy here. Single 23 inch monitor and 60° fov. Never had problem. Just practice and use spotter. Don’t be a cry baby.
Period.

@GTFREAK:disqus Have you actually tried TrackIR 5. You sound a bit like me before I tried it…

Some people use TrackIR simply as a analog look left and right stick. Then you get the effect that you turn your head and the screen in front shows what you would have seen in the direction your head is turned. However if you set up the TrackIR properly and make sure that the tracking is one to one you will not get that effect.

Instead TrackIR will track your heads position in space x,y and z as well as where you are looking pitch, roll and yaw. This information is then fed to the simulation and it will calculate what you would see from that position. If you set up the screens in iRacing so the field of view is one to one, the illusion of you sitting in the car is almost complete.

However to be able to use a one to one FOV comfortably, you probably need three screens. So I fully agree that triple screen setups have a clear advantage…

You can configure the FOV to what you want in iRacing, the screen grab in this article is just one FOV – you can zoom in or out as you so desire, it is the user’s choice. I recently moved from a single screen to triple screen in iRacing and in fact I have the triple screen FOV slightly lower than that I used for the single screen – but now the image I’m seeing is lifesize and I tell you, it’s awesome – adds so much to the immersion – plus with iRacing’s ability to render the three screens separately it looks better than any other sim (pleased that AC plan to do the same :-)).

We played with a head mounted 3D display with head tracking at work and it worked well with Doom 3. However when you have a physical device to interact with such as a steering wheel things get kind of strange. Especially if you see arms and steering wheel in the game that don’t line up with your physical arms and steering wheel. To make that work you would need to have some sort of hand tracking as well…

For the time being I would say that a triple screen setup with head tracking is superior, at least for simracing.

Love it when people blame the car when in reality the problem originates from your screen you use at home.

Want more realism? Buy a bigger screen and preferably 2 more.
Gotta love the “it´s unfair” talk even more….
wake up and smell the coffee, nothing in life is fair.

Motion Cockpit View also works for that, and is probably a bit simpler than a GlovePie script.

OMG looks great :D

exactly same here, but 45º fov

rFactor 1 can also render on 3 separate screens, but only at a fixed angle.

What’s all this FOV sonsense about… jeez :P

What I care about is if they get the sound right! This thing sounds a bit special, like someshat of a middlething between a V8 supercar and a Ferrari 430..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KMeaXG1LVU

Well, as long as they don’t mess it up as bad as they have with their DFV sound. I hope that gets updated, when the Lotus 49 comes along! :)

GT freak, you just need to play on consoles that’s all. Then you can have chase views, bumper cams, roll bar views, anything to your heart’s content. I don’t know if you saw my recent Rear View Mirror on “Inside Sim Racing” where I definitively prove that every simulator that real pros use, only use the cockpit view. If it doesn’t use the cockpit view, it’s NOT a simulator. We all need to use the same view or it becomes an unfair advantage to those who do not use the same view from the cockpit. I relish the difficulty of poor visibility as it helps me appreciate how difficult it is to drive these GT’s safely.

It’s interesting that you mention that we all need to use the same view from the cockpit or it becomes a disadvantage. Interesting…

So, what you’re saying is, we all need to use either one screen, or three screens because if we all use a different view it becomes an advantage or disadvantage?

You basically just proved my point. However, if all of you had taken the time to read my entire post and not been so quick to give a smart remark or resorted to name calling (really childish), you would have seen that I did in fact say that these were my opinions and did not speak for anyone else but myself. In fact, at the end of my post I even stated that you should drive how you prefer and that it’s all subjective anyway.

I suppose it’s too much to ask of some people to read entire posts. Next time I’ll just TLDR instead.

I find it amazing that this community has come to this. Internet tough guys and the like. I play these Sims because I enjoy it. I’m not a member of this community so I can bash others beliefs or opinions.

I’ve said my peace. I’m sure some of you will have some witty remark in response. If that’s your thing, more power to you.

Cheers

No, the issue is whether it is a potential advantage to use any setting away from the most realistic. It should always be the goal that the best option is the most realistic.

PS, you can get an alternate view in iRacing in hosted/private sessions, or if you have a visual disability.

http://youtu.be/OQXfxLAsvgM?hd=1&t=1m14s Pause and decide yourself, what everything the driver can see just with change the eye position (I think left/right angles)
Anyway I think that cockpit view is the best and most realistic option, especially with disabled Wheel (or wheel-arms) animations. I can see my hands, my wheel and close behind the wheel is cockpit interior. Then I missing that other two screens ;o)
I don’t understand when ppl looking at two wheels, mainly when there is a delay visible at some videos. For me it’s confusing a lot and in case some of the games don’t supporting to disable it, I’m not able to drive at all and I’m forced to use a hood screen :/
I think iRacing goes very well with the cockpit views, but tripple screen make things much more easier and make the driving safer.
EDIT:
Ha! that little diferences ;o)
http://youtu.be/OQXfxLAsvgM?hd=1&t=2m24s

come on GTFREAK……. just go play need for speed and leave simulations for the grown ups….

Agreed, I’m stoked for the future sound updates. Hoping for at least some improvements this season.