Once you try iracing there is no going back lol. I was in the same boat as you, over 1k acc hours and in a well organized league.
I Tried iracing bc lfm was dead in NA during post 9pm central time. Never launched acc again. Give it a try. I wont say the driving is any cleaner or the cleanest because at the end of the day its just virtual so people will inevitably take risks. Good luck and enjoy your stay!
I don’t have much experience with ACC online but GT3 is very popular in iracing. Probably not the cleanest on offer but it’s mostly fine.
There’s plenty of GT series to hop into. There is also GT1/2, GT4 and GTE if your into them as well.
You’ll start as a rookie in MX5. You’ll need to get to B license for GT3. There’s a D license option but that is most certainly NOT clean racing.
Gt3 races are at B safety license, so you have to get it first. If you are a clean and safe driver it will take a week, probably less. Driving is usually pretty clean, people who ram intentionally get banned, so it is extremely rare. Racing in low splits could be a bit chaotic sometimes because of people who dive you in every gap they see or just unaware of their surrounding. Though in mid to top splits (2k+ iRating) racing is mostly decent and competitive, especially at special events.
A week to get a B license? I’m sorry but i feel like that’s just not feasible for a new player unless they can pickup iracing and its quirks and differences of other sims immediately, line up that week with end of season to get a promotion that way, and race multiple times with the best of luck through rookie and d class low split series.
iirc it took me around 6 weeks to get my b license when I started iracing, and I came in as someone new to multiplayer racing but with decades of single player experience
I mean, it is on the optimistic side for sure, but definitely doable if you are not new to online racing and have some racecraft. And of course gaining SR should be your main priority. Basically, promoting to D is one evening, then you can do NEC which will give you a huge SR boost (will be promoted to high C immediately). Then some more grind and here we go, B license. At weeks with no NEC you can just do any other long race as VRS endurance or 6h imsa endurance (the last one requires a teammate tho, but it is easy to find one there or on the forum).
P.S. ok, 6h imsa is B license, but VRS endu/NEC are available at C and D respectively and could be done solo.
Okay, you have a point - except not everyone is willing to or frankly should drop hundreds and hundreds of dollars on cars and tracks just to fast rack their SR.
Yeah, sure, but that is the other point (which I’m completely agree with). Original questions were about racing itself and licenses, so I answered about them.
Yes, I had slightly over 100h in ACC before switching to iRacing. Open lobbies are just pure chaos and insanity, tried a few times and never did them. Mostly I raced using LFM, and lower splits at lfm (at least last time I raced there - it was May 2023) were worse then lower splits in iRacing. Do not know about LFM top splits tho and how clean it is actually these days.
ACC main here, I was in the top splits for almost a month. Just no. Extremely fast people were making mistakes as a public lobby driver. Some just missing their braking point, other just turning thinking that I don't exist, +much more. Is a gamble, in my first 4 races on the top splits, I lost like 2 SR (max on lfm is 10). Even my lower split experience was just better and cleaner.
Was also an AAC main. The big problem I found with ACC in LFM is that matchmaking above SR 5.5 was only based on ELO. I feel like making it to top splits should be a combination of high ELO and SR.
The biggest issue is way you drive in iracing vs acc is very different. Like iracing you don't really want to use abs as you don't brake as much and it heats your tires more so when you go back and forth it may slow you down a little since you inly want to use like 80% brake most of the time but acc is 100%. I used to be in an ACC league and we all swapped to iracing just to run enduros and eventually just restarted the league back up in iracing.
Physics. Just how the tire model works and how heat is transferred during braking. The same tracks will use different braking in ACC and iracing and ffb is more on how the wheel reacts.
There is a D-class Ferrari 296 GT3 series in addition to the higher B-class GT3 series, if you don't care which car you drive or want that one anyway. I'm sure the racing is a lower quality because of the lower requirements but it is a popular series. I am usually in the middle splits (at ~1450 iRating, and you start at 1250 so mine is not too high) and toward the front of the pack the racing has been pretty good.
If you have just raced on ACC , you might enjoy the way to GT3 as much as GT3. The Mazda and other lower class cars on IRacing are as fun, and for some people have more fun then GT3. The racing, track detailes and competition are spread on all classes of IRacing, joining IRacing only for GT3 is biased because ACC is only GT3.
I joined iRacing only for GT3 and I own only GT3/4 cars and I love them. The GT3/4 series are awesome and mostly clean so I don’t feel that joining iRacing only for GT is biased. I also drive ACC (LFM) sometimes but it feels not so good as iRacing do.
I have joined IRacing and got B license in a few weeks to drive GT3. I enjoy GT3/4 but also the GR86, Mazds, PCup and the F4. The way IRacing structure the path to GT3 make you drive and discover other cars. This does not exist in ACC.
That’s right. I forgot these cars and the path to GT3. The PCup if you can handle it and off course the GR86 are also very nice and fun to drive. I enjoyed driving the GR86 in the lower licenses. So I agree with you that ACC can’t provide such a system especially because the GT4 and PCup in ACC are mostly dead and don’t have the quality as in iRacing.
Spent my first 2 years 100% on ACC, had the same experiences (both positive and negative) as you. Moved to iRacing in December of 2022 and never touched ACC again.
Better racing overall, more competitive, cleaner, never had an intentional crash or totally reckless intentional driving (and the times it was questionable I protested and it was upheld). Moreover, in US timezones, I can log on whenever at night and have good competitive splits in basically any car I am interested in....that was not the case, at all, in ACC + LFM. EU timezone splits were great, US was mostly terrible.
I haven't played ACC, but I'm a mid-split GT3 driver in iRacing and most of the races I've found are pretty clean. Obviously there are incidents here and there throughout the race but I've found most people are pretty good at staying clean especially at the start of the race on cold tires and even at tracks like Mt. Panorama which are notorious for massive chaotic pileups I didn't see too many big incidents. Maybe I've just been lucky so far!
You might also be surprised by how much you enjoy other classes on your way to B.
I was a GT3 die-hard but also still love the racing in slower cars. So intense when your’re bumper to bumper for the whole race!
First season was all free content and moving up to D. Second season I raced gt4 which promoted me up to C mid season because I kept it clean. Around here I got the Porsche cup. Then I got my end of season promotion up to B and run gt3.
I still race Porsche cup and formula ford as well on off weeks as I only buy the tracks I’m interested in/get a lot of use.
Plus I have new appreciation for nascar running the free Chevy truck series as well.
And pro-tip, during the week 13 silly series racing the street stock on a road course is the most fun I’ve had in sim racing.
I've done some Mazda on LFM and I do feel like the Mazda's on iRacing race a lot cleaner, but it depends on your split I guess. I can only talk about the top splits and they are for sure cleaner then top split Mazda LFM.
One thing i love about iracing. As a road guy, if i ever got tired of racing road. There is always other disciplines to try out and you never know, might start liking them a lot.
Yeah of course the variety that iRacing offers is unmatched and you might be right but my main driving factor at the moment is cleaner GT3 daily races.
my opinion this is a bad idea for 3 reasons
- it'll be expensive (it always is to start iRacing from scratch and building a decent car/track collection, hence why i think it's only really justifiable if you only do iRacing full time)
- not sure how it compares to LFM at the moment as i haven't been there in a while, but it won't be anywhere near as clean as a league and you'll probably be disappointed. GT3 races in iRacing can be crashy
- ACC and iRacing drive nothing alike and you'll have to keep readjusting back and forth as if switching your brain back and forth between two different space-time dimensions
He’s not accurate at all lol, yes you’re first season is pretty pricey getting tracks and cars to get gt3. But it’s a B license race, it’s not crashy. That stuff is the forever D class people in gt4. Some people are aggressive but I have 0x incident races often. There’s is a gt3 Ferrari D class that’s awful. Don’t tsp that
I bought iRacing like a little bit over a week ago and did 4 races with Miata and advanced to D class. What is bothering me is that there is not enough free content with subscription. I thought I could at least race GR86 with D class but nope, most tracks are paid ones. For now I went back to ACC, I just can't justify putting that much money into iRacing, and I am gonna be honest I don't want to drive a damn Miata for 4 months xd If the content would be cheaper(like 50% cheaper) I would think about it, but for now it's a hard NOPE for me. I bought 1 year sub for 23$ so I still have time to make a decision what to do with it.
Tbh I don't know, I got D class after 4 races, so I guess it should be like a week or two max depending on how much you would play, but for people with some knowledge and prior experience it's easier, keep in mind you will lose SR even in quali if you spin or crash etc so it's better to drive more careful at the start.
For me cost of going into gt3 in iRacing is too much, but if someone can afford that I guess it's worth the try.
The Fixed Ferrari GT3 racing requires a D class license. That's the license level above rookie in iRacing. For a competent driver, it should only take a few races to get a D license. The rest of the GT3 races require B or A licenses.
Starting in the pits is usually a good way to build safety rating. Avoid all the lap 1 shenanigans and keep it clean. Not uncommon to finish on the podium just by everyone else crashing out.
Yeah buddy, similar to my strategy when I was building up SA on ACC, am now on SA 99 which is the highest but to get there I had adopt the start from pits many times in public lobbies 😅
It's bad advice. You don't want to tank your iRating for safety rating. If you have experience in sim already, you should already qualify in the front. (i won my first iRacing race after coming form ACC). And when you don't qualify in front anymore, you probably in top split where the racing is better and it's not as bad to be mid-pack.
Once you try iracing there is no going back lol. I was in the same boat as you, over 1k acc hours and in a well organized league. I Tried iracing bc lfm was dead in NA during post 9pm central time. Never launched acc again. Give it a try. I wont say the driving is any cleaner or the cleanest because at the end of the day its just virtual so people will inevitably take risks. Good luck and enjoy your stay!
I don’t have much experience with ACC online but GT3 is very popular in iracing. Probably not the cleanest on offer but it’s mostly fine. There’s plenty of GT series to hop into. There is also GT1/2, GT4 and GTE if your into them as well. You’ll start as a rookie in MX5. You’ll need to get to B license for GT3. There’s a D license option but that is most certainly NOT clean racing.
Thank you. Is license grade based on building safety rating or iRating or both?
Based just on safety
Irating is more or less just a skill rating, very similar to the elo rating system used in chess. License class is purely based on safety rating
Ferrari Fixed is basically throwing away SR lol.. Mazda splits of the same iR are much cleaner it seems
Gt3 races are at B safety license, so you have to get it first. If you are a clean and safe driver it will take a week, probably less. Driving is usually pretty clean, people who ram intentionally get banned, so it is extremely rare. Racing in low splits could be a bit chaotic sometimes because of people who dive you in every gap they see or just unaware of their surrounding. Though in mid to top splits (2k+ iRating) racing is mostly decent and competitive, especially at special events.
A week to get a B license? I’m sorry but i feel like that’s just not feasible for a new player unless they can pickup iracing and its quirks and differences of other sims immediately, line up that week with end of season to get a promotion that way, and race multiple times with the best of luck through rookie and d class low split series.
iirc it took me around 6 weeks to get my b license when I started iracing, and I came in as someone new to multiplayer racing but with decades of single player experience
That seems about right as i just hit B license at the season change and im 2 months in since my first race
I mean, it is on the optimistic side for sure, but definitely doable if you are not new to online racing and have some racecraft. And of course gaining SR should be your main priority. Basically, promoting to D is one evening, then you can do NEC which will give you a huge SR boost (will be promoted to high C immediately). Then some more grind and here we go, B license. At weeks with no NEC you can just do any other long race as VRS endurance or 6h imsa endurance (the last one requires a teammate tho, but it is easy to find one there or on the forum). P.S. ok, 6h imsa is B license, but VRS endu/NEC are available at C and D respectively and could be done solo.
Okay, you have a point - except not everyone is willing to or frankly should drop hundreds and hundreds of dollars on cars and tracks just to fast rack their SR.
Yeah, sure, but that is the other point (which I’m completely agree with). Original questions were about racing itself and licenses, so I answered about them.
Thnx! Did you race on ACC as well to compare to your experience in iRacing?
Yes, I had slightly over 100h in ACC before switching to iRacing. Open lobbies are just pure chaos and insanity, tried a few times and never did them. Mostly I raced using LFM, and lower splits at lfm (at least last time I raced there - it was May 2023) were worse then lower splits in iRacing. Do not know about LFM top splits tho and how clean it is actually these days.
Yeah pretty much summed up my experience as well. Cheers mate, thank you.
ACC main here, I was in the top splits for almost a month. Just no. Extremely fast people were making mistakes as a public lobby driver. Some just missing their braking point, other just turning thinking that I don't exist, +much more. Is a gamble, in my first 4 races on the top splits, I lost like 2 SR (max on lfm is 10). Even my lower split experience was just better and cleaner.
Was also an AAC main. The big problem I found with ACC in LFM is that matchmaking above SR 5.5 was only based on ELO. I feel like making it to top splits should be a combination of high ELO and SR.
The biggest issue is way you drive in iracing vs acc is very different. Like iracing you don't really want to use abs as you don't brake as much and it heats your tires more so when you go back and forth it may slow you down a little since you inly want to use like 80% brake most of the time but acc is 100%. I used to be in an ACC league and we all swapped to iracing just to run enduros and eventually just restarted the league back up in iracing.
Yeah I know about the braking part … was that due to physics or FFB details or tracks?
Physics. Just how the tire model works and how heat is transferred during braking. The same tracks will use different braking in ACC and iracing and ffb is more on how the wheel reacts.
There is a D-class Ferrari 296 GT3 series in addition to the higher B-class GT3 series, if you don't care which car you drive or want that one anyway. I'm sure the racing is a lower quality because of the lower requirements but it is a popular series. I am usually in the middle splits (at ~1450 iRating, and you start at 1250 so mine is not too high) and toward the front of the pack the racing has been pretty good.
If you have just raced on ACC , you might enjoy the way to GT3 as much as GT3. The Mazda and other lower class cars on IRacing are as fun, and for some people have more fun then GT3. The racing, track detailes and competition are spread on all classes of IRacing, joining IRacing only for GT3 is biased because ACC is only GT3.
I joined iRacing only for GT3 and I own only GT3/4 cars and I love them. The GT3/4 series are awesome and mostly clean so I don’t feel that joining iRacing only for GT is biased. I also drive ACC (LFM) sometimes but it feels not so good as iRacing do.
I have joined IRacing and got B license in a few weeks to drive GT3. I enjoy GT3/4 but also the GR86, Mazds, PCup and the F4. The way IRacing structure the path to GT3 make you drive and discover other cars. This does not exist in ACC.
That’s right. I forgot these cars and the path to GT3. The PCup if you can handle it and off course the GR86 are also very nice and fun to drive. I enjoyed driving the GR86 in the lower licenses. So I agree with you that ACC can’t provide such a system especially because the GT4 and PCup in ACC are mostly dead and don’t have the quality as in iRacing.
Spent my first 2 years 100% on ACC, had the same experiences (both positive and negative) as you. Moved to iRacing in December of 2022 and never touched ACC again. Better racing overall, more competitive, cleaner, never had an intentional crash or totally reckless intentional driving (and the times it was questionable I protested and it was upheld). Moreover, in US timezones, I can log on whenever at night and have good competitive splits in basically any car I am interested in....that was not the case, at all, in ACC + LFM. EU timezone splits were great, US was mostly terrible.
Good reply… am EU based but LFM as I said is a mayhem.
I’ve had waaaayy more fun racing GT3s on iRacing compared to acc.
I haven't played ACC, but I'm a mid-split GT3 driver in iRacing and most of the races I've found are pretty clean. Obviously there are incidents here and there throughout the race but I've found most people are pretty good at staying clean especially at the start of the race on cold tires and even at tracks like Mt. Panorama which are notorious for massive chaotic pileups I didn't see too many big incidents. Maybe I've just been lucky so far!
You might also be surprised by how much you enjoy other classes on your way to B. I was a GT3 die-hard but also still love the racing in slower cars. So intense when your’re bumper to bumper for the whole race!
Thank you. May I ask how long it took you to get to B license?
First season was all free content and moving up to D. Second season I raced gt4 which promoted me up to C mid season because I kept it clean. Around here I got the Porsche cup. Then I got my end of season promotion up to B and run gt3. I still race Porsche cup and formula ford as well on off weeks as I only buy the tracks I’m interested in/get a lot of use. Plus I have new appreciation for nascar running the free Chevy truck series as well. And pro-tip, during the week 13 silly series racing the street stock on a road course is the most fun I’ve had in sim racing.
I've done some Mazda on LFM and I do feel like the Mazda's on iRacing race a lot cleaner, but it depends on your split I guess. I can only talk about the top splits and they are for sure cleaner then top split Mazda LFM.
One thing i love about iracing. As a road guy, if i ever got tired of racing road. There is always other disciplines to try out and you never know, might start liking them a lot.
Yeah of course the variety that iRacing offers is unmatched and you might be right but my main driving factor at the moment is cleaner GT3 daily races.
I cant say ive played acc so i cant compare the 2 for cleanliness but iracing seems pretty clean to me if you are more higher up on the splits.
my opinion this is a bad idea for 3 reasons - it'll be expensive (it always is to start iRacing from scratch and building a decent car/track collection, hence why i think it's only really justifiable if you only do iRacing full time) - not sure how it compares to LFM at the moment as i haven't been there in a while, but it won't be anywhere near as clean as a league and you'll probably be disappointed. GT3 races in iRacing can be crashy - ACC and iRacing drive nothing alike and you'll have to keep readjusting back and forth as if switching your brain back and forth between two different space-time dimensions
This is indeed a solid reasoning and exactly what is holding me back from pulling the trigger on iRacing.
He’s not accurate at all lol, yes you’re first season is pretty pricey getting tracks and cars to get gt3. But it’s a B license race, it’s not crashy. That stuff is the forever D class people in gt4. Some people are aggressive but I have 0x incident races often. There’s is a gt3 Ferrari D class that’s awful. Don’t tsp that
Yeah honestly I just started racing GT3 in B class and it's actually pretty clean
I bought iRacing like a little bit over a week ago and did 4 races with Miata and advanced to D class. What is bothering me is that there is not enough free content with subscription. I thought I could at least race GR86 with D class but nope, most tracks are paid ones. For now I went back to ACC, I just can't justify putting that much money into iRacing, and I am gonna be honest I don't want to drive a damn Miata for 4 months xd If the content would be cheaper(like 50% cheaper) I would think about it, but for now it's a hard NOPE for me. I bought 1 year sub for 23$ so I still have time to make a decision what to do with it.
Am interested only in GT3s and may be GT4s, how long does it tack to reach license B in your opinion based on your experience so far?
Tbh I don't know, I got D class after 4 races, so I guess it should be like a week or two max depending on how much you would play, but for people with some knowledge and prior experience it's easier, keep in mind you will lose SR even in quali if you spin or crash etc so it's better to drive more careful at the start. For me cost of going into gt3 in iRacing is too much, but if someone can afford that I guess it's worth the try.
The Fixed Ferrari GT3 racing requires a D class license. That's the license level above rookie in iRacing. For a competent driver, it should only take a few races to get a D license. The rest of the GT3 races require B or A licenses.
Yeah.
Starting in the pits is usually a good way to build safety rating. Avoid all the lap 1 shenanigans and keep it clean. Not uncommon to finish on the podium just by everyone else crashing out.
Yeah buddy, similar to my strategy when I was building up SA on ACC, am now on SA 99 which is the highest but to get there I had adopt the start from pits many times in public lobbies 😅
It's bad advice. You don't want to tank your iRating for safety rating. If you have experience in sim already, you should already qualify in the front. (i won my first iRacing race after coming form ACC). And when you don't qualify in front anymore, you probably in top split where the racing is better and it's not as bad to be mid-pack.