The Problem with iRacing: Where’s the grip?

The following is a post to the iRacing BMW M4 GT4 Members Forum and is reposted here for posterity and to prompt discussion on why exactly grip expression in iRacing is lack whereas other sims have long since solved this.

This car really, really helps earn the name iceRacing and highlights the deficiency in the way iRacing expresses grip.

Let me say, while grip isn’t perfect on other cars, I find the MX-5, Mustang, Skip, and some others tolerable, and I can enjoy them but some cars and tracks the grip is just atrocious on even those cars (Tsukuba, Suzuka, Belle Isle).

But none of these cars/tracks are anywhere near where they need to be compared to rF2, AMS1/2, even old GTR2/GTL/Race07 games, and even the likes of PC2.

The way grip is expressed in iRacing is so, so uninformative and it’s been this way for such a long time, it’s really starting to appear incredible to me that it’s still like this.

Here’s an interesting find: I use an AccuForce and I can choose to use Game FFB or the AF SimCommander’s ffb interpretation of telemetry data (“Steering Force Foundation” (SFF); Similar to what irFFB does). While I find SFF superior, neither expresses grip very well, at all.

^^^ Alarm bells should be going off here — the telemetry data isn’t expressing grip levels with enough clarity? That’s crazy.

I have experienced this since joining the service, many years, and across various tyre models.

Maybe it’s time iRacing looked into this, what with all the pro racers complaining about iRacing tyre model and this ffb/telemetry issue which has never been dealt with.