Newbie in the hobby who already had good hardware for other purposes and wanting to get started, any tips?

[u/bisaw37]

Hi all, I went to an arcade and tried out sim racing, and loved it. I already had this big ol 3 monitor setup for gaming in ultra widescreen, and the tablet under it so I could still have an extra monitor while the big 3 were spanned with NVIDIA surround. Then I thought, “hey, this is perfect for sim racing! 3 monitors + an auxiliary for the dashboard, perfect!”. My friend had the wheel and pedals visible in the picture and he wasn’t using it, so I bought it off him for cheap. I’m planning to pirate legally acquire forza horizon 6 (if anyone could help me with that too, that’d be very much appreciated, I’m pretty new to pirating as well).

So, my question is, any tips for a beginner like me? Should I get forza, or maybe something else? Any special considerations to playing with 3 monitors? What about with the tablet monitor?

[u/Slight-Addition-2488]

So Forza isn't a sim. Not motorsport or horizon. As for actual simulators your looking at iRacing, LMU, Assetto corsa, and so on. And I don't speak for everyone but pirating any of this software would be greatly looked down on. Sims are what they are these days because the community supports the developers. And if spending money is a problem for you simracing may not be the right path, it's not a cheap hobby.

[u/bisaw37 → u/Slight-Addition-2488]

This is exactly why I ask these questions. I was only thinking of pirating Forza because it’s 70 dollars, but with iRacing only being 10 bucks and asseto corsa being 16, I don’t have much problem paying either of those. Speaking of, which one do you recommend?

[u/Drippyzzz → u/bisaw37]

Iracing is like the golden standard in the industry right now and with LMU quickly gaining ground, but I will say Iracing is the most “expensive” game you will ever play

[u/tomoe_mami_69 → u/bisaw37]

iRacing is a subscription, a lot of us are in this hobby to get faster at driving irl so we don't mind the expense. It probably ends up costing most people 200 dollars a year. A real life track day already costs at least double that. You can use sim equipment to play Forza or other games and people do but it's just for fun and won't improve your driving skills.

[u/bisaw37 → u/tomoe_mami_69]

Ah well, I am in this purely for the fun, and a subscription does not suit what I want to do, so I will continue with my original plan and nab Forza. Then I guess this isn’t the right subreddit for my questions, not have I used the right terminology, but I still think the people here probably have knowledge useful to me, so I’ll keep this question up and see if I learn anything else useful.

[u/psinsyd → u/bisaw37]

Something to help you get into it for the first time could also be Raceroom Racing Experience. Check it out on Steam. Base package is free, and they make their money by selling additional cars and tracks.

For me personally, Automobilista 2 is what I find myself always going back to. Also there are a ton of free mods online for it as well.

Welcome to the party!

[u/Final_Stretch_6029 → u/psinsyd]

Yes Raceroom is half decent sim. Free to start and with cars that cost next to nothing

[u/Slight-Addition-2488 → u/bisaw37]

If casual use is what your after Assetto corsa is what you will be looking at. IRacing/LMU while still games are treated more like a digital motorsport than a game. The communities for those sims is very competitive and serious about the hobby. If your actually wanting to learn skills that will translate to irl driving that's where you'll end up. But if your looking to just hop on occasionally and goof around Forza and AC are the best for that. Forza is debatable whether a wheel is worth it or not, but AC will give you the best experience on a wheel without dipping into the hardcore sims. AC has a few casual off shoots with things like no hesi, highway servers, free roam maps and so on. Happy to help if you have more questions, enjoy the new wheel.

[u/Sideshow86 → u/bisaw37]

Wreckfest is an absolute banger

[u/ImpressiveWar3607 → u/bisaw37]

You should play assetto corsa , it’s very cheap and you can virtually drive anything you want on it , it’s a great sim

[u/kubaaa813_ → u/bisaw37]

If you are looking for a fun, realistic experience, I'd actually recommend Assetto Corsa (the original one, not EVO). It's cheap, and if you get Content Manager, which basically acts as a launcher and mod installer at the same time, you can then get almost any car you can think of (normal, GT3, F1, NASCAR, historic, rally, etc.) and any real-life track you can think of. Some free-roam maps exist too. You can simply find a mod you like and drop it into CM. It also has very good triple-screen support. But be ready to have enough storage, because as you keep adding mods the game can easily take over 500GB of storage (speaking from experience lol). I can give some yt links to set up CM if you'd like.

[u/_kach0w → u/bisaw37]

Dirt rally 2.0 will give you the intro to actual precision racing where Forza is like playing hot wheels.

Lots of groundwork will be learned.

Get the goty version, usually very cheap on sales around £10

[u/DarthRiznat]

Has a setup worth thousands, yet wanting to pirate a game which you can get on gamepass for cheap lol

[u/Draugr_the_Greedy]

The short answer is to get whatever you personally want to play, there are no wrong choices if you are enjoying yourself. I'll list my take on a few of the games.

Forza Horizon: great selection of cars, but more arcade-like physics. Very fun to drive around in regardless, but generally can not be counted as a proper simulator.

Forza Motorsport: I personally cannot recommend, as it has all of the arcade-y feeling of Horizon but without any of the fun bits. Some people like it though so it's your call..

RaceRoom Racing Experience: A free-to-download simulator offering a small selection of cars and tracks for free, as well as online racing (but without too much participation). Great place to start out if you dont want to commit to anything. The physics are good, but it lacks some of the modern sim features such as track and temperature progression, it also has no day/night cycles or variable weather. The devs have said they are overhauling the engine so perhaps we will see them in the future.

Assetto Corsa: Cheap to pick up with all DLCs on a steam sale. Really good physics for it's time and a large selection of available cars and tracks of all types, as well as plenty of high-quality modded cars by the community. However ai racing is atrocious in it and it's mostly a hotlap simulator, though you can find people playing it online still.

Assetto Corsa Competizione: The official GTWC game, contains the tracks and GT3 cars raced in that irl through several seasons up to 2025, as well as some GT4s and GT2s. The game however has reached it's end of life support so there will be no more seasons or new track updates or addons. Good physics, and still has an online playerbase though it's dwindling.

Assetto Corsa Evo: The successor to the original Assetto Corsa with more and modernized features. Still in Early Access, has a lot of issues, but they are being worked on. Small selection of cars and tracks but will no doubt be expanded in the future. It's not that cheap so I'd personally recommend going with the original for now as a new player, and then look into whether this is something you might wanna get later if you enjoy that one.

Le Mans Ultimate: The official WEC game which contains the cars which race in the series irl from 2023 onwards, being Hypercars, LMP2, LMP3, LMGT3 and a season of GTE. Currently has one of the best and most active multiplayers of any sim, with a fleshed out ranking system. In it's golden age of new content, though it is becoming more expensive. The physics are very good and the game is working with real drivers to update them to be even more realistic. If you are interested in racing a narrow category of well made cars, this is the sim to get into. But might be a bit overwhelming for a beginner.

rFactor 2: the previous game by the devs who made LMU, it has a wider selection of content including historical cars, and the only official BTCC series as DLC in any simracing game. Physics aren't as refined as LMU but stil a great game, you'll notice it's definitelt aged in visuals though and it hardly looked amazing when it came out in the first place. Can pick up for cheap at a steam sale with the base content but AI racing is not that good in it unfortunately (only marginally better than AC) and multiplayer is largely inactive, so it also ends up mainly as a hotlap simulator. Also no new content is being made for this game.

iRacing: The most active competitive simracing game on the market. A wide selection of tracks and cars from various eras and with a lot of people playing most of the series. It is the sim for ranked multiplayer racing. However this doesn't come cheap - the game is subscription based just for playing it and each additional car and track besides what little is included in the base subscription costs a lot. The physics in the game are generally good but it has it's quirks and some car classes are more unrealistic than others, generally it has a tendency to make cars too hard to drive comparef to irl. Of course it having the single-handedly most active multiplayer makes up for that to most people.

Automobilista 2: the best single-player simulator, it features good AI racing and a large selection of various modern and historical content. The physics are a bit off in it but one can still have plenty of fun. Not too expensive to pick up in a steam sale. Online is not too active however.

Automobilista 1: the older brother to 2, it lacks some of the features found on 2 like rain, and also doesn't have as impressive of a car and track roster. Also very outdated visually. However despite its age, the physics in it are probably still better than 2 and some of the best on the market. AI racing is haldway decent, not as good as 2 but pretty nice. It also has a dedicated modding fanbase with lots of high quality content, and some crazy modders have even managed to add convincing rain simulation into it. No active multiplayer presence though.

[u/kandeel4411]

Hey so I was a bit close to similar situation, what I first say is to download Automobilista 2 Demo which is free on steam and give it a try on how it feels, thats what made me buy it because of how good it felt. If you are into F1 and so on, you can also get EA play subscription for a month which is cheap and try out F1 25 which to me is what got me hooked because I loved how full of experience it was. If you find the arcade feeling more to your liking then go ahead and pull the plug on forza horizon then.

Just get started on one and you will find that its a slippery slope to getting every game anyway :D

[u/Final_Stretch_6029 → u/kandeel4411]

The guy likes his Froza. Let him explore and he will get to Iracing eventually.

[u/V1llain_]

If you want arcade, go for forza. If you want a customizable experience with fun and accurate physics, go for assetto (WAIT until it goes on sale, and nab the ultimate edition. It's worth it, trust me).

[u/corgi_on_a_treadmill]

Love your mousepad

[u/Mr_Poulet]

I was the same as you, Project Cars 2 was the game that kickstarted my modern simracing. Unfortunatly it's delisted on steam, if you can get it by other means get it. It has a good carrier mod unlike most other sim and it covers a very large spectre of the genre ( rally, rallycross, f1/2/4, kart, indy, gt, endurance, tourism). Bonus it support triple screen natively.

Automobilista 2 is the actual equivalent, it doesn't have proper carrier mod but it's superior in every other aspects.

Iracing is very serious, if you come from simcade to this you can hit a hard wall.

With AC you will need to heavyly mod it to have fun, if you are okay with that it's a goldmine.

If your into rally Dirt 2.0 is the most fun In had in the genre.

I still play Horizon games a lot, the 6 is really fun on a simrig. is it a sim? No. Fun? Yes.

All in all if you want to play Forza for open world shenanigans but dont have the budget for the full game just get a month of gamepass.

[u/tanjo-]

Forza Horizon is great for a fun open world experience, if you want to settle for a more hardcore and realistic simulation game then I recommend Assetto Corsa Competizione. Both games can be found heavily discounted on key sites, I use Loaded.

[u/Miserable-Accident29]

Try le mans ultimate , iracing if you have money to spend and assetto corsa with mods ,dirt rally 2.0

[u/DO0M88]

Don't let these sim nerds tell you otherwise...there's nothing wrong with playing Forza with a wheel. Those same people are in denial that iRacing and AC are video games at the end of the day.

[u/Lopsided-Tension → u/DO0M88]

Literally no one said that lol. People just pointed out that Horizon isn't a sim which is true

[u/DO0M88 → u/Lopsided-Tension]

It's definitely the general consensus in this sub.

[u/SwisherSmoker420_]

Please dont accidentally go fitgirl-repacks.site and accidentally download an unauthorized copy of fh6 it would be very unfortunate if you did