Is that so? I know that Iracing has a very nice FFB and that you can feel the street better through your wheel. It also has a more in depth setup but thats it. I drove a few rounds in the soltice and one other car, but what is so exceptional about that in your opinion? With the same car, track and setup as in real life, you can recreate the exact same lap times with GT5. How can this get any better?
I really want to know why do you think that Iracing is so much better. The driving physics are nearly the same in my opinion.
DV's response is pretty accurate although I think he comes down a little hard on GT5. GT5 has to appeal to a mass market audience and this causes some of the problems that simulation fans have with it. PD can't focus only on sim elements but that is all iRacing does.
iRacing is a well funded, very highly focused simulation product and it shows in more than just the excellent FFB. A few other areas of note are the accuracy of the cars (they build them with the same fanaticism they use on the laser scanned tracks and they only build ones they get accurate data on plus real race driver feedback from) and the fact that there are no driver aids that aren't available in real life. You learn the tracks by trial and error--no changing color lines on the track surface etc. When you crash, you are out of the race or, at best, severely hampered. This changes your racing behavior dramatically. The whole iRacing experience is trying to replicate real life racing. This doesn't make it better than GT5 in all ways but it does make it different. Is iRacing a better racing simulation? Yes--but it also costs significantly more and has, in some ways (except tracks), far fewer options. Is it a better entertainment experience? That will differ person to person based upon your preferences.
I like both GT5 and iRacing but get frustrated by both too. The thing is, I get frustrated by (imho) poor design issues in GT5 but in iRacing I get frustrated that I am often not as competitive as I'd like to be. It takes so much practice to compete with many of the other members at the more advanced levels!