What is more difficult? A sim or the real thing?

[downtowndeco]

Of course I understand that if you take the average sim player & plunk him down in an actual WRC or F1 car that he is not going to do as well as the actual drivers, I get that. What I mean though is this. With an actual car you have so much more feedback. You can feel the ground under the tires, hear every chirp of the tires, feel the actual G forces on your body etc. You have such a better "feel" for how the car is responding & your vision & view of the track is better too, as it is not just pixels. : ) You literally have the wind in your hair. With a sim you have none of that, other than a simulation of those effects. You're sitting on an office chair in front of a screen. If you're lucky you have a force feedback wheel & a good sound system.

Just for kicks, which do you think is harder to master? Again, of course, none of us are ever going to be able to be competitive against Mario Andretti, but in some ways are sims harder than the real deal because of the lack of real world feedback?

[Bruce D]

Having raced karts in real life and done many years in sim racing I can tell you that real racing is harder, purely for one big reason, the fear / bravery factor.

[Macd]

If you crash on RBR at 200kmh the only thing that hurts is your pride. If you crash a real rally car at 200kmh, it's going to hurt a wee bit more. You need big balls to be a properly quick rally driver.

[bennizw]

I had the joy to drive one of Anders Grøndals Impreza group N cars on an iced lake earlier this year. I'd say there is a lot of resemblance to driving such a car in RBR. The same techniques apply, and left foot braking works as in the game (which by the way was very easy getting used to in real life). The main difference for me was that the car I drove didn't have a proper group N diff at the front, which made it different when cornering. While I was used to countersteer when powersliding, in this car you had to keep turning in all the way. This could of course have to do with the amount of grip there was with the studded tyres, which was staggering. As mentioned over, there is of course a large difference in the courage you need to attack with a rallycar in real life, and at home in your living room.

If you like, here is a link to onboard footage from my time in the car. Skip the first lap The password is: hebbe

https://vimeo.com/56851936

[MrJan]

No contest. As someone who does a bit of hillclimbing/sprinting I can tell you that it's a whole lot harder to be quick in the real thing. When you want to go quick in a game you need technique, practice and memory/awareness. In the real thing you need all these plus a more acute understanding of the feeling from the car (in a computer game it's easy to learn how to control a car on the limit, in real life you can't push the boundaries as much so you don't learn in the same way).

You also need to overcome adrenalin, and that's the most difficult thing. In a game if you want to brake late there is no real penalty if you get it wrong, so pushing the limit is relatively easy. In the real thing you are aware of the possible outcome and that means that, certainly as an amateur, I find myself braking too earlier, even though I know that I should be braking later. You get to a point and, even if it's still yards from what you think is the braking point, you instinctively jam the brakes on. In my case it's worse because I know that my dad, in the same car, brakes later than I do (although most of the time I am still quicker than him).

This is me round a cart track https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-hZ...-R9eBC6wCBRY1A

Going in to the tight, coned chicane at the end of the lap I know that I can brake at about the white line, but whenever I near the corner I always hit the brakes earlier than that.