Racing Sim Questions

So the article in the last GRM about racing sims got my attention -- well done GRM, well done!

I've got a few questions about setting up a system in my house or garage. Asking the "been there, done that" collective before I go off the deep end. Questions are:

• Would like to run this on an existing computer I already own and would prefer not to run out and get an Xbox.....can any of the popular sims run on Linux or is it Windows only?

• In the case I set up a rig in my house, are there any good sims that run natively on a SmartTV? That might be plan "B" -- have a 65" Sony SmartTV. Don't even know if this is possible at all......

• Who is running where? What does the hive mind recommend.....iRacing or something else?

thanks in advance.....

iRacing really is the gold standard for a "proper" racing simulator, and that requires a Windows PC (or IIRC a Mac - haven't looked into that for a while because my steering wheel doesn't play well with Mac OS).

Other than that you have Grand Turismo on the PlayStation and the Forza series on XBox, plus a couple of other sims like Dirt Rallye, Assetto Corsa etc on PC.

It all depends on what you want to do.

1. Where are you friends racing?
2. How deep do you want to jump in?

I have friends that do iRacing, but they are way deeper into it than I would want to be. I want something more casual that I can just jump on when I have time.

Learn from my mistake: I built a pretty nice iRacing setup only to find that I didn't like the game. I previously had a lot more fun with the XBOX 360 forza games. I ended up pretty satisfied with Project:Cars and whatever version of forza runs on PC. This brings up a decent point: both of those games are available on XBOX, which is a much cheaper buy in than my PC without the hassle.

Bottom line: unless you are hoping to win the iRacing championship and go to camp Mazda, go where your friends are. Its a lot more fun racing with them than whatever strangers you end up with (unless its Tony Stewart or Dale Jr., who are awesome).

obviously any console will run fine on your big tv, but a PC can too with the right GPU.

I am running on a 34" tv with my pc, but it could just as easily run very nicely on my 65" and I could bump up the resolution accordingly.

I like playing with mods (new user made cars, tracks) and drifting, and Assetto Corsa seems to be the latest go to for user made content.

TVs have a lot more input lag than monitors. Keep that in mind. I've seen some that are greater than 100ms

For realism a lot of people are still using rFactor & rFactor 2.

I play on PC. Mostly project cars, but about to pickup rFactor because I found a pretty large league that runs weekly.

Thanks for all the helps!

Unfortunately Windows is still the better gaming OS, because that's what all games have been developed for until very recently. iRacing is an exception, it's had proper Linux support for a few years now.

You can run most sims made for Windows on Linux through Wine but that's the hard way - you'll have to crack the game for starters because the DRM generally won't work on Linux. You'll probably also have to do some work to get your steering wheel's force feedback working.

Windows 10 has out-benchmarked many Linux flavors in gaming recently (especially Steam OS)... if you want another excuse to use it.