What is the actual player count?

[Cherry]

I checked https://steamcharts.com/app/266410 and the numbers seem off. From my understanding, this is because the game was released elsewhere for a long time before coming to Steam? Or is it because you launch the game in a certain way that doesn't make you "in-game" on Steam?

I'm genuinely concerned about getting the game and finding out I can't find matches because I live in South East Asia and there are many games with 20,000 players in-game right now but have no servers in my region despite the popularity. So seeing a 2-digit population for iRacing is concerning.

So my question is, is it easy to find matches whenever you want? If you are forced to play with people across the world, does having 300+ ping have a negative impact on the gameplay experience at all?

[B✪✪tsy]

Steam charts is not a real indicator, the vast majority of subscribers use the website version without Steam. Usualy there are about 4k to 10k players/drivers online during a day. You can always find and join online races with people from all over the world, there are no region servers.

[i4Gott]

Yes, negative ping will have a huge impact when racing others. iRacing has this thing called net code error, which will show up as invisible space between cars that impact those cars causing crashes. Higher the ping, greater chance of this occurring. Also if you have high ping, you will see other cars disappear and re-appear on the track. This will make it difficult for you to race against them. Also your own car will do the same thing to the other drivers, making it hard for them to judge where you are.

As to getting into races, yes you can. There are plenty of times, it really depends on what type of car you want to race. The popular gt3 and nascar types have plenty of races and folks. The more unique cars and races, very little will join those and times are limited for them to go official.

https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198247413800/recommended/266410/

[SirDuck]

Currently, 6pm GMT, there are almost exactly 10,000 drivers online. This will go up when the Americans get off work and hop on in 4-ish hours, then will go down as Europeans go to bed.

The game WILL force you into whatever server has drivers. Typically an American located server.

As long as your connection is stable, the ping will make car hitboxes feel much larger, but handling and visual wise, it'll be fine.

If your internet is unstable, cars will flash in and out of existance, and you may be kicked if your connection gets too low.

[i4Gott]

Originally posted by SirDuck:

Currently, 6pm GMT, there are almost exactly 10,000 drivers online. This will go up when the Americans get off work and hop on in 4-ish hours, then will go down as Europeans go to bed.

The game WILL force you into whatever server has drivers. Typically an American located server.

As long as your connection is stable, the ping will make car hitboxes feel much larger, but handling and visual wise, it'll be fine.

If your internet is unstable, cars will flash in and out of existance, and you may be kicked if your connection gets too low.

Note that 10k driver amount represents everyone who is online. It includes all the leagues, people practicing, time trials, just logged into the UI, etc. This can give the impression that there are this many in the official races, but this is not true. If you look at those numbers, it is drastically much lower. Official races are no where near that amount.

[SirDuck]

Yes it is 10,000 users spread over the whole site. But you only need 8 in a race to go official, and 16 for a decent grid.

[i4Gott]

Originally posted by SirDuck:

Yes it is 10,000 users spread over the whole site. But you only need 8 in a race to go official, and 16 for a decent grid.

Not true on needing 8 to make a race official. Some only need 6, it depends on the series.

[Collywobbles]

There are currently 12144 showing online and there were around 260 drivers in my Touring Car race at 19:45 GMT. This was divided into 13 splits of about 20 cars each for the race. Splits are divided based on your iRating so you are always racing against drivers of a similar skill level. Touring Car races are every hour.

It depends on the popularity of the race series how many drivers you get entering, some are more poplular than others. The numbers tend to go down as you get to the cars that are more challenging to drive, require a higher licence level and generally have open setups.

Edit: There are regional practice servers based in Germany, USA and Australia. The races take place on the server where the majority of entrants are based. I believe iRacing is quite popular in Australia, so there is no shortage of races on those servers.

[Alex913]

it's 11pm EST and there's 10k online at the moment as per iRacing UI app. Should be able to find an official race unless you go for one of the lesser popular series.

[rec0nd1te]

its 7am est and there are almost 9000 people online

[Ravushimo]

Originally posted by SirDuck:

Yes it is 10,000 users spread over the whole site. But you only need 8 in a race to go official, and 16 for a decent grid.

Quick question, how do you force iracing launcher to be ingame on steam? My installation just run batfile and thats it.

[SirDuck]

Originally posted by Ravushimo:

Originally posted by SirDuck:

Yes it is 10,000 users spread over the whole site. But you only need 8 in a race to go official, and 16 for a decent grid.

Quick question, how do you force iracing launcher to be ingame on steam? My installation just run batfile and thats it.

Add a game - add a non-steam game - iRacingUI

Otherwise steam only shows you as playing and has overlay while you're in the actual sim itself.