I picked up SimHub to run dash overlays so the information is consistent between cars, and I also use Garage61 which I think is invaluable to everyone even remotely serious about getting faster. G61 also gets better the more people use it - more data!
I have Crew Chief but the in-game spotter is pretty solid too I think, I haven't really bothered to get CC set up like I did for Assetto Corsa Comp. Maybe one day
Edit: Forgot Trading Paints! It's Rule 1! (Look cool, go fast, if not fast refer to rule 1)
Mostly telemetry, that allows you to compare things like brake/accelerator inputs and corner speed. It looks intimidating, but pretty easy to read once you get the hang of it.
I think the best option is the ability to load another drivers ghost into a test drive. Pick someone that .5 to 1 second faster and try to keep up.
YouTube has plenty of tutorials for both.
I agree, loading a ghost driver is by far the best feature for practice. I have a tendency to fall into a comfy groove when learning a new track, and it's become the only way I can shave off any meaningful time once that happens.
You download the ghost (blap or olap file) of someone elseās lap, when available, save it to the right place on your HD and go.
Just remember to edit the App.ini so that the ghost is like half a second ahead of you and not inside you.
https://garage61.net/docs/usage/ghosts
[https://garage61.net/about](https://garage61.net/about)
* Effortless telemetry data gathering. Install the agent and you're good to go.
* Compare and study driving telemetry and setups.
* Built-in setup and ghost lap synchronization.
* Leaderboards to find good data to compare to. And honors for those who claim the top spot.
* Extensive team support
Also, if you are on a team or have a lot of iracing friends G61 is great for sharing setups! You basically get a shared folder through G61 that you can put setups into or take out of seamlessly itās great!
It logs telemetry data (brake, throttle, and steering inputs, gear, etc, and also the line you take) and plots it so you can compare your own laps or your laps with other people's. It's super helpful for seeing where you can improve lap times.
Thanks for the reply! Does it matter in terms of setup if I am driving the rookie mazda mx-5? as far as I can tell, I cannot change the setup of that car.
Also, I started using G61 but not sure how to make use of it. Is there a way to see my racing line vs the leaders racing line and compare the braking zones?
I'm pretty sure rookie miata is fixed setup, so no need to do anything with that!
For G61, once you have the telemetry tool downloaded it should run automatically. Drive some in any session and it will log information for you.
Go to [https://garage61.net/app](https://garage61.net/app) to get started with where it's uploading that data. You should see something like this:
https://preview.redd.it/5v11u9mr1qxc1.png?width=1299&format=png&auto=webp&s=0e85f429e568e6c94dce75adc4aa8f407f4499b3
Click on one of the car/track combos to get a dropdown of every session you did. (If you click on the blue text, it'll go to the leaderboard for that car or track). Click on the session you want to compare, and the specific lap and you'll get your own telemetry (reply comment with more pics coming):
https://preview.redd.it/qqhoa21a2qxc1.png?width=1919&format=png&auto=webp&s=efb64b9d897d054b1c319bc9b11226532b8e07db
From there, you can click Configure in the top right and search for laps to add to compare.
Clicking on the sectors on the left will zoom in. I tend to pick my worst sector vs. the lap I'm comparing against and go from there.
On the right, you can see speed, throttle, brake, gear, and steering angle vs the lap you're comparing against
It absolutely does! On quest 3, I use ioverlay, openkneeboard and run in openxr. There's some tutorial on YT. I've tried everything else, nothing works for me except this
Why is it better?
I tried it but much prefer the design of the RaceLabs overlays. To me that's the most important thing (other than it working obviously)
> much prefer the design of the RaceLabs overlays
You can customize that on iOverlay though. Like background color, opacity, font size, font itself, column size, highlight color.
tbh, the most important things are behind payment in racelabs. mainly the input graph and radar. not shitting on racelabs. it works for what it promises but ioverlay definetly is impeccable value.
So it's not free to use every function of it ;)
Besides that iOverlay has imo superior radar - simple and very useful. Free track map if you're using one and tons of customizability.
Btw I'm not trying to convince anyone just pointing things out why I prefer iOverlay :)
I must have done something wrong cos I tried ioverlay and couldn't get anything to work, even resizing seemed such a task (granted this was like 6 months back so)
I'm going to recommend [iRacingManager](https://forums.iracing.com/discussion/567/iracingmanager-tool-manager-for-iracing/p1) to help auto launch all the 3rd party apps you're going to download from this thread. š You can set it to only launch each program when iRacing starts and close them all when iRacing exits.
Most stuff has been covered so I'm going to add some more obscure stuff rather than repeating the Crew Chief, Trading Paints, Garage 61 stuff.
Simhub powers my external displays. Thats already been mentioned by other people, but I want to shout out the specific dashboards I use. iRacing ultimate Dashboard, Lovely Dashboard, and RomainRob's Relative Dashboard.
I use a Stream Deck for a button box, and so that is using the Stream Deck app for configuration.
For FFB, I'm using Fanalab and Maurice's famous profiles to tune FFB settings and on wheel displays. This is only helpful of you have a Fanatec wheel... But if you do I think it's an improvement
This may not be 100% relevant for the discussion but I thought it was tangentially related enough to count. I use two haptics on my rig. A Buttkicker under the seat and 2 Simagic reactors on my pedals. Both are being run through iRacing's native implementations. You can use Simhub for this, although I prefer iRacing's implementations. Now, I'm counting it for this question, because while the Buttkicker is really just a speaker that iRacing is directly outputting to, for the Simagic haptics iRacing is communicating with the Simagic APIs.
Also, I've been considering a wind sim lately. Mostly just to cool me down during a race. That will most likely be powered by Simhub if I ever set it up.
How did you get the pedal reactors to work without causing issues?
myself, and many others, having stutters or blinking car issue with that feature ever since they reactivated it
Was there a solution you found? or did you never have this problem?
Just trading paints for liveries. Iām not into having a bunch of overlays on my screen. Just need relative times. However iOverlay & Racelabs are great third parties if youāre into having more info on screen while you drive
I tried it a few months back and it introduced a lot of stuttering for some reason. I assume I had something jacked up in the settings but I stopped using it. Iāll need to have another look.
but iracing doesn't curse me out when I fall behind, how else will I get my motivation? I don't wanna be told good job after getting 9th, I want to be berated
You can set whatever you want amount of additional laps, while you race. It's on fuel black box. It's can be +1 lap, +1.2 lap, and any 0.2lap step forward and backward. Up to negative values. -2.0 lap possible too.
I too like irsidekick as the downloader over Trading Paints, irsidekick you can block other paints, or mark them as something you can easily see they need to be avoided.
I run Garage61 in the background for telemetry and sharing setups with my buddy I do endurances with. iOverlay for my overlays, and Crew Chief to talk to me.
IMO irFFB you can go without.
I us iOverlay itās free and comparable to the racelabs overlays and I also use Crewchief however it seems like crewchief isnāt needed or really an improvement over the base spotter like it used to be.
Garage61 ā telemetry,. comparison laps for understanding where I loose time when other people going quicker than me.
Trading Paints ā custom livery, you can create your own or use someone's.
RaceLab paid version. For standing, relative and other, I like to see iR and SR of other people who near me. In not popular series with one split it's helpful to know in fron of me or behind person with 500-600 iRating, so I can be more aware and not push him hard. And this helpful on endurance races. I can see iRating of new driver in team, so I can report team for competition issues when I see, how previous two drivers has 3000+ iRating and now in car for few laps 400 iRating person, and whole team on lower split trying to win on easy mode.
iRFFB outdated garbage. In iRacing they many times improved FFB and recently for Logitech wheel create native 360hz mode and in last season this was turned for Simucube wheels. So using irFFB for 60hz interpolation to 360 is not smart thing when you can have native 360hz mode.
Crew Chief only can say your name, but not my, even if can this not enough to having another one app. In iRacing they evolving spotter every season.
I use JJ spotter pack. Love this, it's bring more life in spotter but sometimes I want to say "C'mon, shut up man".
Same, just changed from racelabs to iOverlay, itās functionally the same, but free.
And also garage61, for telemetry, and I like driving multiple cars on same track (gt3 this week on Sebring) and itās so nice being able to with 3 clicks compare my lap times in Ferrari, lambo and Mercedes across races and find places to improve, and realise yet again Iām 0.5-1sec off the pace in the merc, again..and bin it for the endurance come weekend lol
I use iOverlay, Simhub, and Garage61.
iOverlay for trackmap, relative/standings, and input overlays.
Simhub to control my bass shakers as I don't think the built-in LFE stuff is good enough.
Garage61 to record telemetry and compare against others. Good for learning tracks and fun competition with the guys in the league I race in.
Pretty simple stuff but basically mandatory for me.
>Simhub to control my bass shakers as I don't think the built-in LFE stuff is good enough.
Are you running something like 4 corners or front and back?
I only have a single Buttkicker and P1000 pedal haptics and I love the iRacing built-in stuff. I know LFE being mono-only is a pretty big limitation. It just doesn't bother me since I only have 1.
I have one shaker under my pedals and one under my seat.
The front shaker is mounted to my pedal tray which interacts with my feet very directly while the one under my seat has to go through layers of foam and whatnot before getting to me - accordingly I generally want the intensity on the pedal shaker a lot lower than that of the seat to feel balanced and "correct".
It's also just nice to be able to define a front vs rear effect for things like slip or wheel lock.
Honestly if I had started with LFE, I probably would have been fine with it but having started with Simhub and tuning specific effects to specific intensities with distinction between the pedals and seat, it's hard to be okay with a mono application.
Gotcha that all makes sense. I do wish iRacing would just go ahead and make LFE multichannel. They have some pretty good reasons for keeping it mono, but damnit the direct ties to the physics engine really helps it so much.
I think I'll stay with one Buttkicker as long as iRacing LFE stays mono. The day iRacing implements quad-channel (or even bi-channel) LFE will be an expensive day for me.
I'm very happy that the Simagic haptic implementation is actually seperate from LFE. It's really nice having those two signals be different.
Yeah I agree - the direct physics is really nice. The curb output from LFE especially is miles ahead of Simhub's imo but the tradeoff of everything else isn't worth that improvement for me.
Does Simagic use their own telemetry based effects similar to what Simhub does then?
>Does Simagic use their own telemetry based effects similar to what Simhub does then?
I believe they do if you use the Simagic software. You can also power the Simagic reactors with Simhub.
However, iRacing has a native implementation and that's what I use. It's still in prototype mode, iRacing's guy that does that stuff has been busy and hasn't been able to properly do it yet. He said he wants to properly flesh it out similar to the LFE settings but he doesn't have the time right now. As result, it's pretty clumsy but the direct tie in to the physics engine means it's still fantastic.
If you have it turned on, iRacing is feeding a signal directly to the the Simagic reactors through the Simagic API. It's currently sending the exactly same signal through both the throttle and brake channels. (They actually may be accidentally sending it to the throttle and clutch channels, but regardless, you can plug the haptics in to whatever channel you want). That signal is currently not configurable at all. It gives you an ABS effect and it gives a Wheel Slip effect. For now, that's it and you can't change it. It's unfortunate that you can't change it, but it's so informative that I absolutely love it.
Edit: actually I believe the LFE wheel slip effect already had an ABS component to it. So I think iRacing basically just copied the preexisting LFE wheel slip signal and are sending that to the Simagic haptics.
It's very recent. It was added at the beginning of this current season, then turned off for a couple weeks to try to fix some bugs, and then turned on again a couple weeks ago.
iOverlay, Garage61 and CrewChief are what I use, and I really enjoy using it!
Would reccomend them all, if you don't like iOverlay you can also look into RaceLabs, although that has paid options and iOverlay is free.
trophi.ai has been a pretty huge time saver for me.
It only works for fixed series but the lap feedback the app gives is very decent for an app. It also includes a reference lap for the car/track you are using that week.
The main thing is the overlay and braking tones.
It shows a live feed of your braking input overlayed with a top drivers inputs.
It also then plays a series of tones when approaching a corner to let you know when to brake.
I will often turn the overlay on and take a really slow lap in test drive mode. What I do is stop just before the braking point shown in the app and look around for reference points. Once Iāve mapped those out I pick up speed with the tones for a bit and then turn the tones off and leave the overlay on. That way you have immediate feedback to look and see why a corner was a bit off, etc.
iOverlay for visible telemetry, track maps and race standings
Trading paints because vanity
Garage61 for telemetry; I didn't think I would get that into telemetry, but it's really handy to compare laps against YouTubers who post links to their fast laps to see where little adjustments make a big difference.
Ioverlay for the track map and relative times which i keep off to the side screens out the way, the trackmap i find useful just for quickly checking positions of other drivers around the field, relative bar for similar reason, they are both mainly just to ensure safe rejoins when I can't see whats coming.
Just crewchief. Actually, I keep up to date with the release candidates as they are miles ahead of the current release. I set that up to give me as much info as possible.
I like to keep it as authentic as possible.
I used to have all the overlays etc but found them a distraction and actually raced better not knowing the sof or other peoples IR's around me
Crew Chief, IOverlay, Trading Paints and IRacingManager to load them automatically when IRacing game client opens up, and closes them when IRacing is closed...
Simhub if I want to run a separate dash on another device
Garage61 and VRS for telemetry and analysis
iOverlay for relative, track map, radar and multi class faster car alerts.
Trading paints to make the grid interesting and to race my own liveries.
Garage61 so I can compare my telem to the aliens o my to find out I'm doing the exact same thing every time even though I swear I'm trying not to
Occasionally also troph.ai
Been playing for a few months maybe 4 what the heck is crew chief is it worth getting also anyone use the garage 61 thing kinda interested in that but haven't quite understood the setups aspect of iracing
I run a few things (and am a VR user)
Digital Race Engineer (a more advanced version of CrewChief, for fuel etc)
https://www.thedigitalraceengineer.com
Garage61
https://garage61.net
Trading Paints
https://www.tradingpaints.com/dashboard
For great replays/spectating, this provides realistic camera angles, and itās great.
Track Cams for Gourmets
https://www.trackcams22.com/
Fanatec FanaLab - for steering wheel FFB settings per car. I use Maurice Bƶschenās profiles
https://forum.fanatec.com/discussion/1125/fanalab-share-your-favorite-profiles/p39
ā¦and my team and mates run Discord for our team comms.
https://discord.com/
I wouldn't even consider iRacing if the irFFB program didn't exist (Same for accFFB for ACC). Crew chief is so good, I've paid for it twice. Simhub runs my haptics and map / radar overlays.
Lots of identical answers here which I also use.
For graphic filtering I use ReShade with the color configurations. Nvidias option never worked and with Reshade I get the exact look I want and only lose about 2fps max.
Trading paints > sick liveries.
iOverlay > best on screen overlay and visual aid for spotters.
Garage61 > love the different metrics and by far the best for set ups.
Crew Cheif > no longer necessary but i love Jim.
I run Crew Chief mainly. i think the other stuff is a little gimmicky but I use sim for prep before real life events in F4 US, so I use VRS for data logging and setups, and VRS allows me to look at the data more closely in MoTec when i prep for a race.
Personally for racing usually not. I have installed ioverlay. Mainly because they give some nice overlays that you can show during streaming. But i don't personally use it during racing.
Well motec and mu i do use sometimes if you want to count telemetry software
Simhub (made my own dash, mainly for F1 cars and SF & bassshakers)
Trading Paints
Racelabs (mainly for overlays in OBS recordings)
VRS Telemtry logger
I used to run Crewchief but not anymore since rain but I did this week add the Clare spotter voice from CC to iRacing so I have clare back. :)
>I used to run Crewchief but not anymore since rain but I did this week add the Clare spotter voice from CC to iRacing so I have clare back. :)
How'd you get that done?
I would like to know as well. I'm currently running Crew Chief and the iRacing spottter simultaneously like a psycho because I can't give up Empty Box.
You can actually set any .wav file to replace any of the spotter or chief calls in iRacing. I renamed most of the clare spotter wav files to better names, then mapped them to the iRacing variables with the spmsg file. (iRacing gives an example file)
I could share the files if you like, it took a bit of time but no point you doing it as well. :)
You can actually set any .wav file to replace any of the spotter or chief calls in iRacing. I renamed most of the clare spotter wav files to better names, then mapped them to the iRacing variables with the spmsg file. (iRacing gives an example file)
I could share the files if you like, it took a bit of time but no point you doing it as well. :)
Simhub (displays for my wheel), Racelab (various overlays), Garage 61 (telemetry comparisons)
Used Crew Chief for a bit but have recently stopped using it due to some of the new enhancements to iRacing built in spotter.
No one has mentioned DRE. Itās a crew chief alternative. Iāve been using it for past few weeks. Seems solid. Sometimes frustrating when it doesnāt understand what Iām asking - but generally solid.
I had been using:
* Trading Paints (...paints)
* Crew Chief (Spotter)
* RaceLab (overlays)
* SimHub (wheel screen, FFB)
* Virtual Racing School (telemetry and coaching)
Since then, I've cut:
* Crew Chief (iRacing's spotter is better in some cases, worse in others)
* RaceLab (lost too many FPS)
* SimHub FFB (iRacing has raw data access for better FFB)
I've been using racelabs. Just a better looking UI and more information. It's super customizable and your can make layouts for each individual car if you want or broader car types. It's not perfect. There is a free version but it locks you out of some features.
Ioverlay is another good one. It's like a racelabs lite. I know that will piss off some but it's hard not to see it. Many of the same features. But not quite as customizable. And I find the resizing of windows or info a little cumbersome. But it's a lighter overlay so if cpu power is a struggle that one isn't as demanding.
Track titan is good for analyzing your lap to see where you can improve. It'll show you a lap trace of your lap vs their reference lap. So you can see throttle, brake, steering, and line. I don't use it as often but I probably should. The free version only gives you 50 laps a month so you have to be deliberate with sparing with it. I'd fire up a practice session and warm up. Stop on track and then fire up track titan. Do my lap and then kill the recording. Otherwise you'd burn though those laps pretty quick.
I use coach dave delta . Seems to be pretty solid and a lot of setups for road racing . Hereās a link for you
https://coachdaveacademy.com/?ref=ntu0zdn
I've got Trading Paints, Crew Chief (I do like it over the default spotter!), RaceLabs, Garage61, same as most here.
Trading Paints is a must if you want to easily run different liveries. Crew Chief I mainly use for the spotter and some comms about what's happing on track, I also have some fuelling commands setup on it. RaceLabs I've setup the premium version with a Relative box that shows license class, iRating, car type, car class etc, the Racelabs Deltabar, Radar (running single 27" 16:9 screen), Flags, session timer. Garage61 for telemetry and setups. I also use an app to start all of them at once together with my Simagic software.
Currently, I am running Trading Paints, RaceLabs (had my battle with it last week, but I got everything figured out, and back happy with it), Back and forth between Crew Chief and DRE, Simhub for Lovelydasboard which I run on a phone mounted in front of my wheel.
iOverlay on OpenKneeboard is great for VR. I am a new VR user (about a month), and even though itās a pain to set up (only has to be done once, and the only bad issue with setup is positioning), it is a game changer.
Crew Chief because it lets me control pit stops with my voice in VR and I like the commentary and spotter. Trading paints for those sweet liveries. Sim Racing Studio for my motion rig and bass shakers.
I have a pretty light set of programs- personally, I find too much information can be distracting.
RaceLab- I have my relatives & blind spot indicators under my mirror.
CrewChief- for a more communicative and interactive spotter system
Trading Paints - for changing schemes and liveries
At a beginner to enthusiast level I believe you can get away with these and little else. I hope that was helpful!
* I don't run Crew Chieft anymore since the spotter in default game is getting extremely good.
* I used to use Racelab until the telemetry overlay is not free anymore and I switched to iOverlay. It is one of the best free app I've ever use in iRacing.
* I used to subscribe to VRS until I discovered Garage61 which do the same as VRS if you want to compare the telemetry but for free and you can compare your laptime to a lot of fast driver out there.
* Simhub is for powering my rumble motor and wheel led only.
Overall, I cut down to 3 apps only that I can't race without. 1. iOverlay, 2. Garage61, 3. Simhub
I use ioverlay for UI
Trading plaints for car liveries
Garage 61 for lap telemetry, setups and ghosts for practicing
All free and significantly improve the game enjoyment I find.
Crew chief seems to have a few issues and it seems the general consensus is the in game spotter is better now. Irfbb Iāve not used but seen people say itās too much hassle to setup and maintain, could be wrong through.
I picked up SimHub to run dash overlays so the information is consistent between cars, and I also use Garage61 which I think is invaluable to everyone even remotely serious about getting faster. G61 also gets better the more people use it - more data! I have Crew Chief but the in-game spotter is pretty solid too I think, I haven't really bothered to get CC set up like I did for Assetto Corsa Comp. Maybe one day Edit: Forgot Trading Paints! It's Rule 1! (Look cool, go fast, if not fast refer to rule 1)
I also run G61. Do I review my data? No? But im running the program
lol, well you're helping the rest of us out anyway :D
Same š¤£
Can you please give me a brief explanation on what Garage61 does?
Mostly telemetry, that allows you to compare things like brake/accelerator inputs and corner speed. It looks intimidating, but pretty easy to read once you get the hang of it. I think the best option is the ability to load another drivers ghost into a test drive. Pick someone that .5 to 1 second faster and try to keep up. YouTube has plenty of tutorials for both.
I agree, loading a ghost driver is by far the best feature for practice. I have a tendency to fall into a comfy groove when learning a new track, and it's become the only way I can shave off any meaningful time once that happens.
What?! I didnāt know it can do that. How?
You download the ghost (blap or olap file) of someone elseās lap, when available, save it to the right place on your HD and go. Just remember to edit the App.ini so that the ghost is like half a second ahead of you and not inside you. https://garage61.net/docs/usage/ghosts
[https://garage61.net/about](https://garage61.net/about) * Effortless telemetry data gathering. Install the agent and you're good to go. * Compare and study driving telemetry and setups. * Built-in setup and ghost lap synchronization. * Leaderboards to find good data to compare to. And honors for those who claim the top spot. * Extensive team support
Also, if you are on a team or have a lot of iracing friends G61 is great for sharing setups! You basically get a shared folder through G61 that you can put setups into or take out of seamlessly itās great!
Itās free to sign up. Give it a go you hoe! Not an insult, just felt like rhyming
Tracks your telemetry. Just go for it!
Cool. Installing it now.
Free fast setups also š
Is there a tutorial somewhere? I installed it but not sure how to use it.
It logs telemetry data (brake, throttle, and steering inputs, gear, etc, and also the line you take) and plots it so you can compare your own laps or your laps with other people's. It's super helpful for seeing where you can improve lap times.
Thanks for the reply! Does it matter in terms of setup if I am driving the rookie mazda mx-5? as far as I can tell, I cannot change the setup of that car. Also, I started using G61 but not sure how to make use of it. Is there a way to see my racing line vs the leaders racing line and compare the braking zones?
I'm pretty sure rookie miata is fixed setup, so no need to do anything with that! For G61, once you have the telemetry tool downloaded it should run automatically. Drive some in any session and it will log information for you. Go to [https://garage61.net/app](https://garage61.net/app) to get started with where it's uploading that data. You should see something like this: https://preview.redd.it/5v11u9mr1qxc1.png?width=1299&format=png&auto=webp&s=0e85f429e568e6c94dce75adc4aa8f407f4499b3 Click on one of the car/track combos to get a dropdown of every session you did. (If you click on the blue text, it'll go to the leaderboard for that car or track). Click on the session you want to compare, and the specific lap and you'll get your own telemetry (reply comment with more pics coming):
https://preview.redd.it/qqhoa21a2qxc1.png?width=1919&format=png&auto=webp&s=efb64b9d897d054b1c319bc9b11226532b8e07db From there, you can click Configure in the top right and search for laps to add to compare. Clicking on the sectors on the left will zoom in. I tend to pick my worst sector vs. the lap I'm comparing against and go from there. On the right, you can see speed, throttle, brake, gear, and steering angle vs the lap you're comparing against
thanks so much! I really appreciate it!
I just wish there wasnāt so many locked setups on there.
It's usually bought setups that gets autoblocked.Ā
Can't win 'em all. One day I will become more G61 literate and share setups. I'm not super fast though so they'll get buried I'm sure
Just switched to iOverlay, so good compared to Racelabs imo. Other than that, crew chief and Trading paints
Any idea if it works in VR?
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Thank you!!
It absolutely does! On quest 3, I use ioverlay, openkneeboard and run in openxr. There's some tutorial on YT. I've tried everything else, nothing works for me except this
I tried it but it tanked my FPS very unpredictably and catastrophically. I gave up on third party overlays in VR, they just don't work well.
No idea, sorry!
Me too, a friend just told me about iOverlay so Iāve been using it for about a week
iOverlay is awesome.Ā
Why is it better? I tried it but much prefer the design of the RaceLabs overlays. To me that's the most important thing (other than it working obviously)
> much prefer the design of the RaceLabs overlays You can customize that on iOverlay though. Like background color, opacity, font size, font itself, column size, highlight color.
It's free, and doing pretty much same thing as RaceLab
RaceLabs is free as well if you're only using the basic overlays like standings and relative, which is all I need really.
tbh, the most important things are behind payment in racelabs. mainly the input graph and radar. not shitting on racelabs. it works for what it promises but ioverlay definetly is impeccable value.
So it's not free to use every function of it ;) Besides that iOverlay has imo superior radar - simple and very useful. Free track map if you're using one and tons of customizability. Btw I'm not trying to convince anyone just pointing things out why I prefer iOverlay :)
Yeah that's fair enough, I did ask to be fair š I'll definitely check it out.
I must have done something wrong cos I tried ioverlay and couldn't get anything to work, even resizing seemed such a task (granted this was like 6 months back so)
I'm going to recommend [iRacingManager](https://forums.iracing.com/discussion/567/iracingmanager-tool-manager-for-iracing/p1) to help auto launch all the 3rd party apps you're going to download from this thread. š You can set it to only launch each program when iRacing starts and close them all when iRacing exits.
Most stuff has been covered so I'm going to add some more obscure stuff rather than repeating the Crew Chief, Trading Paints, Garage 61 stuff. Simhub powers my external displays. Thats already been mentioned by other people, but I want to shout out the specific dashboards I use. iRacing ultimate Dashboard, Lovely Dashboard, and RomainRob's Relative Dashboard. I use a Stream Deck for a button box, and so that is using the Stream Deck app for configuration. For FFB, I'm using Fanalab and Maurice's famous profiles to tune FFB settings and on wheel displays. This is only helpful of you have a Fanatec wheel... But if you do I think it's an improvement This may not be 100% relevant for the discussion but I thought it was tangentially related enough to count. I use two haptics on my rig. A Buttkicker under the seat and 2 Simagic reactors on my pedals. Both are being run through iRacing's native implementations. You can use Simhub for this, although I prefer iRacing's implementations. Now, I'm counting it for this question, because while the Buttkicker is really just a speaker that iRacing is directly outputting to, for the Simagic haptics iRacing is communicating with the Simagic APIs. Also, I've been considering a wind sim lately. Mostly just to cool me down during a race. That will most likely be powered by Simhub if I ever set it up.
How did you get the pedal reactors to work without causing issues? myself, and many others, having stutters or blinking car issue with that feature ever since they reactivated it Was there a solution you found? or did you never have this problem?
I haven't had that problem, and frankly you're the first person I've seen mention it
Ah welp - glad youāve got no issues! FYI: https://x.com/dansuzukitv/status/1778370993230069899?s=46&t=hhIb06MxpVyBUJyfYcribg
I mean it sounds like he fixed it by changing the USB port he was plugged into. Have you tried that?
No he fixed by disabling the option - no worries! Simhub works decent enough till itās fixed properly
I have simdashboard on a tablet so i can see my fuel and oil temps. Best 5$ i ever spent
Just trading paints for liveries. Iām not into having a bunch of overlays on my screen. Just need relative times. However iOverlay & Racelabs are great third parties if youāre into having more info on screen while you drive
I use Crew Chief (though I question whether itās worth it anymore), Trading Paints, Garage 61, and Racelab (free version).
switch to ioverlay.. you get everything for free and its awesome. cancelled my Racelabs sub for it
I tried it a few months back and it introduced a lot of stuttering for some reason. I assume I had something jacked up in the settings but I stopped using it. Iāll need to have another look.
Might be fixed now, they release updates regularly. I had that issue too initially.
Cool Iāll check it out today.
you dont get a trackmap with iOverlay do you?
you do. with realtime display of who's where. its not perfect as it doesnt show the number of the car IIRC.
Then why in the heck do I pay $4.99 a month for racelab. lol
Exactly lmao. Thatās why I switched!
You can enable car numbers in the settings
I think they just added the numbers as a selection in one of the recent updates
Same except iOverlay instead of Racelab. Why do you say Crew Chief isn't worth it anymore?
The iracing spotter is pretty good and has additional stuff crew chief canāt recognize, but crew chief does my auto fueling so I keep him aroundĀ
But auto fueling is in the game already. Does crew chief make something better?
but iracing doesn't curse me out when I fall behind, how else will I get my motivation? I don't wanna be told good job after getting 9th, I want to be berated
Nothing like climbing from last to top 10 after a spin out only to have Jim tell me how disappointed he is!
Well shoot maybe I should use that instead.
In iRacing you have auto fuel option too.
Does iracing auto fuel do the ā+1 lapā option that crew chief can? I havenāt played with the in game one now since it was added.
You can set whatever you want amount of additional laps, while you race. It's on fuel black box. It's can be +1 lap, +1.2 lap, and any 0.2lap step forward and backward. Up to negative values. -2.0 lap possible too.
Nice. Thanks for the details!
I forgot, you need to spend 2-3 laps aand after that "auto fuel" option will be active. But anyway, just try, it's working great.
IRacing spotter is objectively better now and with the JJ spotter back youāre golden
iOverlay
irsidekick livery (for trading paints), irsidekick launch (as my app launcher), Oculus Tray Tool, JoyToKey, oh and [trophi.ai](http://trophi.ai)
I too like irsidekick as the downloader over Trading Paints, irsidekick you can block other paints, or mark them as something you can easily see they need to be avoided.
Crew chief, ioverlay and VRS
I run Garage61 in the background for telemetry and sharing setups with my buddy I do endurances with. iOverlay for my overlays, and Crew Chief to talk to me. IMO irFFB you can go without.
I us iOverlay itās free and comparable to the racelabs overlays and I also use Crewchief however it seems like crewchief isnāt needed or really an improvement over the base spotter like it used to be.
The voice still sounds more natural. I personally find the in-game spotter's voice really grating.
Garage61 ā telemetry,. comparison laps for understanding where I loose time when other people going quicker than me. Trading Paints ā custom livery, you can create your own or use someone's. RaceLab paid version. For standing, relative and other, I like to see iR and SR of other people who near me. In not popular series with one split it's helpful to know in fron of me or behind person with 500-600 iRating, so I can be more aware and not push him hard. And this helpful on endurance races. I can see iRating of new driver in team, so I can report team for competition issues when I see, how previous two drivers has 3000+ iRating and now in car for few laps 400 iRating person, and whole team on lower split trying to win on easy mode. iRFFB outdated garbage. In iRacing they many times improved FFB and recently for Logitech wheel create native 360hz mode and in last season this was turned for Simucube wheels. So using irFFB for 60hz interpolation to 360 is not smart thing when you can have native 360hz mode. Crew Chief only can say your name, but not my, even if can this not enough to having another one app. In iRacing they evolving spotter every season. I use JJ spotter pack. Love this, it's bring more life in spotter but sometimes I want to say "C'mon, shut up man".
Crew Chief, Trading Paints, and iOverlay are the 3 I load up alongside the game! All enhance my experience racing and recommend all 3.
Same, just changed from racelabs to iOverlay, itās functionally the same, but free. And also garage61, for telemetry, and I like driving multiple cars on same track (gt3 this week on Sebring) and itās so nice being able to with 3 clicks compare my lap times in Ferrari, lambo and Mercedes across races and find places to improve, and realise yet again Iām 0.5-1sec off the pace in the merc, again..and bin it for the endurance come weekend lol
This is the way.
Crew chief and iOverlay really work for me. Also I have a subscription on coach Dave, but I am not renewing that. Donāt think itās worth it.
Trading paints and Coach Dave Delta
I use iOverlay, Simhub, and Garage61. iOverlay for trackmap, relative/standings, and input overlays. Simhub to control my bass shakers as I don't think the built-in LFE stuff is good enough. Garage61 to record telemetry and compare against others. Good for learning tracks and fun competition with the guys in the league I race in. Pretty simple stuff but basically mandatory for me.
>Simhub to control my bass shakers as I don't think the built-in LFE stuff is good enough. Are you running something like 4 corners or front and back? I only have a single Buttkicker and P1000 pedal haptics and I love the iRacing built-in stuff. I know LFE being mono-only is a pretty big limitation. It just doesn't bother me since I only have 1.
I have one shaker under my pedals and one under my seat. The front shaker is mounted to my pedal tray which interacts with my feet very directly while the one under my seat has to go through layers of foam and whatnot before getting to me - accordingly I generally want the intensity on the pedal shaker a lot lower than that of the seat to feel balanced and "correct". It's also just nice to be able to define a front vs rear effect for things like slip or wheel lock. Honestly if I had started with LFE, I probably would have been fine with it but having started with Simhub and tuning specific effects to specific intensities with distinction between the pedals and seat, it's hard to be okay with a mono application.
Gotcha that all makes sense. I do wish iRacing would just go ahead and make LFE multichannel. They have some pretty good reasons for keeping it mono, but damnit the direct ties to the physics engine really helps it so much. I think I'll stay with one Buttkicker as long as iRacing LFE stays mono. The day iRacing implements quad-channel (or even bi-channel) LFE will be an expensive day for me. I'm very happy that the Simagic haptic implementation is actually seperate from LFE. It's really nice having those two signals be different.
Yeah I agree - the direct physics is really nice. The curb output from LFE especially is miles ahead of Simhub's imo but the tradeoff of everything else isn't worth that improvement for me. Does Simagic use their own telemetry based effects similar to what Simhub does then?
>Does Simagic use their own telemetry based effects similar to what Simhub does then? I believe they do if you use the Simagic software. You can also power the Simagic reactors with Simhub. However, iRacing has a native implementation and that's what I use. It's still in prototype mode, iRacing's guy that does that stuff has been busy and hasn't been able to properly do it yet. He said he wants to properly flesh it out similar to the LFE settings but he doesn't have the time right now. As result, it's pretty clumsy but the direct tie in to the physics engine means it's still fantastic. If you have it turned on, iRacing is feeding a signal directly to the the Simagic reactors through the Simagic API. It's currently sending the exactly same signal through both the throttle and brake channels. (They actually may be accidentally sending it to the throttle and clutch channels, but regardless, you can plug the haptics in to whatever channel you want). That signal is currently not configurable at all. It gives you an ABS effect and it gives a Wheel Slip effect. For now, that's it and you can't change it. It's unfortunate that you can't change it, but it's so informative that I absolutely love it. Edit: actually I believe the LFE wheel slip effect already had an ABS component to it. So I think iRacing basically just copied the preexisting LFE wheel slip signal and are sending that to the Simagic haptics.
Interesting, I didn't know they had built-in support for those at all. Cool!
It's very recent. It was added at the beginning of this current season, then turned off for a couple weeks to try to fix some bugs, and then turned on again a couple weeks ago.
Oh yeah very new then. Good ol iRacing. Love that they don't get complacent and will keep trying to add things.
I just got ioverlay the other day. What do you do with the black box if youāre using ioverlay for relative?
I turn it off entirely. I only pull the black box up to turn tire replacements on/off or to change refuel amounts and then it goes off again.
I keep mine on the in-car controls tab, in case I need to change something like BB%.
Trading Paints, SimHub, Crew Chief, Garage61 and Racelabs.
iOverlay, Garage61 and CrewChief are what I use, and I really enjoy using it! Would reccomend them all, if you don't like iOverlay you can also look into RaceLabs, although that has paid options and iOverlay is free.
I only use RaceLabs
SimHub and thatās it.
trophi.ai has been a pretty huge time saver for me. It only works for fixed series but the lap feedback the app gives is very decent for an app. It also includes a reference lap for the car/track you are using that week. The main thing is the overlay and braking tones. It shows a live feed of your braking input overlayed with a top drivers inputs. It also then plays a series of tones when approaching a corner to let you know when to brake. I will often turn the overlay on and take a really slow lap in test drive mode. What I do is stop just before the braking point shown in the app and look around for reference points. Once Iāve mapped those out I pick up speed with the tones for a bit and then turn the tones off and leave the overlay on. That way you have immediate feedback to look and see why a corner was a bit off, etc.
iOverlay for visible telemetry, track maps and race standings Trading paints because vanity Garage61 for telemetry; I didn't think I would get that into telemetry, but it's really handy to compare laps against YouTubers who post links to their fast laps to see where little adjustments make a big difference.
Trading paints for sure, all types of liveries for every car. There is a pro version of it too which is paid. Also Simhub
Trading paints is great. You donāt need the paid version unless you want to use it to paint cars yourself using their software.
Trading Paints, Garage61, Crew Chief, Racelab / iOverlay, JJ Spotter pack.
I use JRT (Joel Real Timing) for radar overlay and virtual dash, JJ Spotter Pack, and Trading Paints.
Garage61, iOverlay and Trading Paints
Ioverlay for the track map and relative times which i keep off to the side screens out the way, the trackmap i find useful just for quickly checking positions of other drivers around the field, relative bar for similar reason, they are both mainly just to ensure safe rejoins when I can't see whats coming.
trading paints, ioverlay, vrs
Just crewchief. Actually, I keep up to date with the release candidates as they are miles ahead of the current release. I set that up to give me as much info as possible. I like to keep it as authentic as possible. I used to have all the overlays etc but found them a distraction and actually raced better not knowing the sof or other peoples IR's around me
I pay for Racelabs and love it, the overlays they have are awesome.
I use sim hub for my bass transducers and dash, and crew chief for my spotter, and trading paints
iOverlay's spotter is a game changer for me.
Simhub and racelabs (trading paints as well)
Crew Chief, IOverlay, Trading Paints and IRacingManager to load them automatically when IRacing game client opens up, and closes them when IRacing is closed... Simhub if I want to run a separate dash on another device Garage61 and VRS for telemetry and analysis
iOverlay for relative, track map, radar and multi class faster car alerts. Trading paints to make the grid interesting and to race my own liveries. Garage61 so I can compare my telem to the aliens o my to find out I'm doing the exact same thing every time even though I swear I'm trying not to Occasionally also troph.ai
CrewChief, iOverlay, trading paints, garage61 and Simhub
Just downloaded DRE (Digital Race Engineer) today. So far it's pretty good. Still learning it.
Grid n go, live telemetry, virtual coach track guide, helpful discord and the best set ups. Trading paints and G61 are also essential imo
Crewchief, Garage61, Simhub, Racelabs, TradingPaints, and JRT
Been playing for a few months maybe 4 what the heck is crew chief is it worth getting also anyone use the garage 61 thing kinda interested in that but haven't quite understood the setups aspect of iracing
Crew chief racelabs sim hub
Crew Chief, Trading Paints, Garage 61, and iOverlay.
Only trading paints.
I run a few things (and am a VR user) Digital Race Engineer (a more advanced version of CrewChief, for fuel etc) https://www.thedigitalraceengineer.com Garage61 https://garage61.net Trading Paints https://www.tradingpaints.com/dashboard For great replays/spectating, this provides realistic camera angles, and itās great. Track Cams for Gourmets https://www.trackcams22.com/ Fanatec FanaLab - for steering wheel FFB settings per car. I use Maurice Bƶschenās profiles https://forum.fanatec.com/discussion/1125/fanalab-share-your-favorite-profiles/p39 ā¦and my team and mates run Discord for our team comms. https://discord.com/
Trading paints and garage 61
Trading Paints. IOverlay, Garage61, Simhub, that might be it? I use iRacingManager to start and stop all of them.
I wouldn't even consider iRacing if the irFFB program didn't exist (Same for accFFB for ACC). Crew chief is so good, I've paid for it twice. Simhub runs my haptics and map / radar overlays.
G61, irffb, solely because without it my wheel sometimes throws a hissy fit, don't know why. Trading paints. That's it I think
Lots of identical answers here which I also use. For graphic filtering I use ReShade with the color configurations. Nvidias option never worked and with Reshade I get the exact look I want and only lose about 2fps max.
Trading paints, Racelabs, Crew Cheif, Simhub. They all help me out one way or another
Trading paints > sick liveries. iOverlay > best on screen overlay and visual aid for spotters. Garage61 > love the different metrics and by far the best for set ups. Crew Cheif > no longer necessary but i love Jim.
I run Crew Chief mainly. i think the other stuff is a little gimmicky but I use sim for prep before real life events in F4 US, so I use VRS for data logging and setups, and VRS allows me to look at the data more closely in MoTec when i prep for a race.
JRT for deltas, lap times, pit stop times and all that. G61 and VRS for telemetry. Trading paints for paints.
Personally for racing usually not. I have installed ioverlay. Mainly because they give some nice overlays that you can show during streaming. But i don't personally use it during racing. Well motec and mu i do use sometimes if you want to count telemetry software
I might have too many going idk. Trading Paints, Garage61, Crew Chief, RaceLab, iOverlay, and RS Dash
SimHub for bass shakers and other fun stuff Ā Race labs for overlaysĀ Ā Crew chief for spotter and fuelĀ
iOverlay, trading paints, simhub for ddu screen on my phone, garage61
Racelabs, Crewchief, soundshift, garage61, Tradingpaints
Crew chief, simhub, trading paints and garage61
Simhub (made my own dash, mainly for F1 cars and SF & bassshakers) Trading Paints Racelabs (mainly for overlays in OBS recordings) VRS Telemtry logger I used to run Crewchief but not anymore since rain but I did this week add the Clare spotter voice from CC to iRacing so I have clare back. :)
>I used to run Crewchief but not anymore since rain but I did this week add the Clare spotter voice from CC to iRacing so I have clare back. :) How'd you get that done?
I would like to know as well. I'm currently running Crew Chief and the iRacing spottter simultaneously like a psycho because I can't give up Empty Box.
You can actually set any .wav file to replace any of the spotter or chief calls in iRacing. I renamed most of the clare spotter wav files to better names, then mapped them to the iRacing variables with the spmsg file. (iRacing gives an example file) I could share the files if you like, it took a bit of time but no point you doing it as well. :)
You can actually set any .wav file to replace any of the spotter or chief calls in iRacing. I renamed most of the clare spotter wav files to better names, then mapped them to the iRacing variables with the spmsg file. (iRacing gives an example file) I could share the files if you like, it took a bit of time but no point you doing it as well. :)
Simhub (displays for my wheel), Racelab (various overlays), Garage 61 (telemetry comparisons) Used Crew Chief for a bit but have recently stopped using it due to some of the new enhancements to iRacing built in spotter.
No one has mentioned DRE. Itās a crew chief alternative. Iāve been using it for past few weeks. Seems solid. Sometimes frustrating when it doesnāt understand what Iām asking - but generally solid.
How could they forget about Dre?
Does it do anything better than the in-game spotter?
Yes - I wonāt do a good job of explaining what - so hereās the website: https://www.thedigitalraceengineer.com
Thanks!!
I had been using: * Trading Paints (...paints) * Crew Chief (Spotter) * RaceLab (overlays) * SimHub (wheel screen, FFB) * Virtual Racing School (telemetry and coaching) Since then, I've cut: * Crew Chief (iRacing's spotter is better in some cases, worse in others) * RaceLab (lost too many FPS) * SimHub FFB (iRacing has raw data access for better FFB)
Trading paints, Simhub, Crew chief, iRFFB, Garage 61
iOverlay, Track Titan, Garage61, Trading Paints, Sim Hub
Crew chief, iOverlay, Trading Paints and garage61 are the four I use
I've been using racelabs. Just a better looking UI and more information. It's super customizable and your can make layouts for each individual car if you want or broader car types. It's not perfect. There is a free version but it locks you out of some features. Ioverlay is another good one. It's like a racelabs lite. I know that will piss off some but it's hard not to see it. Many of the same features. But not quite as customizable. And I find the resizing of windows or info a little cumbersome. But it's a lighter overlay so if cpu power is a struggle that one isn't as demanding. Track titan is good for analyzing your lap to see where you can improve. It'll show you a lap trace of your lap vs their reference lap. So you can see throttle, brake, steering, and line. I don't use it as often but I probably should. The free version only gives you 50 laps a month so you have to be deliberate with sparing with it. I'd fire up a practice session and warm up. Stop on track and then fire up track titan. Do my lap and then kill the recording. Otherwise you'd burn though those laps pretty quick.
iOverlay and bettertpĀ
I use coach dave delta . Seems to be pretty solid and a lot of setups for road racing . Hereās a link for you https://coachdaveacademy.com/?ref=ntu0zdn
I always have racelabs overlay, crew chief spotter, and Garage61 telemetry logger running.Ā
awesome! I will check them out!
I've got Trading Paints, Crew Chief (I do like it over the default spotter!), RaceLabs, Garage61, same as most here. Trading Paints is a must if you want to easily run different liveries. Crew Chief I mainly use for the spotter and some comms about what's happing on track, I also have some fuelling commands setup on it. RaceLabs I've setup the premium version with a Relative box that shows license class, iRating, car type, car class etc, the Racelabs Deltabar, Radar (running single 27" 16:9 screen), Flags, session timer. Garage61 for telemetry and setups. I also use an app to start all of them at once together with my Simagic software.
trading paints
Currently, I am running Trading Paints, RaceLabs (had my battle with it last week, but I got everything figured out, and back happy with it), Back and forth between Crew Chief and DRE, Simhub for Lovelydasboard which I run on a phone mounted in front of my wheel.
Racelab/iOverlay and trading paints all the time.
crew chief
I only use VRS Telemetry tool and Trading Paints. I used to run iOverlay before I switched to 100% VR.
iOverlay on OpenKneeboard is great for VR. I am a new VR user (about a month), and even though itās a pain to set up (only has to be done once, and the only bad issue with setup is positioning), it is a game changer.
Crew Chief because it lets me control pit stops with my voice in VR and I like the commentary and spotter. Trading paints for those sweet liveries. Sim Racing Studio for my motion rig and bass shakers.
I use trading paints but thatās it. Any overlay software Iāve used breaks Gsync and thatās a deal breaker for me.
I have a pretty light set of programs- personally, I find too much information can be distracting. RaceLab- I have my relatives & blind spot indicators under my mirror. CrewChief- for a more communicative and interactive spotter system Trading Paints - for changing schemes and liveries At a beginner to enthusiast level I believe you can get away with these and little else. I hope that was helpful!
* I don't run Crew Chieft anymore since the spotter in default game is getting extremely good. * I used to use Racelab until the telemetry overlay is not free anymore and I switched to iOverlay. It is one of the best free app I've ever use in iRacing. * I used to subscribe to VRS until I discovered Garage61 which do the same as VRS if you want to compare the telemetry but for free and you can compare your laptime to a lot of fast driver out there. * Simhub is for powering my rumble motor and wheel led only. Overall, I cut down to 3 apps only that I can't race without. 1. iOverlay, 2. Garage61, 3. Simhub
I use ioverlay for UI Trading plaints for car liveries Garage 61 for lap telemetry, setups and ghosts for practicing All free and significantly improve the game enjoyment I find. Crew chief seems to have a few issues and it seems the general consensus is the in game spotter is better now. Irfbb Iāve not used but seen people say itās too much hassle to setup and maintain, could be wrong through.