How to optimise your graphics in iRacing (2024)

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Everyone always wants to get the best out of their hardware, especially in a big Sim such as iRacing. So, we’ve trauled through the settings pages so you don’t have to.

  • Written By Mia Swensen
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How to optimise your graphics in iRacing (2)

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  • Calibration, Equipment, iRacing
  • February 22, 2023

While iRacing is generally a quite optimized and easy to run game even on low-end systems, it can quickly become taxing with higher resolution displays or especially in VR. We’ve run through all of the settings in the game and narrowed down the biggest ones to look at when looking to quickly optimize your game, without having to flick through each setting to see which is losing the most frames.

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The Settings

It’s safe to say there are quite a few options to get your head around, so let’s take a dive into which ones are most useful to adjust.

Graphics/Performance Slider

Here is where we’ll start to get your graphics settings in the ballpark of where the best settings for your hardware is going to be. Be sure to uncap your frame rate and start with the max quality setting, and check what your frame rate is. You usually want to aim for whatever your monitor’s refresh rate is. So for instance, if you have a 60hz monitor, you’ll want to be getting at least 60fps. If you have a 144hz monitor, you’ll want to try to get 144hz. If you aren’t able to reach your monitor’s native refresh rate, you’ll want to lower the slider down until you do.

Details

Beginning at the top left of the graphics page, you will see parameters such as Sky/Clouds, Car details, Track details, Pit objects, Crowds, etc. If you want your game to look the best it possibly can, you want to keep all of these on high. If you’re looking for more framerate, it may be a good idea to turn some details such as crowds or pit objects down, however, there are other settings you may want to look at before lowering your car or track details.

Max Cars

The max cars setting changes how many other cars are on track your client requests from the server. By limiting the number of cars on your client, you will only see the number of cars you selected that is closest to you. So for instance, if you selected 10 cars on track, your client will not load any cars other than the 10 nearest to you. While this is useful for better performance and smaller replay sizes, it’s important to note that it may impede your ability to be an effective spotter in some cases.

Anisotropic filtering

Anisotropic filtering cleans up muddy textures from 3D objects when viewed edge-on, making textures clearer from further distances. The performance hit is not very big and it’s likely worth it to run 16x if you can.

Anti-Aliasing

Anti-aliasing is what cleans up rough, jagged edges of polygons on 3D models. While running high AA will give you clean, smooth edges, it will also cost you a lot of video memory. Depending on your system you can likely get away with the maximum for a single screen, however, if you’re running triples or VR, you will likely want to run at 4x or less. In VR you may even find that no anti-aliasing doesn’t bother you and that could allow you to turn other settings up.

Shader Quality

Shader quality is likely not going to need to be lower than high on a single 1080p screen. However, in VR, this can be a framerate killer. In some cases, it may be worth lowering the shader quality to keep the details high, or vice versa depending on where your preference lies.

Cockpit mirrors

While sometimes the only time you might even use your actual mirrors rather than the virtual mirror is in VR, unfortunately, it can significantly impact performance in VR, especially if the high detail in mirrors option is checked (keep that off by the way.) Unfortunately, if you choose to limit the number of mirrors you want to use, you can’t pick which ones you want on and which ones you want off. The game decides for you. It’s likely best to keep this on max – 4 if you decide to use in-game mirrors, or completely off if you only use the virtual mirror.

GPU Memory Limit

This is important to get right as setting it too high could result in random drops in frame rate in some races and instances. Windows is going to use a little bit of your memory, so a good method is to multiply 0.95 by your total GPU memory, and give a 50-100MB buffer. So for example, if your graphics card has 8GB of VRAM, a good safe setting would be 7,500MB.

System memory limit

For this setting you are not going to want less than 1200MB as your max limit, however, if you have more ram to spare, you can get away with investing as much as you want. A good way to determine if you need to invest more ram is by watching the P-bar on the performance window in-game. If you see anything more than a little bit of yellow flickering, you may want to increase your ram limit.

Notes on VR

If you want to make VR gameplay smoother without sacrificing visuals, an option worth considering is reprojection, which allows you to only render half of your headset’s refresh rate (eg if you have a 90hz refresh rate, your game will only render 45fps) while the other half is generated as “artificial frames” in between the real frames, giving you the illusion and smoothness of 90fps with your head movements to prevent sickness with less of the raw hardware requirements of running VR in 90fps.

Conclusion

Hopefully, this guide has helped you find the most important settings to give you smooth gameplay and clear visuals. Remember that if you are hardware limited, you may need to sacrifice one or the other. Try to get as many frames as you can, but remember there isn’t much point in reaching further than the refresh rate of your monitor other than aiming a bit past it for stability, so this is where you can optimize the visuals.

If you want to take your newfound FPS to the track, make sure you check out Coach Dave Academy for some of the best setups available on iRacing and subscribe to our iRacing Setup Subscription for new setups for your favourite series’ every week.

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  • Calibration, Equipment, iRacing

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How to optimise your graphics in iRacing (6)

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How to optimise your graphics in iRacing (2024)

FAQs

How to optimise your graphics in iRacing? ›

Be sure to uncap your frame rate and start with the max quality setting, and check what your frame rate is. You usually want to aim for whatever your monitor's refresh rate is. So for instance, if you have a 60hz monitor, you'll want to be getting at least 60fps.

How do I adjust my graphics performance? ›

Changing graphics card settings to use your dedicated GPU on a Windows computer
  1. Right click on your desktop and select Graphics Properties, or Intel Graphics Settings. ...
  2. In the next window, click on the 3D tab and set your 3D preference to Performance.

What is the recommended RAM for iRacing? ›

The best configuration for iRacing!

We recommend the following configuration: PROCESSOR (CPU) | 8 cores and up – i9-10980XE at 3.00 GHz or AMD Ryzen 9 3900x. MEMORY (RAM) | 32 GB RAM and up. HARD DRIVE (STORAGE) |1TB SSD of storage space.

What is the resolution setting in iRacing? ›

The Resolution Scaling feature in iRacing allows the game to be rendered at a lower resolution, which reduces the processing requirements on the computer. This lower resolution image is then scaled up to match the output resolution of the monitor, resulting in a lower quality image but less strain on the graphics card.

How to improve iRacing graphics? ›

Be sure to uncap your frame rate and start with the max quality setting, and check what your frame rate is. You usually want to aim for whatever your monitor's refresh rate is. So for instance, if you have a 60hz monitor, you'll want to be getting at least 60fps.

How do I maximize my FPS? ›

Here are the best tricks to increase FPS on your Windows 10 gaming machine:
  1. Enable Game Mode in Windows 11 and Windows 10.
  2. Lower your resolution.
  3. Change your game's video settings.
  4. Update your graphics card drivers.
  5. Remove unused programs and bloatware.
  6. Boost your Wi-Fi.
  7. Adjust your monitor's refresh rate.
Nov 21, 2023

How do I completely optimize my graphics card? ›

Ways to boost the GPU performance
  1. Keep the dust off. ...
  2. Ensure your laptop is plugged in. ...
  3. Update your drivers. ...
  4. Using AI-based algorithms. ...
  5. Enabling synchronized monitor refresh rate. ...
  6. GPU Overclocking.
Nov 30, 2023

How do I find my optimal graphics settings? ›

There's no quick method for determining the best quality settings for your system—it's a case where they just need to be tested, and I recommend starting with Nvidia or AMD's suggestions, then raising the quality on textures, lighting, shadows and checking your framerate.

Does RAM increase FPS? ›

RAM can improve frame rates and frame pacing when playing games. Check both capacity and speed when choosing RAM. Know the difference between form factors like DIMM and SO-DIMM. Get at least 16GB of RAM to play modern games, and more if you multitask.

Does iRacing use more CPU or GPU? ›

iRacing is primarily CPU intensive, but the GPU also plays a significant role. The CPU handles most of the calculations and physics simulations in iRacing. Having a powerful CPU is crucial for smooth gameplay and accurate physics representation. The GPU is responsible for rendering graphics and textures in iRacing.

Which GPU for iRacing? ›

Our GPU test data in iRacing
GPUFPS (peak)FPS (av)
NVIDIA 3080 FE (thermal re-padded)170117
EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 FTW3 ULTRA GAMING205145
Aorus GeForce RTX 3080 XTREME Rev 2.0232175
EVGA RTX 2080 Ti180119
3 more rows
Feb 18, 2022

How good of a PC do I need for iRacing? ›

GPU and CPU

For the CPU, iRacing requires a quad-core at a minimum, and iRacing specifically calls out the AMD FX-6300 and Intel Core i5-4430 as minimum. For a GPU, iRacing needs a unit with 2GB onboard, and cites the Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 or ATI Radeon HD 7850. Casey Mahoney suggests you start a little higher.

What makes iRacing so realistic? ›

Superior Physics Engines

We account for high-speed mathematical algorithms, data-driven calculations and dynamic forces to give virtual racers the exact same physical dynamics that real-world drivers experience on the track. Accuracy and realism are the foundations of iRacing.

What does 4x mean in iRacing? ›

Going too far off track awards a 1x, while contact with objects like walls and other barriers and loss of control (i.e., a spin) award 2x for each. Finally, heavy contact is awarded a 4x in paved forms of racing, and 2x in Dirt Oval and Dirt Road.

How do I improve my iRacing score? ›

Keep in mind you want to make clean laps and a lot of corners, so shorter tracks and faster cars work best, but make sure you are comfortable with the combination and you can run clean laps. No loss of control, no bumping into objects. You also need to run at your iRacing license level or higher.

How to fix iRacing lag? ›

Use any 'debug' modes (example: Debug Mode on in the NVidia Control Panel) to reset GPU. d) Try and run the SIM with minimum graphics settings. Start with turning off Shaders and Shadows. j) If you are connecting through a router, please try and bypass your router and connect your PC directly into your modem.

How do I get more FPS streaming? ›

How to Fix Dropped Frames When Streaming
  1. Check the Speed of Your Internet Service. ...
  2. Improve your Wi-Fi. ...
  3. Use a wired connection. ...
  4. Close apps that can cause performance issues. ...
  5. Check your stream settings. ...
  6. Change your encoder. ...
  7. Troubleshoot your webcam. ...
  8. Upgrade your computer.
Feb 9, 2022

What is the FPS button in iRacing? ›

Pressing "F" on your keyboard will enable the framerate meter, which shows several performance statistics for the sim.

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