not exactly sure why these games like to compare themselves to iRacing... iRacing ain't the prettyist... but what iRacing strives for is true simulation... true track and car feel... so of course other games like this CARS alpha and F1 2011 will look better... but anyway...

http://www.virtualr.net/c-a-r-s-vs-iracing-video-comparison/

Maybe a couple of things:
- it's the most recent race sim on the PC
- it's the race sim where most of the sim drivers currently reside
- they want to lure some of those racers away with pretty baubles

"Oooh, look! Shiny shiny! Purdy!!!"

I think rFactor is still king of the hill in the sim community, but there is no point in comparing it to anything because it is so old. Same with iracing, it's graphics aren't meant to be like all these modern games, where they bloom the #%&*$# out of everything.

rfactor is king simply because of Modding. So many possibilities. With that said iracing is probably the best True Racing Sim we have right now.

I have both sims and iRacing looks much better to me, brighter and truer to life.I think it probably is more accurate too, but I have not yet been able to uninstall rF.

I will say that CARS is the best looking race sim I've seen yet.

Looking yes but a sim is more tha just looks. I would go so far as to say that looks, at least for me, are second to physics and realism of the car and track.

Definitely.
In my opinion there is just no discussion, iRacing is the best looking sim out there because the graphics are not spoiled by all the blur, bloom, sepia tone and lens flare effect at every corner (CARS has them all already at this stage).
Since CARS is in pre-alpha, this is way too early to judge what the final product will look like, but as it stands it is miles behind iRacing, which is so simple and so sharp in the graphics.

I really wish some of you guys would give ARCA Sim Racing a try. The physics are better than IRacing. They have been slow to get new content out, but they're about to release Trucks and Nationwide, as well as Legend cars (I've got the Legends beta) FREE. They're also working on Version 2, based on the new engine that RFactor 2 is using, so it's kind of on hold until ISI gets the bugs worked out on their end.

Most of the racing is league racing, so pick-up races are kind of hard to come by. The race lobby looks pretty empty most of the time because a lot of the leagues are using direst IP connections. The Dillon brothers race in a couple of leagues there, and sometime you'll see McReynolds and a few ARCA guys there. I raced against Almindinger, the Dillons, Joey Logano, and a few others there before.

Unfortunately the TSF guys aren't great at public relations and they're working on a small budget compared to IRacing, but they do have a great product. It's installed at Daytona USA and in Bass Pro Shops.

If any of you decide to try it, hop into the HsT Endurance League server. We'll be glad to help with set-ups, etc.

TS info at: www.havocst.net