I am running iRacing with the following.
ASUS Gaming Desktop ROG Strix GA15DH-EH562 Ryzen 5 3rd Gen 3600X (3.80 GHz) 8 GB DDR4 512 GB SSD NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Windows 10 Home 64-bit.
I purchased it in the heat of Covid buying spree in Spring. It was about $900 from Newegg. It works well running 3 monitors
At the beginning of all this, it was still possible to get a pc at a reasonable price. It seems everything, even previous gen, is priced msrp at least, now.
Well I was wondering if I would be able to run it on my desktop without ruining it, I can purchase additional RAM since thatāll be the only game Iām gonna use on the desktop. Thereās currently 8 RAM on it with around 7.84 RAM still usable. I check on steam and it says that the recommended amount of RAM is 8 RAM, so I would need to get more RAM so I can still use the pc for other stuff too. But I check online and some people say the iracing needs 16 RAM to work properly. Can you guys give me more info on if its possible to use my daily computer to play iracing (its a desktop, not a laptop) and the recommended RAM?
Well I was wondering if I would be able to run it on my desktop without ruining it, I can purchase additional RAM since thatāll be the only game Iām gonna use on the desktop. Thereās currently 8 RAM on it with around 7.84 RAM still usable. I check on steam and it says that the recommended amount of RAM is 8 RAM, so I would need to get more RAM so I can still use the pc for other stuff too. But I check online and some people say the iracing needs 16 RAM to work properly. Can you guys give me more info on if its possible to use my daily computer to play iracing (its a desktop, not a laptop) and the recommended RAM?
Thatās a perfectly fine gaming laptop. Sure, most folks run 16 mb ram, but if it runs and plays well for you as is, thatās good.
Fortunately iracing isnāt very demanding and allows you to set graphics from potato quality up to very high.
Most laptops arenāt very expandable. I am not sure if it makes any sense to add ram.
if I still donāt know quite how this RAM thing works. so letās say I have a total of 8 RAM left and the game uses 2 RAM, after downloading the game would my computer have 6 RAM left?
Iām asking since my computer has 7.84 RAM remaining and the recommended amount of RAM for iracing is 8 RAM, so it looks my computer doesnāt have enough RAM to work properly. However, also on steam, it says the minimum amount of RAM needed is 2 RAM, whatās the difference between 8 RAM and 2 RAM and how can I purchase iRacing with the minimum requirements?
RAM stands for Random Access Memory, which is completely different from your computerās storage. You may have heard the term āhard driveā or āSSDā come up when discussing computer specs - this is your storage. Whenever you download files or games, it is getting saved to your storage device, not to RAM. RAM is what your PC uses to temporarily store information for programs that are actively in use for quick access, since RAM is going to be much quicker (but also much smaller) than the storage device you have.
Think of it like a storage cabinet vs the top of your desk. You store all of your documents in your filing cabinet (hard drive), and then pull them out to the top of your desk (RAM) when using them. When youāre done using those documents, they go back into your filing cabinet, which frees up your desk for other things.
Youāll probably be able to download and run iRacing with 8GB of RAM (and 7.84GB left in use after booting up the computer, your operating system will always be using some of that). The amount of other stuff you have downloaded doesnāt factor into it. You also wonāt ruin your computer or anything by trying it out. Either itāll work well enough to play it, or itāll just run poorly. Either way your PC will be fine.
Oh wait, so RAM means thatās how much GB of RAM is in operation while Iām playing the game?
For future builds, 16 mb ram is common. Ram like Jake said stores active memory stuff. In the old days, your web page tabs would slowly fill up ram if you had too many open, I think.
Anyways ram is where your programs live while they are running. More is good. 32mb is common for people that do video editing or intense photoshop work.
If thereās not enough ram, things slow down a lot.
@Bimodal_Rocket I think you mean GB, not MB.
@da_sniffa32 RAM sticks are actual physical devices attached to your motherboard, and each stick has a certain amount of space, adding up to something like 8GB, 16GB, etc. When game developers provide minimum or recommended RAM specs, they are talking about the actual space you have available - in your case you have 8GB of RAM available. As you open stuff or do things on your computer, that RAM gets used, but thatās fine because itās not permanent storage space. Devs take this into account when making recommendations, and that space is only ever used temporarily. Your PC will determine how much RAM to use for what application at a given time, and then free space up for other applications as needed. You still have 8GB of RAM, which is within the developers recommendations. Just donāt try playing iRacing while rendering 4k video or while browsing through 100+ Google Chrome tabs at the same time.
This in a nutshell! 
8 is fine. And yah I got the units wrong.
What ram looks like (desktop):
With fancy heat spreader:
Naked RAM
Do any of you guys run iRacing or another sim on your regular daily computers? Iām thinking about downloading a sim but donāt wanna buy whole new computer and was wondering if the ābasicā CPU could handle the sim
The only way to find out is by trying it. Every ādailyā computer has different components, just run the game and if it works, it works, if not then you know you will need an upgrade. I believe I racing offers 50% memberships year round to new members (at least they used to) so you would only be spending around $6-7 for a one month subscription
Itāll run fine, provided youāre not gonna be using your daily pc to run other programs simultaneously.
I run it on a bootcamp iMac which is my daily pc, runs fine. Some point Iāll buy a dedicated mini pc n mount it under the race seat.
This might answer your question directly. Iracing system test:
http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/Client/iRacing/?apikey=dec37c7f-8819-45d4-94f2-f33cf0956712
Hijacking the thread a little, what add ins do you guys run if any? I run Kapps, tradingpaints and Crew chief.
I like ispeed for the sector time callouts. I also use crew chief.
I like racelab apps better than Kapps, I ran into issues with Kapps causing a weird random screen blip when it was running.
Also use Crew Cheif.
Using Pure Driving School for setupsā¦itās much easier for me to not have to spend hours perfecting a setup, pure driving setups get me close enough that I can get in a car and learn to drive it and know itās close to optimal and then I can make individual preference tweaks from there.
Andy, does the radar work for you? (Racelabs). It doesnāt seem to do very well for me. Love the standings overlay.
I run CrewChief and Trading Paints and thatās it. I find having anything other than the vital gap information (F3 black box) and the the various car temps/status to be pretty distracting.