Right now touring cars are not super popular in terms of competitive online racing, GT racing has engulfed it a bit with much much bigger numbers of drivers. Nevertheless you will find regular touring car racing in iRacing (TCR) and in rFactor 2 and Assetto Corsa (BTCC). Assetto Corsa is the current equivalent to what rFactor was back in the day in terms of the sheer endless availability of mods. Any car or track you can think of, there's a 90% chance it's available in AC. Wait for a sale to get the AC Ultimate version with all the DLCs, which is the version you want to make it compatible with all the mods, when it's for sale you can pick it up for like 10€. There's no better deal in simracing.
In terms of rally sims things are a lot more stagnant as basically RBR is still the king all these years later. Dirt Rally 2.0 and the latest WRC are decent contenders and obviously are waaaaay better graphically but still lack something in terms of physics, albeit RBR is still from an era where the mentality was "more difficult = more realistic", which is something sims have evolved a bit away from. If you do return to RBR look up the Rallysimfans Hungarian mod, it's the current center of the RBR universe, follow instructions on their website and install through them.
If you want competitive online circuit racing, and don't necessarily want to limit yourself to touring cars, iRacing is still the king as it's been for over a decade. The physics are not the best, the graphics are not the best, but the sheer number of players is unparalleled, you can find a race any time of the day for dozens of different kinds of cars, with competitors at your skill level, controlled by driving skill statistics and licenses that make those races feel more serious and more competitive somehow. However be warned that iRacing is way more expensive than any other sim, with a subscription costing ~100€/year, and each car and track around 15€, meaning you're realistically looking at 200 to 400€ your first year of racing and then a recurring expense if you do continue, just on the software and content alone. It does come with a selection of free cars and tracks but you'll obviously want to move on from them.
There are other sims such as Assetto Corsa Competitizione (ACC), a more modern title released after AC, which doesn't have modding and focuses exclusively on GT3 cars and other similar GT categories (GT4, GT2, etc); Raceroom which is the successor of RACE 07 etc but feels a little dated now; Automobilista 2 which is sort of a more graphically appealling Assetto Corsa with an ecletic choice of cars and tracks.
Personally I've tried all of these, I focused on ACC for a couple of years, but for the past year or so I returned to iRacing and gave up on everything else. Once you've already spent a fair bit buying most of iRacing's content it becomes a bit cheaper and this is the justification I give myself, that and the fact the racing is just more intense and more varied. You might prefer to go down another path instead, depending on your preferences.
Edited by noikeee, 06 August 2024 - 13:37.
