The most expensive one in use is the Mercedes one, it takes up a 4,000sqft area and i have seen pics of it where the driver goes into a pod that is controlled by a X/Y axis motor. Only problem with this this one is that it is noisy and consumes a lot of power. It is only is in use for short amount of times, i do know they also have a static one in the simulator wing of Brackley as well. Both the Mercedes ones are based on the same design as the Toyota LMP1 simulator, that is based off a Airbus A320 simulator actuator in order to give better sensations to the drivers. Those are the best ones in Motorsport.
The next best are the McLaren, Renault (Designed and built by McLaren Applied Technologies), Ferrari and Red Bull/Toro Rosso simulators. The McLaren ones are around £20m without software as you have to supply that, McLaren update theirs weekly after every race. The Ferrari one is built by another company, however it was brought into accuracy by De La Rosa who has done more simulator driving than most, however his time sim driving has been getting caught and passed by many drivers recently as many teams have a driver in their sim when each session is ongoing on track, those drivers are often doing 9+ hours a day on Fridays of GP weekends, some teams often have two drivers now to split the work. As for Red Bull, their new simulator was installed in December of last year, their old one is in Faenza now for Toro Rosso to use with one of last years tubs onboard for each simulator, Red Bull made a simulator only tub i also am led to believe. This cost Red Bull £40m and £17m for Toro Rosso as they needed to get a new building to house their sim now.
As for Graphics, as per the tech industry, they are upgraded each and every year, i believe they have 2 1080Ti powering the 4K Projectors with a Zeon based CPU powering the simulator, the data is fed into a second machine for analysis similar to a GP car. Its a massive machine and data centre, it takes about 20-25 mins to load up each circuit model as Red Bull went and laser scanned each track they could and replicated the ones they couldn't via other methods. Red Bull have spent a wedge getting their sims up to standards that not even the most popular tech guys on youtube (Linus/Jayz/etc...) would be able to comprehend. Williams new sim was built via part of a £35m gift to them last year from the Stroll family, (£20m for the simulator/£15m for the test programme in a 2 year old Williams, Haas use the old Manor simulator that has been upgraded by Ferrari and outside contractors that are good at this technology.
VR is something that the teams won't use for a long time as the tech is still in its infancy for their levels, consumers with Forza its there, but not for F1 teams.
Sauber are the only team without a simulator. They passed on taking Caterhams old one as it was going for £700k when it was auctioned off, it went to a UK based motorsport team that isn't in F1.
Most teams sims are running more or less every day these days, most teams are running a young driver or a test/development driver in there and or a older driver that isn't competing any longer in F1. I hear Liuzzi does work for STR these days, and Alex Lynn still does work for Williams whenever his schedule allows. Teams need drivers for these things, and theres plenty around these days who are willing to do a days work for £1,000 a day or up to £100,000 a year. Simulators are expensive and sometimes don't get the coronation correct, as Hamilton has voiced many times, but many drivers like Rosberg said they were great for simulating certain failures.
Mercedes Simulator:
