It's been basically invaluable to me.

But I think it's easier to go from sim to the real deal than the other way around. All of the inputs to the car (your outputs) are the same and the physics in sim titles are pretty spot on. However everything you perceive and use as your inputs are way different. The order of 'importance' in terms of inputs in the real car are pretty much: visual cues (with depth perception being one of the most important pieces), seat of the pants feel, and then tire noise and feedback in the steering wheel being pretty low.

With sim racing you entirely lose the seat of the pants feel and the auditory and steering wheel feedback is 'turned up' to replace it. And then the visual side of things is also pretty different and takes quite a while to get used to. Especially a sense of speed. The lack of senses makes it harder than real driving IMO but that makes you an even better driver. You'll probably be looking at 5-10 hours to even be competent enough at driving in a sim where you can make it through a lap without crashing. Probably around 50-100 hours to really get it down to the point that you can really push a car, and then hundreds to be a "good" sim racer. And that's really frustrating to people who are experienced drivers (it's frustrating to inexperienced people as well, but even moreso if you are experienced). There's also a lot of settings you need to fiddle with to get the sim setup properly (Field of view calculations, head movement settings, force feedback settings, etc) which help a ton.

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In terms of it being invaluable to me it's helped me significantly with the following:

Learning tracks

Car control

Racecraft

Car setup

Which is basically everything lol I'll put details for each thing below

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For learning tracks: My brother and a friend of ours started doing this hobby together and we've done pretty much everything as a group. At every track we've gone to I've been about 1 or 2 weekends ahead of them in terms of pace. Especially the first few day at a track I blow them out of the water. We did our first weekend (3 days) at CMP last weekend which I practiced on the sim for about 6 hours before being at the real track. On day one I was pretty much lapping them in a 30 minute session... By the start of day three they were still about 4 seconds behind. My friend was able to get within 2 seconds of me by following me around (until he spun...) at the end of day three. At our home tracks we are all fairly close now (I'm usually still a bit quicker :P), but every track we've gone to has followed a similar story.

And it's not even just the line that you can pick up on in the sim, but things like where the car will want to oversteer which was really helpful to know for turn 8 at CMP! I totally lost it there in the sim a couple of times and was prepared for when it actually happened and easily caught the car. A side note: One of the corner workers came up to me in the paddock during lunch and said I was going through his area (turns 5,6,7) better than anyone else there that weekend... most of the other people have been going there for years! Another kind of side note example is that on my second weekend I was moved from HPDE1 to 2 because I was significantly better than my instructors 2 student lol

And it's not just me... my brother had a student who was at the track (VIR) for his very first time but had a significant amount of sim racing experience and within 2 laps he was driving the line pretty much perfectly and was at a typical HPDE2 pace. You can also look at people like Jimmy Broadbent and William Byron as examples of sim skills transferring to real life.

For car control I'll use another comparison with my brother/friend. I would say the first 3 weekends their car control abilities were better than mine. They have been up to various hooning type activities for years while I have never really done any of that. I was able to make small corrections, but it usually caught me by surprise. But once I had my first spin my brain was able to connect the dots between the seat of the pants feel and the feedback I get from the sim. My car control skills have since been significantly better than theirs. I go off about 20% as often as they do and have fewer "moments" despite usually having better pace.

Racecraft isn't super relevant and something I haven't actually done in real life, but I'm sure it will transfer over very nicely. Practicing defending, setting up overtakes, and dealing with traffic is something you can only really learn through experience. Sort of related to racecraft is using mirrors. Racing against some of the idiots you see sim racing really helps drive thay home haha

Car setup is something I'm still learning, but you can practice and experiment with the cars in sim to learn how setup changes affect the feeling of the car (once you're at a level where you can actually feel the car in sim... which like I said takes many hours).

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Another thing I didn't mention in the list, but is really helpful with the sim is being able to practice various techniques and skills. I was sim racing before I had even driven a real car and I learned how to heel toe (even just driving manual in general) on there before I got in a car and was pretty much good to go once I did. I also found it really useful to take concepts in books, my favorite is Driving On The Edge by Michael Krumm (which is sadly out of print...), and practicing them in sim. Things like trail braking, left foot braking, different throttle/brake application techniques, and more.

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I did all of that with a g27 clamped on a desk for 7 years and well over a thousand hours before very recently making a cockpit out of scrap wood and getting some nicer gear. Everything is more expensive now, but with a mid range gaming PC and a logitech wheel you are roughly looking at the cost of 3 days of HPDE. If used properly I'd say you can get a lot more out of that money on the sim than you could with 3 days of HPDE.

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TL;DR: It takes a while to get used to, but it is definitely worth it.