How To Take Advantage Of RaceRoom's New Graphics For Screenshots

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RaceRoom Image.jpg
RaceRoom's amazing new lighting. Image Credit: KW Studios
RaceRoom's brand-new graphical overhaul is finally here for sim racers to dive into. Of course, this also benefits virtual photographers - here are some helpful tips.

Raceroom has been an underdog in the world of sim racing for years. Bigger budget titles like iRacing and the Assetto Corsa franchise have overshadowed it for many years. However, over the past year, the team at KW Studios has ramped up its offerings monumentally.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1830960123591741528

First came the new and exciting tyre model players had been calling for. Once implemented, it was a great step forward for the sim's physics and subsequently had players flocking back to the title, at least for a little while. This latest update is a huge step forward for RaceRoom as well: Not only has it improved the graphics monumentally, but there is excitement and buzz around the sim again; something RaceRoom needs to capitalise on.

Which Settings To Change​

It is important to note that you can still adjust and fine-tune exactly what your game looks like for this update. For example, if you are running on an older system, you may not want to sacrifice your FPS for the sake of better graphics. If your hardware can handle it, here are the best settings for the new RaceRoom update.

Image 1.jpeg

RaceRoom video and graphical settings menu.

The most important thing is to fine-tune your settings. Play around with the sliders and do FPS comparisons, it is no good running with the most beautiful-looking graphics, but racing is below 60 FPS. The best way to do this without sacrificing too much graphical quality is to reduce the number of cars visible at any one time, as well as shadow quality. RaceRoom also has handy diagrams showing the impact on CPU, GPU and overall performance for many graphics settings.

This does not necessarily apply to photo mode. Or, well, free cam in replay mode. Make sure that you change your settings to maximise what the game offers when you go into photo mode. Your FPS should not suffer with the replay being a file you play rather than new information your PC has to process.

When in free cam mode, make sure that you assign controls to each of the ‘Free Move’ cameras. These ‘Free Move’ cameras are essential for creating and forcing new angles with the camera that you will not be able to attain with the default setups.

Comparing Pre-update To Post-update Shots​

With RaceRoom’s new lighting and shadows, your placement of the camera is very important. RR‘s photo mode is certainly not the most sophisticated, for example, the lack of photographic terminology of Shutter speed, Aperture and ISO is very apparent once you start trying to perfect your photos.

RaceRoom Comparision.jpeg

Comparison between RaceRoom pre and post-update. Image: KW Studios

RaceRoom’s ‘Photo Mode’ is only accessible through replays, so make sure you save any races that you want to experiment with. These photos were taken from two different time trial sessions in the ‘competitions’ mode.

TCR Before Update.jpg

Pre-update
​
TCR After Update.jpg

Post-update​

The first image was taken pre-update with the same settings applied as post-update. The obvious difference between the two images is the texture quality, however, the shadows and the motion blur on the wheels are much clearer, and the quality is undeniably better. The improved depth of field is also quite noticeable in the post-update shot, adding to the overall quality.

RaceRoom’s photo mode is very user-friendly so if you are just starting with your photography and want to learn how to compose a photo, RaceRoom is a fantastic place to start. If you are after a more complex photo mode, check out our Six Racing Simulators to Practise Your Sim Racing Photography article.

What do you think about the new RaceRoom's new graphics? Let us know on X @OverTake_gg or down in the comments below!
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Connor Minniss
Connor Minniss
Website Content Editor & Motorsport Photographer aiming to bring you the best of the best within the world of sim racing.

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Lino Carreira
on a 4090 there isnt even any other choice, one barely does 60 FPS @ 7680x2160 the other does 120 and hits less then 50% GPU usage .... DXVK all the way

Although the game looks better , its hard to look at some models and textures ...
 
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S
Majuh said:
Just try it, but I'd say that DX9 is still better for Nvidia users.
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This is quite funny as I have always steered clear of the Vulcan engine as I considered it to be an nVidia thing.

Before reading your input, I've just jumped out of my seat after grahics comparison DX9 vs DXVP.

Starting point:
Hardware: flatscreen 1440p@144Hz on RX6800XT AMD GPU (5700X CPU)
R3E: Ditto 1440p@144Hz everything maxed out, i.e. 8xMSAA, FXAA, Ultra on everything, etc.

Before graphics update I've avoided stuttering just by making sure that the screen update freq. was identical value to game value (here 144Hz).

Test:
3 laps of morning practice at Zolder with scattered clouds in the 1995 DTM Mercedes.

DX9: 194-226 FPS. Really nice lighting and shadow. However, from a distance I experienced the trees behind the Kleine Chicane as swaying, but coming a but closer I witnessed that it was a kind of small bit of pixelation/stuttering.

DXVP: 178-258 FPS. A whole world of difference in terms of graphics. As if it had finally been freed from DX9 for something far more modern graphics. The only thing that annoyed me a bit was that everything was so crystal clear on the distance that I missed some speed-induced blur.

The GPU power consumption I measured during tests was a little bit higher under DXVP compared to DX9, but at most 5% more costs.

I would like to pay that price.
 
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AndyC709292
shadow82 said:
Go ahead clip ACC or AMS2 with smoke, dust and grass inside the cockpit or with a matterless cone that just goes through your car unhinged. I also wonder how gears are shifted on half of the content when the drivers does not move any fingers or arms (while for some car strangely enough it does). And please don't load Portimao or you would be confusing the background mountain for an extremly zoomed-in low res picture of Mars from Hubble.

We can pretend all we want, the ones trolling here are the devs. 120+€ for the full experience (which does not include all content for whatever reason) ? :roflmao:
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so...

Growing up as "farming stock" I'm a cheap bas**rd.... and all I did was buy the 2023 DTM pack, a single bently and I think a Maclaren. That got me all the GT3 I needed.
Yeah, the textures aren't period-accurate, but it's the cheapest way to do it.

I did the same for their F3 type car too - I just bought one of them - what do I care of the car textures when sat in it - and I can race all the others.

My advice to those seeing those prices, which don't equate at all well to Aud$ I might add, is buy the car and a single texture as you need it "now" and wait for sales to top up.
 
L
shadow82 said:
Go ahead clip ACC or AMS2 with smoke, dust and grass inside the cockpit or with a matterless cone that just goes through your car unhinged. I also wonder how gears are shifted on half of the content when the drivers does not move any fingers or arms (while for some car strangely enough it does). And please don't load Portimao or you would be confusing the background mountain for an extremly zoomed-in low res picture of Mars from Hubble.

We can pretend all we want, the ones trolling here are the devs. 120+€ for the full experience (which does not include all content for whatever reason) ? :roflmao:
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acc? no thank you, i prefer better graphic and simulation. ams2? its incredible visually! but with current state of physics, it only making the way to be a proper sim

and price tags of content in rrre is very reqsonable for its quality, iR cost much more. and in GT you have to pay high price tag for equipment. So RE is reasonable and have lot of sale promotions. anyway, matter of taste, who cares
 
S
Majuh said:
I tried both, and DXVK yielded more FPS when alone on track, but DX9 yielded more FPS with a lot of opponents out on track. I guess it also depends on your resolution and your other hardware.
Click to expand...
I can add after testing both my laptops nVidia GTX1650Ti (CPU: Ryzen 5 4600H) and my primary stationary PC AMD RX600XT (CPU: Ryzen 7 5700X) on both 1080p 1440p and 2560p on both single car Practice mode and full 32 car grid 60 min + 1 lap Race events and can state the performance - DXVK vs. DX9 - depends on pretty much everything :p

However, attaching my laptop to my 65" 4K TV just using old HDMI cable, hence just 60Hz sync'ed in 4K, the Vulkan in fact did a great job without just tiny stuttering, of which I preferred to the ditto DX9 scenarios though the latter ran flawless. That is until I activated blur effects, the game stalled completely (Steam overlay showing drop to 2-3FPS before freeze), but same happened with DX9 on my laptop in 4K settings.

And maybe to expect with a bedated nVidia GPU for laptops...and same picture when I replaced with my optical latest 1.4 HDMI cable (noth that much of a difference, really taking toll if I went for the 120Hz option in 4K with my laptop here).

For mid range settings, i.e. 1440p (or lower) on my curved 32" with 120Hz freq (or highter) my nVidia laptop GPU ran with higher performance and lower GPU heat with the DX9, but still the Vulkan engine looked pretty much better.

For my quite more powerful stationary AMD RX6800XT nomatter the scenario it was a nobrainer:
DXVK all the way.
 
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Kevin Troschinski
So my first experience with the following setup (R 5800x3D, RTX 3080) :
3440x1440 34" UWQHD maxed out, full grids

dx9 about 90-110 fps
Vulkan: nearly all the time locked at 141fps (and much less cpu load)

So it seems clearly pro Vulkan, BUT for me the picture with vulkan is a bit more aliased and "unstable". Don`t know how describe it. Some sort of too crispy. I prefer the dx9 look...
 
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Kevin Troschinski said:
So it seems clearly pro Vulkan, BUT for me the picture with vulkan is a bit more aliased and "unstable". Don`t know how describe it. Some sort of too crispy. I prefer the dx9 look...
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Remarkable since my experience is exactly the opposite.

I don't know whether it's due to a basic difference between how nVidia and AMD graphics cards operate.

Or that R3E's own graphics fine-tuning during initial initialization, where on my mobile nVidia GTX1650Ti it had disabled Motion Blur, Bloom, Depth of Field, Sharpness and Auto-Exposure Intensity, whereas with my stationary AMD GPU everything was set to max.

Or whether it is my AMD RX 6800 XT Special Edition GFX, where I can fine-tune a number of things, in addition to the Adrenaline software's FSR2.0, Surface Format Optimization, Enhanced Sync. etc. which causes the Vulkan engine to work much better here (?).

Or whether it is just the perception of one's personal eyes?

The discussion completely reminds me of an inner dialectic war I personally had during a span of a decade about "which sim is the better one of rF1 and GTR2" where in terms of graphics it always came out to GTR2's advantage as rF1 was experienced both 'crispy' and 'with too high contrast', e.g. Team TARGA's GPL Targa Florio conversions to rF1 and GTR2, I preferred the latter as with my hardware it seemed superbly most stable and less 'crispy' compared to the rF1 converted version.

I dare not say how much of this is due to personal impressions and how much is due to hardware.

Edit: Late yesterday night I made yet a comparison DX9 vs. DXVP.
30min Nordschleife 32 grid field of DTM1992+95's in scattered clouds weather.
Much more stable with Vulkan, besides R3E effects as Bloom, Sharpening, Auto-Exposure Intensity and Motion Blur seemed far more convincing and nothing 'crispy'. Whereas I experienced several times with stuttering during the same event with DX9.
FPS values were again in Vulkan's favor with 104-178 against 74-131 FPS for DX9.
On the other hand, with DX9 my graphics card used as much as 14% less power and the max peak for GPU Core was 5 °C lower than the identical event with Vulkan.

But again, it's a price I'm happy to pay for the Vulkan experience.
 
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Kevin Troschinski
stenovitz said:
Remarkable since my experience is exactly the opposite.

I don't know whether it's due to a basic difference between how nVidia and AMD graphics cards operate.

Or that R3E's own graphics fine-tuning during initial initialization, where on my mobile nVidia GTX1650Ti it had disabled Motion Blur, Bloom, Depth of Field, Sharpness and Auto-Exposure Intensity, whereas with my stationary AMD GPU everything was set to max.

Or whether it is my AMD RX 6800 XT Special Edition GFX, where I can fine-tune a number of things, in addition to the Adrenaline software's FSR2.0, Surface Format Optimization, Enhanced Sync. etc. which causes the Vulkan engine to work much better here (?).

Or whether it is just the perception of one's personal eyes?

The discussion completely reminds me of an inner dialectic war I personally had during a span of a decade about "which sim is the better one of rF1 and GTR2" where in terms of graphics it always came out to GTR2's advantage as rF1 was experienced both 'crispy' and 'with too high contrast', e.g. Team TARGA's GPL Targa Florio conversions to rF1 and GTR2, I preferred the latter as with my hardware it seemed superbly most stable and less 'crispy' compared to the rF1 converted version.

I dare not say how much of this is due to personal impressions and how much is due to hardware.

Edit: Late yesterday night I made yet a comparison DX9 vs. DXVP.
30min Nordschleife 32 grid field of DTM1992+95's in scattered clouds weather.
Much more stable with Vulkan, besides R3E effects as Bloom, Sharpening, Auto-Exposure Intensity and Motion Blur seemed far more convincing and nothing 'crispy'. Whereas I experienced several times with stuttering during the same event with DX9.
FPS values were again in Vulkan's favor with 104-178 against 74-131 FPS for DX9.
On the other hand, with DX9 my graphics card used as much as 14% less power and the max peak for GPU Core was 5 °C lower than the identical event with Vulkan.

But again, it's a price I'm happy to pay for the Vulkan experience.
Click to expand...
It’s remarkable indeed. Maybe just placebo in my eyes dunno
Would like to read more people’s experience.
By the end of the day it’s far better this and that way now no matter how we decide
 

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