More rF2 Formula E Previews Revealed

[Paul Jeffrey]

Check out the latest batch of preview images for the upcoming Formula E rFactor 2 DLC...

News that Studio 397 intend to release an officially licenced Formula E DLC for rFactor 2 next week was met with plenty of fiery comments from the sim racing community recently, with many a mixed opinion of the series venturing its way though the forum here at RaceDepartment in the last few hours.

Regardless of your opinion of the controversial electric FIA series it has been widely accepted as positive new of S397's acquisition of such a sort after official licence, and following our brief interview and reveal article released Wednesday night the developers have tricked out a few more images from the new car pack and Hong Kong street circuit, showing a very impressive attention to detail and really giving a great example as to how far the rFactor 2 racing simulation has grown graphically in the past few months under Studio 397's leadership.

So without further ado, check out these new preview images from the upcoming Formula E DLC for rFactor 2, due to land as early as next week...

rFactor 2 is a PC exclusive racing simulation available worldwide via the Steam network.

Check out the rFactor 2 sub forum here at RaceDepartment for all the latest news and discussion with regards to the simulation. You can take part in lively debates with fellow rFactor 2 fans and take part in some great Club and League racing events..! Head over to the forum now and share the love this simulation so very much deserves...



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Looking forward to trying these cars and track in rF2 soon? Let us know your thoughts below!

 

[hitm4k3r]

I agree, part of racing is the ambience, but it's not the be all and end all. I'd rather see 2 quiet, slow and odourless cars battle side by side than 1 go by and then another 30 seconds later that smell, sound good and are fast. Isn't racing about battles and close racing? Otherwise it is largely a procession.

Racing was indeed at one point very affordable, once. Now to run a team in British F4 costs £250,000 per car a year - not affordable at all. How is a 14-16 year old supposedly to afford that? Formula E teams in comparison spend about £3-5 million a year, which is cheap for the tech, media exposure and quality of competition.

As @samcar304 correctly stated, the Targa Florio was not comparative, it was an analogy.

In 2016 Formula E raced around the streets of Berlin because the airport was used for the immigration crisis - the airport is a public park and event center.

In addition, the link you have shown does not indicate racing, it shows a car circulating around a circuit. If you want a hotlap, go to a hillclimb event or time trial, where cars don't race against each other on track.

I agree that CART was indeed a good period of racing (despite being too young to remember it), but it wasn't sustainable as a series and went bankrupt, so it obviously didn't work.

As said, for me it is a combination of all aspects. A great example is the IOMTT with the Zero TT race, wich is pretty boring to watch for me personaly because the sound and smell are as important for me. The IOM just shows that racing can have many facetes. I just love seeing the riders whizz by on their own, pushing the phyical boundaries. And it doesn't require two cars/bikes battling it out directly on track. And even in that sense there is alot more interesting racing to watch, that offers close racing with a great ambience, so why should I bother watching FE at the end? If I watch MotoGP I get tons more excitement easily. CART was fantastic in pretty much every way and I am glad that I had the chance to see them race life in Europe. So please explain to me why I should spend time watching cars race, that I find ugly, too quiet and that just have no soul?

@samcar: the reason I brought the CART example is pretty simple. Electric racing cars are forced down the throat of motosport-consumers as the next cutting-edge tech when all I see is a big step backward in pretty much all areas that made motorsport what it is today. From my perspective it is just a big waste of ressources and energy, especialy when I take alook at where they drive and how much stuff they have to ship from city to city (wich is one of the biggest problems with motosport these days).

Btw, while we are at sustainability: I wouldn't be surprised if FE faces the same fate as CART, because right now I have no idea how they aquire any form of income in comparison to the huge amount of money that they spent for development and transport.

 

[samcar304]

@samcar: the reason I brought the CART example is pretty simple. Electric racing cars are forced down the throat of motosport-consumers as the next cutting-edge tech when all I see is a big step backward in pretty much all areas that made motorsport what it is today. From my perspective it is just a big waste of ressources and energy, especialy when I take alook at where they drive and how much stuff they have to ship from city to city (wich is one of the biggest problems with motosport these days).

No I get what you mean, Whilst i enjoy watching the series sometimes it is a step backwards compared to other series in entertainment/racing value. however i think the whole concept behind it is trying to accelerate the development of electric vehicles and batteries by using racing and competition. Whether it works we won't know until a few years from now. But Tesla are not *currently* involved in an active racing series and they seemed to be doing it right. Two sides to every coin.

 

[JeffL]

We used to race the power windows in my 73 New Yorker. Last one down bought the beer. Racing is racing.

 

[Paco572]

Stating that those images are photoshopped is not an opinion that others can agree or disagree with. It's a fact. In a weird way, you are right, they are photoshopped, but only to add the overlay (logo at the top left and text at the bottom). The car and track are in no way retouched. The fact that the cars looked to "float" a bit is because we were using a beta version that still had a small bug: the ambient shadows under the wheels were missing, which indeed seemed to make the cars float. We have since corrected that.

I have added a new screenshot where this has been corrected, and this time I did not even add any overlays. This is straight out of the game, in 4k resolution, so you can see all the detail we've put in the car and track (well, as much as a single shot can show, but you won't have to wait long for the release anyway).

Then why would you release those screen shots knowing people like me would be led to believe the whole thing was Photoshopped? All your doing is creating confusion when you do that. "I except your response in kind" but I also expect you to be more professional. Since I have you here, what about the Radicals GT3 skin with a shadow running down the full length of the car cutting through the headlight buckets. This email directly from Radical about the Headlight Buck divider I questioned them about it: "
---------------
Hi,
No, it’s not true. The light buckets have an open interior.

Best regards
James Scott
Technical Development Manager
Radical Sportscars
Mobile: +44 (0)7876 146854
Tel: +44 (0)1733 331616 ext. 263
Email: technical@radicalsportscars.com
----------------------------------------------------------------
Why would you make a video showcasing their cars with such a flagrant error in the skin? This is not professional. I know you got your hands full and I refuse and will not won't take away from you "the magnificent things you've accomplished for rFactor 2". That being said, this X-mas contest for painting cars for the GT3 and putting the responsibility for copy rights of the decals in the hands of the painters is..backwards, although I'd like to use a different word but I don't want to get banned here. Have you seen some of the decals the painters are making because they can't get permission so they make there own, the Heineken decal for example, it's dead ringer and it looks hilarious and the Pirelli decal spelled "Spaghetti" in Pirelli yellow and red fonts too, hilarious . I'm sure Heineken is going to "pleased"(in a thick British accent) in a crappy sort of way. The fact is, taking Pirelli for example, do you think that having 2 or even 3 hundred people calling them asking for permission to use their logo on your cars, I think their just going to get pissed off for having to field all the requests and say "NO" and when they find out it's s397 causing it, well you won't be making friends with them anytime soon. Multiply that by the 50 or more companies having to field these calls or emails as well. It's much easy for a car maker to get permission to use a logo than it is for the pestering public. That being said, the car makers should provide a decal pack "of their choosing' so as to "showcase their cars the way they want to see them". Don't get wrong but, wouldn't this be more receptive to the car makers; more professional?

I'm very passionate about this game if haven't noticed, you've done some great things for this game. I really want to see s397 be a outstanding financial success for many years to come. I take my hat off and bow to you. Thank you for taking the time to respond to my comments.

Cheers

 

[Marcel Offermans]

You are the person here making assumptions and then blaming me for them? I can't help that you think something is photoshopped, when it's not. You could have just asked, or simply assumed that we don't photoshop in-game shots. When we publish shots of things "in progress" sometimes you will see small mistakes. We appreciate if you point those out. I don't appreciate you almost "accuse us" of something we did not do.

The line running over the Radical body is indeed an error that slipped through the cracks. You can call us human, or unprofessional, but the fact is that we and all our testers did not spot it and these things happen. I trust you will be pleased when you update to the latest build we released just now. We corrected our mistake.

Regarding the painting competition. Nobody is forcing you to use or even imitate any real world logos. We are notnecessarily looking for people who are trying to replicate existing liveries and then trying to work around trademarks by changing them a bit. We are looking for people to get creative and make their own, beautiful paints. The only reason we mention real sponsors is that some virtual racing teams have real sponsors and in those cases we want to make sure we have the permission to feature them in a livery.

 

[Paco572]

In the future, I will try to be more polite with less finger pointing and blaming to the Captain LOL!!. Still the Pirelli decal spelled "Spaghetti" was over the top, I laughed so hard. Thank you for the update.

Cheers

 

[Msportdan]

hmm Paco I agree with Marcel here, not sure what you were tryong to achieve really.

But I quick question if I may Marcel.. The Radical SR3 Ai that seem to be a bit too fast compared to the player car - and the FPS hits - are we to see some fixes for these two. It does make that car slightly unusable at the moment.

Keep up the good work the screen shot looks great!

 

[MarcG]

Currently banned from s397 forums.

I wonder why!

 

[Paco572]

hmm Paco I agree with Marcel here, not sure what you were tryong to achieve really.

But I quick question if I may Marcel.. The Radical SR3 Ai that seem to be a bit too fast compared to the player car - and the FPS hits - are we to see some fixes for these two. It does make that car slightly unusable at the moment.

Keep up the good work the screen shot looks great!

I was the first person to complain about the radical skin. Now it's fixed, that's what I achieved.

Cheers

 

[Paco572]

I wonder why!

I was banned from the s397 forums for spamming a thread with a lot of foul language, it wasn't content if that's what your ensuing by your remark. Thanks for asking.

Cheers

 

[Paco572]

Trying to remain on topic here, does anybody now if this new DLC
rF2 Formula E
from s397 is going to have a fully paintable template? Just wondering.
The last screen shot looks amazing.

Cheers

 

[M D Gourley]

.....there's a pretty good chance all the hard work Reiza has put into polishing AMS will result in a conversion to the RF2 engine for there upcoming title.

... I think you might be right, makes sense and I personally would not mind if Reiza did do that, providing the end result was superior to Automobilista.

 

[Alex72]

Dont care what people say. When its released its time to test it, and if its fun to race then its fun to race. Watching it might not be fun to some but to actually race them is Another thing. And its Another dimension of sim racing which in my opinion is cool. Finally no matter how much some complain it will still come. Hey, im a Engine sound guy too. The more brutal Engine sounds the better, but i welcome Another part of sim racing.

PS. why do my PC at work put capital letters randomly i will never know...

 

[RichardHessels]

It's a fun car and track. But framerate goes all over the place on my system. From 70-90 it suddenly drops to mid 20's. To hang there for a while, till suddenly framerate goes back normal.

 

[Marcel Offermans]

It's a fun car and track. But framerate goes all over the place on my system. From 70-90 it suddenly drops to mid 20's. To hang there for a while, till suddenly framerate goes back normal.

DX9 or DX11? If on DX11, can you log and send a performance trace so we can take a look at what might be the cause. We spent quite some time optimizing car and track, so I'm curious what's causing that big drop. I guess you already checked for other processes running on your system?

 

[RichardHessels]

DX9 or DX11? If on DX11, can you log and send a performance trace so we can take a look at what might be the cause. We spent quite some time optimizing car and track, so I'm curious what's causing that big drop. I guess you already checked for other processes running on your system?

DX11, I have a good look at the processes running. Will report that on the rF2 forum.
(edit)
My bad, the GPU (2GB) got out of memory. Just a little, but when needed to fetch some data more from normal memory instead that fps goes down. Lowering the texture settings a notch gave quite good and stable FPS. Might even been the most consistent FPS i got out of rF2 since DX11.
Back to the rig!

 

[John-Eric Saxén]

DX11, I have a good look at the processes running. Will report that on the rF2 forum.
(edit)
My bad, the GPU (2GB) got out of memory. Just a little, but when needed to fetch some data more from normal memory instead that fps goes down. Lowering the texture settings a notch gave quite good and stable FPS. Might even been the most consistent FPS i got out of rF2 since DX11.
Back to the rig!

Yeah, rF2 does this when you run out of GPU VRAM. Most other games clear the VRAM from background tasks and dedicate it all for the game, but rF2 does not. So if you for example have some browser windows running in background, that's an easy 500 MB extra, so you need 2000+500 MB assuming that the track takes 2000 MB. Once it goes over VRAM limit FPS will never behave normally again until restart of game.

 

[Paco572]

Bought the rF2 Formula E DLC Pack.

Cheers Marcel

 

[Paco572]

Just bought the pack, doesn't show up in "inventory" where the GT3 stuff is or in the list of installed items in the rFactor 2 installed section, Any help?

Cheers

 

[Paco572]

Got my PayPal showing the purchase but nothing in steam?

Cheers