RaceRoom Racing Experience: Development News...

[Paul Jeffrey]

Sector3 Studios have revealed something of their plans for the future of RaceRoom Racing Experience.. with plenty of information revealed.

Having not quite managed to keep up the tradition of regular developer video streams, Sector3 have taken the decision to open up to the community their plans for RaceRoom in the near future - revealing plenty of very interesting and exciting things coming to the sim soon..

The blog post in full:

Back in the days when we were SimBin, we had a dev blog. Then later we had dev streams. The downside is that it all takes a long time to prepare and we're busy making RaceRoom better! So we figured a written and more modest update from time to time was probably the best approach.

So I'll be posting every now and then to update you about what we have in the works. I need to make it clear that the fact we have something cooking that gets presented here does not mean it's around the corner, or that it will definitely come out in the next patch.

Without further ado, here's your March 2019 dev update !

1. Adjustable tyre pressures

Yes. You've read this right. We're finally adding it.

As you can understand, this means a lot of development and testing of the physics engine and its variables to ensure the effects of pressure adjustments are proper and do not lead to exploits.

As a result, we will be turning this feature on following a per car basis, after each has passed QA tests.
Priority is set on the new car as well as car classes that are receiving a physics overhaul or are just popular.

The sub-optimal aspect of this feature is that we haven't had the opportunity to re-design the car setup menu yet. Therefore you'll find the buttons for it have been crammed in there. The way this menu is laid out at the moment didn't really allow for a clear presentation of asymmetric pressure settings. You'll have to pay close attention that you're adjusting the correct tyre. We want to re-design this menu altogether whenever we have time.
​

Here's the list of the car classes currently in beta with tyre pressures:

• Formula RaceRoom Junior
• Unannounced Formula car
• Touring Classics
• WTCR
• Porsche 911 GT3 Cup (991.2)
• Porsche 911 Carrera (964)
• GTR2
• GT4 Clubsport Trophy
• Group C
• Group 4
• Mercedes DTM 1995

2. Flat spots

When locking a tyre for too long, the caused friction can eat through your rubber and create a flat surface on the wheel.
This not only has an effect on the grip and wear but will also induce some vibrations depending on the size and depth of the spot. Flat spots usually get worse over time as you will find that the affected tyre will lock up even more easily, eventually leading to a puncture.

Here's the list of the car classes currently in beta with flat spots:

• DTM 1992
• Formula RaceRoom Junior
• Group 4
• Group C
• GT4 Clubsport Trophy
• GTR2
• Porsche 911 Carrera (964)
• Porsche 911 GT3 Cup (991.2)
• WTCR
• Touring Classics
• Unannounced Formula car

This new feature is currently being tested for bugs but also feedback is being collected regarding how easy it is to get one, how much the wheel should vibrate, how it sounds like, and so on. Currently considering making it optional, which you will read about in chapter 4 below.

3. Suspension damage

Back in 2013, RaceRoom wouldn't let your wheels come off your car, no matter the force of the impact.
In recent RaceRoom updates, you might have read about optimizations to the damage code, improvements to the collision detection and its effects on mechanical components.
​

And if you play regularly, you probably noticed we have some bugs to fix with regards to that. (Debris on track not clearing out from the track for example)

We're not done yet. What we have in testing at the moment is a brand new system designed to accurately render effects of bent axles and broken springs.

Impacts will deform the alignment of individual suspension parts and affect the handling of the car in sometimes dramatic ways.

This is of course another feature that needs to sit in beta long enough to ensure you won't suddenly receive unwanted camber or toe-in from harmless door to door racing.

Look at this driver... Will he even make it back to the pits to repair?
​

We are reviewing the code deep down, making changes such as damaging your powetrain if the impact affects a powered wheel. Also, the more worn your tyres, the bigger risk of getting punctures from collisions with other cars, from driving on dirt, gravel or grass, but also from driving over pieces of sharp carbon fiber left on the track by your fellow racers. For that, we'll also have a caution flag warning to signal the presence of debris.

4. Revisions of damage settings

Because the above mentioned features can lead to added frustration for the least hardcore simracers among us, we will make sure those new ways of ending your race prematurely are optional.

One of the early design choices from back in 2013 that we're now set to overcome is the way damage settings are defined. Right now there's a separation between Visual Damage, and Mechanical Damage in the menu. This doesn't make much sense any longer and we'll change to have something like this instead:

• Damage setting: None - Minimum - Complete
  • None = no visual damage, no mechanical damage, no punctures, no flat spots, no parts falling off.
  • Minimum = mechanical damage and visual damage are on. No punctures, no flat spots, no suspension damage or wheels falling off
  • Complete = everything on

5. Dedicated server features

Our dedicated server has been lacking when it comes to features you'd expect as part of a base package.
We're fixing this, and adding more.

Here is what we're working on adding:

• Session info block:
  • Added list of connected players with their user ID, with a live count of their incident points.
  • Added ability to kick a certain player out
  • Added current session and timer
  • Added a "Next Session" button and a "Restart Session" button
• Car selection list:
  • Added car specific weight ballast (for your personal BOP adjustments)
• User management block:
  • Added user specific weight ballast (for leagues with success ballast)
  • Added management of banned users

The weight penalties will also be visible from the game itself, through the addition of a ballast column in the timing screen.
​

6. Shared memory API - Massive update.

As I've touched somewhere on the forum, our next update will break 3rd party applications that use our shared memory block.

If you are a developer of such applications, please have a look at the attachment " r3e_sharedmem_preview_march2019.zip " to get an early look at the changes.

The goal of this update is to expose all the possible telemetry you can dream of, and extend the possibilities for apps and overlays.

7. Support web-based in-game overlays

If you have watched or streamed a multiplayer race with your game client started as spectator, you are probably familiar with the fact that the overlays showing are done via web. We are adding a transparent web page on top of the game and we make it show whatever feels relevant at the time.

With this ability to overlay webpages on top of the gameplay and thanks to the sheer amount of data we're adding to our shared memory block, we are experimenting with fully customizable HUD's.

Just like for the broadcast overlays, we will ship the feature with an example app that will showcase some of those new possibilities.
​

8. Oschersleben - New layouts

We wanted to get this out in time for the ADAC esport championship, but with the time constrains and the track being featured early in the series, we couldn't make it happen in time. But good news is that it will come eventually, and for free to anyone who already owns the track.

• A Course (already available)
• "Motorcycle" A Course (fast turn 1 chicane)
• B Course (shortcut after turn 3)
• "Motorcycle" B Course (fast turn version)

9. Physics updates

@Alex Hodgkinson is always busy. When it's not about upcoming cars, it's of course about bringing improvements to the ones that are already out there, to re-ignite interest in them as the often suffer from the comparison to the feel of the newly released cars.

One of the updates currently in development is the DTM 1992 & Touring Classic classes.
In order to respect the true specs of these cars, we had to sacrifice the balance of performance between those two classes. This means that the BMW M3 E30, present in both, will eventually be present in two different flavours. More on that will come from Alex himself when we're closer to release of these.

We are also busy adding support for electric vehicles in both the physics and sound engines in very close partnership with a major player in the industry. More on that soon!

A lot of things have to change when you suddenly don't have more than one gear and no fuel to burn!

10. Fanatec SDK updates

We are spending time with our friends from Fanatec to implement their latest SDK and make use of nice features they offer on their hardware such as special switches or ability to show yellow flag warnings through the steering wheel LED's.
​

RaceRoom Racing Experience is a PC exclusive racing simulation, available now.

Check out the RaceRoom Racing Experience sub forum here at RaceDepartment for news, discussions and community engagement and our awesome League and Club Racing events.


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[GuitarTech]

Reinstalling will accomplish absolutely nothing if the issue is not with the game, but with your internet or ISP, as the error suggest. You could reinstall it ten times over and still not solve anything. As for why all the other sims work without problems, you already got an answer - the other sims do not require server connection to run (and/or they're also other sims, so it doesn't really mean anything that they still work, the fact that certain software doesn't have issues does in no way mean no software will have issues).

You also seem to be always having some weird issues nobody else has, I see you complaining about various problems all the time in various sims. Which might suggest there might be something specific about your system, or rather your setup... Just an observation.

As for "why you should jump through hoops and f around for hours just to get it to run" - well that really is up to you, isn't it? You are experiencing issue that is not how the game generally behaves, either you want to try and solve the problem, or you don't. Both are viable options, it's up to you to decide which one you'll take. Solving problems requires time investment, that's just how it is. If you're not willing to do that, then don't... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ But I obviously understand that it can be frustrating not being able to run software you've paid for.

Found the problem at last. But before I go any further, in reply to your comments about me having problems with everything, the only other thing I've been moanig about here on the forums here apart from R3E is the ACC VR, which is unuseable.
So, to the R3E problem. I discovered that a manual proxy server was set up on my gaming computer. I swear that I have never, EVER set that up, not even by mistake. In fact, after turning it OFF, it turned itself back on again at least once. I never thought of even checking that, as I have never had the need to set a proxy up.
I might add that apart from Chrome to surf with, I have nothing on the computer apart from Steam and its apps, and Real Flight 8 as a helicopter simulator, which I use for practice because when I crash, it's cheaper doing it in the sim that doing it for real.. But I digress.
R3E, or something on my system, is still a bit buggy though: more often than not, it won't start if you select it as the first sim to start in Steam. But if I start rF2 or PC2, and then close them, after that R3E will mostly start. I have checked absolutely everything I can think of on my system, although there isn't an awful lot to check, because I only use it for Steam games and internet. I can't see anything in my virus scanner ( NOD32 ), that could be causing it, R3E is allowed in the Win Firewall too. I even tried temporarily disabling the virus scanner and the Win firewall as a test, no change.
So the state of play at the moment is that it works, but with some jiggery pokery when I start it. As a precaution, I now check the Network and Internet Settings before I start Steam to make sure that the manual Proxy isn't turned on again. As long as rF2 works properly, which is my main sim, I can live with it.
But thank you for trying to help, please understand my frustration ran away with me yesterday. After reading the Development News yesterday, it occurred to me that I hadn't been able to use R3E for ages, and then I tried again to get it to run. Which obviously didn't work yesterday, so I wrote the posts because I was frustrated. I was having a bad day

 

[roadyroad]

Thanks for heads up Kenny.
I feared as much... that feature really would be the icing on the cake for me in what i consider to be one of the best all-round sims.... Will there ever be a perfect sim eh?

I can understand the difficulties of implementing dynamic weather (a lot of work for the AI on all tracks and categories, with maybe making them using different strategies...). But what about a few fixed weather conditions? dry / wet / light rain / heavy rain / moonsoon. It would be sufficient to experience different driving conditions without implementing a whole dynamic weather system. It would make sense as most of the online races on the lobby are around 15 or 20 minutes.

 

[tlsmikey]

Good roadmap update.

It's interesting that they seem to be further investing in the current DX9 engine. I'm wondering to myself if they should be more focused on a move to DX11/12 at this point rather than adding more features to the existing one?

Perhaps all this stuff will port over at some point. Just seems like they're do for a big update at this point to DX11 over smaller items.

 

[Tar Heel]

If your AI difficulty is low it tends to do that. Increase your AI or use adaptive and you'll have a battle on your hands.

Everytime I use adaptive I dominate it for a few races and then it just cranks up the difficulty to 120 and I stand no chance

 

[Will Mazeo]

Everytime I use adaptive I dominate it for a few races and then it just cranks up the difficulty to 120 and I stand no chance

"This player is feeling too happy for winning this much, let's make him depressed now"
RR AI

 

[UMC 22]

Everytime I use adaptive I dominate it for a few races and then it just cranks up the difficulty to 120 and I stand no chance

No, that's not what it's doing. It's trying to adapt to your lap times and give you a grid of balanced AI, some faster, some slower, to give you a challenge. It's not adapting to give you slightly-less-easy wins.

 

[Case_]

I discovered that a manual proxy server was set up on my gaming computer. I swear that I have never, EVER set that up, not even by mistake. In fact, after turning it OFF, it turned itself back on again at least once. I never thought of even checking that, as I have never had the need to set a proxy up.
I might add that apart from Chrome to surf with, I have nothing on the computer apart from Steam and its apps, and Real Flight 8 as a helicopter simulator, which I use for practice because when I crash, it's cheaper doing it in the sim that doing it for real.. But I digress.
R3E, or something on my system, is still a bit buggy though: more often than not, it won't start if you select it as the first sim to start in Steam. But if I start rF2 or PC2, and then close them, after that R3E will mostly start.

Your system seriously sounds haunted This is exactly what I meant when I said I see you mention weird issues no-one else seems to have. And honestly, if a proxy server was set up on my PC and even kept resetting itself, I would certainly make it a top priority to find out why is that happening, because that sounds really dodgy. Then again some ISPs could be using some auto configuration options I guess, so it might be OK still. But again, I would definitely investigate that further.

It's interesting that they seem to be further investing in the current DX9 engine. I'm wondering to myself if they should be more focused on a move to DX11/12 at this point rather than adding more features to the existing one?

Most of the things mentioned in that post don't seem to be related to graphics engine all that much, except perhaps for the overlays and the damage model stuff (of which visual damage is only a part of).

 

[Steve Worrell]

I really don't see how it's any better than what you said before. You are still suggesting the devs are actively lying to you. Why? I really don't understand why you would suggest the default approach for devs is either to invent imaginary issues just to avoid work, or to lie to their customers. Is that really what people consider the most likely option? Doesn't make the slightest sense to me...



IRacing was working on a pretty realistic visual damage system I believe, but I'm not following it all that much.



I don't remember anyone from S3 saying the engine won't *allow* it in Raceroom. I only remember mentions that it doesn't seem to make sense to put in all the necessary work when a complete switch to another engine is likely to happen in a not-too-distant future anyway.

(And BTW, I don't really understand why people tend to be so literal and upset about the Assetto Corsa thing either. A fact that some mod is able to achieve something still doesn't mean it would be feasible to do from the point of view of the devs, so I don't see why they're getting upset at Kunos for this. It's just taking the words of the devs too literally without considering the wider picture and the context and then being upset about them not following that literal meaning, IMO.)

I just don't see any other explanation.

Some devs say the manufacturers don't allow it yet we see some Sims implementing damage.

 

[Steve Worrell]

Which ones? I don't know of a current sim involving real cars that has fully realistic damage to be honest. Losing a wheel, nose cone, or bonnet, setting your engine on fire, sure, but fully deformable cars that crush and fall apart on impacts a la Wreckfest? Nope, unless I'm missing something?

You're right there aren't any Sims doing a full proper job of a damage model. iRacing teased something ages ago which looked promising but I've not seen any updates on that.

I have to say that I appreciate what s3s is doing in this space though.

 

[Case_]

I just don't see any other explanation.

Some devs say the manufacturers don't allow it yet we see some Sims implementing damage.

I can give you one possible explanation that doesn't involve lying - different devs are able to negotiate different terms. That's also why some sims can have for example Ferrari or Lamborghini, while if you ask other devs, they will tell you those licenses are pretty much impossible to get. Are they lying? I really don't think so, they just tell you how it is from their point of view. Also see how Codemasters and Toyota apparently have some kind of beef between them (or Toyota doesn't like them or whatever), so as much as the devs would love to license the classic Corollas for their rally games, they do not seem to be able to, and if you mention Toyota in front of a CM dev, he/she will run away screaming.

In fact, I can give you another one, although related - things can change over time. See for example how not so long ago, Porsche was basically out of the question. Now everyone has them. Or see how we could have Pikes Peak hillclimb in many games not so long ago, and now it is a Gran Turismo exclusive and nobody else can license it, even though Gran Turismo doesn't seem to be using that license (adding salt to the injury).

So yeah, again, I really don't see why deception or lies should be the go-to explanation.

 

[randMracer]

Everytime I use adaptive I dominate it for a few races and then it just cranks up the difficulty to 120 and I stand no chance

Where do you normally set your AI?

 

[Steve Worrell]

I can give you one possible explanation that doesn't involve lying - different devs are able to negotiate different terms. That's also why some sims can have for example Ferrari or Lamborghini, while if you ask other devs, they will tell you those licenses are pretty much impossible to get. Are they lying? I really don't think so, they just tell you how it is from their point of view. Also see how Codemasters and Toyota apparently have some kind of beef between them (or Toyota doesn't like them or whatever), so as much as the devs would love to license the classic Corollas for their rally games, they do not seem to be able to, and if you mention Toyota in front of a CM dev, he/she will run away screaming.

In fact, I can give you another one, although related - things can change over time. See for example how not so long ago, Porsche was basically out of the question. Now everyone has them. Or see how we could have Pikes Peak hillclimb in many games not so long ago, and now it is a Gran Turismo exclusive and nobody else can license it, even though Gran Turismo doesn't seem to be using that license (adding salt to the injury).

So yeah, again, I really don't see why deception or lies should be the go-to explanation.

You win mate

 

[BrunoBæ]

or sooner for your wake ?


Andi

I allways get a good laugh when fanboys are becomming personal when they either have no arguments or are unable to use them.
This is ofcourse only a general remark

 

[Steve Worrell]

Literally the opposite is true, I did a ADAC GT Masters 2018 race, and the field was spread out by 2 minutes after 1 hour.


Multiple compounds are in the game for 1.5 years now for those cars that use them in real life.

I'm glad it's working for you. It must be something I'm doing wrong then.

When I mentioned this on the race room forum s3s actually acknowledged this behaviour and said they were working on improving it.

 

[Tar Heel]

Where do you normally set your AI?

Depends on the car and track, but usually around 105-113.

 

[Tar Heel]

No, that's not what it's doing. It's trying to adapt to your lap times and give you a grid of balanced AI, some faster, some slower, to give you a challenge. It's not adapting to give you slightly-less-easy wins.

That is what it was doing. It did it several times. This was a couple years ago so maybe it was improved, but I would go from winning easily to DFL after a few races because the difficulty ramped up so quickly.

 

[Andi Goodwin]

I allways get a good laugh when fanboys are becomming personal when they either have no arguments or are unable to use them.
This is ofcourse only a general remark

ouch fanboy statement;
i just know more than you thats all , and know that all that is presented is true at this point , i also realise the work that goes into making this happen and the time scales...
i shoot from the hip when i have real info and facts , not a moaning opinion
just what you think can be a few clicks of code can take a massive amount of testing effort just to find, duplicate and iron out 90% of the bugs

i probably wont bring flowers


Andi

 

[kamackeris]

But no Brands Hatch full track

 

[callumjtc]

Explain how other sim/games are allowed to do it then.

Sims like GTR2 feature race cars the manufacturers are more precious about road cars not showing damage, therefore devs don't bother with damage for a select few racecars

 

[randMracer]

Depends on the car and track, but usually around 105-113.

At 113 you're still leaving the pack behind and adaptive is too hard? I guess you need to find that sweet spot where its still challenging for you.
For me, from 95-110 I have to start doing little tweaks to the car just to stay competitive and keep up.