RaceRoom to go Unreal 4 in Future

[Paul Jeffrey]

Sector3 Studios to upgrade RaceRoom Racing Experience to Unreal Engine 4 and include day / night cycle, enhanced weather and improved physics in future development plans.

When RaceDepartment went to visit the new UK office of SimBin Studios a few weeks ago we had the chance to have a chat with Sector3 Studio Head Christopher Speed, where we took the opportunity to speak about the future of RaceRoom Racing Experience and gauge how the Swedish developers plan to prolong the relevance of the title in light of an increasingly competitive sim racing marketplace.

Many of us know the history behind RaceRoom Racing Experience, and the great strides the game has made under the leadership of Sector3 following their formation back in 2014. However with many top quality games such as Project CARS 1&2, Assetto Corsa, rFactor 2, Automobilista and many others flooding into the racing game space, what do Sector3 intend to do with RaceRoom Racing Experience in order to improve their positon in the sim racing pecking order?

"We know with R3E the game engine is old in comparison to the competition, there is no doubt we are missing certain elements and eye candy the others have. We took the decision that Unreal is the way to go" said Chris Speed.
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This is indeed exciting news for RaceRoom fans, and with a new graphics engine sat in front of an already very enjoyable force feedback experience and some incredibly well made content, a move to the Unreal engine and the addition of all the benefits that will bring could prove to be somewhat of a game changer for the title - proof positive that the current investment of both time and money fans have dropped on RaceRoom Racing Experience won't be wasted in light of the GTR3 announcement.

"Eventually RaceRoom will move across to this new technology, but first and foremost it's GTR3. Then we look into what we can do with RaceRoom afterwards.... he continued.
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Of course with SimBin Studios UK dedicated to working on the new game, and Sector3 still progressing with the current RaceRoom project as well as lending support to GTR3, it will be some time until the benefits of the Unreal 4 development see light of day in RaceRoom.

"There is no doubt that the work that is going on for GTR3 we will see in RaceRoom when we make that decision to switch, which means day night cycle, weather, improved physics, AI and visuals. All these goodies will be coming across when the time is right" added Speed.
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This is very positive news for fans of R3E. With the long term aim of SimBin and Sector3 to get the Unreal Engine 4 working to it's maximum potential, Speed was at pains to stress that the continual development of RaceRoom remains Sector3's priority. He went on to acknowledge the fact that many currently missing features that fans consider to be essential content are in development and should be included in the title as part of future update.

"No doubt there is still some key elements missing in RaceRoom... Flag system, tyre compounds on certain cars is being worked on. Multiclass racing we have a design on paper and will at some point work towards that but first and foremost we have to get the structured MP racing features done"
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When pushed on the subject of the sheer volume of work to be undertaken in order to get both games where they want them to be, Speed explained a little more about the division of resources

Think of it like this, two separate studios working on two separate products. We are under the same umbrella but we are two separate entities working on different things. We are supporting one another in different areas and provide feedback where necessary, but the Swedish studio is still solely responsible for RaceRoom whilst the UK studio is responsible for GTR3.​

This is a very intelligent move by both development teams as it allows Sector3 and RaceRoom Racing Experience to benefit from a considerable jump up in technology and graphical standards, without the need to undertake a costly development exercise in terms of both money and resource if the team were to go it alone with just the RaceRoom product. Basically by developing a shared structure of support with SimBin and GTR3, Sector3 will be able to utilise the hard work and development effort that goes into producing the new GTR3 game for the benefit of R3E, a move that may have been more difficult and costly to achieve otherwise.

For a sim running an older engine and DX9, RaceRoom still looks a very visually pleasing title and stands well amongst it's sim racing rivals. The studio are well known for the quality of their content, and have some very impressive licences already under lock and key in terms of the WTCC, DTM and ADAC deals, plus some interesting open wheel vehicles and a number of official licenced cars and manufacturers, so a move over to the latest generation graphics and inclusion of weather, time of day, improved physics and all those other things that are yet to be revealed, it looks like the future of this game is very secure and rather exciting indeed.

In case anyone wondered how much more development RaceRoom has in front of it in light of the new announcement, I'll leave that over to Chris to put those doubts to rest.

"We want to assure everyone that RaceRoom is going to be here for a long time."​

We will be publishing the full RaceRoom interview sometime in the next couple of days. We will talk more about the future development, have a deeper look at the focus on eSports racing, chat about some new content coming to the sim and take a look behind the scenes at what RaceRoom has in store for their fans heading off into the future.

Stay tuned to RaceDepartment over the weekend to read more!


RaceRoom Racing Experience is a PC only racing simulation from Sector3 Studios. Available to download for free with limited content, further cars and tracks can be added either as individual items or full packs via the in game RaceRoom store.

Here at RaceDepartment we do club racing. We do club racing very well indeed. If you feel the need for an online fix then please head over to our RaceRoom Racing Experience League and Club Racing forum to have a look what we have on offer and sign up for an event - all skills and experiences welcomed.

If you don't want to get involved in the racing action then head on over to the RaceRoom Racing Experience sub forum to catch up with all the latest news and discussions regarding the game, download a mod or two or just simply hang out with like minded individuals. All here at RaceDepartment.com!

Do you feel excited for the future of RaceRoom Racing Experience? What do you most anticipate? What series licences would you like the developers to secure for the game? What new features are you most looking forward to? Let us know in the comments section below!

 

[Sascha Reynders]

Sadly that's not possible for my pancake mode I guess?

Pixel density is exclusively for VR I'm afraid, you could play around with resolution scale and sharpening to see what gives. Not sure if DSR is worth the bother, as I remember it to be quite taxing on fps...but hey: you're running a 3080 so it can't hurt to try

And have a look at @Andrew_WOT 's engine.ini files, it's what I'm using for VR but there could be some good stuff for 2D in there as well.

 

[RasmusP]

Already using his config

I'm just wondering what's the difference in vr between resolution scale and pixel density. In theory both are simply rendering the game in a higher resolution to then filter it.
Seems like the filtering algorithm is different?

 

[Deleted member 197115]

Pixel density is like DSR or target resolution, resolution scale is percentage of it, so engine does some work (not all) at lower res and then upscale everything using TAAU to target. In theory you may achieve the same with DSR, picking up higher than native resolution in game and lowering resolution scale.

 

[RasmusP]

Pixel density is like DSR or target resolution, resolution scale is percentage of it, so engine does some work (not all) at lower res and then upscale everything using TAAU to target. In theory you may achieve the same with DSR, picking up higher than native resolution in game and lowering resolution scale.

So you say by using dsr + resolution scale below 100% I could get some different visuals at the same performance?

Basically losing less visual quality by lowering resolution scale than you gain in quality by raising pixel density?

I'm using about 140% resolution scale currently, which is why I was wondering about a difference in the filtering.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

In theory, this explains how it works.
I actually just tried it, for some weird reason my G9 does not like DSR, I've lost HDR and with it disabled colors were all wonky. Just increasing resolution scale in game works fine, super expensive though as native is already 5120x1440, and not really looking any better.

 

[RasmusP]

In theory, this explains how it works.
I actually just tried it, for some weird reason my G9 does not like DSR, I've lost HDR and with it disabled colors were all wonky. Just increasing resolution scale in game works fine, super expensive though as native is already 5120x1440, and not really looking any better.

So the TAAU (Temporal Upsample) sits after geometry and DOF and before most post processing.
The "Spatial Upsample" sits at the end of the pipeline, just before the UI.

With sub 100% res. scale, post processing will still be rendered at 100% resolution, while geometry and dof are rendered at sub 100%.

This also means that with TAAU enabled, using more than 100% will also mean that geometry and dof are getting improved and the TAA is applied at higher internal resolution, while the post processing is only done at 100%?

And if I disable TAAU, will the resolution scale be the spatial upscaling and I could set a quality level for it?

Sadly there's no information about the "quality setting" for VR pixel density, although it's basically just the "Spatial upsampling" but with the UI being upscaled too.


What I'm trying to figure out:
VR users seem to like a lowered resolution scale (with TAAU enabled or disabled?!) and then using a lot higher pixel density. For me it seems that the difference between DSR and pixel density is the filtering algorithm. Sadly we don't know anything about the pixel density filtering...

 

[Deleted member 197115]

Pixel density is just output render resolution, same as screen. I am pretty sure PostProcessAAQuality is one of the params controlling TAAU quality.

 

[BertramRaven]

I don´t know what the problem is but i love the UE4 in ACC. Do not see any single issue.

Edit: thats not a joke...

But this "UE4 has proved itself entirely unsuitable for simulation" feels like a joke to me...

Not a joke: Watch the interview with Massarutto himself.

Developer Interview - Kunos Marco Massarutto (Part 1)

Marco Massarutto talks about the development of ACC and AC

www.racedepartment.com

 

[Andy Kettler]

What do i look for ?

 

[BertramRaven]

So UE5 just as bad, are you developing using UE5, what part of "poor design" you were referring to, just curious?

UE4 (and still UE5 in beta) requires significant optimisation to get the best performance. Often this means dropping certain features if you want to use others. The rendering pipeline requires the developer to intercept and remove processes/elements/shading rather than parametrically eliminating unneeded steps.
All engines, without exception, require some optimisation to get the best performance, but UE4 requires more than most. The results can be great, but often time spent on this reduces the time available for testing and feature development. Budgets for game creation are tight and timelines even tighter; often unrealistically so. Failure to meet deadlines has driven many development teams to bankruptcy. Indeed, it has been common for big publishers to take over development of an almost finished product knowing the now defunct team will not be an on-going cost and so more profit can be made. You know the names, but their lawyers are bigger than mine so I will not name them!
I won't discuss the engines I use as that would look like either sour-grapes or I am selling something. Also, the engine I do use the most has its own problems - they are simply not as much of a problem for my team.

 

[Neils on Wheels]

I really dislike the look of UE4 in VR it has very strange looking shadows, AO & TAA is really blurry.
Maybe way in futures shadows & AO will improve with faster cards using rtx or lumen but they could end up looking just as weird.
DLSS currently looks even worse than TAA in VR so if you are hoping for that to help I wouldn't get your hopes up.
MSAA is way better than TAA for VR & ACC attempt to improve TAA is not really a success IMO.
I wouldn't say RR is better as very dated but it looks much cleaner. And if you are not getting better performance you probably have something setup wrong in settings because its far less taxing than ACC.
I can run a very large grid at 80 fps on my Index.

 

[RasmusP]

I really dislike the look of UE4 in VR it has very strange looking shadows, AO & TAA is really blurry.
Maybe way in futures shadows & AO will improve with faster cards using rtx or lumen but they could end up looking just as weird.
DLSS currently looks even worse than TAA in VR so if you are hoping for that to help I wouldn't get your hopes up.
MSAA is way better than TAA for VR & ACC attempt to improve TAA is not really a success IMO.
I wouldn't say RR is better as very dated but it looks much cleaner. And if you are not getting better performance you probably have something setup wrong in settings because its far less taxing than ACC.
I can run a very large grid at 80 fps on my Index.

It's not like what you're describing is a vr issue. I'm seeing the same issues in my monitor.
It's just not as noticeable due to the way higher physical pixel density.

UE has a general problem with clarity and "shimmering" (Pixel crawling/aliasing) blurriness/oversharpening).

Sure, with a lot of super sampling and especially on Screenshots it looks amazing but when I play it live, I'm slightly annoyed by what you're mentioning.

Most vr users are kite critical than monitor players though.
I've seen enough people disabling all anti aliasing plus playing on a lower resolution to get competitive fps in their games to know that some people just seem to have differently calibrated eye nerves

And to be honest.. I'd like to be like them..

 

[Neils on Wheels]

It's not like what you're describing is a vr issue. I'm seeing the same issues in my monitor.
It's just not as noticeable due to the way higher physical pixel density.

UE has a general problem with clarity and "shimmering" (Pixel crawling/aliasing) blurriness/oversharpening).

Sure, with a lot of super sampling and especially on Screenshots it looks amazing but when I play it live, I'm slightly annoyed by what you're mentioning.

Most vr users are kite critical than monitor players though.
I've seen enough people disabling all anti aliasing plus playing on a lower resolution to get competitive fps in their games to know that some people just seem to have differently calibrated eye nerves

And to be honest.. I'd like to be like them..

for sure yes it magnifies so i probably notice less in 2d. I'm not even sure what 2d games I played that use it.
I think some issues are VR though like shadows & some textures rendering differently in each eye.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

I rarely play ACC in VR now because it just looks absolutely gorgeous on HDR monitor at all Epic settings and 110% resolution scale for me. Needs some serious power to maintain good framerate though, but once you get there, everything else starts looking dated and bland.