RD Le Mans Series Season 7 (rFactor 2)

[Chris]

Just tried the latest build of the track
Thank you @Gijs van Elderen and @Daiman Patel for all the hard work on it, she's a beauty!

 

[Daiman Patel]

Just tried the latest build of the track
Thank you @Gijs van Elderen and @Daiman Patel for all the hard work on it, she's a beauty!

There is no need to thank me - all of the credit for the amazing work that has gone into updating the track must go to Mr. @Gijs van Elderen, who has really outdone himself this time! His dedication to the league is absolutely incredible, so I think that I speak for everyone when I say thank you very much ( though @Chris has already said it himself ) for all of the time and effort that you have put in so far!

 

[Daiman Patel]

IMPORTANT!

SKIN UPDATES FOR ROUND 3 AND DX11

This week I have looked at and analysed all of the liveries in the custom car / skin pack with the DX11 version of rFactor 2. I conducted four sufficiently thorough tests, with the Post Effect Level set to None, Low, Medium and High (I did not test at Ultra because it is similar to High in terms of what is rendered), at different times of day and looking at the cars from a multitude of angles.

Taking into consideration the new and updated skin files that have already been submitted for Round 3, I can confirm that there will be no mandatory requirement for any of the liveries in the current version of the pack to be updated. From what I could see, no cars showed any signs of breakouts due to diffuse reflectivity or obvious bloom effects. Of course I noticed the sunlight reflecting a little more off the bodywork of some cars, but this at least appeared to be realistic; cars with a matt finish had less light reflecting off their bodies compared to cars with a smooth / shiny looking body.

In spite of this, we would still recommend that albedo maps are applied to skin files, as per the suggestion / requirement by Studio 397, to be sure that your skin does not exhibit any issues. For more information about albedo maps please see this link - https://www.studio-397.com/guidelines-for-artists/ - which provides instructions on how to correct skin files under the section titled "How to quickly update car skins / color maps". This does not necessarily need to be done before Round 3, but we would suggest that you do it sooner rather than later.

Finally, though I have checked all of the cars myself, it's possible that I may have missed something, so if you happen to notice a problem with any of the liveries in the custom car / skin pack it would be much appreciated if you could report this to me so that appropriate action may be taken. PLEASE NOTE: do not check or test the appearance of liveries in the Tuning menu as this does not work - all cars (including those with an albedo map) will exhibit bloom effects when looking at them in the garage / showroom.

 

[Daiman Patel]

IMPORTANT!

SKIN UPDATES FOR ROUND 3 AND DX11

This week I have looked at and analysed all of the liveries in the custom car / skin pack with the DX11 version of rFactor 2. I conducted four sufficiently thorough tests, with the Post Effect Level set to None, Low, Medium and High (I did not test at Ultra because it is similar to High in terms of what is rendered), at different times of day and looking at the cars from a multitude of angles.

Taking into consideration the new and updated skin files that have already been submitted for Round 3, I can confirm that there will be no mandatory requirement for any of the liveries in the current version of the pack to be updated. From what I could see, no cars showed any signs of breakouts due to diffuse reflectivity or obvious bloom effects. Of course I noticed the sunlight reflecting a little more off the bodywork of some cars, but this at least appeared to be realistic; cars with a matt finish had less light reflecting off their bodies compared to cars with a smooth / shiny looking body.

In spite of this, we would still recommend that albedo maps are applied to skin files, as per the suggestion / requirement by Studio 397, to be sure that your skin does not exhibit any issues. For more information about albedo maps please see this link - https://www.studio-397.com/guidelines-for-artists/ - which provides instructions on how to correct skin files under the section titled "How to quickly update car skins / color maps".This does not necessarily need to be done before Round 3, but we would suggest that you do it sooner rather than later.

Finally, though I have checked all of the cars myself, it's possible that I may have missed something, so if you happen to notice a problem with any of the liveries in the custom car / skin pack it would be much appreciated if you could report this to me so that appropriate action may be taken. PLEASE NOTE: do not check or test the appearance of liveries in the Tuning menu as this does not work - all cars (including those with an albedo map) will exhibit bloom effects when looking at them in the garage / showroom.

 

[Gijs van Elderen]

Please refer to the following table for recommended Upstream and Downstream parameter values based on your network connection speed:

[REMOVED]

As you can clearly see, for connection speeds up to 20Mbps (upload or download) your in-game Upstream and Downstream parameter values should be set to match. If you have an upload or download speed of >20Mbps then the corresponding Upstream or Downstream parameter should be set to a value no to greater than 20Mbps as is not necessary. If your connection speed is <512Kbps then please contact me so that we can discuss your options, as slow speeds will almost certainly result in problems when performing a driver swap. And finally please note that the Upstream field is above the Downstream field in rFactor 2, so please take care when setting the values.

If you don't have issues, don't change anything.

 

[Andrew Ford]

OMG. @Joakim Stensnæs and @Mark Greenall were discussing this with me the other day
@Steve Le Gallez @Matt Le Gallez @ARG1980 but I think I read it wrong. Initially I thought that there was conflict between drivers network settings e.g. one driver had 150kbps and another had 256kbps.

@Daiman Patel , is the default setting 256kbps by any chance? if so, why would that be so low?Thats what my network settings were for upload and download?
I just did a speed test on my internet which revealed:
37.4 mbs Upload and 5.5mbs upload. So I've moved the network settings to custom 20mbps and 20mbps which is obviously way way higher!

if this is correct, the failed driver swap at sao paulo must have been all my fault. also, could it explain why, when i received the car at sao paulo and at silverstone, the car felt some input lag? I was off my regular pace by about 2 seconds per laps. @Daiman Patel if im correct to assume that these settings could result in lag, would it be more noticeable online with 40 cars (i.e the race) vs online practise (with about 4 cars generally)?

cheers

 

[Stefan Kanitz]

In rf1 we always used the default settings at 256kbps and I never had any issue with it. The higher the connection was set the more data was send which caused problems

 

[Andrew Ford]

In rf1 we always used the default settings at 256kbps and I never had any issue with it. The higher the connection was set the more data was send which caused problems

Are u using 256kbps now? Any problems?
I feel like.we need a test ..even just 30 teans turn up and do driver swaps for 20mins on a busy server

 

[Daiman Patel]

@Daiman Patel , is the default setting 256kbps by any chance? if so, why would that be so low?

Yes, the default value for both the Upstream and Downstream parameters is 256Kbps, but I'm not sure why they would be this low - the decision was made by ISI when the game was first developed. The recommendation was made by Jimmi to not use values any lower than 512Kbps, but as Gijs has rightly said if you have not previously experienced any issues then the best option would be to not make any changes..

if this is correct, the failed driver swap at sao paulo must have been all my fault.

This is not necessarily true - there's nothing to say that the failure was not caused by another, external factor.

also, could it explain why, when i received the car at sao paulo and at silverstone, the car felt some input lag? I was off my regular pace by about 2 seconds per laps.

Again, I cannot say for certain that this would explain any of the problems you experienced at Sao Paulo and Silverstone with input lag; this is all related to the inner workings of the game, which is very much a black box! However it is plausible that this was the cause of the issues, at least from a logical perspective.

@Daiman Patel if im correct to assume that these settings could result in lag, would it be more noticeable online with 40 cars (i.e the race) vs online practise (with about 4 cars generally)?

Again, from a purely logical point of view, I would say yes, but it is difficult to say because I do not know for certain what data and how much of it is being transmitted. However, I will say this based on my understanding of the way in which data is transferred by rFactor 2 - you will only really receive data from the cars that are nearest to you, not from all of the clients, so lags may become more apparent when you are amongst a larger group of cars.

Please note that we will be reviewing the effect of this recommendation, before making alternative suggestions if the settings do not work as expected and / or potentially cause more problems.

 

[Daiman Patel]

In rf1 we always used the default settings at 256kbps and I never had any issue with it. The higher the connection was set the more data was send which caused problems

Right, OK - thank you for the heads up Stefan. I shall be making another announcement shortly.

I feel like.we need a test ..even just 30 teans turn up and do driver swaps for 20mins on a busy server

I agree, this needs to be tested before we start making public recommendations that could potentially have a negative effect on the event. Unfortunately I'm not sure if there will be enough time for me to organise this between now and the event as I am busy this weekend and also next weekend, before I head off to Le Mans the week before Round 3. And finding 30 teams to turn up and test driver swaps in this incredibly short period of time will be a tall order.

 

[Andrew Ford]

Wh

Right, OK - thank you for the heads up Stefan. I shall be making another announcement shortly.


I agree, this needs to be tested before we start making public recommendations that could potentially have a negative effect on the event. Unfortunately I'm not sure if there will be enough time for me to organise this between now and the event as I am busy this weekend and also next weekend, before I head off to Le Mans the week before Round 3. And finding 30 teams to turn up and test driver swaps in this incredibly short period of time will be a tall order.

Ur right. I wasnt thinking of a full on race. Just maybe asking team leaders to get there guys on server and do some driver swaps in 30 minute time window.

Ps.we need pics daiman..im determined to go to le mans next year.

 

[Daiman Patel]

IMPORTANT!

The 'In-game Network Settings Guidance' has been retracted as the suggested parameter values will require much more testing before we can officially commit to them and make the recommendation.

For the time being we would propose leaving your Network Settings, specifically the Upstream and Downstream parameters, unchanged or at the default values; if you have already made changes we would advise reverting to your previous values or the default (256Kbps for both parameters). Once more thorough testing has been conducted, which may not now be before Round 3 (due to my other commitments), another announcement shall be made and more information will be provided.

Thank you to those who have provided feedback, and apologies for any confusion that has been caused.

 

[Daiman Patel]

IMPORTANT!

The 'In-game Network Settings Guidance' has been retracted as the suggested parameter values will require much more testing before we can officially commit to them and make the recommendation.

For the time being we would propose leaving your Network Settings, specifically the Upstream and Downstream parameters, unchanged or at the default values; if you have already made changes we would advise reverting to your previous values or the default (256Kbps for both parameters). Once more thorough testing has been conducted, which may not now be before Round 3 (due to my other commitments), another announcement shall be made and more information will be provided.

Thank you to those who have provided feedback, and apologies for any confusion that has been caused.

 

[Andrew Ford]

No problem daiman..lag might be because my system needs more ram.
However, one thing i did notice from sim racing club which confused me....
They gave examples of driver swaps which were successful and unsuccessful...but one which was successful, both drivers used 256kbps. In all cases, driver swaps failed when drivers had DIFFERENT settings.
E.g. 150kbps vs 256kbps or u could say also, where one driver had less than 256kps.

Regarding testing, i believe jimmy allisons league have a long event tomorrow (lol) so lets see what happens there first eh?
Lol

 

[Daiman Patel]

Ur right. I wasnt thinking of a full on race. Just maybe asking team leaders to get there guys on server and do some driver swaps in 30 minute time window.

Of course, I know what you meant! But the problem is that we ideally need a large group of people to test this, to try and simulate as closely as possible the conditions that we would see on a race day, and trying to coordinate all of these people in a short space of time could be tricky. Getting a number of teams to participate in the test races was difficult enough, and now we have even less time to get everything sorted and tested before the next event. We could always do some testing during an evening or two if there is a sufficient number of cars / teams on the server, but this would not be controlled or rigorous enough. So my suggestion will be to have an official test race during the off season, either towards the end of July or at the beginning of August, before Round 4 so that we can properly verify the effect of these settings.

I completely appreciate that this may not be ideal, but at the same time it is not something that we want to rush especially if there is the possibility that it may cause more harm than good, as this could ruin the event. Also, to help put your mind at ease, I can inform you that steps were taken on the server-side prior to Round 2, after the issues experienced with driver swaps during Round 1, and this seemed to have at least a positive effect if it has not actually rectified our problem - there were no recorded instances of a failed driver swap at any point during the 6 Hours of Silverstone. I understand that we should not be complacent, but at the same time this risk is too big to take before and so close to the biggest event of the season.

Apologies again for being so hasty with posting this guidance. I really ought to have waited and given it a bit more thought first, but at the same time I just wanted to get it out so that you guys can see that we are doing as much as we can, and trying as hard as possible to try and resolve problems and make continuous improvements to the league. Unfortunately I dropped the ball a little with this one!

No problem daiman..lag might be because my system needs more ram.

Lag could be attributed to a number of things - RAM, CPU, network speed and available bandwidth, and even your hard drive.

However, one thing i did notice from sim racing club which confused me....
They gave examples of driver swaps which were successful and unsuccessful...but one which was successful, both drivers used 256kbps. In all cases, driver swaps failed when drivers had DIFFERENT settings.
E.g. 150kbps vs 256kbps or u could say also, where one driver had less than 256kps.

I believe that you may be on to something there, and Gijs has also made the same point; the successful driver swaps appear to be between clients with the same settings, and failures appear to occur when both are using different values for their network settings. So maybe having the parameters set to 256Kbps is actually not a problem at all, but anything higher or lower may potentially cause issues. However one thing that this does not explain is why a driver swap may successful in one case but not in another between the same two drivers; we experienced this at Sao Paulo, and it could potentially / just as easily be attributed to something else, but I just want to throw the question out there so that we can be sure that everything has been considered.

Regarding testing, i believe jimmy allisons league have a long event tomorrow (lol) so lets see what happens there first eh?
Lol

This is very true, and it is exactly what we intend to do!

Thanks again for your feedback and being so understanding mate! It's much appreciated!

Ps.we need pics daiman..im determined to go to le mans next year.

Don't worry, there will be plenty of pictures! If I go as crazy as I did last year (and I'm almost certain that I will, because I simply cannot help it) then I shall end up taking somewhere in the region of 500 - 600 photos and videos!

 

[Stefan Kanitz]

Are u using 256kbps now? Any problems?
I feel like.we need a test ..even just 30 teans turn up and do driver swaps for 20mins on a busy server

Yes, unchanged. I can't remember, in atleast 200 endurance races, to have retire due to a failed driver swap. From my side. I would recommend everyone to stay at the default settings.
Issues related to the driver swap can be tested quickly I guess. It would take maybe 10 people who swap with everyone with different settings. Maybe we can organize something shortly.

 

[Daiman Patel]

Yes, unchanged. I can't remember, in atleast 200 endurance races, to have retire due to a failed driver swap. From my side. I would recommend everyone to stay at the default settings.
Issues related to the driver swap can be tested quickly I guess. It would take maybe 10 people who swap with everyone with different settings. Maybe we can organize something shortly.

That is incredibly useful information, thanks Stefan! After giving it some more thought, and based on what you and a couple of other people have said, it does sound like keeping your current settings (which may already be the default - 256Kbps) or preferably changing your settings to use the default values is the best option for all clients. Big differences between the network settings for two clients could potentially be the cause of the problem that we have seen with driver swaps, and as you have said this should definitely be something that can be fairly easily tested with a small group of people. Will you and @Andrew Ford potentially be free one evening next week, preferably Monday or Tuesday, so that we can do some testing?

 

[Stefan Kanitz]

That is incredibly useful information, thanks Stefan! After giving it some more thought, and based on what you and a couple of other people have said, it does sound like keeping your current settings (which may already be the default - 256Kbps) or preferably changing your settings to use the default values is the best option for all clients. Big differences between the network settings for two clients could potentially be the cause of the problem that we have seen with driver swaps, and as you have said this should definitely be something that can be fairly easily tested with a small group of people. Will you and @Andrew Ford potentially be free one evening next week, preferably Monday or Tuesday, so that we can do some testing?

Sure. Whenever you want from 7pm GMT onwards.

 

[Tom Watts]

I have one slight concern about terte rouge. With the lmp cars, the curb on the outside to even slightly touch it sends the car very badly off. I think a safety measure if that curb could be flatterened and maybe even if a sausage style curb is put on the outside of it i think it may improve it especially with such a long race. I have run several different setups already, and nothing can make that curb safe.
Otherwise i love the track i think you guys have done a great job.

 

[Stefan Kanitz]

Maybe two more suggestion Gijs . The gravel is more like twister than stopping the car. At least at the second chicane.
Second: The left and right road, first and fourth stripe, on the straights are bumpy. I know it is default but I could cause trouble, mainly while overtaking or lapping. Especially on the run to the hairpin. The cars, doesn't matter which class, have to go wide to the left if you got overtaken but it is difficult to handle the car there anyway. And if you have to take care cause of a overtaking maneuver and brake on the bumpy surface it can result in an incident.