rF2 GT3 Power Pack Released Alongside New Update

[Paul Jeffrey]

Studio 397 have released the new 'GT3 Power Pack' DLC for rFactor 2, adding five new GT3 spec cars alongside a brand new build update.

Now unfortunately it looks like those of us excited to try out the new rain effects will have to wait just a little bit longer, as the new build update released today has more of a focus on some impressive new visual damage modeling and tyre model updates, as well as the new cars of course. Despite its relative compact size the improvements should immediately be noticeable for rFactor 2 fans, with some subtle but encouraging enhancements made across several areas of the simulation, and plenty more planned for the near future.

The new build and car DLC are both available now, with the update automatically installing when you next restart your Steam client.

Want to know more about the future of rFactor 2? Don't forget to check out our interview with Studio 397 head man @Marcel Offermans HERE.

Build Changelog:

• Added: An extended visual damage model featuring a combination of dents, scratches and cracks on the bodywork of cars, which has been implemented on the GT3 pack.
• Added: New window and headlight glass shader that produces more realistic reflections. All five GT3 cars use it.
• Added: Controller Profiles for Thrustmaster T-GT, T-GT Ferrari F1 Addon, TS-XW, TS-XW with Ferrari F1 Addon.
• Added: Updates to the CPM model.
• Fixed: Various small fixes to the no rain zone code that prevents rain from entering closed cockpits.
• Fixed: All controller profiles default inputs are now assigned to JOY1.
• Fixed: Bumped the rFactor 2 version for multiplayer compatibility to 1109 because of the new visual dents that required changes to the multiplayer protocol.

The GT3 Power Pack DLC
Available now via the Steam store, the GT3 Power Pack can be purchased as either a full five car package or as individual items. The pack retails for £13.35 and can be purchased HERE.

Bentley Continental GT3

The Bentley Continental GT3 was first unveiled at the Goodwood Festival Of Speed in 2013; and since has been competing in many different GT3 championships across the globe. Even though the car looks big, it is actually very light; and its 600 horsepower 4.0 liter twin turbo engine makes it a force to be reckoned with.

Radical RXC Turbo GT3

The Radical RXC Turbo GT3 is a bit of a rare appearance in the GT3 field, but it certainly is a very strong contender. Its light and stiff body holds a 3.5 liter Ford Ecoboost V6 engine with twin turbos and intercoolers, delivering over 500 horsepower. This car competes in the GT Open and debuted in 2016 at the season opener at Estoril. Of all the cars in the pack, this one probably feels the most like an open wheeler.

Callaway Corvette C7 GT3-R

The Callaway Corvette C7 GT3-R, designed and built by Callaway Competition in Leingarten, Germany, started life on the drawing boards in 2014 and hit the tracks in 2016 when it started competing in the ADAC GT Masters. That campaign proved to be very successful; and recently it was announced that this car is now also ready to debut in the US, with GM giving permission to run in its home country. This 600 horsepower, 6.2 liter V8 packs a serious punch and sounds great. Nick-named “Darth Vader”, as it was first shown with an all-black carbon fiber body, this car will definitely remind you to hit your braking points and apexes if it shows up in your rear mirror!

Mercedes AMG GT3

The Mercedes AMG GT3 was presented to the world in March of 2015 at the Geneva Motor Show. The 6.2 liter naturally aspirated V8 engine and carbon-fiber body ensure this car can always be found at the front of the pack. Apart from racing in GT3, this car has also been entered in both the Super GT GT300 and IMSA GTD classes.

McLaren 650S GT3

The McLaren 650S GT3 is a car we already released earlier this year for the World’s Fastest Gamer competition. The car made its debut in 2015 and was designed and optimised to contest GT3 championships. Building on the MP4-12C GT3, it offered optimisations in many areas, including aerodynamics. Powered by a 3.8 liter twin turbo V8 engine that is known to spit fire like there’s no tomorrow, this car is definitely an awesome appearance on any track. We have updated this car based on community feedback and additional data we received.

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...

Excited to finally get chance to try the latest rFactor 2 DLC? What are your impressions so far? Which is your favorite car of the pack? What would you like to see next from S397? Let us know in the comments section below!

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

It's too much to ask from S397. You can avoid this problem in the future by only buying software from competent, ethical developers.

You have made your point now (over and over again). You obviously don't like the game and its developers which is fine. Now it's time to let it go and move on.

 

[NASCRAP]

You have made your point now (over and over again). You obviously don't like the game and its developers which is fine. Now it's time to let it go and move on.

You're the boss. But in closing I'd just like to state that I think it has an excellent physics engine. I do play it from time to time, but not nearly as much as I would if nearly everything else in the game hadn't been bungled.

 

[Durge Driven]

Before you denigrate others for having criticism ......................
.

You got the hide to accuse me of what ? lol

But you say ISI/S397 are not competent or ethical

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black

 

[Travis]

Just checking you have PP medium, low or off?

I usually have the PP on medium as it's what S397 suggested to run. I don't care for PP and turn it off in AC and have been doing the same in rF2.

When undertaking the testing of the GT3 cars, I turned PP off thinking Yebis was the issue as it drains frame rate in every single game I've played.

Even with the default graphical settings as one receives with a new user profile, I still had frame rates as low as 42fps with an 11 car GT3 grid at Sepang & Silverstone. Using the exact same settings with 11 Nissan GT1's and the frame rate soars.

At max settings (sans shadown blur) & PP at medium, rF2 runs a 24 car grid of GT1 or any of the ISI made cars at a minimum of 60fps in all weather conditions.

I believe @Emery may well be correct with the polygon count of the new cars; the Nissan GT1 is hardly awful to look at so I do hope S397 reduce the LOD down on their cars to improve the frame rate. A modern GPU should not struggle with rF2 recent output when other cars with the sim and games across all genres run beautifully on the same hardware.

 

[pcraenme]

Guys, remember that this build is still in beta test. Optimisation is the last thing to do in this part of the developement process. Let matters take their course

Correct, but... in the meanwhile S397 are working on extending the graphics engine with rain effects, which I assume will have a negative effect on performance (in the rain) as well. Yes, these rain effects would be very nice, but most of my races are in the dry and having better performance racing against 10+ AI with shadows at least on medium (low disables all shadows in cockpit so that is no option), would be higher on my priority list. I am mostly positive about S397 (and will probably buy all DLC they will release, on day one, just to support them), but they are only a small team and how many of their resources do they have working on performance optimisations? Especially shadows, since that seems to have the most impact and also has some graphical issues (e.g. the 'shadow band' that moves ahead of you, very visible at Zandvoort for example).

 

[John-Eric Saxén]

I believe @Emery may well be correct with the polygon count of the new cars; the Nissan GT1 is hardly awful to look at so I do hope S397 reduce the LOD down on their cars to improve the frame rate. A modern GPU should not struggle with rF2 recent output when other cars with the sim and games across all genres run beautifully on the same hardware.

It was shown on some other thread that the rF2 McLaren 650S is basically the same 3D model of the car as Assetto Corsa uses, with slightly different UV mapping. I think this is the right approach from S397 in paid content, to use high quality 3D models that are on par with other sims.

The problem more likely is with gMotor engine, most of which was built over a decade ago. Due to the way it uses PCI Express bus and stores VRAM in system RAM, it makes it very difficult to run things like shadows without something bottlenecking somewhere. So to me it's great content, but an engine that needs optimizing.

 

[Durge Driven]

Funny I got told I was wrong for telling anyone that had lower fps and PCI-e 2.0 that 3.0 is faster

Some people again may have a GPU needs flashing for 3.0............... my GTX970 did

So run a video then run CPUz and make sure it is running at PCIe- 3.0

 

[Emery]

I think this is the right approach from S397 in paid content, to use high quality 3D models that are on par with other sims.

I agree that high quality 3D models on par with other sims is the right approach. I think the easy way forward for S397, however, is to make the LOD switching happen sooner. It could be tied to Opponent Detail; right now, Opponent Detail only reduces the textures rather than the LOD distances (which used to be the case for older games).

Since newer LOD B models are about the same as rF2's older LOD A models, players wouldn't notice the graphic difference with the new content other than a performance boost with multiple cars. Tying Opponent Detail to LOD distance in addition to textures would put the performance boost in player's hands, too!

 

[Durge Driven]

It could be tied to Opponent Detail; right now

Hi E

You mean like rain is tied to RR ....... hehe

Only things I asked in 5 years to be changed or fixed is above and the wheel/rims on F3 Eve redone so you can't see light between them ...........lol

You can run a session with no rain but if you add any percentage /chance in just one box you get no rain but rain-spray and a gripper track !

If you run default server you may notice when you create a room every single time that all 5 sections in rain will be white boxes not greyed out as they should be.

So go to any track in server and re-pick the same dry weather in every segment in all boxes and save. When you check any track now all segments will be grey and you can't change % of rain


How is 5 cars with bad fps for a week a bigger problem then that for 5 years ? lol

 

[Will Mazeo]

Funny I got told I was wrong for telling anyone that had lower fps and PCI-e 2.0 that 3.0 is faster

Some people again may have a GPU needs flashing for 3.0............... my GTX970 did

So run a video then run CPUz and make sure it is running at PCIe- 3.0

While you are not wrong this is something that should have been fixed ages ago. Just like the screen freeze and game process running out of real time. Pretty bad these issues are still present nowadays.
You watch anyone streaming a VEC race and it's a festival of terrible PR for rF2 due to this

 

[Durge Driven]

While you are not wrong this is something that should have been fixed ages ago. Just like the screen freeze and game process running out of real time. Pretty bad these issues are still present nowadays.
You watch anyone streaming a VEC race and it's a festival of terrible PR for rF2 due to this

Oh I agree mate and make the distinction in PCI-e bug and wet real road are far more important then a few cars with bad fps .......sheesh

 

[Ghoults]

One of the thing that rf2 does is that meshes usually have 3 or 4 uvmaps whereas ac has only one. I don't know how much that hurts rf2 but having those extra uvmaps can't come free. And in car making I've not seen any benefit for having multiple uvmaps. Ac manages to do more with just one uvmap and it also makes the modelling process infinitely quicker. Maybe tracks can make use of them with texture blending and vertex colors but at the same time it is just more numbers for the engine to calculate.

As for other topic could someone post some screenies of the new damages on the gt3 cars? I've only seen one pic and it looked very modest.

 

[Paul Murphy]

Your name on top menu in Steam, put the cursor on it, then click on Inventory, select rF2 and there they are

I have all the cars from the GT3 Power Pack in my Inventory, but they are not appearing in my game (with the exception of the McLaren, which I've had since I bought the pack). I've tried running the beta dx11 versions, both v. 1109 and the previous v.1108. Help!

Edit: I solved this by simply unsubscribing, then resubscribing to each car.

 

[Yeschristopher]

I cant seem to get thgem in my cart. When I go to checkout there's an error everytime, but other games go to my cart like normal I noticed while testing.

 

[pcraenme]

Oh I agree mate and make the distinction in PCI-e bug and wet real road are far more important then a few cars with bad fps .......sheesh

The FPS hit is most apparent on some cars (e.g. mostly the new GT3's, some of the ASR mods), but PCI-e bus usage is very high in this game in general. But for each person the priority of changes/fixes/optimisations will be different.

And in some cases upgrading (e.g. flashing your GPU bios, as you indicated before) is no option. My GPU (GTX 1070) is already 3.0 and it is also running in 3.0 (checked with GPU-Z), but the number of PCI lanes it can use is limited to 8 on my system and that is something I cannot change (I just bought my Alienware 15 R3 about 7 months ago ).

 

[Miroslav Davidovic]

I cant seem to get thgem in my cart. When I go to checkout there's an error everytime, but other games go to my cart like normal I noticed while testing.

I had the same issue. Solution was to simply go back and forth (previous page) a few times until it worked. Took quite a while and was annoying but it worked at the end.

Anyways cars are simply brilliant to drive. If you have an OSW you have to try this.
I could not stop driving them yesterday.

 

[hitm4k3r]

I agree that high quality 3D models on par with other sims is the right approach. I think the easy way forward for S397, however, is to make the LOD switching happen sooner. It could be tied to Opponent Detail; right now, Opponent Detail only reduces the textures rather than the LOD distances (which used to be the case for older games).

Since newer LOD B models are about the same as rF2's older LOD A models, players wouldn't notice the graphic difference with the new content other than a performance boost with multiple cars. Tying Opponent Detail to LOD distance in addition to textures would put the performance boost in player's hands, too!

I agree with you that there needs to happen something in terms of performance optimization, but there is only so much you can do with LODs. For example at the start of the race there will allways be problems no matter how your LODing works. For me right now, it is more important that they work on how the engine renders and calculates stuff in DX11, because in DX9 the cars work pretty good on high settings allready in a situation that is a slideshow in DX11.

 

[Marcel Offermans]

Plus car rotation is 400 degrees by default should it not be 540?

No, the real car only has 400 degrees of rotation. Much less than other GT3's, so that was done on purpose.

 

[thepharcyde]

No, the real car only has 400 degrees of rotation. Much less than other GT3's, so that was done on purpose.

thank you. With the up and coming rain effects can i confirm why all of these cars do not have working wipers; is this and indication that this build not imminent?

 

[MarcG]

thank you. With the up and coming rain effects can i confirm why all of these cars do not have working wipers; is this and indication that this build not imminent?

They were bugged so turned them off for now.