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!

 

[NASCRAP]

Do you really want rF2 to have LESS content?!?

I want the content it already has to work properly. But that's too much to ask of S397.

 

[Tarmac Terrorist]

All this talk of new damage model being really impressive, yet not one bit of footage on their site or anywhere else!

 

[Lino Carreira]

Impressive to say the least when Reizas AMS on the previous Graphical engine is far superior to rF2 best content by miles.... impressive also that being the ugliest engine its also the heaviest .... go figure ... i do like Marcel alot, seems a honest and hard working guy that decided to save rF2.... but as the Americans say... you can polish a Turd..... its still a Turd... im commenting solely on the graphical engine btw...

 

[John-Eric Saxén]

That BS marketing lie has been parroted over 9000 times. All they have to do is cut resources spent on the "content guys" and divert it to bug fixing. But they won't, because there's a sucker born every minute.

What do you mean by "cut resources"? What are the content developers that S397 have hired supposed to do if you "cut" their resources? You do realize they probably have people under a full time working contract, so how would cutting resources work out unless you fire them?

 

[Rick Lopes]

Impressive to say the least when Reizas AMS on the previous Graphical engine is far superior to rF2 best content by miles.... impressive also that being the ugliest engine its also the heaviest .... go figure ... i do like Marcel alot, seems a honest and hard working guy that decided to save rF2.... but as the Americans say... you can polish a Turd..... its still a Turd... im commenting solely on the graphical engine btw...

impressive also that being the ugliest engine its also the heaviest ....

that's true...

i had some "discussions" here with some guys

and... i suspect that when rf2 dx11 cames with default my GPU won't be able to handle 3 monitors... has it does on AC and IR (for example)

 

[NASCRAP]

What do you mean by "cut resources"? What are the content developers that S397 have hired supposed to do if you "cut" their resources? You do realize they probably have people under a full time working contract, so how would cutting resources work out unless you fire them?

There is a considerably large segment of rF2 players that enjoy being abused and will defend S397 regardless of how badly that developer rips them off. I've found that they can't be reasoned with.

 

[Emery]

Impressive to say the least when Reizas AMS on the previous Graphical engine is far superior to rF2 best content by miles.... impressive also that being the ugliest engine its also the heaviest .... go figure ... i do like Marcel alot, seems a honest and hard working guy that decided to save rF2.... but as the Americans say... you can polish a Turd..... its still a Turd... im commenting solely on the graphical engine btw...

You do realize that rF2 DX11 is a complete rewrite of the graphic engine?

 

[kimbo]

You do realize that rF2 DX11 is a complete rewrite of the graphic engine?

Do not waste your time with the troll...

 

[Rick Lopes]

you got to love these racedepartment forums...

 

[Bez]

edited due to incorrect info.

 

[SirVanhan]

I'll just copy what I said on the official forum:

The cars all drive well, good job on that... but my god the FPS is just atrocious. After some testing I found out it's not the build in itself, but the cars. If you compare the GT3 pack to every other modded car, or even the USF2000, there's a drop in 15-20 FPS. On my i7 4790, GT970, 16GB RAM I seldom hit 60FPS when running the new cars.
To be honest, all the cars released by Studio397 bar the USF2000 suffer somewhat from low FPS. The best one still is the Nissan GT500. The McLaren is on the limit, I can reach at least 60FPS, but the new ones are just bad.
Other than that, this build (and I noticed it with every car I tried) has brought back some stuttering. At Zandvoort, which is graphically the unfriendliest track of the lot, I had tearing too.

As I said, the cars drive well. Force Feedback seems good. I love them all better than the McLaren, ahahah. I think the sound is too metallic, like if it goes through a filter on the equalizer, which makes it less realistic.

I will add here that my PC can run Assetto Corsa in a range that goes from 70 to 100+ FPS on high settings. I don't know the FPS I get on Project Cars 2, but a part from some expected -- yet rare -- drops, on medium-high settings I can race pretty well. Both look awesome. rFactor2 on the other hand isn't that good looking. A couple of filters doesn't make it pretty when you're driving (for still shots that's another story).

 

[Lino Carreira]

Do not waste your time with the troll...

Troll because i have an opinion regarding a game ? is it a lie that among the most common Sim titles rF2 is the less visually appealing and yet the most GPU demanding of the bunch? what part of this sentence is incorrect ?

And whats the relevance if the new engine is a complete rewrite or simply an adaptation ?

 

[RichardHessels]

So did they fix the bugs that cause AI to constantly pit in the rain, and a drying race line to have more grip than a completely dry track? Does the UI still look like an early beta of a PS2 game?

Or were they just too busy working on the cash grab to fix flaws in the core game that have been around for years?

What cash grab? Till now i have seen loads of free updates and free official content. They lowered the price of the SIm, so everybody can play online whole of their lifes. Believe me till now Studio 397 only been investing instead of harvesting money.

 

[delpinsky]

I believe that the final version is now 1109 so I dont think theres any reason to use the beta?

But the beta is for people who want to try the DX11 version, which is not finalized yet, so we need to download it. Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[Rodent]

Radical is an interesting choice, I didn't even know that car existed. I won't lie and say I'd happily have picked it over a BMW/Lambo/Ferrari or even Audi but now that it's here, well it's pretty cool, a unique touch to GT3 sim racing. Looking forward to getting some time behind the wheel with this one.

 

[osyres]

now i have to say the performance is ugly in vr. no downsampling no special grpahic settings and i m not even close to stable 90 fps with gtx 1080. Iracing and project cars 2 no problem with high settings. No i only test the mclaren and the sounds are ugly as hell especially the opponent sound wtf ? I also don t think that the physics of the mclaren is right. I can only controll the ugly highspeed oversteer with setting up the bumbs and than ur 2 sec faster. But even with toe,camber or hide ( which sould be the biggest impact ) u should make the car more stable. rf2 pontential in terms of physics and tiremodel makes iracing and co look like toys its really funny how big the diffrent is. but rf2 is far away from a finsih product to many construction sites. i hope they can fix the performance in vr, make better sounds and a competition multiplayer like iracing. And put in a f*** delta tool !!!

 

[Rick Lopes]

I'll just copy what I said on the official forum:

The cars all drive well, good job on that... but my god the FPS is just atrocious. After some testing I found out it's not the build in itself, but the cars. If you compare the GT3 pack to every other modded car, or even the USF2000, there's a drop in 15-20 FPS. On my i7 4790, GT970, 16GB RAM I seldom hit 60FPS when running the new cars.
To be honest, all the cars released by Studio397 bar the USF2000 suffer somewhat from low FPS. The best one still is the Nissan GT500. The McLaren is on the limit, I can reach at least 60FPS, but the new ones are just bad.
Other than that, this build (and I noticed it with every car I tried) has brought back some stuttering. At Zandvoort, which is graphically the unfriendliest track of the lot, I had tearing too.

As I said, the cars drive well. Force Feedback seems good. I love them all better than the McLaren, ahahah. I think the sound is too metallic, like if it goes through a filter on the equalizer, which makes it less realistic.

I will add here that my PC can run Assetto Corsa in a range that goes from 70 to 100+ FPS on high settings. I don't know the FPS I get on Project Cars 2, but a part from some expected -- yet rare -- drops, on medium-high settings I can race pretty well. Both look awesome. rFactor2 on the other hand isn't that good looking. A couple of filters doesn't make it pretty when you're driving (for still shots that's another story).

and i have sai here that with my gpu i play AC with triples ... rF2 dx9 also...
But not the dx11 build

 

[Rick Lopes]

Troll because i have an opinion regarding a game ? is it a lie that among the most common Sim titles rF2 is the less visually appealing and yet the most GPU demanding of the bunch? what part of this sentence is incorrect ?

And whats the relevance if the new engine is a complete rewrite or simply an adaptation ?

PS : Btw Dumbo, i do use my real name if i want to troll something i choose a fancy one like you...

SENTENCE IS RIGHT... I AGREE

 

[John-Eric Saxén]

The cars all drive well, good job on that... but my god the FPS is just atrocious. After some testing I found out it's not the build in itself, but the cars. If you compare the GT3 pack to every other modded car, or even the USF2000, there's a drop in 15-20 FPS. On my i7 4790, GT970, 16GB RAM I seldom hit 60FPS when running the new cars.
To be honest, all the cars released by Studio397 bar the USF2000 suffer somewhat from low FPS. The best one still is the Nissan GT500. The McLaren is on the limit, I can reach at least 60FPS, but the new ones are just bad.
Other than that, this build (and I noticed it with every car I tried) has brought back some stuttering. At Zandvoort, which is graphically the unfriendliest track of the lot, I had tearing too.

You need to use the latest build released if you want decent performance with these new GT3 cars, they seem to perform poorly on older builds.

 

[Marc Collins]

Cars look nice. Hope the FPS performance issues can be worked on, but those may relate to the new features like the improved damage. Damage was left out of rF2 originally because of the performance hit being too high.

Which leads to me the second obvious question--when will the amazing new damage model get applied to all the existing cars? Months? Years? Will it ruin their FPS performance, too?