rFactor 2 | New Build Update and Indianapolis PBR Released

[Paul Jeffrey]

Studio 397 have today released a new build to the rFactor 2 racing simulation, alongside a new PBR shader update and refresh of the popular Indianapolis Motor Speedway circuit within the sim.

• Indianapolis 2020 V1.06 released.
• New build update addresses the first pass of fixes and optimizations.
• Build update available as opt in release candidate.

Studio 397 have today released both a new build update to the core rFactor 2 simulation, alongside the much anticipated refresh of the classic Indianapolis Motor Speedway Steam Workshop circuit for the title.

In terms of the build update, the new release today adds a number of fixes and quality of life improvements to the title - the most recent build in what the Dutch development team have promised is the start of a concerted effort to address many of the outstanding issues within the simulation.

Build Update Notes

• We’ve removed the Max 2012 plugins as they no longer work, and provided the last working Max 2017 plugins. We have no intention to upgrade them any longer as we can’t get these versions of Max any more to test. Furthermore, we urge the modding community to upgrade to current Max versions.
• Fixed: Reflection mapper in Scene Viewer, so it renders from the same point as the user sees.
• Fixed: Bind a mouse click to any input control.
• Fixed: Issues with showroom performance.
• Fixed: Missing error prompt when textures are missing from content.
• Fixed: Issue with a white screen you get when you try to assign a control.
• Fixed: Visible damage sometimes corrupting car bodies, to properly fix the hotfix that temporarily disabled the visible damage.
• Fixed: Issue where clouds could show similar corruption as car bodies.
• Fixed: Showroom Upgrades not displaying which require MAS Files.
• Fixed: Glitch where “the lights would suddenly go off” when transitioning from light to dark at dusk.
• Fixed: Exploit where you could still set the FE car to use 250kW in the setup in a race when that setting is reserved for “attack mode”.
• Fixed: Overlays would not correctly follow the attack mode countdown timing.
• AIW Editor: Added new line smoothing option, and added soft selection for manual adjustments.
• Added an internal option to the player.json to turn off multi-threading in the UI. Defaults to “on”.
• Added code support so we can detect a disabled Steam overlay, to warn you about why a shopping cart won’t show up.
• Changed how a dedicated server shuts down when asked so it no longer crashes with a non-zero return code.
• Pausing sessions in a dedicated server will now only pause the first one.
• Increased an internal timeout when talking to Steam to give it more time before we give up or retry.
• Scene Viewer Changes: Moved Web UI Port to 5396 by default and added support for up to 128 scenes in configuration file

In a change from the normal procedures with build releases, this new update will be available to players as a special 'Release Candidate' branch of rFactor 2 - meaning the current public version of the simulation remains unchanged, and platers can choose to 'opt in' to this new update right-clicking rFactor 2 in your Steam library, and selecting ‘Properties – betas – release-candidate’.

Indianapolis Motor Speedway Update

In other rFactor 2 news, the studio have also deployed a new update to the free Indianapolis Motor Speedway circuit, adding a wide range of improvements to one of the older circuits within the simulation.

You can check out the changes in the latest build notes below:

• Update of 2013 Release to 2020.
• Replaced 2013 layout with modern equivalent
• Full PBR Conversion of all assets
• Replaced Crowds with new assets
• Replaced Marshals with new assets
• Added Pitlane Props (Pit Stands, Fuelling Rigs, Pit Markers)
• Added accurate background nightlighting
• Added Advertisements
• Added building at Road Course S1
• Improved various assets such as armco barriers
• AI Updates to 2007 GP and Modern GP layouts.
• Various other improvements and tweaks

Original Source: Studio 397

rFactor 2 is available now exclusively on PC.

Got questions? Our community have answers! Check out the rFactor 2 sub forum here at RaceDepartment for a great way to engage with your fellow fans of the simulation.

 

[Peter Kerényi]

@Ryan Soucy Hey, thanks. I don't say anything is unimportant. But I don't like when important things get compromised, and more importantly I am worried by the attitude. I get the fun and immersion part, but at least for me real thing physics looks like it couldn't be more fun than that, so any noticeable principally incorrect observable mismatch is surely not desirable by me. The problem is that these things has to be observed to be understood. There are plenty of interesting details to pay attention in real thing, and they should be expected to be happening very similarly in simulation. I use a word "principally" because I am not that fanatic, I can live with inaccuracies, but if I suspect and see evidence of a car simply not doing something right and not being anywhere close to how it should work, then it is not what I want to have to use my time with. Basically what I am trying to say is that the realism in consumer market simulation inevitably depends on what the average guy will feel and want to believe being true. And if there will be more mechanical illiteracy and if there will be less observant guys then the bar of "realistic enough" physics will go down, and will switch more into "likeable enough" rather than "realistic enough", and it has been already happening for few years. Basically every barely realistic simulation already can be considered as "state of the art". I am worried about rF2 because, not only S397 does not seem to extract best from rF2 physics IMO, but also the underlying physics of rF2 are getting nivelated with less advanced simulations by common simracer more and more often. It is a signal of physics not being desirable anymore, most likely because most guys expectations for physics realism are fully fulfilled and has settled down as "correct" versions of alternate reality.

I want to keep my response short and on point. These are all video games first and foremost that aim to replicate real life, and I think the majority of them do a hell of a job honestly. However, in certain video games the actual video game is missing. People don't go to AC or ACC over rF2 because they are mechanically illiterate, they go there because it's a more accessible package as a video game, not necessarily as a simulation. Most of us are working, have finite time, sometimes it is just not desirable to spend hours setting up the perfect AI aggression setting to not have boring or catastrophic races.

On more topic I would like to say that the new UI is a step in the right direction, they just need to find a way to make it more responsive. I really welcome all track updates including this one in the thread, their PBR tarmac shader is very good in my opinion, the way it reacts to light seems very realistic. I root for S397 as well as all other dev teams.

 

[davehenrie]

I uninstalled cause the thing always crashes on startup since that new UI. HAd to go back to the old setting which I don't like. Is this all fixed yet??????????

The Web UI works for most of the rf2 user base. So what is there to fix? You and many others do have issues but asking for a fix without providing clear understanding of your issues is/are pointless. Many of the problems have been worked by users here and at S397 forum. Let us at least try and help.

 

[davehenrie]

yes. This... start a single player race against AI, try to configure AI, wait two minutes for a listing of the "favorite" servers I dont have... more than annoying..

I don't know how to combine posts, so here is post #2:
When it asks for a favorite server, click on MORE and get the list. Choose the server with the lowest ping. DO THIS EVEN IF YOU NEVER RACE ONLINE! Do this once and the time taken to scan the entire list of servers will be greatly shortened. Don't worry if the server is Passworded or for another series you don't race. Just choose the lowest ping server and forget it. Two minutes will become just a couple of seconds that you only have to skip past once as you navigate to offline racing.

 

[MarcG]

I want to keep my response short and on point. These are all video games first and foremost that aim to replicate real life, and I think the majority of them do a hell of a job honestly. However, in certain video games the actual video game is missing. People don't go to AC or ACC over rF2 because they are mechanically illiterate, they go there because it's a more accessible package as a video game, not necessarily as a simulation. Most of us are working, have finite time, sometimes it is just not desirable to spend hours setting up the perfect AI aggression setting to not have boring or catastrophic races.

On more topic I would like to say that the new UI is a step in the right direction, they just need to find a way to make it more responsive. I really welcome all track updates including this one in the thread, their PBR tarmac shader is very good in my opinion, the way it reacts to light seems very realistic. I root for S397 as well as all other dev teams.

In response to your Bold part; Arguably that's the same for All Sims, I myself do a lot of AI Racing across a variety of Sims and always spend a lot of time tweaking Aggression/Strength/whatever sliders in them all before i find the right balance - only for it to end because there's some anomaly!
Like all Sims with AI you need to spend a little bit of time to find that decent racing balance, what makes it harder with RF2 is the abundance of community made content which is quite often severely lacking in the AI department, that's no fault of RF2 directly.

When it comes to Official Content RF2 and AI are in the same ballpark as any other title with regards to setting up that fine balancing act, until future progression in AI coding comes along (Neural was touted but not much happening there) I can't see any other way. Even Sims with no Mod Support struggle to balance AI from Track to Track with the same Car (I've not tried the latest ACC Patch yet) and yet that's all they have to worry about and some Sims are still struggling quite badly.

 

[tr1v1um]

In response to your Bold part; Arguably that's the same for All Sims, I myself do a lot of AI Racing across a variety of Sims and always spend a lot of time tweaking Aggression/Strength/whatever sliders in them all before i find the right balance - only for it to end because there's some anomaly! Like all Sims with AI you need to spend a little bit of time to find that decent racing balance, what makes it harder with RF2 is the abundance of community made content which is quite often severely lacking in the AI department, that's no fault of RF2 directly. When it comes to Official Content RF2 and AI are in the same ballpark as any other title with regards to setting up that fine balancing act, until future progression in AI coding comes along (Neural was touted but not much happening there) I can't see any other way. Even Sims with no Mod Support struggle to balance AI from Track to Track with the same Car (I've not tried the latest ACC Patch yet) and yet that's all they have to worry about and some Sims are still struggling quite badly.

^This. Reading alot of comments about rF2 AI I allways get the impression that it's comletely broken or unusable just to find out that they are working decent and in some ways much better than products where I don't read complains about AI at all.

That said, it would be nice to see the studio fixing the strategy and FCY issues. Those are some of the most frequent complains and they worked in the past. I don't think that it is a good practice to leave problems unfixed that were introduced several years ago. And it shades a bad light onto your product if some of your standout features, wich the rule system is without any question, don't work as advertized.

 

[mantasisg]

@Peter Kerényi I have said nothing against having better playtime experience with simulations. All I meant is that the thing that is titled as "simulation", must hold interest in physics too, and the interest is not satisfying, physics are taken for granted and is a label thing now.

On the topic, I haven't seen indy yet, but I am surely satisfied by rF2 graphics for the most part, and I am greatly satisfied by how tracks looks such as: Nordschleife, Portland, Silverstone, Spa, Le Mans. Maybe less candy than graphics of some other sims, but they are so fine and natural in all weather and day times.

As for software stuff. Do you guys think UI and Competition system will be done before 2022 ? People are starving for so much more stuff.

 

[gc24]

I use the old UI and it works, I ran the NTT Indy 2020 cars,but there is alot of vibration while on pit road and driving. Is that supposed to be normal?

 

[GuitarTech]

I don't know how to combine posts, so here is post #2:
When it asks for a favorite server, click on MORE and get the list. Choose the server with the lowest ping. DO THIS EVEN IF YOU NEVER RACE ONLINE! Do this once and the time taken to scan the entire list of servers will be greatly shortened. Don't worry if the server is Passworded or for another series you don't race. Just choose the lowest ping server and forget it. Two minutes will become just a couple of seconds that you only have to skip past once as you navigate to offline racing.

The above fix works, but having to fix things that shouldn't be broken in the first place gets old really quickly. How long is it going to take till the "new" UI works as it should? S397s work tempo can only be described as glacial.

 

[davehenrie]

I use the old UI and it works, I ran the NTT Indy 2020 cars,but there is alot of vibration while on pit road and driving. Is that supposed to be normal?

same here. I guess the proper way to test this would be to load up another oval and see if this how the car is supposed to work.

 

[gc24]

same here. I guess the proper way to test this would be to load up another oval and see if this how the car is supposed to work.

I ran The Nascar cars at the Brickyard and there is slight vibration also.. This is Offline BTW.

 

[Peter Kerényi]

In response to your Bold part; Arguably that's the same for All Sims, I myself do a lot of AI Racing across a variety of Sims and always spend a lot of time tweaking Aggression/Strength/whatever sliders in them all before i find the right balance - only for it to end because there's some anomaly!
Like all Sims with AI you need to spend a little bit of time to find that decent racing balance, what makes it harder with RF2 is the abundance of community made content which is quite often severely lacking in the AI department, that's no fault of RF2 directly.

When it comes to Official Content RF2 and AI are in the same ballpark as any other title with regards to setting up that fine balancing act, until future progression in AI coding comes along (Neural was touted but not much happening there) I can't see any other way. Even Sims with no Mod Support struggle to balance AI from Track to Track with the same Car (I've not tried the latest ACC Patch yet) and yet that's all they have to worry about and some Sims are still struggling quite badly.

Trust me when I criticize the AI I criticize them on official premium content. What I said reflected my experience. You know what my problems were on Sebring. Well, that's just one. I tried Le Mans like 9 months ago and I am still not ready to give it another try. Don't get me wrong, the AI show signs of brilliance, but at the same time signs of the other extreme as well. And yes, it might be better in a single class scenario with no need of lapping, but the selling point of rFactor 2 is multiclass, so one would expect the AI to shine there.

 

[Peter Kerényi]

@Peter Kerényi I have said nothing against having better playtime experience with simulations. All I meant is that the thing that is titled as "simulation", must hold interest in physics too, and the interest is not satisfying, physics are taken for granted and is a label thing now.

On the topic, I haven't seen indy yet, but I am surely satisfied by rF2 graphics for the most part, and I am greatly satisfied by how tracks looks such as: Nordschleife, Portland, Silverstone, Spa, Le Mans. Maybe less candy than graphics of some other sims, but they are so fine and natural in all weather and day times.

As for software stuff. Do you guys think UI and Competition system will be done before 2022 ? People are starving for so much more stuff.

And which recent more popular sim does not hold interest in the physics side of simulation?

On topic, a did a lap on the new Indy, modern layout, I would say it's around the quality of Portland, so among the top free content. I saw nothing that would be out of place taking into account the style of rF2.

Regarding the UI/Competition, based on their track record I have no expectations when it will be ready. I honestly doubt it will be ready this year. For me the most important thing would be smoother animations in the UI, feels very laggy at the moment.

 

[TheRealCeeBee]

in reply to the UI remarks, now that I finally got it running I am not hating it, Im still perplexed at why the people who make the game, cannot figure out how to show the car preview images properly (even on official content like the reiza pack..) but that aside it kinda does what it should, nowhere near as clean and simple to use as ACC or AMS2 but nowhere near as bad as RaceRoom.. anyone that does not like the RF2 ui, get the free version of R3E and try a race against the AI, after you pick you car and track and hit race now, and have had to click start race across 3 more different screens before it finally actually starts the race.. you will be back marvelling at how good the RF2 UI is..

 

[MarcG]

Trust me when I criticize the AI I criticize them on official premium content. What I said reflected my experience. You know what my problems were on Sebring. Well, that's just one. I tried Le Mans like 9 months ago and I am still not ready to give it another try. Don't get me wrong, the AI show signs of brilliance, but at the same time signs of the other extreme as well. And yes, it might be better in a single class scenario with no need of lapping, but the selling point of rFactor 2 is multiclass, so one would expect the AI to shine there.

...and like I said other Sims are still failing with a Single Series let alone multi class. No Sim is perfect with the AI, sure RF2 could be better in this regard but it's no different from the others.

 

[Peter Kerényi]

...and like I said other Sims are still failing with a Single Series let alone multi class. No Sim is perfect with the AI, sure RF2 could be better in this regard but it's no different from the others.

Not sure if I agree that other sims are outright failing (not stating they are perfect either). I think there's no point in arguing. I think, based on older conversations as well, that the two of us expect slightly different things from AI.

 

[MarcG]

Yes maybe failing is the incorrect word, but when I pick up another sim and still have to tweak the AI then that's all i need to know that they're all relatively the same in that regard, different story on actual AI Racing though

 

[Roberbond]

I can't understand why in a new build news about rf2 there are some many ACC player arguing about the superior grass of other sim or the bad IU of RF2. I really don't stay more than 1minute in the IU and I don't keep watching the beautiful grass when I am racing so I don't have those problems.

Since they have implemented the Competition System and with Racedepartment races and other forums this is my only sim and I enjoy it very much. And I can play in VR very smoothly, and I have lot of free content ( I race with lotus cortina in Oran Park yesterday and with a BMW M1 in Southshore Finland on Sunday) and the best (to me) and most realistic physics by far.

 

[Tr0nic]

Please add a darkmode for settings menu... changing car specific FFB multi is always a trip into brightest sunlight.

Also wondering, when they implement RF2 properly into Steam VR.
Can't change videosettings per app, only if RF2 is running.
Every other game is listed in there...

They aim for multiplayer where a lot of people use or want to use VR in the future, but can't fix this.
I just don't get it...

Besides some critic: Kudos S397 for updating older tracks again!

A friendly friday to everybody!

 

[MarcG]

Please add a darkmode for settings menu... changing car specific FFB multi is always a trip into brightest sunlight.

Also wondering, when they implement RF2 properly into Steam VR.
Can't change videosettings per app, only if RF2 is running.
Every other game is listed in there...

They aim for multiplayer where a lot of people use or want to use VR in the future, but can't fix this.
I just don't get it...

Besides some critic: Kudos S397 for updating older tracks again!

A friendly friday to everybody!

It's there for me now without RF2 running, the store page was updated very recently to re-add VR support so i guess that's fixed this particular issue as well.

 

[Jan Larsen]

Please add a darkmode for settings menu... changing car specific FFB multi is always a trip into brightest sunlight.

This. While you're at it, put the entire UI into dark mode, or give us the opportunity to do it ourselves, its so much more relaxing for the eyes, like on FB and here.