Sector3 Evaluating RaceRoom Engine Upgrade

[Paul Jeffrey]

In an informative post Sector3 Studios Producer J-F Chardon confirms the developers are "evaluating" the possibility of upgrading R3E to a more recent DirectX engine.

With an eventual move to the impressive Unreal 4 set for some time in the future of RaceRoom Racing Experience, it has come to light that the developers haven't abandoned the possibility of performing an intermediate upgrade to the game engine of the versatile racing simulation, with J-F confirming in a forum post that they "have an investigation going on to upgrade our current RaceRoom engine to a more recent directx version".

Far from abandoning the idea of eventually migrating to Unreal 4, Sector3 are interested in seeing if a short term move to a more recent DirectX version can be achieved without producing too serious a diversion of resources, with a view of helping the simulation get "a bit of fresh feel and performance to keep the engine relevant while waiting for UE4".

Elaborating on the state of play regards a move towards UE4 for RaceRoom, Chardon went on to confirm that "What I can maybe share is that we do already have artists busy bringing our RaceRoom cars and tracks to UE4", although it must be cautioned that the absolute focus of RaceRoom and Sector3 is to continue development of the present incarnation of the title while further technical developments around Unreal 4 and GTR3 are being undertaken by sister outfit SimBin Studios. So don't expect anything from Unreal 4 and RaceRoom in the immediate future, hence the interest in bringing DX upgrades to the title for the short term.

With the news that the team are continuing the hunt for performance and graphical enhancements, whilst still maintaining an impressive array of new content and feature improvements means that RaceRoom is here to stay for the long term...

Interested in learning a little about how cars are developed in RaceRoom? Check out our interview with Sector3 physics expert Alex Hodgkinson below:

RaceRoom Racing Experience is a PC exclusive racing simulation by Sector3 Studios. You can download the base game with limited content for free, with further cars and tracks available to purchase at an additional cost.

Check out the RaceRoom Racing Experience sub forum here at RaceDepartment for the latest news and discussion regarding the simulation. We have a few select mods to download, a ton of setups created by our community and our pièce de résistance the RaceRoom Racing Experience Racing Club. Head over to our club and join in a selection of races for all different skills and experiences. Top TeamSpeak banter and great racing, exclusive to premium members of RD.

Looking forward to R3E in UE4? Do you think it would be a good idea to upgrade to a high DX level prior to the move? Let us know in the comments section below!

 

[Majuh]

What a trainwreck of a thread. The engine upgrade is not about graphics, it's about performance...

https://forum.sector3studios.com/index.php?threads/may-31st-update.10866/page-4#post-152355

 

[Boby Kim]

I don't care much in regards RRRE at the moment, so just hurry up and bring GTR3. We've been waiting since December 2011 where you guys unveiled the website (now closed) with the sample of Engine Sounds.

http://www.virtualr.net/gtr3-website-reveals-first-sound-samples

Then after 6 years, GTR3's tech demo powered by UE4 was unveiled and no further news afterwards. So yeah don't keep us waiting any longer. Bring out the big guns Simbin! Do It!

That was another Simbin (GTR2 and the Race 07 serie)! Instead of GTR3 we were presented with R3E.

 

[ronniej]

"Evaluating" lol. Well this most likely means they have more content on the way, because every time they announce anything, purchasable content comes next.

Just can't find a way to be optimistic about R3E....Gave a tremendous amount of support in the beginning while content was the most expensive, then they introduce packages, so we go ahead and purchase the "Premium Pack" to obtain the remaining track and a couple of cars, then they perform a "content blitz" so you end up having to purchase everything piece by piece again because they don't believe in rewarding loyalty for some reason. (A pure slap in the face if you ask me.) Not sure why they figure their game is still worth twice as much as other titles like AC, RF2, AMS and yet we still can't play the bloody game if their servers are down (or our internet)....

They announce a new studio (Simbin UK/the brother) along with the great news that GTR3 will follow within a year or so, along with collaboration with Sector3 and with this we would see UE4 come to R3E as well, but now they are "evaluating" whether or not to do a "midgrade" graphics update? Sure, why not. Bring it on.

 

[ionONE1]

Never had perfomance issues to be honest, compared to the other sims R3E gives me the most fps. Triple screen, moderate settings and 200+ fps at all times.

Would rather see them update the UI (not even possible to tell if a race has a mandatory pitstop when you prepare in pit ... most people do not even know that you only have to change 2 tires). Its not possible to disable chat? Im not interested what penaltys other drivers get on the track, that is really annoying in the center top of the screen ...

A post race screen with stats like overwatch/starcraft (fastest lap times, average laptimes, offtracks, contacts etc.).
Server options that result in a cleaner multiplayer experience (driving school, have to qualy within a certain % of leader or cars appear as ghost, penalty for leaving early), honor system like league of legends to award others for driving clean/fair/friendly.

Add daily challenges, people get points to unlock car skins ... give people an incentive to login.
Every other game has adopted some kind of rewards system these days, oh well not simracing ...

Basic day/night like GTR2 (no the stars don't have to align perfectly), basic rain feature just like GTR2 to mix up this stale track experience.

 

[theravenousbeast]

Performance improvement for VR users? Oh yeah, all 5% of the playerbase. Whoop-de-****ing-do.

Let's see.

GTR3 is vaporware
Ranking system was supposed to be a major upgrade for 2017. Meanwhile in June 2018.
Interesting and unique content has slowed down to a crawl.
Physics updates for old content seems to be abandoned as well.
Every 2nd update has crippling bugs or just kills the servers for 3 days.
8 out 10 people in online races are Germans. If it wasn't for the strong German focused content this game would be dead.

 

[Charles Amyouni]

That was another Simbin (GTR2 and the Race 07 serie)! Instead of GTR3 we were presented with R3E.

Yeah sure when the website's domain name was clearly "www.gtr3.com" before it was taken down - if the website was not meant to be for GTR3 - I don't think SimBin's that stupid to name if after their GTR franchise (with a number 3).

And the only plausible reason I could think of SimBin never used R3E's engine for GTR3 is the fact that it lacks all of the features its predecessor already has which will feel unfaithful as a successor where it will get more downgrades than being embraced.

 

[sunnyasia]

I remember my last upgrade of R3E when I lost all my settings. About a week ago.

 

[Case_]

I don't care much in regards RRRE at the moment, so just hurry up and bring GTR3. We've been waiting since December 2011 where you guys unveiled the website (now closed) with the sample of Engine Sounds.

Then after 6 years, GTR3's tech demo powered by UE4 was unveiled and no further news afterwards. So yeah don't keep us waiting any longer. Bring out the big guns Simbin! Do It!

Completely different game, completely different company. Not sure how it is so hard to understand. I'd be tempted to guess it's because they both have the word "Simbin" in their name, but then again, "Simbin" and "Sector 3" are completely different names and yet still people treat them like one, so...

"Evaluating" lol. Well this most likely means they have more content on the way, because every time they announce anything, purchasable content comes next.

They have plenty of new content on the way, yes. Apart from anything else they might be working on, the complete WTCR car roster is being added to the game.

 

[Trebor901]

dont understand this, the game looks fine, performs fine ive never had any trouble with it. Only thing it lacks over other race sims in general is changeable weather.

 

[Lukasz Milewski]

dont understand this, the game looks fine, performs fine ive never had any trouble with it. Only thing it lacks over other race sims in general is changeable weather.

I think that with DX11 they might be able to put more resources into AI and physics without taking anything from frame rate/graphics. That's my take on it, game might still look the same but might be more room for stuff like brakes simulation, tyre temps and stuff. Just thinking.

 

[The Iron Wolf]

Would very much rather hear that they work on deepening the simulation, cool down lap, damage, flat spots, safety car phase, dynamic conditions. But I guess one doesn't exclude the other, so the fact that R3E is considering moving away from DX9 is good for all of us

 

[Nano10]

If with the directx11 can improve the AI and achieve a good balance (not as now that is unplayable by the brutal aggression of the bots) welcome directx11

 

[budlix]

Whatever. If it will not affect WTCR development..

 

[Amanda]

Ya'll talking about how bad Micro$oft is to the gaming community, yet you aso talk about DX12 as it is this heaven of goodness?

Since it's Unreal Engine we're talking about, how about we discuss Vulkan as the main API so the Mac, Linux, and console folks can also have a piece of good sim racing?

 

[Ghoults]

It is much more than just dx9 vs dx11. Updating to a more modern engine allows the game look better while also getting better fps. I don't know if raceroom is 32 bits or 64 but that also makes a difference how much memory you can use. Pc architecture has moved to quite different direction from the rf1 era from mid 2000s. Back then the fastest machines were dual core cpus and I think lots of the improvements with cpus don't come from clockspeeds anymore but from instruction sets and other things that didn't exist back then.

You also have things like development tools for creating 3d models, sounds and textures. An engine like ue4 for example allows importing all kinds of assets in different formats so you are not stuck with old versions of plugins for 2012 software. Ue4 also has other tricks like non-destructive dynamic lod/texture workflows so you can just import a 4k png for everything and just change things with sliders inside the editor. Not to mention you can work with things exactly as they are in-game. Plus lots of other tricks. The umg in ue4 surely beats creating uis in c++ for the old rf engine and the visual scripting language allows pretty fast prototyping of ideas. And most importantly lots of cool features exist that are almost impossible to add to older engines. You can play videos, add all kinds of online components and change things much more rapidly than if you need to make all the code yourself for everything.

 

[Raikku]

One problem with these oncoming graphical updates are that studios have to be real careful that their sims doesn't turn too heavy to run on high fps. Now situation is great when you can run iR, AC, RRE etc somewhere around 150-200fps easily, especially important when you use 144Hz or over screens. And VR-users also need every fps what they can get.

 

[Patrik Marek]

this could mean better and more streamlined VR experience, also potentially some FPS boost,

what's not to like here!

 

[Boby Kim]

Completely different game, completely different company. Not sure how it is so hard to understand. I'd be tempted to guess it's because they both have the word "Simbin" in their name, but then again, "Simbin" and "Sector 3" are completely different names and yet still people treat them like one, so...

Nope it isn't, its a daughter company under the hood of raceroom experience. RaceRoom Experience is part of KW suspensions, S3 are the devs.
Former Simbin, creators of GTR2 was lead by Ian Bell (the dev of the Project cars game).
Former Simbin has absolute NOTHING to do with the current setup of Simbin by KW suspensions.
Anyways, it all does not matter. Even if the current simbin would copy all R3E GTR3 content to GTR3, the community would be happy...as long as it has VR!

 

[Ayem22]

DX upgrade will only make the same as rF2 :
-always bad graphics
-always awfull optimisation (even with 1080ti and 45% GPU usage you have 50fps....)

Look pCars 2 and DX11 native :
-99% GPU usage with 1080ti and always max fps.

R3E:
-50% gpu usage not max fps

RF2:
-50% gpu usage not max fps

No seriously the future is unreal 4, a good 3d engine optimised for DX11 and new GPUs, and not an old ISI 3d engine outdated.

with patch 6.0 for pcars 2, SMS has actually no challenger in sim racing, FFB is far better than rF2 or Assetto, graphics too, masive tracks, masive cars, awesome rallycross, all weather, very good AI, all the content from ACC is already in pC2.

but i understand, everybody can't play with 1080ti +144hz gsync, the "purist" for old racing simulation has always old computer.

 

[Case_]

(I really should stop reading these discussions, they paint a far too depressing image of gamers and simracers in particular.)