iRacing has released a somewhat rare mid-season update. Instead of waiting until the Season 3 build in early June, iRacing has pushed out some time sensitive updates and fixes.
The primary objective of the update is to fix some frame rate issues that have crept into the simulation recently. To combat this, a dynamic object detail level has been implemented, adjusting the quality of objects around you in real-time to keep your frames per second (FPS) up. It will be interesting to see how successful the dynamic detail leveling is. Is the sim going to resort to 16-bit at the beginning of a race when the sim is loaded with a full field of cars, crowds and pit road objects?
Another FPS saving update – which has me excited – is the changing priority of the cockpit mirrors if you have the virtual mirror on. Previously, if you ran the virtual mirror, the primary in-car center mirror was still on. This was pretty useless because A) virtual mirror and B) if you run triples (like me), the center mirror isn’t even visible in your field of view (FOV) on a lot of the cars. Now you can run your diver side mirror and the virtual mirror only, saving FPS. Much better.
Outside of these FPS improvements, the update persists of minor fixes and new car setups that should give everyone better starting off points to build their own setup (or at least pass tech…).
Framerate Improvements
– Improved shadow volume performance at night tracks, when driving near large
groups of cars, such as during starts and re-starts.
– Dynamically reduce the level of detail of cars and pit related objects, when
driving near too many high detail objects, such as during starts and restarts.
– Added some clamping to the level of detail for mirrors and cockpit camera to
prevent detail level from going too high when it shouldn’t.
– If both the virtual mirror and cockpit mirrors are enabled at the same time, the rear-view cockpit mirror is now lowered in priority to be after the side mirrors. Now you can say you want 1 cockpit mirror and the virtual mirror, and you get the driver side cockpit mirror and the virtual mirror, instead of the rear view mirror and the virtual mirror.
Screenshots
– Fix the giant screen shot code so that it works again.
Fonts
– Fixed the Charlie Brown font so it will now display properly.
BMW Z4 GT3
– Fixed bug where final drive ratio was not transmitting to opponent cars properly, causing incorrect sounding opponent engine rpms.
– Updated baseline setup.
Chevrolet Impala Old Class B
– Updated darlington setup.
Ford GT
– Maximum perch offset for both fronts set to be equal.
Ford GT GT3
– Fixed bug where final drive ratio was not transmitting to opponent cars properly, causing incorrect sounding opponent engine rpms.
McLaren MP4-12C GT3
– Fixed bug where final drive ratio was not transmitting to opponent cars properly, causing incorrect sounding opponent engine rpms.
Modified – SK
– Updated all setups.
NASCAR Camping World Chevrolet Silverado
– Added more levels of detail, and optimized existing LOD’s.
– New shadow model for night tracks.
NASCAR Camping World Toyota Tundra
– Added more levels of detail, and optimized existing LOD’s.
– New shadow model for night tracks.
– Made sure parts of the damage model doesn’t show up at the wrong time.
NASCAR Sprint Cup Chevrolet SS
– Updated martinsville and monza_ovalleft setups.
NASCAR Sprint Cup Ford Fusion
– Updated martinsville and monza_ovalleft setups.
NASCAR Sprint Cup Toyota Camry
– Updated martinsville and monza_ovalleft setups.
NASCAR XFINITY Chevrolet Camaro
– 3D model optimizations.
– Updated darlington setup.
– Rear of car should no longer disappear at certain viewing distances.
NASCAR XFINITY Ford Mustang
– 3D model optimizations.
– Updated darlington setup.
– Rear of car should no longer disappear at certain viewing distances.
Super Late Model
– Updated all setups.
Autodromo Nazionale Monza
– Collisions enabled on the oval tirewalls.
– Pitwall collisions for final piece of wall was missing after oval/road split.
– Fixed tunnel shadow problem.
– Fixed terrain gap near tunnel.
Summit Point Raceway
– Fastlane object no longer creates black-hole shadow for shadowmaps.
Phoenix International Raceway
– Lights on the T1 stand were not hooked up into grandstand detail level and had configuration problems causing a lot of double rendering.
Twin Ring Motegi
– Fixed bug with a pit wall in the East config missing a collision chunk.
Groovy.
Big deal. iRacing is a cash cow and not much more.
You felt the need to A) Look at the Update and B) Comment because why?
My triples did seem a bit more stable, fps wise, in the turns. But I am getting a very fine tear in the screen in tight turns. Probably just need to readjust my settings.