RaceRoom Update and Touring Classics Pack Preview

Sector3 Studios has released a new update for RaceRoom, bringing improvements and fixes to the title.  The update can be summed up in five categories; Fanatec support, shadow improvements, art updates, Touring Classics physics overhaul and general fixes.

Lets look deeper at a couple of these.  The art updates have me excited and concerned.  Love (!) that Sector3 have reduced the amount of fake advertisement boards around the tracks.  It is one of my biggest pet peeves.  I really don’t know why titles going for ‘sim’ status do this.

Another art update is the deletion of animated 2D flags and the implementation of higher polygon 2D crowds.  While I think this will certainly look better – was never in love with the look or motion of the flags – higher polygons does mean higher loads on your GPU.  It appears like a few people have had this issue on the Sector3 forums.  Hopefully, these frame rate issues are contained to only a handful of people and not widespread.

This is an example of why I feel for developers.  Such a balancing act between pretty graphics and performance.  You’re always damned if you do, damned if you don’t.  Some people will love the extra eye candy, while others will be upset at their performance drop.  Can’t win over everyone.

Another major change in this update is the Touring Classics physics being balanced with the DTM 1992 cars.  This change now sets up for one hell of a constructors battle.  As shown below, having eight different cars with balanced performance makes for one wild race.

[youtube]https://youtu.be/Z6vlQ5I2dn4[/youtube]

Speaking of Touring Classics, thanks to this update the latest RaceRoom pack is just around the corner.  The pack features four cars, three already in the title (BMW M3 E30, Volvo 240 Turbo and BMW 635 CSi) and one new car, the Nissan Skyline GTR R32.  Check out the preview shots of the Touring Classics Pack and the release notes below.

New Content

• Prepared the game for upcoming releases and sponsored competitions.

Game:

• Added Fanatec V2 support and default controller profiles.
• Added numerous additions to the Shared Memory to provide more data to 3rd party developers.
• Added individual controller profiles for different Fanatec rims.
• Implemented support so Fanatec rev-light works by default.
• Implemented Fanatec LED display support with following options:
  • S-G Speed + Gear
  • S Speed
  • G Gear
  • F Fuel
  • POS Position
  • OFF Off
• Added a new keybinding option for Fanatec LED Display cycle in secondary functions.
• Added a “Random” setting to Time of Day selection.
• Fixed a crash that could occur with older replays.
• Fixed an issue where cars would randomly lose body parts while watching replays.
• Fixed an issue where car shadows would sometimes stop moving.
• Fixed so that the Vehicle Settings apply when set in pause menu.
• Fixed an issue with loading screen popping up one frame between title and splash screen.
• Improved car shadows
• Improved shadow split performance
• Fixed a crash that was occurring at the end of hillclimb tracks.
• Added additional logging to catch resolution related errors.
• Added additional logging to catch potential ffb/physics issues.
• Fixed an issue where the server difficulty was not matching with what was showing in-game.
• Fixed having 2 “Continue to Results” in pause menu in certain cases.
• Fixed an issue that could cause path to user documents be wrong.
• Fixed Player name and End of Session text not fitting the overlay.
• Fixed an issue where the car was moving at start if gear is engaged.
• Fixed AI in main path braking for cars that are slowing down while entering pitlane.
• Fixed a potential AI distance error for cars to the left/right on different paths.

• Changed default steering lock for gamepads from 13 to 8.
• Updated some values on all gamepad default profiles.
• Deployed code support for upcoming spectator mode (more information can be found here)

Multiplayer

• Dedicated: Added result reports (basic version in json and xml format, additional data will be included later).
• Dedicated: Added options to upload reports to ftp and http.

AI, Physics & Audio

• Touring Classics physics overhaul. This class now matches performance with DTM 1992.
• Decreased gearshift backfire amount on some turbo cars
• Gumpert Apollo gearshift backfires adjusted
• P4/5 Competizione new internal sounds
• Removed the ability to use traction control in Touring Classics
• Sachsenring – Fixed AI car hitting pitwall under ai control during pitstops.
• Sachsenring – Merged cut track rules across all difficulty levels.

Art:

• Reduced quantity of advertisement boards around most of the tracks, and moved some around so it all looks more like it belongs.
• Zolder: added windmills in the distance
• RaceRoom Hillclimb: Deleted animated 2D flags, replaced audience with some more high polygons bodies, replaced 2D audience with new ones
• Lakeview Hillclimb: Deleted animated 2D flags, replaced audience with some more highpolygons bodies, replaced 2D audience with new ones.
• Chevrolet Dekon Monza – Fixed some heavy glare on interior windows.
• Various livery tweaks to DTM 2015 cars (available only through the DTM Virtual Championship)

Portal:

• Added VIP Drivers directory in portal which will list all the VIP drivers.
• Optimized login flow by removing redundant user page load before redirecting to menus.
• Added failover on MW timeouts.
• Added additional checks for store transaction fails.
• Fixed an issue with user content cache which was getting invalidated after adding price to a new content.
• Fixed discounts not being considered for second pack in the cart.
• Fixed an issue with user content cache which was getting invalidated after adding a a new content.
• Fixed discounts not being considered for second pack in the cart.
• Fixed an issue where some transactions were remaining pending and not getting completed.
• Optimized loading times for user content.
• Optimized loading times for web menus.
• Fixed a caching issue that was causing image assets not to load correctly on some browsers such as Safari.