0.8.5 Update

[Jan-Olov Johansson]

http://www.racedepartment.com/assetto-corsa-v0-85-race-weekend-released/

0.8.5
- Race Weekend
- AI improvements
- Fuel lap prediction
- Improved mouse with ingame gui
- Gui fixes and improvements
- Animations on secondary elements of the track
- Enable/disable keyboard commands with wheel or gamepad
- Skybox graphical improvements
- Tweaked kerbs volume
- Lotus Evora GTC
- Lotus Evora GX

 

[Jason Hunt]

I see the AC defence force are out today.

Btw, it didn't do this before the last update.

EDIT: I see there are a few posts about this on the official forum so it's a known thing.

 

[Blkout]

Getting lots of stuttering while driving the MP4 GT at Vallelunga with 23 mixed GT class cars.

Tried again with just 23 MP4s and stutter better but still there.

Going to try another track.

Anything above 12-16 AI is going to be very hard to run at high framerates no matter how powerful your system.

 

[Joao Alves]

Not to mention how clustered the track gets. I like running 12-16 AI. I get good frames and its more than enough cars to race IMO.

 

[RaceNut]

I just ran a Race weekend with 23 AI and it was smooth as butter. I have the FPS capped at 80 and I don't think it dropped much below that - if at all. I don't run Ultra high settings in-game but, pretty high on most. I really like maneuvering through traffic to chase the leaders so I run a good variety of AI cars.

System Specs: Intel i7-4770 @3.4GHz / GeForce GTX 780 / 16 GB RAM / 1920x1080 x1@23" / Win 7

 

[Joao Alves]

I just ran a Race weekend with 23 AI and it was smooth as butter. I have the FPS capped at 80 and I don't think it dropped much below that - if at all. I don't run Ultra high settings in-game but, pretty high on most. I really like maneuvering through traffic to chase the leaders so I run a good variety of AI cars.

System Specs: Intel i7-4770 @3.4GHz / GeForce GTX 780 / 16 GB RAM / 1920x1080 x1@23" / Win 7

Valid point and not to put it down at all, but a GK110 is a monster chip. And at 1080P it just shovels pixels like there's no tomorrow. And the 4770K is a very very capable CPU.

Right now I have an i7 4820K and a single 760. I had a second one, but it got toasted during a thunder storm . I can run pretty high settings, for the most part, but I'm a little GPU bottlenecked when there's a ton of cars on track.

 

[Michael Hornbuckle]

My i5 2500k runs full grids of AI on lowish settings no problem, 60fps smooth as butter.

 

[Jason Hunt]

The actual race is fine with me starting mid grid. The stutters are just during practice and qualifying.

I tried 23 ai at Silverstone in the 312t and it was perfect for a few minutes but then the stutters started - but not as bad as the mixed ai group at Mugello ( I said Vallelunga by mistake earlier).

Cpu seems to average around 50% and GPU is stable at 68% usage.
It's very odd and there are posts about it on the official forum. It didn't do it before 0.8.7

EDIT: and to clarify, the stutters aren't drops in frame rate, they are full-on halting of the game for a split second, or even half a second in the worst case (and that's quite a long time).

EDIT 2:

The issue is with the AI cars being reset in the pitlane. I've just sat at the exit to the pitlane and watched them set off during qualifying. If they hit the wall and get stuck, they reset, and the red line on the frame rate graph peaks.

Explains why it happens during Practice and Qualifying only.

My post on the official forums for photos:
http://www.assettocorsa.net/forum/index.php?threads/stutter-during-practice-and-qualifying.8820/

 

[Leemstradamus]

That's what I was referring to. I'm getting great performance with full grids now. Settings are pretty good mix of high and mid. But running triple screens with vertical sync and frame limit at 60. The stutter I'm refereeing to isn't the drop in frames which also is a problem seeing that I can't find the bottleneck. Rather a complete pause in the action.

Now to the frame rate drop all being balanced, you should see something on your system spike when the frame rate drops but I'm not seeing that. CPU usage is fairly balanced across all threads and hardly gets over 70% usage. When the frame rate drops, I'm not seeing a surge in CPU or gpu usage but rather a drop in both.

 

[Paul Lock]

I remember stutters in other games being linked to replay in some way. Be it a bug in the coding, or caused by varience in the config, the write speed choking the game, the physical drive space available etc. Seems possible as people with a range of different kit arent seeing a reason for it in their cpu/gpu monitoring.

 

[Jason Hunt]

This is nothing to do with replays.

My post explains exactly what causes the problem. I have excellent performance with a grid of 24 during the race. It's the pit-stops that cause the stutter so it's a bug in my view - and it was introduced in 0.8.7.

 

[Blkout]

I remember stutters in other games being linked to replay in some way. Be it a bug in the coding, or caused by varience in the config, the write speed choking the game, the physical drive space available etc. Seems possible as people with a range of different kit arent seeing a reason for it in their cpu/gpu monitoring.

When Kunos increased the replay file size setting, it caused problems for some people. Kunos recommend lowering the replay file size setting if you're encountering stutters. I have my doubts about how much it helps, but it is from Kunos direct so I'm sure they know better than I do.

 

[Blkout]

This is nothing to do with replays.

My post explains exactly what causes the problem. I have excellent performance with a grid of 24 during the race. It's the pit-stops that cause the stutter so it's a bug in my view - and it was introduced in 0.8.7.

The replay file size setting doesn't cause stutters in replays, it causes it in game according to some people so it COULD be affecting you. Not saying that it is, but that setting does affect gameplay, not replays.

 

[Jason Hunt]

That's fair enough and my misunderstanding of what Paul was saying. But, as the stutter happens every time an AI car is reset and only when they are in the pits, I suspect it has nothing to do with replay size.

There are probably a million other things that could be causing it.

 

[Blkout]

That's fair enough and my misunderstanding of what Paul was saying. But, as the stutter happens every time an AI car is reset and only when they are in the pits, I suspect it has nothing to do with replay size.

There are probably a million other things that could be causing it.

Probably so, he was just making another suggestion to try. Crazier things have happened before. is your game installed on an SSD hard drive? I read someone else had a stuttering issue related to the game being installed on an SSD and it cleared up when they installed it on a mechanical hard drive. Again, strange and not likely, but its something to consider.

 

[Jason Hunt]

Normal disk for me, and it was rF2 that you are referring to.

I might try turning down the replay size (or off if that can be done) but I'm put money on it being nothing to do with that - but you never know.

 

[Dinca Andrei]

Sherlock Holmes said :

"...when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth...."

 

[Blkout]

Strange problem. Did you report it on the official AC forums?

 

[Jason Hunt]

Sherlock Holmes said :

"...when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth...."

I'll let KS do that bit

 

[Jason Hunt]

Changed the replay to 10MB (from 500) and watched the AI in practice. Not a single one got stuck leaving the pits so I didn't see any peaks initially. Typical!

But then, one returned from the track, stopped and got reset. This caused the blue graph to peak and it's the blue line that causes the really big stutters.

So I don't think it's the replay and I can see what affects the red and blue graphs.

 

[Joseph Maxx]

I'm wondering if when a car resets it's actually being re-spawned - like it does at the beginning of the session and that's why you get a spike in processor load. One of the things I don't like about AC is the amount of time it takes for a session to start (load time) and I'm hoping this gets addressed by the 1.0 release