Assetto Corsa reaches version 1.3 with a new DLC

[Alex Franchini]

Kunos Simulazioni have updated their popular racing sim with 64-bit support and the Dream Pack 2 DLC.

The update weights almost 500MB on Steam and brings along a revised tyre model, visual and audio improvement, and new multiplayer features.

Dream Pack 2 includes the Circuit of Catalunya (2 layouts), 4 racing cars and 5 road cars.

Be sure to check out our Weekly Whip for your 1.3 racing needs, and come join us now on our Public Server to give the new GT3's a test run!

Here is the full changelog straight from the devs:

• "64bit build
• Car physics is now calculated in separate threads
• Fixed KERS disabled in pitlane
• Added soft locks (use [SOFT_LOCK] ENABLED=1 in system/cfg/assetto_corsa.ini)
• Added support for DRS zones
• acServer is now stressing much less Go' GC and should offer more stable performances
• Added FORCE_TGT to force low res timer in assetto_corsa.ini
• acServer is now using Go 1.5, faster GC
• Added server welcome message
• Fixed gear ratio appearing with a double "/" in setup screen
• Fixed acServer unable to read ini values with a "=" character (ex AUTH)
• Fixed driver name displayer not obeying to saved settings in MP
• Fixed acServer not creating "results" folder automatically
• New algorithms to calculate skid volumes and pitch, now working globally in the entire simulation
• Added grain and blister readings in the setup info screen
• Added downshift protection to gearboxes
• Lap count is now reported using 16bit unsigned integer to server plugins
• Now using triple buffer when vsync is on to reduce latency
• Exposure settings are now persistent
• Fixed audio clicks on surface events
• Tyre flat spots are now taking into account tyre softness
• Windscreens now receive shadows
• ksEditor: now it uses the same ingame engine.
• ksEditor: added project menagement
• ksEditor: added user personalizations
• ksEditor: added floating windows and layout system
• ksEditor: added Weather and PPfilter loader
• ksEditor: added recent files/project management
• ksEditor: added node filter in scene panel
• ksEditor: added Material by Texture in Materials panel
• ksEditor: added scene icons and side function buttons
• ksEditor: added texture detail on Material panel
• ksEditor: added Texture Review windows in Utilities
• ksEditor: fixed reload texture function
• ksEditor: now the default CultureInfo is en-US (number format, ect)
• ksEditor: added FOV, Near Plane Slider, Mouse sensitivity, camera angle and position under Viewport
• ksEditor: added Dashboard tab
• acServerManager: removed some upper limits on parameters
• acServerManager: preset name/description is more clear
• acServerManager: added welcome message
• acServerManager: added qualify limit
• acServerManager: added fixed setup management
• acServerManager: fixed upload on ftp. Now cfg folder is not deleted.
• Fixed driver textures on serveral cars
• Fixed circuit outline on track selection UI
• Camera Dev App now save F1 cameras' exposure and pitch, F6 cameras' exposure, fov and position and angle
• Removed background from Performance Delta App
• Redesigned and faster code for logging
• Updated Tyres V5 for GT2 and GT3 cars, should give less understeer.
• Zonda R and Ferrari 599XX and Formula Abarth now have V5 tyres.
• Less lift off oversteer for Evora S on street tyres V5
• GT3 and GT2 cars updated aero stalling for front splitter and diffuser
• GT3 slight performance balancing
• Mclaren MP4 GT3 tyre corrections
• Fixed TC digital item showing 0 based index when multiple TC level are available
• Now showing Cold and Hot pressure readings in setup status
• Added "NA" for IMO temps reading when no set has been swapped out
• Added support for track dynamic objects
• It is now possible to join a server using admin passoword and be automatically granted admin rights
• Joining a server with admin password will override the session "closed" status
• Added "ban_id" admin command to ban a user and send straight to blacklist
• Remote cars in multiplayer now generate skidmarks
• Fixed EDL wrong calculation order"

Join the discussion in our AC forums, and get racing in our Assetto Corsa Racing Club! While you're at it, why not check out some awesome videos and screenshot in our AC gallery?

 

[belevezero]

thousand % agree this has moulded itself into a simcade pcars forza rival. Shame.. but if they want the fame and popularity that what they need to do.

I'm playing both Forza 6 and AC currently, I don't see how these two are comparable. The physics and FFB in AC, especially now with the update, have 100 times more nuance and sophistication than FM6. It's a completely different experience that I can't see translating well to consoles, and if AC is gonna have any success in that market they have a lot of dumbing-down to do in terms of driving, while beefing up the career mode.

 

[Adrian Brezeanu]

this is not happening just for me , it seems that the new tyre model 5 affected also my wheel team mates and other racers in the league everyone is around 9 -10 seconds slower then before on the new tyre model , and the new times are pretty close to the real life laps with bmw235i around Spa and that may be a good thing.
So i figure more practice with new tyre model and a bit of settings change will make it drivable again for me.

 

[RaceNut]

The update brought improved overall performance on my system. I'm liking the new tire model, FFB and heating model, I can really feel the car handling change over time much better. GT3 races are much better with a wider range of cars available. I also welcome the ability to boost the tire noise, along with the improved FFB feel, it's much easier to judge "Edge of Grip" and not over-drive the car.

The new cars sounds are a nice improvement but, there are some weaknesses that I hope get addressed in the future, primarily with gearbox whine/drivetrain flex, interior resonance, backfires and a few other details.

Graphic performance seems to have improved when running triples; haven't tried it in VR yet. Overall, a great update with amazing content and welcome feature improvements. Well done Kunos!

 

[Si]

It's a high performance road car @Si Comes in AWD and RWD variants, however they do have some body kit differences. They both sound absolutely fantastic! In fact all the cars in DP2 sound bril.

Many thanks @Chris Stacey I take it they don't run on slicks then......shame I was hoping to run some por........sorry ruf cup events

 

[Richard Eriksson]

So, the jittery motion is MUCH improved now. Appears that the decoupling of pysics from rendering as described in the patch notes did what i have been saying since beta 1, which is make rendering run full tick. So not 60fps is much smoother when vsynced. FINALLY!

 

[paracletus]

v10 sound needs work imo.
doesn't sound like a huracan, to be honest.

[quote: AC]
"Assetto Corsa 1.3 Changelog

• Added downshift protection to gearboxes"

^Ah, so they did change the transmission model. Seems a bit too cautious with selecting lower gears - i was able to downshift quicker than this on previous versions without ever over-revving the engine. An option to turn it off (like you can with TC & ABS) would be the best compromise.

 

[Alex Franchini]

My bad then for reporting my problems i though that is why forum exists . I did not report it after my first laps, but after a few month of doing laps almost everyday in AC and because that what v1.3 did to my driving experience.

And second for those that think pad drivers are a mess , think twice because some of us play so smooth that u will not even notice that we are not on wheel , even less wreck anyone so do not put us to the wall for your presumed ideas. (off course there are exception but so are for bad wheel drivers that wreck everyone )

Peace

Feel free to report problems, by all means! What I meant is that I've had the opposite experience, that's all.
In what ways it's worse than before for you?

 

[Richard Eriksson]

Spoke too soon. Tried it again on multiple high end systems... With AI and without. High settings or low. No difference. The jittery motion is still there. Sat down with a friend to measure frame times AGAIN on two different machines. Evidently micro-stutter still present. Frame times are ridicolously uneven still.

Turns out i didn't see it before due to just going mostly straight. As soon as you turn the car and look at the surroundings it is evident the problem is still very much there.

So. Still unplayable.

And yes, to me a PC only sim should be smooth on machines worth 4k+ dollars of hw. and not have an underlying codebase that is still faulty. Sorry, i have enough stuff to play with on my PC, to stand for that...

Uninstalling again... Shame. But loading times improved, and yes, jittering is LESS but not smooth.

 

[e345spd]

^You need to work with the game to really solve stutter and input latency (along with most other games), particularly if you're running mgpu.

I'll post my frametime logs and go into more detail about getting things as smooth as possible if you're interested.

Nothing much changed for me performance wise, very smooth and decent (with the right settings), minimums may be a bit higher with AI, haven't really pushed the scaling beyond my normal test scenario.

Now, I am still seeing a few particular shots in replays (on track driving not so much) that hammer the FPS down to ~40 minimum in MP. Monza has the best examples of oddly low performance shots/viewpoints of the track and Monza also seemed to start having some sort of network induced performance issue with 18 drivers in MP.

Tyre model is definitely improved, I feel like pushing wildly is much less beneficial and it certainly feels more progressive. Maybe a touch too progressive in some ways, but aside from MP consistency, this is exactly what I wanted to see them working on. Just don't stop yet, kunos!

this is not happening just for me , it seems that the new tyre model 5 affected also my wheel team mates and other racers in the league everyone is around 9 -10 seconds slower then before on the new tyre model , and the new times are pretty close to the real life laps with bmw235i around Spa and that may be a good thing.
So i figure more practice with new tyre model and a bit of settings change will make it drivable again for me.

 

[Torcano]

@Richard Eriksson IDK what you are doing with your '4k $' PC mate but my frametimes are solid as anything. I run triples on a single GTX980 and an ancient i5 2500k. And I lock my framerate to 60 fps ingame as well. I just did a 5 lap race with 14 AI on track with every setting maxed out except reflections and these are my frametimes chart from afterburner, the only time the frametimes go haywire (the spike you see at the end) is in the launcher menu results screen. In game it's steady as a rock, no jitters, no lag, no stuttering... nothing. I even removed the OC on my 980 to factory 1300 something from it's usual 1560MHz clock and still I kept solid frametimes and my fps never moved from 60.

 

[Brandon Wright]

@Richard Eriksson IDK what you are doing with your '4k $' PC mate but my frametimes are solid as anything. I run triples on a single GTX980 and an ancient i5 2500k. And I lock my framerate to 60 fps ingame as well. I just did a 5 lap race with 14 AI on track with every setting maxed out except reflections and these are my frametimes chart from afterburner, the only time the frametimes go haywire (the spike you see at the end) is in the launcher menu results screen. In game it's steady as a rock, no jitters, no lag, no stuttering... nothing. I even removed the OC on my 980 to factory 1300 something from it's usual 1560MHz clock and still I kept solid frametimes and my fps never moved from 60.

I believe his theory is that every fifth or sixth frame is being dropped and that if you look really really closely under certain circumstances you can detect a faint stutter, but it doesn't show up in your FPS counter/stats because it's only dropping one frame. Thus, unplayable.

 

[St3fan]

@Richard Eriksson IDK what you are doing with your '4k $' PC mate but my frametimes are solid as anything. I run triples on a single GTX980 and an ancient i5 2500k. And I lock my framerate to 60 fps ingame as well. I just did a 5 lap race with 14 AI on track with every setting maxed out except reflections and these are my frametimes chart from afterburner, the only time the frametimes go haywire (the spike you see at the end) is in the launcher menu results screen. In game it's steady as a rock, no jitters, no lag, no stuttering... nothing. I even removed the OC on my 980 to factory 1300 something from it's usual 1560MHz clock and still I kept solid frametimes and my fps never moved from 60.

I'm guessing that since he has a $4k computer he might be using a super high resolution settings so there might be some problem with AC's GPU usage maybe? AC's running fine on mine but I only have a 5760*1080 resolution.

Maybe it's a good thing that many games are coming to consoles so that people who don't have the patience to troubleshoot computer system issues can enjoy the game much easier rather than uninstalling a game in frustration and furious anger.

 

[Torcano]

I don't play at a dummy resolution either, I run at triple 1440s. The issue might be caused if he is using SLI because I used to run two GTX770s before the 980 and I had stuttering problems for a period of time as well. There are no driver side optimization for AC as far as I know of from nvidia or amd, so multi gpu configs might cause issues, not like you need much power to run AC at 60 fps at high settings anyway,

 

[Glaurung]

Spoke too soon. Tried it again on multiple high end systems... With AI and without. High settings or low. No difference. The jittery motion is still there. Sat down with a friend to measure frame times AGAIN on two different machines. Evidently micro-stutter still present. Frame times are ridicolously uneven still.

Turns out i didn't see it before due to just going mostly straight. As soon as you turn the car and look at the surroundings it is evident the problem is still very much there.

So. Still unplayable.

And yes, to me a PC only sim should be smooth on machines worth 4k+ dollars of hw. and not have an underlying codebase that is still faulty. Sorry, i have enough stuff to play with on my PC, to stand for that...

Uninstalling again... Shame. But loading times improved, and yes, jittering is LESS but not smooth.

I did not understand exactly your issue, but here on a 600 € system AC never was so smooth as it is now so I suppose that your issue is related to your hardware.
In order to fix the problem I'd suggest to post a thread in the AC support forum attaching your hw specs and the log file.

 

[William Crudup]

Trackir not working in 64 bit, anyone else have this issue and a workaround instead of going to 32 bit?

 

[Yapci]

700€ PC and only drops to 50fps at start.
18 AI's, all maxed except mirrors and smoke. Overall ultra.
After first curve in spa, getting 70-80 fps.

If you look at trackside trees when in a curve there is a thing wrong. You.

 

[Michael Hornbuckle]

Best laugh I have had in a while reading some of these guys opinions. Just because I can play chopsticks doesn't mean that playing a piano is easy; seeing guys that are thirty seconds off the pace throw terms like 'arcade' and 'forza-like' is hilarious.

 

[Cristian Haba]

Best laugh I have had in a while reading some of these guys opinions. Just because I can play chopsticks doesn't mean that playing a piano is easy; seeing guys that are thirty seconds off the pace throw terms like 'arcade' and 'forza-like' is hilarious.

Who's 30 sec off pace?

 

[Benutzername]

I am totally satisfied with both the DLC and the Update.

Loading times are much shorter than before somehow.
The game doesnt stutter anymore the first one or two laps after i started the session, its smooth from the start.
The handling feels more predictable to me, especially at lower speeds. Also i can save the car a bit better than before. The new tyre model could be the reason for that.

The DLC was downloaded quickly and everything worked like it should and ran smoothly from the start. Sound is still a bit too artificial with some cars, while others sound just really really good (The new SCG 003 for example, the Huracan partly, the exterior sounds of every car or the new RUF).

Overall i think that the update was absolutely well done, enhanced everything a bit or a bit more. Thats the way to go.

 

[paracletus]

Props to how the door closes when you get in the car.
Tremendous that is.
Allowed 1st gear at start of race next -maybe?