rFactor 2 Update Brings Significant Improvements to Loading Times

rFactor 2 Load Times Update 00.jpg
Studio 397 released an update last week for rFactor 2 that addressed a long-standing issue for the sim: loading times.

Build 1.1126 of rFactor 2 became available on Steam last week, and though the update was small and didn't garner very many headlines, the impressive changes to the loading times are worth discussing.

In recent years two of the more common shortcomings players complained about in rFactor 2 were the dated graphics and the slow load times. The former was a focus for improvement for the Studio 397 team through 2020, and the latter has now been addressed in the most recent build.

In testing, my own load times on my AMD 3900X and 6800 XT based system were reduced by roughly half versus the outgoing build. Loading a new AI race session at the Nurburgring Nordschleife used to cost me close to five minutes, but that time is now under two minutes for me. Loading a single car practice session at Lime Rock Park went from close to two minutes to under one minute. This still lands rFactor 2 at the higher end of loading times for racing sims, but it's now far closer to its competitors. These values will be different for each player, but if you're like me and held back on playing the title because of the long wait times, give this latest update a try.

rFactor 2 Load Times Update 02.jpg


Here is an excerpt from the 1.1126 changelog regarding load times:

Game Loading
  • Optimizations to Game Loading and Series switching.
  • Optimizations to Texture Loading.
  • Added the ability to load cached track files from the component to improve loading times.
  • Improved shader loading and added pre-built shader cache to improve loading times.

So well done to Studio 397 on these changes. Testing the improved load times allowed me to reconnect with a sim I love. The improved load times allowed me to enter the sessions in a more positive mindset, and reminded me of the pure joy I get from racing in rFactor 2.

Let us know your thoughts on the improvements to rF2 in the comments below.
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About author
Mike Smith
Mike Smith
I have been obsessed with sim racing and racing games since the 1980's. My first taste of live auto racing was in 1988, and I couldn't get enough ever since. Lead writer for RaceDepartment, and owner of SimRacing604 and its YouTube channel. Favourite sims include Assetto Corsa Competizione, Assetto Corsa, rFactor 2, Automobilista 2, DiRT Rally 2 - On Twitter as @simracing604

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Comments

Durge Driven
Boby Kim said:
rF2, once the sim with the best AI. Sad to see Studio666 has ruined the AI completely.
Click to expand...

Then in rF2 just stick to cars have not been updated they race the same as they did 10 years ago

I don't know I still get great races in the DLC as well, I never said all races, never have

But you lot make out like every single race is the same and that is plain bs

Fact is start a GT3 race from same grid spot and watch what the cars do in front of you first lap
Now restart the race 5 times what watch how different the AI are no 2 races do they do same thing

Now do exact same in pcars ams 2 acc doesnt matter what sim you will find the ai movements are the same no matter how many times you restart

Test it ...shessh
 
Durge Driven
rF2 cars have random accidents put 2 wheels on dirt, lock a wheel , brake too late, brake too early, understeer, oversteer it just goes on and on every race is different.

If I run ACC AMS2 the ai behave fine enough for me but they like Daleks no personality :)

Each class ISI varied the AI performance for instance in my fav rF2 car the F3 Eve has 3 different AI
Even though they did not care about offline they took the time to at least do that.
That is one of the things I like more then the physics, no two races are ever the same
 
Last edited:
MJQT
Durge, indirectly, is making a great point. If you can get a good experience from something and have lots of fun, you should do it, enjoy it, and who gives a damn what anybody says you should or shouldn't like. At the same time, if for whatever reason you can't have as much fun in one thing as you can in another (especially if time constraints prevent you from exploring oodles of tweaks and fixes) then just stick to what you like, while trying to be curious every once in a while to make sure you're not accidentally missing out on something good!

About rF2 specifically, given the lack of updates around AI behaviour, then it seems best to evaluate the single player solely around its current state. If you really enjoy it, then great! But if the rF2 AI doesn't do enough for you compared to other games, then it would appear to be time to move on, as changes to the AI (especially if they're deeper issues like the slipstream bug) are clearly not 397's priority. I suppose we can hope fixes discovered through the dev process with Motorsport Games could "spill over" back to rF2, but I must confess I'm not confident this will happen.

As you can probably guess, this reflects my own thought process a bit. I recently bought rF2 on sale largely for decent multi class AI (as well as the pure physics) and will probably use it accordingly -- if I don't refund it cause I can't get it to launch (which is its own story). But anyway, recent changelogs like this one don't give me a lot of hope for seeing remaining issues around AI and (road and oval) rulesets solved anytime soon. Which IMO is unfortunate.
 
Last edited:
wolftree
davehenrie said:
In regard to Users who just have purchased rF2 & GT3 content, or users who have returned from a long absence, GT3 have traction control and ABS braking which removes some of the 'feel' for the road.
Click to expand...
TC and ABS do nothing to "road feel", unless you think brake lockups and wheel spin are "road feel".
 
V
Premium
davehenrie said:
Some of the failings about the rF2 AI do occur in passing slower NPC/AI cars. One problem occurs when a similar class car pulls out of a draft to pass another car and immediately hits a brick wall and must abort the pass and return to the draft position.
Another passing problem occurs when the slower car is preparing to pit. If a much faster car come up behind the car that is pitting, the faster car just tucks in behind the slower car and follows it until the slower car reaches pit-in. This can delay the faster car tremendously.
rF2 AI have incredible trouble forming a consistent pack when under yellow flags. Most experienced offline users turn off the flags to avoid pace lap chaos and extended yellow flag periods AND mayhem that separates the pack into groups that are often far apart when the green flag finally does fall.
There are plenty more issues, some large, some small.
In regard to Users who just have purchased rF2 & GT3 content, or users who have returned from a long absence, GT3 have traction control and ABS braking which removes some of the 'feel' for the road. Many users have said ACC provides a better representation of driving a GT3 car, that may be so, ACC certainly has more GT3 specific features. If you think rF2 is not as responsive via the Force Feedback wheels, try other cars without traction control/ABS or turn those off on the GT3 cars. (Be prepared to learn of a lovely new sensation from flatspots...) There is/are plenty of non-DLC content you can try out for free. (I am frequently surprised to repeatedly read of new users who buy the sim AND DLC content before trying the product out for a long enough period to understand what they will be getting when they do buy DLC content)
Click to expand...
Isn't it the reverse? The faster car which is pitting, does not overtake the slower car as the pit logic breaks the overtake logic?
And this is what I was referring to - but without detail - when I said that rF2 failed at multiclass racing.

And what you mention about free content is absolutely spot on, even for GT3 cars, there are free sets of cars on the Steamworkshop that feel great and, I would even say, do not make buying GT3 DLC mandatory AT ALL.
 
V
Premium
MJQT said:
Durge, indirectly, is making a great point. If you can get a good experience from something and have lots of fun, you should do it, enjoy it, and who gives a damn what anybody says you should or shouldn't like. At the same time, if for whatever reason you can't have as much fun in one thing as you can in another (especially if time constraints prevent you from exploring oodles of tweaks and fixes) then just stick to what you like, while trying to be curious every once in a while to make sure you're not accidentally missing out on something good!

About rF2 specifically, given the lack of updates around AI behaviour, then it seems best to evaluate the single player solely around its current state. If you really enjoy it, then great! But if the rF2 AI doesn't do enough for you compared to other games, then it would appear to be time to move on, as changes to the AI (especially if they're deeper issues like the slipstream bug) are clearly not 397's priority. I suppose we can hope fixes discovered through the dev process with Motorsport Games could "spill over" back to rF2, but I must confess I'm not confident this will happen.

As you can probably guess, this reflects my own thought process a bit. I recently bought rF2 on sale largely for decent multi class AI (as well as the pure physics) and will probably use it accordingly -- if I don't refund it cause I can't get it to launch (which is its own story). But anyway, recent changelogs like this one don't give me a lot of hope for seeing remaining issues around AI and (road and oval) rulesets solved anytime soon. Which IMO is unfortunate.
Click to expand...
We are all patiently waiting for updates to the AI and recently Marcel (head of S397) said that improvements are finally forthcoming.
As for rF2 not launching, I believe that any rF2 user should joint S397's Discord to have access to support as it's a bloody quirky piece of software.
But if you survive the rF2 user experience, it's guaranteed to give you a driving experience which is second to none.
There are dozens, really dozens, of quality mods.
 
V
Premium
Important aspects - I am repeating myself - about AI racing on rF2:
- you have to customize a bit the player.json file (check Mark Pearce's videos on YT);
- you have to run practice and quali (you can speed up the sessions) and that will make the AI build up the talent file with the different AI drivers, who will settle down on that track/car combo AND, that way, the grid will not be random, so AI cars will not be bundled up with different skill levels.
There is a AI setting called AI Limiter which will define how spread is the field of AI cars and if you use something between 20 and 40, there will be about 1.5 to 3 seconds lap time (on an average to large sized track*) differential between the faster and the slower AI cars, making the field spread out and behave realistically instead of a constant dogfight between equal AI cars.
* Spa - GT3 with AI limiter at 40 gives a spread of about 3 seconds if you let the AI run enough practice laps before quali with Mark Pearce's player.json tweaks.

AND FOR CRYING OUT LOUD: if you don't like rF2, stop spamming rF2 related posts with your vitriol. You haven't seen me posting sh!t about other sims aside from an occasional commentary, here and there, and, I can tell you, there has been plenty to post if people wanted to be @sses.
 
Last edited:
Michel Bélisle
Premium
I gave up on that title several months ago due to a few issues and especially the long load times. It might worth it to give it a shot again.
 
Z
Do not understand can not get camera inside car, it shows 45 degress of car, i just changed my wheel base and did not touched other settings…
 
MJQT
v4v474 said:
We are all patiently waiting for updates to the AI and recently Marcel (head of S397) said that improvements are finally forthcoming.
As for rF2 not launching, I believe that any rF2 user should joint S397's Discord to have access to support as it's a bloody quirky piece of software.
But if you survive the rF2 user experience, it's guaranteed to give you a driving experience which is second to none.
There are dozens, really dozens, of quality mods.
Click to expand...
Marcel says AI changes are coming? That's great news. :thumbsup: Admittedly, I'll believe it when I see it, but I'll be very pleased if I see it.

As you say in another comment, with player.json tweaks, running practice/quali, AI limiter, etc, and with well-made content, it seems you can get a great experience for a sprint race as it is! Which I don't mean to obscure with my other comments.

The launching issue is something particular to my niche weird-ass PC setup – to be clear, it's my fault, not rF2's! Not intended as a criticism of the game or devs. And yeah, 397 support might solve the issue over time.
 
G
v4v474 said:
1. Verify files on STEAM;
2. If it still does not work, move the player.json and controller.json files and verify files on STEAM, run Graphics config again;
3. Again, if it still does not work, delete the plugin folder and verify files on STEAM;
4. Last resort in case it still does not work is to move the USERDATA folder and verify files on STEAM, run Graphics config again;

(you could also start by running the rF2's Graphics Configuration)
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip.

Yesterday it worked when I did the fourth step, deleting the entire USERDATA folder
 
D
ziogzzz said:
Do not understand can not get camera inside car, it shows 45 degress of car, i just changed my wheel base and did not touched other settings…
Click to expand...
The yaw and look ahead values may change to -80° when you change profiles. They fixed the original problem of it switching to -80 on it's own, but apparently profiles saved while that bug was around reload the -80° yaw. set it to zero and you should be good. And then re-save the profile
 
Last edited:
Ghoults
v4v474 said:
AND FOR CRYING OUT LOUD: if you don't like rF2, stop spamming rF2 related posts with your vitriol. You haven't seen me posting sh!t about other sims aside from an occasional commentary, here and there, and, I can tell you, there has been plenty to post if people wanted to be @sses.
Click to expand...
Rf2 people like to mention this every chance they get. If you don't like something just go away. With this attitude even this loading times issue would have never been touched. Feedback about what is bad about a sim is the only way to make the sim better. On the other hand telling people to go away instead of providing feedback about their issues will cause the game to stagnate and die. Rf2 has issues just like all sims. Sometimes an issue is something missing altogether, sometimes something works poorly in various ways, sometimes something doesn't work. Issues need to be fixed and one of the most serious issues with rf2 is its elitist and denialist userbase which manifests itself in posts like above.
 
Emery
MJQT said:
Original comment:
No game manages to handle AI multi class racing. RF2 fails on that, no doubt when pit stops are needed.

Much as I LOVE AMS 1, this isn't right. AMS 1 does NOT handle multiclass racing well enough at all. In particular, it has the classic rF1 and GTR2 "blue flag bug" where AI in a faster car often get "stuck" behind the slower car in a straight line until a corner.
Click to expand...
AMS1 received a "blue flag" update that was a step above rF1 & GTR2 that solved most of the drafting cars... in my play, I did not see any that got stuck.
 
A
v4v474 said:
€13,00 for a full pack of GT3 cars is not expensive.
Similar price will get you a bunch of endurance cars.
Similar price will get you the DLC tracks.
Adding up everything reaches a significant value, but along with DLC you have dozens of high quality mods (tracks and cars), some of them DLC level.
Now, you not liking how cars feel, the FFB, is highly surprising because there is no sim that gives you a better "seat in the pants" feel, in my opinion

straight from the game:View attachment 523244
. But hey, everyone has their own tastes.
Click to expand...
Nice game, is from which year? 2002?
MJQT said:
Fascinatingly, this slipstreaming issue that is plain to see in older gMotor sims like rF1, GTR2, and AMS 1. So this must be a deep bug in ISI code dating back many years. Really can sometimes throw a wrench into races on any circuit with long straights. Never mind oval racing on short or bigger ovals -- even in cars that largely raced in single file like CART.
Click to expand...

The slipstream issue could be fixed with NOTEPAD by editing one single line in AIW file but guess what? You can't edit official tracks (encrypted) and they don't want to fix anything for offline users. Sometimes the destruction of single player mode seems to be intentional.
 

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