rFactor 2 | April Release Candidate Brings Fixes to Sound and Wet Weather

General​

• Updated Safety Car added to Retail and ModDev. Old Safety Car removed.
• Added a visual driving line feature, this can be toggled from settings
• Removed texture cache to simplify loading a bit
• Added an option to set the amount of water on roads at the start of a session.
• Increased the rate of RealRoad calculations by approximately x4.
• Added a server option to disable faster real road calculations, as this adds approximately an extra 4KBps per client to server overheads.
• Minor update to default weather conditions for different profiles (Rainy/Overcast/Sunny etc)
• Updated how road and rain conditions are reported. Old percentage values now snap to a set percent for each tyre of condition, masking the true absolute condition in the game. The Default HUD has been updated to show a text description.
• Corrected Rear Flap System default wet weather disable point to work with new weather ranges.
• Fixed an issue where Cameras constrained to specific paths would not work correctly in replays.
• Extended Freelook mode to allow control via joypads as well as adjustments of exposure, aperture, sensor size and focus.

Graphics​

• Decreased interval of Static Mapper updates from 5 minutes to 10 seconds. This should result in smoother lighting changes at dawn / dusk and as weather conditions change.
• Corrected Sky Colour to remove Cyan Effect
• Slight adjustments to exposure for sky colour adjustments when sun at it’s highest.
• Minor Atmospheric Corrections, including linking AirMass to AirPollution,
• Reducing Fog Brightness Slightly
• Reduced Exposure a touch when the sun is around 10 degrees of altitude.
• Improved cloud selection at different weather settings
• Minor cloud texture improvements
• Fixed an issue where Clouds would disappear at really high altitudes
• Fixed issues with lighting interpolation in sky rendering at Dusk/Sunrise, which would result in jumps in lighting values.
• Fixed puddle splashes not setting when rain drops are not used (set to off or scene viewer)
• Fixed lighting on spray during wet conditions, and tweaked particle profile
• Updated reflections on PBR Road and Curb Shaders
• Updated Rain Particle settings and fixed rendering on ultrawide screens
• Passed through particle settings refining Spray, Dust, Smoke and more.
• Fixed an issue in VR where the scene would over exposure
• Fixed an issue in VR where replay mode would not render correctly
• Driver labels now work in VR
• Sparks!
  • New behaviour archetype concept in the rF2Particles.pcd file.
  • New sparks archetype that brings:
    • Particle movement and camera movement based motion blur that can be clamped to a target camera refresh rate (shutter speed)
    • Movement behaviour based on airflow estimations around the car.
    • Terrain and car underbody collisions.
    • Additional light emission from particle.
• New sparks particle effect that gets activated when undertray points of the car scrapes on the ground.
• Backwards compatibility with existing cars and tracks.

Physics​

• Implemented enhanced cooling system for oil & water with new parameters in the .hdv file The new model includes:
  • Direct heat transfer between water and oil
  • Oil radiator
  • Switchover Thermostat
• Separated front and rear brake ducts
• Added configurable gear shift protection
• New algorithm for wet road calculations effecting how quickly surfaces get wet and dry, taking into account drainage, humidity, ambient temperature and sky weather conditions.
• Updated tyre grip calculations on rubbered in areas when surfaces are wet

AI​

• Added AI Dry Tyre strategy (Random Dry Tyre in Practice, Softs in Qualifying and try to pick an appropriate tyre for race strategy in race)
• AI now check if to change Tyre Type just before the pit road entry rather than at the start of the lap
• Fixed various issues around AI Tyre Selection when session changes and weather changes – such as not switching to wet tyres when it was dry before but now is wet.
• Fixed an issue with calculating road conditions when changing session where they would not fully compute.
• Fixed an issue where cars that don’t allow pit stop refuelling would run a full tank in practice and qualifying
• Prevent AI from leaving pits in closed session
• Fixed an issue where if there was a set of valid wet tyres, intermediate tyres would default to dry tyres.

UI​

• Always show official sticky servers in the server list even if filters are active.
• Enabled “Restart warmup” button also when event is in race session.
• Updated button layout in session controls and setup summary.
• Added fading out of screen when leaving event or replay.
• Added condensing of tire name when too long to fit in event standings table.
• Added help text when hovering over various settings
• Added music to showroom
• Changed breaking of long chat lines so they only break on full words
• Fixed getting stuck in assign control pop-up after assigning tab key
• Disabled user text selection everywhere except in text fields
• Added highlighting of assigned control key values when hovering over with mouse
• Improved transition between different profiles in graphics and gameplay settings menus
• Refined styling of car classes in event screen
• Refined styling of car classes in fullscreen standings ticker
• Disabled “Default max wheel angle” setting when “Max wheel angle mode” is set to automatic
• Disabled “Steering wheel range” setting when “Range set by vehicle” setting is enabled
• Hid the car selection list when the drive/spectate pop-up is showing when joining a server directly with a join link
• Changed searching for cars and tracks so that the list scroll position is kept at the top after search (clearing the search text will scroll to the selected item)
• Enabled car selection on server during a practice session
• Made it possible to add multiple custom graphics profiles
• Made it possible to add multiple custom gameplay difficulty profiles
• Always sort “All Tracks & Cars” to the top of the list in singleplayer series selection
• Added fallback image for showcase tile in case the actual image cannot be loaded
• Updated showcase, news and store tiles background image positioning and scaling
• Added option to expand server chat window to full height
• Setup notes for the highlighted setup (the one you clicked on in the setup list but not yet loaded) are now shown on the setup summary page
• Setup notes can now be typed in the setup summary page (the setup still has to be saved to save the changes)
• When saving a setup, the folder for the current track will be selected by default (instead of the folder of the loaded setup)
• Removed automatically expanding all found items in car and track selection after search
• Added highlighting of selected opponent filters
• Fixed multiplayer screen with drive/spectate pop-up showing too soon when using +connect to join a server, and if and when content install is still in progress
• You can now select car upgrades directly from the car selection screen without going to the showroom (both in singleplayer and multiplayer)
• Disabled singleplayer grid position setting if qualifying is enabled
• Added two new gearbox graphs:
  • Top speed per gear
  • RPM after upshift
  • The existing graph, gear spacing, is kept as a third option
• Fixed occasional blank page in the first launch wizard when going to the exit screen and back
• Reordered difficulty settings and sliders
• Singleplayer RealRoad settings are now enabled only when the weather preset is set to “Scripted”
• Renamed “Steering effects strength” setting to “Force feedback direction”
• Singleplayer “Race Laps” and “Race Time” settings are now disabled/enabled based on the “Finish Criteria” setting
• A singleplayer session can now also be enabled by clicking on the disabled session button in quick event

Modding​

• Added IBL Visualizer Debug tool to Scene Viewer (already present in ModDev)
• Added Texture UV Mip Debug tool to Scene Viewer (already present in ModDev)
• Added AI Vocal Strategy Player File debug option for Mod Dev (Pit Strategies, Tyre Changes and when selected what they are doing – can be expanded in future).
• Fixed overcast preview mode (note: this is not exactly the same as in game)
• Updated sample wet masks at Loch Drummond

Sound​

• New 3D Sound Engine
• Increased amount of simultaneous effects to 256
• Environmental effects and filtering system
• Proper cockpit filtering
• Autodetection of open and closed cockpits for environment effects and filtering
• Sound effects such as skid, kerbs, gravel, wind, suspension and many more now work online and in replays
• Support for full surround sound setups
• HRTF support (Binaural headphone experience)
• Improved VR experience
• Backwards compatible
• Many new sound effects
• Support for trackside broadcast microphones
• Every car now causes audible ambient noise around the whole track
• Brand new, modern, customisable file format with much more freedom for audio designers
• Improved debugging tools for dev mode

Formula Pro V0.93​

Dallara IR-18 V0.93​