Latest rFactor 2 Update Introduces Endurance Lights

[Paul Jeffrey]

With the recent Endurance Pack DLC, Studio 397 have also introduced some interesting new features to the sim, not least of which is the welcome inclusion of Position Lights...

Of course the release of five new cars rightly took much of the limelight from the new rFactor 2 update, however it might have been easy to overlook some very interesting and welcomed feature additions to the title, not least of which is the very important introduction of position lights, a relatively recent introduction into real world racing and a feature that will be a big help to players who enjoy long distance multiclass racing in the simulation.

So what are Position Lights?

Simply put Position Lights are illuminated lights on each car within class during an endurance race, and the aim of them is to help easily identify both where the car is in the race, and what position they hold in their respective class. Ideal for multiclass events, the new position lights that come with this new pack in rFactor 2 will "not only show your individual position, they will also show your position in class with colour coding. On top of that, the lights turn into a pit stop timer ‘counting up’ when you pit".

Still keeping endurance racing in mind, Studio 397 have also upgraded the simulation to include a new "in car traction control" feature. Essential for helping adjust settings with the game AI when different types of car configurations and rules apply, Studio 397 had the following to say of this other upgrade to the core software:

rFactor 2 already featured “driving aids” that provided both traction control and anti-lock brakes, but like all driving aids they are global for all cars in a session. Especially in multi-class racing, and this pack is a good example, it is common to have different classes that might or might not have traction control available. Therefore we decided to add the option for specific cars to feature traction control (and anti-lock brakes) as part of the car, completely separate from any “aids” settings. On top of that, we can configure the exact number of “levels” the real cars have and decide if you can adjust those levels in-car or just in the garage as part of your setup, and even if you can turn it off or not, as some cars have such aids built-in and you can’t even disable them.

For this pack, traction control is available only on the LMP2 and GTE cars, and there are a couple of things you need to know to set it up. First of all, as this is a system that is separate from the driving aids, to make in-car adjustments you need to go to your controller settings and map the following four new keys:

On top of that, you can also configure these settings in the garage setup:

As a final note, if you also have driving aids enabled for one of these cars, the effects of both will correctly be combined. For example, if you set traction control to 2 (which is fairly low) in the in-car setting and then turn on the driving aid to “Medium”, the end result will be that you have medium traction control. We expect most servers and people to simply disable those aids for official races though.

During the new car pack announcement Studio 397 also revealed some interesting information with regards to their current understanding of the tyre model in rF2, something that is already at a very high standards in the genre. The Dutch developers have confirmed they have learnt quite a bit about the way the tyres behave in both the real world and the simulation, something they intend to apply to the recent 'GT3 Power Pack' DLC that was released recently. The same rule applies to the position lights and traction control settings introduced with this new content, both we be retrospective applied at a future date:

New cars and features always trigger the question “what about the existing cars”? Our close collaboration with teams and manufacturers have given us even more detailed insight into the tyres that they are running on these cars. On top of that, our laser scanned version of Sebring gave us an excellent opportunity to compare data to a 100% accurate track. The data prompted us to make some updates to our model, and since the GT3 cars are using the same tyres, our next step will be to go back to and implement and test the tyres on those cars too, which in general will make them a bit slower.

The same applies to the position lights as well as the in-car traction control and anti-lock brakes, which will be added as features to each individual GT3 car. We don’t have an exact ETA for these changes yet, as we also need to make sure these changes don’t affect the BOP within the class, but we will certainly keep you up to date in our monthly roadmap. We will also add documentation to our website for third parties that wish to implement these new features on their cars, as well as publish example tyres.

The Endurance Pack DLC can be purchased from the rF2 Steam Store page for £13.11 HERE.

rFactor 2 is available exclusively for PC from Steam now.

Check out the rFactor 2 sub forum here at RaceDepartment for all the latest news and discussion with regards to the simulation. You can take part in lively debates with fellow rFactor 2 fans and take part in some great Club and League racing events..! Head over to the forum now!

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Do you like the new rF2 update? Enjoying the Endurance Pack DLC? Let us know in the comments section below!

 

[sjb266]

Seriously.. these guys need to get their priorities right...

Fix the HUD and UI. In game HUD is absolutely useless in VR. Surely it can’t be that hard.. not as hard as say.. building 5 new endurance cars..

 

[Ace King]

The problem only exist for G29s and I think for G920s aswell ...
please read more careful next time

I know since i read everything here about your issue on the G29. I just thought maybe it might be helpful to state my G25 using Logitech software works fine.

Note: Perhaps your memory faded but "sFJBH10" stated his G920 doesn't have any issues! You replied to him on post #35.

 

[Dirk Steffen]

It would be vey cool if we could move back to the new rF2 Endurance pack features opposed to the point less this racing sim is better than that racing sim tag game.

For anyone not knowing the rF2 UI and features - you can enable / disable the Endurance position lights in the car selection menu - nice touch there ;-)

 

[throughalens83]

Bought and tested. Great!

 

[Deleted member 99238]

It's somehow valid to use modded tracks as example for poor graphics only in rF2, but not in other titles.

Agree that in other sims there are no problems with the definition of the official and modified content. In the rF2, everything is very confusing and it's even hard for me to understand what and where to install to get an idea of the rF2, although I constantly use the mods in AC and AMS.

 

[Kenny Paton]

As has been mentioned a couple of posts above this one, time to get back onto the subject of the thread.
@Newproto you've made your points about the game and it's graphics etc now keep on topic.

 

[Damage Inc]

Anyway, look at people reaction when you use Pcars and rF2 in the same sentence ^_^ ... I think it helps to make my point !

sadly all that does is highlight the utter inability for some RF2 fanboys to understand quite what "simulation" means. It's either complete ignorance or snobbery. And I like ALL the top level sims currently available, all have strong areas, ALL have weak areas NONE are perfectly real....yes even your "hallowed" RF2.

Oh and to call PC1+2 "arcade" just shows colossal ignorance and stupidity. I'm talking amoeba levels of brain size here.

 

[tr1v1um]

Agree that in other sims there are no problems with the definition of the official and modified content. In the rF2, everything is very confusing and it's even hard for me to understand what and where to install to get an idea of the rF2, although I constantly use the mods in AC and AMS.

There are two ways of managing mods. One is via the Steam workshop (wich is arguably the easiest way for any sim or game) and one is by manualy droping package files into the packages folder to install them through the launcher. The later one only applies for 3rd party content if the people don't distribute them through steam workshop. You can enter the manager when you click on the little box tab in the launcher.

With the first option, all you have to do is to get the official content, is to make sure that you are subscribed to all the mods by S397, as allready mentioned before. If you want to buy DLCs though, you have to do that through the rF2 shop page and not the DLC page. They aren't distributed as DLCs in the classic sense, but as ingame items. That's because there is a limit of DLCs for S397 (20 or something like that) and it gives them the option to split packs into single items.

The manager should work similar to the modmanager in AC and at the end it is even easier as with rF1 or AMS, as you don't have to clean up mod files from your game anymore incase you want to remove certain mods. Workshop item are marked with a * in the modmanager btw. I hope that helps a bit

 

[Damage Inc]

GFX sucks up your PC Power - better the Physics do this!

erm no, heard of GPUs?

 

[Deleted member 113561]

I know since i read everything here about your issue on the G29. I just thought maybe it might be helpful to state my G25 using Logitech software works fine.

Note: Perhaps your memory faded but "sFJBH10" stated his G920 doesn't have any issues! You replied to him on post #35.

If you read his reply then you would know he doesn't drive with wheel visible ingame and that he doesn't know if his wheel rotation is synced or not. I recommended him trying to sync because in my tests I had different FFB aswell.

Before that I had a G27 and there it works flawelessly - but I only used it with the LGS 5.10 not the new Software. The G25 is pretty much the same in that regard.

 

[Ami_M3]

I have G29 myself. Is it really that hard to altTab to Logitech software, change the rotation and go back to rF2? I do it all the time, takes about 5 seconds. It's a nuisance, yes, but hardly something to loose sleep over.

 

[Kenneth Jurmann]

Performance of rF2 DX11 has VASTLY improved since the last big update.
When DX11 was in open beta I could barely run a field of 20 cars and had to dial down the graphics substantially.

You may want to skip the higher PP effects settings also (video settings menu in the launcher, NOT in game itself).
The higher ones cause a big hit in performance + they still look REALLY AWKWARD with these strange 1970's Dutch soft-porn star shaped highlight effects, way too unrealistic DOF effect settings and such.
Setting PP effects to "LOW" will look way more realistic and goes a long way in performance increase was well.

Have a look at some reallife Dutch soft-porn stars here at 9:20 mins:

 

[Anders Myhre]

Dreaming of a league with theese cars and day/night races. The cars feels so much better than the enduracers cars. Great update!

 

[Deleted member 113561]

I have G29 myself. Is it really that hard to altTab to Logitech software, change the rotation and go back to rF2? I do it all the time, takes about 5 seconds. It's a nuisance, yes, but hardly something to loose sleep over.

As I have also different FFB, I wonder if it also ****s up the FFB ...

If they want to bring rFactor 2 back to its glory then such things needs to be adressed and plug and play is something that is expected today.

 

[Dirk Steffen]

Have a look at some reallife Dutch soft-porn stars here at 9:20 mins:

The effect you see here is caused by light diffraction at the straight sections of the camera lenses aperture blades as these shots are taken during lighting conditions where A LOT of light from the extremely bright headlights exposes the digital sensor of the TV cameras.

Our eyes do not have straight edged aperture blades - our eyes have an almost perfectly rounded iris that can contract or expand, never causing the unwanted effect of diffraction stars in our own vision in the way it is displayed in the footage.

A second issue here is that the effect is so overused in rF2 that even at all conditions during the night such diffraction effects are used which is technically completely wrong as it is displayed din conditions were a camera operator or still photographer would usually use wide open apertures (as every bit of exposure is needed during low light conditions).
At wide open apertures of up to ~f2.8 or f4 in 35mm format the straight sections of aperture mechanisms are simply not exposed well enough into the flightpath of the lens assembly that they cause such a dramatic effect.

synopsis: use the effect in healthy dosage exclusively when the image is seen "through a camera lens" and NOT the first person perspective while racing and much more pronounced during times of day at the track when dealing with high exposures.

In general this effect is considered unwanted and every good camera operator tries to minimize this unwanted effect (through use of particularly high end lens designs that do not suffer from this effect as severely, though the use of polarizing filters to cut down on secondary reflective highlights that can exhibit this effect as well and through clever use of exposure values to minimize the effect).

 

[Robert_S]

I have G29 myself. Is it really that hard to altTab to Logitech software, change the rotation and go back to rF2? I do it all the time, takes about 5 seconds. It's a nuisance, yes, but hardly something to loose sleep over.

No is not that hard , the problem is that this option also doesnt work for me

 

[Kenneth Jurmann]

The effect you see here is caused by light diffraction at the straight sections of the camera lenses aperture blades as these shots are taken during lighting conditions where A LOT of light from the extremely bright headlights exposes the digital sensor of the TV cameras.

Our eyes do not have straight edged aperture blades - our eyes have an almost perfectly rounded iris that can contract or expand, never causing the unwanted effect of diffraction stars in our own vision in the way it is displayed in the footage.

A second issue here is that the effect is so overused in rF2 that even at all conditions during the night such diffraction effects are used which is technically completely wrong as it is displayed din conditions were a camera operator or still photographer would usually use wide open apertures (as every bit of exposure is needed during low light conditions).
At wide open apertures of up to ~f2.8 or f4 in 35mm format the straight sections of aperture mechanisms are simply not exposed well enough into the flightpath of the lens assembly that they cause such a dramatic effect.

synopsis: use the effect in healthy dosage exclusively when the image is seen "through a camera lens" and NOT the first person perspective while racing and much more pronounced during times of day at the track when dealing with high exposures.

In general this effect is considered unwanted and every good camera operator tries to minimize this unwanted effect (through use of particularly high end lens designs that do not suffer from this effect as severely, though the use of polarizing filters to cut down on secondary reflective highlights that can exhibit this effect as well and through clever use of exposure values to minimize the effect).

So high PP on cameras and low PP on internal views? I could life with that.

PS: I don't think you had to digg that deep. Just saying that our eyes work different compared to a camera would have been enough. ;-)

 

[Emery]

So high PP on cameras and low PP on internal views? I could life with that.

PS: I don't think you had to digg that deep. Just saying that our eyes work different compared to a camera would have been enough. ;-)

Coincidently that's EXACTLY how post processing is configured to work in rF2. Cockpit camera doesn't show the lens effects (though you still pay the fps penalty if you're trying to run post processing on high/ultra).

In other words, if you're running rF2 from the cockpit and not interested in taking screenshots, then it's a waste of fps to run on anything more than Medium post processing.

 

[Marc Collins]

I'm not sure you understood my point. Reiza is moving to rF2 graphics engine for their next title (Reiza 2018). Reiza currently uses modified rF1 engine. They considered the option to use Unreal engine etc., but it seems they chose to go with rF2 engine.

They have not announced anything about that, though it may turn out to be true. We did see some Reiza content in rF2...wonder what that could mean? DLC?

 

[Kenneth Jurmann]

Coincidently that's EXACTLY how post processing is configured to work in rF2. Cockpit camera doesn't show the lens effects (though you still pay the fps penalty if you're trying to run post processing on high/ultra).

In other words, if you're running rF2 from the cockpit and not interested in taking screenshots, then it's a waste of fps to run on anything more than Medium post processing.

I would go even further and say PPat low is enough. Because DOF is a camera thing as well and not needed in cockpit view. Yeah. I drive with PP at low all the time. For a proper screenshot from an external view I would always recommend PP at Ultra.