Night Racing in GSCE

[Nox]

So, the headlights in GSC aren't best optimised. We don't use them in the club because it can cause people frame rate issues. But there's been a lot of updates since I was told that nearly a year back, and there's this tip:

Open your prl file with notepad++ (right click) located inC:\GSC2013\UserData\YOURNAME
Find the line 277 and correct it like this : Max Headlights="10" . You can try other values.

So, my question is whether anyone runs night races successfully? In what vehicles, etc, and whether people would mind testing out night races and posting here how it went (I run night races at some tracks without any problem on single player vs the AI). I'd like to run some night races in the club, but unless most people are able to run them smoothly, it's a no go area right now, which is such a shame.

Feedback, pretty please, and thank you.

 

[Warren Schembri]

I have done some night races against the AI at Road Atlanta and I had no issues. The races were with the mikk-mix-gt3 mod and the races had different classes and around 50 cars on track.

This is an rfactor tip but I also use it in GSCE
Headlights on Cars="0" also helps with the framerate.

I am more than happy to help out where needed and can jump on a server to do some testing

EDIT: some extra info on Headlights on Cars
The "Headlights On Cars" line determines whether or not all headlights drawn will reflect off car bodies. This effect can put a great stress on your system. Not only does it have to draw realtime reflections when the headlights of your car illuminate your opponents, but it also draws realtime reflections from the headlights of all your opponents when they shine on other cars. Depending on how many headlights you have set in the "Max headlights" line, this can grow exponentially very fast, suddenly putting very high stress on your system.

 

[Jan Mikuž]

I have never raced in night time before, so I went and i tried it. Set the time to 2.00AM. The headlights hardly illuminate the track or the surrounding environment.
I find it impossible to race (or even casually drive around), since i can barely see anything.

 

[Ken Rodriguez]

Night driving and it's feasibility highly depend on the track you are using and how the creator used textures to render what you see on screen. Some tracks are pretty well lit at night while others are not.

I've ran several successful night races on GSCE without issues at tracks like Mosport_12, Interlagos and others with a full grid of AI and headlight effects set to maximum which means my headlights illuminate the other cars on track as well. The problem with this setting for some folks, especially casual simmers, is that their computer system cannot handle the texture rendering and the speed at which these textures must load. Thus creating havoc and poor frame rates.

My feedback and suggestion would be this:

Get a couple of us together and setup a practice sim session just as you would any other race on here.
Password it differently so that only those selected to test this night race might join. (you can PM the password to those folks).

-Have a testing session to see how it goes.
-I'd recommend 12-15 racers for such a test.
-Setup a thread and ask for volunteers.
-Set your own cap of racers.

During the practice, quali, warmup and race sessions, folks can set their headlights differently to see what effect this will have on their system.

Just my two cents.

Cheers.

 

[Nox]

During the mini night, we did one round at Curitiba in the dark and I had no problems; I might do what you suggest and start a test day. Thanks.

 

[Jan Mikuž]

I tried it at Curitiba, Andrew, and it's the same as the Guapore test i did.
I have no idea where i'm going. The illumination is not adequate and i certainly wouldn't be able to race,unless there's some way to illuminate the track more.

 

[Nox]

I tried it at Curitiba, Andrew, and it's the same as the Guapore test i did.
I have no idea where i'm going. The illumination is not adequate and i certainly wouldn't be able to race,unless there's some way to illuminate the track more.

Yeah, Curitiba is pretty dark. I did it at Monza and had no problems though. It'd have to be the right track (Le Mans maybe, etc)

 

[Olivier Mandavy]

unfortunately the graphic engine is getting old: regarding the shadows and lights it is not really fast.

 

[Mark Breslin]

Yeah, Curitiba is pretty dark. I did it at Monza and had no problems though. It'd have to be the right track (Le Mans maybe, etc)

While I agree Curitiba is pretty dark, I don't see a problem racing it though.!?
Once you have practised a track and know it well with your markers/braking points its not so bad.! If you are in a pack, the headlights of multiple cars do light up the track better; and then adds a whole new dimension to racing once you are out on your own with less light.
Of course it does put pressure on finding time to practice a track, (which I find hard to do at the moment.) but for once in a while, with plenty of warning I'd be up for it!!
After all, what would the point be, in risking peoples frame rates to running a night race if the track is illuminated as if it was day light???

 

[Mark Breslin]

........Also, not having the most powerful machine. I'd be up to being a 'test-racer' on my modest AMD machine.
Spec. AMD FX4100, 8gb ram, ATI HD6970-1gb

 

[Marcel Heiz]

II did several day/night/day transition races (GT3 and V8) as a prep for the Cascavel races few weeks ago and had no issues at all.
I am up for a test race if my schedule doesn't say differently

See myself already participating in a V8 league with some night races

 

[Fabio Rodrigues]

I just tried a night race at Santa Cruz do Sul with the DRM mod, no changes to the .plr file, 20 cars, and it worked well enough with my good old 560ti. The only issue was that at the start the tarmac was pretty much white, but I guess that can't be helped.

As for driving at night, for me the main difficulty is that you can't see the rubber in the track, so if you're used to seeing that to know when to brake, etc., you're in trouble. For instance:

 

[Olivier Mandavy]

........Also, not having the most powerful machine. I'd be up to being a 'test-racer' on my modest AMD machine.
Spec. AMD FX4100, 8gb ram, ATI HD6970-1gb

Maybe we need an AMD version of the d3d9.dll?