WRC9 WRC 9 The Game

[Paul Jeffrey]

WRC 9 is just around the corner, and one of the new locations set to make an appearance in the game is the New Zealand Rally - with some first preview imagery from the states now out in the public domain.

Set to release on console and PC in September this year, with next gen console release slated for a little while afterwards, the ninth instalment of the WRC game series (can you believe we are on number 9 already?!?) looks to be shaping up rather nicely over at KT Racing - so much so that the studio have decided to release some preview footage from an early build version of the title - and already it looks fantastic.

As per usual, the upcoming game enjoys the official licence of the FIA World Rally Championship, this time taking the opportunity to recreate the 2020 season that is currently on hold, and as such returning favourites such as the Safari Rally in Kenya, Rally Japan and the featured Rally New Zealand.

“Roads in New-Zealand are amongst the most beautiful and the most appreciated in the Championship’s history.” tells Benoît Gomes, Lead Level Designer at KT Racing.​

“Famous for its fast chains of turns and a sustained pace rhythm, along with breath-taking landscapes, Rally New-Zealand truly offers a particular experience. A long preparation work allowed us to replicate, as closely as possible, the luxuriant vegetation, the light and unique ocean views, as well as the road’s topography and surfaces, mainly composed of gravel. We’re convinced that players will enjoy taking up this challenge as much as we did in WRC 9.” concludes Benoît Gomes.​

WRC 9 Key Features:

• 3 new rallies: Japan, New Zealand, Kenya
• Over 50 official teams and their livery from the WRC, WRC 2, WRC 3 and Junior WRC
• Over 15 bonus cars that have left their mark on the history of the WRC
• Exclusive new game modes soon to be discovered

WRC 9 will release on Xbox One, PS4, PC this September 3rd.

Want to know more about this new game? No worries, keep an eye out for the upcoming WRC 9 sub forum here at RaceDepartment to engage with your fellow sim racing fans.

 

[evo1982]

Anyone tested with Simucube 2? In my opinion, WRC 8 felt pretty bad with it, so I’m hoping there is some improvement.

not been able to try it yet, it crashes when i select the simucube 2 on controls screen

 

[chichi67]

When using simucube you have to do the setup in the keyboard profile ... otherwise it crashes (was already discussed in the simucube forum). And imho the game even crashes as soon as you choose another profile than the 1st keyboard. Out of some reasons in my profile the 'cursor right' key was not defined out of a sudden so I setup a new profile keyboard (1) with everything working, but after a restart it immediately crashed as soon I choose this profile which was second in the list.

Also weird is the feedback on my simucube 1 ... as in most of the games I lowered crash value to a very small value (8) and also a few others are in the 60-75 range, but sometimes the forces feels to explode - in a race in Monte Carlo feedback was not very intensive at all (esp. I missed the DR2 ice FFB) and than at a drift on snow I hit a small rock and it really hit my thumb hard due to the massive FFB effect - still no idea where it came from, any intentionally crashes I did afterwards had far less feedback force.

Then I didn't figure out how to set the correct FOV on my 32:9 screen - in Dirt Rally it was at least possible to tweak it via a setup file, in WRC 9 there is horizontal and vertical FOV value in the hardware config file (why both - usually you set one ...), but whatever I enter there it is not changing anything.

 

[iltavilli]

I also have 32:9. Doesn’t sound very promising, shame. I think I’m gonna pass it at least for now. Perhaps mods can improve things.

 

[evo1982]

When using simucube you have to do the setup in the keyboard profile ... otherwise it crashes (was already discussed in the simucube forum). And imho the game even crashes as soon as you choose another profile than the 1st keyboard. Out of some reasons in my profile the 'cursor right' key was not defined out of a sudden so I setup a new profile keyboard (1) with everything working, but after a restart it immediately crashed as soon I choose this profile which was second in the list.

Also weird is the feedback on my simucube 1 ... as in most of the games I lowered crash value to a very small value (8) and also a few others are in the 60-75 range, but sometimes the forces feels to explode - in a race in Monte Carlo feedback was not very intensive at all (esp. I missed the DR2 ice FFB) and than at a drift on snow I hit a small rock and it really hit my thumb hard due to the massive FFB effect - still no idea where it came from, any intentionally crashes I did afterwards had far less feedback force.

Then I didn't figure out how to set the correct FOV on my 32:9 screen - in Dirt Rally it was at least possible to tweak it via a setup file, in WRC 9 there is horizontal and vertical FOV value in the hardware config file (why both - usually you set one ...), but whatever I enter there it is not changing anything.

thanks for that, i will give it a go

 

[tomymamani]

so, after 3 or so days playing wrc 9 and dr2 back and forth here's my thoughts on 9

It DEFINETLY is a next step from wrc 8 on the physics and ffb department, now the cars weight what they should instead of the 50kg cars that wrc8 had, also you can feel the aero of the cars when you re going fast and the in air physics had also been improved imo (you can point the front of the car down if you use the handbrake in the air, a thing that some drivers do), ffb feels connected to the road, fast and responsive with some settings on my g29 and took my about a day to get it to a good point, on contrast I bought dirt rally 2 days after release day and I still haven´t found a good setup so I use the ffb pretty low on that game since it distracts more than helps.
tarmac physics way superior than dr2 and even gravel and snow feels and looks on the replays more realistic than both dr2 and wrc8, although gravel is pretty close between dr2 and this one.
The stages have always been the strong point of this game and its no exception here, Japan is brutal, new zealand is fun and kenya its good although very different to the safari rally I had on mind, also being a Chilean im kinda sad they didn´t put Chile on the game since it was on the original 2020 calendar but was removed on december for the social crisis that the country is living.
Now to the bad side, although personally I haven´t had a single stutter and the game runs better than wrc8 for me, graphics and optimization is still very bad specially on contrast with dr2, audio fx are also pretty bad althought they said they were gonna record the current wrc cars engine noise but they only did the ford focus couse Covid happened.
career mode is pretty much the same as last year and they haven´t fixed any of the problems from wrc8 on this aspect, and the game has a lot of bugs , also for some reason all the RW cars have really weird to not say bad physics, here dr2 has the upper hand by a mile when it comes to classic RW cars althought the xsara and the corolla drive superb and also the co driver is better than wrc 8 but still worse than dr2
Overall I dont know what to say, when it comes to the driving of the wrc cars the game is amazing, way better than wrc 8. but on all the other aspects I think dr2 is a more polished product (without considering all the changes the game has gone through since release day), Im pretty positive than most of the little issues are gonna get patched in the future but im also pretty sure that the graphic engine that Kylotonn uses doesnt have more potential, also I have to remind you guys that Kylotonn is a vert small studio with low resources and 1/7 of the ammount of people that Codemasters have, so having that on mind I would say that if you don´t have wrc8 this is a must buy and if you do and you re happy with how the cars handle on that game then you should probably wait until the game its on discount

 

[Case_]

The FOV settings are certainly kinda limited, even on a perfectly regular monitor, and not in a way that seems to make much sense to me. I mean, on the wide end of the setting, I can set the FOV like this:

Who would need an FOV setting like this (on a screen like this)?

But on the narrow end, this is as far as you can go:

Basically what would usually be the normal setting, not the narrowest one. Also if I remember correctly, both of the screenshots were taken with the seat moved as much forward as possible.

 

[Fantomaz]

I am probably a bit dumb, but I cant make my HE ultimate work with the DD2 in WRC9.
Basically the game takes either the input from the heusinkvelds OR the fanatec wheelbase, so you have no steering when you accelerate or brake and vice versa...
I know there must be a way because Jimmy Broadbent has his working with his OSW wheel, any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Fantomaz]

I am probably a bit dumb, but I cant make my HE ultimate work with the DD2 in WRC9.
Basically the game takes either the input from the heusinkvelds OR the fanatec wheelbase, so you have no steering when you accelerate or brake and vice versa...
I know there must be a way because Jimmy Broadbent has his working with his OSW wheel, any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

I managed to make it work, you have to delete all other controllers and it works, a bit tedious, but there you go...

I would be interested in the FFB settings you direct drive users use....

 

[evanmg1]

So, does all the cars of WRC2 sound the same for you guys or is it just me? I mean, in reality they sound somewhat similar, but different. Meh, maybe it's just me.

 

[Sébastien Degraeve]

So, does all the cars of WRC2 sound the same for you guys or is it just me? I mean, in reality they sound somewhat similar, but different. Meh, maybe it's just me.

An update is supposed to fix the sounds of cars.
At the moment only the Fiesta has the new sounds.Yaris and i20 use the sounds of the Fiesta.
It's the same with R5,Xsara and Focus,Delta Integrale and 037.

 

[Kenny Paton]

An update is supposed to fix the sounds of cars

How good are the devs at updating their games?

 

[RaceMan763]

The FOV settings are certainly kinda limited, even on a perfectly regular monitor, and not in a way that seems to make much sense to me. I mean, on the wide end of the setting, I can set the FOV like this:

Who would need an FOV setting like this (on a screen like this)?

But on the narrow end, this is as far as you can go:

Basically what would usually be the normal setting, not the narrowest one. Also if I remember correctly, both of the screenshots were taken with the seat moved as much forward as possible.

That lower FOV is far too pulled back for what I want. Is there some kind of dashboard camera view like in DR2?

Another camera question: Does this game have some kind of lock to horizon/movement damping or does it the Dirt Rally thing of simulating a driver without a working vestibulo-ocular reflex?

 

[Ludwig von Mises]

Is there some kind of dashboard camera view like in DR2?

Yes.

Does this game have some kind of lock to horizon/movement damping

Yes.

 

[RaceMan763]

Cool. Thanks!

 

[HabUK]

Took a punt on this last night and really wished I hadn't. Game is unplayable, stutters and freezes then I lose FFB. First game I've had a problem with in ages,

 

[Kenny Paton]

Took a punt on this last night and really wished I hadn't. Game is unplayable, stutters and freezes then I lose FFB.

I had the same problem with ffb, I believe that if you run window borderless that can stop the stutters.
As to the wheel settings I deleted my save file and started over again, also deleted any other inputs after several goes I have got everything working and I would say the game is worth the initial bother.

 

[HabUK]

I had the same problem with ffb, I believe that if you run window borderless that can stop the stutters.
As to the wheel settings I deleted my save file and started over again, also deleted any other inputs after several goes I have got everything working and I would say the game is worth the initial bother.

I've tried window borderless, forcing 60fps ( which it stays at until it starts stuttering), unplugging my wheel and just using a controller. I'm running out of ideas. I'm at work now but I did delete the game and reinstall on a different drive just in case.

 

[Kenny Paton]

I've tried window borderless, forcing 60fps ( which it stays at until it starts stuttering), unplugging my wheel and just using a controller. I'm running out of ideas. I'm at work now but I did delete the game and reinstall on a different drive just in case.

Maybe have a look at how people dealt with the problem on WRC8 that might give you an indication.
My pc is old but so far it's ran buttery smooth at 60fps 1080p resolution. I see others with much better specs having this issue.

 

[Case_]

@HabUK As I mention above, I had to turn on vsync in the game and make a new nVidia profile for it where vsync is forced to "Application controlled" for the stutters to go away. Running fullscreen, currently, not in borderless. For me the stutters also showed up after a while, then went away again, only to show up yet again later.

The Kylotonn WRC series generally doesn't do well without vsync, it is a running issue with the series. Even limiting to 60 fps (or whatever your refresh rate is) without vsync enabled seems to cause issues.

You might also try the Physics sync option (can't remember the exact name right now, but it's in the settings) if you haven't, set it to opposite of what you're running right now.

 

[Case_]

BTW working around the limited FOV settings using the ReShade Aspect Ratio shader that allows you to zoom into the image. It's obviously far from perfect because it really is just a simple zoom, but other than that, it works great.

(I'm also adjusting the whitepoint slightly, because just like many current games, including Kylotonn's TT Isle of Man 2, the game is terrified of showing full range of luminance and instead opts for an image that looks like everything is covered in grey haze.)