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


A new release candidate is available for rFactor 2 via Steam which previews a long list of upcoming changes to the title, including improved sounds, engine and brake cooling and shift protection for select open-wheelers, and improvements to wet weather driving.

For those looking to preview what will be coming to rFactor 2 in the coming months, a new release candidate build is now live.

The preview build brings a long list of changes to the title, highlighted by global improvements to the in-game sound engine and the wet weather experience.

Studio 397 notes that the changes to the sound engine will immediately be applied to all cars, but specific improvements will be applied in time to certain cars.

There are also physics improvements available with this build, but they currently only apply to the Dallara IR-18 and Formula Pro vehicles, and these updated cars can be found temporarily in the "TEST" category from the vehicle selection screen. Each has received a new shift protection feature, along with improved engine and brake cooling physics.

Racing in the rain will also be an improved experience in rFactor 2, as the S397 team has enhanced how the rain accumulates and evaporates, as well as how AI cars deal with adverse track conditions.

The full list of changes available in the new test build can be found on the next page and in rFactor 2's blog, along with how to opt into release candidates via Steam. Let us know your thoughts on this build, or anything else rFactor 2 related, 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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Tarmac Terrorist
This update is a massive game changer! I can now have wet weather races with the A.I. and can confirm from running several tests that the A.I. now choose correct tires wether you start off the race in the wet, start dry and have weather change to wet half way through, or start off with dry weather but 100% wet track and let it dry throughout race. They change their tires accordingly and as you would expect, you don't even have to run practice or quali to let them sort out their strategy, it just works, brilliantly! No more continuous pitting every other lap, its absoloutely awsome, can now fully enjoy offline racing and actually make use of the fantastic weather system which just has'nt been possible for, er, years now! Unfortuately multiclass still does'nt quite work, still get faster class cars stuck behind slower ones, but this is one hell of a step in the right direction! Could do with a slider for opponents car volume though. And also the ability to change A.I. skill level whilst actually at track (without having to reload track) option has dissappeared again, could we please have that back. But this has made my week! Thanks so much S397, and great to hear that A.I. is now a priority. Awsome!!!!!!!
 
D
Tarmac Terrorist said:
This update is a massive game changer! I can now have wet weather races with the A.I. and can confirm from running several tests that the A.I. now choose correct tires wether you start off the race in the wet, start dry and have weather change to wet half way through, or start off with dry weather but 100% wet track and let it dry throughout race. They change their tires accordingly and as you would expect, you don't even have to run practice or quali to let them sort out their strategy, it just works, brilliantly! No more continuous pitting every other lap, its absoloutely awsome, can now fully enjoy offline racing and actually make use of the fantastic weather system which just has'nt been possible for, er, years now! Unfortuately multiclass still does'nt quite work, still get faster class cars stuck behind slower ones, but this is one hell of a step in the right direction! Could do with a slider for opponents car volume though. And also the ability to change A.I. skill level whilst actually at track (without having to reload track) option has dissappeared again, could we please have that back. But this has made my week! Thanks so much S397, and great to hear that A.I. is now a priority. Awsome!!!!!!!
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apparently there are three reasons AI choose to pit, worn tires, low fuel, & damage. The worn tire issue has now been addressed, so 'some of the time' the faster cars won't get stuck behind a slower car, but if the faster car is low on fuel or has body damage, it will still get stuck behind the slower cars. Baby steps
 
OZ67
Premium
Nice improvements and much quicker progress on rFactor2 , much nicer ui and load time, rf2 is like a new simulator. I hope MSG survives long enough to complete Rfactor 2 Career mode.
Just one question , In VR why is there no car parts when looking in mirror or look back button, can't see rear wing or roll bar. ?
 
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D
During the change-over to DX11 severa years ago, a-lot of car parts were culled to improve framerates. I'm assuming that is what you are seeing.(or rather NOT seeing) VR users, for example, will be horrified to find the back half of their car is missing.
 
Durge Driven
The AI slider which used to be there did nothing, you may think it did

Since first builds you have always had to close session ( offline and online) and reload session for it to take . That is why they removed from the session menu so you can only adjust before you load session
 
S
Luciano Santos Filho said:
Question: did they fix that issue that prevents the AI from overtaking slower cars in the in-lap for a pit stop?

Because so much is being said about how the AI will be smarter in terms of changing weather conditions, but if they can't behave in the inlap that really doesn't help much.

Sorry if it is a dumb question but honestly I gave up following RF2 updates a while ago. But if this MAJOR problem got fixed I may want to give it another go.
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On discord multiple people said it works now
 
D
sbabb said:
On discord multiple people said it works now
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not in all cases yet. If the car getting ready to pit has no damage and plenty of fuel, then it will bypass the slower car during the inlap. IF, however, the pitting car is low on fuel or has repairable damage, it appears to still get stuck behind the slower car.
 
Luciano Santos Filho
davehenrie said:
not in all cases yet. If the car getting ready to pit has no damage and plenty of fuel, then it will bypass the slower car during the inlap. IF, however, the pitting car is low on fuel or has repairable damage, it appears to still get stuck behind the slower car.
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That's a shame. If the car has damage it would not bother me so much. But being low on fuel, well that's what happen in any endurance. Then it's still not possible to do long races against the AI yet.
 
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S
Durge Driven said:
well I hate to upset you it has had one for 10 years lol :)

P.S. I did not make my observations from that thread and only now just read it

I could tell the second I heard AI leaving pits started echoing around garages something was not right

But it is more then that I can't explain it best thing I can think of is like all AI are in your car lol
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Not all cars are mixed yet, that will happen over time
 
Boby Kim
The sound system need separate volume sliders for AI enigne volume and in cockpit volume. Right now i cant hear my own engine when an AI is near. I cant turn down the AI engine volume seperatly. Its bound to in cockpit volume which also regulates my own engine sound: bad feature. I cannot race without hearing my own engine. The AI, still has its major brake check flaws. So i reverted back to stable build. When devs solve AI brake checking and that AI passes other AI from slipstream, including myself, wake me up again.
 
T
Boby Kim said:
The sound system need separate volume sliders for AI enigne volume and in cockpit volume. Right now i cant hear my own engine when an AI is near. I cant turn down the AI engine volume seperatly. Its bound to in cockpit volume which also regulates my own engine sound: bad feature. I cannot race without hearing my own engine. The AI, still has its major brake check flaws. So i reverted back to stable build. When devs solve AI brake checking and that AI passes other AI from slipstream, including myself, wake me up again.
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This is also what I'm waiting for. Multi class is pointless in its current guise. Unless of course we start seeing ACC server populations.
But a step in the right direction.
 
A
davehenrie said:
not in all cases yet. If the car getting ready to pit has no damage and plenty of fuel, then it will bypass the slower car during the inlap. IF, however, the pitting car is low on fuel or has repairable damage, it appears to still get stuck behind the slower car.
Click to expand...
I tested this with fuel usage only and the AI were overtaking on inlaps for me.
 
RichardHessels
davehenrie said:
During the change-over to DX11 severa years ago, a-lot of car parts were culled to improve framerates. I'm assuming that is what you are seeing.(or rather NOT seeing) VR users, for example, will be horrified to find the back half of their car is missing.
Click to expand...
That's just becuase it's not modelled in the cockpitview. Dev's need to test with a vr set.
Most nver did i guess. When the car is idle and i walk around my car half of it is missing.
Would be nice if you could toggle those missing parts on for VR users.
 
S
Sound engine update is a massive improvement, well done. I am really excited, it´s way better than expected, and the audio clipping on cars like the C8R also finally disappeared.
 
Mitch9
MJQT said:
Plans are good. Better than nothing. But don't forget Studio 397 have made noises indicating they were "aware" of offline-related issues or had some kind of long-term plan to fix them for years... so I'll believe that they're serious about something like an offline championship mode, frankly, when I see it.

The other thing is that there's already a powerful and flexible way to do offline championships in rF2 (and rF1 and AMS1) – Nibo's Log Analyzer tool, through which you can assign any single race you do (with any rules) to an offline championship. Not saying it wouldn't be great for Studio 397 to build on Nibo's work and bring it within the game's UI. But if 397's championship mode is the usual restrictive way of (unrealistically) having to set up a championship where every race has to be run under identical rules, number of laps, start time, etc. (like in AMS1 for example) I likely won't use it!
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They´ve made noises about many things, including the ui, the ai and the sound engine.
With the previous december updateand this rc, it´s probably the first time in the three years that I´ve seen them actually deliver results so I´m positive that ISI´s old engine is not entirely a dead end, but I´m also not expecting them to come up with these new features every year.

As for how the offline championship would work, I really doubt Nibo´s tool would be used for anything but inspiration; they would have to throw away the competition system with all the backend that has been developed for years. I would take the current cs as an example of how the offline version would work (even though there´s still many areas to be fully realized with it). Basically built around the series and package system, probably.
 
Tarmac Terrorist
davehenrie said:
apparently there are three reasons AI choose to pit, worn tires, low fuel, & damage. The worn tire issue has now been addressed, so 'some of the time' the faster cars won't get stuck behind a slower car, but if the faster car is low on fuel or has body damage, it will still get stuck behind the slower cars. Baby steps
Click to expand...
Yes have noticed this now after further testing, so its great to see that issue is half fixed, heres to more of that eh!
 
Tarmac Terrorist
Durge Driven said:
The AI slider which used to be there did nothing, you may think it did

Since first builds you have always had to close session ( offline and online) and reload session for it to take . That is why they removed from the session menu so you can only adjust before you load session
Click to expand...
No it did work but, if you just changed the slider value nothing would change. To make it work you had to adjust the value and then either restart the session you were in i.e. practice / quali, or move onto next session (from practice to quali for example) and the skill level would reset. If you skip to about 13:06 in this video there is a demonstration of it working
 
MJQT
davehenrie said:
apparently there are three reasons AI choose to pit, worn tires, low fuel, & damage.
Click to expand...
Great, this is exactly how it should be :)
davehenrie said:
The worn tire issue has now been addressed, so 'some of the time' the faster cars won't get stuck behind a slower car, but if the faster car is low on fuel or has body damage, it will still get stuck behind the slower cars. Baby steps
Click to expand...
Baby steps indeed – but regardless, signs of attention paid to AI and btis of progress! Which is welcome news
 
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