IRACING BETA INTERFACE:
iRacing BETA Interface
– The Friends List feature has been added to the iRacing BETA Interface!
– – You can view your Friends List by clicking on the small tab at the bottom-right corner of the iRacing BETA Interface. The Friends List is divided into several distinct sections, including: Friends, Requests, and Blocked.
– – The Friends section includes all members whom you are Following, and/or with whom you are Friends.
– – The Requests section includes all members whom you have invited to be your friend, and members whom have invited you to be their friend.
– – The Blocked section includes all members whom you have decided to blacklist.
– – – Each section is sorted alphabetically, and is super-sorted by other factors, such as Online status, Following, and Favorite (Star) for ease of use.
– – – Clicking on a member name for each list type provides you with several list-sensitive actions, such as: View Profile, Request Friend, Follow, Unfollow, Accept Friend, Cancel Friend Request, Block, Unblock, or Join Session.
– – – Each entry in your Friends List also informs you as to what that Friend is doing at the moment, including; Offline, Idle, or Racing. The Friends List can also let you know when they were last online.
– – – – For a Friend in a Session, you can jump into the same Session with them, provided you meet all the event criteria, using the Friends List!
– – A Search box at the bottom of the Friends List can help you find new friends, new members to follow, or quickly find the person you are looking for in your own expansive Friends List.
– – Members may now hide their Online Status (ie: appear Offline) from other members, by using an option in the Friends List settings menu.
– – A member may now enable an option that disables ALL incoming Friend Requests. With this option enabled, this member may still send Friend Requests.
– – A member that has Blocked you, or has disabled ALL incoming Friend Requests, may not be sent a Friend Request. You will receive an alert message if this is attempted.
– Your iRacing funds balance is now displayed in the iRacing BETA Interface near the top-right corner. Clicking on it provides easier access to the membersite to add additional funds.
– The official iRacing Twitter feed is now embedded on the Home page.
– Your locally installed setups for each selected car will now be listed in the iRacing BETA Interface when you choose to use Fixed Setups for a Session. You can then optionally upload setups to iRacing, for use by others in the Session. You can also delete any previously uploaded Setups.
– Various Up Next/Current Series updates and fixes, including:
– – For the table view, the License Category of an event is now displayed within the License tooltip.
– – For the table view, Series logos are now always visible.
– – Inside the Tags dropdown menu, clicking on a tag’s row now toggles the switch for that tag instead of requiring the user to click directly on the switch.
– – Countdown timers for events now have consistent and improved black styling. When a countdown is within 10 minutes of starting, or has started and may be joined (ie: Practice), it now has a white outline.
– Various Leagues updates and fixes, including:
– – League Owners and Admins can now set the League Owner’s Nickname and Preferred Car Number.
– – League Owners and Admins can now delete Sessions from a League Season.
– – When creating a League, the cost is now displayed with any applicable purchase taxes pre-calculated.
– – The League Search modal window now remembers search criteria between searches, meaning you will no longer lose your search results if you inspect a League, and then go Back to browsing those results.
– For Time Attack, when you want to drive against someone in the Standings, this button now appears if the Time Attack Competition only has one track.
– Fixed an issue that could occur where viewing certain Results pages that caused the interface to enter an unusable state.
– Fixed an issue for the table view in My Teams where the Team Created Date was always today.
iRACING SIMULATION:
Membersite
– The Blacklist functionality has been consolidated and updated.
– – The separate list for banned (ignored) spotters and the Blacklist have been merged into a single list. The control in the Settings panel for managing ignored spotters still works, but now shows this combined blacklist, and any changes are reflected in the blacklist available from the myRacers page (and vice-versa).
– The effects of blacklisting have been expanded. Blacklisted users:
– – Cannot spot for you.
– – Cannot join a session hosted by you.
– – Cannot apply to a Team you own, though they can still be invited.
– – Cannot apply to a League you own, though they can still be invited.
– – Cannot send you a friend request. When blacklisting a current friend, that user is automatically un-friended.
– – Cannot view your online status.
– A new option has been added to the iRacing membersite Settings panel that, when enabled, blocks ALL incoming Friend Requests from all Members. You are still able to send outgoing Friend Requests with this option enabled.
– – This option is also natively available in the iRacing BETA Interface, via the new Friends List.
– The iRacing Membersite now features a Live Chat feature, as another way to contact Customer Support.
– – You can find the Live Chat widget located in the bottom-right corner of the Membersite.
– – – Clicking on the Live Chat widget will initially connect you to a BOT, who will gather some required information such as email address. Customer Support will then respond as available – if not immediately, then via email.
– Fixed an issue where the tracks for an Official Series’ current, previous, and next weeks must all be updated to be able to join a session in that Official Series.
– – Now, each Session only requires the correct track for the correct week to be up-to-date. The “Test Car on Track” button in the Race panel will only switch to “Get Required Updates” if the content listed in the Race panel is not up-to-date, or there are system updates required.
Windows 7 SP1
– This is a reminder that Microsoft will be ending support for Windows 7 on January 14th, 2020. At that time, iRacing will no longer support accessing the Membersite or running the Simulation on the Windows 7 operating system.
– – If you have questions or concerns, feel free to contact Customer Support at
support@iracing.com.
Store
– Fixed an issue where disabled or unavailable store items were counting towards the 100% Club Discount requirement.
Cars
– Some older vehicles that currently do not have an active Official Series have had their names prepended with “[Archive]” to denote this status.
Simulation
– Fixed a bug where having an out-of-date intermediate content package (eg: “/tracks/charlotte”) when using a piece of content inside that package’s directory (eg: “/tracks/charlotte/2018/oval”) would cause an Error 72.
Dynamic Track
– A new track temperature model has been added to the Simulation!
– – This upgraded model now utilizes multiple layers beneath the ground to track temperature and moisture, as well as simulating three days of weather prior to an event start time for generating the track initialization. This track model also continues to run and generate data that will be used for additional sessions if there is a skip between sessions. The multi-layer approach means that temperature on the surface will behave more realistically. Also included is a more accurate interaction between water and temperature, which can result in the track being cooler than the ambient air temperature if the conditions are right.
– – The end result compared to the previous Dynamic Track model should be that temperatures will likely be cooler in the morning and early afternoon, and warmer in the late afternoon. With the previous system, as the sun sets, the track temperature cools rapidly with the incoming solar energy gone. With this new model, the heat that is built up (especially if the skies have been clear) in the layers of earth below will work its way back up and warm the surface. Similarly, built-up heat from cars will last longer if a lot of laps have been driven. The layers allow a realistic recording of history that the old model simply could not.
– – Think especially about a very short, mild rain shower — in the old model, the track temperature would plummet and never come back up, even after all the water was gone. With the new model, heat is retained in the lower layers and the surface may regain some of the lost temperature.
– – Also significant, when a session starts, the track temperatures are no longer calculated using the cloud conditions at the session start time. This meant if a session happened to start with the sun obscured, the track would have been unrealistically cool. In the new model, if the sun is out most of the time leading up to that moment, that will be captured and the track will still be hot but cooling off.
– The effectiveness of using a dirt cushion has been reduced.
V7 Tires
– The following vehicles now utilize V7 Tires:
– – Aston Martin DBR9 GT1
– – Audi RS 3 LMS
– – Chevrolet Corvette C6.R GT1
– – Dallara F3
– – NASCAR K&N Pro Chevrolet Impala
– – Skip Barber Formula 2000
– A lot of work has been done on improving the modeling of the tread rubber compound for this release. We have been testing on more cars than the original Skip Barber Formula 2000, which is helping us to dial the tread compounds in. The vehicles for which we have added V7 Tires represent cars with a wide variety of tire constructions and compounds, and this will help us plan for the future.
– Temperature spreads across the tire are more accurate, although carcass probe temperatures read higher than they should, generally. This is because they are reflecting temperatures deeper into the tire than would be typical for a tire probe.
New Damage Model
– The New Damage Model is now available in a Beta-Test version for the Skip Barber Formula 2000!
– The New Damage Model system includes major changes to improve both collision and damage.
– The New Damage Model is currently only active when all vehicles in a Session have these required updates. In all other circumstances, the session will run using the classic damage system.
– The New Damage Model includes the following improvements:
– – Collision shapes now closely match the vehicle shape and dimensions, and can deform appropriately when damaged.
– – Damage due to impacts can loosen and even detach some vehicle parts.
– – Wheel impacts can bend suspension, damage spring dampers, and break hub attachment points.
– – Wheels can hang from remaining attachment points or detach entirely.
– – Detached parts and wheels can impact and damage other vehicles. The parts will remain on track until they are out of a drivers’ sight, when they will be cleared away.
– – Vehicle wheel on wheel contact is more accurate and considers wheel spin and friction appropriately.
– – All collisions with the track surfaces and environmental objects are now using a high resolution collision mesh.
– – Impacts against detached car parts and wheels do not count toward incident penalties.
– – Visual effects for debris and scrapes have been added and improved to support the New Damage Model.
– – Sound effect processing for impacts and scrapes has been improved to support the New Damage Model.
– Please keep in mind, this very complicated feature remains under development, but we wanted to share our progress with you, and get your feedback on the system. For normal racing and in light to moderate contact conditions, drivers should expect the system to behave appropriately. High-speed vehicle on vehicle impacts are in need of some further development. Please feel free to experiment, and let us know what you think. And have fun!
Pit Stops
– NASCAR pit stop time deviation has been reduced slightly.
Rendering
– High-Dynamic Range (HDR) Rendering modes now use a linear format render target instead of a gamma encoded render target.
– – The linear formats support mathematically correct additive lighting which improves the accuracy of things like brake lights, back fires, windshield reflections, glow and bloom effects, and many other items which cannot work correctly with a gamma encoded render target. Many of these items have since also been adjusted to take advantage of the linear format improvements.
– Improved the accuracy of the default gamma encoding/decoding in the DX11 shaders for better color reproduction and contrast.
– The Simulator now supports launching directly in windowed HDR16F modes on HDR10 displays.
– – If HDR is enabled in the Graphics Options, and the Simulator is launched in windowed mode, it now checks the color space of the adapter output (the display) to see if it is HDR10. If so, it will launch using an HDR16F swap chain directly. Previously, one had to launch full-screen and then Alt-Enter back to a window to use windowed modes on HDR displays. If you have multiple monitors, it will check the adapter output that was specified during the graphics Auto-Configuration (see adapterIdx in app.ini or re-run the autoconfig to select/change the monitor to check).
– For Advanced Graphics Options, the video memory maximum footprint has been increased to 8GB (previously 4GB), and the system memory maximum footprint has been increased to 16GB (previously 8GB).
– – Please note that the auto-configuration utility will still not recommend utilizing over 4GB of video memory.
– A custom lens flare/bloom effect has been added to the solar disk (the Sun) via a post process step.
– Improved the environmental reflections in shadow coverage.
– Further improved the ambient light calculations for vehicle cockpits.
– The dynamic shadow map system was altered for cockpit camera views to attempt to work around the flickering shadow maps that a few customers were experiencing.
– Adjusted the brightness of haze/fog so that it is proportional to the world’s illumination levels.
– Additional objects have been converted from using older shaders to the newer physically based versions of the shaders, including track cones which were suffering strange specular artifacts.
– Backfire effects have been updated and now emit HDR lightmaps for different appearance at night vs. day.
– Stadium lights and headlights have been adjusted to work better with HDR linear render target.
– Headlight flare\bloom effects have been updated for HDR linear render target formats.
– Internal windshield reflections have been updated for HDR linear render target formats.
– Camera flashes have been updated for HDR linear render target formats.
– Smoke textures and shader colors have been updated for HDR linear render target formats.
– HDR bloom effects have been replaced with a more effective version.
– Cameras affixed to the outside of a vehicle now have their motion blur amount capped at the same value as the interior car cameras.
– Fixed an issue with flickering dynamic shadow maps for cameras with a Field of View (FOV) larger than 165 degrees.
– Fixed an issue where some car shadows (the drop shadows under the car that mimic ambient occlusion) could appear to have jagged edges.
– Fixed an issue with motion blur where tire barriers would appear to have a halo effect when dust was nearby.
Audio
– A brand new set of crash, bash, pop, bang, and scrape sounds have been added and enabled for the New Damage Model.
– Sounds for tires rolling on asphalt have been improved.
Flagman
– A large variety of flagman animation updates have been completed for the following tracks:
– – Daytona International Speedway (ALL)
– – Las Vegas Motor Speedway (ALL)
– – Martinsville Speedway
– – Michigan International Speedway
– – New Hampshire Motor Speedway – Oval
– – ISM Raceway – Oval
– – Pocono Raceway
– – Richmond Raceway
– – Sonoma Raceway (ALL)
– – Talladega Superspeedway
– – Texas Motor Speedway (ALL)
– – Watkins Glen International (ALL)
Pace Car
– New window glass shaders have been applied to all of the Pace Cars and the Pace Truck.
Spotter
– A brand new French Spotter Package has been added!
– A brand new German Spotter Package has been added!
– A pair of brand new Italian Spotter Packages have been added!
– – Many thanks to both Marco Arcidiacono and Renzo A. Olivieri for their help with this package!
– A brand new Portuguese Spotter Package has been added!
– – Many thanks to Guto Colvara for his help with this package!
– A brand new Spanish Spotter Package has been added!
– Audio samples for the “Aussie” Spotter Package have been updated.
– Audio samples for the “TJ and Steve” Spotter Package have been updated.
Paint Shop
– A new sponsor has been added to the Paint Shop!
– – Jim Beaver eSports is now available as a sponsor in the Paint Shop.
Controls
– A second clutch is now available for use with all applicable vehicles.
Controllers
– Force feedback now slowly ramps up after entering the car to prevent DD wheels from snapping around.
– A new Fanatec API has been integrated.
– A new Logitech API has been integrated.
– Support has been added for mapping triggers individually for the latest wireless XBOX One controller with Windows 10 adapter.
Virtual Reality Headsets
– Fixed an issue where the Oculus Rift or other OpenVR headset stops rendering the track viewports when certain combinations of graphics options are active (such as Post Processing without HDR).
Loading Screen
– Some new loading screens have been added.
– Fixed an issue where the loading image was not scaling correctly if the aspect ratio was not square.
CARS:
Aston Martin DBR9 GT1
– This vehicle now utilizes the V7 Tire Model!
– Anti-Roll Bars are now adjustable.
– Baseline setup has been updated.
Audi R18
– 2019 Season 4 LMP1 BoP Adjustments:
– – Re-fuel rate has been adjusted so it is equal to other LMP1 vehicles.
– – Maximum regeneration power has been set to 400 kW.
Audi R8 LMS GT3
– 2019 Season 4 GT3 BoP Adjustments:
– – Weight has been slightly reduced.
– – Aero drag has been increased slightly.
– – Front tire toe adjustments have been constrained to toe in only.
– – Rear tire toe adjustments have been constrained to toe out only.
Audi RS 3 LMS
– NEW CAR!
– – The Audi RS 3 LMS is now available for purchase!
– – – TCR racing has exploded in popularity around the world over the past few years, and the Audi RS 3 LMS has proven to be one of the class’s most popular cars. Utilized by drivers on four continents, the RS 3 LMS found success quickly after its debut and was voted “TCR Model of the Year 2018” among vehicles from 12 manufacturers. Light and quick, the Audi RS 3 LMS produces up to 350 horsepower from its turbocharged two-liter powerplant. Sequential shifting and a quick 0-60 time mean that this front-wheel drive touring car produces plenty of exciting action, no matter where or when it’s racing.
– – Add the Audi RS 3 LMS to your garage, by purchasing it from the iRacing store here: <LINK>
– This vehicle utilizes the V7 Tire Model!
BMW M8 GTE
– 2019 Season 4 GTE BoP Adjustments:
– – Weight has been moderately increased.
– – Engine power has been increased slightly.
– – Fuel consumption rate has been increased slightly.
– – Aero drag has been reduced at low wing angles.
