Minor Update Released and New Track Announced for iRacing

[Paul Jeffrey]

iRacing has recently announced another new street course location, with the developers expecting to add the Detroit Grand Prix track as early as this June!

Regular location of for both IndyCar and IMSA Sportscar racing, Belle Isle in Detroit is a tight and twisting semi permanent street course location that often plays host to dramatic and incident packed racing action, something iRacing will be hopeful of replicating once the circuit hits the simulation potentially as early as this coming June.

Although remaining slightly sketchy on the exact expected date of release, Detroit does look pretty advanced in its development if the below images are anything to go by, leaving fans hopeful of a release to the public build of the simulation sooner rather than later...

As well as the big new track announcement, yesterday saw the first light of day for a new patch build release, welcoming to the world a minor update around three of the current GT3 cars and a couple of bug fixes related to rolling start issues. Full notes can be seen below:

Season 2 Patch 5 Release Notes:

Race Control

• Fixed an issue with rolling starts at Road Course tracks with a separate start line, where if the green drops in the same 1/60th of a second that the pace car crosses the finish line, all the drivers who had not yet crossed the finish line would become a lap up on the cars who had already crossed the finish line. This is very unlikely to happen at most tracks, but, for example, at Monza last week, the configuration of the start and finish lines and the pit lane are exactly wrong so that the pace car is often exactly at that wrong spot for this bug to occur. Monza is also on many series' schedules for the remainder of the season, so it was important to get this fix out.

Audi R8 LMS GT3

• Slightly increased the toughness of the floor to reduce damage from bottoming.

BMW Z4 GT3

• Slightly increased the toughness of the floor to reduce damage from bottoming.

Mercedes-AMG GT3

• Slightly increased the toughness of the floor to reduce damage from bottoming.

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Looking forward to Belle Isle raceway? Any other circuits you would particularly like to see added to the sim in the future? Let us know in the comments section below!

 

[ricerracer]

another detailed looking track, can not wait to test it out. Hmm why you disagreeing nick gregory, you think it is not detailed?

 

[Kurupt CDN]

Recently got back into iracing and have been enjoying it this time around, VR on my aging system runs very well and the picture clarity seems alot better than my other racing titles.

Looking forward to Belle Island and the tba european rally X track. Any european rally tracks would be a great addition.

I would also like to see a proper touring car make it into the title one day.

 

[Paul Garrett]

I can't believe they are doing my "home" track on Belle Isle. I've been there many, many times and can't wait to try it out.

 

[jason_peters]

Indeed VR in iR is the best image quality of all
Racing sims due to the way the shadows are rendered which means no flickering

I’m one of the few who is looking forward to not only this track but the debut of AI in the sim as all too often the servers are empty for the car track combo I would like to run

 

[Nick Gregory]

I guess Long Beach is totally swept under the rug.

EDIT: If SMS can do Long Beach, so can iRacing.

 

[Craig Dunkley]

There tracks are second to none..I rejoined recently, because they emailed me an offer I could not turn down.The only thing new for me was testing out VR in iRacing ...WOW just WOW.

 

[John Addison]

I guess Long Beach is totally swept under the rug.

Yeh I'm baffled at that one. I have never even heard or read a reason why they just left it in limbo like that. That's the circuit we all want.

 

[Inivictus Deus]

The quality of their tracks is second to none and so is the car interior details. This is why it's worth paying for iRacing, quality over quantity, any day. Also, their unmatched online system, regular updates and fixes, amazing FFB and physics, top quality content... what's not to like.

 

[Inivictus Deus]

Yeh I'm baffled at that one. I have never even heard or read a reason why they just left it in limbo like that. That's the circuit we all want.

I think i read somewhere on the iRacing forum that the amount of buildings and objects required to be created in 3D is crazy. A lot of little details that need rendering which might also be the problem. Pretty sure they haven't abandoned it, it just seems it's taking a long time to create everything and they rather take time than release an unfinished paid track. But, it seems like they have a couple of people working on it as a side project , who knows.

 

[Deleted member 6919]

Just wish more sims would do more street circuits..

 

[CC]

Just which more sims would do more street circuits..

This circuit looks incredible, and that tarmac has some amazing textures for sure

 

[Conrad Miller]

"Although remaining slightly sketchy on the exact expected date of release"

This comment is from iRacing staff:
"We are happy to officially announce that we will be adding Belle Isle to iRacing. This fun street circuit is almost complete and is on schedule to be included in the June build. "

June 5th is the exact date of the June build release, nothing's sketchy about this....

 

[Brandon Wright]

Indeed VR in iR is the best image quality of all
Racing sims due to the way the shadows are rendered which means no flickering

Agreed. On my system it looks almost as good as my monitors, no real screen door, stuff in the distance is crisp and clear, text is very easy to read. I've had some pretty fantastic races too.

I think i read somewhere on the iRacing forum that the amount of buildings and objects required to be created in 3D is crazy. A lot of little details that need rendering which might also be the problem. Pretty sure they haven't abandoned it, it just seems it's taking a long time to create everything and they rather take time than release an unfinished paid track. But, it seems like they have a couple of people working on it as a side project , who knows.

To my understanding this is correct, their aging graphics system was brought to its knees when trying render all the buildings and surrounding objects. So until they move to a new graphics engine it will probably remain as an unfinished test track.

 

[sebduloiret]

The quality of their tracks is second to none and so is the car interior details. This is why it's worth paying for iRacing, quality over quantity, any day. Also, their unmatched online system, regular updates and fixes, amazing FFB and physics, top quality content... what's not to like.

hello guy ,

for me , no, it is not worth paying so much money for a "simulation" that after 10 years of development still has no day / night cycles, various weather conditions and changing, different type of rubber for the tires, a management of the glide of the car finally correct (there is just to try to drift at low speed on iracing to realize the low level of the management of the motricity of the wheels, if one compare to that of AMS where we find the sensations of reality in the control of the glide with the accelerator), different mechanical breakage depending on its type of driving (brutal or smooth): I forget about it yet but to summarize: all that is missing and that would iracing a REAL simulation (but I understand that it is much more profitable for the seller to develop more and more paid content before the real innovations)

no, sorry, after 600 euros for 1500 hours of gambling given to iracing, I realized that it was not worth paying as much money as you say and that it was even very important to no longer condone this kind of method that makes prices in the video game increases more: the only loser is the consumer

have a nice day

 

[ricerracer]

hello guy ,

for me , no, it is not worth paying so much money for a "simulation" that after 10 years of development still has no day / night cycles, various weather conditions and changing, different type of rubber for the tires, a management of the glide of the car finally correct (there is just to try to drift at low speed on iracing to realize the low level of the management of the motricity of the wheels, if one compare to that of AMS where we find the sensations of reality in the control of the glide with the accelerator), different mechanical breakage depending on its type of driving (brutal or smooth): I forget about it yet but to summarize: all that is missing and that would iracing a REAL simulation (but I understand that it is much more profitable for the seller to develop more and more paid content before the real innovations)

no, sorry, after 600 euros for 1500 hours of gambling given to iracing, I realized that it was not worth paying as much money as you say and that it was even very important to no longer condone this kind of method that makes prices in the video game increases more: the only loser is the consumer

have a nice day

Its all subjective, for me Iracing is the COD of racing games, you can jump in, get into a race, and race others with no issues. It is great and for me worth the money.

 

[John Addison]

I was never a fan of IRacing because of getting hit with rating penalties when someone else takes you out. I still hate the fact I loose points when I get tagged from a moron. But outside of that IRacing has become a lot better. The cars dont float around anymore and the platform is flawless at least om my rig. All other sims have some kind of issue most notable RF2 I just gave up on. Too many stupid issues. So yeh I have started to settle into IRacing,

 

[Brandon Wright]

Its all subjective, for me Iracing is the COD of racing games, you can jump in, get into a race, and race others with no issues. It is great and for me worth the money.

Exactly, different people have different wants. None of that stuff he listed really matters to me. What matters to me is good, fun racing and I can get good, fun racing (much better than I've personally had in any other sims) at just about any time of day. And I usually have a good chance of winning to boot, something that was very rare in any of the other sims or club races. I've had more great races in my last 6 months of iRacing than I had in three years with AC, R3E, AMS, and PC2 combined. For me, that's totally worth the ~$0.40 a day I pay.

I was never a fan of IRacing because of getting hit with rating penalties when someone else takes you out. I still hate the fact I loose points when I get tagged from a moron.

If you're driving a real race car and some moron tags you you're going to get damage, a repair bill, and possibly be out of the race. So it's not really that much different in iRacing. Plus one race doesn't matter, your safety rating is an accumulation of thousands of corners with your oldest ones dropping off at a certain point so if you're a fairly clean driver the law of averages balances it all out. You can have 10x in a race and still gain SR in certain races so getting tagged by one moron doesn't necessarily lose you points. Plus, it's pretty easy to license up so the SR doesn't really matter that much anymore. iRacing certainly isn't for everyone but it's currently scratching an itch that the other sims weren't scratching for me, and scratching it quite nicely.

 

[FernandoAFM]

Can’t wait for this track!
I love iRacing! Yes, it’s more expensive than other sims, but I get in way more battles than in other titles. Plus, there’s something really good about knowing I’ll get home from work, turn on the PC and get into a competitive race straight away.
I find huge value in that!

 

[Brandon Wright]

Can’t wait for this track!
I love iRacing! Yes, it’s more expensive than other sims, but I get in way more battles than in other titles. Plus, there’s something really good about knowing I’ll get home from work, turn on the PC and get into a competitive race straight away.
I find huge value in that!

Agreed, that means more to me than night or rain. But I can also see how others would assess the value differently or put more importance on other features, we don't all have to like the same thing.