Paul Jeffrey
Premium
Sector3 Studios have today made live a considerable update to RaceRoom Racing Experience, bringing a host of new features and tweaks to the title alongside the highly anticipated release of certain legendary German venue with lots of corners...
Today's release is jam packed full of new features and purchasable content to keep fans of the sim entertained in the coming weeks. With a larger than usual gap between updates the guys over at Sector3 have been hard at working bringing some much needed functionality to a title lacking many features most modern gamers would expect to see in 2016.
The latest update now allows users the ability to save car setups to individual vehicles, a feature that has been strangely missing in recent years and is sure to appease many community members who have been vocal about the inclusion of this option for quite some time across the various forums. This new feature is a timely addition to the sim as the new physics update released for the huge GTR3 field will render previous setups obsolete. Users are advised to re set custom setups back to default (same applies for the steering settings).
On the subject of the GTR3 field the team at Sector3 have done some rethinking with regards to vehicles contained in the various classes across the sim and have brought across the previously GTRX class P4/5 (including appropriate BOP) to boost the growing GTR3 field. With the Ford Mustang, McLaren 650S and Bentley Continental due to join in the GT3 fun alongside a couple of other unannounced cars RaceRoom is fast becoming the 'go to' sim for fans of GT3 style racing.
To help accommodate some of these newly increased classes a variety of tracks have now been given a few tweaks to allow increased grid sizes, in the case of tracks such as Spa-Francorchamps (combined Layout) and Nordschleife grid sizes of up to 99 cars can be accommodated (PC specs allowing...) For those stuggling with performance Sector3 advise decreasing the amount of visible cars in the Visual Settings option to gain back some performance.
As reported earlier on RaceDepartment, the new patch also contains substantially revised Force Feedback settings and a new HUD, bringing new thinking to the handling of the sim and hopefully providing greater satisfaction to members of the community who have been struggling to find settings suitable for the wide range of wheels available in the marketplace at present.
Alongside the release of the legendary Nordschleife today's pack also makes available the latest instalment of the WTCC series with the 2015 WTCC car pack available to purchase in store.
Full changelog:
What’s New (Summary)
- Massive physics overhaul for GT3-Specs classes, Prototype classes, GTO class. (Please note that the leaderboards of these classes have been wiped due to the overhaul)
- Compact HUD to replace the mini hud.
- FFB additions. Minimum force, slip effect, ffb meter, ffb multiplier per car.
- Load/Save Car setups. Players can now save and load their car setups.
- Bigger Grids. Maximum opponents on certain tracks can now go up to 100.
- Fuel management in car setup
- Oh, and new content too.
- Added support for Logitech G29. Please note that all Logitech users need to get the latest drivers from Logitech to have wheel ranges working properly.
- Implemented Compact HUD which replaces the minimalistic HUD.
- Added Bigger Grids, allowing tracks to have more than 24 opponents. The maximum number depends on the track and can go up to 100. (SP only for now)
- Implemented FFB Meter which can be used to check the ffb output for clipping.
- Implemented FFB Minimum Force which allows player to amplify small FFB forces. This is mostly for players that have the “dead center” problem when driving straight.
- Implemented FFB Slip effect which simulates when the tires struggle for grip during wheelspin, understeering, sliding, heavy braking.
- Implemented stationary friction in FFB to solve wheels that rotate by themselves while the car is stationary.
- Implemented FFB Multiplier per car in the car setup, allowing player to adjust the overall FFB strength for a car individually.
- Added a new Steering Animation Setting in Vehicle Settings. Player can now set the steering animation rotation to be a custom degree or to match what’s in car setup under steering settings.
- Added Load/Save in Car setup. Also reorganized the settings a bit.
- Removed old auto saving of setup when leaving car setup screen and related logic. Car setup will no longer auto save and the unsaved changes will disappear when leaving the game session.
- Added fuel to car setup.
- Implemented lap invalidation for wallriding.
- Fixed some threading exceptions that could trigger a crash.
- Fixed some camera related rendering thread issues that could trigger a crash.
- Fixed random crash that could occur when pulling out of pits in single race practice session.
- Fixed an issue where the game was only seeing the integrated graphics card on laptops with NVIDIA Optimus.
- Changed fallback null texture format to better support older low end graphics cards that were getting crashes on startup.
- Fixed an issue where start lights could get stuck on screen on certain occasions.
- Fixed an issue where the game would spawn the player at an incorrect garage spot.
- Improved Shadow split calculation
- Added a potential fix for parts falling off car at race restart.
- Fixed so that pitmenu, pit window and pit related overlays don’t show up post race.
- Fixed a crash that could occur while using instant replay.
- Fixed cars flickering in replay.
- Changed so ambient sounds for tracking cameras are initialized after the loading is done to fix some wrong calls.
- Optimized the logic performance.
- Fixed issue with test drive losing audio when alt-tabbing and going back to the game.
- Fixed an issue with returning to garage after pause.
- Fixed cars popping in and out on occasion.
- Fixed error messages in the new menus appearing as white text on white background.
- Revised several controller profiles according to the new ffb additions.
- Added Logitech G29, Fanatec CSR and Thrustmaster T300 F1 Wheel addon profiles.
- Tweaked keyboard default profile for better steering at higher speed.
- Fixed issue with ffb gain only being updated on device initialization which meant that changing it in options didn’t change anything).
- Fixed so wheel range, rev lights and led display are reset when game is closed.
- Added supplemental controller type so that devices such as shifters and pedals trigger the right dialogue when initialized.
- Changed so control set evaluation is only done on controller that's not supplemental. This fixes the with wrong control set being selected by pedals etc and removes extra dialogs asking the player if he wants to create a profile for them.
- Fixed a crash that could occur in driver logic.
- Fixed a freeze that could occur after the initial track load.
- Fixed gear damage that was occurring when downshifting on cars with downshift prevention.
- Changed LiveTimings, Race Monitor and Session Info to be part of the Menu System instead of being static variables/singletons. This is an attempt to clear up some of the mess and to hopefully fix the issue with menu being broken sometimes after session switches.
- Fixed so “Visible Cars” feature applies on any camera, including free cam.
- Fixed so only timing and position overlays are disabled when the tv overlay setting is off.
- Changed so low fuel, push to pass and drs overlays are not shown if the compact data display is active.
- Fixed a crash that sometimes occurred when bringing up the pit menu.
- Fixed issue with PitPresets not being shown if they're created mid race through the pause menu.
- Added menu music and music volume setting in sound options.
- Added bigger grids in company dedicated servers for testing. We will set up few servers with more than the usual grid size (up to 100) to test and would like you all to join to help us testing.
- Various potential fixes for a crash that was occurring when switching from qualifying to race in Multiplayer.
- Increased stack size for game to fix the stack overflow crash that could have occurred when joining MP.
- Fixed small issue with garage screen not refreshing after session switch in MP (still showed old session type name if player was in the menus during switch).
- AI now better respects track limits.
- AI now visually use default steering settings for their car. Player’s car under AI control now also uses player’s steering settings.
- AI cars now properly use the correct Final Ratio for their gearbox on the current track.
- Updated chase cameras for all so player can feel the car better and be able to see enough of the road ahead
- FallOffDistances (distance at which sounds can be heard) adjusted so replay volume on TV Cameras are balanced with gameplay volume. Engine sounds now have a longer audible distance
- Ambient sound samples on old tracks are now starting at random moment in the samples.
- RoadFeel Effects and Suspension Squeak sound option levels are now set to 40% by default.
- Helicopter cameras now play a constant Helicopter sound sample (was using a fixed area before)
- Wind sound sample (open cockpit cars) updated, volume decreased for a better balance in Stereo setups
- New sound sample for rumblestrips
- Fuel Estimates adjusted for all cars and tracks
- FFB Multiplier adjustments for various cars
- Audi 90 GTO : Massive physics update, cranked idle engine volume to 11
- Chevrolet Greenwood (Gr.5) : Suspension sounds were missing.
- Formula RR2: Fixed rearview camera in triple screen
- GT3-specs cars: Massive physics update, new external sounds for the Z4 and P4/5, improved standing starts for AI’s
- Prototype cars: Massive physics update, new sounds for all, action cameras added.
- NSU TTS : Fixed a floatiness feeling, AI’s should now be better at standing starts
- Hockenheim GP : TV camera files updated
- Indianapolis: merged cut track rules
- Macau : Tweaked AI lines around the hairpin, Fixed a couple TV cameras that were affected by guardrail / tree objects
- Paul Ricard : TV Cameras updates
- Salzburgring : AI tweaks
- Spa-Francorchamps : TV camera files updated
- Suzuka : AI tweaks
- Zandvoort : TV cameras cleanup
- Added new content
- P4-5 : swapped liveries in GTR3
- Mercedes SLS GT3 : Fixed weird polygon on hood when damaged
- New sky textures ( global )
- Minor livery fixes
- Audi 90Q GTO : fixed a weird keyhole in taillight
- Brands Hatch : Reduced bumpiness
- Added Improved Newsfeed system which now works as a standalone application.
- Added fallback functionality on timeouts on steam callbacks to ensure the transaction gets cancelled if Steam store times out as it did during holidays.
- Fixed a purchase processing issue that could have triggered “nothing to buy” message, buying twice, and things not appearing as purchased problems.
- Fixed a store content filtering issue in competition launcher and game menu.
- Fixed so player can challenge other cars in a class where they own one of cars in the class if they filter by class in LB (All cars in LB list).
Its here... So, was it worth the wait? How are you finding the new patch? What new feature do you like best? Let us know in the comments section below!
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