rF2: Circuit de la Sarthe (Le Mans) Released & rF2 Updated

[Paul Jeffrey]

Studio 397 have released their beautiful laser scanned Circuit de la Sarthe for rFactor 2.

One of the most iconic tracks in world motorsport, this weekend has seen the 87th running of the Le Mans 24 Hour race in France - the centrepiece event of the sportscar racing calendar and the season finale of the 2018/19 FIA World Endurance Championship season.

To mark the big event in style, Studio 397 have released their latest DLC for rFactor 2 - the laser scanned 2018 version of the famous Le Mans circuit!

Available to purchase now from the rFactor 2 Steam Store page for 10.99 eu, the new track is once again an impressive creation from Studio 397 - continuing the recent very high quality track standards achieved by the Dutch development studio.

rF2 Le Mans: Check out our test drive and Marcel Offermans interview HERE.

Alongside the new track comes a brand new update for rFactor 2, one that brings a number of fixes and improvements to the simulation as Studio 397 continue work towards refining and updating this highly regarded simulation. To catch up on the latest changes, check out the new build update notes below...

rF2 Update Notes:

With the track release comes a new build too. As always we advise people to update their dedicated servers and game clients. In fact, Le Mans requires this new build.

rFactor 2 version: 1.1112
Steam Build IDs: 3921932 (client), 3921933 (dedicated server)

Changes:

• Improved performance logging to be faster and give more information.
  
• Fixed skewed driver labels on triple screen multi-view (cockpit and track-side full-screen cams).
  
• Removed aggressive threading as it’s not that helpful.
  
• Improved timing to help avoid stutters and real-time freezes.
  
• Improvements on materials and lighting.
  
• Implemented all new ‘digital flags’ – for ‘Circuit des 24 Heures du Mans’.

Here's what Studio 397 have to say about the new release:

Just a few weeks ago, in our latest roadmap, we announced that Le Mans was coming to rFactor 2. Now, on the weekend that the 2019 edition of this famous 24h race is held, as the real cars pass the checkered flag after yet another memorable race, the racing won’t stop! We are proud to announce the release of the Le Mans 24h track, available immediately!

For those of you who can’t wait, here’s the link to the store, where you can buy your copy of the track right now and start driving!

Background
The story of the creation of this iconic track goes all the way back to the days when Studio 397 was founded, almost three years ago now. I guess, when we chose the name of our company we already showed our intention.

Being new to the game obviously meant that we had to first introduce ourselves to the Automobile Club de l’Ouest (ACO) and build a relationship with them. Such things always take time. Over the first two years, we met regularly, explained our ideas and plans, and listened to their feedback. In that same time period, we also entered into discussions with various other tracks and car manufacturers and showed that we were serious about making rFactor 2 the most realistic racing simulation for everybody who enjoys the experience of driving race cars. All these things led to a licensing agreement, roughly a year ago, that all parties were happy with.

Just in time too for doing a laser scan of the 2018 track, as obviously Le Mans only exists in this configuration for a couple of weeks a year. With the license in place and the scan in our possession, production work started a little over half a year ago, with us balancing our track team resources at the time between three big tracks, the Nürburgring, already in production at that time after we announced it at SimRacing Expo last year, Monaco and Le Mans.

As with Sebring, our goal was to create the most realistic model of Le Mans possible for any consumer-oriented racing simulation available. By pairing our highly accurate physics with a very detailed road mesh, we have recreated the track in a way that makes you feel every bump and curb out there.

Graphically, we have used our latest shaders on this track. Improvements to our lighting model and materials are still in full swing. So whilst you will find this track already looks gorgeous, it is safe to say we will do an update once everything is finalized later in the year, and we will provide a more in-depth update on this process in one of our upcoming roadmaps.

For more from the world of rFactor 2, head over to the RaceDepartment rFactor 2 sub forum and connect with your fellow rF2 fans today!

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[mr Sw1tchblade]

I doubt that mathematical physics output would help if a person can't tell things from pure observations in the first place.

So you'd get all equations solved for your your particular chosen problem that you are in doubt, would you be able to read it ? Would you be happy about coefficients and the equations themselves, how would you approve them ? Would you just look at numbers and pretend like you know, or you would actually understand every digit and symbol ? Would you understand immediately or would it take a long time for you to digest such kind of information ? Lastly afaik no developer shares his code. So you'd probably should create your own methods to calculate and check the "truth".

In the long run you probably can tell decently much just from observations and feel, depending on how observable you were and how realistic your expectations has become. Obviously if you could somehow do double check in the scientific way then why not, but I haven't seen any such methods created or applied yet, except if someone got some actual bits of data and compared to parameters that are used in simulation.

I will see level of approximations. Also i will see what exacty simulated and wich way it's simplified.
Thats all. And that's enough.
I need data from other products to compare ofc.

 

[mantasisg]

Well if S397 sells ~5k copies, and ATS sells 50k copies (just wild random guess) then high price makes sense.

Also when you consider that license was most likely rather expensive. I have no idea how much "whole" Washington state license could cost....

We again got challenged by the need of knowing data and using mathematics to back up our words

 

[mr Sw1tchblade]

Well if S397 sells ~5k copies, and ATS sells 50k copies (just wild random guess) then high price makes sense.

Also when you consider that license was most likely rather expensive. I have no idea how much "whole" Washington state license could cost....

We again got challenged by the need of knowing data and using mathematics to back up our words

You can see how many ppl subscribed to this dlc in steam app.

 

[falster]

Is it really necessary to get in a war of attrition about calculations this and physics that.

Surely it boils down to i like it/i dont like it.....

After 11 pages of drivel

EDIT ah carl! There you are. Right on time

 

[mantasisg]

I will see level of approximations. Also i will see what exacty simulated and wich way it's simplified.
Thats all. And that's enough.

I'd suppose it would be a long lasting project. First of all you would have to have equal or better knowledge than the developers of simulation, also most likely you would have to make a good dialogue with them. Your project would take years I assume, assuming that you already have great knowledge about the things that you would attempt to verify.

You can see how many ppl subscribed to this dlc in steam app.

thanks, but can't really find it

 

[mr Sw1tchblade]

Is it really necessary to get in a war of attrition about calculations this and physics that.

Surely it boils down to i like it/i dont like it.....

After 11 pages of drivel

That's it. Realism from outer space talks are pointless. Tell me you like A and don't like B and ill give you like, even if i dont like B

 

[mr Sw1tchblade]

I'd suppose it would be a long lasting project. First of all you would have to have equal or better knowledge than the developers of simulation, also most likely you would have to make a good dialogue with them. Your project would take years I assume, assuming that you already have great knowledge about the things that you would attempt to verify.



thanks, but can't really find it

M8, you dont speak russian. Take a look at the picture. I hope it will help you. This is my inventory.

 

[Andy_J]

As mentioned in the release notes that came with the original announcement, we actually released a new build that, amongst other things, has quite a few fixes that should benefit people that were experiencing freezes. For quite some time now we have been working with the community on tracking down such issues (our forum has a thread where you can submit performance logs if you have a problem, and we analyze them all) and quite a few people there have since had their issues solved. So whilst I'm not claiming this issue is resolved for everybody out there, we are actively tracking down and fixing issues that get reported and this code update is the first step to release such fixes to a wider audience.

So whilst I have no problem if people disagree with us or me, or don't like what we do, and share such views on various forums, I would like to encourage everybody to stay informed and base your opinions on facts.

Hi Marcel
You planning on a summer sale again soon?

 

[headder]

I don't understand why there is so much whine about the track price? In Poland it costs 40 zlotych (about 10 euros). For me is a price of a medium lunch at the restaurant or 3 packs of cigarretes. So it is cheap as F...

 

[Leynad777]

I know how much it is. Nearly £11 for one track. Seriously? I just bought the entire Washington state for ATS for £8.99, so I say again, one track????

Try to go over 100 mph in ATS and by the way: ATS has about 10 times more players and it's not even very popular compare to ETS.

 

[Chris]

> Complains about an $11 track.
> Happily spends $600-$1000 on a steering wheel.
> mfw

 

[mr Sw1tchblade]

Try to go over 100 mph in ATS and by the way: ATS has about 10 times more players and it's not even very popular compare to ETS.

Iracing have something like 90k accounts. Does it matter?

 

[mantasisg]

> Complains about an $11 track.
> Happily spends $600-$1000 on a steering wheel.

Because steering wheel will bring a lot of upvotes in reddit

 

[Marocco2]

> Happily spends $600-$1000 on a steering wheel.

No comment from a staff member

 

[Dady Cairo]

You were right in your first post when you suspected that someone put words in my mouth. I never said, nor implied, that the track was "unfinished" or "not up to our standards". It's using all the latest technology we have right now. In the interview (and in the release notes) I merely said that our graphics developments are ongoing, and that once we have finished those developments we will do another pass at this track to update it.

A big excuse from me, I only wanted to say that studio397 is always updating their stuff, and not laying words in Marcel's mouth. And it was not my intention to make people think, the track is not complete or unfinished. It is a great track as all things studio 397 puts out. My fault is, I did use words that other people misunderstood in negativ way. Honestly I must say I'm a fanboy from day one, but to stupid to put the words out right . Keep up the good work and let's be friends.
DC

 

[Chris]

No comment from a staff member

My status as an admin has no bearing on my opinion of the situation. Yes, I think it's silly that people would actually complain about an $11 laser scanned version of Le Mans, when they'll happily pay twice that for a pack of cigarettes.

If you think it's too expensive, that's fine, you're entitled to your opinion as well. We just have to remember that our discussions need to be conducted in a respectful manner. So far this thread has actually been pretty good in terms of behaviour

 

[Marocco2]

My status as an admin has no bearing on my opinion of the situation. Yes, I think it's silly that people would actually complain about an $11 laser scanned version of Le Mans, when they'll happily pay twice that for a pack of cigarettes.

If you think it's too expensive, that's fine, you're entitled to your opinion as well. We just have to remember that our discussions need to be conducted in a respectful manner. So far this thread has actually been pretty good in terms of behaviour

You assume that people would happily pay *something* at a higher price instead of purchase a 11$ track.
People have right to complain because for them that price doesn't reflect his market value (cigarettes and wheels have one each).
That's kind of offensive about what other people thinks rather than your opinion on this subject and let it pass (in short you complain that people complain lol).
So, in civil manner, let people write that for them is not a good purchase

 

[Ceterum Censeo]

@Wolke[DE]
What exactly is it you had to disagree, or have you simply too much time on your hands?

 

[GeoF1]

The game costs 29.99 and the track 10.99. Okkkkkkkk

 

[Jens Roos]

You can flat shift on a manual gearbox.

I would say it's mod related to a extent (of course you need to turn of auto clutch)
- in some cars you can shift flat out
- in some you need to lift
- in some you can shift faster using the clutch

The Lola T280 is a good example where you shift faster using the clutch, but can also shift without clutch but need to go slower or the gear will not engage, shift with a lift is how you shift a dog box. But I don't think you can get any damage to the gear box, but i'm not sure about that.