Announcement

It’s safe to say we are ecstatic about this release! Our very first mixed class pack of GTEs and LMPs! It’s been a wild journey, and all the teams involved have been going non-stop to bring these cars to life – we think the results will show on track as you cruise around in a field of color and lights! We proudly announce some of the most relevant and iconic brands and cars, combing them into a unique pack. Welcome to the ‘Endurance Pack’ for rFactor 2! Featuring the Porsche 911 RSR, BMW M8 GTE, Corvette C7.R, Oreca 07 LMP2 and the Norma M30 LMP3. With stunning physics and new features, the pack taps into the heart of rFactor 2’s endurance capabilities. We are also happy to have liveries from various different teams racing these cars, and we would like to thank them all for that!

The cars are available for purchase and download here: https://store.steampowered.com/itemstore/365960/detail/1004/

Introducing the cars

Our goal with this pack was certainly to offer a wide variety of cars in different classes used in various modern endurance racing series. We ended up picking five widely used cars in three different classes, complementing our earlier GT3 pack. We deliberately did not include an LMP1 car as that class is currently undergoing a transformation, and we feel strongly about providing you with cars that are up to date and future proof. Once the dust settles on the current “super season” we will certainly look at the new cars that emerge! With that said, back to our amazing cars…

Oreca 07 LMP2

The fastest class in this pack is the LMP2 class, and the Oreca 07 is certainly a popular weapon of choice for teams. It combines daring engineering and skillful know-how. The car debuted late 2006 and competed for the first time in the opening round of the 2017 IMSA season. In its first season it was the winner of the WEC 2017 P2 class and of Le Mans 2017; it is used by several of the leading endurance teams in the world. During various stages we have had feedback from Duqueine Engineering, Dragonspeed and Jacky Chan Racing, and their input was invaluable to making this car.

Norma M30 LMP3

The Norma M30 LMP3 had a development cycle of 18 months with innovation at its heart. It was homologated to LMP3. The M30 boasts maximum efficiency, optimised performance, which lead it to instantly becoming a strong contender, winning various races in the series it entered in. Cars in this class offer a pure driving experience. Neither anti-lock brakes nor traction control are allowed, and the downforce on these cars combined with the available engine power makes them challenging and rewarding to drive. During the development of this car we collaborated closely with the team at Duqueine Engineering, who raced this car in ELMS and kindly helped us with many aspects of the car’s simulation.

Porsche 911 RSR

Another iconic car from Porsche, the 911 RSR combines technology and history to create another classic sports car. The car is used in endurance in the GTE class all over the world. Porsche successfully adapted the classic 911 design to make this a mid-engine design, optimizing balance and performance. We are very grateful for the support we got from Porsche in developing this car. It is the very latest spec of this car.

Corvette C7.R

The Chevrolet Corvette C7.R, built by Pratt & Miller and Chevrolet for competition in endurance racing, has had numerous successes throughout the years, including a famous photo-finish at the 2016 Rolex 24h of Daytona. Corvette won its class at Le Mans eight times and won 107 out of the 202 events they competed in. Our version is the latest spec car, with updated diffuser and rear wing, and it is of course the successor to the highly successful C6.R we already have in our simulation.

BMW M8 GTE

The BMW M8 GTE competes in multiple endurance series, combining cutting-edge technology with sheer beauty to create a car that will set new benchmarks in endurance racing. We are extremely proud to be the first racing simulation to feature this car after seeing the car in action at Spa earlier this year and being able to talk to the team and drivers there.

New features

In-car traction control

rFactor 2 already featured “driving aids” that provided both traction control and anti-lock brakes, but like all driving aids they are global for all cars in a session. Especially in multi-class racing, and this pack is a good example, it is common to have different classes that might or might not have traction control available. Therefore we decided to add the option for specific cars to feature traction control (and anti-lock brakes) as part of the car, completely separate from any “aids” settings. On top of that, we can configure the exact number of “levels” the real cars have and decide if you can adjust those levels in-car or just in the garage as part of your setup, and even if you can turn it off or not, as some cars have such aids built-in and you can’t even disable them.

For this pack, traction control is available only on the LMP2 and GTE cars, and there are a couple of things you need to know to set it up. First of all, as this is a system that is separate from the driving aids, to make in-car adjustments you need to go to your controller settings and map the following four new keys:

On top of that, you can also configure these settings in the garage setup:

As a final note, if you also have driving aids enabled for one of these cars, the effects of both will correctly be combined. For example, if you set traction control to 2 (which is fairly low) in the in-car setting and then turn on the driving aid to “Medium”, the end result will be that you have medium traction control. We expect most servers and people to simply disable those aids for official races though.

Position lights

This pack is not just about content, we also took the opportunity to add some new tech to add to the immersion of multi-class racing. The all new ‘position lights’ on all cars in the this pack will not only show your individual position, they will also show your position in class with color coding.  On top of that, the lights turn into a pit stop timer ‘counting up’ when you pit!

The road ahead

New cars and features always trigger the question “what about the existing cars”? Our close collaboration with teams and manufacturers have given us even more detailed insight into the tyres that they are running on these cars. On top of that, our laser scanned version of Sebring gave us an excellent opportunity to compare data to a 100% accurate track. The data prompted us to make some updates to our model, and since the GT3 cars are using the same tyres, our next step will be to go back to and implement and test the tyres on those cars too, which in general will make them a bit slower.

The same applies to the position lights as well as the in-car traction control and anti-lock brakes, which will be added as features to each individual GT3 car. We don’t have an exact ETA for these changes yet, as we also need to make sure these changes don’t affect the BOP within the class, but we will certainly keep you up to date in our monthly roadmap. We will also add documentation to our website for third parties that wish to implement these new features on their cars, as well as publish example tyres.

That’s all for now, we wish you all a great weekend from everybody within Studio 397! Enjoy the race!

It’s live! In the last couple of roadmap updates, we’ve made it no secret that we have been working hard on a set of performance upgrades. We’ve taken our time to get it right and took advantage of the DirectX 11 API as much as possible. Our focus was on performance, while keeping the actual look of the game the same. All of this centers around a concept called “frame time”, which is the time it takes to completely render a single frame to your screen(s). Obviously we want that time to be as low as possible, but we also want it to be as constant as possible as only the combination of both leads to a smooth display. In general there are three things that influence this: your video card (GPU), the processor you have (CPU) and the bus between them and their memory. Optimizing performance means looking at all three, and we’ll go into more detail on how we did that below.

To update your install to this latest version you only need to make sure that you’re opted-out of any beta versions you might have been using before. This build also has a new multiplayer version (1.1110) which means we updated the dedicated server. Depending on how you installed that one, you might have to explicitly update it.

Graphics Performance Improvements

Thanks to DX11, we are now able to take advantage of multiple graphics threads and leverage the modern CPUs to render the scene faster. Internally we had to make quite a lot of changes to the code to make this possible and really take advantage. One area where we got a significant improvement is in our shadow rendering. Using multiple threads speeds that up, and another thing we did was to no longer render the shadows separately for each screen, which means in multiview (three screens) and VR (two screens) we are doing less work. There are also a couple of high-level optimizations we have done to very specific systems. This includes our handling of spotlights and brake disk glow, but also the way real road updates. All these systems were re-written to be more efficient from a CPU and GPU point of view. On top of that, we addressed the traffic on the bus between the CPU and GPU, minimizing and optimizing it to have a more consistent frame time, which leads to significantly less stuttering, especially on systems where this was the bottleneck in the whole pipeline. Our final optimization was of our most used and time critical shaders. We’ve optimized those to be less expensive to the GPU.

As you can probably see by now, there are quite a lot of things that changed, and one question we have not answered is how much all of these changes combined influence performance? The answer is, it depends, which is why we’re not making any claims in terms of numbers, but invite you to give it a try on your own system. We are confident that you will see an improvement, both in terms of consistency in the framerate, meaning less stutters and in terms of an overall improvement.

Change Log

On top of these, we took the opportunity to add a few other improvements and bugfixes in several areas of the simulation. We are listing those here.

New HUD

• Released the newly designed HUD, optimized for Full HD screens and anything else with that aspect ratio, and made it the default. We have removed our old HUD designs from the install.
• The “deltabest” indication gets reset at the start of a session only, instead of every time you get in the car. We also make sure to only show it when you’re on a valid lap.
• Ensured that the Low Speed Indicator (LSI) is still transparent.

AI

• Fixed an issue with the AI throttle and brake application, which would cause poor accelleration at very low AI strengths.

Sound

• Changed the way opponent volume works. If you set them to 100% in the past, they were way too loud. If you turned them down, they would not be as loud as the player car in external cameras. We introduced a damping factor now for the cockpit that can be configured per car and defaults to 0.3 that solves this issue.
• The number of engine samples was increased to 12 and the number of transmission samples to 6 to allow much richer sounds for both.

Inputs

• Changed the way in which we combine primary and alternate inputs for the throttle, brake and steering to end up with more consistent behaviour for both.
• When using keyboard rates for analog, typically used with game controllers, we apply a lot of smoothing which initially results in a fast response, but eventually responds very slowly, making a car hard to control. We’ve designed a new algorithm that works a lot better and is more linear.

Development Corner

• We have added some new 64 bit compatible 3D Studio Max 2012 plugins. They are still in “beta” but have been used at Studio 397 for some time now. These should help anyone working on larger scenes. Please note that, in order to improve stability, we strongly recommend updating Max to Service Pack 2.
• As we no longer support Max 2010 and 2011, those plugins have now been removed.
• We have removed gJED, as we feel the tool in its current state did not meet our quality standards.
• The plugin API has been enhanced and bumped to version 8, with improved application life cycle support. This brings back some of the data we had to remove because it was mixed with DirectX 9 information that we could no longer support. We also added the deltabest time for all cars. The new package and documentation for it will be released on our site soon after this release.

Bugfixes

• Fixed the join/leave/join messages and unnecessary reloading of a car when you joined a server with car upgrades selected.
• Fixed a bug in our SteamPlugin which accidentally returned the wrong API version, causing the game to try to invoke it wrongly and crash.
• Fixed viewer crash on startup.
• Fixed the very dark areas on the car in the showroom, which was caused by us not correctly setting up ambient light.
• Fixed black screen that some people got when starting the physics (ptool) and tyre (ttool) tools.
• Removed a redundant log file from the Steam distribution as it would cause a verify ever on every check.
• Fixed two issues with the 32 bits version that crashed in specific circumstances.
• Displaying the performance info now works on VR as well.

Wrapping it up

We obviously hope you will enjoy this new build, and before we wrap up this article, there are a few closing words we would like to add. In the introduction we already stated that our focus now was on performance and with that out of the way we still have a few other areas to look at. In the graphics department we are looking at some improvements on how our rain effects look on external cameras, as well as fixing an issue that specifically affects VR in rainy conditions. We’ll elaborate a bit more on this in our monthly roadmaps. In the mean time, have a great weekend!

Here it is, all new content from KartSim! KartSim is one of our close partners, and we are proud to introduce you to an all new driving experience in rFactor 2, created entirely by KartSim’s own dedicated team of developers. KartSim is a project created by Tony Irfan, a true insider in the world of karting. KartSim specialises in providing high-end leading-edge hardware, rigs and simulation software to the international karting industry.

It’s been a while in the making, but real Karting in rFactor 2 has arrived! As you’ll see below, many great names current and past started in Karting. This is only the first in a series of Karts and tracks yet to be released by the KartSim team. There’s more to come!

But you don’t need to wait, you can follow this link to buy the KartSim pack, featuring three tracks and two different types of karts now.

Tracks

Buckmore Park International Circuit

Buckmore Park Kart Circuit is an MSA approved outdoor kart racing circuit located just off the M2 in Chatham, Kent, England.

Originally owned by John Surtees, who notably won world Grand Prix championships in both Formula One car racing and Grand Prix motorcycle racing. Situated in a woodland between the two motorways, its proximity to London makes it Britain’s busiest circuit.

Buckmore Park is a circuit where many current and past Formula One drivers learned their trade, including Johnny Herbert and F1 champions Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton, who was originally discovered by Ron Dennis in the 1996 Champions of the Future event held at Buckmore Park.

Glan Y Gors

With a length of 1.6 km, this karting circuit is one of the largest in the UK. Situated on the A5 between Corwen and Betws-Y-Coed, is one of the UK premier karting venues that started life comparatively late to other S1 race venues. With fast, sweeping uphill and downhill sections combine to make this an extremely fun yet technical challenge. It is no wonder all the young Racing Professionals start their career at GYG Karting.

A lap around the track takes you through corners as carousel, compression corner, the druid’s complex and the devils elbow and contains a straight named after the Snowdon Mountain. The track has various good overtaking opportunities, guaranteeing exciting races!

Paul Fletcher International

PFI is the UK’s largest outdoor karting circuit based in Grantham, Lincolnshire and caters for various corporate events and race meetings throughout Lincolnshire, Newark, Nottingham and the UK. British, European and World Championships are held at PFI, as well as a club race held once a month by Trent Valley Kart Club who are based at the track. The circuit was built by Paul Fletcher, who still owns it today. Recently in 2011 an extension was added on to the track including a bridge, making it one of a kind.

Karts

There are two karts within the KartSim package, the Iame Senior X30 UK and a Rental Kart, the karts have been meticulously designed working with partners on physics and drivers for performance and accuracy. These karts are fixed setup, which means they will be great to race online.

Iame Senior X30 UK

The “X30 World” concept is based on the engine X30 125cc and it can be summarized in few words as “real Karting at hand”. Thanks to the characteristics of the engine of simplicity, immediate feeling, reliability, performance and ease of use, with the concept of X30 World, IAME offers a full program for Karting drivers from the year of their 13th birthday (with the correct MSA licence) with an engine that can virtually accompany them along the whole career.

Since the very first introduction on the markets, the X30 has quickly and constantly grown, in the beginning as an engine dedicated to regional series, up to commercial classes promoted under the name of “X30 Challenge”, then introduced as Federative class by federations willing to replace the unsuccessful international classes and recently landed at international level with a European Challenge and an International Final usually held in central Europe.

The success of the X30 categories, basically distinguished in X30 Junior, X30 Senior and X30 Master, comes from the stability and solidity of the engine and from IAME’s constant aim to provide detailed regulations and low management costs of both the vehicle and the race meetings. In 2013 the X30 is present in more than 15 countries and beside the commercial classes.

Rental Kart

The Rental Kart is a fixed gearing corporate kart using a 4 stroke engine for karters who enjoy karting as hobby. They’re equipped with night lights too so you can keep racing them 24/7!

Here are the release notes for a significant update to rFactor 2!

21.12.17 20.15 GMT – Please note we are updating content currently, however it is taking time with Steam servers getting hammered, you will automatically start to download the content from the workshop.

Graphics Improvements

Improved Lighting

• We developed an Image-Based Lighting for Ambient (IBLA) solution that substantially improves lighting in our graphics engine.
• IBLA acts on the colors of the scene, taking into account information from the surrounding environment when drawing each object.
• The resulting lighting system gives the final image a more realistic look and it improves the perception of depth for the driver.
• This new system uses new ambient probes that have been added to most of the tracks. It is recomputed dynamically as weather or time conditions change.
• IBLA does not introduce any noticeable performance penalties and its features have been exposed to Mod Dev. Furthermore, tracks that do not have set IBLA yet will automatically have a default set of probes assigned to them.

Rain Effects

Cars

• Added dynamic drops on the windshield and the body of the car.
• These drops respect gravity, so they will run down the sides, and each single drop will have its own lifespan.
• The drops also respect airflow around the car when driving, making them move in appropriate directions.
• The effect is not scripted but generated in real time, and it varies depending on factors like the amount of rain drops falling from the sky, the speed of the vehicle, or the particles generated from another car in front of you.
• Wipers on cars are now functional and will clear the windscreen in two different user configurable speeds.

Tracks

• Vastly improved reflections of the surroundings that become visible as the track gets wet.
• Added blurred reflections for the “Ultra” Road Reflection setting.
• Improved shaders for the real-road surfaces and added new shaders to match closely the properties of elements like curbs in dry/wet conditions.
• Added highly detailed puddle maps that allow puddles to form in the appropriate places on tracks.

New HUD Options

• Added options to show tire wear and ride height as text parameters.
• Added tire wear percentage to the vehicle status MFD.
• Increased the accuracy of fuel consumption with an extra digit.
• Fixed a bug with TireAverageTemp text parameters, which would not show up in the HUD because of a space in their names.
• Added a “delta best” parameter that you can add to a HUD, showing time lost or gained compared to your fastest lap in milliseconds. Works for all cars (not just player). Included optional text coloring of the text output so positive and negative values can result in different colors.
• Added a more accurate fuel indication as well as one that shows the fuel you used in your last (full) lap, or zero otherwise.
• Added a gauge for showing the “delta best” with a range of -1.0 to +1.0 seconds.
• Added predicted number of laps remaining based on fuel used for last lap.
• Added current rain percentage.
• Added minimum and maximum track water depth.
• Added an option to disable font scaling for the chat and message box (apart from using comic sans, non-linear font scaling is about the biggest sin a designer can commit).
• Added weather info (rain intensity and min/max water depth) into the MFD for HUD and in-car use.
• Designed a new default HUD that takes advantage of the new features. (Coming soon)

Other/Fixes etc.

• The plugin API will no longer invoke callbacks that provide ScreenInfoV01 data that used to allow plugins to render to the screen. Doing this directly has been deprecated with the release of DX11, and alternatives are to either use information that is available in the updated HUD or wait for a new plugable HUD system to be released in 2018.
• We have removed the “cache” folder from our install, so all content will now be downloaded from the workshop. This means the base install is much smaller. Upon first launch you will be automatically subscribed to all Studio 397 content and while that is downloading the Launcher will show a progress dialog window with screenshots of all content items it is downloading for you.
• Generating Mip Maps from reflections, this gives smoother reflections as a result.
• Formula E liveries for TeCheetah, Mahindra and Venturi updated to 2018.
• Formula E driver helmets updated.
• Formula E driver suits updated.

Known Issues/troubleshooting

• Rain effects are visual currently. However, we are working on physics impacts.
• Some content is still to be updated to include the rain effects such as cars and tracks.
• Performance is constantly being reviewed
• Rain drops on external cameras under review
• If you are experiencing strange graphical issues, delete the contents of your cbash and shader folders  located in \Steam\steamapps\common\rFactor 2\UserData\Log
• Important: Make sure to update any SteamCMD servers to get the latest!

Welcome to the Official Formula E Energize Pack

Featuring the Formula E Car 2018 and the teams, as well as a stunning rendition of the HKT Hong Kong E-Prix track!

All of us at Studio 397 are ecstatic about this release. It’s not just because we have achieved truly immersive physics and graphics, but we are equally proud of the close partnership we’ve developed with Formula E itself.

This newest release is part of our ongoing efforts to continually offer you, true fans of simracing, exciting and cutting edge motorsport content!

The series itself is thrilling and challenging in ways that will surprise you. You’ll have to rethink your strategy – no more easy flat footing to get on the podium! Although the racing still retains its close side-by-side action, tactics and strategy now play an equal role – a true test of your abilities to stay focused on the big picture!

We also wanted to use this opportunity to get in some exciting new features such as REGEN and power modes, as well as new cockpit and HUD elements to further increase the overall immersion and functionality.

Purchase the pack now here

Check out our guide here!

Known issues:

• Track accuracy may be different due to late changes in layouts
• AI currently does not adhere to the 1 pit stop rule and does not try to save fuel by lifting and coasting
• Regen mode is based off braking and is automatic on braking
• Fuel indicator currently does not show granular detail on battery life, therefore we suggest using 3rd party plugins in the meantime
• Cars have one set of physics based on homologated data
• Liveries and helmets will be updated when embargoes are lifted
• AI will sporadically slow just after Start/Finish under full course yellow – this should not affect the race restarts.

Today we proudly present the release of the GT3 Power Pack, featuring five iconic GT3 class cars. You already knew about the McLaren 650S GT3, and at the SimExpo we revealed the second car–the Bentley Continental GT3. Recently, we shared some teaser shots of the third car. As some of you already guessed, that was the Callaway Corvette C7 GT3-R. The last two are the Radical RXC Turbo GT3 and the Mercedes AMG GT3. We’ve worked closely with the manufacturers to create the most accurate model, physics and sound we could; and we’ve listened to the community asking us to come up with a more consistent series of cars to race with. We certainly hope you’ll enjoy them as much as we do. Let’s go over them one by one.

Bentley Continental GT3

The Bentley Continental GT3 was first unveiled at the Goodwood Festival Of Speed in 2013; and since has been competing in many different GT3 championships across the globe. Even though the car looks big, it is actually very light; and its 600 horsepower 4.0 liter twin turbo engine makes it a force to be reckoned with.

Radical RXC Turbo GT3

The Radical RXC Turbo GT3 is a bit of a rare appearance in the GT3 field, but it certainly is a very strong contender. Its light and stiff body holds a 3.5 liter Ford Ecoboost V6 engine with twin turbos and intercoolers, delivering over 500 horsepower. This car competes in the GT Open and debuted in 2016 at the season opener at Estoril. Of all the cars in the pack, this one probably feels the most like an open wheeler.

Callaway Corvette C7 GT3-R

The Callaway Corvette C7 GT3-R, designed and built by Callaway Competition in Leingarten, Germany, started life on the drawing boards in 2014 and hit the tracks in 2016 when it started competing in the ADAC GT Masters. That campaign proved to be very successful; and recently it was announced that this car is now also ready to debut in the US, with GM giving permission to run in its home country. This 600 horsepower, 6.2 liter V8 packs a serious punch and sounds great. Nick-named “Darth Vader”, as it was first shown with an all-black carbon fiber body, this car will definitely remind you to hit your braking points and apexes if it shows up in your rear mirror!

Mercedes AMG GT3

The Mercedes AMG GT3 was presented to the world in March of 2015 at the Geneva Motor Show. The 6.2 liter naturally aspirated V8 engine and carbon-fiber body ensure this car can always be found at the front of the pack. Apart from racing in GT3, this car has also been entered in both the Super GT GT300 and IMSA GTD classes.

McLaren 650S GT3

The McLaren 650S GT3 is a car we already released earlier this year for the World’s Fastest Gamer competition. The car made its debut in 2015 and was designed and optimised to contest GT3 championships. Building on the MP4-12C GT3, it offered optimisations in many areas, including aerodynamics. Powered by a 3.8 liter twin turbo V8 engine that is known to spit fire like there’s no tomorrow, this car is definitely an awesome appearance on any track. We have updated this car based on community feedback and additional data we received.

All cars come with the setup options as found on the real cars and three dry weather compounds ranging from the soft “S7” to the hard “S9” and a wet weather compound. One of these details in the setup options is the fact that both the Bentley and the McLaren use Ohlins dampers for which 0 is the stiffest setting and higher values mean the dampers get softer. Another example is the exact position and size of the anti-roll bar on the McLaren, whose setup options we’ve named accordingly, like “P3 25x2mm”, where for other cars we use the more familiar “clicks”. Worth mentioning is the steering lock on the Mercedes–quite limited compared to the other cars (about 400 degrees). It should be just enough to negotiate very tight turns on some tracks, but still doable! Finally, the Radical has only four wing positions; however, they are quite widely spaced compared to the other cars, giving you the option to create both high and low downforce setups.

As per regulations, all of these cars are allowed to run with anti-lock brake systems (ABS) and traction control (TC). We did several “Balance of Performance” sessions with all five cars, taking them to a few different tracks and comparing lap times. Since these cars are quite new, we think it is safe to say that we have not found the absolute limit of their setups yet. Leagues running with these cars are encouraged to do additional tests and use weight penalties to further balance the cars. We will aim to do BoP updates as we learn more about these cars.

All cars come with a template to create your own liveries, which gets installed automatically to the “Templates” folder in your rFactor 2 install.

You can buy the GT3 Pack in the Steam Store, which gives you a nice discount over the individual cars, which can also be found there.

New Build

To support the GT3 pack we have also released updates for both the DX11 and DX9 builds. Note that the build number for multiplayer changed too, so you will have to update your dedicated servers!

Build Changelog:

• Added: An extended visual damage model featuring a combination of dents, scratches and cracks on the bodywork of cars, which has been implemented on the GT3 pack.
• Added: New window and headlight glass shader that produces more realistic reflections. All five GT3 cars use it.
• Added: Controller Profiles for Thrustmaster T-GT, T-GT Ferrari F1 Addon, TS-XW, TS-XW with Ferrari F1 Addon.
• Added: Updates to the CPM model.
• Fixed: Various small fixes to the no rain zone code that prevents rain from entering closed cockpits.
• Fixed: All controller profiles default inputs are now assigned to JOY1.
• Fixed: Bumped the rFactor 2 version for multiplayer compatibility to 1109 because of the new visual dents that required changes to the multiplayer protocol.

Introducing the Radical SR3 RSX now available on Steam Workshop! We have worked closely with Radical to present the perfect race car, immaculately balanced and fantastic for fighting nose to tail on the track.

The SR3 is the next step up from the SR1 offering thrilling, cost-effective, high-performance track driving and racing. First launched in 2001, it is the most widely produced and most successful prototype style sportscar racer in the world, with over 1,000 sold. This bears testament to its proven track record and stunning value verses performance and is surely the reason why the SR3 has been selected by the Race of Champions for the champions of F1 and other major race series to race, achieving the fastest racing lap at the last 2 Race of Champion Events. New for 2017 the Generation 4 engine offers improved reliability, better drivability and more power.

Not just that, we have also built in left and right hand drive for those who drive on the wrong side of the road, you know who you are!

Also included are our 20 chosen liveries from our Radical Paint Competition. On that note, we were really overwhelmed by the number of entries and the high-standard and look forward to holding more competitions like this in future – Thank you to all that submitted, now go try out the car now!

This first release comes with dry weather tyres only. We will soon provide an update with rain tyres, for those wanting to race these cars in wet or mixed weather conditions.

On Monday we released the first “open beta” and promised you regular updates in terms of code and content. In today’s blog we would like to explain this process in more detail to give you more insight into this process and our plans to get from this open beta to the first stable release.

The implementation of the DX11 and VR engine obviously is a big project that touched many areas of the codebase and in terms of features we added everything we wanted to have in our first release. Once that was done, our focus shifted to performance and ensuring the code runs in a stable way on every system out there. At this point, no matter how many great testers you have, you discover that you can never test your code on all possible combinations of hardware and software. For that reason we decided to release an “open beta”.

Regular Updates

Our strategy in the upcoming weeks will be to release small updates often. Whenever we fix an issue, we’ll quickly test it internally and push a new build, so you can confirm that it is indeed fixed. This way we might end up pushing one or more builds every day. On our forum we will keep a changelog as we publish those builds. To make it easier to report issues, we have added a “Contact Support” button to the Launcher (top right of the main window) and, for performance related issues, we added a feature that allows you to collect performance data in a file that you can send along with your report.

To enable the capture of performance data, please first press Ctrl+F to display the framerate information (which we’ve extended a bit). Then, as instructed on screen, press your Left-Shift+SPACE to start capturing data. After a little while, the capture will end and you get a file in your UserData\Log folder called PerfLog_DATETIME.txt which you can send to us along with your report. Then you can turn off the display by pressing Ctrl+F again.

Content Updates

In the mean time our content team is working hard on making more of the stock content available to you. Our plan here is to stick to roughly a weekly schedule for delivering updates. Those will be a bit bigger in size, and we will deliver them to both the stable DX9 build and the open beta simultaneously. Content updates will obviously also contain information about exactly what content gets updated.

Beta Labels Explained

If you’re currently running the open beta release, you are on “v1108-dx11-open-beta” and this is the label we will be regularly updating as we address more and more issues. If for some reason this build is not working for you at all, after reporting it, you can optionally switch to the “v1108-dx11-open-beta-last-stable” build, which will point to an older build. If that does not work, you can obviously choose to temporarily “opt-out” of the beta releases altogether and go back to the stable release until we release another update.

If you have any further questions, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us on our forum or on Discord.