Released Graphics Update and DTM 40th anniversary content

Hey RaceRoom Fans,

A comprehensive graphics update and brand-new content to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the DTM is out now!

Get it now https://game.raceroom.com/store/pack/dtm-1995
​

Graphics Update: More Realism, Better Performance!
Motorsport in RaceRoom is about to get even more realistic. Get ready for a visual revolution! With enhanced rendering and smoother gameplay, your racing experience will be more intense and lifelike than ever. Our developers have focused on eliminating anything that could distract or disrupt your immersion.



One of the new features are the Cloud Coverage options: from clear skies to scattered clouds to fully overcast conditions, the sky will add variety to your races. We’ve also made significant improvements in detail, such as more realistic shadows and light reflections. Paint finishes and colors, including chrome, metallic, and matte surfaces, are now displayed with even greater precision.




This update marks a major leap forward in visuals and performance, delivering an even better gaming experience. You can find more detailed information about our update here.



DTM Anniversary: New Content for True Fans!
To celebrate the DTM's 40th anniversary, we've prepared something special. Along with the existing Mercedes lineup, you can now relive the "old DTM" with the Alfa Romeo 155 V6 Ti and the Opel Calibra V6. The matching tracks: Hockenheim Classic, Avus, and Diepholz complete the journey back in time.



But that's not all! We have the brand new DTM 2024 car package for you which will be available a bit later. The special highlight: For the first time in RaceRoom, the Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2 and the McLaren 720S GT3 Evo will be on the starting grid.

FREE Track Updates
The Nordschleife, Red Bull Ring, and many other tracks have been updated for the 2024 season, with improvements in accuracy and appearance!




Update details:
Download size = 26GB
Client version = 0.9.6.05
Client BuildID = 15563458
Dedi version = 98.0.1506
Dedi BuildID = 15585973


Changelog:

Graphics:

• Performance improvements:
  Reduced CPU overhead, resulting in higher frame rates on any system.
  
• Cloud Coverage Selector:
  Added a new feature to the game menus and dedicated server allowing players to select cloud coverage options. You can now choose from clear, few clouds, scattered clouds, and overcast skies, adding a dynamic and realistic touch to the racing experience. In Single Player, the “Random” option, in combination with a non-null time multiplier, will result in dynamic transitions during sessions. Multiplayer server admins have new tools for full control over weather transitions.
  
• Improved Shadows Rendering:
  Shadows have been significantly improved, providing more realistic and dynamic lighting effects across various environments. This includes soft, anti-aliased shadows, with higher resolution and much longer draw distances. Shadows are now also rendered in the rearview mirror.
  
• Auto-Exposure Feature:
  Introduced an auto-exposure feature that dynamically adjusts the brightness based on the scene's lighting. This feature enhances visibility in different lighting conditions, ensuring a more immersive experience.
  
• Eliminated Z-Fighting:
  We have completely eliminated z-fighting artifacts by adapting the engine to use the more modern ‘Reversed-Z’ approach to handle depth in the rendering.
  
• Improved car paint and car parts materials rendering:
  Better support has been added for all different types of liveries and paint found on racing cars. Most notably, chrome, matte and metallic parts can now be represented much more accurately.
  
• Improved precision of car models meshes:
  Most noticeable on small and rounded details such as buttons in the cockpit.
  
• Improved Car Cockpit:
  Improved lighting inside the cockpit, to achieve a much more realistic and immersive view.
  
• Improved Car Reflections:
  Car reflections have been enhanced to better mimic real world reflective surfaces, adding depth and realism to vehicle reflective parts, such as windows.
• Improved Specular Reflections:
  Specular reflections have been fine-tuned to provide more realistic highlights and shine, especially under varying light conditions.
  
• Improved Track Surface Lighting:
  The track surface lighting has been improved, giving a more accurate representation of light reflection on road surfaces and built-up rubber.
  
• Improved Depth of Field Blurring
  : Depth of field effects have been refined for more realistic background blurring, enhancing the sense of speed and focus.
  
• Improved Motion Blur:
  Motion blur has been updated to provide a more natural and immersive sense of movement and a reduction of artefacts.
  
• Improved Vegetation lighting:
  Trees are now blending in much better in the lighting environment.
  
• Track material specular:
  Until now, only a few objects had specular around our tracks. This is now addressed so all objects reflect strong lights.
  
• Track Grass normalmaps:
  Our normal maps are now properly reacting to the orientation of the light
  
• Improved Rendering of Headlights and Taillights:
  The rendering of headlights and taillights has been improved, making dawn, morning, noon, afternoon, and sunset racing more visually striking and realistic.
  
• Performance mode through Vulkan rendering pipeline:
  The vulkan-based implementation of d3d9 by Philip Rebohle was already a popular rendering mod among the RaceRoom community, providing a significant performance boost. Our engine is now supporting this mod more officially as we addressed some visual glitches that had been impairing the experience. A start-up option in Steam will be available to start RaceRoom using Vulkan.
  
• Particle lighting:
  Particles now properly react to different lighting conditions
  
• Sharpening:
  This effect increases the visual crispness of the game, making textures and fine details stand out more prominently. However, because the visual experience is based on individual preferences, the default value for this setting is off.
  
• Improved Graphic Settings Menu
  Settings now have useful descriptions as well as indicators for GPU / CPU / Visual impacts. The new “High Impact” tab regroups all settings that the user should look at first when looking to increase performance.
  
• Graphic Settings Presets:
  Tweaks to the values used in each preset, added a new “VR Optimised” preset.

Content:

• New Car - DTM 1995 - Alfa Romeo 155 TI
  
• New Car - DTM 1995 - Opel Calibra V6 DTM
  
• DTM 1995 - Added new liveries to the AMG-Mercedes C-Klasse ( #22-Uwe Alzen and #24-Gerd Ruch)
  
• New Track - AVUS ( Automobil-Verkehrs- und Übungsstraße ) with 1994 and 1998 layouts
  
• New Track - Fliegerhorst Diepholz
  
• New Track - Hockenheimring Classic with GP and Short layouts
  
• Assen - Tweak to white line material that resulted in excessively harsh cut detections
  
• Bathurst - Various tweaks and fixes
  
• Dubai - Moved brake distance markers further away
• Knutstorp - Various tweaks and fixes
  
• Mantorp - Updated using new drone survey references
  
• Most - Tweak to white line material that resulted in excessively harsh cut detections
  
• Nordschleife - Updated to 2024 specs, with accurate bumpiness at the Carousel. Note: Work still being done in the Hatzenbach area, coming in a future update.
  
• RedBull Ring - Updated to 2024 specs
  
• Slovakiaring - Updated to 2024 specs
  
• GTR 1 car class - Physics improvements

Gameplay changes:

• Flash Headlights keybind is now renamed to simply “Headlights” - pressing it will toggle the headlights on or off. Holding it for a second will start a flashing sequence.
  
• Added Headlights state to shared memory ( -1 = N/A, 0 = off,1 = on, 2 = flashing).
  
• Some car classes have headlights always on, some have them off. Depending on brightness, A.I.’s will decide to turn their headlights on or off. Usually, race leaders will be among the first ones to have their lights on.
  
• Added ABS level property to shared memory
  
• Sounds - Added support to play specific exterior sound samples when a car is viewed from the front, and different sound samples when viewed from the rear.
  
• Steering wheel animation should now default to “Match Car Setup” except for gamepad controller profiles.
  
• Dedicated server - Added a setting for “Starting Grid From Leaderboards” - When toggled on, the dedicated server will search leaderboards and time attack competition results of all connected players and build the starting grid from that leaderboard order.

Fixes:

• Fixed a case where “Adaptive AI” levels would never change due to special characters in the Windows username and path to My Documents.
  
• Improved Multiplayer session flow and proceeding immediately once all the players have finished the race.
  
• Improved Multiplayer timing screen not always properly updating when laptimes were posted or a new player would join the session.
  
• Possible fix for some Multiplayer results showing the wrong position, for example when finishing early but with an unserved penalty.
  
• Fixed a case where a Multiplayer race could end with a non leader crossing the s/f line behind the leader.
  
• Fixed a case where some race regulations would wrongly apply during a single player championship
  
• Fixed a case where AI used minutes instead of laps when adjusting the starting fuel, resulting in AI’s pitting one extra time

 

Thanks for that!
I don`t care about the grafics update, but the new content is imo exactly the way raceroom has to go in the future. There are so many older guys outthere would love to spend their money and time in some older cars with classic tracks. So many missing tracks for the Group5 cars, CanAm cars with some older american tracks would be awesome. Please find a way to get away from the other games and fill the gap of classic racing. Thanks again for your great work, i will love to send the Alfa over the Avus! Thank you!

 

Is there any benefit in doing a clean game install over just patching the existing installation?

 

You would waste quite some time i guess.

 

No, there isn't.

 

Is VR now optimised to perform at least as well as it did a year or so back in time ? Is the Vulkan DX9 option also available in VR ? I am praying that VR is once again stable and enjoyable to play, without the horrible stuttering & high amount of dropped frames I experienced on the Crystal & Quest 3. That was using both a 7900XTX & 4080 Super on a 7800X3D Cpu. Please someone tell us VR is great again !

 

vr doesnt play nice with vulcan never has

Andi

 

Really ? It works quite nicely with BeamNG in vr. However are you saying VR is still not improved from this update ?

 

Graphics improvement is noticeable, good job, thanks. I can't tell if Oschersleben has been updated yet, I assume it hasn't, but it still looks better.
Just bought the three new tracks, only had time to try Hockenheim Classic so far - it is lovely, nice bumps down the long straight, great job!

 

Great job done with this update!

 

The graphic change for the better is very notable. Great job. Now to enjoy the new content.

 

Where is the DTM 2024 Pack???

 

The update looks amazing! Great job! I only had a little time to try it before going to work, but the changes are incredible! Plus it runs much smoother and doesn't have frame stutters if I set the time progression high while racing on the Nordschleife. This is very impressive.

 

what an update ... but there is something missing :

 

I'm going to empty my shopping cart in the Store and wait the next 6-9 weeks until the DTM 2024 Car Pack arrives, so I can buy everything at once.

 

If it's of any help, noticed a small problem when launching with the game's own dxvk implementation:
- When it's set om Steam's game properties to "Play Raceroom wit DXVK" (4th option), it'll do so only if launched withing the Steam client, p.e., by pressing the large green "Play" button. But oth, if it's launched via a Start Menu shortcut (the default steam://rungameid/211500 shortcut), that selection will be ignored and vanilla DX9 is launched (1st option). I guess it's usual that shortcuts will always pick the first Steam client option, so there's not much to do about this.
Then, only using by manually placing the wrapper on the DX9 folder will allow R3E to use DXVK when launched via shortcut outside the client.

Another observation about some gremlins with the Steam Overlay + R3E's dxvk on my system (6700XT, 24.7.1):
- Steam's overlay and frame counter will show oversized at a lower resolution, and shift+tab won't bring the overlay (I'll refer to this as "broken" bellow). All launched within Steam Client with the "Play" button, by defaulting from 4th to 1st launch.

1) Launching R3E DXVK = Steam overlay broken *
2) Launching R3E DXVK + -cefEnableGPU launch param = Steam overlay broken *
3) Launching R3E DX9 + dxvk d3d9.dll = Steam overlay broken *
4) Launching R3E DX9 + dxvk d3d9.dll + -cefEnableGPU launch param = Steam overlay broken *

*Note: On these combos, sometimes the overlay will render fine once after switching to them for the fist time, but will break on second launch and after. This was a reason for editing results above, as testing wasn't consistent until I figured that.

Note2: Now, for the "what the heck" part. Just by losing focus/alt tabbing out and in, the Steam Overlay will correct itself. This was causing trouble while testing, because I hadn't the game on focus while loading a few times, so it looked ok after checking back the main menu (it corrected itself because of that).
Anyway, before this update, at least "4" (haven't tested "3" before) would always display the overlay fine when focus was kept during R3E+dxvk launch.

Btw, as before a dxvk.conf file will still work at "raceroom racing experience\Game". Setting it with "dxvk.hud = fps" is a quick way to have confirmation if it's working. And well, it's also a safer option after disabling Steam Overlay if used only for fps display.

 

OK,i installed it again just to see if anything changed for better on Nords 24 or better performance as i only need 60 FPS with my 1080p resolution with v-sync.AND it has not.Game still struggles on certain places with 30 opponents.If i set mirror to mid or put down GFX settings it has no major effect and i can still not find out why.Endless discussions with the Dev's/Beta testers here lead to nothing.As my time is rare,tryed it the whole afternoon with any possible setting and combinations,reduced visible cars,shadows the game runs inconsistent,as before but looks better.Anyway thanx,last time for me.T1 Nords is still a mess.
Good luck with this Dinosaur in "new clothes".

 

How long have we had dirty windshields in RR?