This is my report on my first time EVER to try rF2 online race. 1. I decided to finally give myself a try in online race (which I generally do not do). I went to online race through launcher and noticed that not much is going on. Most crowded server was Clio server with 14 players. Well, Clio is fun little car so I decided to join. 2. Download mod -button appears and I click it. This was the virtual mod component I believe. It says four tracks are conflicting, red cross symbol appears. Mills Metropark, Palm Peach, Portugal and Malaysia. Mills was no brainer as I did not have that installed. Quick look to rF2 official downloads and there it was. 3. Then vmod wanted Palm Beach 1.1. I am sure that I had that track installed, but I found out my version was 1.0. So back to rF2 download site and... well there is no download for that track. So where is Palm Beach 1.1? At this point I thought I am best off with Google: "palm beach 1.1 rfactor2". I found few sources that suggested to download and install Formula F2. Well, fine enough, I was able to find such thing from official download page. And off we went go with few hundred megabytes of download. Lucky me, I have 100mb cable internet. 4. Needless to say, I am thinking here why I have to download and install Formula F2 mod to drive some Clios? This is never explained. 5. Success! My Palm Beach miraculously upgraded itself to 1.1 version. And I also have a mod on my rF2 install folder which I don't care about having. 6. Okay, some 30 minutes have passed and I still have to tackle Portugal and Malaysia. I looked to my installed track folders and I indeed have required versions installed. Well I thought that maybe they are broken, and I have to install them again. Again I go to rFactor2 downloads and look for links to these tracks. No luck. 7. Here I took a little breath. Okay, maybe I am best off with complete full re-install of build 146. Downloaded and waited. I installed it and was sure I can finally join a Clio server. No luck. Portugal and Malaysia are still conflicting. 8. I decided to download and install Renault Clio Cup mod. I am sure this will fix it as this is the very mod I want to drive online. Guess what? No luck. 9. The get mod error doesn't really state what the problem is, Portugal and Malaysia are marked red. But I do have the corresponding versions installed. 10. It is almost an hour since I tried to join my first ever online race. I feel myself to be quite competent person with computers, and have modding background with rF1 and rF2. But right now, I have to give this up. It seems that I just cant join a simple online race. I will keep looking into this, but if there is any developer reading this maybe it helps to understand why there is ~20-25 players online. All public servers combined. I never had this amount of issues of joining a rFactor1 online race. (11.) Update: I currently decided to download and install everything from rF2 download site to see if that helps.
The vmod you have downloaded from the server should appear in your mod manager. My guess it is "-IsR-Clio_Default_Tracks". This mod uses all modern ISI tracks plus Monte Carlo 1966. If your rF2 install is up to date (all mods included) there should be no problem to join the server.
I have found that route to be the most efficient and the least painful method, not only to download everything from rF2 download site, which isnt painstakingly obvious as it seems (ISI to avoid confrontation you could just make it painstakingly obvious), but to also download everything that makes atleast some sense from the locations and vehicles sections of the forums aswell. Especially the tracks, which are neatly in one package deal torrent. If anything additional is required, usually the server on the server list provides the mod (Get Mod button).
@Johannes... I feel your pain. Can't offer help as I too am usually floundering aound when it comes to getting needed mods installed. It shouldn't be so hard or cumbersome.
Yes I managed to join, but it required download and install of every possible package from rF2 download site. Inconvenient.
FWIW, you didn´t have to install all ISI content. As you already found out the F2 mod contains Palm Beach. The Megane mod contains Malaysia, and it is required to have it installed to get GT World endurance installed, which contains Portugal. The Clio mod contains Mills Metropark. Anyway, I am with you, the vMod thing is just a mess. I have voiced my concerns in several post to other threads. Just search for vMod on the forum and you´ll find a lot of posts expressing user frustrations. But there might be light at the end of the tunnel, I just hope it is not a train headed towards us. So reading between the lines, this could mean that the vMod concept is not the end all be all solution. Cheers, Marcus
I would highly recommend during this testing period you download and install all the ISI content. A lot of the content has dependencies on other ISI content. ISI will eventually release all the content as separate components so you can pick and choose exactly what you want to install (and you will then easily be able to find individual tracks like Palm Beach 1.1) but until then it is best to have it all installed.
I think the current view of releasing content is to release cars and tracks separately, and that the old stuff hasn't been brought up to date with that ideal yet. As for the non-ISI tracks, read this: http://isiforums.net/f/showthread.php/7103-Download-All-locations-(torrent)
If you go to Mod launcher. Then click on Advanced. Look at log view. it will tell you what you are missing to load the vmod
I feel ur pain...one of my leaguemate wanna start sim again and being taken aback by the different workflow frm rf1 to rf2. thats one potential lost
It is a common "problem" and it has been stated many times during rFactor2 development that it's recommended at this point to have all the ISI content installed because ISI wanted to test how the packaging worked. In the future all the content will be released seperately.
Yes thats how it should be. But I am afraid that some modders will mate tracks and cars together if that is allowed, so there might be issues. But we can't control that. Anyway, online racing has been great fun for me so far. Works a lot better than offline, for some reason I get very bad computer performance when in single play but in online everything run smoother. Go figure...
Your PC sounds like its bottlenecked CPU side.. if your performance is worse in single player its because the game is doing all the AI calculations.. when in mulplayer it doesnt have too. Modders "Could" potentially mate mods and tracks.. but from experience its uncommon.. normally there is car modders and track modders sometimes they crossover and do both. Even if they did, you can make the Mod contain the track, so get mod would download the car.. and the track.