Latest Roadmap Update - May 2018!!!

Discussion in 'News & Notifications' started by Christopher Elliott, May 31, 2018.

  1. FS7

    FS7 Registered

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    @Marcel Offermans
    When is info on system requirements going to be updated on the Steam page?
    Ideally there should be info on minimum requirements, recommended requirements for 1060p60fps, and recommended requirements for 4K/VR.
     
  2. mesfigas

    mesfigas Registered

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    at the moment mining ruining the cost of a new GPU
    i was lucky and bought my XFX RF 580 4 giga before prices goes up for 280 euros
    now it costs 400 euros new which is an insane amount of money

    Edit : maybe can find RX 580 for about 300 euros but still too much money
     
  3. DrivingFast

    DrivingFast Registered

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    Prices for computers to run RF2 in all conditions (rain, clouds, time scale, maximum AI of the track [49 on Atlanta], mirrors enabled, etc.), associated with the graphic settings recommended by S397 for "High end GPU ", associated with full HD/high PP/AA level 5 :

    Seems to me totally excessive. And yes the GPU price is totally crazy right now.

    At this point, it's all just a question of money to hope to run our favorite simulation in good conditions.

    Not to mention VR or 4K!
     
  4. bobbie424242

    bobbie424242 Registered

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    I hope there will also be optimizations for rain in non-VR mode. Currently rain causes a huge hit on performance at 4K on a beefy system (1080 TI / 8700K). Maybe the performance hit is even bigger in higher resolutions such as 4K if there is a fillrate bottleneck or something. Rain excepted, the game generally runs at 60 fps 99% of the time (with GPU usage to spare) on that setup with the latest version.
     
  5. burgesjl

    burgesjl Registered

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    I think these are useful discussions to have for people around what their expectations are for performance and what features/quality they want to see, within the context of the Roadmap, which is "where we are headed for the future".

    S397 'saved' rF2, which had a good reputation for what I'll call the physics and "vehicle dynamics" and real-world variability such as dynamic time of day, weather, road state etc. CPUs from even my era of i7 940 can handle these calculations. They can always be improved, and I'd say the biggest area is further development of track state and surface types included loose (dirt/gravel/tire marbles), rain/aquaplaning etc. to make this even more dynamic, and possibly better aero models as well. The biggest call on the CPU is however likely to be AI improvements. I'd also be interested if S397 have ever tried upping the physics rate (say, from 400 to 600Hz) since when AMS went 2x the rF1 physics rate, I felt a good improvement in car dynamics. But still, there is not going to be much evident here in the short term and so the basic platform for your PC (CPU + motherboard) should be good for a long time.

    There is however increasing expectations on what is done on the graphics front. Sadly, the GPU cannot be entirely isolated here, and things like VR have a very pronounced requirement for strong CPU-GPU interaction. For those of us on single FHD/QHD screens, most of the mid-level consumer GPUs should be able to run a simulation like ours with 'decent' graphical quality; and this needs to include both night AND rain given this is what the simulation covers (unlike say iRacing, which while a few tracks have a night mode, doesn't have rain). Running on 4K or VR resolutions is too much for mid-range hardware. And you have to look at what the competition is doing in these areas. For rF2 to survive and even thrive, it has to be somewhat close to other sims out there. I'd say PC2 lacks in the physics department and AC also does somewhat; PC2 has better graphics it may just be enough to sway people to use that notwithstanding its limitations. ACC is coming and this looks like it will have exceptional graphics, but I'm going to guess you'll need one hell of a high end PC in order to run it. iRacing just added more shadows, and this had an 'on average' 7% negative impact and up to 9% according to their lead dev, which was enough to take a PC that was barely making it to 60fps in race conditions to falling below it. And this is without full dynamic lighting yet, which I'd expect might have maybe a 25% negative hit. And that'll definitely take my machine (R280X) below capability. Let's say iRacing enable dynamic lighting/time of day in their official series; effectively this would mean I would be unable to compete in those. So yes, it's a big deal to figure out what you need to do in this case, and I've known an upgrade has been needed for some time and this is likely to push me over the edge to do it.

    The other areas for development are competition and infrastructure, or race structure, which in and of themselves don't impact performance that much. These can extend the life of rF2 immeasurably and provide a lot of value.

    We've had a terrible time of things recently with because of GPU prices. Let's say you could spend $600 on the base platform (CPU/motherboard/case) which will last you 5+ years. This is a good investment, but for the most part, we're not seeing a need to improve this are much if you are in the top 2 tiers of performance (and a 2600K processor is in this group) and especially because adding more cores isn't really doing much for us (though I think AI could possibly utilize these); the PCI-E 3.0 spec hasn't changed in years (though its about to). So it's all about what money you are willing to invest in graphics cards for what you EXPECT to get back. Even a mid range RX580 or GTX 1060 has been >$600, and top tier stuff has been over $1000 and rumors are NV are going to price their next generation at that level for MSRP. There had been enough performance improvements in cards for me to replace a $300 card every 2-3 years. But that hasn't worked for a while now. It's a much more significant investment. And so when some people say "you just have to upgrade from your potato PC", its a very big commitment to do so. Understanding what level of hardware you might need to run the graphical quality and features you would desire is a critical decision. [And of course its even worse in some parts of the world with rampant inflation, poor exchange rates and suchlike and I really feel for those folks]. Don't forget, its a $60 piece of software that might need $2000+ of equipment to run on; you need to be a committed enthusiast for this stuff.
     
  6. felirrari

    felirrari Registered

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    My point is not to compare to other sim, but to make rF2 more interesting to new drivers. This would make more money, we would see more servers populated and consequently more investment could be done to the sim. This is possible and the community has a lot of talents who could produce videos and spread these amazing news.
     
  7. mesfigas

    mesfigas Registered

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    mining has affect gaming in a negative way
    RX 580 normally shouldn't cost more than 200 euros
    which means discussions like this one bout further optimizations wouldnt exist
    need modern hardware to run RF 2 properly
     
  8. Adrianstealth

    Adrianstealth Registered

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    I favour the rich ffb & physics of rfactor2 over fancy graphics ,
    Although the active dynamic visuals of Rfactor are great
    Im just after super stable performance in most situations

    I’ve never heard the pro’s moan about graphics on their simulators

     
  9. Will Mazeo

    Will Mazeo Registered

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    Well... pros literaly jump in the real car and have the best graphics and all features they can get LOL :D
    Since sims are simulating physics and dynamics of events they have to invest on graphics and features to look as close to real life as possible. Or they should at least :)
    If you are going to invest on things to make it like a "real simulator" you'll actually have to remove things like AI, shadows, time progress, etc


    Back on performance talk: people just need to turn down/off some effects according to their harware. Idk why some want to run it with max PP and AA, S397 themselves said high/full PP is for screen shots and videos, for driving Medium is what you should use. And AA at fullHD lv 2 or 3 is good enough. The real focus of S397 regarding this should be forcing mods to have same looks/performance to protect the image of their own product. Could start by updating all of their own stuff...
    Obviously the game should perform better compared to how it looks at medium/low settings but it's not "impossible to play" level on single screen
     
    Last edited: Jun 7, 2018
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  10. DaVeX

    DaVeX Registered

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    Please not, we need to be honest between us, rF2 graphic engine no matter what is bad optimized on his core. They can add yebis effects, upgrade it to DX11 but it simply doesn't work.
    I know it is impossible to re-edited it but seriously he needs to be build-up again, code reworked and cleaned...
    I am pretty sure as example, rF1 graphic engine if updated to actual standards (and fixed the shadows,and I know this can be done) will work better than the rF2 one on his current status...
    This is why I am scared for Reiza titles, looking to a recent tease pic I fear they licenses the rF2 graphic engine and I will not handle their next titles anymore due the poor optimization of it...
    In racing games high fps values are very important in order to have a smoother experience, avoid input lag and so on like on first person shooters.
     
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  11. Emery

    Emery Registered

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    You know there's a reason some other games (AC, pCARS 2) have no more than 32 grid spots on official tracks, don't you?
     
  12. Lazza

    Lazza Registered

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    @burgesjl Just to unfairly pull one small comment out of your post and reply to it, I think vehicle dynamics are the last thing we need to worry about with rF2, especially just the physics rates (which have been revealed to vary from 400Hz up to 2400Hz for the tyres). Any gains there would be marginal even in isolation, but especially in comparison to game features and interaction between the physics and the environment - standing water etc as an example, the tyres have enough in them with a couple of additional realtime parameters to pass the pub test in those areas (without a proper simulation pulling more CPU time).

    A competition infrastructure to focus the limited numbers (and thereby gain more numbers), a believable experience in terms of driving demands (physics [done!], weather, tyre conditioning, rubber/marbles, race/weekend structure and rules), and performance, and we'd be on our way.
     
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  13. CamiloNino

    CamiloNino Registered

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    This is a good example of why I think S397 should give more priority to communicating with the users via the forum, and not thru discord, where the answers are basically lost and all that is left is hearsay. Many times there have been questions where one user says "an admin said so an so on discord..."

    Having said that I have seen more posts by staff here recently so kudos for that
     
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  14. patchedupdemon

    patchedupdemon Registered

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    Not related to this build but I’m really left wondering what sort of competition structure is being implemented.

    Will it be series that have races running every hr,or will it be series with practice sessions open say Monday to Friday,and then have qualify Saturday with the race on Sunday.

    From what I gather folks just want to jump online any chance they get and jump into a race,not practice session.

    Personally I like both ideas,but who knows what s397 have up their sleeves,can’t wait to find out
     
  15. Tom Satherley

    Tom Satherley Registered

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    good races only come when people are prepared. Having some mandatory practice session is a better idea imo
     
  16. patchedupdemon

    patchedupdemon Registered

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    Agreed,just thinking about drawing drawing in as many people as possible
     
  17. Ari Antero

    Ari Antero Registered

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    Kepler GPU`S (780) has huge performance improvement with build 1110 but unfortunately PCIe X16 2.0 bottleneck is still present.
     
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  18. Ari Antero

    Ari Antero Registered

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    I7 2600k has PCIe X16 2.0 support (https://ark.intel.com/products/52214/Intel-Core-i7-2600K-Processor-8M-Cache-up-to-3_80-GHz) and it is huge bottleneck to 1080Ti in rFactor2. I have tested PCIe X16 2.0 vs PCIe X16 3.0 with single screen and performance gain is +30% with PCIe X16 3.0.
    I have also done many tests I7 8700k vs I7 4770k with 1080Ti in rFactor2 and the FPS and in-game performance is equal but ofcourse I7 8700k is loading game faster with Z370 zip-set than with Z87. One other thing is that I7 8700k at 5,4GHz vs 4,4 GHz in rFactor2 don`t give you more FPS or any performance gain when you are on the track. My test`s are done with ASRock Z370 Tachi, DDR4 3200MHz RAM (I7 8700k) vs ASRock Z87 Formula OC, DDR3 OC to 3200MHz (I7 4770k).
    This new Intel 10nm CPU`s which should be released in 2018 but are again delayed and released sometimes in 2019 what do we know about it? I read that it is going to have about 25% better performance but the question is which performance, is it overall or does it also have 25% single-core performance which is the most important in games like rFactor2? Well, I don`t think it is worth to wait at least one more year before New Intel 10nm CPU`s are released, I think that 4-8Th generation CPU`s with good MOBO and fast low latency RAM is going to be good gaming platform still many years.
    I run single screen test with I7 4770K/1080Ti and post some MSI Afterburner pick`s later this week where you compare FPS PCIe X16 2.0 vs PCIe X16 3.0.
    ;)
     
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  19. AMillward

    AMillward Registered

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    Unfortunately, that might be the ONLY thing available for you to do. Before I upgraded to my current rig I was running a dual core Phenom II Black edition (from 2k9) and a 1gb nVidia card that couldn't use all the power because I was on 32bit Windows. to be able to play the games I wanted to play (Fallout 4 being one of them) I HAD to upgrade. No ifs, ands or buts.

    But like you say, simulators, be they rFactor 2, X-Plane, P3D, Falcon BMS etc, need powerful systems to run, especially those with advanced physics engines. Sure, you can say "I can run this maxed but can't RF2" but the way one works compared to the other is different.

    But all that said, I'm currently on an FX6300, 1050ti, 8GB RAM and I don't think my rf2 looks 'awful' per se. And I'm running a much lesser system than many here. Example below from my last YouTube video, after YT has compressed the balls out of it:

    kimi.png
     
  20. DrivingFast

    DrivingFast Registered

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    Hi Adrian.

    Do you use the following things when playing RF2 :

    - Weather totally variable, so clouds and a lot of rain at times.
    - Number of AI elevated to have realistic grids (at least 25 AI).
    - Time scale activated at least in X1.
    - Mirrors enabled (consumes an astronomical number of FPS).
    - Any time of day and night with or without timescale.

    All of these factors are excessively bad for performance.

    The graphics settings on my system, but also PP and AA have a relatively low impact on the performance :

    If I want a realistic race/driving context, even if I put the graphical parameters lower than recommended GPU low end, I do NOT have a minimum SPF of 60. YES !!!!!!!!!
    And I assure you I find WITH THESE SETTINGS the visual of the playstation 2, and I am at 60 cm (23 inches) of a huge screen of 52 ".... If I was really sure to have 60 FPS in all circumstances, maybe I would accept the ugly graphics, but that's not the case !

    Regarding my hardware only 2 things are problematic (before updating the performance the CPU was problematic) :

    - GTX 780 : equivalent of the 970, between the 1050 TI (yours) and the 1060 3 GO.)
    - The PCIe X16 2.0 port that has not (or almost not) been optimized following the update (tests have been done by a user I have full confidence in.). This is a problem that has been known for a very long time.

    So, conclusion :

    In terms of graphical optimization, even if there is much to do in the settings that we see in the UI and config.ini, the major problems in my opinion are :

    - AI (make a complete grid on Atlanta MP = 50 ....... impossible for the GTX 780 on PCIe 2.0 port, even with really really despicable graphics).
    In my opinion this is the worst contextual parameter.
    - Transition day/night, parameter aggravated by the timescale.
    - Rain agraved by the number of clouds.
    - Retrovisors : there is a real problem of optimization of this parameter, EVEN after optimization using the player.json.

    If you do not use all these contextual parameters, especially with a real large grid, it's quite normal that you have both acceptable performance and acceptable graphics.

    But the interest of playing RF2 without using these "contextual parameters" is much more limited.
    Some people (many) want RF2 to be endurance-oriented (but not exclusively) : for the reasons discussed above, it's just impossible because of the gigantic performance problems unless you have a 2500€ PC, so 10% or 20% of the users !
     
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