Released NOW Available Sebring International Raceway!!!

Discussion in 'News & Notifications' started by Christopher Elliott, Jul 27, 2018.

  1. hitm4k3r

    hitm4k3r Registered

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    I am not trying to defend anything, just explaining what the devs have allready told and what is pretty obvious if you are counting one and one together. And I certainly have a different opinion to yours of what a proven engine is and what not. If you can show me a single racing sim that is proven to work on UE4 offering the same scale like rF2, I will happily accept the offer. But the answer to that question is pretty easy to answer and given the prospect of what is planned or not planned for ACC and maybe GTR3, I don't see that changing anytime soon. Moving to UE4 would not only offer new posibillities but also new challenges and problems.

    S397 aren't stupid and the pros and cons of moving to UE4 have been discussed several times. The only thing I can say for me personaly is that I rely alot on third party content and that I am quite glad that S397 allowed backwards compatibility. And different modders picking up the ball and implementing new tech has worked quite well in my opinion. If the quality of Sebring and the Endurance pack is anything to go by, I see nothing wrong with improving the inhouse tech and having everything in your own hands, because from my personal experience the software releases using UE4 have been underwhelming so far and plagued with problems, the release of Post Scriptum being a very recent example.

    My two cents about the whole "But UE4 is the biggest thing in the world"-debate. ;)
     
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  2. patchedupdemon

    patchedupdemon Registered

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    I watched a video the other day on YouTube where pc “experts” were answering some followers questions and this very question popped up,”in house built vs off the shelf game engines”

    There’s definitely pros and cons to both,like the in house built engine,where the devs know all the in and outs and it’s idiosyncrasies,while if they go with an off the shelf “latest and greatest”,then there’s a new huge learning curve,which sets development back,some company’s choose to pay for the people who created the engine,to come in house and train up the dev team,which is expensive in its own right.

    I trust s397s choice in this matter,not like I or anyone else could have or can do anything about it anyway.
     
  3. hitm4k3r

    hitm4k3r Registered

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    There are a couple of issues, not just the price tag when using UE4 for commercial purposes. There are two very important drawbacks from my perspective, one allready mentioned by Kunos in one of the blogs about ACC. For small changes the recompiling times can be quite long, so people who complained about slow development of rF2 before, would have even more reason to complain. For ACC this can work as it isn't planned to be a long term project like AC or rF2 afaik but more or less a testing field for Kunos

    Another big issue is that the UE4 isn't purpose build for racing sims but a multipurpose engine, so I would be carefull to call it proven for the purposes that we are looking for in sophisticated racing simulations. Some of the most serious issues in the UE4 games that I have played so far were rubber banding and connection problems with vehicles - and how this works out for ACC and GTR3 needs to be seen and it is actually one of the most interesting points that I am looking forward to.

    Also lets be real: Sebring is looking pretty damn good and running well if you aren't using a calculator, so I don't get where the major complaints are coming from and why people still question the approach of S397 while there has been some good progress, even if some stuff took longer than expected.
     
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  4. Will Mazeo

    Will Mazeo Registered

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    I only question the apparent lack of effort to make every content consistent with Sebring. Hopefully that was just the first track and Zandvoort will show they are heading that way, followed by a major upgrade of previous content. Not holding my breath tho.

    Not even going to get into the modding part.
     
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  5. hitm4k3r

    hitm4k3r Registered

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    What makes you believe that the devs will upgrade every track in the game, that has been released in 2012 btw, to Sebring standards? I guess it is safe to say, that new tech like puddlemaps and dirtmaps needs to be implemented to existing content, but I wouldn't expect Silverstone or Estoril to be laserscanned and rebuild from scratch, even if it was nice. That isn't realistic at all and not even iRacing is doing that.
     
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  6. burgesjl

    burgesjl Registered

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    @hitm4k3r I think most will understand that in order to get a 'surface mesh' that is as detailed as Sebring, will require either an enormous amount of effort to manually remake or some sort of 'automated mesh creation' that somehow adds the extra polygons to what already exists for all current content. It's not reasonable to get a new laser scan and convert that mesh, because it likely doesn't even match with the non-lasered tracks that currently exist. My understanding is Zandvoort isn't based on a laser scan, but might have greater detail than legacy tracks. And besides, there are lots of 'fantasy' tracks such as historic Spa, Monaco etc. that couldn't be laser scanned anyway. There could be quite a lot done to be consistent on textures and add lots more trackside objects, crowds etc. but you have to question whether that effort is truly worth it. Adding the rain/puddles and dirt maps makes some sense to be 'functionally complete'.

    iRacing are in fact having to rebuild EVERY track, because of the new approach outlined by Richard Jobling in his blog. That's a massive undertaking. They will start with the laser scan point cloud data and create new driving surface mesh (as opposed to the old splines) + bump maps and then have to tweak the graphical surface mesh so that they won't get cars dipping into/riding above the graphical surface because the driving surface + bump maps will have changed. (They've done this once before). iR have 3 'free' road tracks - Laguna, Summit Pt and Lime Rock. They retextured Laguna up to reasonable standards. Lime Rock they need to rescan due to layout changes, Summit Pt also has layout changes from what I understand. The original set of tracks from 2008 included Silverstone, VIR and Watkins Glen which look really dated. Silverstone they rescanned July 2018 and building from scratch, and there are lots of calls for them to do the same for the Glen which has recently been updated in real life and is the most popular road track on the service. Barber, Sonoma and Road America look a bit tired and could do with some texture/shader updates but for the most part layouts are intact. They are going to have to rebuild Sebring anyway because that has a dedicated "night version" which will go away when they implement full dynamic day/night lighting (lots of oval tracks in that state too, plus Spa). It remains to be seen how much this reworking expands the size and VRAM requirements of iR tracks, which already take a very long time to load. iR already have a 6-model car limit.

    As @stonec has stated, Sebring brings a new set of hardware requirements to run it at its best. It requires about 3Gb VRAM; iR tracks don't usually get that high though some of the more recent tracks like Imola have areas with horrendous stutters/slowdowns even if they don't generate that high a load. If anyone is buying a new graphics card now, the minimum would be 4Gb and ideally 6Gb or more given where this is all headed for rF2, when paired with things like the Endurance Pack. Dread to think what the UE4 games are going to require...
     
  7. Will Mazeo

    Will Mazeo Registered

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    If you read it well you'll see that I'm not expecting anything, just have a vague empty hope. ;)
    And I never said it had to scan old tracks.... scanning a track like Silverstone is a waste of lasers lol
     
  8. patchedupdemon

    patchedupdemon Registered

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    I took “bringing old tracks up to standard” to mean the graphical side of things,not to actually laser scan them,as that would be a waste of effort imho.
    I look into my crystal ball and expect a subscription price increase for iracing to justify the work that redoing all the meshes cause,that’s a crap ton of work,have they mentioned anything about a price hike
     
  9. burgesjl

    burgesjl Registered

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    @patchedupdemon a "crap ton" is about right. No talk of price hikes. It's actually more of a problem than you'd think. They have hundred+ of tracks to update (oval, road, dirt) but also they are having to rebuild every single car in the service as well, for the new damage model. That is the underlying 'collision model' (simplified 3D model), detachable parts and what lies beneath bodywork, connection points, damage impact/energy absorption, everything. They've kind of led people to believe that the 'tech' underlying this will be done in 2018, but what about all the work on the content? They might be able to automate some, but in reality, very little. So me to this means all the modelers, vehicle dynamicists, etc. will be having to work on all these. In that environment, bringing out new content will basically have to stop. No new content, no new revenue. Will they charge for updated content? That'll not be popular. I've got 50+ pieces of content, most of which I never use or have already gone obsolete, and no way am I paying for all that all over again. Tracks maybe, cars definitely not. Plus, this is admitted to be an "all or nothing" change to the sim - they can't have the old content and updated content intermixed, it all has to go at once. Wanna think about testing all that? Me neither. I suspect they are in a rush to finish all the other elements/features - day/night, new audio, new tire model - before that all needs to be rolled out. 2019 is a massive year for them.

    S397 desiring updates to a few old tracks, seems a quaint notion next to this. I hope to hear more about additional new tracks now. Not so much cars, I think we have a good base to work with now other than the Tatuus open wheelers pending. Tracks to support that content, definitely needed.
     
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  10. ADSTA

    ADSTA Registered

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    I thought it was a "crap tonne". :confused:
    They're American so it wouldn't be a "metric s%@$ load". ;)
     
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  11. patchedupdemon

    patchedupdemon Registered

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    I’ll openly admit,I never paid attention in school and haven’t tried to better my basics of spelling,it was a good job that it wasn’t hand written as I put capital letters in the middle of words lol
     
  12. The Iron Wolf

    The Iron Wolf Registered

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    I did some private practice and in session set up I set cloudy/overcast and scripted. However, in session conditions are sunny. Well, I know it's Florida, but seems like a bug? :)
     
  13. hitm4k3r

    hitm4k3r Registered

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    That's interesting to read. Given the fact that the track roster for iRacing is a lot bigger this seems like a huge undertaking so I guess they will set priority on the worst offenders first.

    Also regarding Zandvoort: Sebring got advertised as the first laser scanned track for rF2, wich isn't entirely correct. Zandvoort is based on a laser scan too, but using a LIDAR point cloud based on arial survey opposed to terrestrial scanning for Sebring. So it is pretty safe to say that Zandvoort will have a fairly accurate layout aswell.
     
  14. 2ndLastJedi

    2ndLastJedi Registered

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    I'm kind of surprised Zandvoort is still on version 0.20 as it was at release ! Has it been mentioned that it will be getting updated anytime soon ?
     
  15. davehenrie

    davehenrie Registered

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    Yes as a matter of fact, one of the more recent roadmaps contained information about Zandy being updated or rather completed.
    At first, I ASSUMED, it would be released prior to Sebring, so Shock and surprise when Sebring took less overall time to complete.
     
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  16. Andregee

    Andregee Registered

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    I disagree. On the track alone the performance may be ok, but as soon as you have more than a few vehicles around you and that with strongly reduced details and low anti-aliasing it becomes difficult to get 45fps in VR with a 1070 or 1080. 45fps makes it really complicated when it comes rain or twilight. The basic problem with the engine is the massive fluctuations in the frame rate between different situations. If you have more than enough performance on the track during the day in the dry and can use higher settings, the performance completely collapses under other circumstances, so that even low settings no longer help you. The rain option alone, even without it raining, causes the frame rate to drop from 150 to 50 fps in some cases, i.e. to a third. That is out of all proportion. In Cars2 for example, even with low settings I never get a look that rFactor2 can match and yet the frame rate fluctuations are significantly lower. And no this is not due to physics, because as long as the graphics card is not limited, higher frame rates can be achieved in rF'actor2 and the graphics card has nothing to do with physics. The graphics engine is rather inefficient in Rf2 and all optimizations are more than equalized by the new content
     
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  17. Adrianstealth

    Adrianstealth Registered

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    I might try Zands when it’s out of beta

    I’m very use to the Iracing version with all the track surface irregularities humps bumps cambers etc so I’ve been previously spoilt

    Ps studio397 Sebring is brill & every bit as detailed as iracing’s due to the magic of laser scanning ( on the ground scan & not scanned from space )
     
  18. Ronnie

    Ronnie Registered

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    Can we all start calling every single track that comes out, laser scanned? Just to Make Adrian happy. It's almost like listening to a vegan telling people how even drinking milk is barbaric.
     
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  19. Adrianstealth

    Adrianstealth Registered

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    yes call them
    yes we can ...hopefully it will be true (-:
     
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  20. woochoo

    woochoo Registered

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    I recently tried Sebring with the Skip Barber, and it was one of the best sim-driving experiences I've ever had :)
    For one thing, the skippy seemed to have a slightly more stable cockpit view which is important for me because i struggle badly with motion headaches on this track with other cars. But also, the tyres, the ffb and the bumps worked so nicely together. Also being a lower powered car, I was able to throw some nice long slides, and the car just surfed from bump to bump in a lovely dynamic drift :D

    And because the cockpit was stabilised a bit more, I was actually able to start to learn the twisty back half of the track, and so was able to confidently throw those drifts, and brake almost the right amount for each turn, so that was all really nice :)
    Thanks to 397 and the track builders who worked on it :)
    And thanks ISI/397 for the Skippy. Hadn't driven it in a long time - recommended! :D
     

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