AI jumps positions and times in proximity of player's car

[javier.rey]

AI competitor cars in race start stuttering and jumping position (mostly ahead) when in proximity of player's car.
It's not just graphics, time differences also jump.
Always in Nurburgring, Ferrari 488, with factory settings, no mods, high-end system. Also with other cars. Maybe other tracks too (not confirmed).
This happens since some update in 2021, but I don't know the exact version.
Latest update, July 2021, did not fix this bug, which makes racing impossible, at least in Nurburgring.

 

[Lazza]

Note for others: that's a short video attached only.

In the game press Ctrl-C and see what the horizontal purple bar is doing - if it's reaching the right hand edge your CPU is sometimes not calculating the physics in time.

Often jumping/stuttering AI are because of that, though your video doesn't look like they normally do in that case. Still I'd be checking that first.

 

[javier.rey]

Thanks both for your response!

This strange behaviour of the AI happens often but not always. It wasn't happenning at all in previous versions of rFactor 2, or Nurburgring Nordschleife in particular. It's some update in 2021, that's for sure.

It feels like the AI cars do impossible things to go faster than the player, when they're nearby on the track (see attached video if it's available, MP4 file format was not allowed to upload).

Also, it happens in situations where I'm usually faster than the AI (without the jumping behaviour).

If I pause and replay the scene, everything is smooth again, the player's car is just slower and AI cars ridiculously faster. I think speed and partial times are not accurate either, and differ in the replay from those in real time (I haven't measured it yet, so I'm not sure).

I'll check Lazza's suggestion and post some more feedback here.

My system:
OS: Windows 10 Pro, 64bit, DirectX 12.
Processor: Intel Core i9, 3.7GHz
RAM: 64 GB
Drives: SSD 1TB + SSD 2TB, 3.5 MB/s R/W (Steam rFactor2 installed on second drive).
Graphics: NVidia Geforce RTX 2070 Super, 8 GB
Using Fanatec CSL.
No overclocking.
No other programs running (AFAIK).