Hi all, I have just tried to run iRacing, just for the heck of it, and although I actually do like that way the online racing is set up, I really really hate the steering physics in that game. I have tried running a couple of cars and I just spun around like crazy, a lot more than I do in rFactor 2 (using a game pad, I should mention). But one thing I did notice was the extreme difference in graphics headroom on my machine. If I set everything to maximum in rFactor 2, the framerate just drop instantly to around 20-40 fps when I am just racing for myself. Even when setting the graphics a bit more conservative, the FPS are still relatively low, especially when introducing AI drivers. Setting everything to its max (even 2048x2048 textures, 8x AA and 16x AF) and resolution 1920x1080 in iRacing I have barely touched 52 fps. In game with other players it is constantly 59 fps. And the big question here is, why is that? My thoughts are: Either the content in iRacing is a lot better optimized, especially against ATI cards, the games use different versions of DX or the graphics detail are comparably 'lower' than in rFactor. I have also tested with original ISI content and it is the same. It would be nice to get any official confirmation from ISI towards the optimization against ATI cards. Especially it seems that turning AA = 8x running, say, 1280x720 and AF = 4x doesn't make a darned difference or at least, very little. The edges are very jagged anyway, especially those further away (like fences, wires etc.). Even running 1920x1080 some of the edges are still jagged. I am of course asking because, even though I am considering using iRacing for online racing, I just love the physics in rFactor (and I don't know anyone in any leagues in RF2). It seems so much more real. My specs are: ASUS P5Q Premium Intel Core 2 Quad 2.83 GHz 4 GB DDR2 PC2-6400 Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 6870 I know this is an old system, but please don't suggest that I upgrade. First, because it is not what I am asking about. Second, because I have already thought about that anyway . Cheers.
If you lower the objects, textures and shadows to iRacing level, rFactor 2 is just as smooth. iR is an old platform, it's just not as demanding. They do a good job with the lighting and detail on the newer tracks to make it look good, a bit like like Game Stock Car, built on rFactor.
Static environment, static road, that kind of thing. Tyre model differences, etc. It's like being able to pull 400fps in rF1
I can understand that, but it seems that my system matches the 'runs best with' pretty good. - 3.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo or 3.0 GHz AMD Athlon II x2 or better. (2.83 GHz core 2 quad) - 4GB RAM or more (4 GB) - nVidia 250 GTS or ATI/AMD 4870 or better (HD 6870) - 512MB Video Memory or more (1024 MB) - Microsoft Windows Vista 64bit, Windows 7 64bit (Win 8 64 bit) And that doesn't cover the issues with jagged lines even with full AA and highest resolution.
Yeah, IMO that should be updated. The better way to test a rig would be with the demo, that is before buying. Silverstone with one of their recent cars, it can be very demanding whichbis good for testing your system. Jaggies will be bad, especially with long distances like in a racing sim. Using some kind of supersampling would suss it, but that takes a huge amount of grunt though. I find AC looks a bit better in regards to jaggies, bit everything has a blurry look to it, which I dislike.
Well its always hard to judge too, but a core 2 quad at 2.8 and a 6870 aren't exactly strong nowadays. I used to have a Q6600 at 3.42 and a 7850, and it ran ok-ish. I remember a well oced 5850 and a stock 5870 were quicker than the 6870 when it came out. A new CPU made a big difference for me. Much better running, especially with the last AMD drivers.
For the jagged lines, open the player.json and search the line "Texture Sharpening":0, Set it to zero as in my exemple (note, the syntax requires the comma after the zero). Then i think that AA level 4 (in rF2 Configure Sim) will be enough. For the performance, forget the reccomended hardware requirement and try in the inverse way, ie start with low settings, then raise them till you find a decent compromise between fps and eye candy. If you want maxed graphics and good fps, i think you will have to wait your new machine.
So I have tried to make some testruns while logging the usage of my system (AMD System Monitor). I made two testruns. One using a Honda Civic @ Silverstone International and another using an URD Bayro @ Le Mans (VirtuaLM). The settings are as follows. Resolution: 1920x1080x32 AA: 3 (8x) All details are set to medium Filtering: 16x AF Special effects: medium Shadows: medium and Shadow Blur: fast Movies: on Soft particles, Road reflection and Env. Reflection are high Rain drops and wind and crowd movement: yes 20 visible vehicles and auto detail fps: 30 Mirrors, head up display and steering wheel are on. I have also set the FSB to 353 MHz which gives me 3.01 GHz on my processor. Same number of cars in both tests (9) and the practice session was not private. Both runs should start after ~200 seconds. First is the data from the Honda @ Silverstone combo CPU: View attachment 14101 GPU: View attachment 14102 Then the data from the Bayro @ Le Mans combo CPU: View attachment 14103 GPU: View attachment 14104 What I find interesting here is that although the Bayro @ Le Mans combo clearly is more taxing for my system, it never reaches 100% usage, especially on the CPU side. The GPU have a couple of ~95% peaks, but it never runs at 100% all the time. The Honda @ Silverstone combo is much lighter on my system, but it is also a much smaller track. At Le Mans I sometimes got all the way down to ~20% fps (remember auto detail here), but I have longer stretches where it lies around 25-30 fps. The Silverstone run never got below 40 fps. So what is going on here?
Ok, just one thing. If you are looking for fps, turn road reflections off. I find they are a real hog on the framerate. It doesn't look as cool when it rains, but hey.
The "runs best with" on the rF2 website is a joke, it should read something in class with Nvidia GTX 660 / i5 Quad Core, which is what Assetto Corsa recommends. It should really be updated by ISI. Anyway, you can't compare to iRacing because rF2 is newer engine with real-time reflections etc, which iRacing doesn't have. I would suggest lower shadows to high, turn shadow smoothing off, turn off road reflections, use envirnoment reflections low. You will barely notice difference but it should run better.
I have a system similar to yours, my ATI is a 5750, I run Rfactor2 with NO AA, NO AF, at 1280x800 (on a 1650x1080 monitor) with details to minimum, and I can have from 50 to 130 fps, depending on mirrors, AI, Online , track and so on. You may think that it suck, well, I must say that instead I like it very much anyway.
Nothing on Full, no reflections, medium special effects, shadows to taste. It's different engines, so it's not that simple.
Turn AF down to 8x. I always hear, and myself thought, that 16x makes almost no difference with todays GPUs compared to 8x in terms of fps, but I received a nice fps boost when going down to 8x (especially with other opponents), with almost no noticeable IQ loss. Set road reflections and environment reflections to low, in fact you could probably set environment reflections to off because, even at off, the game will still use "true" reflections, the only thing is that the image on the car shown in the reflection will get updated once every 10 seconds instead of constantly, it's still a "true" reflection though if you know what I mean. Set visible vehicles to, I don't know, 10-14? Disable AA completely and just use FXAA. Enable any filtering optimizations in your GPU control panel. If using NVidia (sorry to lazy to read everything), try the following In Nvidia Inspector (download it if you don't have it): Texture filtering - Anisotropic filter optimization: ON Texture filtering - Anisotropic sample optimization: ON Texture filtering - Quality: HIGH PERFORMANCE Texture filtering - Trilinear optimization: ON In-Game Settings: Circuit Detail: MEDIUM (try HIGH if you have room for more quality, see below) Opponent Detail: MEDIUM (maybe even LOW if you can't notice the difference, see below) Player Detail: MEDIUM ((try HIGH or even FULL if you have room for more quality, see below) Texture Detail: MEDIUM ((try HIGH or even FULL if you have room for more quality, see below) Texture Filter: 8X ANISOTROPIC Special Effects: HIGH (MEDIUM may give a nice boost in fps but I honestly haven't really tested it) Shadows: MEDIUM Shadow Blur: FAST Soft Particles: LOW Road Reflection: LOW Environment Reflection: OFF Wind and Crowd Motion: NO (YES may not affect fps much, but I honestly haven't really tested it) The first thing I would raise, if you have more room for graphics, is probably the "Player Detail". The reason is that this makes quite a big difference to your cockpit/interior graphics, and that is what you spend 99% of the time in. Even "Full" makes a noticeable difference from "High" here. " Texture Detail" makes all the surrounding graphics much sharper/higher resolution. Things like adboards, walls, fences, signs, wood panels, buildings, etc. can go from looking blurry and Playsatation 2-like to very beautiful. "Circuit Detail", you probably won't ever notice the difference from "High" to "Full" while driving, but you may notice the difference between "Medium" and "High". Something like "Opponent Detail" would be one of the very last things I would look to to improve graphically; I couldn't even notice a difference when following other cars from "Medium" to "Full", you may even be able to get away with this at "Low".
