- RAIN GRAPHICS : Although there was a real improvement a few months ago, when you improved the rain for VR. The rain hides the view too much, especially at night with the headlights (EDIT : "raindrops not windshield") : in real life, the rain is much thinner and much more transparent, ie much less visible. This lack of visual realism makes it difficult in many circumstances to drive properly. - RAIN PHYSICS : I hope for a significant improvement of the rain physics, in particular the management of aquaplanning : 350 km/h with SLICK on a very wet road is possible in RF2. - RAIN PERFORMANCE : You already know about serious performance issues.
About the rain graphics: That depends alot on if you are driving VR or with a screen I guess, because with a screen I feel that there aren't enough visiblity limitations. You can basicly drive without using the wipers and you are still able to see properly, even at night. The size could indeed be tweaked a little but it is not that I percieve it as undrivable - atleast using a screen. What really needs an update are the rooster tails, as they look really strange and it would be nice to have effects on the front wheels aswell. Rain physics: I have seen different people mentioning that it is possible to drive in rain with slicks in rF2. I tested it two days ago with the C7R GTE and it is clearly not possible to drive a clean lap, to stay on the road or not to spin using slicks in the wet. That was with alot of water on the track. So either people made their experience long time ago or with conent, where the tires aren't up to date. I would be really interested to see you driving a competetetive lap time in those cirumstances. I agree on the fact though, that we need features like aquaplaning or water simulated on rubber. Rain performance: No discussion about the fact, that performance improvements are allways welcome in that area. Alone on track it is ok, but as soon as there is a full field on track it gets difficult, especialy at night. In those scenarios I got to lower the graphics settings to have headroom in changing weather conditions.
@hitm4k3r Regarding the rain graphics that I mentioned, they only concern raindrops (graphics in ultra and full HD), not the windshield. What I said, and this is only a fact, in real life, whether day or night, light rain or heavy rain, the raindrops are : Much finer than RF2, and especially much more transparent than in RF2. IRL, the drops "in the sky" are almost invisible except in particular light conditions. On the other hand, there are many improvements to be made to the water on the windshield, but I do not think it is a priority. To "have less visibility", I think it would create a realistic "haze".
Rain lines must be thiner and transparent Rain lines at night are doing a white contrast with the black sky if you racing at day Rain is cool and i like it but at night the black sky makes rain looks like we try to paint the sky with white color and a brush
ACC is apparently in the same boat. It seems whoever finds a new algorithm first for displaying rain effects will be well-ahead of the competition, but, for the foreseeable future, rain at night is likely going to suffer a 35-50% performance penalty. This is one of those demonstrable cases where having 2x more fps in the dry is going to be "just right" for rainy nights, so shop carefully when building your next system!
you can improve a little bit but it's like that, rain is heavy GPU demanding. Only solution is to wait the new rtx, even my gtx 1080ti is not enough powerfull....
The question is, what resolutions we are talking and at wich settings. I took the plunge to try out ACC but I am generaly not that impressed with the visuals and the performance. I would have to lower the settings below high to get a reasonable sharp looking image and ok performance - running in the dry and alone on track btw. And I am allmost unable to read the LCD in the dash. I got to say though that I am running a single screen with 1440*900 resultion, wich isn't that high tbh. I can't imagine that a 1080ti won't do the job at full HD resolution atleast in rF2. Rain and weather is allways going to be more heavy, that's just the nature of it. The question is, how much is needed. I fired AC up for the first time since allmost half a year to check the performance and it isn't that good either when I run with AI. In that regard rF2 is performing quite well with alot more AI drivers and in dry conditions atleast. And the visual difference isn't that much tbh with a better image fidelity in rF2. The only thing that really stands out in rF2 is the turquoise sky. The more and more I try the differnt sims in various conditions, the more I come to the conlcusion that there are issue everywhere, not just in visual quality but also in performance. If S397 really manages to overhaul the cloud and weather system, I see them working on the better end. UE4 seems a bit too much for driving sims with the scope of rF2 right now. This may be very different depending on hardware though and if you are running single, triple or even VR.
For information, if you want to acquire a new GPU later, only 41 in minimum FPS under the following conditions : gtx 1080 and i7 4770k full hd single screen maximum quality nvidia control panel except the use of the AA of the game FOV 50 ultra PP AA level 5 sebring 12h 61 AI mostly cloudy rain 9 AI visible timescale x5 100% ultra graphics sunrise / sunset / night mirrors unmodified player.json GT3 and GTE. Of course these are the worst conditions, but even with a PC that is very expensive, it is not possible to have 60 FPS permanently. I hope that S397 will still optimize RF2, and significantly.
I am not sure if those are comparable settings tbh. Isn't PP at ultra intented for screenhsots only for example? And 61 AI, even if only 9 are visible need to be processed in one way or another. Next to the fact that I would like to see figures without the use of external apps like the control panel. I would also be much more interested in the average FPS. The minimum counter doesn't tell that much.
with 1080ti at 1440p (2560x1440), i can race night+rain with all max and 20 AI visible. Sometimes some drops but i don't really notice cause i use a gsync monitor. For hotlap solo with dry condition, i can race at 5280x2880 easy with 60fps. the new GPU is for gaming at 4k with the higher framerate (gysnc 144hz), cause at 4k the 1080ti gives 40 in the rain, and i really doubt the rtx 2080ti will gives the +20fps so maybe i will wait next year or to years the new rtx 2180
I think that under these conditions the average FPS is ~50 FPS or a little more. Improvements in the NVIDIA control panel affect up to 5-7% of performance based on the tests I did on my GTX 780, but the improvement in image quality is huge. For me it is essential. Especially if you are ready for a big screen. This is not true what some people say about PP : low is not as good as off. Medium: the quality is low. High: the quality is good but especially 10X better than medium. The visual improvement between high and ultra is less perceptible but real (I see it and I do not have eagle eyes). On my configuration, I earn less than 10 FPS from 61 to 30 AI: I prefer to lose less than 10 FPS, but have a large grid. Personally the minimum FPS is an indicator that I like to use. It gives you a little idea of what to expect if you buy for example a 1060 ti or a 1070.
If you are driving you dont need max PP, low or medium is enough, use high or ultra for videos/screenshot (even S397 recommeded this back then). Also while driving you dont need max shadows, medium with max blur will be enough from cockpit.
From cockpit you'll lose no immersion by reducing these 2 options really. Also makes fps more stable, which is more immersion than post processing effects