rFactor 2 Build 930 Now Available

It's a bug with feels3 tracks only because he exported trees with wrong vertex alpha setting (which back in days worked with old rF2 builds). As feels3 is now working for SimBin it's unlikely to ever get fixed.

 

Maybe somebody else (Tosch & DJC) could have a look on these tracks?

 

He may fix it. He's still around and pays attention to what's going on here. Though I can confidently say with so little time to spend he'll only want to fix it once, so if I were him, I would wait until rF2 lighting and graphics was stable before spending valuable time fixing glitches from the past.

 

How is going the new build? Could we have it in the next 15 days?

 

Build 930.
Since that update happend, it became impossible to change off skins, even with the usual method. The solution was to install a lite fresh version, and to install every skins and mods back on it.
in this regard, how to re-install the "package" folder on a now RF2, without re-installing every mods, circuits and stuff ?
And, also, In french, "right" means "droite", and left means "gauche", you inversed the translations, in the game. This mistake can be found in the "options and "controls" menus.

Thanks.

 

This CPU problem which renders the game unplayable for many of us, which I understand is some multi threading issue which has back fired in B930, is a serious issue. Despite the fact that that it has effectively bricked my game, and prevented me taking part in my own league which I spend a lot of time working on, and other leagues, I have actually been pretty relaxed and full of understanding about this very serious problem. Because I know a bit about coding myself, and I know what a nightmare it can can be doing complex multi threaded code, RF2 is a very large and complex piece of performance intensive software, and I understand completely how these mistakes can happen, it is only human. What these guys are doing is very tough.

However, what does leave a rather nasty taste in my mouth, is the way ISI place an unacceptably low priority on actually fixing these serious issues. As a matter of fact, I think it is an absolute disgrace.

Last year, ISI put out a build which rendered the entire multiplayer to be completely unusable. THEY DID NOT FIX IT FOR SIX WEEKS. That was ISI's choice. They could have just rolled out a previous build so people can carry on playing, and the even more unfortunate souls who chose to take it upon themselves to run leagues themselves, they could have carried on with them races and finish their leagues and their hard work in laying in series to race in RF2 is not flushed down the toilet.

Now this B930, which for a significant minority of players the build is simply unlpayable, has been out there for OVER ONE MONTH now with NO SIGN of any fix. I suggest to you it has been another serious mistake not to identify the severity of this issue and to fix it asap.

The only way I can interpret these actions of ISI, is that they simply do not care. They appear to be so arrogant they are happy to put out build that simply does not work, and furthermore add insult to injury by refusing to fix the probelms in a timely manner. I am sure they do care, but if we are to assess the facts I can only say the way it appears to me, is they do not. And this does not sit well with me.

It is no concern of mine, but it seems to me ISI have their own plans for the following 6/8 weeks after each build release set in stone, and they are not prepared to compromise those plans one inch EVEN in the event that very serious faults should emerge in the build previously put out. This product has been out of beta for nearly 2 years now, and I say it wholly unacceptable for us a community, who are paying out serious money for servers, putting in serious amounts of effort to run series for free on RF2 in what could only be described as adverse conditions to begin with, only to be shafted by ISI themselves with these faulty builds and be left out in the cold for an undetermined length of time until it takes ISI fancy to put out a build everybody can complete the race with. This is SIMPLY UNACCEPTABLE.

ISI cannot go out putting out stop gap builds to fix any and every little problem people may encounter, I know that. If they did they would never get anything done! But for that join button fiasco last year, and this CPU spike problem now THEY SHOULD! Failing to do so harms us all.

I know there are a lot of fanboys on this forum who automatically go into attack mode when people make posts that are not 100% universally flattering to ISI and RF2 in every single aspect. I can tell you that I love RF2 as much as you, and I am big an advocate of what ISI are trying to do here as you, and I want ISI to get this thing done as much as you, I would like to see ISI and RF2 thrive and become the leading sim as much as you. It is an awesomem sim, we are all agreed on that.

To the people who run this company I simply say to you this. I am a paying customer of yours, and I feel like I am being treated like dirt. Please place a high priority in dealing with these serious issues in a more timely fashion in future. Many thanks.

 

100% agree with you...

 

I didnt read everything to be honest. If they cant provide a hotfix, I much rather would prefer a rollback, because some serious leauges will do a rollback and others will carry on with the current build etc, which makes it all a bit annoying.

 

Just for clarification ISI are seemingly having difficulties in tracing the problem (See the Bug Fourm for the full low down), so to say "...is the way ISI place an unacceptably low priority on actually fixing these serious issues. As a matter of fact, I think it is an absolute disgrace." is a tad harsh, if they can't locate the problem how are they meant to fix it? Plus you have absolutley no idea what is "low priority" so your argument there is null and void.
Don't get me wrong, I too would like to see more Hot Fixes for gamebreaking stuff instead of having to wait for the next patch should ISI have found the issue in the first place, but as above it's not their fault if they cannot reproduce it, you can't expect miracles.

Those of us who have been here since Day 1 (and by that I mean the very first day this Forum was opened!) will by now have an understanding of how ISI work, in the past I critisied them - hands up no lie I downright attacked them - and now I look back and think was a twat I was being....RF2 is their game to improve and release updates when they chose to do so, not yours, not mine, theirs. If you think they're doing it wrong...simple answer is Tough Luck. No amount of hot mouthing here is going to help ISI in any shape or form and believe me I know first hand it gets you nowhere (apart from a Ban!), the essential part to remember is this is a GAME and that is lost on sooooo many people who come here ranting and raving. If I'd paid thousands for a new car and the left headlight won't work and the company still havn't fixed it for weeks then yes....that's a real life issue, but a game I paid a few quid for years ago and have since got hours and hours of enjoyment out of, to then suddenly become unplayable....yeah that's ****ing annoying but sorry it's not a real life issue, that's a "suck it up and wait" issue whether you like it or not.

If you feel this badly let down then write a direct e-mail to ISI and say so, they show their compassionate side and give you a full refund (even though you're well out of time for the official one) and then you can complain no more as you're no longer a customer....problem solved eh?

Finally and this is worth noting as true experience has taught me well over the years, go through EVERYTHING your end, make sure it's not YOUR PC at fault, make sure it's not YOU that has done something to break the game in some way because believe me, when that day comes and you say to yourself "oh....I made that change, whoops that's why it's broke!" you'll be left red faced.



Yes I'm a Fanboy, a fan of RF2 & ISI. Sure I would like ISI to do things differently, but they know what they're doing.....I don't, so I let them get on with it.

 

Imo it was the admin in Hardtohandle speaking more so then the simmer, (I know for a fact he would rather not race so some new member can race when the grids are full) it can be utterly frustrating to put so much time and effort into things to see it go to waste. especially after our league practically was dead after more then 20years since rf2 came around the corner. its very difficult to find people even willing to put in the ours (and liking it!) and then still see them having cool and balanced opinions. it just gets to you, crawls under your skin and if you don't watch it, let it be a real demotivator. if that's even an English word.

So claiming its just a game, it is, but it isn't. you don't spend all your free time in leagues, modding, tools and whatnot, because its 'just''
it obviously more then that otherwise there would be no1 here to whine and bitch on occasion. because who cares if its just a game?

I can't race either, cpu is spiking like hell, MP is impossible, 930 introduced into our 2nd race of the season, now we moving to the 3rd. i'm just glad I'm not too keen on rf2 these days, so I don't practice 4 days per week anymore to try and win the championship. but I know others do......

I would agree on ISI caring, I think they do. and they want to fix this. but on some occasions, for some individuals or communities it can sometimes be a matter of too little too late. try reviving a dying league with stuff like this, the moment you gain new members because you put in loads of effort to attract them you just as easily lose them again because something breaks their rf2.

 

+1

And proper pre-release testing solves your concerns MarcG.

Since we are really still in beta, the roll-outs and testing should reflect that. There needs to be a scheme where new builds can be easily tested and rolled-back by a large enough user population that bugs are found BEFORE official release.

That would include simple things like launcher issues and the other laundry list of two steps forward, one step back build updates that have plagued rF2 from Day 1.

I love the product, but the updating procedures (both dev-side and user-side) are from another era. We only got reliable semi-automatic updating of user content very recently after half a dozen mis-starts and crazy issues. I will stop because the list of unnecessary hassles with rF2 are too long to list.

We're still here because we're freakoids who will do a lot to satisfy our sim racing hobby. The update processes should NOT be designed for us, but for a regular consumer/user. They can't even satisfy the hardcore audience, so I hope it is clear that they need to be improved immensely.

Al that being said, I fear that the lack of resources dedicated to rF2 means that if proper testing and release procedures were followed we would have about two updates per year and even slower progress on fixing bugs and implementing features

 

I think it's because I'm at peace with the world, I just don't see the need to get all aggitated over a game that much anymore (although it does happen occasionally still!).
I can understand that if you spent hours sorting leagues out, not to mention your own stuff then yes a major bug breaking build would be a PITA, but as before if ISI can't fix it then what can you do? They obviously would'nt of released the Build had they known about it in the first place, that would be simply stupid, remember as with all games developers they simpy don't have every single PC configuration at hand to Test on....it's just not possible.
That's why when these issues arise people need to step back and think of the bigger picture, try not to get all beat up about it and act like ISI don't give a damn.

 

I think you hit the nail on the head Marc, when someone is at peace with the world its much easier to be forgiving. when you are not so at peace, not so much!

 

What Large Population? RF2 is in a niche market where there is no Large at all, maybe that's why Unstable Builds stopped as it became pointless, even though there was a warning about using Unstable Builds you still saw posts from people asking the most basic of questions and getting upset when things did'nt work! If you start splitting the community up into Beta Testers and normal Build racers it'd be dimished even more.

Again people need to remember ISI are not a massive company with huge resources as big as others, they are a small company with few staff who are not miracle workers, they are company that's been going since 1992 through countless resessions so read again - They Know What They Are Doing, You & Me Don't...Simple!

 

I cannot find rF2 (or rF1) sales figures, can you provide them to justify saying it's a niche market? iR has a few dozen thousand subscribers, AC sold over 212,000 copies, who knows Sector 3's stuff, plus more. I'd not discredit ISI's reach, not excluding the numbers from people with standard licenses that haven't renewed/etc. A great point was brought to my attention today and it's something I've thought about numerous times before, but you don't need a large full-time team, you can always have people on project-basis.

 

Niche compared to the big FPS games I mean, there is a limited market for this type of game. 212,000 AC sales is small fry in a big pond of the gaming market and that much is blatantly obvious, Far Cry 4 alone has sold over 7 million units, ok not all on PC obviously but you get the idea. Besides for as long as I've been involved in Sim Racing it's been called a Niche market.

And again going on your last point, ISI know what they are doing, they are already helping with community releases (Cars and Tracks).

EDIT: a Simple google search and immeditaley from an AC Dev: "We think community input is very important for a niche market product."

 

This seems to be more a problem with leagues not understanding the delivery model. Why are groups moving to new builds when there isn't a critical need? A league should carefully stage updates because they have users/customers.

This is not a pure ISI issue. Continuous delivery is being adopted by big companies as well, and dirty secret, we can't cover all the existing environments either. Focus is put where 90% of the base will likely be.

Choices, 1) stay on your current build until season is complete, 2) plan a rollout (to the new build) make sure your user base is working and happy, or 3) accept the risk and headaches of taking on a new build blindly.

 

It's a possibility but not as simple as you put forward. Leagues need new members, all the time, and new drivers looking at a league using old builds....not so attractive.
But we've done this in the past as well, roll back builds, or tell members to not update. it worked, kinda...was a mess tbh, half the members updated anyways, others needed to be coached into running multiple installs. not a single new member on the horizon.
It can be done yes, but it gives other risks and challenges and that sux when trying to recruit and make a league worth while.

That is of course not ISI's fault, you simply can't have it all and we do accept that. heck, we have accepted rf1 from start to finish with even worse things going on, much worse, and we stood by it until rf2 came out.
difference is, rf1 was crackable and saw a huge crowd poring in, allot of them became serious simracers, even some with legal software lol. new drivers where never a problem.
with rf2 we don't have that, so with the limited crowd all communities are leaching from today, issues like these tend to be more of an issue then before. it becomes magnified as recourses are limited to begin with. hence the frustrations.

 

You interpret wrong. ISI hasn't been able to replicate it yet in consistent way, hence why no fix. The MP join button bug last year was awful, but it was almost 100% reproducible for everyone. You make it sound like this bug is some big global concern when it's not. I know many rF2 leagues that run at the very moment using latest build without any issues. I have no reports from big RaceDepartment league of this bug. It's probably combination of some very specific CPU/GPU combination combined with ton of other random variables.

Edit: Reading some posts from the quoted person, it seems he is using Xeon X5450, which is dual core CPU from 2007. I would never consider running a 2015 simulator on a 2007 CPU, even if it should work in theory. I'm pretty sure AC/pCars would not even allow exiting out of garage on 20 AI cars with that old CPU, AC struggles a bit on large AI fields even on my i5.

 

Just curious where you got that stat from (AC), I would like source it when I repeat it.