Will we be getting tools early?

I was just wondering if the ISI guys plan on releasing any of their tools for 3DS Max and modding, earlier than rFactor2 itself.

I really doubt the current tools will do the job

 

I get the impression that not all the gizmoz & gadgets that will require new variables have been identified yet, and probably won't be until just before the first release of rF2.

If thats the case, then its not likely there will be an advanced release of a developer kit.

Moreover there are supposed to be a variety of new cars in rF2, but we all know the spoiler of rF is car customization/creation. In that event a lot of people like myself will buy rF2, but only use it as a "beta" version until there are a wider range of mods, tracks, and tools available.

Many a modder is anticipating the release of rF2 to update various cars & tracks. I know we'll be updating the IMSA GT mod; in many ways this mod was actually created to take advantage of some of the new features in rF2.

There is also a new hosting site in beta test that will be serving high speed downloads (no ads) for rF2 mods but it will be a subscriber based site with a low cost for access.

 

Hi IMSA, I was curious to know more about this new beta hosting site serving high speed downloads you mention.
It sounds very similar to what we're already doing with rFactorcentral. Thanks for any details

 

Well is some of you are planning to convert rF1 stuff to rF2 please (pretty PLEASE) just focus on the best/high poly models and let the low quality stuff where it stands, rF2 it's going to be the REAL next gen racer, and we will need 3d models at WSGT2/GT5 level or Shift2 at least. The rF comunity this time should focus on quality over quantity.

 

Not everyone has a supercomputer. I would like to see models that are very good and highly detailed, but you have to draw the line somewhere. I have a feeling, though, that you'll start to see some work that resembles reality. Me, I prefer to have a full field of cars at LeMans, and not have to cut half the grid out because my PC just took a nosedive. No thanks.

Also, this thread has gone off topic just a tad. IMSA, you might want to make a new thread with details about your hosting services, instead of using this one. Just a suggestions.

 

I certainly hope the tools are released early. The sooner the tools are out, the sooner mods will become available.

 

I'd have to agree with you there, Vince. I think a lot of mod makers have the same feeling.

 

Seems like Bsim Racing wont agree with you and they'll go nuts with their WSGT2 mod, with an insane level of details, (something comparable or even better than GT5). rFactor2 will be the first real next gen game, you can still have fun with reasonably poly models bur you can't stop technology because of your pc, not to mention ISI's original rFactor2 cars looks like high poly stuff to me, sure a BIG step further than the previous rFactor1 stuff. So I'm not sure about sub standard stuff, a good add-on car should always be at the same quality level of the originals.
About the tools I've asked at Tim in another thread but no answer yet.

 

From what I have seen in testing mods in development and some of the recent releases it's not really the level of details and polygon count that is the real issue with performance. The efficient use of textures is far more important. A few recently released mods use lots of huge textures and I find that I can't race them with 50 cars on the grid. I could go through and shrink some of the textures and probably race with more cars but I have lots of mods that were built more efficiently so I race with them more often.

This problem will not go away with rfactor 2 either. It is still a 32-bit process with a 2GB memory limit and that is what I have run up against and it really annoys me. The mods I refered to actually had 50 cars on the grid in reality but you can't run a race with 50 of those cars in the game. The most annoying thing about them is that many of the huge textures are for things that really do not need that level of resolution. I could cut many of the sizes in half so they used only one quarter of the memory and it would not be visually noticable. They could also map their meshes better so that more textures are shared and that would help a lot. As a hypothetical example - sometimes the same engine is used in several cars so uniquely painted objects should not be mapped with the engines. That would require each engine texture to be unique for each car and that is very inefficient.

 

I agree, it seems strange that people spend hours upon hours making mods and they end up in a state where you can't put all the cars on track at once (or a 'realistic' number, if the mod has hundreds) with a standard setup - and you go to look at why and find 4096x4096 textures for headlights, engine bays, etc.

For personal use with troublesome mods/tracks though, I'd recommend trying the 4 GB patch. It's no good for 32-bit systems unfortunately, so this is certainly a topic which needs some care with rF2.

 

That's an interesting find. I wonder why I have never heard of this before? It seems as if it would be more popular by now. When was it written? What kind of security issues are associated with patching executable files using that tool? I'm a little concerned, but also a little intrigued. I'd be interested in finding out more. I've read the little description, but unfortunately he doesn't go into too much detail about how it was written, who gave him said information, or what security risks are associated with using it.

 

It changes literally a single byte (or even a single bit) in the file - so it's just setting a flag for the (x64) system to give it 4GB instead of 2. So I'd have no concerns about what the patched .exe might do. There are standard tools (MS) for setting such things in the program header, he's just made the patch to make it easier to modify this one.

 

I think some people have been mislead by some examples that have been posted up as 'rf2 ready' models. I asked this direct question a while back.
http://isiforums.net/f/showthread.p...e-polys-or-just-a-rummer?highlight=poly+count Lets not get this tools thread off topic, we can discuss poly counts in this other thread ^^

 

the patch works really well. it really helps when you load 60+ AI in large circuit, like Nordschleife or Targa Florio. This patch is a must have imho.

 

Doesn't help anyone on 32-bit... but of course that's the situation we're in, you can't make a game 64-bit only so that modders can assume they have more RAM to play with (and they couldn't realistically assume every 64-bit OS has more than 2 GB of RAM for that matter, so requiring more would severely affect performance).

If a well-made mod, not wasting resources for the sake of it, requires more memory than 32-bit can provide on high details, then obviously it would be in the modders' interest to make the lower detail level(s) work on the 'minimum' specs. Minimum specs say 2GB, so any mod that requires more to work at all is poorly made - IMO

 

I don't have any mods with that many cars

(Of course I could up the number of opponents, editing the .rfm if I have to... but then I've got doubles on track, which isn't realistic or reasonable)

I'd prefer not to be taken out of context here; if a game normally supports X cars, and has a system requirement, and a mod comes out that has that many cars (or fewer) and won't run on that required system (despite turning details all the way down) - something isn't right. I realise you can get a LOT of cars in an offline race, so maybe the lines are blurred... I'm not judging anyone here.

** Put it another way: I recently tried a mod with 22 cars, and it crashed a standard rFactor install. I'm sure the fact it was a conversion contributed to the whole thing, rather than being scratch made for rFactor, but when you need to patch the .exe to even run the modest number of cars the mod contains it seems like a major oversight.

 

Uh... no. In that case I guess I can see your confusion. I meant a mod that wouldn't run at all in 2GB; obviously a mod that uses 10GB on full details is relatively fine, as long as those with lesser PCs can run it on lower details. Hence the word "require"