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Tutti gli appassionati di simracing ricorderanno certamente l'evento eSport targato Formula E della gara da 1 milione di dollari, della quale abbiamo parlato a suo tempo evidenziandone anche i tanti difetti ed errori, che aveva per protagonista rFactor 2 con un mod dedicato alle monoposto elettriche, non proprio di alto livello. A quanto pare Formula E e Studio 397 devono aver capito gli errori ed a quanto sembra arriverà una licenza ufficiale che permetterà di fare le cose per bene a livello software, organizzando probabilmente anche un torneo online parallelo ed ufficiale. Come riportato anche da RaceDepartment e Simracing Paddock ed anche se al momento nessuno ha voluto rilasciare dichiarazioni in merito, il fortissimo sospetto (confermato peraltro dalla non smentita...) nasce dalla proposta di lavoro pubblicata proprio sul sito web della Formula E, alla ricerca di un gaming product manager che dovrà lavorare con lo Studio 397... Role: Gaming Product Manager Location: London Your role Console/Mobile -Work with developer needs (liveries, data) for IP integrations of cars/tracks -Push gaming partners to feature FE integrations through competition/exposure within the game -Sync marketing, PR and comms across FE and gaming partners Sim Racing -Develop rFactor 2 with Studio 397 --Ensure delivery of Studio 397 timeline to release of title --Liaise with internal departments to make sure all liveries, tracks and data is passed on to Studio 397 --Work with Studio 397 to manage the launch and community on Steam -Issue a RFP for broadcast/esports competition for providers --Confirm dates for the proposed 4 Season 4 online races --Work with esports TO/broadcaster for talent, rules and stewarding -Team integration --Build plan for teams to take game software --Help teams develop software integration strategy, with local activations At track -Manage event space consisting of --Moving simulators from DHL drop off point to stage --Networking of machines --Installing monitors --Packing empty lids for DHL to remove --Running server to record times and control cameras for eRace --Coordinate the fan(s) who are participating in the eRace to attend --Manage and train volunteer staff for simulator use --Manage queue system and be responsible for customers in the gaming area --Coordinate drivers participating in eRace with communications team --Coordinate branding with specific driver names on the back on simulators --Manage and run eRace with broadcast partner --Pack down equipment, box monitors, install lids on simulators and place back to DHL pickup point. Desired skills and experience The successful candidate must have experience in delivering gaming events to a high standard. Additionally, candidates should be able to demonstrate: -Knowledge and a passion for video games and eSports -A relatable degree -Experience of managing multiple projects from strategic conception to execution and analysis -Experience of delivering events on time and to budget -Evidence of developing comprehensive marketing and promotional plans to deliver gaming or eSports events -The ability to collaborate effectively across business functions to understand and prioritise varying product requirements -A recognised Project Management qualification (Prince 2, PMI) would be beneficial

Il team Studio 397 ha rilasciato per rFactor 2 tramite lo Steam Workshop la prima versione pubblica della divertente Radical SR3 RSX. La vettura è stata realizzata nei minimi dettagli in stretta collaborazione con la stessa Radical. Commenti e discussioni sul forum. Introducing the Radical SR3 RSX now available on Steam Workshop! We have worked closely with Radical Sportscars to present the perfect race car, immaculately balanced and fantastic for fighting nose to tail on the track. Not just that, we have also built in left and right hand drive for those who drive on the wrong side of the road, you know who you are :P Included are our 20 chosen liveries from our Radical Paint Competition. On that note, we were really overwhelmed by the number of entries and the high-standard and look forward to holding more competitions like this in future - Thank you to all that submitted, now go try out the car now! STEAM

Studio 397 ci aggiorna sullo sviluppo del suo rFactor 2 con il nuovo roadmap update del mese di giugno. Fra le tante novità e migliorie dell'aggiornamento troviamo vari upgrades per la Formula 2, una divertente paint competition dedicata alla Radical e scopriamo anche il prossimo arrivo di una nuovissima McLaren GT che sarà utilizzata nell'imminente torneo Worlds Fastest Gamer della McLaren. Commenti e discussioni sul forum dedicato. Roadmap Update June 2017 Welcome back to another monthly update. I’m sure many of you have watched the 24 hours of Le Mans over the weekend. What an exciting race that was, and good news for us as, although they did set a new fastest lap time in qualification, they did not break the record for the most number of laps driven in the race, so we can continue as Studio 397 for another year! We are heavy in development currently in all areas and look forward to bringing you several updates over the next few months and beyond. Starting on August 1st we will open registration for the rFactor 2 round of the World’s Fastest Gamer competition by McLaren. The winner of that competition will be offered one of the best jobs in esports: that of an official simulator driver in the Formula 1 team. In four rounds people will battle to set the fastest time on different configurations of Silverstone and Zandvoort and compete head to head in weekly races for championship points. These races will all be done in a soon-to-be-announced McLaren GT car. UI We have been getting a lot of questions on our new UI lately, which is taking us a bit longer than we anticipated. We’ve already shown you various new screenshots, so we thought this month might be a good time to explain a little bit more about its technical background. For some of you all these terms might be a bit too technical. They are all modern web technologies that allow us to create an interface that is flexible and accessible from all kinds of locations. A few months ago we already explained the UI is built with HTML. We have chosen to embed a modern browser to render it, and the actual connection with the local game is done via a REST based interface. This interface allows you to control all aspects of the game, and because this technology will both be added to the client and dedicated server, it means we have vastly extended the ways in which you can write all kinds of tools on top of that. Just as an example, this enables you to create live timing pages that can be used as an overlay for broadcasting. You might have seen this a couple of weeks ago when VEC broadcast their 24h race in DX11. There are many other possible applications though, such as remotely connecting to the garage of a team mate and making improvements to his setup while he is still driving. Content We have converted most of our content to DX11 by now, but there are still a few items left. Alongside this roadmap update, we will release two updated pieces of content tomorrow. The São Paulo track, which has seen various texture updates and the Formula 2, which had both texture and physics updates, details of which can be found in the changelog below. In terms of new content, we mentioned the McLaren GT car earlier and cannot wait to show you more updates on it, content which is aligned is important to us, and over the next couple of months we hope you will be pleasantly surprised! Additionally, we are working hard on bringing Zandvoort to you in all its glory and of course are close to releasing a fantastic car for racing the Radical SR3. Radical Paint Competition It’s paint time! That’s right, get your team’s or personal livery in the official release of the Radical SR3. We will add the top 20 designs into the game as part of the release of the Radical SR3. We have created a special “paint version” of the car, which is available in the workshop. If you subscribe to it, it will automatically be downloaded and installed. Included with the car is a template, which can be found in the “Templates” folder of your rFactor 2 install. You can use any paint program that can load PSD (Photoshop) files. We advise you to first make a copy of the file before you start painting. When you have created your paint, save it as a DDS file. The folder you should use for that can be seen in the showroom if you’ve loaded the car there. You might need to hit “CREATE DIR” to create the folder the first time, and if you’ve updated the paint while the game was still loaded, hit “RELOAD” to refresh the folder. If you have any questions about this, feel free to ask in our forum or on Discord! For the record, you cannot yet drive the car, you can only look at it in the showroom (click on “TUNING” on the car screen). Talking about which, we spared no expense and built you a brand new showroom. We hope you like it! Guidelines No alcohol, tobacco or illegal products Any paint job you make is yours and not taken from someone else You will need to transfer rights to us for the paint to use in the game You guarantee it does not infringe on any copyrights of third parties, so no logos that you do not have permission to use How to enter Please read the guidelines above, then email us on radicalpaints@studio-397.com with 3 images from the showroom, a download link to your PSD and the driver and team name you want to use for your car. The deadline for submission is midnight GMT 27th June 2017! Miscellaneous We know with DX11 that many of you cannot use plugins that render to the screen, and we are currently reviewing the best way to add this capability in a future-proof and rock solid way. Our current method of giving plugins access to the screen can cause issues with the stability of our platform as a whole. As a final note we are proud to announce that we’ve signed a license agreement with MoTec and will add official support for their tools to our simulation. More details about this will be released in the upcoming months. In the mean time, enjoy the summer! Changelog Build (DX11) Fixed: VR trackside cameras. Fixed: VR Showroom is now rendering properly. Fixed VR Monitor and replay working in-game. Fixed: Multi-monitor selection now available. Fixed: Minor issues with UI font. Fixed: AI way-points now show in Dev Mode. Fixed: Zoom and out of focus elements in track-side cameras when in multi-view mode. (Triple screen) Fixed: Focus on UI elements in Viewer.exe Fixed: Real Road rendering issues. Added: Brand New High resolution “Hangar” style showroom to better showcase cars. Added: VR Improvements to the Post processing effects by disabling the Depth-of-Field. Updated: Minor performance and video memory improvements. Updated: Showroom post process preset. Updated: The graphics engine now renders ambient shadows while in the showroom. Formula Two Full CPM tyre upgrade. AI improvements to help launch on race starts. AI now take longer to warm up tyres. AI correlation tweaks to slightly decrease grip. Added RCD / talent file. AI tweaks to make them faster overall. Lower initial tyre temperatures and more pressure buildup. Softened front ARB. More damping in suspension components. Minor tyre tweaks to include more damping. Correction to low downforce package to add stability. Added optional caster upgrade to help increase the cornering forces in the FFB. Reduced flatspot intensity on front tyres. Softened steering slightly. Low-end torque slightly increased. Corrected unsprung inertia. New engine throttle map. Softened chassis. Improved inertia. Lowered max brake force. Set default brake pressure to realistic typical usage. Rear ARB increased to be bit stiffer and better match the data. Reduced fuel consumption by appropriately 20%, this should give more plausible fuel consumption figures. Slightly less dirty air in the slip-steam (in particular, less understeer so you can follow a tiny bit closer). Front ARB now displays stiffness to make it clearer. Wheel rate correction. Added chassis flex. Added new steering system. Softened shifts, this should make up-shifts more harmonious especially in mid-corner

Il team Studio 397 ha rilasciato alcune ore fa un nuovo aggiornamento per l'ultima versione beta Direct X 11 del suo rFactor 2. L'update si preoccupa in particolare di apportare miglioramenti per gli utenti di periferiche VR (tipo Oculus Rift), alcuni bugfix ed anche perfezionamenti notevoli al sistema di illuminazione, come si nota dall'immagine allegata. Discussioni in questo topic del forum. We pushed through another Beta update today with lots of improvements especially for our VR users, we also updated some of our ambient lighting, make sure you try it! 1/6/2017 Build ID : 1859720 - VR Mirror mode selectable in Launcher config - Further VR performance optimizations - Fixed crash in Dev mode loading tracks - General improvements - Lighting improvements/balancing

Il team Studio 397 torna ad aggiornarci puntualmente sullo sviluppo del suo rFactor 2. Il roadmap update del mese di maggio ci segnala il lavoro in corso sulla fisica delle vetture, le prossime novità in arrivo proprio a livello auto e l'evento dal vivo sul tracciato di Zandvoort al quale parteciperà persino Max Verstappen. Non mancano le prime immagini del mitico circuito olandese. Commenti sul forum. Roadmap Update May 2017 A lot has happened since our last roadmap update, with the release of the DX11 engine where we entered an “open beta” phase that saw frequent updates and a lot of feedback from our community. First of all, we would like to thank you all for that! We feel we are moving towards a stable release in a few more weeks, after which our focus will shift towards the completion of our new UI. We will also provide you with some updates soon on how to interact with the screen from plugin code in DX11. On top of the significant code changes, we also decided to give our existing content an update. A lot of cars and tracks have already been released, with a few more still to come. Tiger Moth and the classic Belgium track are being finished as we speak for example. Some tracks are taking a bit longer as we need to fix a few of our older shaders. Physics Updates For our cars, we not only want to do updates to the graphics to make them look better under DX11 and DX9, but also update their physics. The biggest updates are related to our Contact Patch Model (CPM) which will give the F2 and Marussia F1 car new rubber. We are also looking at doing the same for the Civic and will probably do a few others. Cars In previous updates you’ve already seen some shots of the Radical in-game and we are currently working hard on completing the sound, physics and tyres for the car and get the package in the hands of our testers. Realistically we are looking at a release in June for this car. In other news, we now go left with the USF2000 oval package upgrade. Recently we got our hands on some good hard data on the oval package run by the USF2000 series – the resulting upgrade package we’ve developed makes for a more challenging open wheel oval experience. The added adjustments, being in line with the real world data add the proper baseline asymmetry needed, making the car better suited to the sustained wheel-to-wheel and ‘in the draft’ oval action. Additionally, the provided asymmetrical setup is a great starting point for those daunted by having to make an oval setup, it should be well balanced out of the box for a wide range of ovals – so don’t be afraid to just jump in start racing. You should see this update early next week. Keep an eye out on our social media for a few other announcements on the car front! Meet us in Zandvoort! Over the weekend, we will be at the Jumbo Racing Days, driven by Max Verstappen, which is a spectacular event at Circuit Park Zandvoort. In a partnership with Red Bull, Fanatec, PlaySeat and Team Redline we have setup a large tent in the paddock area with a couple of rigs where you can test your skills against some of the Team Redline drivers on-site. We’ve heard that Max Verstappen will drop by himself to set a benchmark lap! He will of course also give a lot of demonstrations with his racing car on the real track throughout the whole weekend. For us this is a great opportunity to share the first preview of our new Zandvoort track, which will be coming to rFactor 2. We’ve included a few early screenshots which show our progress with the track and we are very pleased that we can also announce that we’ve obtained an official license for it. On that note we would like to wrap up this update and wish you a great month on behalf of the whole team here at Studio 397 and if you decide to go to Zandvoort we certainly hope to meet you there!

Come era normale aspettarsi per una versione beta, la nuova release "DirectX 11" di rFactor 2 non si è presentata esente da difetti, bugs e problemini di vario genere. Studio 397 è però costantemente al lavoro per risolvere, in ordine di priorità, le varie questioni e pochi minuti fa ha pubblicato un piano di sviluppo per le prossime settimane, che vedranno il rilascio di costanti aggiornamenti, come già successo nelle ultime 48 ore. The Road Ahead: Open Beta Explained On Monday we released the first “open beta” and promised you regular updates in terms of code and content. In today’s blog we would like to explain this process in more detail to give you more insight into this process and our plans to get from this open beta to the first stable release. The implementation of the DX11 and VR engine obviously is a big project that touched many areas of the codebase and in terms of features we added everything we wanted to have in our first release. Once that was done, our focus shifted to performance and ensuring the code runs in a stable way on every system out there. At this point, no matter how many great testers you have, you discover that you can never test your code on all possible combinations of hardware and software. For that reason we decided to release an “open beta”. Regular Updates Our strategy in the upcoming weeks will be to release small updates often. Whenever we fix an issue, we’ll quickly test it internally and push a new build, so you can confirm that it is indeed fixed. This way we might end up pushing one or more builds every day. On our forum we will keep a changelog as we publish those builds. To make it easier to report issues, we have added a “Contact Support” button to the Launcher (top right of the main window) and, for performance related issues, we added a feature that allows you to collect performance data in a file that you can send along with your report. To enable the capture of performance data, please first press Ctrl+F to display the framerate information (which we’ve extended a bit). Then, as instructed on screen, press your Left-Shift+SPACE to start capturing data. After a little while, the capture will end and you get a file in your UserData\Log folder called PerfLog_DATETIME.txt which you can send to us along with your report. Then you can turn off the display by pressing Ctrl+F again. Content Updates In the mean time our content team is working hard on making more of the stock content available to you. Our plan here is to stick to roughly a weekly schedule for delivering updates. Those will be a bit bigger in size, and we will deliver them to both the stable DX9 build and the open beta simultaneously. Content updates will obviously also contain information about exactly what content gets updated. Beta Labels Explained If you’re currently running the open beta release, you are on “v1108-dx11-open-beta” and this is the label we will be regularly updating as we address more and more issues. If for some reason this build is not working for you at all, after reporting it, you can optionally switch to the “v1108-dx11-open-beta-last-stable” build, which will point to a older build. If that does not work, you can obviously choose to temporarily “opt-out” of the beta releases altogether and go back to the stable release until we release another update. If you have any further questions, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us on our forum or on Discord.

Il team Studio 397 ha appena rilasciato la prima versione aggiornata open beta del suo rFactor 2 ! Fra le principali novità di questa release troviamo il supporto grafico alle DirectX 11 ed il supporto tecnico alla Virtual Reality. Per tutti i dettagli, spiegazioni tecniche e commenti correte sul forum dedicato. Open Beta with DirectX 11 and Virtual Reality Support! We know it’s been an excruciating wait, even for us. We’ve been bursting with the type of anticipation you get when you’re waiting to give someone a really cool gift. The long road to DX11 and VR that started just a few months back has brought us to this day – with all of the expectations, promises, teasers and general community fervor encompassing this release. Now it’s finally here and ready for you to enjoy. This is the first important milestone in the continued development of rFactor 2. It is a huge update, focused on improving the visual fidelity and creating a foundation to work from. Importantly, this is an ‘open beta’, meaning we are still working on optimising and improving the fidelity of the engine – your feedback is always welcome. We have much more in the pipeline, and can’t wait to let you all get your hands on the new user interface, content and some pretty cool features. Thanks for staying with us on this journey! We’ll start these notes with a description on how to activate the open beta, how to configure VR if you want to use that, and then proceed with the release notes, some known issues and a glimpse at the road ahead. Switching to the DX11 “open beta” (and back) To try the DX11 open beta, you must first opt-into the DX11 branch – this means essentially you are downloading the DX11 version of rFactor 2 – don’t worry, though! You don’t have to download everything again, it will be a small download to switch between DX9 and DX11. So, here’s how you do it: Open Steam and on the right hand side right-click on “rFactor 2” to bring up the menu. Click on the “Betas” tab at the top. From the drop down list, locate and select the beta called “v1108-DX11-open-beta” Now at the bottom of your Steam window you will see the download starting. If you encounter any problems, make sure you validate your locally installed files. To do this, from your library in Steam, right-click on rFactor 2. Select “Properties”. Go to “Local Files” then click on “Verify Integrity”. The game will verify the files (this might take a moment). If you ever want to revert, follow the same procedure, but instead of selecting a beta version, select “NONE”, which will opt you out of any betas, straight back to the latest DX9 release. Your first steps in VR Setting up VR and Post Processing: Open the rFactor 2 Launcher. In the Launcher click on the settings icon wheel. Then click on the ‘Video Settings’ button. In the pop up config window check the box ‘VR’. Set your screen resolution to 1920×1080. Start by setting the Post Effect Level to “None” (see release notes below). Starting rFactor 2 in VR: Important: First open SteamVR manually before starting single player. (We have a known issue we are working on where you will not get FFB if SteamVR is not started first) Now just click on the single player icon in the Launcher and open rFactor 2. The menus and UI are all in the VR space, but you will need to use mouse and keyboard. There is a known issue with the replay cams, only one eye has an image. Release Notes We’ll start these release notes with a few hints on how to setup the DX11 graphics (regardless of VR): In the same config window where you set your ‘Video Settings’ you have a drop down for post effect levels. Post effects provide you with some exciting new graphical options that look great, but as with any graphics option, need to be balanced against a good framerate. Therefore, we recommend you start at a conservative level (none or low), and if you have a graphics card of the latest generation, try the higher ones (medium or high). The highest setting (ultra) gives the best quality effects, but will also require a really fast graphics card. Note that even the “None” setting gives a better graphical quality than the DX9 graphics we had before! An overview of the levels: None Low = Glare Effects Medium = Glare Effects and Depth of Field High = All Effects at High Quality Ultra = All Effects at Ultra Quality At this point we would also like to thank the people from YEBIS for providing a great library to work with. It has definitely contributed to the overall look of the end product. With the DX11 implementation we also introduced new features to improve many aspects of the final output:Improved MSAA rendering. Improved Clouds resolution and depth. Static AO; This is adding Occlusion to bottom of objects and cars. It does improve the overall depth in the environment. Dynamic AO. This is adding a subtle low-frequency Ambient Occlusion to the scene and cars, improving the “connection” between terrains and structures in the scene, and also balancing cockpits brightness. Shadows Normal renders shadows, taking into account the shadow receiver normal map. A new Tone mapper which improves both colors and histogram, a perfect companion for our dynamic weather/sky engine! New Car Ambient Shadow, now working for the entire 24h cycle. Fixed some “pixel” artifacts caused by invalid calculations in shaders. Dedicated dynamic exposure simulation for each main camera set. Realistic simulation of Depth Of Field, Lens Flare, Bloom and other Optical aberrations, with scalable options. Track Lights and Car Headlights now can use the realtime glare simulation and get rid of the old technology and custom shaders. New Shader for car Dashboards, Rev Meters and Motecs. Content updates as part of this initial build: The USF2000, Nissan GT500, Howston G4 and G6, Dallara DW12 and the Stock Cars have been updated with new shaders, better headlights and overall better textures. Atlanta Motorsports Park, Silverstone, NOLA Motorsports Park, Mores and Indianapolis Motor Speedway have all gotten texture updates, and we painted the curbs at Silverstone in the current colors too! Modding: There are new guidelines for content creators, please make sure you read them here https://www.studio-397.com/guidelines-for-artists/ Known Issues Plugins that render to the screen will not work any more. These plugins all depend on DX9, so their authors will need to update them. That said, we at S397 are working on improving the way such plugins render to the screen to make them integrate better with our new HUD, VR and each other. In general, for most plugins, there are known alternatives. Feel free to discuss these on our forum or on Discord. We’re glad to help! Content using LDR diffuse maps instead of correct albedo presets will work, but may have strange effects at some times of day and night, such as glowing surfaces. See: http://wiki.rfactor.net/index.php?title=AlbedoMap There is a known issue with losing FFB in VR. As a temporary workaround, first open SteamVR manually before starting single player. As stated above, we are still optimizing performance of DX11. As confident as we are that most of you will experience a nice boost when comparing the same settings in DX9 and DX11, we are aware that some of the new post effects, especially at higher settings, require a lot of memory on your graphics card. Future builds will bring improvements. Some users may experience black track surfaces/boxes around the car. Deleting files from Shaders and CBash folders (located in \Steam\steamapps\common\rFactor 2\UserData\Log) and reloading into the sim and track should fix this. The Road Ahead This release version, as we have said, is an open beta. Development is ongoing, and we will quickly move to a full release over the next few months. We will regularly provide you with updates, both in terms of code and content. This release already comes with 5 updated cars and 5 updated tracks, and we have seen some third party modders come out with releases that are DX11 compatible as well. Expect us to do more releases in the upcoming weeks, each with new content, bug fixes and further improvements. Additionally, the full release will include updates in key areas, such as improving night driving, rain, new shaders for cars and a host of other additions. We know that strong graphics coupled with our best-in-class physics is only part of the package. We are working heavily on new content – both cars and tracks – and of course on providing you all with more functionality – including an innovative competition mechanic. We are really excited about our upcoming UI, which didn’t quite make it into this release, but will be released and improved as part of our series of frequent updates.

Il team Studio 397, in attesa del rilascio della nuova versione di rFactor 2 prevista per oggi, che implementa la nuova grafica DirectX 11, ci presenta questo spettacolare trailer di anteprima ! Commenti sul forum dedicato. Our big rFactor 2 DX11 beta release later today featuring VR, hope you guys enjoy it! Now here's a little preview to keep you going.

Il team Studio 397 ha appena pubblicato un nuovo roadmap update per aggiornarci sullo sviluppo del suo rFactor 2. La principale fantastica notizia è che dal 1 maggio sarà disponibile la prima versione beta del software con il nuovo motore grafico spinto dalle DirectX 11. Come si nota dalle immagini di anteprima, il miglioramento estetico sarà più che notevole! Commenti sul forum. With about a week and a half left until May 1st, it’s time for our monthly update again. We’re sure everybody is looking forward to the new build, and we’re happy to announce that both the DX11 graphics engine and VR support will be released as promised. DX11 Over the last couple of months, we’ve revealed several development screenshots of the DirectX 11 engine to share with you our enthusiasm for the possibilities it brings. The new engine is not only the basis for our VR implementation, but it also enabled a new, improved HDR tone mapper and a bunch of post effects that greatly enhance the overall atmosphere of the simulation. We tried to strike a balance between using these effects to render the real-world imperfections of cameras while retaining the “first person view” you have when racing. At the same time we kept two very important goals in mind: we needed to ensure that, with the same graphics settings, the DX11 engine is at least as fast as the DX9 engine, and that existing content is still compatible with the new engine, so all the content out there can still be fully enjoyed. We are quite sure we succeeded in both, and we extensively tested the new graphics engine with our community of beta testers. That said, we want to make sure that everybody is able to run this new build without a hitch, which is why we are making the initial release available as an “open beta.” Starting May 1st, anybody can switch to this new build and try it out. It is fully multiplayer compatible with the DX9 build. If for some reason you run into any problems with the new build, you can easily revert to the previous engine with just one click. We didn’t just stop at updating the graphics engine, though. While we’re at it, we also updated some of our existing content to DX11, so you can expect the first of a series of Studio 397 updates as well. And you’ll be happy to know, these updates don’t just concern the graphics: in some cases we also made changes to and upgraded the physics. The new graphics engine really lets our content shine. It provides so much improvement that we have decided to postpone releasing any new shaders. To whet your appetite, take a look at these new screenshots showing off the new engine and some of the camera post effects in action: Virtual Reality If you have been following us on Facebook, you’ve already enjoyed some teaser shots of our VR implementation. We have since added some features such as support for our HUD, including virtual mirrors, as well as a way to browse the UI in VR mode. Mouse control is enabled for the UI, although we are definitely considering adding other options for controlling the VR interface. User Interface We know you are eagerly awaiting the new user interface, and we share your impatience. However, because we want to give you the full experience of the new UI and all its capabilities, we feel it is not quite ready for prime time just yet. Although that means we will ship the first open beta release with our existing UI, it will be upgraded to the new UI once that’s ready for release. As we announced last month, we are now able to easily push updates, and we will use this ability to quickly release updates to the open beta in the upcoming weeks. Our goal is to ensure that we have a stable release for everybody, allowing us to begin phasing out the DX9 build altogether after a few months. In the meantime, our concern is to ensure that everybody has a fully functioning and compatible version of rFactor 2 to race with. Content Work on the Radical continues. With most of the graphics in place, our focus has now shifted to the physics and the sounds for this car. It’s not ready to be unveiled yet, but we can tease you with one of the other new cars that we have started working on soon! Watch our social media. Modding The modding community just recently gained access to an early DX11 build, and we released some guidelines for artists to work with the new rendering engine. Expect to see updates of third party content coming soon. In general, the new engine requires modders to make only minor changes. One area we are still working on concerns “plugins” that render directly to the screen. These plugins will not work properly in the first open beta. We are actively looking at improving our implementation of this functionality overall.

Il team Studio 397 ritorna ad aggiornarci anche a marzo sullo sviluppo in corso del suo rFactor 2. Gli sviluppatori ci raccontano dei miglioramenti apportati dall'utilizzo delle DirectX 11, l'implementazione del supporto alla VR, i nuovi menu di gioco ed il prossimo arrivo delle nuove vetture Radical. Spring is in the air and we’re pleased with our progress over the past few months. We have a lot to share with you. We decided to take the time to really bring together all of the newly developed elements – UI, VR, and DX11. Although this puts us slightly behind our targeted “end of Q1” release date, we promise you it will be worth the wait. In addition, we wanted to make sure that modders and leagues have enough time to update their content so it shines in the new engine. With all of this in mind, we’re targeting a release date of May 1st. DX11 Pipeline and Post FX Over the course of the last month we have spent a lot of time to further optimise the HDR rendering pipeline. We also started adding post processing effects. This is a bit of a balancing act between ensuring we stay compatible with existing content and adding various improvements to the graphical output. Work on shaders, the shadow system, and on various other effects is also under way. Working on the DX11 integration has allowed us to fix some things that were previously unaddressed or needed improvement. For example, we fixed an issue with stray coloured pixels in the distance, caused by MSAA artifacts. We also improved the way shadows are cast on the ground. Shadows now follow the normal maps of the materials, which means for example that the shadow on asphalt follows all the little bumps in the road. Our clouds are using much higher resolution textures, and we fine tuned ambient lighting in overcast conditions by adjusting both the color and intensity of the light. Last month we already showed you improvements, some of which were very subtle. This month, we have a few new screenshots that will show we’re on the right track! Virtual Reality is operational Great news! We are already driving in VR – seeing a virtual sun rise through the trees is an incredible experience! Our VR implementation is based on OpenVR. We chose OpenVR for its support of both headsets – the HTC Vive and the Oculus Rift – ensuring future compatibility. To complete the experience, we are integrating VR with the new UI and adjusting several other parts of the game, such as external cameras. User Interface The UI is really taking shape. The initial release will be functionally equivalent to the current user interface, but with some advanced features. Each month, features and functionality of the user interface will be improved. For example, the ability to create your own championships and easier ways to create your own hosted environments. Radical Content We can’t wait to announce some very, very cool content news soon, for both cars and tracks. As you know, our ambition is to streamline content, aligning cars and tracks. In the meantime, the Radical SR3 is coming along nicely. We have extensive technical data from Radical and are creating the most realistic version that has ever been produced. Modding We are very happy that many modding teams have already applied to join our special forum. We have already started to share information there about upgrading custom shaders. Over the next couple of weeks we will proceed with guidelines on materials and textures as well as provide early beta builds for you to check your work. These guides will be part of a new documentation that we will publish and maintain going forward. So, if you are working on new or existing mods for rFactor 2 and have not done so yet, contact Christopher and Marcel to join the dedicated DX11 forum. That wraps up another monthly roadmap update. We hope you are as excited as we are about what the future will bring!

Il team Studio 397 ha appena rilasciato per rFactor 2 il nuovo e spettacolare tracciato di Nola Motorsports Park ! Il circuito, che è la prima realizzazione fatta da zero proprio dal team Studio 397, è disponibile in 5 varianti diverse come autodromo ed anche in 5 differenti layout come pista di karting, come potete vedere dalle varie piantine qui sotto. Il circuito è molto noto negli Stati Uniti, visto che ci si disputa il Grand Prix of Louisiana valevole per il campionato Indycar. Anche rFactor 2 è stato aggiornato tramite Steam. NOLA Motorsports Park is a road race track in Avondale, Louisiana, approximately twenty minutes from downtown New Orleans. The kart circuit and North Track circuits opened in Q4 2011. Future plans include completion of a South Track. When linked with the North Track will form a five-mile course, making it the longest race track in North America. NOLA Motorsports Park was designed by Alan Wilson, whose other designs include Miller Motorsports Park and Barber Motorsports Park. In addition to the two international standard race tracks, the facility also features three karting tracks, full service seven acre kart center, paddock, on-site speed shop, clubhouse, eight acre autocross pad, single lane dragstrip and luxury villas for residents. The park has also been designed with forward thinking electronic systems including over 100 miles of fiber optics and the latest timing and scoring equipment to allow for accurate timing. Introducing NOLA Motorsports Park! We’re incredibly excited to release this next track – it’s the first to be released under the Studio 397 banner! NOLA Motorsports Park, an entirely scratch built track, who’s development was greatly enhanced by the very close participation of the track’s representatives, in particular Scott Touchton. This cooperation and open access to the track itself helped the ‘track team’ to create a highly accurate and realistic sim version of the real life track. As usual the ‘track team’ has gone to great lengths to bring NOLA to life in rFactor 2, and we think the results speak for themselves. Like with any new track, you can download it from the workshop here! Getting to know NOLA Motorsports Park Don’t let the laid back southern charm fool you, with its bucolic and peaceful surroundings, vast expanses of green grass, and lush trees that line the outer perimeter – NOLA hides intriguing surprises in its subtle cambers and gently flowing fast corners. Once you start to drive it, you’ll realize NOLA makes you work hard to knock off those elusive tenths and even hundredths of a second! The perpetual challenge to master the track and achieve a fast flow is addictive – which means the more you lay down laps, the more you want to keep driving. Taunting you in almost every turn, Nola’s smooth curbs can be your best friend or your worst enemy! NOLA also comes with a sidekick, a Karting facility that offers the same level of excitement as the road courses in a smaller package. But again, don’t be fooled by its size – it’s a real ‘arms aching’ workout to conquer. Each of NOLA’s Karting layouts is a complex labyrinth of fast changing turns that rewards consistency, heavy trail braking, and precise and sometimes risky maneuvers. Mastering a section by turning in at just the right time and blasting through multiple turns on full throttle is exhilarating once you can flawlessly pull it off without landing on the grass. The Road Courses NOLA Motorsports Park has five uniquely challenging road course layouts, each with it’s own particular twist and sometimes subtle, sometimes important differences. What all layouts do have in common are the last series of turns. In these last three turns you need to be extremely conscious of your brake and throttle inputs as you try and ease in. Self control on throttle and smooth light braking are key to finding an ideal entry line into the very crucial last turn. This last right hand turn, just before the main straight, requires repetition and patience to nail it – just when you think you can go full throttle, its deceptive camber changes on exit it will catch you off guard if you get overconfident too soon! Layout Indy The Indy layout is NOLA’s highlight. Its super high speed chicane through turns 8 and 9 means your choice of entry is crucial to sustain full throttle and carry maximum speed all through the back straight. As with any track layout, it’s the sum of its parts that make up a fast lap. That’s especially true for Indy’s unforgiving temporary curbs in turn 1 and turn 6. They demand respect. Go in too deep on entry and catch a tire, best-case scenario you lose some precious tenths, worst-case you flip up on two wheels or lose control and smash into your opponent! Layout A On the surface, layout A looks similar to Indy, but there are some key differences. In layout A the high speed esses replace the back straight and require consistent slowing, throttle inputs and weight transfer to ease the car through. Layout A also does without the temporary curbs in turn 1 and turn 7, which means it’s a little less technical and more forgiving. Layout B Layout B is the shortest layout, and it’s perfect for running slower cars with good traction, like the Skip Barber, Megane and Clio, and even the USF 2000. Turns 2, 3 and 4 make up a flowing mid speed section before going into the long esses. It’s a perfect place for daring outside overtaking! Layout C Layout C is fast! The combination of the longest front straight, and therefore highest top speed, with the generous width and run off in turn 1 makes for an exciting high speed overtaking opportunity. The combinations of straight line speeds and fast ‘almost’ full throttle esses are a great match for vintage open wheel and prototypes – but of course not limited to! Layout D Layout D, after Layout C, has the second longest front straight, but unlike C, it’s followed by a very very sharp right hand cut back into turn 1. This requires precise braking and precisely judged entry speed! The mid sector of Layout D, following turn 1, is very technical – comprised of a series of deceptive turns that are extremely easy to misjudge and overcook. The Karting Facility NOLA Motorsports Park also boasts five fun and exciting karting layouts! Each layout is a technical, fast paced track in it’s own right that demands patience and perseverance to master. Once you do find that groove, the satisfaction comes when you bounce off curbs just right to for turn in, control drifts through high speed sectors, and delicately balance weight transfers to keep up that momentum! Layout A Karting A is a great blend of slow and fast turns. The rush of pushing harder and harder and eventually mashing full throttle through turns 4 to 7 and then slowing just as you roar into turn 8 is a thrill! Layout B Karting B is the shortest layout, but it still requires feather touch maneuvering through the slow speed zig-zagging mid sector of turns 4 to 7. Here, finding a consistent rhythm using weight transfer is key. Get greedy, take too much of inside curbs, and you’re heading for a spin. Hit the curbs just right, and you’ll float through and keep momentum. Layout C Karting C has a long straight and therefore high speed entry into the turn 1 chicane, here it requires abrupt and precisely timed off throttle turn in to avoid taking too much curb and flying off! The mid sector is equally challenging. In turns 7 to 10 it’s vital to carry just the right amount of speed to keep an even flow and escape the dreaded ‘bog down’. Layout D Karting D is much like B, but there’s a twist! It mixes the technical slow mid sector of layout B with the long fast front straight of layout C. Layout E Karting E is the longest layout, with its long front straight into turn 1 ending in a slow right hand cutback. Turn 1 is a honey trap for the overconfident – here it’s all about ‘slow to be fast’! Karting E is mostly mid and high speed turns. By using as little braking as possible, opting for ‘off throttle’ to slow in, and throwing the kart into slight drifts, you’ll see seconds start to drop off! The massive back straight of E ends abruptly. Here, your choice of entry line in the final chicane determines the speed you’ll inherit into the last right hander and the long front straight – this is where you lose or gain a big advantage!

L'attivissimo Studio 397, che vi ricordiamo ha rilevato dagli ISI lo sviluppo di rFactor 2, ha pubblicato sul blog ufficiale un nuovo Roadmap Update del mese di Febbraio, per aggiornare gli appassionati sullo sviluppo del software, su cosa si sta lavorando al momento e cosa aspettarsi nell'immediato futuro. Il menu proposto è decisamente ricco, visto che si parla di VR, grafica in DirectX 11, una nuova struttura per le competizioni, menu UI, il circuito di NOLA, comunicazioni Radio e persino un interessante invito ai modders... Fate riferimento al forum per discussioni e commenti. We have a lot of exciting news in this month’s update as we edge closer to our release at the end of Q1. The team is working very hard in all areas and we’re thrilled to share some of the recent developments with you. Updates include new DX11 screenshots, a release date for NOLA Motorsports Park, an update on VR, our UI, competition support, radio communication and an offer to help modders upgrade their content to DX11. We have a lot of exciting news in this month’s update as we edge closer to our release at the end of Q1. The team is working very hard in all areas and we’re thrilled to share some of the recent developments with you. VR Update With DX11 implementation complete, we are now in our first development stage for VR. Our initial focus is the in-car driver experience with both the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive. The second development stage will delve deeper into the environmental capabilities of the VR experience, which we will share over the next couple of months. DX11 Content Peek Last month we shared with you our first comparison shots for DX11. In the last couple of weeks we’ve focused on ensuring compatibility with existing content as well as further improvements to the way we render our HDR output. We’ll let the new screenshots speak for themselves. Competition Update Development of the competition infrastructure is going well and is on track to be released this summer. Drivers and teams will be able to record their stats, achievements and results, which then can be accessed through any device and shared with friends. Competitions will feature selected existing content and new content. Details will be announced in the coming months. Our main focus is to create feature rich mechanics that provide a challenge for new drivers and seasoned sim racing veterans alike. UI Update We are super excited about our new user interface, which is currently under development. The new UI not only provides a more intuitive and user-friendly experience, it also offers improved flexibility and the ability to add new elements and modules. NOLA Motorsports Park Whether you choose to race a kart, open wheeler, or tintop, the large variety of configurations makes NOLA a very versatile and challenging track to master. NOLA Motorsports Park will be released on February 28th! Radio Communication Most racing series use radio communication to let drivers talk to their team and pit crew. Some series also have race control broadcasting instructions. For example, oval racing series such as Stock Car typically also have spotters that keep an eye on what’s happening to keep you out of trouble. We are working on expanding our current system, which is centered on the spotter’s role, into a system that allows different people to talk to you on the radio. In addition, we intend to make the communication more interactive by giving you the ability to ask for information or instructions. Modding We’re excited to invite modding teams to join our private forum. We are looking to work with those of you in the modding community to explain the necessary steps that ensure your content continues to work flawlessly with the new DX11 engine. Modders joining our forum will also get access to pre-release builds of the DX11 graphics engine (still in alpha). Our goal is to ensure that your content is ready to go when we do the first public release of the new engine. If your modding team is interested, please register on our forum and start a conversation with Christopher and Marcel, stating: Your modding team name and all the names and forum names of members that need access. A list of mods you have released for rFactor 2 (either links to the workshop, or some other reference). Any other interesting information about your team such as mods you are still working on. That wraps up this roadmap update. We are looking forward to the coming month of development so we can continue to share with you our progress on the new innovative elements planned over the next few months!

Il team Studio 397 ha appena rilasciato per il suo rFactor 2 il nuovo aggiornamento update 2 dedicato alla recente Buil 1108. L'update, oltre a correggere qualche bugs, apporta varie migliorie al sonoro, alla grafica, alla fisica ed anche al codice del simulatore. Oltre alla build aggiornata, è stata rilasciata anche la nuova versione 1.2 dell'affascinante Nissan GT500 che vede te nelle immagini qui sotto. And we’re back, as promised, with an updated Nissan GT500 – there’s a worthy set of improvements and upgrades to get excited about! On the physics side, we’ve added a new set of tyres, including a full range of compounds for added strategy and increased competitiveness. The previous dry compound is now split into three types – soft, medium, and hard. We’ve also added an intermediate compound for light wet conditions. The all-new audio for the GT500 is a complete overhaul. We’ve replaced all sounds to give a deeper range and a more raw and resonant feel. Full credits for this go to Rick Schoenmaker, who did an awesome job! On the graphics side, we’ve made some considerable improvements and added features, including improved car body reflections, backfire effects, headlight lens flare, and more. We’ve had community feedback from many different people here, and we would like to mention Ales Ogrinc for generously contributing several 3D objects for inclusion in the update. Accompanying this update is a new build: 1108 update 2. Like update 1 we released on December 28th, 2016, this build is fully backward compatible, which means there is no need to update your dedicated server. With this new build we introduce a new system to distribute templates with our cars. As soon as you upgrade to the new build, whenever you start the Launcher, it will install templates into a folder called “Templates” in your rFactor 2 main folder. Do not edit those files in place though, as they will be overwritten on updates of the car. Make a copy before you start designing your own livery. The new version of the Nissan can be found in the workshop, and you will automatically be updated if you are subscribed to it. Check out the full change log below: Sounds Added a completely new pack of sounds that should be a lot closer to the way the original car sounded. Graphics Added additional tyre compounds, the car now has soft, medium, hard, intermediates and full wet compounds. Added additional rim types to reflect the ones used by the different teams. Added fluorescent shader for digits on the dashboard. Added backfire graphics. Fixed a gap between the driver helmet and the body. Fixed tyres going through the fenders when under load. Updated body 3D shape, adding a missing floor, correcting the front fender shape and some smaller tweaks. Updated icons. Improved cockpit textures on the fans, door handles and several other small details. Improved body reflections. Improved level of detail (LOD) models. Improved exhaust model and textures. Improved windows in cockpit view and added the missing side windows. Improved liveries. Improved headlights, now with lens flares. Physics Added new tyre compounds to match those added to the graphics. Updated a few garage settings. Slightly tweaked the AI physics. Code (Build 1108 update 2) Added code that allows car modellers to tweak the body roll for AI physics to ensure tyres don’t go through fenders graphically. Introduced a simple mechanism for distributing templates with cars (which will end up in a “Templates” folder until the new UI is released). Fixed a problem where the launcher accidentally URL encoded passwords, making it impossible to join servers with certain characters in the password.

Ricordiamo a tutti gli utenti di rFactor 2 che oggi, 31 gennaio, è l'ultimo giorno utile per passare alla versione Steam del simulatore made in Studio 397, senza alcun costo aggiuntivo. A partire da domani infatti la release Steam del gioco sarà l'unica supportata ufficialmente dai suoi sviluppatori e di conseguenza aggiornata. Trovate a questo link una utilissima guida su come procedere per il passaggio alla versione digitale. Per commenti e domande fate riferimento al forum dedicato.

Il team Studio 397 ha appena rilasciato un primo update 1 per l'ultima build 1108 del suo rFactor 2. L'aggiornamento si preoccupa di correggere alcuni bugs segnalati dagli utenti, dettagliati a questo link del forum. After releasing build 1108 about a week ago, we got a lot of good feedback from the community and also some bug reports. As always, we very much appreciate your input, even though we cannot always respond to every report individually. We previously explained that we spent some time optimizing our development process, so it should come as no surprise that we’re releasing this update now. This is not the last bugfix we will do, but it is probably the last one we’ll do this year. So from Studio 397, we wish you all a happy new year! The Steam BuildID for this update is 1543400, and you can check your BuildID by opening the Steam Client, going into the library, then right click on rFactor 2 to open the context menu. From there, choose “Properties” and in the window that opens select the tab called “Local Files”. The “Current content BuildID” is mentioned there. Changes Added an empty “Packages” folder to the dedicated server and to rFactor 2 itself. Both distributions were missing this folder, which caused some confusion. Fixed an issue with nonexistent workshop items. If you were subscribed to a workshop item that was subsequently removed or made invisible to you, Steam would continue to report you as “subscribed” to that item. Because the item no longer exists, it would, however, cause our Launcher to hang whilst waiting for it to download, which could never happen, of course. We’ve made the code more robust and tried to detect all such cases, so you should no longer experience this issue.

Il team Studio 397 ha rilasciato la nuova Build 1108 di rFactor 2, la prima ad essere disponibile esclusivamente tramite Steam (ad un prezzo minore: 29,99€), con il passaggio scontato alla piattaforma digitale prolungato fino al 31 gennaio 2017. Proprio Steam ci offre da subito un supporto migliore per il gioco in modalità offline e la correzione di un bug sui driver di alcune schede video Nvidia. L'acquisto annuale di rFactor 2 viene eliminato, perchè si vuole spingere gli appassionati ad utilizzare di più la modalità online, che è stata aggiunta nella versione gratuita del gioco. Finally, it’s time for the first Studio 397 release of rFactor 2! It’s been a few months since the last build was released, so we thought we’d take the opportunity to give you an update on what the team has been busy working on. After taking over development, our first order of business was optimizing and automating the entire build process and setting up a new internal bug tracking system – two improvements that will help speed up public releases of fixes and features. We brought new members into our team to move the project forward in terms of graphics, user interface, infrastructure, content and overall optimizations, which you will start to see in the first quarter of 2017 and beyond. For this first release our focus was on fixing bigger issues such as video driver crashes, optimizing and fixing elements of the workshop and starting work on improving the stock car and oval experience. We have invested a considerable amount of time in developing and testing stock car, specifically stock car rules, since the last public release. With the help of a dedicated group of stock car league admins and stock car specialists on our test team, we identified some of the crucial issues that need to be addressed. We continually seek to improve our stock car and oval experience. For this first release of several upcoming changes we focused on sorting issues under caution and adding more flexible options for server admins. We’ve also taken a close look at oval behaviour optimizations of the AI in single player, especially (but not exclusively) for short ovals. Studio 397 prosegue comunque lo sviluppo di rFactor 2 con l'attesa grafica DirectX 11 e una nuova interfaccia utente, più semplice, più accattivante e più adatta all’uso con i visori VR. Prosegue anche il lavoro sulle nuove licenze, con la Radical quasi completa ed il nuovo accordo con la General Motors per riprodurre la Corvette C7R del 2016. Si lavora anche sulle piste, a cominciare da Nola Motorsport e sulla modalità multiplayer del gioco. Release of Build 1108 Introduction Finally, it’s time for the first Studio 397 release of rFactor 2! It’s been a few months since the last build was released, so we thought we’d take the opportunity to give you an update on what the team has been busy working on. After taking over development, our first order of business was optimizing and automating the entire build process and setting up a new internal bug tracking system – two improvements that will help speed up public releases of fixes and features. We brought new members into our team to move the project forward in terms of graphics, user interface, infrastructure, content and overall optimizations, which you will start to see in the first quarter of 2017 and beyond. For this first release our focus was on fixing bigger issues such as video driver crashes, optimizing and fixing elements of the workshop and starting work on improving the stock car and oval experience. We have invested a considerable amount of time in developing and testing stock car, specifically stock car rules, since the last public release. With the help of a dedicated group of stock car league admins and stock car specialists on our test team, we identified some of the crucial issues that need to be addressed. We continually seek to improve our stock car and oval experience. For this first release of several upcoming changes we focused on sorting issues under caution and adding more flexible options for server admins. We’ve also taken a close look at oval behaviour optimizations of the AI in single player, especially (but not exclusively) for short ovals. Stock Car The safety car is now set to ‘non-collidable’ by default – testing has shown this can help avoid certain oval-related caution situations in which the safety car has trouble weaving its way to the front of the field. The value can be set to ‘collidable’ in the player.JSON file by editing the following values: "Safety Car Collidable": true. After this update, we recommend server admins backup and remove player.json and multiplayer.json, so that new ones are generated containing all new options and defaults. Several minor adjustments and tweaks to help optimize scoring. Further improvements to the track order of cars leaving the pits under caution. Fixed a bookkeeping error under caution with one lap until restart. Changed AI behaviour to prevent pitting on the last lap of a caution. This helps to avoid messy and disorderly restarts and it makes the AI look a bit smarter too. Better awareness of what to do under caution. Added an extra message to the Low Speed Information pop up: “Please pass the safety car.” This should help you be more aware of where you are with respect to the safety car under a full course caution and should improve sorting overall as drivers no longer have to guess whether to pass the safety car. Changed pit exit behaviour to allow cars to be placed in a large gap rather than behind the whole field, which might be nearly a full track length behind the car exiting on some of the smaller ovals. Fixed pit behaviour: A car entering the pit lane after a race resumes from a caution will no longer be able to continuously lap the field during the next caution. Fixed a possible scoring mix-up when a full course caution was called while the race leader was in the pits. Fixed a bug in which cars starting late from the garage area (those that did not press the Race button in time), after the field had gone ahead, were sometimes wrongly scored at race start. Cars starting late from the garage area now have to wait for the entire field to pass the pit-exit line to be able to join the race and go on track. Added a new single player feature "AI Formation by Position" that when set to “true” in the player.json attempts to line up the AI during yellow flag/formation laps according to your position behind the pace car instead of relative to surrounding cars. This seems to work better on short ovals, whereas the old (default) way might still work better for road courses. Added new options for configuring an oval server, which can be found in the CustomPluginsVariables.json: Added two types of double file which can be configured by editing the value "DoubleFileType" where “0” is off (or single file), “1” will ignore lapped and pitted distinctions, and “2” (the default) is standard double file. Wave-arounds can now be set to on or off for more flexibility by editing the following value: "WaveArounds" “0” is off, “1” is on. Added the ability to configure number of caution laps by editing the following value: "YellowLapsMinimum" Added the ability to configure random number of caution laps editing the following value: "YellowLapsRandom" AI Fixed AI behaviour to prevent them from taking off immediately after what should be their pit stop following their final qualifying lap, which would get them disqualified. Fixed AI behaviour to prevent AI from getting disqualified during qualifying on certain tracks where it is difficult to pit immediately after completing n-1 laps. Physics Temperature and load of the tyre contact patch. Added a new TGM display. While driving, it was possible to pull up a graph showing the contact patch for each tyre that showed the temperature of the tyre at that point of the contact patch (ALT =). The second display now shows the tyre load. Changed TTool filename. TTool, a tool that is used to generate tyres for cars, used to output a file named “QSA” when you ran a real-time batch test. That filename has now been corrected to “realtime”. Fixed an issue where camber angles for tyres reported as zero in real-time telemetry instead of their real angle. Also, this now allows plugins to see the correct angles. Driver Swaps Fixed occasional crash when a wheel gets reattached/repaired during a pit stop at the same time as a driver swap. Graphics Fixed the multiview gizmo that allows you to enter your triple screen configuration. It now saves and remembers asymmetrical monitor configuration parameters. Fixed sporadic nVidia driver crash on certain tracks. The fix, which is only needed if you were experiencing driver crashes and restarts, can be activated by changing the value WorkaroundFlags=1 in the Config.ini with a text editor. Please make sure to delete your shader cache manually (the files in UserData\Log\Shaders) when making this change. Removed the option to disable HDR. Dedicated Server Changed the logic so that the dedicated server properly moves on to the next track in all cases regardless of which sessions are active. User Interface/Launcher Engine mixture settings are part of the setup. Added an Engine Mixture setting to garage so it can be saved as part of a car setup. Updated Launcher icons. Added new user interface background image and splash screen. Fixed Launcher to work correctly in Steam’s offline mode. It will no longer hang while attempting to download pending workshop items in this mode. Updated French language dictionary. Additional Changes We’ve made racing online free for every user of rFactor 2. Fixed results file when VehFile uses escape characters. Removed DRS enabled/disabled messages for tracks without DRS zones. Added +skipmonitor as a command line option, which lets you enter from and exit a race directly to the main menu

Lo Studio397 ha appena pubblicato un nuovo roadmap per aggiornarci sullo sviluppo del suo rFactor 2. La prima notizia interessante è che martedi 20 dicembre sarà rilasciata la nuova build 1108 del simulatore ex ISI, che sarà disponibile esclusivamente tramite Steam (l'offerta per trasferire il software su Steam è prorogata fino al 31 gennaio). La nuova release porta con sè alcune novità interessanti, spiegate qui di seguito in dettaglio, mentre il team è già in beta testing con la nuova grafica in DirectX 11... On Tuesday, December 20th, we will release build 1108. This is our first Steam-only release, and we would like to remind you of our offer to migrate to Steam for free, which will be extended until January 31st, 2017. To reiterate where we are, we are making really good progress with a new development team coupled with a new vision. As long time sim racers, we understand the need for a strong platform with great content, physics and visuals as well as competition, both online and offline. A detailed changelog will be posted alongside the actual release, but some of the highlights of this build include a huge update to our Stock Car rules, better support for running Steam in offline mode – which can be very useful in LAN situations and a fix for the nVidia driver bug that has been plaguing some users of certain series of nVidia cards. Good news! We’re ahead of our DX11 development schedule and are internally testing the first builds now. There is still a lot to do in terms of adding new features such as depth of field and motion blur effects on external cameras as well as overall improvements such as the shadow system. Needless to say, the results so far are looking good. We are really excited about the capability we have already and where it’s going. Our goal to keep the engine backward compatible seems achievable, and in the upcoming months we will start engaging the modding community providing information on the improved engine and how best to utilise it. As we’ve announced last month, we are completely revamping the user interface of rFactor 2 to make it easier to use, nicer to look at and ready for VR. We’re leveraging modern web technology and are currently in the middle of the design phase. To give you a first impression, we’ve added a screenshot of a WIP car selection screen. Concerning content, we are very excited with the direction we are headed, certainly in the way plan to match cars and tracks. We will start to develop this approach over the next few months. We have a number of car developments underway. With our current focus on the Radical, we are adding the finishing touches to the 3D model right now while we wait for some additional data to complete the physics model. More great news! We have just signed a license with General Motors for the 2016 model of the Corvette C7.R. Development of the model ans physics will start early next year. The 2016 model has significant aerodynamic improvements with a new, larger splitter and a large diffuser to generate more downforce. The car is the weapon of choice for Corvette Racing in their 2017 IMSA campaign as well as their effort to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans. As an added bonus, this car will also contribute to improving car physics overall. In terms of tracks, we’ve already shown you previews of NOLA Motorsports Park in earlier updates, and we’re now in the final stages of development. The track will feature 5 different road course layouts and 5 different karting layouts, and we’re currently placing track side objects, such as grand stands, trees and a ferris wheel and are working on AI paths. It’s looking good for release early next year. Now let’s talk about online. Since the release of rFactor 2 the pricing consisted of a one time payment and an online subscription, with the option of buying a lifetime version of that subscription. Over the years we have received a lot of questions about charging extra for online access, and what people were getting for this in return. We understand that online racing is key to the future of the platform. As online racers ourselves, we have decided to provide online access for everybody with the Steam version for free – simplifying the pricing model and encouraging everybody to race online. Steam will take care of automated updates. We recognise that some of you have made this purchase over the past few months, and it was a difficult decision. However, we’re positive that you’ll agree we’ve made the right decision for the future of the platform. With the Steam Winter Sale approaching what better way for you to relax and driver rFactor 2. Look out for an exclusive offer for the holiday period! That’s all for our last monthly update of 2016. Happy Simracing and have a great holiday. We hope to see you all in the new year!