It’s June. The month of the biggest endurance race of the year, the 24 hours of Le Mans. It’s also the month where iRacing release they season 3 build. The temperatures are rising outside, but with this great new build you can avoid the heat and sunburn.
New content
It has been 6 month since the release of rallycross to iRacing. Initially this was in cooperation with Red Bull Global Rally Cross, but earlier this year they cease operations in real life. The effect is now also visible in iRacing, with the introduction of the new iRacing Rallycross series (iRX). This is basically a name change for the members and this doesn’t mean the development of rallycross will be lowered. On the contrary, the rallycross line-up will be expanded with the introduction of the Subaru WRX STI.
On the asphalt road racing side there are two new pieces of content. One car and one circuit. Let’s start with the car. This car is currently one of the fan favorites among endurance sports car fans, with its loud engine noise and a great addition to the current GTE car line-up. Obviously it is the Porsche 911 RSR.
The circuit that will be available is Belle Isle, known from Indycar and the IMSA Sports Car Series. This 3.78 km (2.35 mi) circuit located at Detroit (Michigan) and it’s a challenging track, with its fast corners and bumps. This circuit is so bumpy, even a GM manager is not able to control the pace car on the pace lap.
Full change log:
New Download Option
- We have setup a new Content Delivery Network (CDN) option for users to use when downloading updates. For this build we have randomly assigned 10% of users (per country) who have logged in over the last month to use the new CDN.
- If you would like to test this out, you can manually opt-in by selecting this option in the “My Account” section of the Membersite with the following steps:
- Log in to the Membersite.
- Select “My Account” from the Account menu.
- Choose CloudFront in the drop down next to Choose A Content Delivery Network in the Preferences section.
- Click Save.
- If you would like to test this out, you can manually opt-in by selecting this option in the “My Account” section of the Membersite with the following steps:
- If you encounter any issues while updating, and restarting the Updater does not resolve the issue, you can switch back to what you are presently using by following the steps above and selecting “Default”, “International”, or “North America”.
- Currently, all three options point to the same provider.
- Please report any issues encountered, particularly speed related, in the following thread: http://members.iracing.com/jforum/posts/list/3606870.page
iRacing BETA Interface
GENERAL:
- Improved consistency of listing cars for sessions so that all events will display vehicle lists the same way.
- Stability enhancements have been made to the Paint Kit pages.
- Fixed some bugs where registering for a Session could inadvertently put you in the wrong car class.
- Fixed an issue where the Nürburgring Combined track was not showing up in some content lists.
MY PROFILE:
- Spotter settings can now be managed though the “Profile & Licenses” upper-left section of the iRacing BETA Interface.
HOSTED:
- You may now create Hosted Sessions using pre-defined car classes! Use the “Enable Car Classes” option when creating a Hosted Session.
- When creating a Hosted Session, some user-friendly reminders will now be displayed if your account funds are a bit low.
- You may no longer schedule a Hosted Session in the future if you do not have the funds for it at time of scheduling.
- Stability enhancements have been made to the Host a Race process.
- Fixed an issue where metric and imperial weights were not being displayed correctly when toggled in Hosted Races.
TIME ATTACK:
- Enhanced the Time Attack Results content to make finding your specific position easier, relative to others.
- Performance enhancements have been made to the Time Attack section of the interface.
OTHER:
- Terms and Conditions of using the site can now be viewed in the “Help” section of the main sidebar menu.
- Fixed some issues with word pluralization.
Membership
When signing up for a new membership, users should no longer be prompted for their phone number or birthday.
Connection Quality
The communications meters section of the Frame Rate display (the L/Q/S meters) include the Skew in simulation-time between the simulation and the race server (by default, you press the F key to toggle this display on/off while on the Replay screen, or while in the car). While it is not unusual for the S meter to flicker a little, when it becomes large, and particularly when it grows then resets repeatedly, this is a bad condition. All the other cars on track will disappear for you, and your car will disappear for everyone else.
- This particular behavior is almost always because your computer is not able to keep up with all the calculations required to stay in sync with the race server. There is an additional meter that can be added to that display that would help identify this condition – the CPU meter (labeled C). You can cause this C meter (along with two graphics-related meters labeled R and G) to be displayed by editing your My Documents\iRacing\app.ini file, and changing the “CPUMeter=0” setting to the value 1.
- To help identify this situation, without needing to hand-edit a configuration file, the simulation will now automatically show the CPU meter when this condition arises, and also blink the C (CPU) and S (Skew) labels for the meters. A few seconds after the condition clears, the C and S labels will stop blinking, and if the CPU meter was automatically added to the display, it will be removed.
- If this condition is indicated to you, the simplest way to reduce the amount of work the simulation needs to do is to go to the in-sim Option/Graphics page, and in the left column reduce the “Max Cars” setting. By how much will depend on your computer. The minimum allowed value is 10. This setting tells the race server the maximum number of opponent cars for which it should send you their position information. By sending your computer the position information for a smaller number of cars, the simulation will not have to move them around, store them into the replay, generate sounds for them, etc., thus reducing the load. Contact support@iracing.com via email for additional suggestions to help reduce the simulation’s computational load on your computer.
Race Control
Measurements are now better defined to support pit exit penalty checks.
- Pit exit policy is that a car must keep all tires inside of the apron’s painted line to avoid getting pit exit penalties.
Dynamic Track
The reported track temperature will now be dynamically updated throughout a session.
Driving Aids
A new driving aid has been added: Pit Exit Line.
- This driving aid is enabled by default, and appears similar to Driving Line. The aid will show the line to drive to exit a pit lane if that pit lane has a specific exit that must be followed in order to avoid an unsafe merge black flag. The line for Pit Exit Line appears on the track in blue, and it only appears when you are in a pit lane, or exiting a pit lane. It will disappear once you’ve cleared the merge point.
- Pit Exit Line will only appear for Oval track configurations. This feature will be added for road courses next season.
Custom Heat Racing
Custom Heat formats are now available in the “Create A Race” screen though the iRacing BETA Interface.
- This feature allows you to control and manage every session of the event, including Practice, Qualifying, Heats, Consolations, and of course, the Feature Race!
- You can now create a custom heat configuration either from scratch, or by using an existing iRacing configuration as a base format.
- A visual breakdown of the sessions and how they progress is displayed for the user to easily see total entrants in each session as well as the number of entrants advancing to the Feature Race.
- Formats can also be previewed on the “Set Race Options” screen by hitting “Preview Format” Custom formats will be saved to the user’s account and will be available for use in Hosted Sessions the user creates.
There are currently a few known issues (that we are working on fixing presently) with this brand new feature that we would like to make everyone aware of:
- Currently, the Track Usage state does NOT carryover between each Session. The Track Usage state will reset at the start of each Session type.
- When creating a Custom Heat Race, you must enter a Description in order to save the Custom Heat Race.
- Please let us know what you think of this brand new feature, and if some aspect could be improved in this forum thread: http://members.iracing.com/jforum/posts/list/3607027.page
Time Attack & Time Trial
For Time Attack or Time Trial events, the car will now start much closer to the end of a lap, to make for a much quicker start to the first timed lap. This is only if the track configuration makes sense for this to happen.
Dirt
When dirt is thrown, some water loss will now occur as it flies through the air, making the dirt drier where it lands.
Water will now evaporate a bit quicker from a surface covered in loose dirt.
Visual Effects
Adjustments have been made to skid parameters to make them more accurate based on the surface type, and the parameters of the surface type, such as wetness.
Updated grass particle effects for skids.
A new off-track grass particle effect has been added.
Updated the appearance of smoke puffs.
Tire Marks
Tire-specific tire marks will now be created by tires on soft surfaces, instead of all tires generating an identical tire mark. This includes details like tread pattern and tire width.
- Tire marks will adjust their appearance based on surface factors, such as the water content, material of the surface, and time of day.
Bloom
Bloom is now available as a graphics option for iRacing!
- Bloom is a feathered lighting effect that can be seen around the edges of bright lights to make them appear more realistic in the simulation.
- Bloom may be enabled and disabled via a Graphics Option switch.
- When enabled, you will see bloom effects for all light sources, including vehicle headlights, taillights, track caution lights, and track lighting.
Shadows
Track walls and track-side objects (TSOs) can now self-shadow, and cast shadows on other walls and TSOs.
- This new setting, “AllowTSOSelfShadows” has been added to the [Graphics Options] section of the “rendererDX11.ini” file, which may be used to enable or disable the new self-shadowing of some TSOs when shadow mapping is also properly enabled. By default it is enabled automatically after the first launch of the SIM if the shader level is set to “High” and the video memory slider is set to “1500MB” or greater, but this may be edited manually. When enabled, this setting will cause the Simulator to use a little extra video memory and may reduce the frame rate slightly in some spots.
Trees
Many trees throughout the landscape of iRacing will now sway in the wind.
- The amount and direction of this movement is driven by the wind speed and direction.
Tree sway will be disabled when using “Medium” shader quality or lower.
Audio
Fixed an issue that could cause vehicle scrape sounds to transfer from one car to another.
Pit Crew
The pit crew will no longer be visible for non-driver teammates.
Paint Kit
Two new sponsors have been added to the Paint Kit.
Telemetry
A pair of new settings have been added to the “app.ini” file under the [Misc] section that provide the ability to permanently turn telemetry off while in the Simulation.
- irsdkEnableMem=0 This disables memory-based telemetry, and will disable the Logitech ARX telemetry tool.
- irsdkEnableDisk=0 This disables disk-based telemetry.
New variables have been added to Telemetry, including:
- ManualBoost – Hybrid manual boost state.
- ManualNoBoost – Hybrid manual no boost state.
- PlayerCarTowTime – Players car is being towed if time is greater than zero.
- This variable has replaced “PlayerCarIsTowing” from a previous change.
- dcMGUKDeployOptSpeed – In car MGU-K optimized deployment speed adjustment.
- dcFuelCutPosition – In car adv end straight fuel cut.
- dcHeadlightFlash – In car headlight flash control active.
A new variable, “PlayerCarIsTowing” has been added to the iRacing API. This variable indicates true if your car is currently being towed.
Peripherals
The latest Fanatec API has been added to support wheel displays.
ForceFeedback effects will now stop resetting at Sim startup to work around incompatibility with Vive Pro devices. If you have a DD wheel and start having issues with a crash in pid.dll then try re-enabling this option in the “app.ini” file under the [Force Feedback] category: forceResetBeforeStartup=1
Easy AntiCheat
An updated version of the EasyAntiCheat SDK has been incorporated.
Cars
BMW Z4 GT3
Minor adjustments to damage parameters and brakes.
Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS
Fixed an issue where shift lights were not working properly.
This vehicle has been fully converted to use PBR shaders.
Dallara IR18
Airflow has been increased with qualifying radiator blanking.
Fixed an issue where shift lights were not working properly.
Fixed an issue with flaps on opponent cars at Iowa Speedway.
Dirt Late Model
(ALL) – Contingency decals have been updated for the 2018 season.
Dirt Sprint Car
(ALL) – Contingency decals have been updated for the 2018 season.
Ferrari 488 GTE
2018 Season 3 BoP adjustments: Aero adjustments.
Headlight color has been changed from yellow to clear to meet 2018 regulations.
Ford GT – 2017
2018 Season 3 BoP adjustments: Aero adjustments.
Headlight color has been changed from yellow to clear to meet 2018 regulations.
Ford Mustang FR500S
Adjusted the bump map texture for this vehicle.
Formula Renault 2.0
Minor adjustments to damage parameters and brakes.
Global Mazda MX-5 Cup
The digital display for this vehicle is no longer backlit during day races.
Windshield reflections have been adjusted.
Improved tire and engine sounds.
Indycar Dallara circa 2011
The nose cone and front wings are now a single piece when detached.
Season setups have been updated.
Legends Ford ’34 Coupe
Season setups have been updated.
Mazda MX-5
(ALL) – Improved tire and engine sounds.
McLaren MP4-30
Fixed an issue with the display of the shift lamps.
Modified – SK
This car’s vehicle dynamics specs have been updated.
- Changes include: adjustments to suspension, and adjustments to mass positions and front spring range.
Camber limits have been added.
Suspension cameras adjusted.
This vehicle has been fully converted to use PBR shaders.
This vehicle’s wheels can now change color when using the Paint Kit.
Slowed pit crew tire changes down.
Season setups have been updated.
NASCAR Camping World Chevrolet Silverado and Toyota Tundra
Low camber gain suspension geometry.
NASCAR K&N Pro Chevrolet Impala
Weight has been reduced to match the latest rules.
NASCAR Monster Energy Cup Chevrolet SS, Ford Fusion, and Toyota Camry
Low camber gain suspension geometry.
Aerodynamics have been updated.
ARB sliders have been added.
Season setups have been updated.
NASCAR Truck Series Chevrolet Silverado circa 2013
Low camber gain suspension geometry.
NASCAR Whelen Tour Modified
This car’s vehicle dynamics specs have been updated.
- Changes include: adjustments to suspension, and adjustments to mass positions and front spring range.
Camber limits have been added.
Fixed an issue where pit crew tire changes were happening too quickly.
Season setups have been updated.
NASCAR XFINITY Chevrolet Camaro, Ford Mustan, and Toyota Camry
Low camber gain suspension geometry.
Aerodynamics have been updated.
ARB sliders have been added.
Season setups have been updated.
Porsche 911 RSR
NEW CAR!
- The Porsche 911 RSR is now available for purchase with this release!
- The first mid-engine Porsche 911 is the RSR and it features a 4.0 liter, normally aspirated engine that produces 510 hp. Purpose built for racing, the car is raced worldwide in the LM-GTE category in series including IMSA, WEC and Le Mans. The 911 RSR is Porsche through and through. With its aggressive styling cues and familiar silhouette, the flat-six engine literally screams at you when you accelerate out of corners. Weighing in at a mere 1,243 kg (2,740 lbs), the RSR is a well-balanced race car with massive brakes for unrivaled stopping power and a newly designed 6-speed sequential gearbox that allows for lightning changes up and down through the gears.
- For more information and to purchase: http://members.iracing.com/membersite/member/CarDetail.do?carid=102
Pro Mazda
Mirror portals have been adjusted so they no longer clip into the body of the car.
Radical SR8
FREE CAR!
- This vehicle is now FREE to own and download for all iRacing members!
Brake bias is now adjustable on this vehicle for Fixed Setup events.
Season setups have been updated.
Silver Crown
This vehicle has been fully converted to use PBR shaders.
Street Stock
This car’s vehicle dynamics specs have been updated.
- Changes include: heights and mass updates.
Subaru WRX STI
NEW CAR!
- The Subaru WRX STI is now available for purchase with this release!
- Subaru, a name synonymous with rally and rallycross. Enter the Subaru STI Supercar – a purpose built rallycross car designed to go head-to-head with the likes of the VW Beetle and Ford Focus rallycross cars. Designed and constructed by Vermont SportsCar, the Subaru STI packs 585 hp under its hood and applies the power to the road via an all-wheel-drive system. A sequential gearbox makes shifting a breeze as you man-handle the car through the corners, over the jumps and deal with the ever changing track surfaces of dirt and asphalt.
- For more information and to purchase: http://members.iracing.com/membersite/member/CarDetail.do?carid=101
Super Late Model
This car’s vehicle dynamics specs have been updated.
- Changes include: mass values and positions, collision strengths, vehicle geometry, spring and bumpstop packages, and tire compound.
Tire psi has been increased slightly.
Camber limits have been added.
VW Beetle GRC
Improvements to dashboard and wheel knob.
- Start RPM and mode are now displayed at the bottom of the dashboard during launch. This will not display until the car is in gear, and then disappears as the car gets moving. The Launch Mode rotary dial on left side of steering wheel now functional.
VW Jetta TDI Cup
This vehicle has been fully converted to use PBR shaders.
Tracks
Atlanta Motor Speedway
Additional starting grid locations have been added to the following track configurations:
- Legends Oval
- Oval
- Road Course
Adjusted some particle effect colors to better match this track.
Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari
Adjusted some particle effect colors to better match this track.
Fixed a missing tire wall end-cap near a chicane.
Autodromo Nazionale Monza
(Grand Prix) – Camera mic gain levels have been adjusted.
Auto Club Speedway
Adjusted the Pit Exit Line Aid at the following configurations:
- Oval
- Competition
The Bullring
Additional starting grid locations have been added.
Charlotte Motor Speedway
Additional starting grid locations have been added to the following track configurations:
- Road Course
- Infield Road Course
- Legends Oval
- Oval
Chicagoland Speedway
A new merge checkpoint has been added to this track.
Wall ads have been updated.
Detroit Grand Prix at Belle Isle
NEW TRACK!
- Detroit Grand Prix at Belle Isle is now available for purchase with this release!
- The temporary street circuit, located on the Detroit River, Belle Isle has hosted a multitude of auto races since first opening in 1992. Currently hosting the Verizon IndyCar Series and IMSA Weathertech Sportscar Championship among others, the 2.35 mile, 13-turn circuit is located on a picturesque island minutes from downtown Detroit. The digital replica of the track will highlight the beautiful landscape as well as several signature features, most notably the fountain near turns 9 and 10, the Detroit skyline and views into Canada. The racing surface is very unique and features smooth concrete, worn/polished concrete, new and old asphalt. The multiple surface types will challenge drivers as they discover where they can push hard and where they will need to be cautious.
- For more information and to purchase: http://members.iracing.com/membersite/member/TrackDetail.do?trkid=319
The Dirt Track at Charlotte
Fixed a texture issue with the water towers at this track.
Donington Park Racing Circuit
Fixed a bump located at the Turn 11 run-off area.
A pit exit merge checkpoint has been added.
Iowa Speedway
(Legends) – Additional starting grid locations have been added to this track configuration.
Fixed intersecting pit walls.
ISM Raceway
The track formerly known as Phoenix International Raceway has been updated and renamed ISM Raceway.
- All track logos and signs have been updated to reflect this change.
Langley Speedway
Additional starting grid locations have been added.
Mount Panorama Circuit
Fixed a missing wall end-cap in Turn 9.
Nürburgring Grand-Prix-Strecke
Fixed an issue where a cement barrier and cone blocking a curb appeared and disappeared very quickly.
Silverstone Circuit – 2011
(ALL) – The first pit stall has been adjusted so that the driver no longer needs to drive through the pace car when exiting the pit stall.
Snetterton Circuit
Adjusted some particle effect colors to better match this track.
Sonoma Raceway
Sonoma Raceway – Long – Fixed an issue where the final corner of this track configuration could be cut without penalty.
South Boston Speedway
Additional starting grid locations have been added.
Southern National Motorsports Park
Additional starting grid locations have been added.
Talladega Superspeedway
Fixed a bug with the appearance of a tunnel on the terrain.
Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park
Additional starting grid locations have been added.
Volusia Speedway Park
Fixed a floating cone near the entrance to pit road.