rFactor 2 – Build 85 Available

Image Space Incorporated has released the newest build of their rFactor 2 simulation, adding lots of fixes and a new car to the open beta title.

Aside from plenty of fixes and improvements listed below, the new build introduces the brand new Formula One-inspired Formula Masters car.

You can find several screenshots of the new car made by BSNismo as well as the full changelog and download links below.

GRAPHICS

• Improved lighting math
• Improved HDR rearviews
• Fixed mirrors too dark when using HDR
• Improved post-processing in multi-view mode
• Fixed side-channel clearing in multi-view mode.
• Fixed HDR in multi-view mode
• Viewport fix for multi-view
• Improved dynamic road
• Changing shadow detail level now causes a shader re-compile
• Changed base turbidity to 1.8 to brighten sky a bit.
• Reduced minimum vertical FOV from 20 to 10 degrees.
• improved graphical steering pivot for non-player vehicles
• Now applying heat haze to graphics, note new PLR option “Heat FX Fade Speed” which can be used to completely disable.
• Fixed broken HDR lum histogram
• attempt to fix body parts disappearing in multiplayer

GAMEPLAY

• Added support for gear ratio sets.
• Added ability to have gear-specific ratios.
• Added DRS rules.
• Added some GDB-configurable atmospheric conditions.
• Changed flap buttons to act as toggle by default, but with a controller.ini option “Hold Flap Button” if the user prefers to hold it down.

SOUNDS

• Scrub sound improvements via the SFX file: can now have tire-specific samples, can be played individually rather than combined into one output, and more control over the frequency modulation.
• Defaulting ScrubIndividually to true

AI

• fixed safety car incorrectly pitting for a tire change (and leaving the rest of the field in limbo)
• fixes for AI pit lane behavior when no dedicated pitlane exists.
• some minor tweaks to AI stalking behavior.
• AI more likely to stay on throttle when along side a car they are trying to pass.
• fixed a bug where cars would move towards rather than away from a car next to it going into a corner
• fixed bug where sometime AI, at start of formation to standing start, immediately tries to park.
• better handling of grip lose around fast corners
• AIs will turn on and off rear flaps as required.
• Tried to ease up on the throttle cuts caused by tires bouncing off the ground for a tick while otherwise being in control

PLUGINS

• Screen interface added to Internals Plugins in order to facilitate 3rd party overlays; currently untested and subject to change.
• Now reporting to internals plugin whether blue flag being shown for each vehicle.

UI

• fixed the calculation of the “X display not available” X coordinates for MFD when under AI control.
• added some gizmos and actions to facilitate multiplayer auto mod download and install from a dedicated server
• added download mod status bar & cancel button
• allowing problem mods to show up in lists (so that the problems can be displayed on the info screen)
• added info buttons and code for rfm scrollbox to show new state of uninstalled mods with virtual components that are missing.
• LED and HUD support for DRS status
• changed scaling scrollbox gizmos (rfm, veh, track, hud, showroom & ui) so that they can accept textures other than 1024×1024 uncompressed textures.
• Removed PLR file option “Wheels Visible In Cockpit” which was made obsolete by the VEH variable “FrontWheelsInCockpit” a long time ago.

BUG FIXES

• Fixed some unresponsive keys when using soft vsync.
• Fixed problem with keyboard repeats in time acceleration.
• Fixed warmup time increasing by 1 each time a server is set up.
• Fixed problem where re-attaching a wheel in the pits would result in phantom collision.
• Improved thread safety by using local file finder classes.
• Fixed a error message that was incorrectly saying missing RCD files.
• Fixed bug where requesting a pitstop while on the grid would sometimes cause a stop/go penalty.
• Fixed ‘Temporary Boost’ button.
• Fixed bug where requesting a pitstop while on the grid would sometimes cause a stop/go penalty.

FUNCTIONAL ADDITIONS

• Added mod downloading to sim
• Added settings for HTTP Server and rfmod sharing.
• Added PLR variable “Car Vibration Mult2” in order to allow separation of orientational vs. positional effects, and added PLR variables “Seat Pitch”, “Seat Yaw”, and “Seat Roll” to allow an offset from which direction the cockpit camera points.

MOD MODE/PACKAGING

• fixed not being able to switch UIs in mod mode.
• removed “no ai” restriction from public dev build
• added a scale value in HUD editor for flags & stat bar positions
• got digital gages working in the HUD. Can now expand in any of four directions.
• HUD editor stability fixes
• HUD editor fixes. instead of numbers, will write out the function and font names for led, text, and digital gages

Right now, the new version is only available via torrent download. It’s available both as update for existing users as well as full installer.

Make sure to grab the updated versions of the rFmod packages for the cars as well as the new versions aren’t backwards compatible.