Bsimracing Sim Racing Resources and News for the racing enthousiast.
KW Studios and RaceRoom Entertainment proudly announced one of the biggest updates in years for the RaceRoom Racing Experience title coming to your PC on the 4th of September.
This update will introduce significant improvements, making the game look more realistic while performing a lot better than ever before. For this update, the development team focused their efforts on improving rendering quality and boosting performance while maintaining a clean and stable image that feels highly immersive.
In celebration of DTMs 40th anniversary, the release will introduce two classic DTM cars in the form of the Opel Calibra V6 and the Alfa Romeo 155 2.5 V6 which will join the already available AMG-Mercedes C-Klasse DTM.
Furthermore, KW Studios will release three popular classic tracks to go with it, being the AVUS circuit, the Diepholz Airfield Circuit, and two layouts of the classic Hockenheim Ring.
The two new cars will be available for €10.99, while the new tracks will cost you €6,99 a piece.
Opel Calibra V6 DTM
The legendary Opel Calibra V6 DTM was a formidable force in the Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft (DTM) series during the mid-1990s. This high-performance racing car was a testament to Opel’s engineering prowess and the competitive spirit of the DTM.
The all-wheel drive car was powered by a naturally aspirated 2.5-liter V6 engine.
The Calibra V6 DTM achieved significant success in the 1996 DTM season, with Manuel Reuter securing the driver’s championship title.
Alfa Romeo 155 2.5 V6 DTM
The Alfa Romeo 155 2.5 V6 DTM was a fierce competitor in the Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft (DTM) series during the mid-1990s.
Powered by a naturally aspirated 2.5-liter V6 engine, that was renowned for its high-revving capabilities and impressive power output, the car achieved great success in the DTM series, with drivers like Nicola Larini and Alessandro Nannini securing numerous victories and podium finishes.
Avus:
Closed in the late 1990s, The Avus was a unique street circuit located in Berlin, Germany. It was renowned for its long, straight sections and high-speed nature, making it a thrilling venue for motorsport events. The most defining characteristic of the Avus was its long, straight sections, which allowed for incredibly high speeds.
To contrast the straights, the circuit featured two sharp hairpin turns at either end, which required precise driving skills and often resulted in dramatic overtaking maneuvers. In its early years, the northern turn featured a steep banking, adding to the challenge and excitement of racing on the circuit.
The circuit hosted various motorsport events, including the German Grand Prix, sports car races, and motorcycle races.
Diepholz Airfield Circuit
The Diepholz Airfield Circuit was a temporary motor racing circuit located in Diepholz, Germany. It was primarily used during the 1970s and 1980s, serving as a venue for various touring car championships, most notably the German Touring Car Championship (DTM).
The circuit was created by utilizing the runway and surrounding areas of the Diepholz Airfield. This meant that the track’s configuration could change slightly from year to year. The runway itself provided long, straight sections, allowing for high-speed racing. To contrast the straights, the circuit featured a series of technical corners that required precise driving skills.
Diepholz Airfield Circuit was a regular stop on the DTM calendar for many years but also hosted other touring car series and occasional sports car events.
Classic Hockenheim Ring
The classic 4.574 kilometers (2.84 miles) 17-corner Hockenheimring was known for its long, high-speed straights and sweeping corners, making it a thrilling venue for Formula One races. The circuit was significantly different from its modern configuration, with a longer layout and fewer corners.
The long straights and high-speed corners such as the notorious Ostkurve: A high-speed right-hand turn at the end of the long start/finish straight, Südkurve: A fast left-hand turn leading onto the long back straight, and Nordkurve: Another high-speed right-hand turn at the end of the back straight made the classic Hockenheimring a challenging circuit for drivers, requiring a combination of speed, precision, and bravery. The layout often favored cars with strong power and top speed.
Alongside the new content, there is even more exciting news, as the update will roll out the highly needed major graphics update, including dynamic clouds and a revamped rendering system vastly improving the visual fidelity of the Free2Play title.
Besides the visual improvements, the development team also aimed for an optimized performance leading to smoother graphics, while keeping the framerates in check.
Summary of Graphical Updates:
- Optimized frustum culling: By optimizing the frustum culling system, we can now skip rendering of a lot more objects that are not in the view. This results in significant gains, especially on large and complex tracks, such as the 24 Hours layout of the Nordschleife.
- The rearview mirror and reflection optimization: The improved frustum culling system now allows us to render only what is necessary for the rearview mirror and dynamic car reflections. Furthermore, we have improved the looks and efficiency of the lowest car reflection setting significantly, which makes it a great option for those looking for extra performance.
- Time Progression: The performance of the time progression feature has been significantly enhanced, which means the performance difference to static time is now almost negligible.
- Color System Upgrade: Transition to a LUT (Lookup Table) Color System. This change allows for more accurate and vibrant color representation, enhancing the overall visual fidelity of the game.
- Cloud Coverage Selector: Added a new feature to the game menus and dedicated server allowing players to select cloud coverage options. You can now choose from clear, few clouds, scattered clouds, and overcast skies, adding a dynamic and realistic touch to the racing experience.
- Improved Shadows Rendering: Shadows have been significantly improved, providing more realistic and dynamic lighting effects across various environments. This includes soft, anti-aliased shadows, with higher resolution and much longer draw distances. Shadows are now also rendered in the rearview mirror.
- Auto-Exposure Feature: Introduced an auto-exposure feature that dynamically adjusts the brightness based on the scene’s lighting. This feature enhances visibility in different lighting conditions, ensuring a more immersive experience.
- Improved car paint and car parts materials rendering: Better support has been added for all different types of liveries and paint found on racing cars. Most notably, chrome, matte, and metallic parts can now be represented much more accurately.
- Improved Car Cockpit: Improved lighting inside the cockpit, to achieve a much more realistic and immersive view.
- Improved Car Reflections: Car reflections have been enhanced to better mimic real-world reflective surfaces, adding depth and realism to vehicle reflective parts, such as windows.
- Improved Specular Reflections: Specular reflections have been fine-tuned to provide more realistic highlights and shine, especially under varying light conditions.
- Improved Track Surface Lighting: The track surface lighting has been improved, giving a more accurate representation of light reflection on road surfaces and built-up rubber.
- Improved Depth of Field Blurring: Depth of field effects have been refined for more realistic
- background blurring, enhancing the sense of speed and focus.
- Improved Motion Blur: Motion blur has been updated to provide a more natural and immersive sense of movement and a reduction of artifacts.
- Improved Rendering of Headlights and Taillights: The rendering of headlights and taillights has been improved, making dawn, morning, noon, afternoon, and sunset racing more visually striking and realistic.
- Improved Vegetation lighting: Trees are now blending in much better in the lighting environment.
- Track Grass normalmaps: Our normal maps are now properly reacting to the orientation of the light
- Track material specular: Until now, only a few objects have been specular around our tracks. This is now addressed so all objects reflect strong lights.
- Performance mode through Vulkan rendering pipeline: The Vulkan-based implementation of d3d9 by Philip Rebohle was already a popular rendering mod among the RaceRoom community, providing a significant performance boost. Our engine is now supporting this mod more officially as we addressed some visual glitches that had been impairing the experience. A start-up option in Steam will be available to start RaceRoom using Vulkan.
- Eliminated Z-Fighting: We have completely eliminated z-fighting artifacts by adapting the engine to use the more modern ‘Reversed-Z’ approach to handle depth in the rendering.
- Particle lighting: Particles now properly react to different lighting conditions
- Sharpening: This effect increases the visual crispness of the game, making textures and fine details stand out more prominently. However, because the visual experience is based on individual preferences, the default setting will be off.
Track Updates:
KW Studios is also excited to re-release the Oschersleben track as a laser-scanned version in this update. As one of the first tracks in RaceRoom, it previously suffered from some inaccuracies that did not fully satisfy real drivers using RaceRoom for practice.
This new laser-scanned version addresses those concerns, providing a more accurate and immersive experience. While RaceRoom typically provides regular track updates free of charge, this new version was built from scratch using a laser scan and therefore will not be free. Loyal fans will get the track at a discount during the initial release period. KW Studios will stop selling the old version to ensure the community enjoys the most accurate racing experience
In addition to the new content, the update will also include free updates to the following tracks, bringing them to 2024 season specs, and enhancing their accuracy and visual quality at no extra cost for current owners:
- Mantorp
- Nogaro
- Nordschleife
- Red Bull Ring
- Sepang
- Slovakiaring
KW Studios is also preparing to release the 2024 DTM Car Pack.
The pack will include two new cars completing the series, in the form of the Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2 and the McLaren 720S GT3 Evo. The new cars will join the Ferrari 296 GT3, BMW M4 GT3, Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, Audi R8 LMS Evo 2, and the Porsche 911 GT3 R (992).
DTM 2024 Car Pack:
- Audi R8 LMS Evo II
- BMW M4 GT3
- Ferrari 296 GT3
- Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2 (NEW, featuring in RaceRoom for the first time)
- McLaren 720S GT3 Evo (NEW, featuring in RaceRoom for the first time)
- Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo
- Porsche 911 GT3 R (992)
The DTM 2024 Pack will become available for €19,99. At the time of writing, no official release date is known.
About RaceRoom
First released back in February 2013, out of the ashes of a well-regarded racing game developer, SimBin Studios, the core RaceRoom Racing Experience racing simulator is Free-To-Play and can be installed from this Steam link, with commercial add-ons available via the RaceRoom Store.
Official Webpages – game.raceroom.com – sector3studios.com
