I'm playing r3e on win 11 if anyone is worried. I think that the devs are aware they won't last long without graphics update. I personally don't care for eyecandy, but I know many do. My guess is they'll bump the api to dx11 or maybe even Vulcan. To be able to utilize new hardware better. That will give us performance boost and s3 will be able to expand features.
I have bought a shed load of content for raceroom prior to 2 years ago but have barely put an hour on it since than time and that is for one reason only, and that is the graphics, it looks like from circa 2005 and with no time progression, no day night transition and no weather effects. The car cockpits are pretty basic too and let's face it most of us use cockpit view. I just find it too much same old same old. It is a shame because it drives so well and sounds so good. I cannot see myself ever coming back to it unless there are changes in this department. Whilst graphics are not the number one priority they do help add atmosphere and variety. As consumers we are more demanding nowadays than in any other time in history and I like others would like to have my cake and eat it too. I currently spend all my sim time in AMS2 and while it still needs a lot of polish in many areas I just find the variety of everything it offers very addictive. If they can sort out all the bugs and inconsistencies and complete their vision then in my opinion it will be hard for any other current sim to rival it.
Better a good performance and decent GFX than life like GFX and a bad performance. I don’t think the GFX is that bad.
night and rain are at the same time the most requested and less used features in sim titles. r3e is pushing towards ranked online which is great, i don't see how rain and night can fit in there.
While I would agree in general I have raced more rain and changing weather conditions in AMS2 than in any other sim I have played with those weather options, it is just well done and not like an ice rink.
MAYBE YOU DID NOT UNDERSTAND IT, we do not question the quality of the physics of this excellent sim, we do not ask for rain, but a graphics engine worthy of a 2021 simulator, when here I always see the same time, the graphics are 10 years old , you can not go on like this, too bad, let's hope for the near future!
heavily doubt it will happen in foreseeable future. s3s isn't independent, If they had the resources themselves (time and appropriate engine programmers etc.), it would have happened and they would have communicated that a long time ago. This topic comes up a lot (your thread isn't the first, nor will it be the last, just search the forum), and no developer enjoys working with an old technology stack. Insteads we see the team focusing on continuous improvement of those aspects of the game where they have the technical means to do so. Now it looks like that the owner of the company was eying towards a new title (gtr-3). That destiny is still unknown, but something will come out of that eventually. Like someone else mentioned it is unrealistic that you would upgrade all existing content to improved fidelity (more details on track, car, cockpit etc. all that is gonna cost a good deal of money) without new income, so a new title makes more sense. I would imagine that all these small developers (s3s, reiza, 397 etc.), are just making enough to get by, not really to grow or do major investments easily. Only Kunos (being bought by someone bigger) and iRacing have more monetary means. We are far away from the budget in big AAA titles and the kind of content you see in those. and as in the GM video the other day, night/rain is overrated for me, but yes more dynamic details (dirt on cars/ tracks), more variation even for dry weather, daylight, seasons etc. surely would be the way forward.
The only thing I want is better performance. The graphics can look exactly the same, but the sim ought to run at max settings without any frame drops what so ever. Especially with the look that R3E has. If an update to DX11 or DX12 would allow the CPU to use more cores, then I am all for it. The updated graphics can wait until Simbin can get it's act together. Or just skip them and update the sim title that people can already buy.
good point, unfortunately it is still a major investment as it's not just hooking up a different api, but really recoding several parts of the engine completely and the way the assets are entangled with the old system (see the various .fx files) is just gonna cost a good amount of money/time/expertise for something that you cannot really charge money for... if theyr were independent they could probably seek some sort of crowd-funding to gauge how much the existing customers would be able to invest. But they aren't in control so... and even then there is like 1300 or so players peaking according to steamcharts, let's say there is 10x of that which is there active playerbase. meaning something like 10k-15k people most likely to give some extra money, would you give 30-50$ dollar to fund a technical investment worth half a million or more, for only the premise to get better perf at the same looks etc. upfront?
And I don't think rain and night is overrated, considering raceroom is the only mainstream sim without rain and night then I guess those developing those others sims and some of the userbase don't think it is overrated either.
I think you just need to look at what the devs have been doing over the last years. The game is gradually being overhauled, whether it's physics, FFB, switching to web UI or evolving the online ranked system. I'm no dev but what they're doing makes sense to me and seems a logical approach. There's no point changing the render engine whilst the other components aren't finalized. It would just end up like the other title that's been around just as long.. If I was a betting man I'd say we'll see driver swaps and teams being added to the multiplayer system and then modern endurance cars. After all that they will perhaps be prompted to update for day/night transition etc. And by which time perhaps GTR3 will be a thing and options will be available.
yes I corrected my statement and added "overrated for me". On the grand scheme, marketing / long esports events etc. it is important, you are right, a lot of people ask for it. But vast amount of racing will remain on "nice conditions". as GM put it for the hours played in nice conditions vs those in bad, the amount of money developers have to spend on making the bad look and work great is just not "fair"
Raceroom is the only sim (beside Richard Burns Rally) that I can run with 15 cars at 100+ fps on my i7 with an old gtx card.
I also don't understand what's the problem with r3e graphics. if that is op main concern, maybe he should look into gt sport, that one looks great.
You say that S3 is a small team and that´s the reason why they can´t improve graphics. They are a small team, but the prices of the cars, tracks....the whole game are not "small". Reiza is small, prices are small. S3 is small, prices are biiiiiig.
ahahahahaah let's not joke, please, IRACING does not have the real rain, but it has a hyper-realistic graphic engine, with change of day night and variable weather, let's not joke thanks, only Automobilismo 2 is superior
There are some aspects of Raceroom graphics that I would love to see updated... the lighting could be better and have a bigger distinction between the different times of day, the shadows could improve, specially on early morning or late afternoon where the shadows sometimes become glitchy and display some weird artifacts, the cockpit models and shaders look very dated, and I would like wet weather and night lighting. But on the other end there's also a certain characteristic look to Raceroom that I really love, the color balance looks very pleasing to my eyes, the cars from the outside when you drive close to them look very "solid" and real, the tarmac surface looks way better and more detailed than the tarmac in ACC for example, and generally the game just looks very natural. Would Sector 3 be able to improve the stuff in the first paragraph without loosing the things on the second? That's my hope, but also my concern. When Kunos moved to Unreal Engine 4 they gained a few things (24h time of day and changing weather) but they also lost a lot and ACC is not nearly as clean and crisp looking as the original AC. This is the type of stuff that I hope Sector 3 manages to avoid when they eventually update the graphics, if that ever happens. Edit: Also, if Sector 3 ever update their graphics engine, how on earth will they ever come around to update all their tracks and cars up to the standarts of the new engine when they have so much content already? rFactor 2 moved to DirectX 11 a couple years ago now and so far only a minority of the official content (mostly the new stuff) is using the new standarts and Studio 397 doesn't seem interested in updating their old content, with a few exceptions, so that contributes to rFactor 2 looking, even more, like a mixed "rag cloth" of very different visual standarts of content, which would not be a good move for Raceroom. Basically, bringing on graphics updates at this stage sounds very complicated to be honest, but hopefully Sector 3 will figure something out.
ACC is great commercial shit, with super (badly optimized) graphics, bad FFB, and arcade sim behavior