Quote from Tony Gardner :

Sorry about the winking.

Release notes available tonight
Our plan is to start the build tomorrow morning, morning meaning the morning in the eastern time zone of the United States. Tonight as defined as after 6:00PM in the same time zone.

For the future, we traditionally have 4 major software updates per year, and often refer to them as builds. By design, they are scheduled to be done in what we call week 13, which is the week in between our standard 12 week seasons. They typically could be done anytime during that week depending on a variety of factors. During that week, we like to schedule the members build in advance based on how we see the timing of our release process playing out to provide notice to members so as to try not to interupt any racing they might be planning. However, although our last 4 builds have gone smoothly and according to our initial schedule, sometimes we find something we don't like in the 11th hour or something we think we can make better last minute but then we have to go through the whole release process again but we think worth doing it and delaying a a day or two so long as we get build out in the 13th week.

Good Racing

http://members.iracing.com/jfo ... t/75/1497660.page#3608512

Damn sorry that I missed this, just too busy and never got around to is...ahh well.

Service to go down 24h later than original schedule. Release notes coming tonight. Could somebody grab them and stick em on here please? Thanks my babies

Here are some, the actual list is too long.


Hardcore Mode in Hosted Sessions
- The session host now has the ability to configure what driving aids will be allowed in their hosted session. On the "host a race" page you will see a new "Click here for more settings" link. This displays a popup where you can select either "Disallow all driving aids (but clutch assist OK)" or "Allow all driving aids". If driving aids are enabled the user will still need to enable the aids in-sim in order to activate them for the session.

Join a Race Page Reorganization
- This page has been reorganized to show your pending and rejected sessions at the bottom rather than top of the UI. Also, there is a new link that allows you to view your rejected sessions for the last 30 days rather than the default of 8 hours.

Hosted Sessions
- When you include a lone qualifier in your session you will now need to provide a duration in minutes as well as laps. This helps to avoid situations where the qualifier session terminates earlier than you may have expected. Another added benefit is that if you configure a 2 lap qualifier over 30 minutes you can now join at any point during the 30 minutes and run your 2 laps. Previously you needed to join right at the start of the qualifier.
- You can no longer specify the race duration by laps alone. You can specify either minutes or laps+minutes. As with lone qualifiers this is a measure to ensure that your session executes exactly as you expect it to. Previously, when you specified a duration in laps the system calculated a duration in minutes and in some cases the end result was not what you expected it to be.
- Fixed an issue with night racing and hosted sessions. If a user creates a hosted session with night mode enabled, then goes in to create another one by using last settings and changes the track to a non-night-mode track we will attempt to create a hosted session with night mode enabled on a track where it isn't supported and throw an error.
- Fixed an issue with fixed setups. The bug prevented the user from selecting a canned iracing setup unless they had already uploaded at least one custom setup for the relevant car.
- Changed lone qualifiers to allow 1 lap.
- Changed open practices to be as short as 5 minutes.


Tournament Racing
- This feature is an extension to hosted racing. It enables you to run tournaments by linking together multiple hosted sessions. The results from one hosted session can be used to determine eligibility for subsequent rounds in the tournament.
- A tournament consists of an initial round followed by any number of preliminary rounds followed by a final round. Each tournament round can be configured to run on up to 10 servers. The initial round of a tournament is open to everybody unless the host provides a password (just like with regular hosted sessions).
- Eligibility for subsequent tournament rounds is controlled by the host. When setting up a subsequent round the host uses a grid builder to control who is eligible to compete and how the grids will be structured.


BETA FEATURE - Browser Integrated Text Chat
- We are providing browser integrated text chat as a BETA feature. This will allow all members to try it out, if they wish, and help provide any feedback or issues. This is an opt in feature, so to use it you must go to the General Tab on the Settings Panel (the settings panel is opened by clicking on the gear icon on the right hand side of the page under the race panel) and selecting "Enable Integrated Chat".


Awards
- For this release we've added a new set of awards. Like the first set, most of these will not be retroactive so you can go get them now!

New awards include:
- Hard Charger Awards - Start in the bottom 10% of grid, finish in top 10% of grid with no incidents in an official race with grid size of at least 10.
- Polesitter Awards - Start an official race from the 1st spot on the grid for your car class.
- World Traveler - Drive at every track in an open practice, hosted session, time trial, or race.
- Jack of All Trades - Drive in every car in an open practice, hosted session, time trial, or race.
- Club Contributor - Win points for your club.
- Club President - Win the most points for your club in a season.
- iRating Awards - Awarded the first time you cross each of 2000, 3000, 4000, 5000, 6000, 7000, 8000, and 9000 iRating.
- Overachiever - Win an oval race that counts toward your MPR while having the best iRating in the field.
- Cruise Control - Win a road race that counts toward your MPR while having the best iRating in the field.



Simulation:
New Tire Model
>>> Dave K can write a big blurb here or something. Cars with NTM: Chevrolet Impala, Chevrolet Impala Class B, Chevrolet Silverado, Formula Skip Barber 2000, HPD ARX-01c, Ford GT.



Graphics
- Worked around an issue where massive distortion could occur in the side monitors of a 3-monitor setup when the camera has a lot zoom (very small FOV) and the side monitors form a large angle (> 45 deg) from the center monitor's plane. When a TV camera has a lot of zoom, the eye dist has to be pushed very far away from the center screen so that the monitor's FOV matches the real world FOV from that distance. However, unless you moved your head then to that far away spot, the distortion would be visible. To reduce this distortion, the angle of the side monitors is now reduced from their current angle down to 10 deg as the eye dist pushes away from the center screen. Although this results in different distortions, they are minor compared to the original issue. To override this new behavior (if necessary for some reason), in renderer.ini, under [MonitorSetup], set Min3ViewZoomDistortion=0. It is otherwise enabled by default.


Sound
- Reduced the number of crash sounds we generate and randomly select a sound to attempt to make crashes sound better.
- When mixing stereo sounds to mono (such as listening to the engine sound in some on-car cameras), we no longer mix the left and right channels, now we just play the right channel to eliminate cross cancelation of the low frequency engine sounds.
- Fixed a bug where setting numSoundStreams to anything but -1 resulted in only 16 streams being created.

Spotter
- Cleaned up spotter and reduced the chances of getting phantom 3-wide calls

Steering Wheel Configuration
- The sim can now recognize steering wheels that have up to 1080 degrees of rotation.
- Improved detection of game pad (hint: move your sticks slower!)
- Added support for mapping the throttle/brake to a button.
- Converted force strength to a range of 0 to 40.
- Enabled a force feedback damping slider. Setting 0 damping will give the cleanest force feedback experience.
- Notify customers that pedals must be pressed slowly to be detected (we need 4 unique samples to detect a pedal)
- Removed brake force curve calibration.
- Cleaned up code to reduce chances of Fanatech wheels locking up.
- Fixed bug with F430 wheels.

Driver Aids
- Additional assistance is available to help you get your favorite car around the track. You can now enable more driver aids in the Options configuration.
- The Racing Line driver aid shows a colorized racing line around the track that is colored red for braking zones, through to green for acceleration zones.
- Brake Assistance prevents you from locking up your brakes.
- Throttle Assistance prevents you from spinning your wheels.
- Driver aids can be enabled or disabled for an online hosted session by the session owner.
- iRacing Rookie series allow driver aids, but series of Class D and above do not allow any driver aids.



Collisions
- Improved the efficiency of the track surface collision computations by about a factor of 2. Tight curbs like the final chicane at Spa should not overwhelm the CPU as much as before. There is potential for further improvements in this area in future releases.
- Fixed a bug in the collision system that has been causing all the axle explosions on the new Chevrolet Impala B, and many of the times a car gets stuck in a wall. Note that you can still get stuck in walls in certain situations, but this is much less of a problem than previously.


Tracks
- Many tracks have had been updated with live timing boards.
- All the NASCAR andseveral US road course tracks have been visited by the iRacing blimp.

IndianapolisMotorSpeedway
- New Indy Oval configuration added. This configuration is the same as the standard oval except the pit road speed limit starts at a later point.

Charlotte Motor Speedway
- Many visual updates to bring the track up to date.



Iowa Speedway
- Now available!

Suzuka International Racing Course
- Now available!


Cars
HPD ARX-01c
- Now available!

Ford GT
- Now available!


- The Ford GT is a tough car to get the handling balance right on. This is really based on the fact that it is a flat bottomed car, that's forced to run a high ride hight. 55mm is the minimum ride height per the ACO Rulebook. Now with the front and rear at minimum, you'd lose a lot of front downforce, so you really want to have the car running close to 10mm of rake as a starting point with all setups. One thing to remember when driving and setting up this car is that to get front downforce (DF), you REALLY need to close up the distance between the splitter and the ground. With a min ride height of 55, the only way to do this is to get weight transfer from braking, whether it's from lifting off the gas, or actively applying the brakes. Both will cause a downforce shift towards the front! HOWEVER, bottoming the splitter WILL cause the front DF to spike and then rebound will and cause all kinds of handling issues. Try to set the car up so that the splitter comes close to the ground, but doesn't actually HIT the ground under braking. We have found a front bumpstop gap of 13-19mm works fairly well, though running stiffer springs, you may not need them that close.

- This is an AERO car first and foremost, so the low speed handling may be compromised by the choice of springs that will hold it up at high speed and high downforce settings! Depending on the nature of the circuit, you may want the car to trim itself out at high speed, so you'd run stiffer front springs, and softer rears. But if it's a high downforce circuit, you may want to reverse that balance so you can get the nose down on the ground in the braking zones, to help move the aero balance forward so the car turns-in well. Using damper rebound to help hold the nose down may work, but can reduce suspension compiance. It's a tough car to make work well, and will reward a patient driver with good speed and decent handling. Those that expect it to turn well without altering the aero balance may find it to drive like a truck!

Chevrolet Impala
- Updated to Dave's new tire model.
- The car itself is fully updated with improved suspension, aerodynamics, garage settings.

ChevroletImpala B
- Updated to the latest version of Dave's new tire model.
- The car itself is fully updated with improved suspension, aerodynamics, garage settings.

Chevrolet Silverado
- Updated to Dave's new tire model.
- The car itself is fully updated with improved suspension, aerodynamics, garage settings.

Formula Skip Barber 2000
- Updated to Dave's new tire model.
- Halve front ride height adjustment range.

Dallara IndyCar
- Collision spheres moved downward to match wear plank on bottom of car.

Riley Daytona Prototype
- Increase susceptibility to aero damage and coolant leaks (due to feedback from Grand Am series impact observations)

Williams FW31
- Fuel mixture adjustment is now available, and is mappable to a new fuel mixture control.



I hope this doesn't mean the removal of the brake linearity:
- Removed brake force curve calibration.

For me that would be a gamestopper. On/off brakes... I hope they just removed the button (you press to get a perfectly unrealistic brake pedal) but left the brake linearity setting there. I am seriously concerned about their new pedal calibration though. Maybe they are going to try a logarithmic curves for brakes this time

Yeah I just tried to paste the whole thing too, it's 2400 characters too long

here's the full update:

At least we get to try the NTM on the skippy which when combined with the testing we have done on the NW on road courses should give us some insight into how the NTM will behave on the other road cars.

Well they say that setup changes will not need to be done on the skippy which is quite shocking. The NW was totally different setups.

Remember the Skippy has hardly any setup options anyway.

True that. No wonder they put it on that car rather than the C6R then.

Quote from PMD9409 :

Well they say that setup changes will not need to be done on the skippy which is quite shocking. The NW was totally different setups.

I have a strong premonition that there will need to be a lot of tweaking of the tyre model for each car that it is applied to over the next few months and that this is just the beginning

What I'm interested in mostly between the skip and NW is any differences in slip angle as the skip has treaded tyres I'd expect the slip angle characteristics to be quite different to the NW.

Quote from Glenn67 :

I have a strong premonition that there will need to be a lot of tweaking of the tyre model for each car that it is applied to over the next few months and that this is just the beginning

What I'm interested in mostly between the skip and NW is any differences in slip angle as the skip has treaded tyres I'd expect the slip angle characteristics to be quite different to the NW.

Yeah it's going to be interesting to see the polar opposites those cars have. I was quite shocked they had the Ford ready to go but the Vette gave them so much problems. I thought those cars would be closer in spec than any other.

The oval cars still need alot of work though. The tire wear doesn't even seem like it exists.

yeah, interesting to read in the notes about the Ford GT. I guess that's one reason the ntm is different from the C6R supposedly!

Quote from PMD9409 :

I was quite shocked they had the Ford ready to go but the Vette gave them so much problems. I thought those cars would be closer in spec than any other.

don;t forget the ford has been in development for a long time, quite possibly it's actually been "running" for a while and has been developed alongside the NTM as that progressed

Quote from tinvek :

don;t forget the ford has been in development for a long time, quite possibly it's actually been "running" for a while and has been developed alongside the NTM as that progressed

If anything though you would assume that the develpoment of the Ford GT would have given them some insights into the complexities of applying the NTM to each tyre type and car.

With their ambitious initial timelines that doesn't seem to be the case and leaves one with the suspicion that things will not go as smoothly as initially thought.

I suspect there will be 'improvements' made over an extended period of time even on those cars that do receive the NTM early.

Well we don't have long to wait now

The site is back up already. Downloading incredibly slowly as normal for an iRacing build :P

Ah good, before all the yanks get up, going along at 700+KB/s and completed in a few minutes.

No problem with the hosting guys, had some credits for a new subscription but I can spare $1 for some, hope we can do it again sometime, with heat racing

Quote from Wilko868 :

The site is back up already. Downloading incredibly slowly as normal for an iRacing build :P

You mean 3.5mb/s? :P

Quote from Jertje :

You mean 3.5mb/s? :P

I should be so lucky! 300kb/s for me, although it's finished and installing now.

im just happy to be in the top 3 of my division in week 13... really need some new content but i need some $$$$ first

Quote from naranca :

How can I try iR without $$$... ... PM.... ...?

you can't

il edit that :P i need more $$$. planning on getting a 2 year subscription so i dont have to bother about it for ... 2 years i spose :P

Quote from Wilko868 :

The site is back up already. Downloading incredibly slowly as normal for an iRacing build :P

Getting down again?

Quote :

We are currently working on restoring the service.

Quote from GreyBull [CHA] :

Getting down again?

It went back down about half an hour ago I believe. Not sure why, but it's a rather often occurance after a build.