rFactor by Image Space - retail v1.040 patch

What's New in v1.040?

Welcome to the first update for rFactor. When executed, the update program will
first search the current directory for version 1.020. If it locates a valid
copy, it will update the appropriate files while making a backup copy in the
rFactor\Support\Backup directory. You will find an update log file in the
support directory as well. If the out-of-date version is not present in the
current directory, the update program will search the registry for the install
location and proceed from there.

Graphics:

- Significantly reduced video memory usage in several components of the
graphics engine.

- Improved shadow performance for Max shadow detail level.

- Added a new .PLR file option called Low Detail UI, which will force DXT
compression on the UI art to reduce memory usage by about 75%. There are
compression artifacts when using this, but most people wont notice. Set to On
by default for the lowest level machine.

- Added a black background to the frame rate counter, so it can actually be
read.

- Added an FOV option in the graphics section.

- Prevented garage LOD multiplier in player file from being set to zero, which
caused problems.

- Fixed bug where only steering wheel of opponents would appear.

- Added triple-rearview to swingman mode.

- Fixed the rF Config to properly handle multiple video cards.

- Added a full-time Video Mem Gizmo, which reports pct video mem available, as
well as current auto-texture reduction level, and instantaneous resource
allocs. All done up in bright shiny colors.

- Fixed a couple issues where the Visible Vehicles setting was not working
properly. Increased the bias towards showing vehicles in front. Added a player
file value "Extra Visible Vehicles" which controls how many vehicles to display
in non-driving situations.

- Modified weather to use only static ambient shadows at night, and to use a
much faster skydome coloring method.

- Added a PLR file setting to allow 'rearviews in swingman' mode.

- Improved FSAA support from rF Config.

- Improved 16-bit support, so in 16-bit video modes, all textures are either
dxtn or 16-bit.

- Added timescale option of "None" which will make the time-of-day stand still.
The advantage of this is that static shadows never need to be updated, perhaps
increasing framerate. Note that if you were previously using the setting "Use
Race %", then you will need to re-check the option in the UI. Known issue:
sorry, this does not appear to work well at the moment.

- Fixed screenshot bugs in windowed and multi-monitor modes.

Tracks and Vehicles:

- Updated Sardian Heights mas file to fix incorrect signage bug.

- Fixed shadows on windows bug on Rhez.

- The names of the AI upgrade lists for Trainer had to be updated to match the
vehicle filter tokens. This affected the upgrades.ini file and all the trainer
VEH files.

- Reduced intensity of lights on Orchard Lake tracks.

- Added Sardian Long.

- More Sardian changes. New, higher res maps for buildings, arena dome, tunnel.

- Updated some LOD distances on Sardian Long.

Artificial Intelligence:

- Fixed an AI tire pressure issue which resulted in a significant top speed
discrepancy, especially with Advanced Trainers on the Orchard Lake Oval.

- Improved AI passing code both on straights and in corners.

- Improved mixed class AI driving.

- Improved AI handling of on-track wrecks.

- Fixed AI breaking yellow flag speed to enter pits.

- Reduced tendency for AI to rear end player.

- Fixed AI pulling offline (and slowing down) when human rides their tail.

- Reduced AI start chaos.

- Implemented a more consistent (for different car types) AI passing algorithm.

- Completely removed AI blocking humans.

Gameplay :

- Increased tolerances for positioning on formation lap starts, and added a
check to ignore disco'd clients. Also added a failsafe that if everyone is
stopped for awhile it will try to correct anybody who is off and then start the
countdown timer.

- A couple improvements to the basic garage sliders: limited brake balance
changes and more evenly spaced gearing.

- Fixed a garage UI bug where the acceleration, top speed, and gear graph info
could be misreported.

- Added starting time and time scale to season create page, so you don't have
to drive open wheel cars at night.

- Changed following message (for caution laps, etc.) to use driver name rather
than vehicle description. Also fixed one case where that message should have
been shown but was not. Added yellow flag display for full-course yellows.

- Fixed an issue where the pitcrew would sometimes get ready even if the player
was clearly on the last lap of the race.

- Stopped automatically returning player to the monitor when player pitted in
non-race sessions.

- Applied credits when restarting a race if the first race was completed (i.e.
official).

- Fixed bug where running timed season races would result in no points being
awarded. Related to this, one must complete 60% of the leader's number of laps
to get points, assuming equal cars. There is an adjustment based on the
relative power-to-weight ratios for class racing, and the final value is always
rounded down. For modders, the base percentage can be adjusted by an RFM value
"Min Lap Percentage".

- Reset damage display upon race restart.

- Fixed track display when switching between Season and Test/Race (it was
sometimes wrong).

- Reset vehicle upgrades to those currently installed when leaving the Vehicles
page.

- Fixed right-side tire temps.

- Added player file option "Auto-change Opponent List" which is on by default
and will reset the single-player opponent list filter everytime you change
cars. In short, this will automatically choose opponents whose cars are very
similar to your own (same type and class).

- Fixed HUD MFD cycling - now it will only display the screens as configured in
the plr file.

- Fixed an issue where the onscreen driving aids display would initialize wrong
if no aids were being used.

- Added "Blue Flags" option to the player file which controls whether they are
shown, whether people can be penalized for ignoring them, and how close the
following vehicle needs to be to trigger them. Note that the new default
setting significantly reduces the following distance needed compared to the
original release, and that penalties are still active. Also added a warning
before handing out a stop/go penalty.

- Changed race results format to be very similar to RaceCast XML format so the
same parser can be used for either one.

- Drag'n'drop now works with SVM files into multiple folders. The visual
effects now show up correctly regardless of screen resolution, and dropping the
SVM on the folder it is already in no longer deletes that SVM.

- Added support for additional nationalities, but without the flag graphics.

- Fixed a minor issue where the sound would stick on in some situations when
restarting a single-player race.

- Now keeping track of control (AI or player) used and driving aids used every
lap. This info is reported in the race results.

- Added new Steering Help level "Full" which basically takes over steering
completely if input is kept in the center. By default, it comes with a 2% mass
penalty to avoid it being considered a "cheat".

Input Devices:

- Made a change so people with both paddle shifters and h-shifters to use the
paddle shifter if the h-shifter stays in neutral.

- Added optional analog input filter. It's off by default because it could
introduce a small amount of controller lag depending on the settings and your
framerate. See the options "Analog Control Filter" and "Filter Samples" in the
controller.ini file for more info.

- Added controller.ini option "Keyboard Layout Override" which may be used to
improve support for some keyboard layouts. If you are experiencing issues,
please try the value "1" and see if that helps.

- Added two possible workarounds for situations where people lose their force
feedback. One is a controller.ini value "Reset FFB Time" which will
automatically reset the force feedback every X seconds. The other is a new
controller mapping "Reset FFB" which can be used to manually reset the force
feedback.

- Added a new force feedback parameter in the controller.ini file "FFB steer
force grip factor". Its default has been changed from the previously hardcoded
value.

- Added optional detection of accidental double-shifts (for noisy paddles). The
default value for the new player file option "Repeat Shifts" is off.

Replay:

- Fixed special effects when outputting movies from Replay Fridge.

- Fixed a bug where temporary replay files would get left behind and then never
cleaned up. Running the new executable will clean up the old files.

- Fixed a replay issue from multiplayer races where disco'd drivers would
appear to sit in the middle of the track for the entire race.

- Added player file option "Record To Memory" which will write replay info to
memory rather than disk, in hopes of eliminating stuttering on some machines.
Memory usage could be significant for longer races, though, so this option is
at your own risk.

- Added various info to the Replay Fridge - driver name, laptimes, speed, etc.
One mysterious addition is the "Vehicle Upgrade Code" which is a compressed
representation of the upgrades installed on the vehicle - it's mostly useful if
you simply want to compare whether two cars have identical upgrades.

- Updated new Miles filters to include Audio Thief for capturing audio during
replay exports.

Multiplayer:

- Used download rating to estimate the number of servers we can grab for the
join list. This is in addition to the current player value, so it is the max of
the two values.

- Added dedicated server administrators with basic functionality:

- Only works if admin password is specified. Only one admin allowed.

- Become administrator by chatting "/admin exiting or chatting "/admin".

- Several different functionalities specified in multiplayer.ini option which
concern whether non-administrators can call votes and when.

- Administrator can advance sessions, add AI, etc. by using the normal call
voting UI buttons, or by typing chat commands.

- Full list of current chat commands:

- /vote yes // same as pressing button

- /vote no // same as pressing button

- /ping // same as pressing button

- /callvote nextsession // proceeds to next session (practice to qual, for
example)

- /callvote nextrace // proceeds to next event in dedicated server track list

- /callvote event // proceeds to given event (such as "24 Hours of
Toban" or "Mills Special Event")

- /callvote restartrace // restarts the race

- /callvote restartweekend // goes back to practice

- /callvote addai // adds 1 AI

- /callvote add5ai // adds 5 AI

- /callvote kick // kick specified player out of race

- /callvote ban // bans specified player from server

- /admin // take over administrator (wrong or no password = stop
being administrator)

- /editgrid // admin command to move the specified player to the
given position on the grid - note that you should do the grid from first to
last or you may fail to achieve the expected results

- /set upload // change upload speed (works on own machine only,
administrator can't change server's upload at this time)

- /set download // change download speed (same as above)

- /set nagle <0 or 1> // can only be done on server - specifies whether
questionable Nagle TCP algorithm is used

- /set warp <0.1 - 3.0> // in future, will affect voicechat. The warp
connotation comes from the period of time to take in between sending each voice
packet. 1.0 is the default.

- Fixed issue where network throttling could slightly overestimate the amount
of data it could send to each client (only significant with small numbers of
clients).

- Took downforce into account when extrapolating vehicles (should keep Formula
IS cars from appearing to catch air over crests in multiplayer) and smoothed
out the ground detection code (to reduce instant jumps over curbs).

- Reduced default practice/qual/warmup times in multiplayer so we could get to
race once in awhile.

- Added an audible warning for when a multiplayer game goes to the race
session. Also restores game if minimized. Player file options "Net Race
Warning" controls what sound is played and whether it will restore.

- Added a vote to load a specific circuit/event by chatting "/callvote event
", where event_name is the specific event for a track, such as
Sardian Heights 250. Server's multiplayer.ini option specifies whether users
can call this vote and whether they can call a vote for an event that isn't in
the current server list. Administrators can always call this vote.

- Added administrator command for editing the grid. See full list of chat
commands for more info.

- Started running collision on remote vehicles to prevent them from penetrating
walls. The default is to only do this for nearby vehicles (within 200 meters).
Since collision-detection can be CPU-intensive, you can turn it off by setting
"Remote Vehicle Collision" to 0.0 in the multiplayer.ini file. Alternately, you
can have it run on every vehicle by setting it to a large number (10000.0+). By
default, the dedicated server will not run it at all (which may look less than
perfect in replays) unless the multiplayer.ini value is set to 10000.0+.

- Fixed Multiplayer join select box issue with game names taking up 2 lines
when game name includes '|'.

- Fixed an issue where non-dedicated servers couldn't create games with vehicle
filters that only accepted non-base vehicle classes such as GP1 or MType.

- Fixed a crash when cars leave the game.

- Vehicles no longer exit the race session when a client quits or disconnects.
Instead they are switched over to AI control and parked in the garage. This was
done for a variety of reasons: 1) it makes scoring and results reporting easier
and more accurate, 2) some people reported hiccups when unloading vehicles, and
3) it allows for future support of clients re-joining if disconnect was
accidental.

- Fixed an issue where network throttling could cause tire smoke or other
effects from remote vehicles to get left on for a long time.

- Added RFM catagory to multiplayer game selecter and allowed you to sort by
RFM.

- Added gizmos to call votes for booting/banning players.

- Fixed "+maxplayers" command-line option to work with the dedicated server.

- Fixed an issue where if you created a non-dedicated server without going to
the Opponent List page, it would use the current vehicle filter rather than the
multiplayer vehicle filter.

- Fixed an issue where sometimes incorrect vehicles (not matching the vehicle
filter) would show up while joining or creating a multiplayer game.

- Changed auto-joining code to work better with passworded games.

- Fixed possible client crash when server changes session.

- Added RaceCast version to the server info displayed. An unfortunate side
effect is that people running the original version of rFactor will see an
incorrect game version number for servers running the updated version.

- Stopped automatically exiting the game when leaving a multiplayer game that
was created or joined through RaceCast (or other external tool).

- Optimized a search performed for waypoints when extrapolating multiplayer
positions. This may improve both server and client performance in multiplayer
games.

- Made a few more minor dedicated server optimizations.

Modding/Miscellaneous:

- New player file variable to control the realism of the AI tire slip model (or
override in TBC file), resulting in more accurate scrub in the corners (again,
most noticeable with Trainers on Ovals).

- Fixed an issue where using extended ASCII characters for the installation
directory could result in people being unable to join multiplayer games.

- Fixed dual processor timing issues by forcing game to only run on one
processor. It can be overridden by using "+fullproc" in the command line, since
Microsoft has now announced a fix for dual processors which is available only
with Windows XP SP2.

- Expanded trace capabilities for better detection of the location of realtime
crashes and networking action. Command-line option "trace=3" will create a new
file "tracedyn.txt", and "+logtime" will add a time value to each line of the
regular "trace.txt" output.

- Added command-line "+nosound" option to disable all sounds and music for
testing purposes.

- Added more stock car GDB rules regarding dampers: everything from
MinFrontSlowBump to MaxRearFastRebound.

- Fixed bug where running timed season races would result in no points being
awarded. Related to this, one must complete 60% of the leader's number of laps
to get points, assuming equal cars. There is an adjustment based on the
relative power-to-weight ratios for class racing, and the final value is always
rounded down. For modders, the base percentage can be adjusted by an RFM value
"Min Lap Percentage".

- Changed CCH files to regular text format rather than encrypted.

- Added new HDV section which can assign extra mass (as a fraction of the total
mass) for each driving aid and level used. This should only be used to add
masses for vehicles that do not actually come with the given driving aid in
real life. In other words, legal TC should not be penalized with this extra
mass. Mass fractions are limited to the range 0.00 - 0.10, and are attached the
same way fuel is.

- Added new TDF entry "HATFilterMethod=" which controls how the HAT
database is filtered (and should be put near the top of the file). By default
(method #0), different terrains are not "smoothed" together, which is the
desired functionality for roads with intentionally sharp curbs on the side.
Method #1 smooths all legal terrains together, and all non-legal terrains
together. Finally, method #2 smooths all terrains with the same "FilterID"
together. To use this method, the entry "FilterID=" should be added to every
terrain, where x is a number from 0 to 254.