RaceRoom: The Racing Experience General Discussion

  • Thread starter MagpieRacer
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A+ in GTS/GT7, tried RaceRoom, sold PS5 the next day.
(ACC however didn't have this effect on me.)

I don't believe PD will reach this level of physics/ffb even in GT10, if ever at all.

It's more fun driving around alone in RaceRoom than racing online in GTS/GT7, and I'm all about online racing - that's how big the difference is. Actually, it's not even a fair comparison, since one is a game focusing on game stuff, while the other is a simulator focusing on being a simulator.

TLDR: This game is really good.
 
I have strong Gran Turismo background also, because I've played 5, 6 and Sport and Raceroom is the best for me also
I've tried literally every sim and Raceroom feels the best even it isn't the most beauty and miss some things like driver swaps or weather

sadly multiplayer isn't that populated but it works if u livin in europe
and there is some great leagues also so
 
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it isn't the most beauty and miss some things like driver swaps or weather
Fingers crossed that things will finally change soon:

"KW Studios is about to enter an exciting new phase. With renewed backing we’re looking to expand our team and take advantage of the next-generation engines that can deliver the ultimate in virtual racing experiences."

 
btw this game reminds me well made version of Gran Turismo Sport :D
the basics are very similar - high focus on shorter competitive races and also ranking system (sadly without matchmaking at this point)
but with miles better ffb and physics (even the developing team is really small) sadly with worse graphics
I feel like this is the best game u can recommend to someone who was Gran Turismo online racer and want to swap to PC
 
I moved to RaceRoom from GT7 myself and I couldn’t agree more with the above comments. It’s pathetic really that I kept holding on to Gran Turismo for as long as I did, when GT4 was the last truly good title in the series.

Also, as a fan of older race cars, RaceRoom is nothing short of amazing, with the DTM 1992, GTO Classics, Touring Car Classics, Group 4 and Group 5 packs.
 
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My only real gripes with Raceroom is the fact it can be rather annoying getting things setup, at least on the G29 and the odd pricing structure.

Otherwise it’s a very good racing game with a nice variety of cars and tracks that don’t get much focus from other titles. The ability to fully control the grid of single player races is also a huge plus.
 
at least on the G29
this is some bug within the ghub
with lgs it works flawless if I'm not mistaken


I personally like this pricing model
I mean it gives u great value for money if u going for either starter or premium pack
and it's also great entry to the game if u can buy that huge amount of content for 65 euro
and then u can add things that u like to support devs, it's like 2e for each track and car on sale that is here twice a year
also there is many events where u can win these vRP points so u basically can add things for free if u are active user
and there is so many tracks in premium that I even didn't used half of them and I'm playing since exactly a year
and same with cars, lol

but u are right it's kinda odd for people that have no clue how it works, at least they deleted these steam packs to avoid even bigger confusion
 
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rr.jpg
 
and then u can add things that u like to support devs
This is one of the the very few games I've come across where this actually feels good. The game is excellent.

I bought the premium pack with their virtual currency, which cost me 70 euro, but look forward to adding content.

Also, you can buy packs again, with discount for the already owned content.
 
I still love RaceRoom, but I wish the optimization was better. On my PC (i5 9400F and GTX 1660Ti) I struggle to hit 60fps on certain tracks with reasonable grids (20-30 cars) on high preset, I need to lower many settings to make it smoother yet on certain tracks like Spa and 24H layout of Nordschleife I still experience drops and to keep 60fps I need to run pretty much Medium Preset.

It seems to be CPU related because I can crank the resolution to 4K and with AI cars it runs almost the same as it does on 1080p.

Anyone else on similar CPU also having poor framerates? Disabling Time Progression helps but only so much. (At this point I pretend it doesn't exist, it tanks my fps even more than I described above)
 
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I still love RaceRoom, but I wish the optimization was better. On my PC (i5 9400F and GTX 1660Ti) I struggle to hit 60fps on certain tracks with reasonable grids (20-30 cars) on high preset, I need to lower many settings to make it smoother yet on certain tracks like Spa and 24H layout of Nordschleife I still experience drops and to keep 60fps I need to run pretty much Medium Preset.

It seems to be CPU related because I can crank the resolution to 4K and with AI cars it runs almost the same as it does on 1080p.

Anyone else on similar CPU also having poor framerates? Disabling Time Progression helps but only so much. (At this point I pretend it doesn't exist, it tanks my fps even more than I described above)
You can try CPU Lasso to pin different processes to different CPU cores. Give RRRE64.exe the last 3 cores, and the other RRRE processes the first 3.

Also, if using a 4k monitor as I do, make sure you leave the HUD interface at 1080p. 4k HUD kills everything, with OtterHUD at least.

Make sure to set reflections to lowest and shadows to lowest. The rest you can elevate to personal preference.

I'm on a similar setup with 4k locked at 58 FPS since I'm using FreeSync/V-Sync. I got perfect fluidity, low input lag and no FPS drops. I habe bo reason to buy new components until they upgrade the graphics engine and make the game more demanding.
 
Thanks @HugoTwoWheels. I've been trying to find a good compromise between gfx and performance for a while now and I think I might've found it. I spent so much time looking at the loading screens because of all the testing though. :ill:

The visible cars have the biggest impact on my system. I settled on 20. I see the cars appear and disappear in the distance, but once the grid spreads out, it should get better, especially in multi-class.

I have shadows and car distance LOD set to medium, mirrors on low, reflections on simple cube maps. I've disabled motion blur. The rest is on high.

I have a single 1080p screen but I run 4k resolution (with 1080p menus) and 2x MSAA without FXAA to remove aliasing.

With the settings above the game doesn't look as good obviously, but it can stay above 60 most of the time (Nordschleife 24h is still pretty bad at the GP part, but after I get to the Nordschleife it gets smoother).

Could you post your exact settings? I'd like to compare them with mine.
 
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I still love RaceRoom, but I wish the optimization was better. On my PC (i5 9400F and GTX 1660Ti) I struggle to hit 60fps on certain tracks with reasonable grids (20-30 cars) on high preset, I need to lower many settings to make it smoother yet on certain tracks like Spa and 24H layout of Nordschleife I still experience drops and to keep 60fps I need to run pretty much Medium Preset.

It seems to be CPU related because I can crank the resolution to 4K and with AI cars it runs almost the same as it does on 1080p.

Anyone else on similar CPU also having poor framerates? Disabling Time Progression helps but only so much. (At this point I pretend it doesn't exist, it tanks my fps even more than I described above)
I'd agree that it sounds CPU limits causing the issues, as I also run a 1660Ti, but with a i7 9750H and don't have the same issues your coming across.
 
Thanks @HugoTwoWheels. I've been trying to find a good compromise between gfx and performance for a while now and I think I might've found it. I spent so much time looking at the loading screens because of all the testing though. :ill:

The visible cars have the biggest impact on my system. I settled on 20. I see the cars appear and disappear in the distance, but once the grid spreads out, it should get better, especially in multi-class.

I have shadows and car distance LOD set to medium, mirrors on low, reflections on simple cube maps. I've disabled motion blur. The rest is on high.

I have a single 1080p screen but I run 4k resolution (with 1080p menus) and 2x MSAA without FXAA to remove aliasing.

With the settings above the game doesn't look as good obviously, but it can stay above 60 most of the time (Nordschleife 24h is still pretty bad at the GP part, but after I get to the Nordschleife it gets smoother).

Could you post your exact settings? I'd like to compare them with mine.
I'll get back to you soon. But yes, I've experimented a lot as well, instead of buying a new GPU in these ridiculous times.

Edit:
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And this is how my frame timer graph by RTSS looks like all the time, making the experience super smooth and without input lag:
1658490621706.png


If you want to get rid of aliasing, I'd suggest you try 2xAA in-game and switch method to supersampling in your drivers. If your graphics card can take it, try 4x.

Make sure the CPU isn't bogged down. I've found that it greatly affects the FFB. People who aren't sensitive or with poor detail wheels might not notice, but with a DD wheel and no smoothing, it's very noticeable.
DX9 limitation so the game can just utilize 1 core > you can't do much.
You can make sure by using CPU Lasso (CPU affinity/pinning) that the few cores used are free from other processes occupying them. For RR, 2-3 cores are enough. If you're on AMD, make sure they are all on the same CCX (the cores are split in two chips and cause performance loss when a process jumps between them). You can also make sure that "fake" cores aren't used (hyper-threading/SMT).

Sometimes the Windows management works well, and sometimes it doesn't.
 
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Thank you for great tips, @HugoTwoWheels. I'll try the CPU Lasso method. I have a different program on my PC that I think does the same thing - Bill 2 Process Manager. I've been using it for GTR2.

Your settings are a bit different than mine, you sacrificed much more visuals, but you have 24 cars visible which is way better than 20 I have to run with. I also tried 24 cars but with the rest of my settings it makes my PC struggle. I'll see how your settings run on my system, thanks for posting them. I suspect they'll run just fine though. :)

For some time I was wondering if maybe there's something wrong with my PC, some driver messing up or something else making it run not to it's fullest potential. Turns out RaceRoom is indeed just very demanding on CPUs due to it's old engine running on DX9.
 
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Thank you for great tips, @HugoTwoWheels. I'll try the CPU Lasso method. I have a different program on my PC that I think does the same thing - Bill 2 Process Manager. I've been using it for GTR2.

Your settings are a bit different than mine, you sacrificed much more visuals, but you have 24 cars visible which is way better than 20 I have to run with. I also tried 24 cars but with the rest of my settings it makes my PC struggle. I'll see how your settings run on my system, thanks for posting them. I suspect they'll run just fine though. :)

For some time I was wondering if maybe there's something wrong with my PC, some driver messing up or something else making it run not to it's fullest potential. Turns out RaceRoom is indeed just very demanding on CPUs due to it's old engine running on DX9.
Yep, that seems to be a CPU affinity manager as well. Should do the same thing as CPU Lasso.

I'm prioritizing native resolution with as much AA as my graphics card can take. As well as a smooth constant frame rate and frame timing of course. After that a bit of shader and shadows, and max texture quality (doesn't affect FPS anyway). The rest isn't that important to me, and some effects are just distracting.

You can find the bottleneck by running the game in a small window, without V-sync and FPS limiter, so the game becomes CPU limited, and then watch what happens when you change settings.
CPU usage can't be trusted since a process jumps between cores, but GPU usage can be trusted.
 
I have rock solid 75 without any drops on i3 8100 and 1050 ti
but the thing is I'm not using shadows and particles
I hate shadows and I disable them in any racing game if I can because they distracting me and makes me slower (especially on some corners like Lesmo on Monza where in some games u literally can't see the apex because of shadows; it was pain in the ass in GTS because of colour balance)
also if you can't use highest shadows settings then they are "running" (mean loading in front of you) so it looks ugly and even more distracting so I would really consider disabling it, lol; especially if it can give probably the biggest fps boost of all settings - but I'm "eSporter" to the fullest so you know
same with rain drops (which ofc isn't a thing here) and other things like sparks or dust - I always disable them if possible :lol:
1.jpg

2.jpg

(+ anisotropic filtering x16 which makes textures a bit better and vsync in nVidia settings because turning that setting in game causing input lag but when I enable it in nVidia setting it's unnoticeable and for me vsync works smoother than without)

btw in my eyes these last 6 settings make this game actually uglier so I would recommend turning them off even on NASA PC
but specular on actually looks better than off so I recommend to turn it on @HugoTwoWheels :D
and there is no performance lose with that option

btw is 4k on 1080p even make sense? isn't this just fps cut for nothing?
I thought u can't see the difference on 1080p screen
 
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but I'm "eSporter" to the fullest so you know
Oh yes, that's me as well. I don't care how it looks or feels as long as I perform better. 😁
See you on the ranked servers!

I've tried no shadows and specular on but will do again!

Advice from me:
Use VRR, RTSS for frame capping, and V-sync, for ultimate smoothness and low input lag. Ask for details or check out Blurbusters and Battle(non)sense.

Edit: @instinct808 By the way, do you know how to reduce or get rid of the flickering in shadows and some textures? Or is this just inevitable in a DX9 graphics engine?
 
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btw is 4k on 1080p even make sense? isn't this just fps cut for nothing?
I thought u can't see the difference on 1080p screen
I'm using DSR feature (can be activated in Nvidia panel) to achieve that. It allows you to set higher resolution than native.

This way you can pretty much completely remove any aliasing from your game. It works like supersampling - it displays the game in higher resolution, and scales it to your screen. It's especially useful in older games that don't use GPU very heavily - in newer games antialiasing features should be enough and DSR is usually not a good idea.

Because in my experience RaceRoom is relatively light on GPU with settings reduced and in 1080p, I can set resolution to 4K with 2x MSAA. It looks much better than 1080p with 8x MSAA, and the performance hit is small, though the GPU usage is much higher. 2x MSAA is a must because without it the game looks odd, like it's too sharp. (I'm using smoothness at 0%, it could be to blame)

If your GPU isn't working hard in the game then it's definitely worth trying. It also works great in old SimBin titles like GTR2 and RACE 07.
 
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I'm using DSR feature (can be activated in Nvidia panel) to achieve that. It allows you to set higher resolution than native.

This way you can pretty much completely remove any aliasing from your game. It works like supersampling - it displays the game in higher resolution, and scales it to your screen. It's especially useful in older games that don't use GPU very heavily - in newer games antialiasing features should be enough and DSR is usually not a good idea.

Because in my experience RaceRoom is relatively light on GPU with settings reduced and in 1080p, I can set resolution to 4K with 2x MSAA. It looks much better than 1080p with 8x MSAA, and the performance hit is small, though the GPU usage is much higher. 2x MSAA is a must because without it the game looks odd, like it's too sharp. (I'm using smoothness at 0%, it could be to blame)

If your GPU isn't working hard in the game then it's definitely worth trying. It also works great in old SimBin titles like GTR2 and RACE 07.
I use a 4k 32" monitor and can't stand no AA. MSAA isn't enough either. SSAA at 4x looks excellent though, and adaptive anti-aliasing at 8x is good enough.

MSAA only doesn't affect transparent textures, which makes all fences look like ****. That's where adaptive/transparency AA comes in.

SSAA is as you said extremely GPU heavy, but worth it if you can afford it. I'd even turn shadows and reflections off for this.
 
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