GTPlanet Community Spotlight: Beginning of Something New

– Toyota 2000GT, August 28th, 2015, courtesy of jiovane.

I couldn’t be happier with the state of things at the moment. I can finally sit back, relax, and catch up on everything and actually appreciate it, whereas this time last month all I could do was briefly glimpse at something before something else arose that demanded its own attention.

If you’re none the wiser to what it is I’m referring to, or you just love being reminded of how great this year has been to the racing genre, I’m talking about every single great thing that’s hit us this year: the monthly updates to Project CARS, the release of Forza Motorsport 6, Assetto Corsa, and the list just goes on like that. The point being 2015 has had no shortage of racing games news to discuss, critique, and salivate over. Whether or not that’s coming to an end is currently up in the air, however, with all of this comes to inevitable question of “What’s next?”, and I’m as curious in finding the answer to that question as the rest of you.

My guess is if 2015 has been any indication, we haven’t quite seen the best of it just yet.

Who’s ready for the Spotlight?

GTPlanet Picture of the Week

I told you the trucks were here to stay, did I not? This week’s featured image is exactly that, a truck of the Kenworth variety, the T908 to be exact, and is brought to us by spinner as the mighty 10-wheeler appears in Euro Truck Simulator 2.

If you like what you’re seeing and have a suggestion for next week’s featured image, start a conversation with me, entitle it “GTPlanet Picture of the Week” and fill it to your heart’s content with suggestions and they’ll be featured in upcoming Community Spotlight articles. NOTE: You cannot elect your own work.

GTPlanet Gallery of the Week

This week’s featured is the Advanced bracket of long running Photomode Competitons for Gran Turismo, yet another community effort maintained by budding virtual photographers and veterans alike.

“With the welcome addition of the new Course Creator, I would like you to go to any custom track and take a photo that will wow us! Cars or no cars, just give us a cracking view of these new territories. It could be a panoramic-style shot on top of a hill with the track below, (obviously no photo-stitching allowed) it could be an arty shot of the track twisting and looping – curves – parallel lines, patterns made by telegraph wires in front of a dusty mountain. But the key words are ‘expanse’ and ‘vast’.”

Any location unique to the Course Creator is your destination in this week’s competition which of course means you can’t venture in to Photo Travel, in addition to the option of having as many cars as you want or none at all, and your only real restrictions are that the photos be of a static environment or one that is in constant motion. You can have a look at this week’s competition and submit your own entry by stopping by the thread here and getting with the program!

GTPlanet Thread of the Week – A Guaranteed Purchase?

– Subaru WRX STi, October 12th, 2015, courtesy of fagnerpc.

Several weeks ago we discussed what the GTPlanet community thought was required of Gran Tursimo 7 to be considered the best ever, but this time we’re going toward something of an opposite direction and yet the same altogether. The thread featured, put together by bremics asks the simple question of what would it take for Gran Turismo 7 to be a guaranteed purchase?

It’s no secret that many have withheld on purchasing a brand new PlayStation 4 for one reason and one reason only: there isn’t a Gran Turismo title to accompany the purchase. The question is as simple as it appears, what would pique your interest enough to the point where’d you purchase a PS4 (assuming you aren’t already in possession of one) alongside GT7 without batting an eyelid and asking no further questions?

Some are going to ask for the moon as it were, while others are going to be a little more modest in what would undoubtedly tempt them. I’ve discussed this at length a few times beforehand, but what would sell me is a return to the essentials, one might even describe it as the way Gran Turismo used to be; racing modifications, manufacturer one-make races, and the list would go on from there.

What would it take to make GT7 a guaranteed purchase for you whether you have a PS4 or not? Let bremics (and myself) know in his thread!

Project CARS 5.0 Update Now on the Xbox One, October DLC Teased

– RUF CTR “Yellowbird”, October 15th, 2015, courtesy of c172fccc.

Xbox One users rejoice! The 5.0 Update for pCARS is now out in the wild across all platforms, which of course means it won’t be much longer before this month’s DLC is on the scene. You can read all about the Xbox One-specific changes in the original news piece that’s been updated, and as for what’s coming in this month’s DLC… I’ll just leave this here.

No, that isn’t everything that’s going to be included.

GTPlanet Vehicle of the Week – Cars, Cars, and more Cars!

This week it’s your call, of everything you’re about to see (and more importantly, hear) what’s your favorite?

Update 1.3.4 Hits Assetto Corsa

– Audi R8 LMS, October 11th, 2015, courtesy of Rage Racer.

The madness continues for AC fans as another update has been released that contains numerous improvements to the title, which is of course yet another step in the right direction for a title that has already done so many things right.

Everything brought about in the update is as follows:

• Replay in x64 are now capped at 1GB instead of 500MB
• Fixed turbo in form gears
• Physics multithread is now disabled with less than 4 cores
• Fixed backfire animation on Lamborghini Countach
• acServerManager: admin password is mandatory
• acServerManager: fixed uploader not saving surfaces.ini of multi-layout tracks
• Fixed Lamborghini Countach S1 UI for customers who do not own DLC2
• Fixed Alfa Romeo 4c peak slip angle value on rear street tyres.
• Fine tuning of tyre heating model for GT2 and GT3 cars. Tyres now might need 2 laps to heat up the core temperatures. Core temperatures are now much more stable during a lap and cool down slower.
• New power loss calculation for GT2 GT3 cars engines
• Corrected rolling resistance calculations for GT2 and GT3 cars tyres
• BMW M3 E30 Drift and M3 E92 drift has new tyre heat calculation following the GT2/GT3 logic. Experimental.
• Balancing of GT3 car performances. The balance does not make all cars equal, but just brings their performances closer. Leagues can now add a small amount of ballast to equalize the cars performances even more.
• Fixed dirt texture and headlights in Ferrari 458 Italia
• Fixed headlights indicator on BMW Z4 GT3
• Fixed transparency issue on Ruf Yellowbird
• Added leds to Mercedes SLS GT3
• Fixed TrackIR support for x64
• Added Force Feedback Controller app
• Fixed acServer corruption of internal buffers leading to packet losses
• Added benchmark mode
• Real-time app now uses magenta to signal fastest lap in the session
• New “camera facing” spectators are now controlled by the “world detail” settings. Allowing users with older machines to achieve better FPS
• Minor AI race craft tweaks (a bit faster to change lane but bit less “punchy bumpy”)
• Remapped some functions associated with Numpad “+” and “-” * +/- = Change Force Feedback (disabled in replays) * Ctrl +/- = Change onboard FOV * Ctrl Shift +/- = Change saturation

GTPlanet Tune of the Week

– November 12th, 2014, courtesy of GT5Redsucker23.

This week’s featured tune is all about a particular formula, a formula that only Ayrton Senna seemingly mastered. Of course this means you’re getting behind the wheel of the turbocharged Lotus 97T. As you’d expect from an F1 machine, the performance is beyond what you’d otherwise expect, and this particular tune is good for any track – so strap in and dominate every single thing that dares cross the finish in your presence.

Be sure to stop by RTRacing’s tune page, by Weider and give this one a go. Can you rise to the challenge?

The Last Lap

I know what you’re thinking, “T, you said the next Spotlight would be better than the last; made up in full, even!” and I won’t shy away at all because that’s exactly what I said. The thing about that is with the way things have calmed down I’m finding myself without a panicked feeling, and to be perfectly honest, and this is going to clash with what I said previously, I miss that. There was something alluring about not knowing what could come next, and for the past couple of months “next” was a highly neutral term as it could have meant the next day, next hour, or even the next five minutes.

The Spotlight will continue to get better and better as I continually promise and I hope that I’ve delivered on those promise up until this point, but there’s always going to be installments where some are better than others as that’s the natural order of things. The best solution is turning to the community at large: what do you all think the Spotlight should adopt next?

There are some great things planned for next week’s Spotlight so business is going to pick up again pretty soon. Until next week, keep racing!