A RaceRoom Update and Summer Sale On Now

Sector3 Studios haven’t slowed down for the Summer month, with both a RaceRoom update and Summer Sale on now.

So it’s a good time to download the free-to-play racing sim for the PC, or possibly invest in some new cars and tracks.

First up we’ll look at the update, which has a varity of small changes to fix issues with dedicated servers, some Thrustmaster weels, and sounds. But the main focus appears to be tuning the performance and features on another long list of cars.

It follows quite a long run of smaller updates in May and early June.

RaceRoom Update 0.9.0.968 changelist:

Update details:

• Download size = 1.0 GB
• Client version = 0.9.0.968
• Client BuildID = 5207296
• Dedi version = 64.0.1135
• Dedi BuildID = 5207548

Changelist:

• Dedicated server – Added UI elements to API controls for restarting current session and send out penalties to players. These currently have some known issues such as not resetting incident points on a race restart, or skipping the garage phase and restarting straight to the grid.
• Dedicated server – Potential fix for some users getting kicked for high latency after a session switch.
• Dedicated server – Fixed an issue where a penalty received by a player in the first race session would still be applied in the second race session.
• Shared Memory – Added incident points data. Updated minor version to 7. (retrocompatible)
• Controllers – Some Thrustmaster wheels were reportedly acting up with flatspot effects after a recent firmware update (30). Default profiles have it turned off as a consequence until resolved.
• Physics – Fixed an issue with friction heat calculations where you could see tire temperatures rise unexpectedly at low speeds
• Physics – Changed Ignition / Starter logic so that if you have those controls bount to buttons, you now have to press and maintain the Starter button until the engine is fully started.
• Sounds – Road noise volume slider range now properly offers 0-100% range
• Sounds – Fixed the last occurrences of hearing sudden high revs / hitting limiter from other cars while watching replays or spectating multiplayer races
• Gameplay – “Position Bar Relative” setting caused some position bar issue in multiplayer where the same name would be repeated in all the boxes when that option was enabled. As a quick fix, we temporarily disabled this feature and forced it to be disabled.

Content updates:

• AMG-Mercedes C-Klasse DTM 1995 – Tuned high-speed damping
• Audi TT RS VLN – Tuned high-speed damping
• BMW 320 Turbo (Gr. 5) – Increased radiator cooling
• BMW M1 (Procar & Group 4) – Added onboard cameras (accessible through pressing Home key or through the broadcast overlay controls when spectating a race)
• Cougar C14-2 – Fixed a typo that made this car use default damage values instead of specific ones.
• DTM 13/14/15/16 – AI behaviour improvements & updates to their fuel predictions. Increased differential locking and drivetrain oscillations to stop rev dropping due to wheel speed differences.
• Formula RaceRoom Junior – Tune high-speed damping
• Group C – Tuned high-speed damping, increased front view swing arm length and decreased the rear.
• GTR1 – AI behaviour improvements
• GTR3 – Reduced peak camber angles, reduced tyre heating. Old generation GT3 cars are now more closely BOP’d with the more recent models. Updated AI tyre wear to match player’s better.
• GTR4 – Tweaks to brake cooling, tuned dampers, further BOP adjustments and improvements to default car setups.
• Porsche 911 Carrera Cup (964) – Improved default car setup and equalised front/rear tyre heating
• Porsche 911 RSR 2019 – Improved default car setup and reduced tyre heating. AI behaviour improvements. Softer anti-roll bars, tuned dampers, reduced rear braking power slightly. Increased downshift blipping.
• Porsche 934 Turbo RSR – AI behaviour improvements
• Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport – Tweaks to brake cooling, tuned dampers, reduced tyre heating and tweaks to tyre camber behaviours (rear tyre now require less)
• Touring Classics – Updated tyres, suspension adjustments (softer overall), balance of performance adjustments, and AI behaviour improvements
• Tracks – tweaked initial fuel consumption estimates to improve/fix some questionable AI strategic decisions.
• Tweaked fuel consumption estimates for various cars. (reminder that once a lap has been completed, the estimates are replaced with actual recorded values)
• WTCR – smoothed rev limiters and pit limiters, AI behaviour improvements (calmed them down in fast turns)
• Hungaroring – New additions to the real track are now implemented: a new pitbuilding, updated runoff areas, new curbs, pitwall paint, medical building.

That all amounts to a pretty comprehensive range of tweaks and fixes for a lot of the cars. Especially when you can invest in some new content for a lot less right now.

The 2020 RaceRoom Summer Sale

The RaceRoom Summer Sale is now on for purchases made within the official game store. The discounts run until 9th July, 2020, and you can get 50% off all cars and tracks, or 25% off all of the content packs.

Which makes for some pretty decent savings, especially if you want to invest in the vehicles and circuits to join or run a specific championship, or just want to round out your collection of everything in the game.

Of course, if you want to know what’s available, we can help with our complete RaceRoom car list, and full RaceRoom track list.

And with a RaceRoom update and Summer Sale now on, it’s a good time to check out the game if you haven’t already. Or maybe revisit it, if you haven’t raced for a while.

You can download RaceRoom Racing Experience for free for the PC via Steam. And then buy additional content either through the official game store, or some content packs are available via Steam (which will be kicking off its own summer sale in a few days).

We’ve been fans of RaceRoom for a while, particularly for the selection and characteristics of the older cars available in it. And it’s also one of the best PC racing sims if you’re using a gamepad controller rather than a wheel (in our experience). So we’ll definitely be picking up some of the 70s and 80s touring and endurance racers before the RaceRoom Summer Sale is over.