Project CARS verscheen in mei en hoewel wij de game in onze review met een prachtige score beloonden, waren er zeker nog wel enkele punten die minder goed uitgewerkt waren. Het is dan ook goed om te zien dat ontwikkelaar Slightly Mad Studios nog flink aan de game aan het sleutelen is. Dit resulteert dan ook in een gloednieuwe patch, die gisteren is uitgekomen voor de PlayStation 4 en PC.
Patch 1.4 kunnen we, wanneer we naar de changelog kijken, een zeer grote update noemen. Er worden ontzettend veel zaken aangepast. Hieronder vallen onder andere verbeteringen in de force feedback bij het gebruik van een stuurwiel en allerlei fixes bij verschillende voertuigen. Hieronder het complete overzicht van alles dat de patch met zich meebrengt.
General
- Pagani Monza Club day invitational event – no longer causes the game to crash when using a specific livery on the Pagani Huayra.
- Anisotropic filtering has been increased to help reduce blurry textures.
- Temporal anti-aliasing has been further optimized. This reduces the ghosting effect and additionally gives the player full control via a slider to tweak the resulting image according to personal preference.
Performance Improvements
- All shaders have been rebuilt using new shader compiler, giving a significant performance boost in some areas.
- CPU performance gains due to new more aggressive code optimizations.
Physics & AI
- The AI loss of grip that results from tyre degradation as a result of wear is now more noticeable.
- The AI will now show much more realistic grip loss when running on slick tyres in the rain.
- First pass improvements on various tracks to enhance the AI performance and ability (Azure Circuit, Donington GP, Watkins Glen, Bathurst, Nordschleife).
Replays
- Improved the smoothness of the sun, moon, stars, and shadow motion when rewinding replays of a race that had a high time acceleration.
Driver Network Profile
- Fixed an issue where at times the miles driven on a particular track or with a particular car would be logged under the wrong car or track. This improves the accuracy of the player’s Affinity ratings.
Pitting, Tuning, Setups
- Fixed an issue where certain street cars would pit for tyre change during rain when they already had the correct tyres fitted.
- Fixed an issue where custom vehicle setups were lost when progressing through sessions.
- Fixed an issue where AI vehicles were sometimes sent to the pits due to low fuel on races where refuelling is not allowed.
- Improved the system used to select the most appropriate tyres based on current and predicted weather conditions.
- Ensure that the AI always pit when they need to change tyres based on the weather conditions.
- The Default strategy will now correctly show the tyres that will be fitted on the player vehicle during a pit stop.
- The pit stop routine will no longer start during online races until the player closes the pit stop menu. This ensures that the player has enough time to select or configure an appropriate set of actions before the pit crew start working on the car.
- Tyre pressures will now be correctly set when the player changes to a new set of tyres.
- The currently-active Pit strategy will now remain in action when advancing through race sessions.
- Pitstop strategy will now use the actual bar value for tyre pressures.
- Fixed an issue where the Pit engineer would repeatedly inform the player that a pit crew member has lost a wheel nut during pit stops.
- Fixed an issue where the Pit Engineer would call the player to stop for fuel when fuel consumption was disabled in options.
Online
- Fixed an issue where the player was sometimes given a large time penalty when exiting the pit lane.
- Fixed an issue where the remaining session time displayed an incorrect value in the Tuning screen.
- Fixed an issue that at times would prevent a player from entering a race, after joining a second online lobby.
- Fixed an issue where the Track Location popup would at times appear on some screens.
- The lobby browser now displays random lobbies instead of always the oldest lobbies.
- Fixed an issue where network features could not be used after resuming from rest mode.
- Fixed an occasional crash when advancing from Qualifying to Race.
- Fixed an occasional crash when returning from a race to the Race Central.
- Disabled driver swap to AI team-mate during online races and Time Trial events.
- Enabled saving of community event ghosts. These ghosts are automatically stored online, and you can then download ghosts of other players’ laps for these events.
Controls
- Fixed pedals and triggers that vibrates during replays.
- Fixed an issue that causes the wheel centring spring to be active during driving.
- Improved force feedback strength and tweaked the default force feedback parameters for all supported wheels based on community feedback.
- Further enhancements to the steering feeling – improved blending between the tyre force spring and the steering lock spring.
- Improved behaviour of the wheel force springs while navigating the menu system.
- Fixed an issue where the player got stuck on the career screen when entering driver name using a wheel controller.
- Fixed an issue with the Thrustmaster T500RS centring spring.
- Fixed several issues and further improved the support implementation of several older Fanatec wheels, such as the GT2, GT3, and CSR.
- Fixed the Fanatec CSS so that it works correctly in sequential mode.
- Fixed the Fanatec CSP pedals to save the calibration correctly if player calibrated only pedals.
- Fixed the Fanatec CSP ABS rumble.
- Fixed the Fanatec CSW handbrake.
- Game Pad – tilt Control support implemented to allow controller tilt to be used to control the vehicles.
- Implemented support for the Logitech G29 wheel.
Time Trial
- Set Time Trials starting time to 11am to match the PC platform. This ensures consistent track temperatures across all platforms, as track temperatures affect lap times.
GUI
- Driver Network Profile – visual tidy up to improve usability.
- Fixed an issue where very thin lines would not always appear.
- Added support for better info display on the Community Events page.
- Fixed the issue where HUD customization was not saved on exiting a session.
- Fixed an issue where the Potential Lap time display on the Lap Info board would be inconsistent with the sector times being displayed.
- Monitor/Spectate mode – fixed an issue where the vehicle being viewed would automatically reset to the player’s vehicle on leaving the monitor screen.
Vehicles
- Adjusted handbrake strength on vehicles which are equipped with handbrakes.
- Fixed an issue where the rain wipers’ state did not reset correctly when restarting a session.
- Fixed an issue where light glows from a vehicle behind the player would sometimes appear in front of the player.
- Fixed fuel pressure gauge calibration in several cars.
- Fixed an issue where a white border would at times appear around the brake light glow of certain cars.
- Ford Mk IV – improved the collision model to prevent vehicles wedging in under other vehicles.
- Formula Gulf, Gumpert Apollo, Formula Rookie – fixed an issue with the livery sets that caused the livery selection to display wrong liveries.
- Lykan Hypersport – statistics updated to latest manufacturer specification.
- Lotus 72D – improved handing characteristics, exposed bump stops to be adjustable in the vehicle setup, reduced cold sensitivities of the slick tyres, adjusted the AI speed, wear and rain tires to match the player’s experience.
- Karts – reworked the Karts optimization to help address performance drops with a lot of Karts on track.
- McLaren 12C GT3 – adjusted the vehicle pose to more closely match the real car.
- BMW M3 GT4 – improved the accuracy of the levels at which the oil and water temperature warning lights will activate.
- Ford Escort RS1600 – improved the collision and wheel contact model to prevent climbing over other cars in collisions.
- 250cc Superkart – improved the default setup to address controller issues on higher speed tracks, and improved the AI handling.
- Lotus 49 – improved the AI handling of the vehicle in corners and in close racing.
- Pagani Huayra – reduced fuel consumption to around 3mpg in hard track use, and improved cooling to prevent engine overheating.
Tracks
- Bathurst – removed cones in the pit lane that was causing cars to get stuck.
- Watkins Glen – fixed a number of accuracy issues around the track.
- 24 Heures du Mans – improved the race line at a few corners to keep the LMP cars off the curbs as this was causing the cars to lean over on two wheels.
- Silverstone National – vehicle grid placement reworked to more closely align with the painted start boxes.
- Hockenheim (various layouts) – reworked the wet weather reflection mapping to address incorrect object reflections.
- Willow Springs – fixed an issue where the vehicle could drive through the barriers when exiting the pits.
- Sakitto and Summerton variations – corrected track info regarding number of turns and track length.
- Sakitto Sprint – fixed a crash that would at times occur when using time acceleration.
- Cadwell variations – fixed draw distance issues on various objects.
- Oschersleben variations – fixed odd lights around track and colour issues with the horizon.
- Zolder – fixed an issue where the player car would sometimes start in a closed garage.