Assetto Corsa EVO v0.2 is here, bringing new content and substantial changes to the sim. Here's everything in the second AC EVO Early Access release!
Image: Kunos Simulazioni
New cars, new tracks, a progress reset and move to offline, performance optimization - Kunos Simulazioni have been hard at work for the new Assetto Corsa EVO update, it seems. It took longer than anticipated, with the most recent update before v0.2 being almost three months old at the time of the new version's launch.
More frequent updates should follow this second Early Access release, and playability should be helped with performance supposedly "the most obvious improvement in the update", according to Chief Technology Officer Stefano Casillo. Thus far, particularly in VR, players had difficulties getting to run AC EVO smoothly, although that was not the case for everyone.
Anyway, without further ado, here are the release notes for Assetto Corsa EVO v0.2.
AC EVO Version 0.2 Changelog
General
- added Circuit Of The Americas - GP and National layouts
- added Donington Park Circuit - GP and National layouts
- added Alfa Romeo 75 Turbo Evoluzione
- added Alfa Romeo Giulia Sprint GTA
- added Lotus Exige V6 Cup
- added Honda NSX-R (92R)
- added Maserati GT2
- added Mazda Miata (MX-5) NA
- added Porsche 911 Turbo 3.6 (964)
The Gameplay has been altered so that players have a choice to play in Career or Open mode.
Career mode will be the previous progression mode without any backend dependency on gameplay flow.
In Open mode the dealership is an open source of cars for customizing and adding them to the player's local garage. There is no limitation to access and customization options.
Open mode also has persistence on locally customized and saved cars.
"All Cars" button in Open mode car selection allows quick selection of all cars ingame, and also moving them into the garage if the player would like a customized example.
Initial startup prompts the player to create a profile and select the desired mode - after that they can switch between the modes at any time.
Please note that Special Events still require online connection.
Physics
- re-enabled fuel and battery consumption
- re-enabled gearbox damage
- Lambo and Lancia cardata fixes and tweaks
- fixed electronics setup settings not transferring to track
- work on dynamic track physics-graphics relation and updates
- handling and setup updates to the Camaro ZL1 and ZL1 1LE variant
- fixed gear shift audio event for automatic gearbox
UI
- added input filters to vehicles UI pages to listen to appropriate functions on each given page
- fix for flickering caused by the thumbnail creation on car purchase
- controls page now has an input poll for itself, solving the ui input filtering.
- controls page cancel button
- fixed in-session controller navigation issues
- fixes to controller navigation and focus in showroom controls
- localization updates for all languages
- added soft configuration to controls page so it responds without applying
- car customization: reject rim design on pending design mismatch (fixing entry duplication)
- UI: fixed to Fuji track preview images gone missing in some cases
- UI: video settings tooltips
- UI: fixed invalid laps being displayed as best lap in timetables
- fixed a VRAM leak caused by the UI engine causing degrading performance over time
- fixed issues with input devices not sent to the UI and other input-related woes
- UI: Slider - keyboard/controller control for dual handle sliders
- UI: Gamemode - togglebutton height adjustment, start position slider visibility correction
- forced UI confirm and cancel to OnRelease to simplify input binding
- fixed car flickering in radar
- UI: paintshop - mismatch protection for rim selection due to unresponsive game client
- race weekend and grid customization enabled
- replay gallery enabled
- new weather preset icons
- car thumbnails updated capture scene with contact shadows and adjusted spacing
- showroom: fixed dash display turning off when customizing rims/parts on a car
- pitstop timer on HUD
- implemented car setup load/save/delete
- improvements to the radar widget
- added black curtains on transitions
- car controls widget added in main menu
- track selection maintained between game modes (when possible)
- fixed predicted/delta finish line spikes
Gameplay
- added Open/Career modes
- Career mode flow now independent of backend connection
- added "remove vehicle" functionality in Open Mode Garage
- new Custom Grid logic and page with car categories - ICE, EV, hybrid and Performance Index (PI)
- several fixes in pit limiter usage and acceleration/braking
- fixed special event starting time going forward with time spent in menu
- removed randomization of grid on session load
- fixed bug in track limits causing AI opponent driving zig-zag lines
- improved pitlane exit spline -> ideal line transitions
- fixed end of session timers
- ideal line: changed the coloring to be more helpful for inexperienced drivers
- fixed Suzuka East using wrong pitlane spline
- fixed Suzuka East track limits through T1
- crowd density depending on the session: in order: practice, warmup, qualify, race
- improved OEM opponent car color randomization on grid
- black-orange flag now resets on restart session
- adjusted timelines for BH, MP, Fuji, Suzuka according to real life finish lines
- improved pitbox visibilty, now reflecting status with the hologram color
- improved automatic wipers speed levels, now better adjusting to the actual amount of rain on the windshield
AI
The Quickrace/Race Weekend UI offers improved control over the AI setup, including a range slider for the general AI skill used to select the driver opponents.
As preparation, we introduced the "Opponents Behaviour" control, which will replace the "aggressivness" sliders from previous titles. At the moment, only the default behaviour "safe" is selectable, which is the known algorithm and behaviour with fairly safe settings.
- fixed AI cars being teleported to pit at the end of the session
- fixed a bug where the AI could be dragged into the pit exit zones
- fixed offset bug on pitlane spline, causing AI drivers to not center the pitlane
- AI drivers have improved wall awareness in pitlanes now
- AI cars will not ignore cars standing (i.e. on the grid)
- fixed cooldown for AI behind player
- pitlane spline exits are now merged into the ideal line at runtime, reducing violent steering
- pitlane spline entries are now forked from the ideal line at runtime, reducing violent steering
- increased precision especially for the tendency to cut corners
- updated all car and track base information and finetuning
- fix for immobilized AI cars when restarting session
- fixed AI cars taking too long at the race start
- fixed AI cars braking too late for the pit entry
- fixed AI cars revving through pitstops
- improved AI race start behaviour
- improved braking calculation
Graphics
[Graphics] Enhancements:
- retuned all current weather settings for all tracks, resulting in a less foggy overall look, better horizons, and dawns
- tree material enhancements
- mirrors rendering now shows opponents shadow decals
- car dirt effects enabled
- Fuji visual updates
- Brands Hatch visual updates
- Suzuka visual updates
- Mt Panorama visual updates
- tweaked visual ride height of several cars
- adjusted VW Golf 8 rim offsets
- global VRAM optimization
- updated Ferrari 296 GTB and Audi RS 3 dash display
- adjusted simple car mirror capture areas
- light stage now auto-opens popup lights
- wiper vignette effect is now a gradual effect per rain intensity
- enhanced Filmic AA options - improves visuals for objects with sky backgrounds, such as trees and wires
- texture streaming priority (to prioritize certain environment textures - such as Fuji mountain to always load first)
- sun shadowing on directional shadows and smooth fog-based volumetric booster
- auto-disabling of mirror in multi mode now respects which side the driver is on (with centre-positioned driver no mirror is disabled by default)
- vsync now ignores the gameplay frame limiter
- switching to VR or triple screen mode no longer disables DLSS
- improved shadow culling heuristic at dawn and sunset
- removed ideal line from mirror rendering
- removed jittering from non-MSAA flimic pass
- dash display emissive auto-adjustment to take into consideration overcast
- column-mounted shifter paddles hidden when the steering wheel is hidden
- tweaked visual tyre flex effect
[Graphics] VR:
- VR: added VR TV camera set
- VR: mirror capture mode now defaults to "dynamic" in VR
- VR: runtime changes of video settings
- VR: enhanced reflections
- VR: added DLSS
- VR: new grass type (global)
- VR: fixed black glitch at horizon
- VR: idle-screensaver sequence disabled in VR
[Graphics] Triple Rendering:
- triple: fixed clustering issues caused by the addition of the "mono view on triple" feature
- triple: added DLSS capabilities
- triple: reworked world matrix calculations to resolve positional issues
- triple: fixed volumetrics day-night transition
- triple: fixed shadows popping
- triple: fixed marshall animation
- triple: fixed black glitch at horizon
[Graphics] Optimizations:
- optimize z-prepass
- optimize mirrors and cubemap rendering
- optimize loading times
- reduced VRAM usage after loading
- optimized global illumination memory footprint
- optimized tiled culling
- UI platform and VRAM usage optimizations
- main menu UI textures are now compressed and sometimes shrunk, 10x texture memory save
- dash display textures now compressed, approximately 50% texture memory save
[Graphics] Fixes:
- fix for diagonal line on the UI pages in VR and triples
- fix for marshals occasionally becoming frozen
- fixed blurred shader functions (tyre, rim, disc) not working in reverse
- fixes stuttering during gameplay
- fixed undercar fake shadow disappearing above a certain number of opponents
- fixed previous car's reflection image visible on disabled mirror
- fixed dancing clouds issue
- fixed sss denoise unshadowing factor
- fixed hero shadow resolution with experimental shadow
- fixed replay shadow for focused car
- fix rims jittering with DLSS
- fix for dynamic thumbnail inconsistency depending on sky type in source showroom scene
- car and windshield dirt and damage states are reset on return to pits - bodywork dirt resets only on session restart
- fixed for internal raindrops going sideways on rear windows
- TV cameras movement is now paused when the game or the replay are paused
- fixed AMD glitches
- improve shadow of drivable internal cameras
Audio
- fixed ABS indicator sound on the Lancia
- restored the old default audio device when the audio has fallback on another device
- removed ramp volumes on audio changing options
- improved backfire logic
- general fixes on volume and distance
- bodywork muted when teleport
- fading on scene loaded and player teleport
- new sounds for Lancia Delta HF Integrale EVO II
- doppler effect for some audio events
- increased volume distance for turbo sound on exterior cameras
- better distance scale and audio positioning for opponents
- opponent volume for turbo and backfire
What are your thoughts on the new Assetto Corsa EVO update? Let us know in the comments below and join the discussion in our AC EVO forum!
