iRacing News

The 2016 Season 4 Build has been released and features the long-awaited debut of the Circuit des 24 Heures du Mans, home of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. At 13.6 km and 8.4 miles, the Circuit des 24 Heures du Mans is the second longest track on the iRacing service and, along with the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, ranks as the world’s most historic active racing venue.

There’s more to the new build than the fantastic new Le Mans circuit, however. Our new dynamic night shadow maps will enhance the night racing experience, including realistic windshield reflections, while updates to the dynamic track have resulted in improved realism of heat mapping and rubber build-up. You’ll also notice a new character in the driver’s seat, as well as wind-animated flags at the circuits.

Brake bias adjustments have also been added to a small number of cars for Fixed Setup series, and we are also launching support for OpenVR /HTC Vive headsets, and antialiasing in our virtual reality views.

Also available is the Audi 90 GTO car and Nissan GTP ZX Turbo. These two historic cars are available for purchase and are racing in a brand new series on iRacing called the Kamel GT Series – utilizing many of the same tracks the real world counterparts raced on back in 1989.

The 2016 Season 3 Build is out and, with it, comes another legendary race track and a host of new and improved features.

Headlining the new build is Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari (more familiarly known as Imola), one time home of the Italian and the San Marino Grands Prix and one of Europe’s most historic circuits. And while South Boston Speedway has been available on the service for quite some time, the thorough artistic overhaul included in the build makes it seem almost like new.

Speaking of overhauls, the physics on every track have been updated to better model physics collisions with objects large and small, as well as to bring dust and gravel kicked-up by off-course excursions onto the racing surface along with the corresponding impact on the tire grip. The Gen 6 Chevies, Fords and Toyotas now sport the digital dashboards found on their NASCAR Sprint Cup counterparts, while V8 Supercar devotees will enjoy the improved stability of the 2014 Fords and Holdens. We’ve also upgraded the ability to retrieve accurate Incident Point statistics and we’ve even added preliminary DirectX 11 support for iRacers with an Oculus Rift.

Packed with new cars and new features, our latest build is now available.

The 2016 Global Mazda MX-5 Cup Car is FREE to all members and will replace the previous generation MX-5 Cup and Roadster in the Rookie level series. iRacing worked hand and hand with Mazda and Long Road Racing over the past 12 months to help develop this car in the real world and to then bring the most accurate representation possible to the simulation.

The Audi R8 LMS, Mercedes AMG GT3 and Formula Renault 2.0 round out the list of of new cars available. Audi and Mercedes are two of the most successful manufacturers in recent history and the FR 2.0 gives iRacers another choice in the open wheel arena.

Additional highlights include:

Improved netcode
Abilty to flash headlights
Selectable time of day - morning, afternoon, late afternoon and night when available
Improved animation for lollipop guy
Video capture
New visual tire debris
Trial version of upgraded graphics engine DX11
New car sounds
Much more!

You can read the full release notes in themember forums or here: http://www.iracing.com/2016-season-2-release-notes/

The new build is jam-packed with exciting content and great new features. On the content side there's not one but twoNürburgring circuits -- the Nordschleife and the GP-Strecke -- along with the sensational McLaren MP4-30 and one of America's finest short tracks, Southern National Motorsports Park. As well, the build's new net code and particle system greatly enhances the sim's audio/visual package, producing a range of realistic features such as engine backfires, flying tire “marbles” and sparks from “bottoming” cars.

More info can be found here: http://www.iracing.com/nurburgring-mclaren-southern-national-enhancedaudiovisuals-highlight-new-build/

The Season 4 build ushers-in a new era in sim racing with iRacing’s unique new dynamic track feature. Now, for the first time, the digital pavement (and grip levels) will constantly evolve during the course of races based on changing weather conditions, track temperature and the amount of virtual rubber laid down by the competitors.

And that’s just for starters. The build also features the sensational Corvette C7 Daytona Prototype and the NASCAR Xfinity Toyota Camry which, together with the Chevrolet Camaro and Ford Mustang, completes iRacing’s lineup of NASCAR Xfinity cars.

In addition, we’ve added taking new and improved cheat prevention/detection measures plus we’ve updated our multi-class split algorithms, enhanced the race control functions on several tracks, improved the tire model’s lateral stiffness, upgraded several additional cars to the new tire model, simplified the Cars/Tracks/Tech Tracks pages, added a Team Series Stats page to show team rankings in official team series . . . and much, much more.