Assetto Corsa Competizione: Free update 1.8 released with new content

1.8.0
GENERAL:
– Added Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe 2021 season as bonus content with all entries, liveries and drivers and championship season.
NOTE: certain entries are subject to DLC ownership.
– Added all-new BMW M4 GT3 as bonus content as part of the 2021 season.

GRAPHICS:
– Updated global lighting and exposure on all tracks.
– Revision of various track-related shaders.
– Revision of various car-related shaders.
– Sky box revision.
– Improved blurred wheel rim shader.
– Improved car spray effect, especially in light/medium wetness situations.
– Improved raindrop effect rendering logic to follow the updated spray effect.
– Improved rainfall shader appearance in external cameras.
– Car headlight shadow bias tweaks to prevent lights from penetrating walls at close distance.
– Updated track HLODs.

GAMEPLAY:
– Added Open season, merging all game content into a “sandbox” season featuring grid customization.
NOTE: individual official seasons remain playable with no change to their earlier functionalities.
– Added opponent grid mixing option to Custom Race Weekend and Quick Race game modes in the Open season.
Use the grid mixing sliders to set car group prevalence in the grid.
GT3 car group has an additional setting for the preferred generation of opponent cars (all, pre-2019 or new-gen).
– Added Open series championship mode with grid (car groups) and track lineup customization.
– Automatically generated custom cars are now grouped into teams both in single-make custom mode and Open series championship.
– Reworked driver assignment system to support custom-generated grids and various driver count requirements.
– Removed entry duplication between the 2019 GTWCH and IGT seasons.
– Tweaked AI logic for strategic decisions reacting to weather changes.
– Improved AI genome at Bathurst, Barcelona, ​​Laguna Seca and Kyalami to reduce the chance of unforced driving errors.
– Improved weather model: variability (=randomness in MP) now affects the variation and frequency of weather cycles:
Higher variability will now produce larger variation and less predictability in the length of individual weather cycles (time between peaks).
High variability might produce both fast changes or prolonged weather spells (or both combined) within the same weekend simulation.
Low variability will produce more even weather cycles, akin to the pre-update model.
– Revised pit speeding thresholds that were often too permissive, both on pit entry and pit exit.
– Fixed invalid lap being eligible for personal and session fastest (purple) lap in race sessions (also in multiplayer results).
– Added measures against irregular driving before the green light in Hotlap and Hotstint game modes.
– Replay: revised replay tire rotation matrix calculation to avoid misalignment between tires and rim (and reduce disk space).
The improvement is backwards-compatible, while newly saved replays should occupy less disk space than before.

UI:
– Revised season selector header in Single Player menu.
– Added GTWCHEU 2021 season selection in Single Player.
– Added Open series selection in Single Player.
– Added colored session labels in the Replay menu.
– Added session fastest (purple) lap holder indicator in standings, leaderboard and timer widgets.
– Added pitstop indicator and session fastest lap on the leaderboard HUD overlay.

PHYSICS:
– Physics engine optimizations: variable component tick frequency, optimized multithreading.
It results in smoother single-player performance with a high number of AI and fewer spikes due to overloading single cores on heavy calculations (such as simultaneous collisions).
Might not result in outright maximum fps gain, but a significantly lower single-thread occupancy and late steps can be expected, particularly with larger grids.
– 400hz physics refresh rate.
– Improved tire flex.
– Improved camber simulation, especially on high positive camber values.
– Improved Outside, Mid, and Inside tire heating relative to camber.
– Improved Outside, Mid, and Inside tire wear relative to camber.
– Improved camber gain simulation, affecting slip angles and forces. Evident with high camber values ​​over kerbs and longitudinal bumps.
– Improved surface flash temperature tire simulation. A wider range of heat generation.
– Improved heat generation in extreme conditions (burnouts, donuts).
– Improved heat generation relative to tire pressure.
– Improved core temperature retaining. Tires dissipate heat significantly slower now, no need to wait right until the last moment to go to the grid.
– Completely revised and improved combined grip simulation.
– Completely revised and improved tire vibrations at high speed and high slip angles.
– Improved slip angle/ratio simulation relative to cold and overheating tires.
– New viscoelastic rubber friction model.
– Improved dynamic tire characteristics in various temperature conditions.
– New rubber bump stops damping simulation.
– Implemented bump stops damping values ​​for all cars.
– Improved engine throttle simulation.
– Improved launch control.
– Improved rev limiter behavior (soft limiters on some cars).
– Improved traction control simulation.
– Improved brake ducts heating influence simulation.
– Improved rain tires behavior (note: not necessarily easier).
– Improved the simulation of brake efficiency and power.
– Improved track grip simulation on and off the racing line.
– Improved ambient vs. track temperature delta.
– Added a condition that simulates mist and dew during the night in certain temperatures.
– Improved certain track condition simulation, including the speed of puddle formation.

MULTIPLAYER:
– Revised car groups, merging the CUP and ST groups into a single GTC group for matchmaking and server filtering.
Note that CUP and ST remain represented as separate subgroups on the track map, leaderboards and results.
– Stats: revised and merged grouping of statistics per race track.
Note that tracks are only separated per season whereas an older season might produce faster lap times due to higher track grip (such as the fresh asphalt on Silverstone 2018).
– Multiplayer track seasons are now deprecated and all track configurations point to the Open series (currently matching the latest, 2021 season, see Physics notes).
Note for admins: the old season suffixes in the server configuration will remain there for legacy functionality, but they will no longer create a difference in the track/BOP version!
Server track configuration (event.json) should use the non-suffix version in continuation, eg “Misano” instead of “misano_20XX”.
Note for users: no matter the server config, Multiplayer will always use the latest Open series configuration from Single Player.
– Further revised final corner penalty thresholds with the widget formation type when the back of the field is likely to receive the green light inside or coming out of the final turn.
– Ratings: fixed an issue that could erroneously produce 100 (or 00) CC ratings at Spa.
– Protocol change – old server versions are obsolete and will not register on the backend.