We´ve already seen plenty of reality check videos for various simulations, comparing simulation with real life footage.
Here comes a new approach as iRacing subscriber Sam Hazim has put together a series of very interesting comparison photos, showing how close the laser-scanned virtual version of the Indinapolis Motor Speedway comes to the real venue.
Nicknamed the “Brickyard”, the 2.5 mile oval was opened in 1909 and is able to accommodate up to 400.000 spectators who flock to Indianapolis for the annual Indy 500 race each May. The virtual version of Indinapolis is available to iRacing subscribers. for $14,95
f0xx
November 8th, 2009 at 13:14
Damn they look great! And the graphics are amazing, incredible what they can do with dx9 (and perhaps some photoshop? :P)
6e66o
November 8th, 2009 at 13:49
Awesome reproduction of a (imo) boring Race track.
SgtH3nry3
November 8th, 2009 at 16:25
WOW!
Imagine what this could look like with tech like tesselation (round wheels at last!), SSAO, deferred rendering, etc!
carbonfibre
November 8th, 2009 at 17:59
Like most I only know of the basic terminology being introduced with DX11, but is it really likely to assume the tessellation technology just drops into any game engine apart from the first person genres we’ve seen the previews of?
I guess we can only start to make realistic predictions on rF2 for example, if Gjon ever reveals what DirectX platform it will use and if iRacing is upgrading to DX11 in the future.
free2game365
November 8th, 2009 at 18:47
Honestly I don’t think tessellation would be a good fit for a racing game, at least not over basic bump mapping for textures, what it does allow is a lot more in the way of programmable shaders with reduced performance, which would allow you to have something like very convincing rain/water effects on the track and anything above DX10 has good multisampling support for anything using a deferred renderer. Which would be a perfect fit for a racing game like this because it would allow you to cram a lot of dynamic lighting into one scene but also allow for use of anti-aliasing. Honestly it’s less about API and just about the implementation of more modern features, you could seriously overhaul the graphics engine for iracing without having to do an API switch, but a switch to deferred lighting and to DX10/11 would be optimal imo. Also an upgrade like that is sure to get them in well with the graphics card companies and sure to help them get promotion too.
DW
November 8th, 2009 at 19:05
The photos do confirm my previous impression that iRacing uses a colour palette which is too washed out.
BariCZ
November 8th, 2009 at 19:52
Simply awesome
SgtH3nry3
November 8th, 2009 at 23:23
@free2game365: Tesselation would actually be beneficial for race sims as it allows the GPU’s stream processors to be used for other things like physics simulation through OpenCL calls.
The dual precision FPU’s could be used for CFD-based aerodynamics for instance.
Tessellation removes the nasty LOD problems modders face as it’s dynamically handled by the tessellator.
Bumpmapping, normal mapping, etc requires extra development time to make bump/normal maps.
Also it will improve details with actual geometry rather than making it one greasy blur that decreases both performance aswell as looks.
Paul Kelly
November 9th, 2009 at 04:33
No, other racing games — especially console games — use a color palette that is much too rich and vivid. Playing some of those games is like watching a plasma TV with the color levels set to 100 percent.
I’ve been to Indy countless times, and this color palette is spot on.
Suarez10
November 9th, 2009 at 09:30
That’s what I thought until I tried the Dallara @ IMS. The sense of speed and feel of being there is unbelievable.
free2game365
November 9th, 2009 at 11:36
Good point, I just don’t know how well it would work in an actual rendering situation for all of that scaling, how much of an extra load it would put on the GPU and CPU just processing how much you’d need to do it for something as complex as car models and in a situation where they have to change LOD a lot. Honestly though I don’t see with the development path they’re going down we’re even going to see HDR anytime soon. Let alone DX10/DX11 stuff. The GPU processing stuff is a great idea though, it could allow people to host their own 100+ car servers in the future.
ForzaBarca88
November 9th, 2009 at 12:59
According to the interview Gjon did for Autosimsport he gave the impression it wouldnt be either DX10 or DX11. Anyway, from the screenshots that they’ve released so far it looks pretty certain it will be DX9.
fastbikkel
November 9th, 2009 at 13:13
That quality is very very impressive!
I never tried Iracing yet. I might in the future, but im not so happy about making regular costs. Now i could be wrong, but i think Iracing needs a monthly fee.
I don’t particularly like that.
carbonfibre
November 9th, 2009 at 13:42
But you can clearly see from the photos that the colours in-game are not accurate.
The camera never lies but our brains frequently do, that’s common knowledge.
I’d rather trust a computer for reliable visual information.
gaira
November 9th, 2009 at 17:17
+1111
ScHiRoCk
November 9th, 2009 at 17:30
Is there a demo to try out? Because i like what im reading, but im not going to buy it before i can test it! That’s just plain stupid imo.
SgtH3nry3
November 9th, 2009 at 17:33
According to the DirectX 11 specification, a hardware tessellator is used for tessellation.
Since the HD 2k series, AMD/ATI use dedicated tessellators, the new nVidia Fermi however does tessellation on the stream processors.
On AMD/ATI cards tessellation will increase performance as there is no need for resource-hogging bump mapping/normal mapping and multiple LODs.
In these cases there are only 2 LODs (maybe even just one), detail changes between them are fully offloaded to the tessellator.
This way both the CPU and GPU don’t have to do memory intensive operations.
I think this is particularly interesting for race simulators (having many LODs, incl. interior, mirrors, etc) and flight simulators (long renderdistances).
HDR rendering however takes alot of stream processor power as it is a floating point operation written in shaders.
TehFuzzi0n
November 9th, 2009 at 17:53
You can get a free month from Radical still I think, should be on their website somewhere.
Quint
November 9th, 2009 at 23:09
I agree its still a bit too bright in Iracing. It seems better when driving than the replays though, dont know why, probably dont have time to notice :)
Iracing have acknowledged colour balance recently in the forum via Shawn Nash.
Hopefully some updates in the near future
“We do have some ambient occlusion. Mostly just on the cars though.
There is an issue with contrast and color balance. We’re working on graphics updates that deal with that, and true HDR lighting, DOF blurr, etc. We’ve had higher priorities right now, but all of that stuff is on our todo list. I’ve been able to play around with the contrast and color balance and it makes a huge difference.
“
Quint
November 9th, 2009 at 23:11
plus
“Our track surface shaders are very lame right now. :) The only objects with shaders doing anything complicated are the cars. “
hoboracer
November 11th, 2009 at 19:45
I wish iracing would scan some hotwheels cars and a toilet bowl. Then I could finally race a hotwheels car around the inside of a toilet bowl.