Dynamic weather conditions online with either a server plugin (documentation is coming soon) or custom acServer implementation;
State of wings used to hide and show additional car geometry is syncing online now;
FSR:
Whole thing reworked with officially released SDK:
Quality presets are different now;
Recommended level of sharpening is used now;
Option for adjusting MIP bias according to recommendations;
Option to set lower quality setting for left and right sides in triple screen mode;
Optional debug mode: hold Space to quickly switch to simple linear upscaling to compare;
Smoke fully reworked (apart from tyres heating and spawning logic):
New improved shading;
Improved smoke-cars collisions;
Better support for open-wheelers;
Tyre smoke spawns below car with extreme drifting angles;
Dust and splashes spawns around car, not just from wheels;
Dust flies off dusty wheels;
A bit of dust appears for some F1 cars with wooden skidpads when those touch the ground (and can be configured on per-collider basis, similar to sparks);
Clouds of dust spawn on collisions;
Smaller particles for bits of dirt and smaller splashes spawn in contact points;
Long-lasting smoke and dust (lasts for several minutes);
When on grass, instead of dust clouds, more subtle soil particles are used (color is set in track config);
New look for smoke from exhaust, heated brakes and damaged engine;
Smoke won’t show up inside a cockpit;
Colored smoke and dust lose saturation with expansion, with new config parameters to adjust the rate;
Smoke culling improved for further optimization and smoother transitions;
New options to adjust density and on-screen size, to balance between visuals and performance;
Extra effect with smoke covering whole screen, to get effect of camera stuck in smoke much cheaper;
Pieces particles update:
Adjusted types chances, size and shading;
Collision detection now uses car heightmaps instead of depth buffer for more accurate results;
Size of sparks particles fixed, sparks no longer spawn with head-on collisions;
TyresFX:
Grass and dirt on tyres reworked, textures and rendering both;
Soil color is taken into account;
GrassFX:
Active ExtraFX pass option now properly supports fake car shadows reprojection;
Grass deformation updated, now takes into account grass height;
If you’re using original AC motion blur, it would affect grass as well now;
New rendering modes: 360°, fisheye, split screen (new Content Manager supports custom modes for AC video settings);
Specify joypad index for joypads input mode;
Support for VAO patches v5 with spatial AO samples for dynamic objects;
New sky mesh with more evenly distributed triangles for better reflections and mirrors;
Option to hide console;
Option to create portals to other servers online for freeroam servers;
Scene tweaks from new photo mode app remain active in replay with app hidden;
If VR failed to initialize, there’ll be a warning on loading screen (especially helpful if you accidentally chose wrong render mode);
Similar warning would be shown if ExtraFX would fail to initialize because of AC motion blur;
Chat shortcuts reworked: new UI system, now don’t trigger change in turbo, different approach for alternative set of messages;
Option to unbind digit buttons from changing turbo level;
Triple screen tweaks: option to always show driver name tags (with original system);
Semi-transparent shadows from smoke, flames, semi-transparent objects and such improved with Bayer dithering;
Button for manual control of speed limiter (with default session settings it would still be automatically engaged in pits, but it could be overriden in some cases);
Walking out module: settings, improved transition, few fixes, selected car is the controlled one, tool for positioning cars a bit more easily;
Freer camera: use pedals to smoothly control camera speed.
Live reload for Python apps with Python apps profiler, including fully automated option;
New functions for time control: ac.ext_getWeatherTimeMult(), ac.ext_setWeatherTimeMult(value);
New functions for advanced rendering: render to texture, use custom pixel shaders, access virtual mirror texture for custom virtual mirrors;
Function to check if VR is active or not;
Result of ac.newTexture() is cached now, feel free to re-create those textures each frame (although it would still be faster to save value locally);
WeatherFX:
API to create and manipulate dynamic lights for more advanced visual effects;
New ac.setSkyV2SunSaturation(number) to adjust sun saturation;
Functions to adjust VAO and extra AO samples parameters;
New sky-covering clouds using panorama textures as an alternative way to render clouds;
Option to load textures asynchonously, new function to unload textures;
New cloud material parameter normalFacingExponent for adjusting normal calculation (default value is 0.5);
New cloud parameter normalYExponent for shifting whole cloud shape, to get it to look more as if camera is below;
New cloud parameter topFogBoost for boosting fog at the top of the cloud;
Scriptable displays:
Script could be in a separate file (SCRIPT=script.lua, same as LUTs);
Access mirror texture to create displays with rear view camera and overlays;
Define new cameras (similar to rear view mirror) with optional post-processing and access them in script, for this like parking camera activating with reverse gear;
React to clicks on other meshes (optionally limiting area to certain UV coordinates), so they could act like buttons;
Change car state: switch headlights, high beams and extra toggles;
Control some of car inputs: alter ABS, TC, brake bias or turbo wastegate (could be used to create a dashboard similar to one of BMWs with extra car settings);
New display.horizontalBar() function for simple drawing of a progress bar made out of segments;
New values for car state for Lua scripts: KERS state, number of gears, number of turbos, H-shifter state and more for user controls and for specific cars.