With the 1.4.0 update to RENNSPORT we have a new car and a new way to compete in the game; the Porsche Esports Carrera Cup Challenge Road to Hockenheim.

Overview

We are excited to bring you our first ever hot lap competition in RENNSPORT! The Porsche Esports Carrera Cup Challenge – Road to Hockenheim! Starting September 22, 21:00 CEST, you will be able to set your fastest laps in the Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car at the Hockenheimring for a chance to win an exclusive experience together with Porsche and RENNSPORT. 

How the enter

You need to have access to the RENNSPORT Closed Beta to be able to enter. Don’t have a key yet? Sign up for a chance to receive one. 

The Porsche Esports Carrera Cup Challenge – Road to Hockenheim will be held from September 22, 2023 to October 5th, 2023 on RENNSPORT. To enter the competition, simply sign up to the contest named PECCC – Road to Hockenheim. These contests will be held daily, several times per day. Leaderboards are updated automatically and can be viewed in the RENNSPORT App.

How it works

One track and one car is available for this event: 

• Hockenheimring
• Porsche 911 GT3 Cup

Tyres will refresh on every lap, meaning you can keep driving without worrying about degradation or managing tyre temperatures. Same goes for fuel load, every lap will reset you to the initial load for the fastest lap possible.

How to win

After October 6th, the three drivers with the fastest recorded laps are considered winners of the Porsche Esports Carrera Cup Challenge – Road to Hockenheim and will be contacted for confirmation and given further details.

Prize

The top three drivers will win an experience at the Porsche Carrera Cup Deutschland finals together with Porsche, on October 22. Included in the experience:

• Taxi Rides
• Paddock Tour
• Meet the Drivers
• Gridwalk

More details will be given to the winners.

IMPORTANT: To be eligible for winning you must be a registered citizen of a European country and at least 18 years of age. 

Terms and Conditions 

All drivers that enter the Porsche Esports Carrera Cup Challenge – Road to Hockenheim must agree to abide by the Terms and conditions.

General

• Introduced fix for game freezing (and crashing) due to potential deadlocks encountered by the RenderThread
• Fixed issue with vehicles sometimes becoming invisible for the owning players for modes with players being hidden from each other
• Fixed problem with car wheels picking color from objects nearby
• Increased max allowed connection bandwidth between server and clients

Liveries

• Updated R1 liveries’ thumbnails
• Fixed problem with Team Redline liveries not using correct IDs

Tracks

General

• Updated banners on all available tracks

Nürburgring

• Fixed problems with culling when using non-epic video settings

UI

• In-game leaderboards can now show 15 players before switching to “compressed” mode
• Incident points for followed player are not displayed to spectators
• Fixed problem with yellow flag warning sometimes not displaying text correctly

Game

Physics

• Reduced lag effect felt by players caused by recent changes in vehicle movement algorithm
• Disabled anti-stall for Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II, BMW M4 GT3 2022, Mercedes-AMG GT3 2020 and Porsche 992 GT3R
• Reduced rear wing drag for BMW M4 GT3 2022
• Updated default setups for BMW M4 GT3 and Mercedes-AMG GT3
• Fixed problems with misfunctioning auto clutch
• Introduced 3 km/h minimum speed threshold to activate antilock brake system
• Forced automatic clutch to be always enabled when automatic engine starter is enabled
• Added engine autostarter selector to auto clutch step of pedals calibration popup. Moved engine autostarter selector close to auto clutch selector on driving aids module of gameplay options

Input

• Added possibility to define 2 input axes for clutch, throttle and brake inputs (NOTE: You need to reset your input settings for input axes scaling to work properly)

Tracks

Hockenheimring

• Updated track bounds (T1 exit to old system, finetuning all corridors to avoid false positives)

Monza

• Updated track bounds (finetuning all corridors to avoid false positives)

Nürburgring

• Updated track bounds (T8/T9 kerb counts as track, T11 exit kerb counts as track, finetuning all corridors to avoid false positives)
• Fixed some problems with banners

Spa

• Fixed problems with culling for some objects

Liveries

• Updated team liveries for R1 fall season (note: this is still work in progress, so there might be small errors for now, like R1 logo on Apex’ car or spelling Nikodem’s name and liveries may appear twice. Another update will follow before the season.)

Sounds

• Lowered and adjusted curb volume , Porsche 992 GT3R Gear whine adjusted and lowered in overall Volume

Racers! Summer is here, but that doesn’t stop us from just spending as much time driving racing games as humanely possible, right? Here at RENNSPORT, we’ve been hard at work behind the scenes to bring out the first major beta update!

But before that, I just wanted to take this moment to thank everyone who has been driving in the beta, testing out our cars and tracks and battling it out with other players across the world. We are getting valuable feedback every day and together with you we aim to make RENNSPORT the best racing game out there. 

Since our last update, a lot has been going on internally here. You might have seen the GoodWood trailer that featured an upcoming car, the Porsche 963, our first LMDh! We will have more to share on this in the future, but for now, you can have a look at the beautiful trailer:

We’ve also been working hard at the beta and right now we’re getting ready to launch our first update, and it’s a big one. And it’s coming today!

Beta Update August 8th!

Since we opened the doors to the closed beta back in June, we’ve heard your cravings for more content. So, more content coming up.

Here is a summary of what arrives in RENNSPORT today.

• New car: Praga R1
• New track: 8ETA 
• Damage V1
• Updated curb sound
• Updated BMW M4 GT3 sound
• Updated Porsche 992 GT3 R (992) sound
• Improved cut detection
• Improved movement correction algorithm

So, what does all this mean? One new car and two new tracks open for more diverse gameplay. We’ve developed this car in the game directly with the experts at Praga, and it is a very fun car to drive in RENNSPORT. We will have dedicated online races with full Praga grids, starting today. As we teased in the last UNDER THE HOOD (are we ready to call it UtH?) we will also release a very special track called 8ETA, created because of the “Only 8 Beta Keys” memes that flooded our Discord when we released the beta. This track is… crazy, there is no other way to put it. Give it a go, upload your best clips, tag us on social media and most importantly, be ready for carnage!

The improved cut detection system is something we’ve been working hard on, let’s have a look on what goals we set up to achieve:

Also starting today, we have our first implementation of a damage system. Since there are no ways to repair damage at the moment, we will have it enabled on all tracks in multiplayer, expect for the new 8ETA track for reasons you will understand when driving it. This is a very first version of the damage feature in RENNSPORT, we want your feedback to keep improving and will test it in several ways during the beta.

So, that last point. Improved movement correction algorithm? This is quite the change, and far too complex for me to to explain, but lets just say, close racing just got closer, and it looks amazing. You will experience it for yourself when driving with the new update.

What about the rest? Updated sounds? We got them. New tyre rotation animation? You bet! Bug fixes? Plenty!

I won’t go through all details here; we have patch notes for that.

Get in there, drive, tell us what you like and don’t like. If you don’t have beta access yet, go to www.rennsport.gg/beta to sign up.

ESL R1 x Gamers8 x RENNSPORT

Some of the team just came back from our first ESL R1 x Gamers8 in Riyadh, and what a show it was! Probably the best looking esport stage ever seen. Four consecutive days of intense racing where we saw Maximilian Benecke win the driver’s championship and the Porsche Coanda Esports Team being crowned winners in the Team Championship. This was a mid-season event with a whooping price pool of 1 million US dollars. You read that right, 1. Million. Dollars. Insert Dr. Evil meme here.

Even though we just brushed off the celebration confetti from Gamers8, the fall season of ESL R1 starts by the end of August, and it’s going to be even more spectacular than the spring season. For full schedule and details, visit www.eslr1.com. The autumn major will be held at Dreamhack Winter in Jönköping, Sweden, and if you are close by in late November you should come up and say hi!

That’s it for this UtH (It’s growing on me). I will be taking some time off In Sweden in the coming weeks, but as soon as I am back, I will be in those Praga lobbies every single day making a fool out of myself. I hope you’re excited about the coming update and I hope to see you in our Discord, sounding off your feedback with the rest of our inspiring community. 

It’s time for me to box, box box, I will catch you online in RENNSPORT soon.

Kim

Game

• Physics
  • Implemented Praga R1 physics
  • Implemented V1 damage system for all available cars
  • Changed upshift time for Porsche 911 GT3 R (992)
  • Equalised fuel consumption for all GT3 cars
  • Updated default setup files for all Beta-included GT3 cars
  • Adjusted default BoP for BMW M4 GT3 2022, Mercedes-AMG_GT3 2020 and Porsche 911 (992) GT3 R

• Multiplayer
  • Reworked remote cars movement algorithm for better online multiplayer experience
  • Fixed problem with cars sometimes being spawned in the air and moved down to spawn point at gameplay stage start

• Gameplay
  • Improved checkpoint times accuracy
  • Reworked corner cut detection systems for better flexibilities when giving penalties
  • Fixed bugs related to corner cutting

• Input
  • Added predefined input profiles for some devices
  • Added possibility to turn car with mouse input

• Spectator / replays
  • Improved replay and spectator functionalities for better visual experience

• Animations
  • Improved driver animations

• Audio
  • Fixed some issues with some sounds disappearing in certain conditions
  • Updated BMW M4 GT3 car sounds
  • Updated Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) sounds
  • Updated curb sounds
  • Added UI button sounds
  • Fixed some problems with Porsche 911 (992) GT3 R sounds
  • Fixed some problems with curb sounds
  • Fixed some problems with UI sounds

• UI
  • Added timer showing how much time player has left to be ready before being disqualified from the race
  • Changed tire temperature display UI to show more accurate tire temps
  • Fixed some problems with player history menu
  • Fixed problem with clipping lists in lobbies
  • Loading screen should no longer stop animating in final stage of loading
  • Fixed displaying information about damage in contest preview
  • Fixed problem with damage multiplier in singleplayer being cleared for milestone builds

Art / Tracks / Car Visuals

• Updated wheel rotation blur effect

Hey racers, 

Before we begin, let me introduce myself, my name is Kim and I work within the communications department at RENNSPORT. As an avid gamer and sim racer since a very young age, I am very excited about what we’re building here; expect to hear more from me in the future.

Now that we have the Closed Beta running and the game is in more than 8 people’s hands, we thought it would be time to start doing regular updates on the game’s development here on the website.

Welcome to UNDER THE HOOD!

We’re looking at this as a monthly deep dive into what is happening in the RENNSPORT world.  Now, let’s dive into the juicy parts.

First and foremost, to read the latest patch notes, click here.

Second, did you watch our Closed Beta Trailer yet? Here it is. Enjoy.

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Today we will talk about the following:

• RENNSPORT Rating
• Safety Rating
• Split System
• Race Calendar
• The RENNSPORT Summit 2023
• 8ETA

The first update to the RENNSPORT Closed Beta is here, and it introduces multiplayer and our ranking system. During the Closed Beta period, we can test our systems in the wild and welcome all your feedback. The multiplayer sessions available now are a chance for us to monitor and for you to try out our systems. Let’s all have some fun together

As a part of this fun, any mileage you put into the car you picked when you first registered will be saved in your account, in the beta and beyond. You can also access any liveries you collected via stream drops or other activities to differentiate yourself from others.

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RENNSPORT Rating (RR)

Let’s start with the RENNSPORT Rating. This is our ranking system for players. Everyone in the Closed Beta starts at RR 1500 and will increase or decrease based on your race results. Higher rating = a better racer. At least this is the ambition, but remember that this is still a Closed Beta, and several systems are still subject to change.

The rating is based on the Elo system from chess and is designed to bring players of similar skill together in a race. It is purely based on the race results. Winning against higher-rated players will award more points than winning against lower-rated players. As a rule of thumb, you can expect to gain a rating if you finish in the top half of the leaderboard, although there are some edge cases where this is not the case. Generally, the higher you finish, the more rating points you will gain.

If the race cannot be completed because of a technical issue on the server side, ratings are not updated. However, if a client disconnects during a race, the rating will still be updated based on the final leaderboard.

There will be unranked races during the beta at a later stage, which do not affect the RR.

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Safety Rating (SR)

The second rating we have in the game is the Safety Rating. It indicates a player’s race craft and will increase or decrease based on how safe a driver’s racing style is. Everyone starts at SR 1.00. Getting penalties and being involved in incidents will lower the rating, while driving a clean race will increase it. 

We are testing these systems during the beta to ensure they work the way we intend, and we might reset the values at any given time. The ratings will also be reset when the beta ends and RENNSPORT moves into full release.

SR and RR will only be updated if at least three cars participate in a race.

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Race Calendar

When multiplayer gets added, you will have direct access to the race calendar, where you can find the multiplayer contests set up by our team. There will be various races every day at a fixed time interval. Every week there will be a set of new combinations of tracks and cars to choose from. Let’s dig into what everything on this screen means:

On the top left, you have the calendar; click on any day to see what races are available. On the bottom left, you can filter out the race you want based on cars and rules. In the middle box, you see the races coming up in chronological order, how many people have already registered,  what the format is (P=Practice, Q=Qualifying, R=Race), and what track it is. You have a summary of the selected race in the box to the right. 

If you want to be notified when a race is about to start if you’re practising that last sector at Spa (like I need to do every single day), you can enable the notification by pressing the “Notify Me” button in the lower right corner but, don’t forget to register as well which you can do 30 minutes before the race starts.

You can also see races on the RENNSPORT app and choose to get notified before the race start directly in the app.

There are more things that the app is usable for, like checking in your car collection, liveries, and upcoming ESL R1 streams. To download, use the links:

For the first week, there will be races on four tracks, Monza, Spa, Hockenheim and Nürburgring, with the following GT3 cars: Audi, Mercedes, Porsche, and BMW. There will be a new race every 30 minutes. To be eligible to join a race, you must register within the race calendar. There will be some differences in these races, like qualifying rules and race length, and we would appreciate your feedback on which combinations you liked the most and what you would like to see in the coming weeks.

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Split System

After the contest registration period has ended, the grid is separated into splits based on each driver’s RR. For each split, the driver with the highest rating is assigned car number 1; the second highest is given number 2. Soon we will also enable you to create your contests in the game with the parameters and cars you want, but more on that in the coming weeks. 

All in all, this is a beta; we are still testing, and we want you to try with us. Join the multiplayer sessions with an open mind and have fun with other eager races, and don’t forget to give us your feedback on the official RENNSPORT Discord. 

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Summit Report

Oh boy. The RENNSPORT Summit 2023 was mad! We officially showed off the Closed Beta Trailer, we had CEO Morris on stage talking about RENNSPORT (did you see the parts about modding yet?), and we had a spectacular ending to the Spring Season of ESL R1 with Marcell Csincsik of R8G crowned as the first-ever champion of ESL R1. It was great to see so many community members coming to Munich to participate in it and all the conversations happening online. We also let some of the sim racing content creators out there have a go at the latest build of the game which resulted in great content and reactions; here are a few for you to enjoy:

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More than 8 Closed Beta Keys

As the week progress, we’re sending out more and more keys to the closed beta, and while we won’t share just yet how many keys are floating about in the wild, we are coming up to 60,000 (!) registrations to go through, so bear with us while we increase our capacity. If you’re not already on the waiting list, register here . We know the memes. We know we’re now forever tied to the number 8 (which accidentally also is our company logo). We have sent more than 8 closed beta keys out, we promise. The official RENNSPORT Discord had a blast, and so did we. Here are some of our favorite memes…

As a result of this, we have something special coming up… Let me be the first to show you. 8ETA.

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A track. That is an 8. Like the 8 Beta keys? 8ETA? Pretty wild, huh? When and if you can play this, we will share more news in the future.

This wraps up the first UNDER THE HOOD, and I hope you enjoyed it and that some of your questions have been answered in what to expect with the next beta update. Next time we will talk about the upcoming steps of the beta and dive into the topic of modding a bit more. If you still need more, jump in on our Discord channel, be greeted by our superb moderators, and share some conversations with the best memers in the world; looking at you, Wolf of no Key…

As a final note, please note that if you’re on the lower spectrum of our recommended hardware, perfomance might be different driving in multiplayer compared to single player. If this is the case for you, adjust your settings in the in-game menu to have a smoother experience.

So there it is, multiplayer is now live and we hope you will have fun with it. And, let me repeat myself, this is a beta, expect some parts to not work as intended and be vocal with your feedback on our Discord!

Until next time drivers, see you online.

Kim

General
– Added possibility to join scheduled multiplayer races from the game
– Added race history screen to player profile
– Fixed problems with driver’s animations
– Fixed problems with loading screen disapperaring too quickly
– Added animation when new penalty is given to player
– Fixed some problems with displaying car mileage in game

Racetracks
– Optimisation and visual improvements

The time has finally come to distribute access keys! Community members who are on the waitlist should check their inboxes if they are among the ones who got a key during this drop.

You may have already heard the big news over the weekend. In case you didn’t – are you ready for some big news?
 
Today is the day you have been waiting for patiently! It is finally time to start handing out Closed Beta keys for RENNSPORT! As promised for months, a spot on the Closed Beta waitlist was worth it. Over the next weeks, Closed Beta codes will be sent out to the wait list, keep an eye on your inbox for more information. 

This is how the distribution works

50% of the available keys will be distributed among the first ones that signed up to the waitlist. The other 50% of the key drop will be distributed to randomly chosen members of the whole waitlist. If you don’t receive a key right away you don’t need to worry as we are increasing the capacity in the upcoming weeks. 

You are not already signed up? Make sure to secure your spot and get a chance to receive a key with the next drop. Furthermore, it is also a good idea to already put RENNSPORT to your Epic Store wishlist.

During the second RENNSPORT Summit last weekend, our CEO Morris Hebecker presented the official trailer for the Closed Beta. We can’t stop watching it and still get goosebumps when we do. We let it speak for itself – make sure to check it out.

WHAT TO EXPECT

We will add more features over time during the next weeks and months, so please be aware that when you start racing not all of the features, cars and tracks will be unlocked immediately. Currently, you can experience the following:  

• Game Mode: Single player
• Cars: Porsche 911 GT3 R, BMW M4 GT3, Audi R8 LMS GT3 evo II, Mercedes-AMG GT3
• Race tracks: Hockenheim Ring, Nürburgring, Spa-Francorchamps, Autodromo Nazionale Monza

Since the simulation is still in an early development phase, we want to make you aware that the Closed Beta is not the final product so some errors might appear while playing it. However, you are ALLOWED to publish in-game footage or any other content of the RENNSPORT Closed Beta.

We have a dedicated Closed Beta tester area on our Discord for all people who have received a key. Our development team is keen on proceeding with the valuable exchange about your impressions on there. We are happy to enter this exciting next chapter and are excited to create the future of virtual racing together!

More information coming soon!

Almost around 10 k registrations to the waitlist within the first week!

First of all, a big thank you to everyone who has engaged with RENNSPORT through various channels or events. You have already helped us a lot in drawing attention to our simulation and the journey around it.

In order to make the first preparations for the start of the Closed Beta, we wanted to collect everyone who is interested in racing in the RENNSPORT Closed Beta on a waitlist. Among those people Closed Beta keys will then be given out. Nobody could have expected how eager you were to participate, and we are still overwhelmed of your support! Alongside the crazy amount of new members on the waitlist, it makes us also super happy that around 10 K of you have also joined our Discord server after roughly 1 month. The exchange and discussion we had with you on that lately is helping us a lot in developing RENNSPORT.

Our CEO Morris and our Game Development Lead Krzysztof welcome everyone who is interested to the first AMA session which will be held for all our Discord waiting room members on Friday, October 28 from 7:30 pm – 8:30 pm. They will sit down with Lucas from the Marketing Team to give some insights about the current development phase, previews to the Closed Beta and further content releases. They will also answer some frequently asked questions of the Discord community. You can now hand in your questions in the respective Discord Talking Session question channel. We would be happy to seeing you on Friday. You can join our Discord with the button at the end.

In the next weeks, it’s all about getting the sim ready for the start of the Closed Beta. We want to repay your trust and go live with the best possible product. Only a handful of features will be available at the beginning, but you can already look forward to 4 cars (Porsche 911 GT3, BMW M4 GT3, Porsche Mission R, another release) and 3 race tracks (Hockenheim, Goodwood Hillclimb, another release). After that, we will test and implement more and more functions together with you. In this continuous process we will work with you to create a sim that offers the best possible racing experience.

We are very hyped about this and hope you are too. If you haven´t already, make sure to register for the Closed Beta waitlist here.

Besides checking your inboxes, you better follow our channels in order not to miss further Closed Beta key drops. See you around!

When starting the Closed Beta we will be moving on to the next stage of the development of RENNSPORT. You can sign up for the waitlist now.

Attending the RENNSPORT Summit in May was not only good fun for everybody as this event was one of the first ones that was held with a big group of people meeting in person again. During this weekend all guests were also promised to get the chance of becoming testers for the first ever RENNSPORT Closed Alpha testing. We are very happy that we managed to hold on to that promise in time and have been testing with those guys for over a month now. Lately we also had our first multiplayer races within the Closed Alpha – that was good fun!

From the Summit until now we have already implemented a lot of feedback. To track the updates we made, you can check out the overview here.

The Closed Alpha phase is currently running but we are already preparing for what´s about to come next. So, from today on, which is 16 weeks after the Summit, the Closed Beta waitlist is open for all RENNSPORT fans around the world. By signing up to the Closed Beta waitlist, you guys can increase your chances of getting your hands on RENNSPORT and test more features and functions. Besides giving you the possibility to make your rounds in RENNSPORT, a key to the Closed Beta will also grant you access to Discord channels where the exchange with the game development team will be extended. A focused and more direct way of communication for feedbacks, questions and ideas can be enabled there.

We will hand out keys with a 50/50 distribution way. To ease the wait you can already become a part of our Closed Beta waiting room Discord channel by signing up to the Closed Beta waitlist. If you want to sign up to the waitlist or check more information around the development stages just follow the button.

To stay tuned about the latest videos and in-game content from RENNSPORT and many more interesting topics you can also get our Newsletter.