Commonly known as ISI

is an Independent video

game developer based in

Ann Arbor, Michigan,

specializing in the fields of

computer game develop-

ment, man-in-the-loop

simulator architectures,

computer image genera-

tion, and entertainment

systems integration.ISI

began with production of

military simulators. They

have worked on many dif-

ferent types of software,

but focused most of their

development time over the

years on racing games and

simulators.ISI also devel-

oped the gMotor2 game

engine,which is used to

create many racing games

like GT Legends, GTR2,

ARCA Sim Racing , Race

07 and others.

E X C L U S I V E F O R WWW.RFACTORNEWS.COM

E X C L U S I V E INTERVIEW TO ISI

C L I C K T O R E A D T H E F U L L M A G A Z I N E

Hey guys.

First, we want to thank you on behalf of our com-

munity members at rFactorNews.com for giving us

an interview for our first magazine.

With iRacing as a humdrum game for the well-off,

netKar Pro with its on-line system not polished yet,

SimBin simulators based on old tech and the first

rFactor in an almost final status, everyone in the sim

racing world wants to fling themselves towards your

new simulator and discover everything about its up-

coming features.

You know how to create expectation: rFactor 2

screenshots and videos have shocked the net for

some time now, the trailer shown at InsideSimRac-

ing is superb and the gameplay videos demonstrating

the new tyre model implementation have the com-

munity expecting much. So...

The first question is clear: When will rFactor 2 be in

stores?

We plan to have an open beta, mainly to allow

modders to give feedback on the new way things

are setup, before the initial release. That open beta

will be happening very soon within 2011, the initial

release we also hope 2011, but that depends on the

length of the beta. We won’t push a 2011 release if

we don’t feel the software is in the right place.

You’ll need to watch our forums for info on that

beta.

Will ISI give a playable demonstration to the public?

Eventually, yes, although the demo may come after

initial release when we’re happier with a set of fea-

tures.

Is ISI following the iRacing trend, where simracers

must pay for cars and tracks (and an eventual on-line

service) or do you prefer to be backed by the current,

and great, modding community?

Our plan is to sell rFactor 2 in a similar fashion to

our first version. One addition is that we will pro-

vide online accounts for access to the matchmaker,

updater and news. The service will be included

with each purchase and valid for twelve months. If

a user wants to continue with this online account

service, they can add an additional twelve months

at some incremental cost.

With the first rFactor version, the community played

an important role. Will this still be the same with

rFactor 2?

INTERVIEW ISI CREATORS OF RFACTOR

It already is. The open beta and the feedback of the

modders specifically will be very important.

Which of the current simulators, rFactor aside, its

better in your opinion?

It’s difficult to say which titles are better as every

title has its place. Different people appreciate differ-

ent things and that’s why you get the lively discus-

sions in the community. Nobody is wrong.

We know that you work really hard, but what is the

reason for the delay of your upcoming simulator?

There is no delay, as we don’t work on fixed sched-

ule. It is our intention to release rFactor 2 as soon

as possible.

Will ISI offer updates, extra content and/or DLC’s af-

ter the game is launched?

Our plan with rFactor 2 is very similar to what was

accomplished with the original rFactor. Updates

will include features, cars and tracks. We’ve licensed

some really cool content and are working hard on

adding more.

Now, about the game, strickly speaking:

We are about to enter the 2012. Why is there no

trace of DirectX 11 support? Maybe some special re-

quirement about your engine or a console port is on

the way?

DirectX 11 hasn’t made it to the top of our list yet.

Most people like to have beautiful animated arms in

the cockpit. Are there plans to improve this area?

Yes. These can be seen on a couple of previews.

Have you improved special effects, like skid marks?

And particle-based effects like fire or smoke?

Yes, there have been overall improvements. We’re

still working on these.

Will the “virtual” driver interact with the steering

wheel and/or the cockpit in some way?

He’ll turn the steering wheel, he leans his head and

you’ll see him be affected by acceleration and brak-

ing.

The first rFactor title lacks some realism about the

damaging system. What improvements have you

bring in this area?

We have improved damage and intend to work on it

further. It is a little lower priority than some of the

driving features, so some updates to this may come

after initial release.

Will rFactor 2 include any antipiracy measure like

DRM and/or on-line checks to prevent piracy? Which

one?

Purchase will be checked online, but not in the same

method as rFactor.

Developing a game involves many people. How

many? Do you have numbers so we can have an idea

of your enormous effort to bring us rFactor?

We have a small but highly specialized team of peo-

INTERVIEW ISI CREATOR OF RFACTOR

ple, less than a dozen. We do have great commu-

nity support including dedicated testers.

Will rFactor 2 include updates in networking code to

improve latencies and accuracy in simulation?

Yes.

How many people could join an rFactor 2 multiplayer

server? Is there a maximum number (software lim-

ited) or will it be limited by hardware processing

power?

The theoretical number is very large. Most people

will be limited by hardware more than software.

We all know that ISI works to bring us an accurate

physics engine, but... Is rFactor 2 physics engine

state-of-the-art? Could you explain some differences

between the current implementation and gMotor2?

The engine is certainly state-of-the-art. But that is a

relative term, as rFactor 1 could still be considered

that way.

gMotor2 is an incorrect name that the community

uses. gMotor is the graphics only, pMotor is phys-

ics only, etc. We haven’t really had a name for the

entire engine, but we now call the entire engine isi-

Motor.

rFactor was isiMotor 2.0 on initial release and rFac-

tor 2 is currently 2.5. These numbers do not relate

to how advanced the engine is though, because dif-

ferent parts (gMotor, pMotor, etc) all advance at dif-

ferent rates and are not numbered. The isiMotor 2.5

number doesn’t really mean very much, it’s more

for reference.

The differences are plentiful and it’s really the com-

bination that makes the difference. You’ll have to

try it!

About the technical aspects of the game:

With all the buzz about post-processing effects in

current generation games (bloom, HDR, blurring,

DOF, SSAO, etc), which effects are implemented in

rFactor 2?

We’re still working on these. It is an interesting pro-

cess. It isn’t as simple as creating the effect as these

are not static conditions, you then have to adapt

levels to all the changes as you go from day to night,

or sunny to storm.

I’m sure you’ve seen some of the HDR preview shots.

We are also working on Bloom, blurring (shadows)

and SSAO (ambient occlusion). We’ve also worked

on some cool effects to replicate track surface mi-

rage and heat haze from other sources like engines.

By our testing, most current racing simulators have

the physics and rendering loops tied, so high FPS im-

ply more accurate physics. That’s a problem with vs-

ync enabled or multiprocessor CPUs. Has the rFactor

2 implementation subsystems been decoupled so it

can exploit all CPUs? We have found that rFactor 1 is

CPU-bound in this aspect...

Yes, we now have two main threads. One we call

the simulation or physics thread and another we

call the multimedia or “graphics” thread. The term

“graphics” is not that accurate though since sound

and other tasks are done in this thread.

More parallelization may occur in the future as we

continue to break apart these two main threads and

optimize them. Events are inherently serial when

simulating the real world. This is something we

tried to take into account while looking long term.

rFactor 2 will use two cores at initial release.

Network code in rFactor does not take “cheating”

into account. It seems that the server does validation

on client connection but not on every packet sent

INTERVIEW ISI CREATORS OF RFACTOR

by the client. Also, most of the simulation happens

in the client side, and this helps cheaters. We know

that checking everything will increase the CPU power

needed by the server but will be very helpful in on-

line competitions. Are there plans to improve client-

side security (EXE integrity, own process memory

auditing, etc.) and networking code (server checks,

cryptography to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks,

etc.) to prevent cheating?

This answer relates to PC gaming in general, rFactor

and rFactor 2.

The majority of the simulation computation is cli-

ent side for one important reason: The simulation

computation does not scale well. It is designed to

run on a client machine and to utilize that machine

to the fullest to provide the most accurate simula-

tion possible. When you look at verifying simulation

computation results across a high latency network

like the Internet, things become very difficult.

The high latency causes queuing issues, so you in-

stantly have to give up on continuous verification

because it can’t work. Now we have to sample com-

putational results and use some type of custom

heuristic to catch cheaters, and since we are stuck

using a heuristic instead of provable algorithm we

could have false positives. While all of this can be

circumvented by argument like, “just check fuel

load that would be great”, the question is, without

running the simulation physics on the server, how?

Currently rFactor 2 uses about 70% of Intel Wolfdale

Core, so just running a ten person server, in the way

you suggested, would require quite a server.

With all that said is there more we could do about

cheating? Yes, of course. However, the problem is

generally not as simple as people assume, and the

possibility of false positives makes an easy option

unacceptable at this time.

Client side executable security is a PC problem. As a

general rule, one cannot completely trust anything

an executable produces because any other process

can modify another processes memory. We do au-

dit certain fields in the processes memory but that

is not always going to help. If a cheat can rewrite a

section of the processes memory it can also modi-

fy the action a process would take if it detected a

As for server checks, I don’t see how this can be ac-

complished as there has to be one piece of software

on the network to manage trust. We have to trust

the server implicitly or we would be forced to group

it with the clients and those clients would require

some type of explicit validation of integrity. If the

server was not implicitly trusted, there would be

no entity in the rFactor multi player network to dis-

seminate information on what/who can be trusted.

There are plans to improve security further, and

with rFactor 2’s new distribution model it should be

easier to patch away popular cheats as we become

aware of them. rFactor 2 client side executable se-

curity will be very robust.

Is Steam or Origin the medium rFactor 2 will use for

distribution?

No , we have no plans to use either. We’ve built our

own way of doing it.

ISI develops mostly for the PC platform. Is there any

chance to have a console-based ISI game?

Our engine was used in an XBOX 360 title by anoth-

er developer. We have no plans to do this ourselves.

Professional steering wheels, hydraulics-based cock-

pits, multiple displays... Where would like ISI to put

the limit on racing simulation?

Would there need to be a limit? Just like advance-

ments are being made in hardware, we will contin-

ue to make advancements in software. We welcome

innovation.

The only real concern with hardware is that

there should always be an affordable option. This

shouldn’t affect the evolution of the technology,

but lower-end products should always be made

available.

Which steering wheel and cockpit do you use for de-

velopment?

Manufacturers send us products to ensure compat-

ibility and we enjoy testing those. We use a broad

range of products both at work and at home includ-

ing all those the average sim racer has.

There is no doubt that one must be passionate about

motorsport in order to create racing simulation

games. Has anyone in the development team the

chance to drive a real racing car?

INTERVIEW ISI CREATORS OF RFACTOR

We’ve all had some kind of real-world experience

but the understanding of physics and engineering is

probably more impressive and useful at times.

With all the work and focus on game development,

design, testing... Do you have time to play, and actu-

ally enjoy, racing simulators?

We have regularly scheduled test races and all try

to take part in those. Unfortunately when you are

involved in the development you often spend more

time staring at code than touching a steering wheel.

Most of our races involve the A.I. as it is easier to

summon them when you need to test something!

Now a tricky question...

Is Jessica López (from insidesimracing.tv) as pretty as

she looks like? Be careful with you responses, we all

know that you all are engaged and/or married...

LOL… Yes.

Guys, thanks again for this interview. We hope to talk

again with you when rFactor 2 is in our hands, maybe

with another interview. Deal?

Sounds good. It would be very nice to hear some

updated questions on the beta.

When we started this adventure, we have the idea of making more visible our championships, by way of interviews and chronicles in one of our web’s topics. The proyect evolved slowly to became a little digital magazine, without many media, but with huge illu-sion. We’re competitive people, and ambitious too. Despite the fact that we thought it would be difficult, we decided to contact ISI and ask them about their im-pressions about the evolution and the development of rFactor 2. I want to express thankful for all of us, especially to Tim Wheat-ley for his extreme kindness and for making easy this interview. We hope this collaboration will continue through time so we can keep the community well in-formed.

Tony Vargas (Cluj)