Le Mans Ultimate-utilising competitions paused while issues persist

“Due to the current technical state of LMU, the Simverse Pro Series will be paused until further notice, with the hope of resuming the season properly in the near future,” read its statement.

“We appreciate everyone’s patience and support. We’ll keep you updated as soon as there is more information regarding the continuation of the season. Thank you for your understanding!”

This follows a similar move by Virtual Motorsport Series and its Pro competition, which runs seven splits across ~250 drivers. The top four splits have paid entry and a prize pool.

“Following the release of V1.4 and the following hotfixes and patches, we believe that the current game-state on Le Mans Ultimate is not compatible with the high-level competition we run at VMS,” it said.

“Due to this, the resumption of the season will be postponed.”

“We are in talks with various drivers who are working with the dev team at S397 to resolve these compromising game issues and we will make sure to start racing as soon as possible when fixes are put into effect.

“Thank you all for your continued support of VMS and we look forward to being able to finish Season 5 in the way you all deserve.”

What’s gone wrong?

The Version 1.4 update launch was somewhat neutered by a proposed paywalled joker system which went down about as well as a last-lap breakdown at Circuit de la Sarthe.

No matter. Motorsport Games acted quickly, and ahead of its public release, there was a timely (and advised) change of strategy.

Onwards, good ship Le Mans Ultimate.

Except…

There was a new netcode. A shift from Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) to “reliable UDP” (which, in theory, should avoid delays typically seen with TCP).

At the time, publisher Motorsport Games explained, “Our industry-leading netcode just took another step forward.”

It self-tempered that hyperbole, however, with the following qualifier:

“Whilst we’re testing this internally, there may be some teething issues in the first weeks as we really scale with you all using it.”

This was, by all accounts, an honest appraisal of the change, flagged as potentially volatile before launch.

Three weeks later, there do appear to be instances of the netcode “teething issues”.

At the same time, it also stated that a third-party “online service layer” was being replaced with a native system called “RaceOS”.

From the outside, the change seems a little hasty, as the platform was already known for genre-leading online car contact. 

If Motorsport Games and the creation team Studio 397 believe there’s room for further improvement, let’s hope this recent pain is worth it.

Sim racing communities are awash with clips of strange contact instances. The worst offending items see cars fly ‘to the moon’, but others are as if one car hits an invisible barrier, causing it to spin off the track (example embedded below), while the other vehicle continues without a blemish. In other instances, cars oscillate in an unnerving fashion.

Then there’s the brake duct issue, which, while the netcode instability is concerning, is perhaps a more pertinent challenge presently for the competitive scene.

This bug seemingly randomly affects drivers, both on and offline, with the brake ducts acting as if they are fully closed irrespective of the actual setup.

Consequently, brake temperatures can reach up to 900°C or fail to cool, and that means you can’t stop. So far, the only workaround seems to be restarting the game, and for some, numerous times before it ‘magically’ resolves.

Next steps

Fix the game, obviously. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s as simple as flicking a few toggles and releasing a hotfix.

Not so fast…

Evidently, it’s not that straightforward. Two hotfixes and one patch have been deployed since Version 1.4’s fateful launch and the aforementioned issues persist. Traxion has approached Motorsport Games for comment.

“But in order for us to make progress, unfortunately we seem to on occasion break things and we don’t think that the [new] network protocol is necessarily linked to the degrade in the networking experience; it might be something else that we’ve done,” said a contrite President and Chief Executive Officer of Motorsport Games to OverTake.

“We’re investigating that at the moment quite hurriedly… All I can say is sorry right now.”

“We do have a good working relationship with Studio 397, and we trust that these issues will be fixed. It’s unfortunate that perhaps pressures on the team have caused these issues to be pushed into the public branch,” said a VMS spokesperson to Traxion.

Ultimately, these leagues want to keep racing. They, and their respective communities, enjoy Le Mans Ultimate. Presently, they act as an unwitting magnifying glass on a borked update. 

Motorsport Games has a supreme sim racing product with Le Mans Ultimate, with exacting car models, native ranked multiplayer and some unique features. It’s a title we rank as the best on the market presently.

However, the past four weeks must be heeded. No matter the groundswell in support and sales, don’t take your eyes off the fundamental on-track action.