Rage Racer PC 0.6.8-alpha-raytracer

Experimental graphics pre-release. Ray tracing is enabled by default.
This build is intended for testing; it does not replace the stable Latest release.

The modern renderer now combines rasterized geometry with ray-traced sun shadows
and closest-hit reflections. This is a hybrid renderer, not a path tracer. Ray
traversal uses portable GPU shaders and instanced acceleration structures, with
static mesh data retained between frames. It does not require an RTX-specific
backend, but performance depends strongly on the GPU and rendering resolution.

Changes

• Scene sky colors drive directional lighting and shadow color. Cars and track
  surfaces can receive partial shadows from scenery, bridges and tunnel shells.
• Modern fog and vehicle contact with the road have been adjusted.
• Player and rival cars have automatic headlights and rear running lights in
  darkness and tunnels, plus brake lights. Lamp layouts follow their individual
  models and textures; replays preserve the active cars' brake commands.
• Headlights illuminate nearby surfaces and have an optical halo. Shadow-map
  filtering and brake-light presentation latency have also been improved.
• Additional fixes preserve scene fades, class-clear fanfare, transmission
  selection and menu reset state, and prevent empty memory-card directories
  from overriding the selected save location.

Known experimental issues

• Patterned/self-shadowing artifacts can remain on car bodies at intermediate
  lighting levels. Some vehicle shadows still appear blocky or unstable.
• The headlight beam is too broad vertically and can light upper building
  surfaces instead of remaining concentrated on the road.
• Intermittent brake-light flicker has been reported and is not yet confirmed
  fixed. The interpolation delay has been addressed separately.
• Reflections and shadow coverage are incomplete and visual artifacts are
  expected, including incomplete transparency/cutout handling in traced shadows.
  Ray tracing can substantially reduce frame rate.

To disable ray tracing, edit the rage-port.ini beside the game and restart:

[modern]
ray_tracing = off

The other modes are shadows, reflections, and full (the default). Existing
configurations that explicitly select off retain that choice. Disabling ray
tracing does not disable the modern renderer or the car lights.

Running the game

Download the archive for macOS Apple Silicon, Linux x86-64 or Windows x86-64,
extract it, and launch the game. Provide your legally obtained Rage Racer CUE
or Track 01 BIN when requested. Required native assets are imported automatically;
no separate extraction tool or downloaded game assets are needed. The editable
cars.toml and cars.ntscj.toml templates are included.

The gear shift points and Custom menu icon are by Sevish. The adjustable chase
camera settings were suggested by Passion Wagon.