Nothing but fixes (almost) (Patreon)

While the previous update had quite a few fixes, unfortunately with all the new features it also introduced a bunch of new bugs, so this time I tried my best to stop myself from getting distracted and focus primarily on fixing things. Let’s see if it has made a difference, but I’m hoping CSP should be noticeably more reliable now. Of course, I couldn’t go for so long without a little break here and there, so there are still a couple of new things, but they’re entirely optional, most of them disabled by default, and as such shouldn’t bring any unforeseen complications. Here are just a few, check out the detailed changelog if you want to see the full list:

• BC7 compression: fix textures using obsolete suboptimal formats and compress cached textures for new trees and clouds to improve loading speed, VRAM consumption and in-game performance in exchange for a bit of disk space. Both options are disabled by default, but can be enabled in GPU optimizations in general settings to trade some disk space for better performance. Since BC7 compression is a bit of a lengthy process, CSP does it in background while you’re driving around, so you won’t see any impact on first launch, but subsequent launches might run better.

• Audio update: a tweak in audio settings changes the way reverb in AC works, adding reverb to something like collision events, and a tiny bit of reverb to interior audio. Walls occluding audio emitters also got a major update, in that they’re working now, can be configured properly (CSP distinguishes between a visual and an audio occluding wall), much better configurable and also add a bit of reverb for occluded audio, massively boosting occlusion perception. Tracks can also add a bit of reverb for distant audio, and for audio in reverb areas (even if the camera is not in a reverb area), all configurable per track (with some defaults set for Kunos tracks only to be safe).

• Better support for cars without LODs: two new options in Graphics Adjustments allow to limit maximum number of first LODs active at once for LODless cars and to add an extra LOD for all cars (shifting range for the first LOD for LODless cars to 200 m). Extra LOD uses a collider model for the shape, which might not work all that well in some cases, but it might still be preferable than losing all the performance.

• Taskbar update: thanks to all the feedback I realized the new taskbar might not have been all that great, so now you can activate a streamlined mode for it in its settings, accessing the main list of apps directly without all that pinning. There is also a new compact mode, and a few more features like collapsing categories. Oh, and I renamed the onboard settings app back, that was a bad idea to rename it in the first place.

But the main thing is, of course, all the fixes. There are many dozens of them, but just to name a few, smoke won’t disappear when car stops anymore, piece particles should function correctly, taskbar no longer goes insane, launching newly installed tracks first time won’t result in a crash, CSP Debug app allows to drag car again, replays and AI spline records save properly on exit, controller integration for moving mouse works once again in pause menu and so on.

Sorry for the lack of intermediate previews this run, and lack of any exciting new features. This should change soon, I can't wait to start working on some new features. Thank you for your outstanding support!

• Quick install link
• Full changelog