Hi all,

 As promised last week, here is some more information on the specific issues we’ve been investigating for the upcoming patch and the progress made to date.

 For those of you who have read the Patch Process thread , Step 1 has now been completed; many thanks to all of you who provided as much information as possible on the issues you have encountered. We are now nearing the end of Step 2, with multiple issues (detailed below) having now been fixed and verified in our test environment.

 Please note that there are technical restrictions on what we can and can’t patch, due to things such as size limits on patches, knock-on effects to other areas of the game and issues that were non-reproducible in our test environment, etc. Issues which currently fall into this category are updated DRS Zones and updated drivers.


  Game Improvements:
 o A connectivity rating display has now been implemented for each player in an online session lobby. This appears as coloured bars (red, amber, green) to indicate the expected online performance of the player in the game session.
 o More network bandwidth is now reserved for game-critical systems in online sessions. This may result in low-bandwidth users having their voice chat restricted to fewer players, but should result in a smoother online experience.

  Strategy & Setup:
 o Fixed 11/11 car setup bug.
 o Fixed issue where your race strategy uses the same tyre compound three times in a row & the final set are worn.
 o Fixed issue where wear-based punctures would occur too often.
 o Fixed various issues with the race engineer speech logic.

  AI:
 o Fixed an issue where the AI run on Intermediates for too long.
 o Fixed issue where AI cars would be too fast in the wet.
 o Fixed an issue where AI vehicles pitted too often during dry, online races .
 o The AI has been tuned on several circuits to provide smoother and faster driving.

  Co –op Championship:
 o Fixed an issue with the save becoming corrupt / not able to invite the other player when playing long race weekends.
 o Fixed an issue where AI difficulty was reset to “Amateur” level when resuming a Coop game.
 o Fixed an issue with tyre wear in Practice/Qualifying not being carried over to Race.
 o Fixed an issue with the penalties accrued in Practice/Qualifying not being applied to the Race.
 o Fixed an issue with the Race Results where lapped AI are causing player to drop positions.

  Online:
 o Vote to Skip in Qualifying now requires 100% vote.
 o Various Penalty system improvements have been made.
 o Quick Race countdown timer is now set to 60 Seconds and no longer resets when a player joins the session.

  Graphics & Performance:
 o PS3 – Improved frame rate & performance.
 o Xbox360 & PC - Numerous performance improvements have been made to increase frame rate and reduce stuttering.
 o All Platforms – Numerous graphical improvements have been made.
 o All Platforms – Fixed various issues to improve general game stability.

  PC-specific:
 o Fixed several functionality issues experienced when using DX11 cards.
 o Fixed issue where users could hack specific files to increase car grip.

  Other:
 o Fixed a very infrequent issue where some sessions would be skipped over when progressing to the next session during a Long Race Weekend.
 o Korea tyre compounds have been changed to those used in the 2011 race.
 o Fixed an issue where in career where the "on the bounce" achievement was awarded after 11 race wins instead of 9.
 o Fixed an issue where all users would be awarded the fastest lap XP and stat during some online races.
 o Fixed an issue where driver's hands & head popped in a few frames late when switching cameras.


 We have yet to verify several other fixes at the moment, and we are still working hard on fixing a few more issues before we move into Step 3 next week. We will keep you informed on the specifics over the course of the next week or so.

 As a final note, we are also working with Sony and Microsoft to wipe the Time Trial leader boards to ensure that all future Time Trial data is correct and free from inaccuracies following the release of patch 2.

 Thanks again for your patience whilst we finalise work on the patch.