CHANGELOG

3.3.3

Fixes for crashes and an unresponsive DRE

[FIXED] Rolled back core connection with iRacing that prevented VA on rare occasions from hanging when closing , but unfortunately introduced issue when iRacing reconnects to new servers (practice -> qual/race sessions)

[FIXED] Missing gear shift sounds in the install location could lead to a Launcher crash when pre-listening on the Gear page

[FIXED] Improved code base and better internal DevOps, which means over time DRE should become even better

[FIXED] “Start chat *” and “Reply with *” commands didn’t have the critical Press the Enter button action to trigger iRacing to send the chat message

[FIXED] Not all Black Box UI commands sent their actions to the iRacing window. This could lead to command UI changes wouldn’t do anything in iRacing

[FIXED] Plugin would stall on reading the iRacing app.ini for finding the ServerTransmitMaxCars value

[FIXED] Issue when DRE creates logging data during crashes and issues that means that not all data is generated

[FIXED] Rolled back code for a better connection to iRacing, an issue likely created in 3.2.2.1

[FIXED] When pressing the “Start DRE” button in Launcher without a proper path to VA set, it wasn’t possible to relocate the VA folder

3.3.2.1

[FIXED] DRE could hang and not be “alive” if Voice Attack was started prior to starting an iRacing session[FIXED] DRE could hang and not be “alive” if Voice Attack was started prior to starting an iRacing session
[FIXED] ‘Name’ command was triggered too often by false positives. “Name” is no longer sufficient, but requires eg. “What’s my name”
[FIXED] Smaller issues in code

3.3.2

Quality of life updates to DRE, giving you a more stable experience than ever. Quality of life updates to DRE, giving you a more stable experience than ever.

Installation & Launcher

[CHANGED] Removed unnecessary files in the installation folder
[CHANGED] When installing this or future updates, the installer will remove unnecessary files
[FIXED] Focusing iRacing could normalize a maximized iRacing window, so it would pop out
[FIXED] Focusing iRacing could normalize a maximized iRacing window, so it would pop out
[FIXED] Handling errors better when the path to VA is not correctly set and you click the Start DRE button in the launcher
[FIXED] Setting DRE Launcher to run on Windows startup without having VA installed now gives an error message
[FIXED] Better error handling when updating DRE from Launcher

Gear shifts

[CHANGED] Warnings like ‘No Up shift sounds present in /Sounds folder’ will no longer show if you deselected sounds for gear shifts
[FIXED] Better error handling of missing gear shift sounds. This will prevent DRE from stalling when it can’t find the sounds for any reason

Alerts

[FIXED] Sessions with only one car type now omits the type of car approaching, when ‘alert proximity’ triggers
[FIXED] ‘Race synopsis result’ alerts gave the wrong safety rating level after level jumps (from eg. A4.00 to B3.50, where it should have been A4.00 to A3.50)

General

[FIXED] Internal smaller issues (probably quality-of-life improvements on your end)
[FIXED] Water and Oil temperatures have had additional checks to make sure they aren’t excessively high (+1000C). In that case DRE will attempt a restart to invoke iRacing to sends some proper values
[FIXED] Lucas Oil Pro Trucks are now just “trucks” whenever one of these are approaching you

3.3.1.0

Going forward, the changelog will attempt to structure its changes based on features and themes and bunch additions, changes, removes and fixes together. This is similar to the iRacing release notes style.Going forward, the changelog will attempt to structure its changes based on features and themes and bunch additions, changes, removes and fixes together. This is similar to the iRacing release notes style.

Fixed commands in the profile:

[FIXED] ‘Alert new position’ has a variable with a bad name. With the fix, you should now hear more of estimated ratings ahead of you when you changing positions in races
[FIXED] ‘Alert split info’ would tell you split number 1 twice when in the top split

The profile commands have had a thorough spring clean, where a lot of ununsed and unnecessary command sentence variations have been removed:

[CHANGED] Commands in the profile that are called by the plugin only, and should not be called by us drivers now have ‘(())’ surrounding them like so: ‘((ALERT) new lap)’. This should make it impossible for us to speak by accident, leaving these commands to DRE as intended
[FIXED] ‘Last lap fuel’ had a prefix attached to its command sentences that shouldn’t be there
[FIXED] Removed command sentences without meaning and generally cleaned a bunch of commands that had unfocused sentences
[FIXED] Removed all competitor-related command variations that start with “Track …” as these are not used. [REMOVED] ‘On pit road’, ‘Multi car type session’, ‘my car class multi’, ‘session laps remain’, ‘drivers print out’ commands as these are more or less obsolete and no longer needed

General

[FIXED] Potential bug in the that prevented VA from closing down, so it would hang as a process.

3.3

v3.3.0.0:

[CHANGED] Shared Team Data Send is now a Pro feature, with the Receive part going Free. This means you can receive your car’s fuel, temps etc using a FREE or PRO, while sending from in-car is DRE PRO only
[CHANGED] Shared Team Data Receive usually checks every 10 seconds for data on the team car. If it doesn’t find any, it will only check every 60 seconds until there’s data available
[FIXED] Shared Team Data did not properly handle incoming and outgoing data
[FIXED] Errors in VA profile with missing variables, and stuck loops, as well as cleaned profile
[FIXED] Additional smaller code issues

v3.2.2.5:

[ADDED] Team data now also includes water & oil temps. Share fuel level, oil & water temps between you and your team mates. Both driver and a specator must be using DRE
[CHANGED] To prevent false positives, following (admin) chat commands have now the prefix of ‘Admin …’: Chat all * -> Admin chat all *, Admin Chat / Message admin *, Admin Chat / Message all *
[CHANGED] Controller bind polling has been optimized and sped up (30 -> 90Hz), so pressing a controller button should now more easily be registered
[CHANGED] To improve the Live Position feature, during races, when a driver who has physically stopped (deaccelerated to ~0 m/s) on track and then escapes, that driver is now disregarded for future estimated lapdistances
[FIXED] Clear wind screen control bind that triggers the Wind screen wiper and/or tear off to happen, will now disable the iRacing chat after it’s done writing the “#!ws”
[FIXED] DRE now disabled iRacing chat immediately after sending keystrokes via the iRacing chat. This happens in various commands: ‘tear off’, ‘No fuel’, ‘toggle fast repair’, ‘Say …’, ‘Admin …’
[FIXED] Quite some smaller bugs here and there, yielding better overall stability

v3.2.2.3:

[ADDED] VA log messages now appear when iRacing telemetry disconnects or reconnects. This might visualize issues with iRacing connection
[CHANGED] New optimal sectors that has 1 or more offtracks in it will be disregarded
[FIXED] Attempts a reconnect to iRacing telemetry when user calls either ‘No tires’, ‘Fuel Only’ or ‘Tires Only’ and it seems iRacing link is disconnected. Also logs if iRacing telemetry is disconnected for future improvements. This should mitigate the issues where you say certain pit commands and nothing happens.
[FIXED] More log data for developing and fixing issues
[FIXED] Low level handling of missing values. Basically, issues here should not happen, but they do and has now been improved

v3.2.2.2:

[CHANGED] Sector best/optimal alerts no longer sound if the last sector had any offtracks
[CHANGED] Automatically disabling ‘Mute Listening When Busy’ feature when using PTT. This happens when VA DRE profile starts up and listening in VA is muted
[CHANGED] Installer should in the future remember install location and reuse that later. This will happen at the next installs, not this one.
[CHANGED] Updating DRE via Launcher or Voice Attack (calling ‘Download the dre’) should skip install process and install the update directly, using a ‘silent’ mode. If Launcher and/or Voice Attack is running it should also attempt to close these applications.
[FIXED] Action camera is no longer weighing inter-class battles high allowing for switching to actual important battles
[FIXED] Crash for cases where iRacing would drop real-time telemetry, which was not handled by DRE
[FIXED] ‘(Optional) Repairs done’ messages should no longer trigger unless repairs are actually done when leaving the pitstall
[FIXED] Allowed Martinsville Speedway pit configuration

3.2.2.1

v3.2.2.1:

[CHANGED] Help message when typing/pasting new license types into DRE Launcher and characters are missing
[CHANGED] Default otherPitExitDistThreshold used to determine how far ahead of you to scan for cars exit pits, has been changed from 180 meters to 150
[CHANGED] Default ownPitExitDistThreshold used to determine how far behind you to scan for approaching cars when you leave pit exit, has been changed from 150 meters to 130
[CHANGED] Proximity On Track alerts: Extended initial release relative time from -5 to -7 seconds behind (faster cars behind falling farther behind now has to drop further 2 seconds before they are cleared)
[CHANGED] Proximity On Track alerts: Entering scan distance for the closest car from -4 seconds to -2.5 seconds when both you and the other driver has set a time
[CHANGED] Proximity On Track alerts: Made hardcoded limit to how far behind any faster car can trigger the alert: 4 seconds behind.
[CHANGED] Proximity On Track alerts: How far behind the initial car, that faster ones further behind enters, from -1.5 to -1.2 sec intervals
[FIXED] Proximity On Track alerts would cancel themselves immediately
[FIXED] Internal web requests had missing www’s. Basically I’m trying to improve website speed, and this is one step

v3.2.2.0:

[ADDED] Action Camera announcement can now be Voice Attack log text-only (compared to also having voice messages). Toggle it in Launcher -> General: https://i.imgur.com/PvdEC98.png
[CHANGED] Action Camera revised with more focus on hotlapping in practice and other smaller adjustments.
[CHANGED] Action Camera now also takes into account offtracks with more focus on higher speeds during offtracks.
[CHANGED] Action Camera will focus more on same class cars just ahead of your class position, rather than focusing on the cars in front of your class. Otherwise it will default back to mainly focusing towards the front of classes
[CHANGED] Action camera now waits and engages after 5 seconds of connecting, or 5 seconds after you exit the car
[CHANGED] Action Camera notifications in VA log now include the reason for focusing on a car
[CHANGED] Action Camera is now a bit more responsive to changes and can switch camera a bit more often (still after minimum 10 seconds)
[CHANGED] Camera jumps to live now 5 seconds after you exit the car
[CHANGED] Camera will not jump to live after getting out, if you change either camera, car camera or spool the replay, before 5 seconds lapse
[CHANGED] Added a notification when starting Launcher the first time and switching to another page, explaining what the ‘Show Tips’ button is for
[CHANGED] Tweaked alert yellow flags to more often to tell how many are involved
[FIXED] New feature for adding multiple aliases caused an empty field in DRE to loop the initialization. This meant DRE never started up properly
[FIXED] Car numbers now fully support leading zeros

v3.2.1.9:

[ADDED] (Pro) “Car [0..999] Incidents” lookup command
[CHANGED] Default for ‘Proximity On Track Delta Per Km’ changed from 1 to 0.6 seconds per lap
[FIXED] Proximity On Track alerts reset themselves due to a logic error
[FIXED] Better handling of no Internet scenarios
[FIXED] Refreshing checks to figure out if your last lap time was the fastest in class. It now happens just before it may be announced

3.2.1.8

[FIXED] Missing car class in offline practice would lead to DRE never fully initializing
[FIXED] Smaller issues exposed after fixing more stuff in .7
[FIXED] Launcher could not choose stable release over beta when there was both a new beta and an even newer stable version ready
[FIXED] Removed the redundant epic fail of “class position pX in class”

3.2.1.7

v3.2.1.7:

[ADDED] Experimental feature (not tested): Team fuel levels. In team sessions, you should now get the fuel level of your team car even if you are not driving it. Both active driver and you are required to use DRE3.2.1.7+ to send and receive team car fuel levels. Driver sends every 10 seconds, and spectators checks every 10 seconds, which means there’s a delay of up to ~20 seconds for the fuel levels.
[CHANGED] Striking distance alert now has a upper boundary of 20 laps
[FIXED] Smaller code and logic issues

v3.2.1.6:

[CHANGED] “Keybinds” in Launcher is now called “Controls” to better contain its page content
[CHANGED] Option in Launcher -> General to keep downloaded DRE files in your user’s Downloads folder
[CHANGED] Clarified roles of keybinds in Launcher -> Controls
[CHANGED] “Auto fuel” command has changed into “Auto [fuel;fill] now;Engage auto fuel;Fuel to the end”. This means you must say eg. “Auto fuel now” to trigger this. This is to prevent false positives
[CHANGED] As a safety measure, “Auto fuel now” command has been disabled in team racing while you are not driving. You have to be the current driver to engage auto fueling.
[CHANGED] As a safety measure, Auto fuel feature has been disabled in team racing while you are not driving. You have to be the current driver auto fueling to happen.
[CHANGED] Added notice if you try to engage auto fueling manually and not in the car
[CHANGED] Striking distance feature now doesn’t care about drivers less than 3 seconds behind, as you can visually see them quite well
[CHANGED] Getting fuel left first time crossing S/F should now lead to faster getting fuel data
[FIXED] Fuel used on last lap was not stored in parts of the code and skewing other fuel calculations. This probably led to no auto fueling and missing fuel info
[FIXED] Removed “…th” numbering style for now
[FIXED] Lapping cars triggering the “Proximity on track” alert should no longer clear itself when you cross the line with them right behind
[FIXED] Live Position and timing issues
[FIXED] Towing drivers’ lap distance should now be forced static at the place they left, until they properly return to the track from pitlane. This can improve position info

3.2.1.4

v3.2.1.4:

[CHANGED] “Stint laps” wording improved, so it tells you which lap of the stint your are currently on.
[CHANGED] Added small variation to Alert Cars Left Right
[CHANGED] otherPitExitDistThreshold default to 180 meter scan ahead, compared to 250 meters previously. Also any other car leaving pits has to be at least 50 meters in front of player in order to be regarded as a potential threat at pit exit
[FIXED] Stopped Split info alert from sounding twice
[FIXED] Improved way to get end position and fuel after a race

v3.2.1.3:

[ADDED] command: “What split am I in / Which split is this / Which split are we in / Split info / Split number”. Gives you the current split number and the total split count. Only useful on race servers.
[ADDED] Options to add driver name override variations in Launcher -> General -> Driver Name Override. It will randomize every time session info updates (usually once a car crosses the S/F). Write it like ‘Tom,Hank,Benny Hill,Karen” using commas and no spaces
[ADDED] car class type and car type to proximity on track alerts. It will be mentioned from time to time depending on the variation being spoken by DRE
[CHANGED] Proofed ‘Split info’ and ‘Next race time’ commands and alerts by checking for iRacing credentials. If you haven’t provided the credentials, DRE will now tell you
[CHANGED] Added installer check for Steam-based Voice Attack, and will try to locate the directory of that install in case installer does not find non-Steam path
[CHANGED] Removed “incs” from command “My incidents” as it could sound like “ins” on some TTS engines.
[CHANGED] Driver Busy checks now deem you are busy when turning your wheel and below 25% throttle. Previously turning wheel and 55% throttle
[FIXED] Proximity alert on track code has been rewritten and should function better now and keep the car “active” until properly cleared by taking over you, or drop farther behind
[FIXED] Small error in offtrack proximity alert that checks for cars approaching behind the initial car coming up
[FIXED] Small issues regarding conversion of integers sent from profile to plugin

v3.2.1.2:

[ADDED] Split Finder! After joining a race server, DRE will tell you the total number of splits and which split you are in. Default on, and can be toggled in Launcher -> Performance -> Alert Split Info
[CHANGED] During installs using Voice Attack on Steam, setup app would not be able to find Voice Attack and check if it’s closed before installing. This check has been removed, so be sure to close Voice Attack before installing/updating
[FIXED] When overriding your name, it would only take the first of any names. Now it simply uses everything you type into the Driver Name Override field
[FIXED] Initialization issue where a variable was not sent from the profile to the plugin
[FIXED] Various issues that appeared with 3.2.1.0

3.2.1

[ADDED] Rejoin assistant (PRO): Using Launcher -> Proximity -> Offtrack alerts, the Rejoin Assistant helps you determine gaps. When you’re offtrack, DRE tells you how many cars are approaching and when you should “go”, meaning when to start accelerating to join the clear gap on track. This will only sound if the free gap is further than 5 seconds
[ADDED] “Fuel for [1..120] minutes” command that let’s you request how much fuel is needed for a specified amount of time measured in minutes. Alternative variations include “fuel burn over 35 minutes”, “gas usage during 120 minutes”
[ADDED] “Fuel for [1..100] laps” command that let’s you request how much fuel is needed for a specified number of laps. Alternative variations include “fuel usage over 24 laps”, “gas burn rate during 50 laps”
[ADDED] https://www.thedigitalraceengineer.com is now the new central go-to place for info and downloads. Some new design and an improved UX for purchasing the Pro version
[ADDED] https://www.thedigitalraceengineer.com/docs is now the central go-to place for support, help and knowledge. The installed Extra folder in Voice Attack directory will no longer have documentation as it is now in a live-document fashion online

[CHANGED] https://www.thedigitalraceengineer.com/docs/setup is the new ‘setup PDF’ place. No more old obsolete static PDFs lying around
[CHANGED] https://www.thedigitalraceengineer.com/commands is the new ‘manual PDF’ place. No more old obsolete static PDFs lying around
[CHANGED] offTrackDistThreshold -> offTrackTimeThreshold parameter in Launcher -> Proximity, and changed the default value to 4 seconds behind the last car in a group approaching you when you’re offtrack. offTrackDistThreshold is no longer used
[CHANGED] Proximity Offtrack method so it uses time instead of distance (default scans 4 seconds behind you)
[CHANGED] Removed “alert more/less drivers than max cars” as it is no longer used
[CHANGED] Rewritten Use Live Position feature (see longer post on Discord: https://discordapp.com/channels/756114444500860959/756467334151143474/760770976379699232)
[CHANGED] Removed “Simulate Positions” features as it is now embedded into “Use Live Position”. Whenever DRE detects a car being lost while driving, it attempts to simulate its lap distance and reconstruct positions
[CHANGED] Start in DRE Launcher has been rearranged
[CHANGED] Some commands and info have changed from Pro to Free features (See the updated list at https://thedigitalraceengineer.com/commands/)
[CHANGED] “Marked drivers” feature is now a Pro feature. Parts of it were already, but both marking and getting alerts now is Pro-only
[CHANGED] When calling “Show my car”, if Action Camera is enabled it will stop Action Camera and mention it. Re-enable Action Cam by saying “Start action camera”
[CHANGED] Secured “Go drive” command with a check making sure you are driving less than 45kmh. This essentially means this command is not possible to be falsely called when at speed driving.

[FIXED] Notifications for new updates that now does an internal refresh when toggling ‘Check for updates’ toggles.
[FIXED] Issue where new beta update wasn’t mentioned when subscribing to beta versions.
[FIXED] Download progress in DRE Launcher was stuck and is now ticking up during version downloads. Also added progress in Voice Attack log window when downloading
[FIXED] Various internal non-critical bugs
[FIXED] DRE would seek to latest point when watching replay
[FIXED] Estimated rating next would not have any info, it now should
[FIXED] Attempting to stop DRE from saying “0 seconds to your box” when spawning the car in pit stall (in quals etc.)
[FIXED] DRE should no longer say “None up to your best” if your last lap time and best lap time were very close. It’ll instead report something else
[FIXED] “Alert competitor striking” say action had so many variations that it held DRE back and caused clogging of other alerts. There might be other commands doing similar things, so please report them on Discord: https://discord.gg/bBdcQzf
[FIXED] Average and Median lap times for all drivers use the last 5 laps and now take into account if the drivers have driven less and therefore don’t count same lap times twice to cover the lack of 5 laps data
[FIXED] On some non-US keyboards, the command “No fuel” would write “§!fuel” in chat while it should have been “!#fuel”. An alternative approach is now being tested for this command using alt key codes
[FIXED] Prevented yellow flags from triggering before we go racing. Usually this happens on slow pace laps before green flag

3.2.0.5

[ADDED] Controller buttons support! Every Keybind now has further 2 slots for controller buttons combinations. Every controller button must have a keybind assigned, as the controller buttons are simply calling the corresponding VA command that includes the keypress send. In the end, it is still a keybind that is being sent to iRacing, meaning you should assign the keybinds in iRacing options (not controllers). It is possible to assign a combination of buttons on a single controller as well as a mix of controllers (eg. wheel button + gamepad button). Xbox controllers (and other gamepads emulating one) are unfortunately not supported due to lack of polling response with VA/DRE running in the background while iRacing has focus.
[ADDED] Controller buttons can be assigned directly in DRE Launcher -> Keybinds by tap+hold+release. Tap and hold the buttons you want, then release them all. Confirmation dialog tells you if another bind already exists, making it easy and quicker to set up.
[ADDED] 32 new iRacing keybinds that were missing in DRE: https://i.imgur.com/6AiBVEk.png
[ADDED] Triple tap the Voice Attack “Stop running commands” button to simply restart DRE in the profile. This is much faster than restarting VA or away-and-back to the profile
[ADDED] New Pro alert: Alert Overall Leader Pits – mentions when the race leader heads into the pits, and how many laps were completed (off by default, change in DRE Launcher -> Pit)
[ADDED] New Pro alert: Alert Class Leader Pits – mentions when the class leader heads into the pits, and how many laps were completed (on by default, change in DRE Launcher -> Pit)
[ADDED] New command: “Where’s the class leader” and variations – tells you where the class leader is currently located around the track
[ADDED] New command: “Where’s the leader” and variations – tells you where the overall leader is currently located around the track
[ADDED] Dynamic Delta Tabs. Traverse the delta tabs in iRacing much easier with Dynamic Delta Tabs. All you need to do once is to call “Reset delta tab” when not showing the delta tab on screen. DRE will store this across sessions and use this knowledge as offset when traversing the tabs. In case you manually tab without using the DRE commands, you need to reset this once again.
[ADDED] All delta tabs are now possible to go directly to! Jump from eg. Delta Session Best Lap -> Last Lap by simply saying “Delta last lap”. This requires a one-time call of Reset delta tab, when not showing the Delta bars on screen. See more in the Manual (search for Delta bar). Tabs include all 9 and are: Hide delta bar, Delta all time best lap, Delta all time optimal lap, Delta all time optimal sector, Delta comparison lap, Delta comparison sector, Delta best lap, Delta optimal lap, Delta optimal sector, Delta last lap
[ADDED] SOF / Strength of Field. Ask DRE for current SOF in the session with “Strength of field” / “What’s the strength of field” / “What’s the SOF” and variations like this. SOF is also reported when joining the session
[ADDED] New admin command: “Admin clear all” that clears all pending black flags, disqualifications, and end of line penalties for the entire field at once
[CHANGED] In DRE Launcher -> Marked Drivers it’s now possible to add a driver only by name and thereby skipping the Customer ID. DRE will attempt to find the driver in the session, however driver may change name from time to time, so Customer ID is preferred.
[CHANGED] Marked driver announcements are now more neutral in tone, to allow for both marking bad and good behaviour, as well as Pro drivers, streamers etc.. It’s up to you in the comment section to note why the driver is marked.
[CHANGED] Start engine sequence now holds key for 3.75 seconds, which should be sufficient for various startup cycles in the cars. Let me know if it needs further extension
[CHANGED] Alert for nearby cars pitting now include how many laps they completed in the stint
[CHANGED] Improved security using iRacing password and its UI to access extra features. Password is now also encrypted fully
[FIXED] Admin commands are now all full commands that include ‘[0..999;00;01;02;03;04;05;06;07;08;09;000;001;002;003;004;005;006;007;008;009]’ so the command can be called properly
[FIXED] Player data was some times not updated compared to other drivers, resulting in skewed results all over. Player data is now refreshed every time session info refreshed
[FIXED] “Use Local Live” is now called “Simulate Positions” and the feature has had a complete rewrite. This means further improvements, more stability, especially when player is just crossing the S/F. Simulate Positions are currently tested in standing start single class races, so let me know how things are in multiclass and rolling start races, please. Email me at [email protected]
[FIXED] Internal code refactoring for better overview
[FIXED] Mark driver feature would prevent DRE from saying thing
[FIXED] Next race time, amount of drivers registered for the race as well as getting post-race results now works again
[FIXED] Issue causing the following alerts to not trigger, when number of drivers out on track exceeded the Max Cars setting while having alertMoreDriversThanMaxCars enabled in Launcher (on by default, so a lot of you): Alerts Projected class position, Pace car in/out, Pace car gap, nearby, leader and class leader cars pitting, weather, speeding in pits, engine warnings, fuel warnings and much more. Sorry! ;p
[FIXED] Preventing alerts about new leaders in practice+qual if they haven’t set a time yet. This is usually the case when everyone joins a fresh server in the start
[FIXED] DRE no longer thinks you’re heading into the pits near pit exits while on track and crossing into pit exit. This happens on several tracks like Donington GP
[FIXED] Issues downloading new DRE versions with the brand new 3.2 branch
[FIXED] Crash when other drivers leave the session, leaving you alone while using Simulated Positions feature
[FIXED] Changed a few spoken commands to mitigate false positive recognitions: “Alt K” -> “Press Alt K”, “in-game day/time” -> “Sim day/time”, “Regen up/down” -> “MGU/Energy regen up/down”

3.1.7.0

[ADDED] “No windshield” and variations to disable tear-off
[CHANGED] Most admin commands are now prefixed with “Admin …”, like “Admin clear car #”, to make it easier for the recognizer to catch it
[FIXED] VA crash when DRE waits and then connects to iRacing, while at the same time the signal is lost
[FIXED] Local Live Positioning issues with live data.
[FIXED] Local Live Positioning now has a better starting prediction.
[FIXED] Local Live Positioning handles session changes properly now
[FIXED] Next race times were using a different piece of information, as iRacing shifted information, which would lead to always 1 registered

3.1.6.7

[FIXED] Data reset wasn’t properly reset when receiving bad telemetry from iRacing

[FIXED] Local Live and Live Position features didn’t properly place other cars’ farther away than 1 lap from you

[FIXED] Completing a pit stop and returning to the track could sometimes lead to the “last pit stop time” to repeat on every lap

3.1.6.4

[ADDED] Alert Pace Car Gap – Know when pace car enters and leaves the track, and how far ahead on track the pace car is. Enable it in DRE Launcher -> Driving -> Alert Pace Car Gap
[ADDED] Option to toggle “Alert Estimated Rating Ahead” whenever positions change. Check it out in DRE Launcher -> Performance -> Alert Estimated Rating Ahead
[ADDED] Option to toggle tear-off / windscreen when doing a full service, using the “full service” command. Check it out in DRE Launcher -> Pit -> Tear Off At Full Service
[ADDED] “Pause / Resume the sim” which in AI races will pause or resume the sim
[ADDED] “Mute voice chat” command – toggle muting the iRacing voice chat by defining the muteVoiceChat key in DRE Launcher -> Keybinds (Default keybind: M)
[ADDED] For the Local Live feature: Improved estimation of where drivers are on track in races when the “connection is lost”, meaning when iRacing isn’t transmitting the drivers’ live data. This may happen despite having MaxCars set to 63. You need to enable Use Local Live for this to engage

[CHANGED] Naming of menus in Launcher to cover a more broad topic
[CHANGED] “Update DRE” into “Update the DRE” to prevent false positives
[CHANGED] Alert new position now triggers a bit faster than before, after a position change
[CHANGED] “Show in-car” command now also includes “Show brake bias”

[FIXED] When subscribing to beta updates, whenever a new release version is ready, it should now download the newest version, no matter if it’s the beta or release type. With this fix, I believe notifications on beta updates should now also appear in the Launcher
[FIXED] Water and Oil temps. When they are reported wrong by iRacing, DRE restarts its inner logic to retrieve correct values again
[FIXED] Various other internal fixes
[FIXED] Alert sector drop off would trigger during cautions. Now caution laps are flagged internally and not included in median time calculations that are used for figuring out sector times etc..
[FIXED] Alert grid count down had decimals values in the times. It should now round to the nearest second
[FIXED] Limited certain alerts from triggering the lap after cautions end
[FIXED] Next Race Start alerts should now work again

3.1.5.1

[ADDED] Live Position now works even better with Max Cars on less than the field size: Introducing Local Live Position (Found in DRE Launcher -> Timing with Use Live Position enabled). When there are more cars on the track than your Graphics Max Cars settings is set to, DRE will now attempt to update the position live locally around you. With some wizardry, it is possible to get a live position for yourself and those immediately around you. Cars on the opposite side of the track “outside” your Max Cars range won’t be updated live; they will still be updated once every lap when you cross the S/F line like before. This makes it even better when you want to improve FPS by turning Max Cars down where you can now continue to enjoy live positioning. This feature is in development and currently had positions right about 95% of the time. Pitfalls are when a lot of cars pass you, you pass a lot of cars, or when cars tow back to pits after being ahead of you. Also, this feature has not been tested against other drivers – only AI, nor has it been tested in multi-class racing. Despite these issues, and despite iRacing release a decoupling of visible cars from Max Cars in 2020S1 build, I believe this feature adds more benefits to your iRacing experience, hence the release now. Please report bugs including outputted data to [email protected]
[CHANGED] all database logic to now run with an improved system, that should yield more stability and higher responsiveness
[FIXED] Launcher wouldn’t set registry entries when enabling the Launcher to autostart when Windows starts. This meant you couldn’t change the “Run on Startup” option
[FIXED] Tracking down oil and water temp reporting issues, where the temps would be extremely small. New logic prevents obscure values to be set to the temp variables.
[FIXED] Installer should now attempt to fully close down DRE before installing, as well as running DRE Launcher again after the installation has completed
[FIXED] Forcing telemetryUpdateFrequencyTiming to always be at least 5Hz above telemetryUpdateFrequencyGeneral and added limits in DRE Launcher UI
[FIXED] Various logic for retrieving race times, track and car info etc.

3.1.4.8

[FIXED] Various fixes and more internal debugging capabilities
[FIXED] Proximity alerts had over time accumulated some errors from various implementations. Code fixed which means Faster cars behind on track, cars ontrack when you are offtrack, Pit exits and others exiting pits should now warn you
[FIXED] Next Race Times alert should now work again

3.1.4.5

[ADDED] Alert new lap now also tells you when your newly fastest lap time was the best in your class
[CHANGED] AI Racing now always uses live positions (if enabled) as all calculations are done on your machine, so all timing data is available
[FIXED] Some infinite numbers caused internal chaos for the sec -> proper time format conversions
[FIXED] Additional safety measures for when issues arise and the database cannot be reached, it will instead create text files with the issue to the Documents/The Digital Race Engineer/Output location
[FIXED] When driving on a new track and pitting, DRE gathers the pit entry and exit points on the track and sends this to the database so everyone can use it. This data could be invalid if the user reset back to the pits from out on track, and this has now been solved. This should improve various pit alerts.

3.1.4.1

[ADDED] “Fast repairs / Fast repairs left / Fast repairs available” gives you how many fast repairs you have used and how many are left
[ADDED] “Green white checkered limit / laps” command for knowing the maximum number of laps that can be driven under GWC conditions
[CHANGED] Added pit stop duration for the “alert pit stop complete”
[FIXED] Set fuel to … command didn’t work after trimming commands in 3.1.3.2
[FIXED] Set fuel target to … command didn’t work after trimming commands in 3.1.3.2
[FIXED] Restored names on AI drivers
[FIXED] Avoiding mentioning estimated rating for the AI drivers up ahead, since AI races don’t have iRatings
[FIXED] Mixed AI/real driver fields now need to have more than 2 or more real driver (yourself + others)
[FIXED] No race results should be suggested at the end of AI races

3.1.3.2

[ADDED] “Alert sector vulnerability for position” toggle in DRE Launcher. This will only do something when Alert Sector Vulnerability is enabled. The “for position” makes sure to only warn about sector vulnerabilities when the car ahead or behind on track is the car ahead or behind in standings. Default Off
[FIXED] Pitlane logic (could have screwed up pit ins and the alerts connected to that, when the pit entry before S/F and exit was after S/F line (eg. COTA, Talladega)
[FIXED] Added checks for pitlane data from database so the pit count downs and other pit related alerts should have proper data. If you don’t hear alerts it could be due to missing data for this track configuration. To “record” this, drive a full pit stop cycle including both in and out of pitlane.
[FIXED] Asking for safety rating level on yourself should now be read out loud.
[FIXED] Typo for driverBusyEnable in DRE.ini caused DRE Launcher and VA profile not to be able to start up for new users. An now old unused variable continues to exist in DRE.ini, but it’s harmless. Feed it or pet it and it won’t cause trouble
[FIXED] English units in iRacing should now yield oil and water temps correctly from the start with VA+DRE profile running and entering a session. Hit us up if it doesn’t
[FIXED] Trimmed profile commands amount down from approximately 480,000 to 52,000 in profile, as some users experience VA crashing due to reach memory limit because of the profile’s 200000+ commands. Note, that in reality only a few spoken command possibilities have been removed. See those below.
[FIXED] Removed “What is … multiplied / divided” command to trim profile command amount limit
[FIXED] Trimmed Driver lookup commands like “Car … best lap time” to no longer have the alternative of “best lap time of car …”
[FIXED] Trimmed “Focus on car …” command no longer has “Focus on number …”

3.1.2

[ADDED] Option in DRE Launcher to define in detail when each alert should trigger using the track type: DISABLED – ON – ROAD ONLY – OVAL ONLY. If a setting is “ON”, alerts trigger on both ovals and road courses
[ADDED] New option for Alert Proximity On Track (where faster cars approach from behind): ProximityOnTrackDeltaPerKm. Drag this slider in DRE Launcher -> Proximity to adjust how much faster in seconds an approaching car should be in order to trigger this alert. Increase the slider to increase the gap between yours and the car’s fastest lap among the 5 last. Default 1 seconds quicker per kilometer. Furthermore, Alert Proximity On Track now uses the fastest lap among the last 5 driven to calculate its data from. This means that the proximity alert is now adapting to whether and track changes better. The system now accounts for situations where eg. a a driver swap has taken place, with the new driver much slower than the one before. Before, the fastest lap of the car would be in effect (which would be much faster), but now it takes the fastest of the last 5 and therefore in our examples the warning might not trigger if the delta if low enough.
[ADDED] New options to ask for other competitor information. Added 61500 new combinations! Previously only eg. “Car … lap time” was available. Now you can also ask “lap time of car …”
[ADDED] New alert: Projected Position. Useful in practice and quals especially to understand your performance along a hotlap. After the first 1/3 of the lap, DRE will tell you if you are likely to improve your position from the current hotlap. Fx. if you are faster by 2 tenths, DRE will tell you if that triggers a new position if you hold that advantage throughout the remainder of the lap.
[ADDED] ‘Mute listening when busy’ in DRE Launcher -> General tab will stop VA from listening to your voice while you are braking more than 10%. This can alleviate certain issues with wheel or pedal audio noise that speech recognition falsely mistakes as a command. This overrides and controls the ‘Toggle Listening’ button in VA. When enabled, consider disabling ‘Notification Sounds’ in VA Options -> Audio, and enabling ‘Enable Log Quiet Mode’ in VA Options -> System/Advanced’. You can temporarily toggle this feature by saying ‘Mute listening when busy on/off’. Disabled by default

[CHANGED] Removed announcements of other drivers doing fastest lap times in qualification sessions
[CHANGED] Timing of yellow flag gaps to be 2 seconds closer than before. This means when DRE says there’s 6 seconds to an incidents, it’s now more precise
[CHANGED] Say “Delta ahead/in front” or “Delta behind” as a shortcut for “Delta Last lap time behind/ahead” commands, for easier queries

[FIXED] Conversions methods in plugin from celcius to fahrenheit reused old values from other invokes
[FIXED] Prevented “alert pit stop complete” from spamming in rare cases
[FIXED] Prevented “alert pit stop changes” from triggering when driving into the pit exit area
[FIXED] Prevented “alert next race” from triggering when on race servers
[FIXED] Prevented “One lap to green flag” from triggering at the end of the race
[FIXED] Various issues when spotting like missing fuel calculations and lap data
[FIXED] Improved checks when VA is installed via Steam. If the path is not found, both the installer and DRE Launcher will ask for the install location of VA

3.0.2.8

[FIXED] Proximity Alert for faster drivers approaching from behind, where fluctuations in relative speeds could make the alert spam over and over again in some circumstances
[FIXED] Internal conversion, that led eg. safety rating to have 14 decimals, which was a bit too much precision 😉
[FIXED] Internal improvements and more internal debugging capabilities

3.0.2.5

[ADDED] “Check for updates” toggle in DRE Launcher -> General. Disable this to stop from checking for updates
[ADDED] “Use Beta Versions” toggle in DRE Launcher -> General. Enable this to subscribe to Beta updates for DRE. Beta versions will be unstable, so unless adviced to, keep this off.
[ADDED] Going forward after 3.0.2.0, after downloading and installing new DRE versions, the changelog will displayed in DRE Launcher

[CHANGED] Removed “Car [number;] X …” option in manual, to clarify that these look up commands use: “Car X …”
[CHANGED] Prevented “Alert New Lap” from triggering when running through pitlane count down using the NASCAR pit count down option
[CHANGED] Shortened the initialization of DRE by some seconds for a quicker response when joining a session or starting DRE in a session

[FIXED] A race condition for the “display units” that determine whether the units is English or Metric in DRE. It will now wait until the plugin has the info.
[FIXED] Added missing “Car X irating” command from lookup commands category. Also added missing commands in manual for this category
[FIXED] Issues with driverBusy feature, when turned off would still prevent DRE from speaking
[FIXED] Issue that would allow DRE to speak using the nascar count down in pits with driverBusy feature turned off
[FIXED] Issues with driverBusy feature, where it could occasionally prevents DRE from speaking over longer periods, that would cause messages to be bunched together
[FIXED] Internal bug reports
[FIXED] Various issues

3.0.1

[ADDED] DRE Launcher – A nifty app to start DRE and configure it. You will also find links to Manual, website and FAQs in the Launcher. The purpose of it is to move away from editing the ever expanding DRE.ini, and the Launcher takes care of presenting the DRE.ini content neatly in various categories. You may continue to edit the DRE.ini directly or only from DRE Launcher from now on, it’s up to you. When changing something in the Launcher the change is automatically applied to the DRE.ini file, so the DRE plugin in Voice Attack can use the changes you made in the DRE Launcher. You can do live changes in the Launcher, and then just say “Reload Settings” to DRE. Check DRE Launcher out 🙂
[ADDED] Run the Launcher from Windows startup and let it launch additional apps of your choice when iRacing sessions start. Use this to for example start Voice Attack whenever a new session starts and Voice Attack isn’t already open. It also possible to start the files minimized as well as close them when iRacing session disconnects. Find the feature in the Launcher -> File Starter
[ADDED] It is now possible to use DRE with less MaxCars than 63 – Note that not all data for all cars will be available, and that DRE functions in a less-than-optimal way due to the lacking information. This means no live positioning can work and you instead get position updates only when crossing the S/F. Furthermore there are other areas where alerts will not trigger with less than MaxCars at 63. This feature is in an experimental stage, so please report issues at [email protected] directly. To avoid these potential issues, set MaxCars to 63 to allow for all data being streamed to your PC. To make sure you’ve made a concious choice about your MaxCars setting, an alert informing you about a too low setting has been added. This will trigger whenever a session have more cars registered than MaxCars. You may toggle this alert off in the Launcher under General Alerts and proceed using less than 63 MaxCars.
[ADDED] Action Camera! Let DRE control what to watch when not driving in iRacing. Action Camera finds the most exciting battles, hotlaps and essentials racing that matters to you. The algorithms takes a lot of things into account. For example, class battles are important, but they are more important when they are in your class – and much more important when it’s ahead of you. This feature is great for catching the important things. For qualifications, Action Camera should focus on the car with the most gained time on the hotlap. This is a first iteration, so if you have any ideas for improvement, please let me know
[ADDED] Auto Action Camera toggle in Launcher. Let DRE use Action Camera whenever you join a session or exit the car.
[ADDED] Two commands to manually control action camera: “Start action camera” and “Stop action camera”. If Auto Action Camera is enabled, and you want to override its decisions and manually follow a specific car, you can stop it this way. Auto action camera will start again whenever you join a new session or exit a car again.
[ADDED] Custom Gear Rev Limits per car! Run DRE, load a session with a car that you want to dial custom rev limits for. DRE will automatically add the car and its default rev limit to the Gears.ini file that you can edit afterwards. Use DRE Launcher to edit the rev limits. Use the rev limits with the “Alert Gear Shift” type of “Custom Rev Limits.
[ADDED] Using Custom Gear Rev Limits, your actual shifting points will be gathered over time and shown in gray next to your RPM limit per gear. The measured rpm shift points is a running average that slowly finds your actual shifting RPMs. Use these balance the RPM limits for the gear shift alert.
[ADDED] Option to toggle sound types for gear shift alerts. Toggle them in the Gear Shift Alerts page of DRE Launcher
[ADDED] Exposed Alert Weather thresholds in Launcher, so you can decide how much of a change in weather conditions you want, before being alarmed by it. Fx., Weather Track Temp Threshold is by default set to 2.5C. When track temp in/decreases 2.5C, DRE will alert you. With this is exposed, you may dial these settings to your likings. Find it in the Launcher-> Weather Alerts
[ADDED] Exposed threshold of lower safety / iRating alerts of other drivers in DRE Launcher. You can now specify in percent when warnings about other drivers’ lower safety rating is heard. By default it’s set to 60%, so if you have an iRating of 4000 and SR3.5, any driver below 2400iR or below SR2.1 will trigger this warning when you approach them on track the first time
[ADDED] Option in Launcher to enable jumping to live replay when exiting the car: Set “autoLiveReplay” to 1 to enable. Off by default. This also jumps to live when you enter a server and when sessions change.
[ADDED] New chat commands: Say You’re Welcome, Say Pass Right, Say Pass Left, Say Okay, Say No Problem, Say Good Luck
[ADDED] Added new UI command: “Show Latency” along with a new Keybind: keyShowLatency – for toggling the latency meter black box. Default to “L”
[ADDED] New command to easier navigate Black Boxes: “Set/Show 1..10 up/down/left/right” navigates the current black box up, down, left or right by a certain amount of pushes. Fx. In Relative Tab say “Show 5 down” to scroll down the list, or in In-car Adjustments say “Set 3 left” to decrease a setting 3 steps down. It is similar to the “Tab/Box up” commands but includes an amount here
[ADDED] New command to easier navigate Black Boxes increments: “Increase/Decrease by 1..10” – for changing settings in black boxes. Fx. hovering over the fuel amount in the Fuel Tab, say “Increase by 7” to increase the fuel amount 7 steps
[ADDED] New alert! AlertSectorNextSlow will trigger if the next sector up ahead on track has been slower on a regular basis to your personal best. This takes in a median sector time of the last 5 times you passed through this sector and compares it to the sector time that was set here on your best lap time. Notice the personal best sector time comes from the best lap time, and might not be the optimal sector time. Anyway, this alert will give you hints about where your car, or you, lose performance compared to your best runs. Use it to figure out if car setup is struggling in certain sectors, or if you tend to fall into a bad habit of taking corners bad. The alert is off by default, so enable it in Launcher
[ADDED] New alert! AlertSectorLastOptimal will trigger as you complete a sector, and tells you if that sector was your personal best. The alert is off by default, so enable it in Launcher
[ADDED] New alert! AlertSectorLastBestInClass will trigger as you complete a sector, and tells you if that sector was the fastest in your class. The alert is off by default, so enable it in Launcher
[ADDED] New alert! AlertSectorVulnerability will inform you about which sector you are quicker than the class car ahead on track, and which sector you are slower than the class car behind on track. Use this to fend off those from behind and to attack those ahead. Default Off (0)
[ADDED] New command for Pro users: “Focus on car X” will focus on the mentioned car number. For now this command does not allow car numbers with leading zeros like 007.
[ADDED] New alert! You will be alerted when pits open and close. Quite simple but quite useful. Default on
[ADDED] New alert! “alert pit service status”. When hitting your marks in the pit stall, DRE will let you know. This way you rely less on the visual cue and can quicker respond if you over/undershot the pit stall. Default on
[ADDED] “alertFuelSafetyBuffer” – The buffer amount of fuel. This is used for the alertFuel alert that is triggered on the last lap, before you must pit for fuel. Default 0.5L. Define this in DRE Launcher
[ADDED] New command “Delete Sector data” – Clears all gathered sector delta for you and other cars. This is valuable to do after a major track / weather change, so you are able to measure your overall performance accurately
[ADDED] New alerts! “alertPitRepairsCountdown” and “alertPitOptionalRepairsCountdown” that count down remaining repair times. On by default
[ADDED] New alert! “alertPitStopChanges” will sound when entering pit lane with more than 70 meters to your pit box about what is going to be done in the pit stop. This works as a safety measure to ensure you have enabled the right things for the stop. On by default
[ADDED] New alert! “alertPitStopComplete” will sound when your pit stop is complete, where no more fuel, tires, windscreen or fast repair is needed. This will not be called if your car needs any repairs. On by default
[ADDED] New alert for the future! “alertMixedAI”. If the driver field is mixed between real and AI drivers, this warns about the AI drivers when approaching them. Default on
[ADDED] New alert! “alertLapsLeftCountdown” which will call out laps completed and laps left at a certain lap interval. You may define the interval in the DRE Launcher, as well as specify if the alert also should happens in practice and qualification session. The alert is off by default
[ADDED] New command “completed green laps” or simply “green laps” will give the completed number of laps that was under green flag during crossing the S/F line
[ADDED] [Sim;Simulation;In-game;Game] [time;clock] to tell you what sim time it is
[ADDED] [Sim;Simulation;In-game;Game] date to tell you what sim date it is
[ADDED] Admin commands are now included in DRE! Use these when you are an admin in a hosted session. All commands here have been added: https://members.iracing.com/jforum/posts/list/1065608.page#8051073
[ADDED] “Fuel laps left at start finish”. This will give you the laps left in fuel tank for the next time you pass the Start / Finish line.
[ADDED] “Get last result” Finds and shows the result of the last session. Note, that the session might not be over yet. It can even show a result from a previous DRE session. This might be useful coming back after a few days and you need to catch up with how you performed
[ADDED] “Get last race result” works like the above, but retrieves your last race results.
[ADDED] “Pit stall ahead / behind (on track)” that after the first pitting in this session, DRE knows where the pit stall of this driver is located relatively to your own. This is useful especially on oval racing for getting track position when returning to the track. It will return either “ahead” or “behind”.
[ADDED] It is possible now to ask about details of both the overall as well as the class leader. Ask the usual stuff about stint laps, name, delta times, current lap, gap and so on. Check the Manual PDF that includes all the available commands in the “Leader Data” section.
[ADDED] It is possible now to ask about details of any car. Ask the usual stuff about stint laps, name, delta times, current lap, gap and so on. Do it by commanding “Car [0..999] x” and replace ‘x’ with either “last lap time”, “best time”, “delta last”, “delta best”, “gap”, “class position”, “position”, “stint laps”, “lap” and variations of these.
[ADDED] 6 new gear shift sound types have been added. Go check them out in DRE Launcher -> Gear Shift Alerts
[ADDED] Alerts for gearing up and down. These can be valuable to confirm that a gear change has happened. Find the alerts and activate them in the Launcher -> Gear Shift Alerts
[ADDED] Setup and In-Car changes tips, that can guide you to dial changes to the car. Tips can be called like: “Help me with loose rear tires”, or “Explain rebound”, “Guide me on caster”, “Give a tip about oversteer at corner exit” and so on. For all combinations and possibilities, see the DRE manual under the “iRacing | Setup Tips” section. If you have new ideas for tips, or hear any mistakes, please forward them to [email protected]
[ADDED] Option in Launcher -> Proximity to turn off proximity alerts while spectating, and another driver is in your car (team sessions or when joining with Watch)
[ADDED] Using “Alert Fuel” it will also remind you to pit shortly before pit entry, to make sure you pit if you forgotten it whilst racing
[CHANGED] Box or tap up/down/left/right commands now have a prefix: “Set”, to prevent triggering false positives. Call fx. “Set box up”
[CHANGED] “Tear off” command now have a prefix: “Do”, to prevent triggering false positives. Call “Do tear off” or one of the other variations
[CHANGED] While alerts about cars on your sides are being announced, DRE will now attempt to give you the most up to date precision on whether the car is on your front, middle or rear.
[CHANGED] With cars on your sides, no other alerts should be heard. If however, you keep cars on your sides for more than 10 seconds, DRE may start to give you other alerts again.
[CHANGED] OnTrackDistFactor setting in DRE Launcher now has a new meaning: Factor for proximity scanning behind your car. Valid values only between 0.1 and 1.0! Moves the trigger area for On Track Proximity alert closer or further away from behind your car. A value of 1 will trigger the alert when a faster car is somewhere between 1.5 and 3 seconds your car, while a value of 0.1 will trigger the alert somewhere between 0.5 and 1.5 seconds behind you. It is dependent on the best lap time delta to the other cars. Faster cars equals longer distances behind. Alerts will always trigger with a minimum of 0.5 seconds behind you.
[CHANGED] New default value for ownPitExitDistThreshold, which defines how far behind you coming out of pits, you want to scan for cars approaching. The previous default value was 250m and the new is 150m. It is recommended to change your value to 150 as well, if you want shorter distances when exiting pits.
[CHANGED] New default value for alertOtherDriversTimeLossThreshold changed from 5 to 7 seconds. Heavy traffic on a long track can cause several seconds of time lost compared to a median lap time, without it should trigger an alert. It is advised that you adapt this number yourself to your liking.
[CHANGED] Gear shift volume now uses a better curve to manipulate volume when sliding between 10 and 100 in DRE Launcher
[CHANGED] Do Tear off now includes an option to say “Toggle tear off”, to toggle if windscreen should be cleaned at the next stop. Saying this will also reveal its new state
[CHANGED] ‘Alert fuel’ no longer triggers if DRE believes you have enough fuel to finish the race
[CHANGED] When swapping class positions in official races, randomly you will now hear an estimated irating to get for the class position ahead of you
[CHANGED] Repurposed “drivers in class” to now tell you how many are joined in your class this session as well as how many are actually driving outside pits currently
[CHANGED] Tweaked the internal thresholds for when DRE considers you being busy driving, when racing oval tracks. And in general now taking brake pedal input, as well as no throttle input into consideration as well. Furthermore, there’s now a 1 second delay before not being busy again.
[CHANGED] Using Nascar style pit count down, the driver is now regarded as busy during. This means no other alerts should be triggered while the count down is active
[CHANGED] When your position changes to be leading, it will not trigger the “alert new position” if you use “alert new leader” and “alert new class leader”
[FIXED] Issue with how many laps were remaining in races defined both by laps and time. This caused the fuel calculations to be off and not use the shortest time until checkered flag. This issue would be heard with 1 lap to go where DRE suggested you to take fuel, while having plenty of fuel on board. Issue also happened when leading a class. This should now be fixed. (Thanks Jack Wall!)
[FIXED] Small bug where the average class iRating wasn’t calculated in sessions with CarClassID as 0
[FIXED] Small issue with engine warning alerts triggering, that would not trigger with certain combinations of engine warning alerts enabled and disabled
[FIXED] Issue with changing from one offline practice session to another offline session
[FIXED] Issue with speed of others was off, which could lead to some alerts never being triggered
[FIXED] Issue with car left / right alerts where the front / rear callout were swapped
[FIXED] Issue where track info wasn’t acquired from server
[FIXED] Average fuel per lap on longer tracks was off in the beginning, so now it discard the first lap(s) of fuel usage if a fuel usage of a newer lap is drastically different. This should make the average fuel per lap more stabile from the beginning
[FIXED] Issue with gear shifts that would be called while another gear shift sound was already playing. This could cause build ups of memory.
[FIXED] Alerts for when cars around you set a new best lap time and they immediately exit the car, then that alert would continue to trigger every time you start a new lap. This is now fixed, so it only triggers this once per new best lap time.
[FIXED] Bug with Imperial display units (Fahrenheit), as the weather alert for air and track temp have a mistake in the conversion from the internal Celcius to Fahrenheit.
[FIXED] Decimal issues with weight based fuel cars resolved
[FIXED] Other Decimal issues
[FIXED] Improved code to be a bit more performant
[FIXED] Improved algorithm to queue feedback and avoiding the speak to stop itself
[FIXED] Internal versioning checks for the latest version
[FIXED] After a pitstop, Auto fuel was engaging immediately after exiting pit lane. Now it will take at least 5 laps before engaging again
[FIXED] Whenever there’s a driver swap, DRE will now check the new driver for being a marked driver or below the safety thresholds
[FIXED] Starting Delta Timing could lead to crash, as a infinite loop was created. This has now been resolved
[FIXED] Alert new leader did not have a 10 second extra check, to see if the position change was kept. This is now included
[FIXED] When there’s only one class in the session, if you have the Alert New Class Leader alert enabled, it will just use the regular Alert New Leader instead, as this sounds more natural with 1 class.
[FIXED] DRE now uses https to lookup race stats from iRacing, after they’ve changed the member site be using https
[FIXED] Leak in Gear RPM Shift alerts, that would cause VA to crash
[FIXED] Made Start Engine sequence of holding ignition keys a bit longer, so it makes sure to properly begin the engine starting procedure
[FIXED] In some sessions, DRE would regard a multi make field of cars to be seperate classes. This is now corrected
[FIXED] NASCAR style pit stall count downs (those that count down from 10…9…8…) now use a different and better approach to measuring the duration until stopping
[FIXED] Fuel calculations now allowed on very short tracks using very lights cars that almost use no fuel (looking at you, Lanier + Legends)
[FIXED] Fuel calculations for non-standing start races were off because it used fuel from green light on lap 1, that most likely started way before S/F line. Now it waits for the car to cross the S/F line.
[FIXED] Better capture of pit entry and exit on new tracks

Legacy Changelog

2.9.9.3

[FIXED] Internal issues that could stop DRE from working
[FIXED] Issue with session time elapsed, that would have a collateral damage effect on other calculations, as many calculations depend on timing

2.9.9.2

[FIXED] Asking for “fuel left” should now give the correct fuel unit type
[FIXED] Improved initialization sequence so that DRE gather the required data faster
[FIXED] Improved internal bugreports
[FIXED] Various issues

2.9.8

[CHANGED] Box or tap up/down/left/right commands now have a prefix: “Set”, to prevent triggering false positives. Call fx. “Set box up”
[CHANGED] “Tear off” command now have a prefix: “Do”, to prevent triggering false positives. Call “Do tear off” or one of the other variations
[CHANGED] While alerts about cars on your sides are being announced, DRE will now attempt to give you the most up to date precision on whether the car is on your front, middle or rear.
[CHANGED] OnTrackDistFactor setting in DRE ini file now has a new meaning: Factor for proximity scanning behind your car. Valid values only between 0.1 and 1.0! Moves the trigger area for On Track Proximity alert closer or further away from behind your car. A value of 1 will trigger the alert when a faster car is somewhere between 1.5 and 3 seconds your car, while a value of 0.1 will trigger the alert somewhere between 0.5 and 1.5 seconds behind you. It is dependent on the best lap time delta to the other cars. Faster cars equals longer distances behind. Alerts will always trigger with a minimum of 0.5 seconds behind you.
[CHANGED] New default value for ownPitExitDistThreshold, which defines how far behind you coming out of pits, you want to scan for cars approaching. The previous default value was 250m and the new is 150m. It is recommended to change your value to 150 as well, if you want shorter distances when exiting pits.
[CHANGED] New default value for alertOtherDriversTimeLossThreshold changed from 5 to 7 seconds. Heavy traffic on a long track can cause several seconds of time lost compared to a median lap time, without it should trigger an alert. It is advised that you adapt this number yourself to your liking.
[CHANGED] Gear shift volume now uses a better curve to manipulate volume
[CHANGED] Do Tear off now includes an option to say “Toggle tear off”, to toggle if windscreen should be cleaned at the next stop. Saying this will also reveal its new state
[CHANGED] ‘Alert fuel’ no longer triggers if DRE believes you have enough fuel to finish the race
[CHANGED] When swapping class positions in official races, randomly you will now hear an estimated irating to get for the class position ahead of you (only happens if you have added iRacing credentials to DRE ini!)
[CHANGED] Repurposed “drivers in class” to now tell you how many are joined in your class this session as well as how many are actually driving outside pits currently
[CHANGED] Tweaked the internal thresholds for when DRE considers you being busy driving, when racing oval tracks

[FIXED] Issue with how many laps were remaining in races defined both by laps and time. This caused the fuel calculations to be off and not use the shortest time until checkered flag. This issue would be heard with 1 lap to go where DRE suggested you to take fuel, while having plenty of fuel on board. Issue also happened when leading a class. This should now be fixed. (Thanks Jack Wall!)
[FIXED] Small bug where the average class iRating wasn’t calculated in sessions with CarClassID as 0
[FIXED] Small issue with engine warning alerts triggering, that would not trigger with certain combinations of engine warning alerts enabled and disabled
[FIXED] Issue with changing from one offline practice session to another offline session
[FIXED] Issue with speed of others was off, which could lead to some alerts never being triggered
[FIXED] Issue with car left / right alerts where the front / rear callout were swapped
[FIXED] Issue where track info wasn’t acquired from server
[FIXED] Average fuel per lap on longer tracks was off in the beginning, so now it discard the first lap(s) of fuel usage if a fuel usage of a newer lap is drastically different. This should make the average fuel per lap more stabile from the beginning
[FIXED] Issue with gear shifts that would be called while another gear shift sound was already playing. This could cause build ups of memory.
[FIXED] Alerts for when cars around you set a new best lap time and they immediately exit the car, then that alert would continue to trigger every time you start a new lap. This is now fixed, so it only triggers this once per new best lap time.
[FIXED] Bug with Imperial display units (Fahrenheit), as the weather alert for air and track temp have a mistake in the conversion from the internal Celcius to Fahrenheit.
[FIXED] Decimal issues with weight based fuel cars resolved
[FIXED] Other Decimal issues
[FIXED] Improved code to be more performant
[FIXED] Internal versioning checks for the latest version
[FIXED] After a pitstop, Auto fuel was engaging immediately after exiting pit lane. Now it will take at least 5 laps before engaging again
[FIXED] Whenever there’s a driver swap, DRE will now check the new driver for being a marked driver or below the safety thresholds
[FIXED] Starting Delta Timing could lead to crash, as a infinite loop was created. This has now been resolved
[FIXED] Alert new leader did not have a 10 second extra check, to see if the position change was kept. This is now included
[FIXED] When there’s only one class in the session, if you have the Alert New Class Leader alert enabled, it will just use the regular Alert New Leader instead, as this sounds more natural with 1 class.
[FIXED] DRE now uses https to lookup race stats from iRacing, after they’ve changed the member site be using https
[FIXED] Leak in Gear RPM Shift alerts, that would cause VA to crash
[FIXED] Made Start Engine sequence of holding ignition keys a bit longer, so it makes sure to properly begin the engine starting procedure
[FIXED] Small issue with parsing of time spans
[FIXED] Small issue with variables between Voice Attack and the DRE plugin

2.9.6

[FIXED] Bug with Imperial display units (Fahrenheit), as the weather alert for air and track temp have a mistake in the conversion from the internal Celcius to Fahrenheit.
[FIXED] Decimal issues with weight based fuel cars resolved
[FIXED] Other Decimal issues
[FIXED] Improved code to be a bit more performant
[FIXED] Internal versioning checks for the latest version

2.9.5

[CHANGED] weatherUpdateInterval in DRE.ini is now by default 600 seconds between checking weather. If you already have DRE installed, you need to manually change this variable, if you want to. Previously it was every 300 seconds (5 min)
[CHANGED] Air Temp now has to change 2 degrees celcius in order to trigger an alert. Previously 1.5deg
[CHANGED] Track Temp now has to change 2.5 degrees celcius in order to trigger an alert. Previously 1.4deg. Also the track temp being tested now has a slight running average, so it’s not as effected by wild fluctuations as before. That means a single quick cloud sliding past shouldn’t affect the alert as much as before. You may always ask DRE about “Current Track Temp” in order to get a straight up answer. Finally the track temp and air temp alerts variate a bit more in verbosity to keep it fresh.
[CHANGED] Added a few new ways to help out with debugging DRE, by calling the command to build debug data, by saying “Get data”, “Output data” command when requested by me to do so.
[CHANGED] When crossing the S/F in practice and quals, you no longer hear about delta times in the last five laps to others, because they don’t make a lot of sense to use here due to short stints.
[FIXED] Removed older TrackTemp variable that was given us temperature at the S/F line. In a recent patch for the 2019S1 build, the TrackTemp was converted to show the exact same as the TrackTempCrew, that measures all around the track. We, my gents, lost a long time soldier in the S/F temp, and now instead only get track temps as an average from all around the track. Long live TrackTemp!
[FIXED] Removed fetching data in “Weather status” command as the data should already be present. This can hopefully shorten the time taken before DRE starts telling us weather info
[FIXED] Improved Alert Fuel Window logic so it makes sure not to factor in laps that you have pitted on, as well as checking that basic data is there to calculate when the window opens.

2.9.4

[CHANGED] The command “What time is it” now reports time in your system time format.
[FIXED] Internal issues where som variables weren’t initialized before being used
[FIXED] Separated calculation variables in DRE profile from variables in backend code
[FIXED] Pit countdown bug where pitting into the lane was immediately being regarded as pitting out. Also the exit distance point of the pit box was not updated when the box position changed. Thanks to Manke and Walls for stellar debugging help
[FIXED] Bug appeared in races that were determined by laps, and if you we’re lap(s) down to the class leader. That would mean that it would cut the remaining laps short and eventually switch the fuel calculations from using laps to using time left in the session. Usually time left in laps-determined races have more time. That means that the auto fuel feature will engage more fuel that was actually required for a laps-determined race.
[FIXED] Issue with team racing, where you would be called by the name of your team mate who drove the car when you joined it and started DRE. This should now update to whoever is in the car
[FIXED] Denying DRE from telling you your team mates name when initalizing
[FIXED] Further profing of time losses of other cars. It should now not report major time losses of other cars on the first lap after they have pitted
[FIXED] The “No fuel” command is now secured against yourself. If fuel check box is already off, it won’t be re-toggled the next times you say “No fuel”

2.9.3

[ADDED] “Download DRE” command that takes you directly to the download page for DRE. You will be reminded about being able to say “Download DRE” upon new version alerts as well.
[FIXED] Small change in DRE Changed session variable, where an integer was written as text
[FIXED] Weather bug appearing when switching servers
[FIXED] A bug with the internal bug message service (the meta is strong)
[FIXED] Issue where general session data was not marked as acquired upon starting a session.
[FIXED] Fuel data is now available after the first hotlap
[FIXED] Fuel data now takes into account if DRE has been started later into a session, where you have already driven laps
[FIXED] Warnings about low safety drivers behind you on track are now only heard if they haven’t set a time yet, or if their best time is quicker than yours. Similar in front, but you have to be quicker than them

2.9.2

[Added] When asking for weather and specifically track temps, you now get both the track temperature as an average around the track, plus the temperature at the start finish line. This is useful to make up a good understanding of how the track can variate around the track. Eg. the average temp could be 28C around the track, while it could well be about 39C at the S/F line.
[FIXED] Updating the tires age information constantly while in pits to make sure changes are reflected in that same frame, before you leave the pitstall
[FIXED] Pit countdown suffered from using the old pit box location from practice + quals during races, where it’s most likely moved to another place. Big thanks to Jack Walls for pointing this out and banging my virtual head 😉

2.9.1

[CHANGED] Auto fuel feature has a change to its logic and engaging auto fuel (and setting the fuel amount in black box) from: At least 2 laps into a stint + max 7 laps from empty fuel tank – to now instead using: At least 6 laps into a stint
[CHANGED] “Auto fuel now / Engage auto fuel”, is possible to trigger even without the alertAutoFuel parameter enabled. So you can let DRE set the amount of fuel needed whenever. DRE still needs some fuel data from laps before there’s a foundation to calculate on, so without that it’ll disable fuel filling
[FIXED] Internal conversion issue with Low iRatings were wrongly parsed as number and should be a text string
[FIXED] Intenral conversion issue with pitlane times of other drivers that was sent to VA
[FIXED] Internal issue with checking for pro license caused fuel data to not be a numerical value
[FIXED] Delta Celcius to Fahrenheit conversion causing 0C degrees delta to result of 32F delta. 0C delta should be 0F delta which it is now
[FIXED] CurrentRPM value would be 1000 times larger than the actual value. That’s corrected now
[FIXED] Finally found the bastard of “there’s int number of drivers racing”, which was hidden in the DRE Change Session command. Thanks for being patient about this fix. You know who you are ;P
[FIXED] If no fuel is needed when “Auto fuel” engages, it will now disable fuel filling for the next stop
[FIXED] Pit countdown should now be more reliable in terms of counting down, as it won’t start counting down before you are actually inside the pitlane green cones. This way, we can make sure you are driving at the pitspeed limit and have a more solid estimation of when you hit the pitstall.

2.9

New update focusing on stability and fixes. The 2.9 update also welcomes two new features about tire age and general opponent information. As always, please send bugs and issues to [email protected]

[ADDED] DRE tells you about tire age of specific tires and remembers laps completed for each tire. Previous versions reset the number of laps whenever any tire was changed. This means you can keep track of tire conditions better and hopefully ace future iRacing features with limited tires for a race session. Use the feature by calling the “Tires age / Laps on this tire set / Laps Tires” command as usual.
[ADDED] New command! “Status of number 42 / Status of the 100 car” returns position of another car. Specify the car number of the car you want details on and DRE will attempt to look up the data for you. Apart from position, you may hear the name of the driver, gap between you and that car, their last lap time + your delta to that, their best lap time + your delta to that, and how many laps they have done in their current stint
[FIXED] After doing a refactor of weather commands in 2.8.1, some other weather commands missed a couple of variables.
[FIXED] Calculation error when converting weather data from internal Metric to English units
[FIXED] Securing read of the Driver Markings text file from documents
[CHANGED] Track temperature now uses the TrackTempCrew instead of TrackTemp. The Crew variant measures temps around the track to an average temp rather than having just one measurement at the S/F line which isn’t a good single reliable measurement. In the past TrackTempCrew wasn’t updated from iRacing’s side, but it is now again, so we can switch back yay
[CHANGED] Delta weather variables should always be up to date on current weather compared to the starting weather. Also this is now separate from the weather alert deltas.
[CHANGED] Minimum Voice Attack version is now 1.7. Download it from: https://voiceattack.com/
[CHANGED] Warnings for low ratings ahead or behind now call the iRating of others as 2.1K instead of 2142
[FIXED] Added more checks to secure that when DRE tells you about number of drivers, that it should have an actual value defined
[CHANGED] Number of laps on the tires are corrected so that you start by having completed 0 laps on the tires. Previously it started with being 1 laps old which wasn’t true
[CHANGED] Made DRE core internal updates run more often for Tire Info like how old the tires are. Also refactored the tire info code.
[CHANGED] ‘Alert Car Left Right’ is now a part of the Free package
[CHANGED] ‘Tire Laps / How many laps’ on these tires is now a part of the Free Package
[CHANGED] ‘Stint laps’is now a part of the Free Package
[REMOVED] Variables List PDF as it was not kept updated or used. Contact me PM if you want updated lists of the variables, or search through the DRE profile.vap file with a text editor
[FIXED] Issue with Alert Other Drivers’ Timelosses where it would trigger if you pitted, as the time loss is relative to your time. It now factors in and ignores triggering on your pit in and out laps.
[CHANGED] Removed “Thanks a lot” from the “Say thanks” command since this may have a negative meaning in the US 😉
[FIXED] Driving through the pitlane without stopping in the pitstall now allows proximity alerts to continue to work
[CHANGED] Getting proximity alerts when you are exiting the pits: Now you are not disturbed about drivers out on track while inside the pitlane, unless you are heading to the pit exit and is less than 110 meters from the exit
[FIXED] Chat commands like pitting in could leave “æøå” characters instead of ‘

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