[Brian Messina]

I was wondering if SOL is implemented into SRS, when I practice offline using different conditions the game looks amazing but when I join an online race it doesn't look that good.

[Simon Meisinger]

To make SOL look good you need to use their weather presets, which SRS doesn't so people can participate without the need to install SOL.

[Matteo Venuti]

until it affects only the sky (like clouds, fog etc.) it's ok, but if it will affects the track (with the rain fx coming soon) no. there are already people who can't keep the car in the track for a single lap with good weather, i can't imagine what could happen with rain lol

[Brian Messina]

That's fair enough, I guess that makes sense. Even though at least would be cool to have one race a week with random bad weather conditions let's say, to enjoy the magic of Sol and even more with the rain patch coming.

[Russell Sobie]

until it affects only the sky (like clouds, fog etc.) it's ok, but if it will affects the track (with the rain fx coming soon) no. there are already people who can't keep the car in the track for a single lap with good weather, i can't imagine what could happen with rain lol

A thousand times this. And not only this, but with the limited time I typically have to practice before racing, having to account for more variables than just other drivers would significantly lower my personal performance and enjoyment.

[Andrea Piovanelli]

I remember joining a race in the past, on a public server, where qualifying session was in rain conditions. I think it was just graphical, as I don't remember driving too much worse than usual.
I agree with Matteo, though: most racers don't have a lot of practice time and adding that variable is going to discourage them joining the races (or worse, like he suggested...).

[Brian Messina]

I understand that people might get discouraged and frustrated because that will increase accidents, but weather conditions can't be blamed for drivers responsibility to drive safe and respectfully. That being said, In real life conditions are not always perfect on the track.

[Russell Sobie]

Right... in real life things aren't perfect. But in the make believe land of sim racing, they can be!

In all seriousness though... weather conditions change how people have practiced (if they've practiced). Pretty sure no one on this site is a professional race car driver that has the experience to easily calculate braking points, where the limit is, etc.., so weather conditions will totally be something you can blame for people not driving as safe as they could be driving.

[Steffen Hohler]

Having some night races (or a full day and night cycle in a single race) with SOL in the seasons would be really awesome. I mean SOL is mandatory to fully enjoy Assetto Corsa nowadays. But SOL doesn´t see any use online does it?

[Pasha Paterson]

Sol would be pointless if the series remain in clear weather and midday.

For a series that ran at night or in weird conditions, as Andrea and Russell said, that either forces people to practice more, or endangers everyone because nobody practiced properly. The ACC series will likely be a much better forum for night and variable-weather events; I believe SRS is planning to try this already.

If all you're concerned with is visual effects, you get those from Custom Shaders Patch, not Sol. And you can even get significant improvement without CSP; just use a PP filter like Natural Mod Filter.

CSP and Sol are in a bit of a weird state at the moment, because RainFX has proceeded for a long time, and a lot of car and track configs have already been modified for it, but the "public" versions don't actually support it yet. I went through a couple of months of being unable to use CSP at all until I reverted to old settings, and I never did figure out what the actual problem was. One of the philosophical choices of SRS is that it is accessible to as many users as possible and the additional GPU load and variable reliability of CSP make it too risky for universal application. That said, SRS is already using some content that requires CSP so time will tell.