Crash sounds - every hit has its own weight now: light taps, solid knocks and heavy smashes, all from real recordings, and the sound travels with your car
Scraping - slide along a wall or a rail and the grind lasts as long as the contact, then fades out as you pull away
Sparks and debris - hits throw sparks and shards of plastic, lights and glass, and kick up dust
Tuned rivals - the fastest street racers now fit parts to their cars (boost, aero, grip) when your build is too fast for them
Tougher top tier - rivals keep getting faster past the old skill limit, so long winning streaks at the top finally meet a fight
Drift zones - start a run from any gate, in either direction; your score, lap progress and best show live in the corner while you slide
Smaller download - 251 MB less to download; roads and ground are packed tighter, the island is exactly the same
Faster loading - from launch to your car in 46-49 s instead of 54-59; getting back onto the island after a session ends takes 10-11 s instead of 15-16
Smoother traffic - cars appearing around you no longer freeze the game: 136-188 ms hitches are down to 18-36 ms
Liveries - a car with a livery shows up without a hitch: 28-44 ms instead of 199-277
Less memory - 64 MB less video memory on every preset, 170-225 MB less RAM after loading
Low preset - new players on Low get about 65 fps instead of 59 on a GTX 1650-class card: weather and car reflections start on Low, distant trees switch to far models sooner, the map takes 128 MB less video memory; settings you already picked stay yours
Crashes - sounded the same at 40 km/h as at 200, and a scrape was one short sound however long you slid
Drift zones - a run only started at the start line and only in the pit-lane direction, so from the paddock you drove almost a full lap with nothing on screen, and the other way never started at all
Brake kits - fitting the 8-pot kit locked the pedal force and brake bias rows that the 4-pot and 6-pot had opened