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\u00a0<\/span>Petrolheads rejoice. “Simcade” Kaido-racing title <\/span>JDM: Japanese Drift Master<\/span><\/i> from Warsaw-based studio Gaming Factory is revving up to launch next month. Krzysztof Bosko, producer and creative director of <\/span>JDM<\/span><\/i>, executed a perfect slide into the offices of Intel Gaming Access to invite us, and you, to the streets of Japan where chassis are so low they could kiss the asphalt and a super-sized tail pipe can touch the sky.<\/span><\/p>\n Bosko climbed into the driving seat of the project two years ago and\u2014true to the Japanese maestros of car-modding the game draws inspiration from\u2014began a complete transformation. “I changed the approach to events, the world design, the cars, the way the player is guided through the campaign, and even the story itself, which my team and I rewrote from scratch to fit the atmosphere we aimed to create perfectly.”<\/span><\/p>\n Custom Model<\/b><\/p>\n This pursuit of atmospheric authenticity led the team to create a fictional prefecture, Guntama, a distance-defying mash-up and celebration of real-life locations. “Guntama is packed with locations inspired by real-life Japan,” Bosko explains. “A keen eye will recognize dozens of them. But what truly makes it feel authentic isn\u2019t just these landmarks\u2014it\u2019s the entire philosophy and approach behind designing Guntama. Narrow roads, traffic lights set up differently than in Europe, road markings on the asphalt, ambient sounds recorded in Japan, and even the biotope [habitat]\u2014all contribute to the immersion.”<\/span><\/p>\n And it\u2019s a very particular subculture you\u2019re immersed in, which helps <\/span>JDM<\/span><\/i> stand out in the racing genre. Bosko agrees. “What sets us apart? Our commitment to realism in world-building, our deep focus on Japanese car culture and tuning, and the way we present our story in manga form\u2014a tribute to the art style we admire.”<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n “At its core,” Bosko continues, “<\/span>JDM<\/span><\/i> is about celebrating motorsport culture. Whether you prefer simulation or arcade racing, there\u2019s something here for you. Some players will want to master their drifting skills, others will enjoy simply driving through Guntama and taking in the world, and some will get fully immersed in the story and campaign. It\u2019s not just a game for hardcore petrolheads who love tuning (though they\u2019ll find plenty to enjoy, with around 3,000 visual customization parts available). <\/span>JDM<\/span><\/i> is designed to be an exciting experience for a wide range of players.”<\/span><\/p>\n Beyond the Bodywork<\/b><\/p>\n Any aspiring Hashiriya<\/span> (street racer) is going to want to head straight for the <\/span>JDM<\/span><\/i> paint shop, where you can choose from iconic Japanese auto brands and personalize them in true Kaido style. The perfect paint job doesn\u2019t guarantee the perfect drift, however; that\u2019s where performance and control come in. “Frame rates are something every developer fights for,” Bosko affirms. “Players have expectations, and they deserve to have them met. Not every aspect of a game\u2019s vision will appeal to everyone\u2014that\u2019s normal. But performance is measurable, and it has to meet a certain standard. We keep working on it until it does.” That\u2019s an approach we can get behind, and did.<\/span><\/p>\n “We received a plugin for Unreal Engine 4 that helped us properly detect graphics cards,” Bosko says, “and overall, the process was remarkably straightforward\u2014pretty much plug-and-play. The performance of <\/span>JDM<\/span><\/i> when using Intel<\/span>\u24c7<\/span> X<\/span>e<\/span> Super Sampling (X<\/span>e<\/span>SS) turned out to be significantly improved beyond our expectations. The hardware we received was invaluable in testing the application’s performance. Our collaboration with Intel has been smooth and enjoyable. Beyond providing us with hardware and plugins, they also offer consultation, which I personally appreciate the most \u2026 getting Intel\u2019s reference hardware was the most important aspect for testing, and for our highly efficient QA department.”<\/span><\/p>\n Was everything as smooth as a Kaido-style slide, or were there some challenges along the way? “One major challenge was updating the physics engine when transitioning to Unreal Engine 5,” Bosko recalls. “We solved this by carefully wrapping Chaos Physics calls and closely monitoring telemetry data during synchronous and asynchronous substepping tests. After many trials, we reached a level of performance where the physics remained perfectly consistent with our previous UE4 implementation. Another challenge was optimizing the game\u2019s memory usage and streaming performance so it could run smoothly on handheld devices like the MSI Claw. This required fine-tuning the UI, textures, and VRAM management to ensure the game could run efficiently on Intel-based hardware.”<\/span><\/p>\n Go Time<\/b><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/game.intel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/jdm-NL-01-1920x1080-1.jpg\")
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