Graphics Bug Involving Spectators and Reflections

[BayouRally 27]

This happened in Spain, on stages I have done quite a few times with no problems.  But just now, I had some weird graphics bug blotting out my view (see pics below).  It seems to be mostly a reflection issue made much worse in the presence of spectators (probably due to their reflections in the puddles).

I have a brand new computer with top-end parts so up until this point, I've had all the graphics settings maxed out with high FPS and no issues whatsoever.

When I've run these same stages before, it's been 1 of 2 things:  high noon and dry, or night with rain.  Neither of these conditions caused any problems.  Just now, however, I ran a couple of Spanish stages at sunset with light rain and the roads all wet, and that's when the problem happened.  I believe this is caused by the low angle of sunlight making much brighter glare and reflections on the wet road.

Anyway, each time I'd come up on a wad of spectators, this weird blob of low-res blackness would start flowing across my screen.  It was in constant motion, sometimes obscuring only part of the view, sometimes nearly all of it, and sometimes only the wet road surface itself, and flowing from either the left or the right depending on which was the car was facing relative to the sun.

When I got a chance, I turned crowds completely off and turned reflections down from Ultra to Medium.  A further run in the same conditions greatly reduced, but did not eliminate the black blob.  Instead of obscuring the whole view, the black confined itself only to the streaks of water in the tire tracks on the road.  This is why I think this is a reflections issue only exacerbated by, but not caused by, spectators.

I call this the "oil leak bug" because it reminds me of having my oil tank hit in a combat flight sim 🙂