To: All Sierra Development Staff involved in creating Nascar Racing 1999.
Re: Use of Customers as Beta Testers (Report on "testing" thus far).
CC: Numerous Sim Racing League Directors, the rec.autos.simulators
newsgroup, Sierra tech support.
Dear Sierra,
Many, many of us, have purchased your software known as Nascar Racing 1999
Edition in anticipation of being able to have full Craftsman Truck physics,
as well as presumably better quality in the BGN and WC physics and AI
behavior while awaiting the release of Nascar Racing III, or 2000, or
whatever it is being called these days.
At this point I feel safe in saying that many of us feel that 1999 Edition
would have been better named Nascar Racing Y2K.
This program, as we in one of the top 10, indeed recently listed at or near
top of list, offline sim racing leagues in the world feel, has far more
bugs, and indeed, more serious bugs, than its parent version Nascar Racing
II. And yet to date we have seen little or no indication of any patch in the
works toalleviate these problems which seriously degrade playability, and in
fact may even have potentially harmful effects for some computer systems!
Below you will find brief, yet still clear summaries of the problems which
at my request, have been reported to myself in less than a 24hr period. Many
of these I have experienced myself as well. These are commonly occurring
bugs and problems experienced by a large percentage of simulation drivers
and do not apear to be isolated incidents. There also will be found some
word for word quotes of received messages from persons who have approved my
use of their full info in this letter, and in some cases still have replays
and or documentation of the bugs available on request as evidence to these
problems.
Please read the whole listing as there is further info/discussion following
the listing.
The errors/bugs are not listed in any order of severity, but more in order I
received them in.
Hardware Problems:
1: Sim suddenly shuts off, dumping back to the Win98/95 desktops. (this is
on same systems as last year with N2, (multiple systems listed which had no
N2 problems last year)).
2: Graphics in some turns stutter in 3dfx & rendition modes. (this occurs
under Win95/98 with a large variety of system configs from the basic to top
line setups).
3: High pitched audio making sound effects sound like "chipmunks" in 3dfx
under DOS mode bootup on Win98 system, if boot first into Win98 and don't
play any sounds before running it works ok.
4: Sound driver probs with Win95/98 booting to desktop, often requiring full
shut down to restart.
5: Loss of sound followed aprox 1-2 minutes later by hard lockup of system
requiring full power off restart.
6: All AI stop behind pace car in turn 4, player still able to drive around
field, system records no further continuation of stats. The only solution
found thus far was to shut down & restart.
7: (so far known to happen at Rockingham): 2 occurrences of system shutting
down and rebooting on its own when F2 screen displayed in the in car view,
same system no probs reported if don't use F2 key.
8: Screen blanks while sound continues.
8a: Screen blanks and sound stops.
8b: Screen turns purple and sound stops.
(all required full system restart)
Again, these problems have been reported as occurring on everything from
base line systems, to full blown brand new systems with maxed sound, video,
hard disk, and ram. Many of these systems functioned with absolutely no
problems reported when running N2!
AI Code Related Probs:
1: Cars stopping suddenly in various turns at green flag then rapidly
speeding back up at start of race and occasionally on restarts.
2: On last lap of cautions AI in mid pack will suddenly stop for a beat,
then continue on rapidly. They stop far too fast for player to keep from
ramming if is in correct pace lap position.
3: Pace car will fly past player at an apparent speed of "mach 2" (reported
by many people with that description, also occurs with an occasional AI racer).
4: Pace laps at over 200mph.
5: After green flag pit stop every car stops on the apron coming out of turn
1 & won't continue.
6: In turn 3 after a caution AI car flys up off apron at 45 deg. angle and
T-bones player at 75mph+. On review of replay all AI cars which were on
apron did same thing, continuing on to bounce off outer wall with no damage
except to player.
7: When viewing replays of qualifying laps full AI field reported to be seen
sitting on track with player car driving through them, cars not seen during
actual lap, only in replay (ghost cars).
8: AI cars observed crashing, then after yellow when go back to review
replay the cars are still on track being driven through.
9: Caution comes out, players finds whole field plus pace car stopped just
past start line. player stops and gets creamed by AI car. After player pits
to repair damage returns to track and whole field still sitting on track by
starting line.
10: On cautions when player slows to follow line AI car blows through player
at high rate of speed, destroying player car but no damage to AI car. (also
happens on pit road)
11: AI cars blowing past player under caution, in frame by frame replay
driver and most AI advance aprox 2-3 feet of track in 1 frame, the speeding
AI car will clear entire back straight at Taladega in 4-5 frames (while all
other cars advance aprox 1 car length!)
12: Spotter calling player to move ahead of a AI car, AI won't yield correct
position to driver.
13: When AI on apron in turn 1 returning to track from pits racing AI slow
way down going by.
14: On large AI wrecks cars will not move again.
15: Smaller AI wrecks that don't clear track have been seen to have rest of
field one car at a time continue around track and pile into wrecked cars,
never clears track afterwards.
16: AI passing under yellow with no penalty.
16a: AI after passing under yellow, and/or entering closed pits also do not
receive black flag.
17: Being black flagged for pass under yellow when all AI cars are on
opposite side of track, i.e.: player pits from last place, entering pits
well behind next car ahead, when exits pits rejoins line at back well along
back straight having never passed any cars, gets black flagged for under
yellow pass.
18: When leading a race, regardless of whether any AI lapped or not, spotter
will order to stay behind AI car that is at back of field, if don't drop
back to end of field (last place) black flagged for under yellow pass.
19: AI cars entering and exiting pits *through* the pit wall.
20: AI cars never follow player out of line to assist draft, yet player also
doesn't fall back nearly as fast as realistic.
21: With both mirror options available, spotter will say clear low, or clear
high, but if move that way AI spins player out. Has happened with nothing in
side mirrors, front AI fender in Mirror, and have seen spotter call clear
when can see nothing in mirror, but can see nose of car directly next to
players just beginning to edge by (AI full on next to player) (inconsistent
AI position when spotter calls clear).
22: Same as above, but spotter will call AI next to player when AI is in
fact clear of player).
23: AI slow radically after line on caution. faster than any player can slow.
These were the errors/bugs reported to me in under a 24hr period!
Below are some of the more interesting messages which I was approved toquote I had a lot of problems with my Daytona race also. In the first race, On the second attempt at this race, the game again froze about 30 laps Scott Mullin This has happened twice. Once at lap 46, and once at lap 71 on Once during a caution, the pace car would have stopped the traffic on I have a Presario
... read more »
players on.
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From: "Mullin, Scott" <SMul...@nbpower.com
To: "'R. II'" <ron...@pacifier.com
Subject: RE: N99 Errors (A Submission)
Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1999 15:55:48 -0400
Return-Receipt-To: <SMul...@nbpower.com
there was a wreck coming out of the trioval that involved several cars.
After reviewing the replay I noticed that a car for a fraction of astopped
going into turn one along the wall, M Waltrip hit this
car and bounced straight back towards the pits colliding with the pace
that was now exiting pit road. He bounced off the pace car into the
path off oncoming traffic. The pace car and pack got stuck behind these cars
and it took about 20 minutes for the computer to sort them out and get
us going again. I was leading at the time and when I got the caution
flag the spotter told me to stay behind the last place car. This went
on for a long time, I actually turned the volume off on the speakers
because it was so annoying. When we got the one to go signal, I was
still getting the warning to stay behind the pace car which I already
was, so I pitted hoping that might clear things up (now the last car in
the field). Just as we went green, the game froze.
into the event for no apparent reason. On the final attempt, Jeremy
Mayfield crashed coming into the trioval and took out the field over
the three of four laps as cars continued to plow into him. I finished this
race and submitted knowing that there would be a huge penalty. I
actually saved both replays and I sent the to Tim to review. I still
have them if you would like to log the evidence with Sierra. Let me
know. You can freely use my name and email, I would like to see these
issues cleared up.
Datawarehouse Team
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Hi Ron,
Here's what I've seen so far.
Taladega. First I would loose all my sound, then a minute or two later my
pc would lock
up and the screen would go black. I have to power it down.
turn 4. Although I could drive around the track, it appeared that the game just
stopped playing. This happened once.