rec.autos.simulators

I did several hours of online racing yesterday. I was mostly hosting
races. When it works, it is totally awesome. However, I had many
problems. Namely cars behind me, magically teleporting infront
of me. No passing no nothing. I had one race where I was in 2nd
and the 3rd place car was listed (in F2) in front of me with a bigger
time behind the leader. When the race ended we were sorted out
properly though. The other big problem, is that I would have many
computer crashes. These were HARD crashes that required a
power cycle. This is the most frustrating part. Most of them happened
after a new player would enter my race (usually the 7th or 8th).

I also tried a TCP/IP race with a friend. I thought it was great, while
he complained about disappearing cars and warping and crappy
framerate. I did have the faster CPU and internet connection too.

All in all it was fun but pretty frustrating at times. For the most part
the drivers seems pretty good and behaved them selves. I had
one guy spin out (and another exit the pits) and move/swerve into
the main traffic before building speed. I avoided these brilliant
people and smashed into the wall. Next time, I will try and put their
trunk in the engine compartment :-)

I also had a race with one guy (rody in #18) who had unbelievable control
of his car. He would crash into people and never wreck himself.
I saw him do a 180, keep up the speed and point straight again
and keep going. But he would rear-end everyone (mostly) he
would be passing.

One question I have is if you can use a custom car in these online
races? Of does it have to be one that came with the game so
everyone has a copy of the car already?

See you online!

'hammer-time' out :-)

--

Header address intentionally scrambled to ward off the spamming hordes.

cisko [AT] ix [DOT] netcom [DOT] com

Greg Cisko <no.spam.email.for.me> wrote

Have you tried the beta patch ?  And also, what is your connection speed? To
host a race you need a pretty good ISP and also a digital connection. Your
ISP seems to be MindSpring.  I think they only offer analog connections to
the net no?  If your server cannot host the # of drivers currently on the
track you will have problems.  My ADSL at 384kbps upload can host about
20cars maximum.

.

Internet racing is always dependant of the quality between A (you) and B
(the client).  You can figure it as an interstate where packets are cars
going between the two points.  I always tell to people before they join my
server to ping and tracert me a couple of times to at least know if there
isn't any slowdowns between us.  It's the internet and things like that
happen.  One moment it's great, the second your warping badly, whatever
connection you have.

In the future Nascar Racing 3 will have features like muzzle and buddy lists
so you will be able to eliminate the drivers you want and do not want in
your race.  And you will be able to !eject the drivers out of the race if
they behave badly :)

What you probably saw of him was actually his ghost.  He probably had a
clock smash problem and actually was on another place on the track but his
client relayed old information on another point.  The N3 patch will feature
a better organisation of packets for online racing like Nascar Legends has
presently.

With N3 you can now see what the other drivers your with have for sponsors.
You just need to have it on your client side.  There is sites like
nascar-3.com where you can download hundreds of cars from other online
drivers.  When they race against you, you will see them with their car.

To do yours, create a new drivers named per example g_cisko.car   Paint it,
and upload it somewhere so people can download it.  After, for people to see
your car, go in the N3 multiplayer screen (first one) and type the car in
the box where you can choose your paintscheme.

--
-- Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard>
-- May the Downforce be with you...

"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realise
how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

Greg,
I believe that you can use any car you want in your multi list from the
cars that came with the game. You might have to remove one to make room
in MULTI. Others will see you in that car. If you paint a car and keep
its same number then you see that car but others will see the default
car... but the number should remain the same. If you DL a car and use
that one in your MULTI only people with that car DL'd in their N3 will
see your proper car. Others will see a 'default' car... and number. Same
if you create a car from scratch. Leagues can all decide on proper
carset and share it so everyone sees everyone's preferred car.

I ~think~ this is accurate. ;-)

Alan