rec.autos.simulators

patch is out.

pez

Phil
---
Racesim Central Administrator
http://www.racesimcentral.com

NASCAR? Racing 2002 Season PATCH README
1.1.0.2
05/16/02
[ To read this file, select Edit/Word Wrap from the menu above ]

TABLE OF CONTENTS

[1] WHAT THE PATCH FIXES
[2] HOW TO INSTALL THE PATCH
[3] ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
[4] CONTACTING SIERRA

************************************

NOTE: The 1.1.0.x version of NASCAR? Racing 2002 Season is not multiplayer
compatible with previously released versions.  As a client you will only be
able to see and join 1.1.0.x servers, and similarly as a host only 1.1.0.x
clients will be able to see and join your server.

************************************

[1] WHAT THE PATCH FIXES
====================================

------------------------------------
  New to 1.1.0.2
------------------------------------

AI:

* Fixed a problem introduced in the 1.1.0.1 patch that caused the AI to lose
traction and crash excessively (the hairpin at Sears Point was most
noticeably affected).

MULTIPLAYER:

* Fixed a cheat which could allow for a client's car to become invulnerable
in multiplayer races.

* Removed the "..." admin command due to security concerns.

RENDERER:

* Improved the previous Direct3D menu lockup fix for NVidia Detonator 23.11
and later drivers so as to not cause the framerate hit some users
experienced in the 1.1.0.1 patch.

TRACK ARTWORK:

* Fixed a texture problem at Texas.

------------------------------------
  Previous changes in 1.1.0.1
------------------------------------

AI:

* It is now much easier to bump draft with the AI.

* The AI will no longer pile up when many cars pit together (for example,
during a caution period).

* When qualifying is skipped, each AI driver's parameters will be considered
when forming the starting grid, instead of the grid being formed completely
randomly.

* In a fixed setup race, the AI will now use the fixed setup during
qualifying, instead of the host's default qualifying setup.

* The pace car will no longer dive back onto pit road under caution if the
leader passes it and stays ahead of it as it passes the pit entrance.

MULTIPLAYER:

* Servers may now limit Sierra.com races by LPI.

* Open servers may now disable the ability for a boss to eject players using
the open_server_disable_boss_eject setting in the [SERVER] section of
core.ini.  By default this is set to 1, which prevents open server bosses
from ejecting players.  Change this setting to 0 if desired.

* When a client is ejected or banned from a server, the user name of the
person doing the ejecting/banning is given.

* The Chatpad Log is now separated for each individual player, and saved in
the main NR2002 directory as chatpad_<player_directory>.log

* The sierra.com available races screen will now continue to discard chat
from people in your muzzle list when you change chat servers.

* Clients that retire from a multiplayer race will now be listed
appropriately in the standings.

* Clients whose connections are dropped before they complete the race, and
who do not rejoin the race, will be listed as "Disco" in the standings.

* If you muzzle someone's user name by using the Add button to place them
into your muzzle list on the sierra.com screen, they will now also be
muzzled by their cdkeyid the next time they try to connect to your server.
This keeps them from sneaking back onto your server by creating a new user
name.

* If you wrecked your car during practice and hit Shift-R to return to the
pits, other clients would not see that your car was repaired until you
started moving.  They will now see that your car is fixed even if you don't
move.

* You will no longer receive errant end-of-race messages from a sierra.com
registered race server while connecting to it.

RENDERER:

* Texture compression is now supported by the OpenGL renderer.

* Some improvements were made to the way smoke and dust is drawn.

USER INTERFACE:

* The scrollbar for the address book on the main Multiplayer screen will no
longer draw over the connection dialog boxes.

* The 'Server Type' heading now sorts Open and Dedicated servers properly in
the Available Races table.

* Clients in a multiplayer race can now see the latency/quality of other
players in the Entries tab on the Race Weekend screen.

* The Entries tab on the Race Weekend screen now shows server admins in
green, and bosses in gold (disconnected drivers are still shown in red).

* The Entries tab on the Race Weekend screen will now show player ratings
while the left shift and left control keys are held down.

SOUND:

* Improved opponent car engine sounds to produce less crackling.

* Improved player car engine sound to reduce popping in mid-RPM range.

* Improved tire sounds to reduce popping with some sound card drivers (e.g.
SBLive!).

* Added a new core.ini setting (force_min_readahead) to address occasional
win2k/XP sound driver issue that resulted in much popping/crackling.

* Fixed 3D sound issue where some views would have severely muted focus car
sounds.

* Did *not* fix 3D sound problem where internal (stereo) cockpit sounds will
sometimes fail to play for some sound drivers (e.g. SBLive! on XP systems).
Users experiencing this problem should not run with 3d sound enabled.

* Found an issue where if you had disabled sound, when exiting the game or
viewing the win screen the game would appear to lock up, but in actuality it
is just doing nothing until the music finishes streaming.  The user can work
around this by not having sound disabled and intro/exit sequences enabled at
the same time.

MISCELLANEOUS:

* Fixed a problem where the game would lock up on the Player Info, Opponent
Manager, and Paint Shop screens when using the Direct3D renderer and NVidia
Detonator drivers with version 23.11 or later.

* You can now continue a championship season after having saved a race
during the season.

* Your spotter should no longer errantly tell you that you are too far to
the left or right if your pit stall is near the end of pit road.

* If you have automatic transmission selected and you break a gear, the
transmission will now properly skip the broken gear.

* The post-race newspaper screen will now use proper suffixes for positions
like 21st, 22nd, etc.

* Some improvements have been made to the graphical car model.

* Fixed a bug in the game's mapping of DirectInput devices which prevented
the game from properly identifying some axes when more than one controller
was installed.

* Fixed a bug at Darlington where the driver in the 43rd pit stall would
erroneously receive a black flag when pitting.

* Fixed a bug at Kansas where the AI would get unsafe pit entry penalties on
pit entry.

* Systems with video cards based on the Savage 2000, S3 Savage 4 and
ProSavage chipsets should run in D3D with reflections turned off.  Running
in OpenGL will result in a crash.

[2] HOW TO INSTALL THE PATCH
====================================

1. Run the saved patch executable.

2. The patch should automatically detect your NASCAR? Racing 2002 Season
installation directory and then begin the patching process.

* Note that if you have modified any of the game's files using 3rd party
utilities, it may be necessary to reinstall the game before the patch can
successfully complete its installation.

[3] ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
====================================

LIMITING SIERRA.COM RACES BY LPI

In addition to the existing 1-10 Sierra.com rating restrictions, you may now
limit races on Sierra.com by a driver's Laps Per Incident (LPI).  If this
setting is enabled, only clients with an LPI greater than or equal to the
limit set on the server will be allowed to connect to the race.  This can be
very useful to restrict drivers who may be intentional wreckers, as they
will almost always have lower LPI's than do the more clean and safe drivers.
Note that when setting up a user run server this option may be grayed out
and disabled if you are using a new Sierra.com  UserID that has an LPI of
zero.

There is also now an additional Open Server parameter for LPI restriction in
the game's CORE.INI:
- open_server_min_LPI_limit=N

As explained above, this specifies the minimum LPI a client must have to be
allowed to connect to the server.  Valid values range from 1 to 255.
Setting this value to -1 disables this feature.

DIRECT3D ISSUES

For Win2000 and WinXP users with NVidia cards, using ALT+TAB from a screen
with a 3D view being rendered may cause the game to crash.  Affected screens
include Player Info, Opponent Manager, Paint Shop, Race Weekend, full-screen
replay and driving screens.  If this occurs it is recommended that you limit
ALT+TAB to times when the 3D world is not being rendered.

But will it stop ME from losing traction and crashing? :)

Later,
john

I saw no mention of fixes for OGL lockups introduced in the 01 patch :(

-Larry

Ever notice the word "unsupported" when you select the OGL option? -I.e. if
it works better than D3D, good for you, if it doesn't, tough shit as far as
Papyrus are officially concerned.

That said, using OGL here and haven't had any problems so far. If you've got
an AMD processor, did you enable the 3Dnow! optimalisation for the
driver? -Gave me 10fps in the game.

Jan.
=---

Achim

I guess we can cancel the fall race at Martinsville for our leagues.
:(

                  Tim Wortman
      North American Simulation Series
               www.nasscar.com

David G Fisher

BOOOOOOOOO Papy!

--
ed_

Look under "Latest News" 06/04/2002.
Previous patch was 1.1.0.1
New patch is 1.1.0.2

When you log into multiplayer, the old 1.1.0.1 patch is still being
mentioned.  No mention of the 1.1.0.2 patch.
The same races can be seen and joined using a 1.1.0.1 client and a 1.1.0.2
client.
Papyrus Open 1  0-10
Papyrus Open 2  0-10
Papyrus Open 3  0-10
Papyrus Open 6  2-10
Papyrus Open 7  2-10
Papyrus Open 8  2-10
Papyrus Open 11  4-10
Papyrus Open 12  4-10
Papyrus Open 13  4-10
Papyrus Open 16  6-10
Papyrus Open 17  6-10
Many others....

I do not understand the following line in the new patch's readme.txt file:
"NOTE: The 1.1.0.x version of NASCAR? Racing 2002 Season is not multiplayer
compatible with previously released versions.  As a client you will only be
able to see and join 1.1.0.x servers, and similarly as a host only 1.1.0.x
clients will be able to see and join your server."

This implies that the new patch is NOT multiplayer compatible with prior
patch levels?

I think this just implies that all the 1.1.0.? patch levels are NOT
multiplayer compatible with the store bought level (1.0.0.1).

1.1.0.1 seems to be compatible with 1.1.0.2; But if that is the case, how
can that solve the multiplayer bug "* Fixed a cheat which could allow for a
client's car to become invulnerable in multiplayer races."?  It seems like
there needs to be more stimulus to get everyone to install the patch.

--
Robert Huggins

No, in the OpenGL properties of the driver (Creative Labs v28.32 here).

Actually, the setting is the other way round, there's a checkbox to disables
it, which is checked by default.

Jan.
=---

-Tim

-Tim

     Found it but it took me a minute or two...the top box has a slider and
the cpu instructions box was below the window out of sight.   It had already
been unchecked so no majic fps increase for me...;(
lol
dave henrie