rec.autos.simulators

Racer v0.5.0 beta 5 released.

Ruud van Ga

Racer v0.5.0 beta 5 released.

by Ruud van Ga » Tue, 13 Aug 2002 20:55:04



Not piss-poor; I'll explain. It's the collision detection. Currently
the car is seen like a box. It then collides with a triangle.
As a shortcut I make a plane out of the triangle, and collide that
with the box. So when you collide into the triangle sideways, the
depth of the box inside the plane may be very big (deep), but that's
because the plane is larger than the triangle.
That's a bug that's got to be fixed, no doubt.
But to continue the story, the deep penetration depth then gives quite
huge forces to take the car out of the plane. Hence the blasts.

Drive into a wide horizontal fence and things should be better, as the
plane is almost the same as the triangle.

This small shortcut does make it seem like there's huge problems with
the physics, but I can reassure you, the physics are by now quite
good, even though I say myself.

It's client-server all the way. It sends data to the host, which is
localhost, 127.0.0.1. If your machine then responds with trying to
hook a live connection, that's your network's setup that could be
better.
For local pings (or even local network pings, like 192.168.x.x in most
environments), no outside call should be generated.

That's good. :)

Ruud van Gaal
Free car sim: http://www.racesimcentral.net/
Pencil art  : http://www.racesimcentral.net/

Ruud van Ga

Racer v0.5.0 beta 5 released.

by Ruud van Ga » Tue, 13 Aug 2002 20:58:32



>On Sat, 10 Aug 2002 20:07:46 +0000 (UTC), "Alex Smith"

>>> Also, why does it -demand- to have a live internet connection
>>> before it will run AT ALL?

>>It doesn't.

>On my copy, which I downloaded today, when you click
>the menu option to race, it tries to acquire an internet
>connection. Zone Alarm caught it. If you don't allow it to
>connect, it simply returns to the main menu, and doesn't
>allow you to race.

In a command prompt, try 'ping 127.0.0.1' or 'ping localhost'. Does
that prompt ZoneAlarm?

(also check in Racer.ini that multiplayer.server is 'localhost' or
127.0.0.1)

Racer doesn't go outside our network here (which is configured to keep
local pings inside; our ISDN lines would be open all day if it did
that, with about 10 computers constantly keeping in touch (Samba...)).

Ruud van Gaal
Free car sim: http://www.racer.nl/
Pencil art  : http://www.marketgraph.nl/gallery/

Ruud van Ga

Racer v0.5.0 beta 5 released.

by Ruud van Ga » Tue, 13 Aug 2002 21:02:46



>On Sun, 11 Aug 2002 00:56:40 +0200, "Carl Ribbegaardh"

>>It might be doing a broadcast on the lan or something?
>>It includes lan multiplayer :-)

...
>Sat Aug 10 15:31:06 (NOTE) : [racer/-439613] --- session separator ---
>Sat Aug 10 15:31:06 (INFO) : [racer/-439613] qnInit()
>Sat Aug 10 15:31:06 (INFO) : [racer/-439613] WinSock opened
>Sat Aug 10 15:31:07 (INFO) : [racer/-439613]   local host:
>'8-01-2002'/67.32.208.4

That's odd, is your hostname set to the date? (I call gethostname() on
Windows, which should return something like your computer name, like
'Foxtrot1' ;-) ).
Also try pinging 67.32.208.4 from a command prompt, see if that goes
through the internet. I'd set racer.ini's multiplayer.server to
127.0.0.1, that might avoid the lookup and keep 'localhost' to
127.0.0.1.

This is going to be a lot of fun when multiplayer on the net actually
works both way. ;-)

Ruud van Gaal
Free car sim: http://www.racer.nl/
Pencil art  : http://www.marketgraph.nl/gallery/

Ruud van Ga

Racer v0.5.0 beta 5 released.

by Ruud van Ga » Tue, 13 Aug 2002 21:05:15



...

That's ok. There are enough people who like polished endresults for a
game. Just install, drive and not expect anything buggy to happen
(sadly for PC games that's often not the case, but that's also mainly
due to Windows).

Racer attracts people generally who like to customize the app, get
their own car/track in, play around with numbers etc. Sometimes that's
a totally different breed from game *players*.

No offence taken.

Ruud van Gaal
Free car sim: http://www.racer.nl/
Pencil art  : http://www.marketgraph.nl/gallery/

Ruud van Ga

Racer v0.5.0 beta 5 released.

by Ruud van Ga » Tue, 13 Aug 2002 21:21:25

On Sun, 11 Aug 2002 22:37:48 -0500, "Kevin Webb"


>Great, I may try a different car.  Perhaps the physics will be better in a
>car other than the default Ferarri as well.  One guy or a team, I don't
>think that plays any role in if it's realistic or not.  It is or it isn't
>and IMO it isn't.  I am pretty much done with that argument though.  I never
>really intended to be harsh towards the developer, Ruud.  It is impressive
>for one guy to have done the work on this solo.  Doesn't it make it any more
>realistic, from angle though.  Anyway, I'll look at some other cars.

Try the 350Z indeed. Note that most formulae that are used in Racer
are those that are used in the automotive industry. So I don't use
formulae that are based on 'if you turn left, push the car left' sort
of stuff.
In that way, Racer is a middle road between the more high-end
simulations of the automotive industry, and the playable end of the
PC. So speed matters, but I try not to cut corners where it comes to
realism. This leads to the need of people (the users) becoming partly
car engineers, as you really have to build a car. As in real life,
this is not an easy task.
Sure, a lot of the numbers are off, and unfortunately the latest beta
(seems like a couple of versions) seem to have a bug in the brake
bias, making the cars spin out more than what should be.

The source code however, is quite aimed at simulation, which the
graphical counterpart being second. I'm also working with people that
are actually designing virtual prototypes of actual cars, and we
may/will share information on getting more realistic things still from
the simulation core.

But as for a 'buy & drive' product it's probably lousy compared to
getting a final version game from the stores. ;-) But those are
different targets, which says little about the internal quality of the
simulation.

Ruud van Gaal
Free car sim: http://www.racer.nl/
Pencil art  : http://www.marketgraph.nl/gallery/

Carl Ribbegaard

Racer v0.5.0 beta 5 released.

by Carl Ribbegaard » Wed, 14 Aug 2002 01:14:05

Thanks Ruud,
nice to know that I didn't drive _that_ bad ;-)

/Carl



> On Sat, 10 Aug 2002 14:07:10 +0200, "Carl Ribbegaardh"

> >Is it just me, or does the rear of the car very easily loose grip while
> >trailbraking?

> Yes, this seems to be a large bug that's supposed to be very different
> from v0.4.9 and this latest version. I'm adding telemetry that
> describes weight transfer, plus live braking balance (the actual
> torques generated) and hopefully that could reveal why the braking
> bias seems so much to the rear (handling-wise).

> And apart from that, the telemetry would be cool (plan is to make an
> option to add it to the replays, so you could save a replay and do
> telemetry analysis later on offline).
> Where's the Racer port of GPL Replay Analyzer when you need it? ;-)

> Ruud van Gaal
> Free car sim: http://www.racer.nl/
> Pencil art  : http://www.marketgraph.nl/gallery/

rrevve

Racer v0.5.0 beta 5 released.

by rrevve » Wed, 14 Aug 2002 01:25:36



Ruud, is it really necessary to attempt a winsock conection
when doing single-player hotlapping?

Is there a reason for this design decision?

Thanks.

rrevve

Racer v0.5.0 beta 5 released.

by rrevve » Wed, 14 Aug 2002 01:27:11





>>On Sat, 10 Aug 2002 20:07:46 +0000 (UTC), "Alex Smith"

>>>> Also, why does it -demand- to have a live internet connection
>>>> before it will run AT ALL?

>>>It doesn't.

>>On my copy, which I downloaded today, when you click
>>the menu option to race, it tries to acquire an internet
>>connection. Zone Alarm caught it. If you don't allow it to
>>connect, it simply returns to the main menu, and doesn't
>>allow you to race.

>In a command prompt, try 'ping 127.0.0.1' or 'ping localhost'. Does
>that prompt ZoneAlarm?

Nope.

I have uninstalled it, sorry.

Ruud, is it really necessary to attempt a winsock conection
when doing single-player hotlapping?

Is there a reason for this design decision?

Thanks.

rrevve

Racer v0.5.0 beta 5 released.

by rrevve » Wed, 14 Aug 2002 01:28:26





>>On Sun, 11 Aug 2002 00:56:40 +0200, "Carl Ribbegaardh"

>>>It might be doing a broadcast on the lan or something?
>>>It includes lan multiplayer :-)

>...
>>Sat Aug 10 15:31:06 (NOTE) : [racer/-439613] --- session separator ---
>>Sat Aug 10 15:31:06 (INFO) : [racer/-439613] qnInit()
>>Sat Aug 10 15:31:06 (INFO) : [racer/-439613] WinSock opened
>>Sat Aug 10 15:31:07 (INFO) : [racer/-439613]   local host:
>>'8-01-2002'/67.32.208.4

>That's odd, is your hostname set to the date? (I call gethostname() on
>Windows, which should return something like your computer name, like
>'Foxtrot1' ;-) ).
>Also try pinging 67.32.208.4 from a command prompt, see if that goes
>through the internet. I'd set racer.ini's multiplayer.server to
>127.0.0.1, that might avoid the lookup and keep 'localhost' to
>127.0.0.1.

>This is going to be a lot of fun when multiplayer on the net actually
>works both way. ;-)

Ruud, why is communications necessary for single-player hotlapping?
Doug Elliso

Racer v0.5.0 beta 5 released.

by Doug Elliso » Wed, 14 Aug 2002 09:34:38


Racer itself is 100% realistic

Some cars, however - are lacking.

The blame lies at the foot of some of the car makers.

However - the Renault Alpine, Anything from Stekki, The Quicksilver cars,
etc etc - are all SUPERB

www.racer-xtreme.com

Doug

Dan Belch

Racer v0.5.0 beta 5 released.

by Dan Belch » Wed, 14 Aug 2002 12:00:35

Check http://www.racer-xtreme.com for ratings on cars.  I _really_ like the
Nissan 350Z, and the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo is pretty good.  Just beware of the
current bug that makes the brake bias lean a little far to the rear, so take it
easy braking.  :)

-----------------------------------------
Dan Belcher
Webmaster,
http://simcrash.fameflame.dk

Kevin Web

Racer v0.5.0 beta 5 released.

by Kevin Web » Wed, 14 Aug 2002 14:30:16

Just when I think you guys are starting to make some sense you throw out
something like "Racer itself is 100% realistic".   Get ahold of yourself
man.




> >Doesn't it make it any more realistic, from angle though.

> Racer itself is 100% realistic

> Some cars, however - are lacking.

> The blame lies at the foot of some of the car makers.

> However - the Renault Alpine, Anything from Stekki, The Quicksilver cars,
> etc etc - are all SUPERB

> www.racer-xtreme.com

> Doug

Ruud van Ga

Racer v0.5.0 beta 5 released.

by Ruud van Ga » Wed, 14 Aug 2002 19:33:29





>>>Also, why does it -demand- to have a live internet connection
>>>before it will run AT ALL? What is it doing?

>>It's client-server all the way. It sends data to the host, which is
>>localhost, 127.0.0.1. If your machine then responds with trying to
>>hook a live connection, that's your network's setup that could be
>>better.
>>For local pings (or even local network pings, like 192.168.x.x in most
>>environments), no outside call should be generated.

>Ruud, is it really necessary to attempt a winsock conection
>when doing single-player hotlapping?

Yes, all communication takes place over UDP connections, as the design
is client/server. Exactly like Quake3 for example; there you also
connect to yourself.
The reason for this is that it then makes no difference if the car is
on the network, or local. Besides, with the loopback device (lo0) as
all network computers have, a UDP packet for localhost should never
leave the computer anyway; in other words, the packet won't be
physically put to the ethernet card. It just takes a round trip in the
network driver.

The reason Racer seemed to ping out is probably because it took a full
IP address (67.something.x.y) and that was not seen by the network as
something local, so it sent it across another route (instead of lo0),
which then triggers dial-up.

It's really nothing unusual actually; all Quakes did it this way, and
in the Unix world, you'll see lots and lots of services sending
packets to their local network route. I might need some more intricate
hostname detection scheme.

Did you try 'ping 67.x.y.z' (your own IP), see what that did?

Ruud van Gaal
Free car sim: http://www.racer.nl/
Pencil art  : http://www.marketgraph.nl/gallery/


rec.autos.simulators is a usenet newsgroup formed in December, 1993. As this group was always unmoderated there may be some spam or off topic articles included. Some links do point back to racesimcentral.net as we could not validate the original address. Please report any pages that you believe warrant deletion from this archive (include the link in your email). RaceSimCentral.net is in no way responsible and does not endorse any of the content herein.