rec.autos.simulators

how does it work? is it just you and one other person head to head? are
there other cars? who's settings win out for things like opponents and
strength (if there are opponents)?  Who picks the track? the caller or
person being called?

I have a friend who is getting this stuff soon and I want to know a
little bit about how it all works together.

-Bill

I've only had experience modem racing with Nascar, IndyCar could be
different.  When you race over the modem, it uses the answer's settings.
 By setting the number of opponents are set to one, you can have just
the two of you on the track racing each other (otherwise you will have
computer controlled opponents).  The answer also is control of all menus
(choosing track, deciding when to practice and race, etc..) In Nascar,
you can't go back to the main menu to change opponent's strength race
length or other settings.  these must be set before the connecting is
made.  During the connection, pressing the "T" key allows you to chat
via typing in messages and sending them to your modem partner.  Also in
Nascar, the answerer is placed in the first car, and the dialer is
placed into the second car in the carset.  It is best if both of you
decide on a carset to use that way you will be able to have the same
drivers in the race together (it gets confusing trying to talk about a
race if both of you have different opponents).  The most frustrating
thing is the way wrecks are controlled.  If one of you blows an engine
and are therefore unable to get your car off of the track and into the
pits, the rest of the race will be under continual yellow flags.  Be
careful, and have fun.

--
Eric T. Busch

Emory University

It's just you and another running head to head with a number of
computer opponents. All of the specifics are covered pretty clearly
in the manual.

Lee

Need4Speed is a miserable failure over IHHD and there is no
network support.  Finding this out, alot of potential customers
that I know just say "sorry, no buyee".  What a blast this
game could be with 3 or 4 people in a race!  It's a real crime.

Is ICR2 a "synched" game like Doom or N4S (and thus a failure
for WAN play) or "unsynched" like Descent (which is a joy to
play over Kali).  If its not playable over kali I won't buy it
as racing alone quickly gets boring as hell.

I WANT INTERNET-PLAYABLE GAMES!!   COME ON DEVELOPERS!!

rms

My friend and I play by modem. He has to call me because of some
version conflict (says older one must call newer one even though we
have the same version!).

The answering PC acts as host and should be the faster of the 2 PCs.
The host chooses the tracks. The cars sets and settings are
independent though. To be safe, we cooperated and set the cars
ahead/behind, etc the same. We used 20 opponents no problem.

(BTW, bumping cars to cause them to spin out in front of your opponent
is a neat tactic :O ).

Yeah.  Multiplayer NFS would be incredible.

ICR2 is a synched game.  It's not playable over kali because of the
lag.  

It's not that easy to get action games to be internet playable because
there's a huge amount of lag compared to a LAN or Modem.  I wished
there were more flight sim and turn based games over the net.

Kevin
"KHanguru"
--
****************************************************************

Hartsdale, NY   http://www.cloud9.net/~khuang  Cloud 9 Internet
****************************************************************

ICR2 is a synched game.  It's not playable over kali because of the
lag.  

It's not that easy to get action games to be internet playable because
there's a huge amount of lag compared to a LAN or Modem.  I wished
there were more flight sim and turn based games over the net.
<<<

It's more an issue of latency vs. speed. For example:

I'm cruising down the first straightaway at Surfer's Paradise. Because I'm
playing over the Internet with a two second latency, I don't realize that
my opponent has spun out in the first chicane. I slow down to my normal
chicane speed, when suddenly, his packet comes in and he materializes in
front of me while I'm still going 60 MPH. Boom.

We've found that racing games just don't work if you have more than a
quarter second latency (and even 0.25 is marginal; 0.15 or smaller is more
acceptable). Until the Internet moves to a low-latency network, it isn't
going to happen for racing games.

Rick Genter
Technical Lead, IndyCar Racing II
Papyrus Design Group, Inc.

i know nascar is ihhd'able...so i cant see why icr2 cant be....i cant do it
myself because i have no shell access...but i know of people who have
ihhd'd nascar

i know nascar is ihhd'able...so i cant see why icr2 cant be....i cant do
it
myself because i have no shell access...but i know of people who have
ihhd'd nascar
<<<

NASCAR (and ICR II) would only work over IHHD if both players had direct
connections to backbone sites so that overall latency was very low (<=
0.25 seconds). Otherwise it WILL NOT WORK.

Rick Genter
Technical Lead, IndyCar Racing II
Papyrus Design Group, Inc.