rec.autos.simulators

Okay, I finally got around to starting a full season and got to the first race
at Darlington when the game refused to let me actually race there. First of all,
the menu to get there showed up in all green and then when I do go in, all is
fine until I go to actually Race and then on the first lap the game locks.
Shutting down that task results in a blue screen and an unstable system.

After a bit of checking I found that the problem seems to stem from my edited
.cal file. All I did was add Pocono Raceway to my system and to the calendar
(twice). I followed all the directions on how to edit a .cal file (it's not that
confusing) and had everything numbered nice and sequentially. The only way
around this seems to be to run the default NASCAR98 calendar.

What might I be doing wrong here???

*** RTH ***

fine until I go to actually Race and then on the first lap the game locks.
Shutting down that task results in a blue screen and an unstable system.
.cal file. All I did was add Pocono Raceway to my system and to the calendar
(twice). I followed all the directions on how to edit a .cal file (it's not
that confusing) and had everything numbered nice and sequentially. The only way
around this seems to be to run the default NASCAR98 calendar.

The green or distorted coloration in the calendar display I have found to be a
normal thing when I added any track that was not on the original schedule
(Daytona and Pocono).  This will disappear when you are racing at other tracks,
but then be visible when you race at the added track.  While I realize that it
is appearing at Darlington, I think this is because other things are messed
up.  

How many total races do you have?  If you just added two Pocono races, you are
trying to race two additional races in your season, and I don't think that is
allowed.  You have to delete two other races.  Make sure that your total races
are no more than 32.  I believe the cal file needs lines 1 thru 33 filled out,
with the last line (33) being "12 99 0 0 XXXXXXXX" .  

See if that is your problem.  

Oops. Okay, I did have more, but this doesn't seem too out of the ordinary as
the .cal files found at various popular sites all have like 38 in them.

*** RTH ***

the .cal files found at various popular sites all have like 38 in them.

Yeah, I know they do... but I believe that I had read somewhere that a
championship season can only consist of 32 races, period.  So... at least
that's the first place to start.  I had once used one of these calendars, and I
thought they were useless, as during a championship season, only 32 races
showed up, so I wondered what was the point of including things like the
Winston and the Bud Pole?  Just put a REM in front of two races, (I've done
that with the two road courses) and see if the season starts.  If it still
doesn't:  go over your calendar file to make sure that it is correct.  For
instance, my Pocono lines read:  15 6 20 0 0 POCONO Pocono_500 Pocono_500 200
event1.pcx biglogo1.pcx.  The second race reads 18 7 25 1 0 POCONO
Pennsylvania_500 Pennsylvania_500 200 event2.pxc biglogo2.pcx.

I have also had lockups after adding a track patch, which the only solution was
to do a reinstall unless you have a backup of the *.dat file handy.  For the
reinstall, I didn't erase anything, because I had my carsets in there, but the
installation just overwrote everything else, which included the track *.dat
files, which I am sure was the culprit.  Again, this was after doing a track
patch, which modifies the *.dat file.  I am not certain that is your case...  

Bottom line:  First, I'd try my season at 32 races.  If that won't work, then
I'd get rid of the Pocono track, (since it's on the CD, it's easy to put back
in;  and I originally was racing with my Pocono that I had copied from my
Nascar2 files and N99 didn't care),  redo your calander, and see if that works.
 It ought to, as you should be back to the out of the box schedule.  But if it
still doesn't then I'd do a reinstall, because something else did get changed,
and since you don't know what it is, you really don't have a whole heck of a
lotta choice.  

The problem does not stem from too many races in your calender (I've had as
many as 42 races setup in a single season), or for the most part even the
track patch you added; unless the patch you downloaded was more for NR2 than
NR1999. The problem usually stems from the track creator using generic
track.pcx and event.pcx  and/or logos. To resolve the problem try going to
any of the more popular add-on sites, including the ones you got the tracks
from and downloading the newest logo files for each event. That will usually
resolve 99% of your season green screen problems as well as those ***
little lockups on the first couple of laps. Other lockup situations can be
cased from the power saver features of you system being set to suspend mode,
Try changing this to Standby or disabling it altogether before strting game
play, as well as diabling any active screensavers.
 Hope this helps and, Happy Racing!

Ahh. Okay, I definitely would like to kill the green screens as a start.

Bingo. Darlington would lockup every time the pace lap completed.

I have added Daytona day and night, Indy and Pocono (don't think that one is a
problem).

*** RTH ***