RAC Rally Champ Network Bugs?

Hi, Tim here.... Thanks for reading... I have been running Europress' RAC Rally Championship for a couple of weeks now on an ethernet with 2 or 3 players. A rather unfortunate 'bug' seems to exist where the screen breaks up: Bitmaps are being plotted in the wrong place or simply not at all. The sound sometimes misbehaves at the same time. In severe cases, the game completely crashes to DOS with debug text strewn across the screen (which incidentally is still in graphics mode) At first I thought this was due to the presence of other traffic on the ethernet blocking the data flow between the 3 machines. However, having tried a 3-way race on an isolated coaxial cable, the problem still persists. Two of the machines are running in command prompt booted Win95 mode with the univbe51 VESA driver and an IPX network stack for DOS. The third machine is running in a Win95 DOS shell with 95's native IPX stack and no VESA bios extensions. Univbe51 and the IPX stack have been TOTALLY reliable during Duke Nukem 3D network games. The machines are a P120, P133 and a P166 so I don't think it's a problem with them not being able to keep up! The machine which suffers the most from 'break up' is one of the DOS booted ones. Nothing seems to tie the problem to Win95 or Univbe. The only thing that is certain is that the player in 'master' mode NEVER experiences the problem. Is this a known bug? Has anyone else encountered it? Its a complete shame cos it comes close to ruining what to us is the greatest 'deathmatching' network game since Doom & Duke Nukem! Please, any ideas? If anyone has an email contact for Europress, I would be very grateful if they could let me have it. Cheers, Tim. PS. An excellent game - total entertainment! :-)

Hi, I'm sorry that I can't help you with your problem, but I would like to know what country(s) the stages are located. Are they all in Great Britain? John

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> Hi, Tim here.... > Thanks for reading... > I have been running Europress' RAC Rally Championship for a couple > of weeks now on an ethernet with 2 or 3 players. > A rather unfortunate 'bug' seems to exist where the screen breaks up: > Bitmaps are being plotted in the wrong place or simply not at > all. The sound sometimes misbehaves at the same time. In severe cases, > the game completely crashes to DOS with debug text strewn across the > screen (which incidentally is still in graphics mode) > At first I thought this was due to the presence of other traffic on > the ethernet blocking the data flow between the 3 machines. However, > having tried a 3-way race on an isolated coaxial cable, the problem > still persists. > Two of the machines are running in command prompt booted Win95 mode > with the univbe51 VESA driver and an IPX network stack for DOS. > The third machine is running in a Win95 DOS shell with 95's native > IPX stack and no VESA bios extensions. Univbe51 and the IPX stack have > been TOTALLY reliable during Duke Nukem 3D network games. > The machines are a P120, P133 and a P166 so I don't think it's a problem > with them not being able to keep up! > The machine which suffers the most from 'break up' is one of the DOS > booted ones. Nothing seems to tie the problem to Win95 or Univbe. > The only thing that is certain is that the player in 'master' mode > NEVER experiences the problem. > Is this a known bug? Has anyone else encountered it? > Its a complete shame cos it comes close to ruining what to us is the > greatest 'deathmatching' network game since Doom & Duke Nukem! > Please, any ideas? > If anyone has an email contact for Europress, I would be very grateful > if they could let me have it. > Cheers, Tim. > PS. An excellent game - total entertainment! :-)

: Hi, Tim here.... : Thanks for reading... : I have been running Europress' RAC Rally Championship for a couple : of weeks now on an ethernet with 2 or 3 players. There are some patches to the RAC Rally, they're on my website.. Neil ******************************************************************* * Neil Jowsey Computing Services (Brownlow Hill) * * http://www.liv.ac.uk./~neilj/home.html PO Box 147, Liverpool * * Voice +44 151-794-4582 L69 3BX * * Fax +44 151-794-4442 UK * ******************************************************************* USES Disclaimer; { The views expressed here are not necessarily those of the } { University or me come to that. Alright! }

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> >I'm sorry that I can't help you with your problem, but I would like to > >know what country(s) the stages are located. Are they all in Great > >Britain? > Yes, big rally fan are you? ;o) > -- > Derek James

I've watched a few of them on ESPN2. John

: There are also patches for the game available at www.europress.co.uk, one : of the patches is for the networked game although I have no idea what it : does as the copy I have is corrupt. This has now been fixed on my and Europress' web pages... Neil ******************************************************************* * Neil Jowsey Computing Services (Brownlow Hill) * * http://www.liv.ac.uk./~neilj/home.html PO Box 147, Liverpool * * Voice +44 151-794-4582 L69 3BX * * Fax +44 151-794-4442 UK * ******************************************************************* USES Disclaimer; { The views expressed here are not necessarily those of the } { University or me come to that. Alright! }