X-CAR - Released 8/20????

I saw X-Car today at EB in Pentagon City Mall. I think it was $51

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>Is X-CAR out? >www.xcar.com shows an 8/20 release date. >Does anyone have the released version and if so, how is it? >Specifically, how is the JOYSTICK CALIBRATION? >The demos never seemed to like my T2/ACM setup, slamming the steering > hard left. No adjusting of the ACM speed had any effect. I had to >REMOVE the ACM card and use my AWE32 gameport for X-CAR only. >This was while booted into clean DOS. I refuse to do this for one >game. Mail to Bethesda Softworks failed to receive any reply. >My T2/ACM works fine in N2/GP2/MTM/POD etc. etc. >My ACM works fine with SU-27/iF22/iF16/Ef2000G+/FS95/F18 Hornet/A10Cuba >blah,blah. >Does the released version work? >+| email address mangled to foil automated spammers >+| to reply to me, use: rrevved at mindspring dot com

#1 SBX Racing Monte Carlo

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> IT F*%$%%G SUCKS!!!!!!!!! > I have never seen such pathetic handling from a car in my life - the > joystick / steering handling is as bad as Formula 1 from Psygnosis. > STAY AWAY FROM THIS ONE!!!! > P.S. - Sorry for the extreme posting but I was deeply dissapointed by > this one. > says... > > Is X-CAR out? > > www.xcar.com shows an 8/20 release date. > > Does anyone have the released version and if so, how is it? > > Specifically, how is the JOYSTICK CALIBRATION? > > The demos never seemed to like my T2/ACM setup, slamming the steering > > hard left. No adjusting of the ACM speed had any effect. I had to > > REMOVE the ACM card and use my AWE32 gameport for X-CAR only. > > This was while booted into clean DOS. I refuse to do this for one > > game. Mail to Bethesda Softworks failed to receive any reply. > > My T2/ACM works fine in N2/GP2/MTM/POD etc. etc. > > My ACM works fine with SU-27/iF22/iF16/Ef2000G+/FS95/F18 Hornet/A10Cuba > > blah,blah. > > Does the released version work? > > +| email address mangled to foil automated spammers > > +| to reply to me, use: rrevved at mindspring dot com

If handling doesn't feel tight, then it's an indication that you will need to modify the steering, which you can get to from the car mod screen. Adjusting the steer ratio, steer scale, and steer lock will greatly affect the feel for each type of peripheral you use. Since Joysticks tend to pull left and right quickly, you may want to reduce the response of pulling left and right so that the car doesn't shoot out so fast. I'm noticing that alot of people are having problems in handling, and from a similar control point. Half of this game is tinkering, so tinker away. My recommendations? For tracks with gradual turns, increase the steer ratio. For tracks like Seattle which have a lot of right angle turns, best to decrease the steer ratio so that your can can take these tight turns. It also helps to increase the steer lock to make these tighter corners. If you are finding that your car spins out too easily at high speeds because of a slight turn left or right, you want to mess around with the steer scale. Glad I could help. Clee

And there are even PRESET configuration for SPEEDTRACKS and CURVING TRACKS so if you don't feel like "tinkering" you can use one of the built-in setups. I have NO problem controlling this car. The NAME of the GAME is X (aka EXPERIMENTAL) CAR which means you are basically building the ultimate race car. Don't expect to set any speed records with the default setups. I'm pretty sure nobody ever won a NASCAR or INDY race without tweaking the car setup some. This game is no different and in many ways it much more of a sim - at least as far as the mechanical aspect of racing!

I find this terribly hard to swallow...I've been "tinkering" with this game for several weeks - and have come to the conclusion that there is something fundamentally wrong with the steering input. Too bad - my favorite track is Seattle, and I've been waiting to get a hold of the released version for some time. Even though I felt the game was flawed (and this was also pointed out to me by close friends "in-the-know"), I still refuse to remove it from my HD...I can't help but feel that the secret is just around the corner (or next turn<g>), but in reality this isn't so. X-Car is close (oh, how it's so close!!), but until the input code is repaired quickly, this game is gonna' go down in flames. I still feel the earlier version "felt" better, and I wish I had had some "quality time" to have looked at it closer. This one looks better, runs faster, has more options (and an extra track), but is squirely around the tracks --> No if's, and's or but's about it. Setups can smooth-out an otherwise bad situation, but IMHO this game is gonna' need a patch. FWIW, the inputs used were of the following: MS Sidewinder Pro TM T2 TM GP1 I-I/O Virtual Vehicle ECCI Keyboard Cheers! Marc Marc J. Nelson Sim Racing Online / Sim Racing News / The Sim Project http://members.aol.com/simracing

:Glad I could help. Here's another chance for you to help: in the 3Dfx demo (X-Car), it appears that if you set all the details to "Full size" (cars, objects, objects2 etc.), you will most of the time get poor performance even on a P233MMX with a 3Dfx card. Sometimes it speeds up, but mostly it seems to run at 10 fps or so. I think the reason is texture swapping, because when I exit the demo, there are a couple of lines complaining about "Unable to load mipmap textures" or something like that in the MS-DOS prompt. So, how should I set the object/car details so that the texture memory requirements never go beyond the 2MB limit of current 3Dfx cards? Which options determine the amount of texture memory needed in the demo, and in the full game? A general request to game developers supporting 3D cards: as there are (going to be) 3D cards with varying amount of texture memory, it would be nice if you made it easier for the end-users to determine how they should set the graphics details to prevent any texture swapping. For instance, in the options it would read "For cards with 2MB texture memory" and "For cards with 4MB texture memory". That would be much nicer than having to experiment by trial and error, which options determine the texture memory used, and how you should set it for your 3D card. Thank you.

I also use a T2 and the controls of this game are REALLY, REALLY bad! I have "tinkered" with the sterring quite a bit and it doesn't seem to help all that much. I hope they fix the sounds of the game also. They are quite arcade sounding. The rest of the graphics are pretty good though. -- -- Lannie Schafroth Iowa Network Services, Inc. 515 830-0443 Phone 4201 Corporate Drive 515 830-0123 Fax West Des Moines, Ia 50266 Any statements or opinions stated are that of my own and not necessarily that of my employer.