www.racer.nl
Wow, this sim is turning into a thing of beauty. After downloading the
base package and adding the patches, I'm utterly and totally amazed. It
seems like I can actually race now instead of fighting the car. It's
almost as if it's a completely different game (physics-wise), all
together. :)
The base of the recent package can be located here (I'm not sure how
long it'll be up):
http://www.ee.oulu.fi/~taronkai/rr052b3.zip
Instructions and links to the subsequent patches can be found in the
Racer forum at RSC.
I do, as always, have a few minor complaints.
1. We still see smoke while spinning the tires off pavement.
2. Related to the above, we still hear the pavement skidding sound off
of pavement.
3. There seems to be a direct link between the RPM's and the speedometer
output. It's especially noticeable when the car is moving backwards and
the tires are spinning.
and finally
4. IMO, the setup screen is kinda lousy. I never knew if my input was
accepted or not, so I had to jump from the screen into the game to test.
It took me a little bit to get things situated. I'd absolutely love a
similar controller setup screen like we see in Papy titles. The ease of
use is unbelieveable, as most will attest to. Basically, a format where
you click on a tab to declare which axis controls said function. A new
window pops up to set up said axis with a function, etc etc. For finer
calibration, have a button to click to access those features. I admit to
being utterly confused as to what those fine tuning sliders were for in
Racer. Perhaps a 0-100 range slider would be more useful (smaller number
means smaller dead zone, larger means higher dead zone). Same idea for
the axis sensitivity/delay/whatever, IMO. Right now, it's a bit
difficult for me to drive since my X axis is so sensitive within the
game. But, hey, it's better than no controller setup screen at all (as
with previous versions).
One last thing, which isn't much of a complaint...but a nitpick. There
isn't an "Option" tab at the main screen. I can understand having to
edit the gfx file for screen resolution, full screen and other basic
items. But for the more complex, and to save people time from digging
around in files, it would be great to have an options screen for these
things.
Just my 25 cents worth here. All in all, I love what his program is
developing into. I'll be damn sure to spend a lot more time with it, now
that I'm able to get a better feel of driving the car. Kudos to you for
developing Racer, Ruud. :)
-Will
That's how it's supposed to be, real cars don't measure the speed from
the enviroment they are in, but from a wheel (rolling or drive wheel) or
drivetrain.
William Bradshaw wrote:
> 3. There seems to be a direct link between the RPM's and the speedometer
> output. It's especially noticeable when the car is moving backwards and
> the tires are spinning.
On Mon, 19 Jan 2004 20:36:10 -0600, William Bradshaw
<[email hidden]> wrote:
>www.racer.nl
>
>Wow, this sim is turning into a thing of beauty. After downloading the
>base package and adding the patches, I'm utterly and totally amazed
Thanks for that. :)
> It
>seems like I can actually race now instead of fighting the car. It's
>almost as if it's a completely different game (physics-wise), all
>together. :)
Not really, it's mostly the car.ini you feel.
>The base of the recent package can be located here (I'm not sure how
>long it'll be up):
>http://www.ee.oulu.fi/~taronkai/rr052b3.zip
It's now at beta 5 (see the forum). I'm working to iron out some of
the meaner bugs, and adding some real working mirrors and stuff.
>1. We still see smoke while spinning the tires off pavement.
>2. Related to the above, we still hear the pavement skidding sound off
>of pavement.
Indeed, I should do something about that. :)
>3. There seems to be a direct link between the RPM's and the speedometer
>output. It's especially noticeable when the car is moving backwards and
>the tires are spinning.
As noted, this is how reallife cars work; they take speed of the
transmission velocity. So if you get differently sized wheels, your
velocity will be off for example...
>4. IMO, the setup screen is kinda lousy. I never knew if my input was
>accepted or not, so I had to jump from the screen into the game to test.
Sorry to hear that, I'll have to give that some more attention. Or get
one of the later Papy titles (don't buy a lot of games anymore).
>One last thing, which isn't much of a complaint...but a nitpick. There
>isn't an "Option" tab at the main screen. I can understand having to
>edit the gfx file for screen resolution, full screen and other basic
>items. But for the more complex, and to save people time from digging
>around in files, it would be great to have an options screen for these
>things.
Mostly it's a nuisance to have so muhc user interface code trouble for
things that are easily modified in the .ini files, that's why I don't
really bother with that. Options keep getting added or modified, and
reflecting this in the user interface takes quite a bit of work...
>Just my 25 cents worth here. All in all, I love what his program is
>developing into. I'll be damn sure to spend a lot more time with it, now
>that I'm able to get a better feel of driving the car. Kudos to you for
>developing Racer, Ruud. :)
You're welcome!
Ruud van Gaal
Free car sim: http://www.racer.nl/
Pencil art : http://www.marketgraph.nl/gallery/
On Sun, 22 Feb 2004 01:13:08 GMT, Ruud van Gaal wrote:
> Mostly it's a nuisance to have so muhc user interface code trouble for
> things that are easily modified in the .ini files, that's why I don't
> really bother with that. Options keep getting added or modified, and
> reflecting this in the user interface takes quite a bit of work...
>
how about providing some GUI so those ini files based on a scripting
language like Python or Perl? This could even be made into a
cross-platform application using wxWindows or GTK (both of which are
available on Linux, Mac and Windows) and should be easily modifyable
should something change in those .ini files (these scripts could even
go as far as writing a new ini file when the user changes some
settings and then launch the racer binary using the new .ini file).
Cheers,
uwe
--
mail replies to Uwe at schuerkamp dot de ( yahoo address is spambox)
Uwe Schuerkamp //////////////////////////// http://www.schuerkamp.de/
Herford, Germany \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ (52.0N/8.5E)
GPG Fingerprint: 2E 13 20 22 9A 3F 63 7F 67 6F E9 B1 A8 36 A4 61
On Sun, 22 Feb 2004 13:32:41 +0100, Uwe Sch�rkamp
<[email hidden]> wrote:
I think there is such a thing already for Racer actually, a sort of
ini editor. You can go from easy (edits-all-inis) to very targeted
(sliders for values) with that.
The thing is, that sort of stuff can be easily done by people out
there, and for some things I'd rather leave it to them. Those are
simple enough to do (but still taking time ofcourse), and I've got
enough utilities failing behind the latest engine... :)
Cheers,
Ruud van Gaal
Free car sim: http://www.racer.nl/
Pencil art : http://www.marketgraph.nl/gallery/
