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Rec.Autos.Simulators Archive

Problems with online racing

12 posts by 11 people · 28 Feb 1999 - 10 Mar 1999

Never had that, sorry. I never connect to any server that shows a ping (check several times with VROC's refresh button) much over 300ms. And although I've had a few reliable sorties onto low bandwidth servers, ADSL or Cable are by far the most reliable. Lesser connections only seem to be good for two or three drivers most of the time. So if you connect and see any signs of stuttering (usually when other drivers join or there's a crash) do yourself a favour and quit before things get more unstable. IME a good server to which you have a good connection (the two don't go hand in hand!) never gives any signs of instability. Other drivers may disconnect and reconnect (showing they have a poor connection to that server's "geographical" location) but if you have a good connection you won't share their difficulties. Never had that happen either, except when GPL crashed... which hasn't happened to me recently. I use the default 4. I see you're already running with minimal graphic options to keep the frame rate up, so you're doing what you can there (can't do any harm!) The only other thing is to try another ISP. I found a Freeserve account works quite well with VROC. But basically it's good to have an alternate ISP to try in case -- as past networking experience shows -- it's the ISP at fault as much as any other part of the equation. Andrew McP
% Last night I had my first really serious attempt at some on-line % racing via VROC. Whilst it was working it was quite fun - although I % am not sure I could make a good overtaking manoever with the warping % (but I didn't get much opportunity for that :-( ) - but two problems % (and they are probably related) seemed to prevent me completing a race % These were % a) After about few minutes racing the sound would go dead. The car % would seemingly respond accurately to input from the controls % (joystick) and the display was fine, but the sound died. Of course % that makes it almost impossible to race as you use the sound to judge % braking etc. I have occassionally had the same effect when off-line % (although a lot less frequently) and my solution then has been to % bring the car to a halt, press escape (but not Enter). This first key % press causes sound to return. Whilst on-line, I could not get the % key's to respond for at least 30 secs. Hmmmmm... I've had this happen once in my many times online... by the time the race ended, GPL locked up on me. This almost sounds like a problem with your soundcard setup if it happens offline as well. Are you sure you don't have any programs running in the background (CTRL-ALT-DEL to bring up Close Program window to check). % b) I was being disconnected from the game. As I am new to on-line I % am not sure what that normally means. In my case last night however % this meant not only loosing connection with the server BUT ALSO the % phone line was being HUNG UP. Of course in order to reconnect I had % to exit from GPL so there was no chance of re-entering the race again. There are a couple of places where you can set your modem to hangup after so many minutes of "idle" time. It sounds as if either this option is turned on, or that your ISP is disconnecting you because it is not noticing activity. Also check and make sure you have your TCP/IP Network setup correctly. Things like having WINS resolution turned on can cause disconnects from your ISP. <snip> -- **************************** Michael E. Carver ************************* Upside out, or inside down...False alarm the only game in town. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=<[ /./. [- < ]>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Ian Parker 28 Feb 1999#453126
Try going into Control panel , Modems select properties and make sure that "disconnect if idle for more than ( ) mins is unchecked. Also check that the glide version in your GPL folder is 2.53 Hope this helps -- Ian Parker ICQ 21772592
Quoted text (9 lines)>a) After about few minutes racing the sound would go dead. The car >would seemingly respond accurately to input from the controls >(joystick) and the display was fine, but the sound died. Of course >that makes it almost impossible to race as you use the sound to judge >braking etc. I have occassionally had the same effect when off-line >(although a lot less frequently) and my solution then has been to >bring the car to a halt, press escape (but not Enter). This first key >press causes sound to return. Whilst on-line, I could not get the >key's to respond for at least 30 secs.
Hi, I've experienced the same problem you mention here. There is a bug where GPL doesn't lock your sound device properly so it can't be accessed by other system processes. As an example, when I stay online in ICQ and go to a race, if I get a message during the race (causing ICQ to send me a warning sound) the sound will cut. Strangely you can continue to race, but the sound is gone. I know I've been able to get the sound back by hitting a few combinations of keys like alt-tab and escpe and others, so I don't know exactly wich keys are the right ones. Now, every time I go for a race, I shut down ICQ and all programs that make use of the sound device, and the problem hasn't occured since. Maybe you'll want to try that. I hope Papyrus will look into this at some point. A. Renault
alan 28 Feb 1999#453128
>Now, every time I go for a race, I shut down ICQ and all programs that >make use of the sound device, and the problem hasn't occured since. >Maybe you'll want to try that. I hope Papyrus will look into this at >some point. >A. Renault Thanks AR, I hadn't realised ICQ used sounds before, and I think it has caused me some problems when I have received messages while running GPL. So I've just been into ICQ and turned the sounds off. That should be OK, shouldn't it? I really don't want to have to unload it, because the only reason I have it is for letting other GPL'ers to know I'm online. And if I turned it off while in GPL, it would hardly ever be turned on! Alan.
Quoted text (7 lines)>Thanks AR, I hadn't realised ICQ used sounds before, and I think it >has caused me some problems when I have received messages while >running GPL. So I've just been into ICQ and turned the sounds off. >That should be OK, shouldn't it? I really don't want to have to unload >it, because the only reason I have it is for letting other GPL'ers to >know I'm online. And if I turned it off while in GPL, it would hardly >ever be turned on!
Well, it's certainly worth a try anyway! Just let me (and everybody else) know if your attempt is successful. A. Renault
Last night I had my first really serious attempt at some on-line racing via VROC. Whilst it was working it was quite fun - although I am not sure I could make a good overtaking manoever with the warping (but I didn't get much opportunity for that :-( ) - but two problems (and they are probably related) seemed to prevent me completing a race These were a) After about few minutes racing the sound would go dead. The car would seemingly respond accurately to input from the controls (joystick) and the display was fine, but the sound died. Of course that makes it almost impossible to race as you use the sound to judge braking etc. I have occassionally had the same effect when off-line (although a lot less frequently) and my solution then has been to bring the car to a halt, press escape (but not Enter). This first key press causes sound to return. Whilst on-line, I could not get the key's to respond for at least 30 secs. b) I was being disconnected from the game. As I am new to on-line I am not sure what that normally means. In my case last night however this meant not only loosing connection with the server BUT ALSO the phone line was being HUNG UP. Of course in order to reconnect I had to exit from GPL so there was no chance of re-entering the race again. a) and b) would frequently occur together but not exclusively so. In one race I had to retire to the pits but was able to watch the other cars battle it out. Another time the line disconnected whilst I was still racing (get a red network error message in the chat area at the top of the screen). I am running a P2-400 (with 128Mb RAM), Intel SE440BX motherboard with the PCI sound (during last night I turned the GPL sound down from 16 mixed to 8 mixed in an attempt to solve the problem) on the motherboard, Matrox Mystique 220 and Voodoo2 display combo (3DFX accelerator selected in the game) and a USR Sportster External Modem and 33.6K into serial port (with FIFO buffers turned down as recommended in the online FAQ). I have the latest version of DirectX 6 installed and all the latest drivers I can find, although I have older versions of the Glide DLLs in the SIERRA\GPL directory Anyone any ideas as what might be wrong. The overall symptoms seem to suggest lost interrupts when the CPU is fully loaded - but with the setup I have I get 36fps offline even when racing 19 AI opponents (except at the start). This is with all details and 1024*768 screen. Last night I turned down mirrors to only CAR and TRACK - but it seemed to make no difference. Alan http://www.chandler.u-net.com
P Gagg 01 Mar 1999#453315
> Last night I had my first really serious attempt at some on-line > racing via VROC. Whilst it was working it was quite fun - although > I > am not sure I could make a good overtaking manoever with the warping > (but I didn't get much opportunity for that :-( Hi Alan, Keep at it, it will get better, and so will you, just keep practicing.... I actually only use 3 sounds while on-line racing as this helps to reduce cpu occupancy. To be honest I've not noticed much difference in turning the number of sounds up, maybe its just me though? I would recommend only using 800 x 600 for on-line racing, as once again it reduces cpu occupancy, which is all important in on-line racing of GPL. And even though you get 36fps in off-line racing with 19 AI, I would still turn off a few of the graphics and effects if you can, to aid on-line racing. Things like smoke, skidmarks, crowd textures, etc don't really make that much difference when on-line racing, (as you should be watching the road, and not the scenery) but still aid reducing cpu stress. I presume you have the Glide v2.53 drivers loaded in your GPL directory even though you have Directx 6 installed? and the appropriate core.ini file from the vroc website? Try only cars in mirrors, that may help a bit? 8-) *Peter* #:-)
Tadej Krev 01 Mar 1999#453316
a) After about few minutes racing the sound would go dead. I had that happened before. I think Alt+Tab helped because the focus went to another application running in the background (Netscape). Try it out... You may need to press it more times so GPL gets focus again. Tadej
Examine the following: Right click on your Internet connection. Select "Properties". In the "Connect using" area, hit the "Configure" button. In the popup for your modem, hit the "Connection" tab. Note that "Disconnect a call if idle for more than [n] mins" is checked. Uncheck this option and hit OK. You should now be fine. Just be sure to manually disconnect from the Internet when you're done, lest you run up unexpected charges with your ISP. Windows has a rather funny notion of "idle". Even though GPL is furiously sending and receiving packets through your Internet connection, Windows doesn't seem to take this into account. Your sound goes away because Windows has popped up a dialog box saying something like either "You've been idle, so I've disconnected you from the Internet. Wasn't that nice of me? Would you like to reconnect?", or "You've been idle, do you still want to stay connected?", or some such. Even though you can't see the dang dialog box, it has grabbed keyboard/mouse focus away from GPL. This causes DirectSound to turn off GPL's sounds. If it has closed your Internet connection, GPL will eventually timeout its communications with the server and dump you back to the Multiplayer screen. Randy
Quoted text (15 lines)> >Now, every time I go for a race, I shut down ICQ and all programs that > >make use of the sound device, and the problem hasn't occured since. > >Maybe you'll want to try that. I hope Papyrus will look into this at > >some point. > >A. Renault > Thanks AR, I hadn't realised ICQ used sounds before, and I think it > has caused me some problems when I have received messages while > running GPL. So I've just been into ICQ and turned the sounds off. > That should be OK, shouldn't it? I really don't want to have to unload > it, because the only reason I have it is for letting other GPL'ers to > know I'm online. And if I turned it off while in GPL, it would hardly > ever be turned on! > Alan.
If you set ICQ to N/A mode it won't use any sounds. You just have to remember to set it to N/A mode :-) I also think ICQ automathicly sets itself to N/A mode after some time (20 minutes by default), as I've often noticed that ICQ is in N/A mode after I exit a race even if I forgot to set it to it before the race! -- Arne Martin G Hanssen Oslo, NORWAY
JSchu 10 Mar 1999#455139
On Sun, 28 Feb 1999 14:31 +0000 (GMT Standard Time), >> a) After about few minutes racing the sound would go dead. >Never had that, sorry. happened to me too, but only once. <snip> You lucky one. The best ping I've ever seen was 600 something. Jens --------------------------------------------- Remove "NOSPAM" before using my email-address

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