New version 0.8.9 is out!

What about standard_tree_v/f

There is mention of it on racer.nl (how do I link to specific places there btw, it's a pain having to search each time because you can't bookmark a URL!)

Not sure how it works, but it's designed for trees isn't it?

Dave

Im not familiar with this shader, but it should work if you use alpha to coverage.


Obviously we try our best to support as many systems as possible, but we only have such limited time and resources.
I would love to see all of the latest eyecandy running on any card without a hickup, but surely you cannot expect that we spend all of our time making up for the shortcomings of others.
It speaks for itself that a large gamestudio spends time and money to exclude nobody from excitement for their product, but we do not have that privilege.
I'm very sorry to hear about the problems with ATI cards.
 
Hi Mitch, could you please explain to us how to make the driver move his hands and how to make the backfire visible? I'll send you a driver if nobody did it before me. And what's about the new scripting system, there are no docs about it?
 
I'm very sorry to hear about the problems with ATI cards.

As long as it can stop dumping thousands of QLog errors by 0.9.0f I don't mind (whether that be updating the renderer.ati=1 to force cg into compatible modes or finding racer.ini tweaks). Of course more eye candy is nice but when it's developed by the NVidia guys I don't expect it to work 100% on ATI. It's still better than I could do on my own:redface:
 
Hi Mitch, could you please explain to us how to make the driver move his hands and how to make the backfire visible? I'll send you a driver if nobody did it before me. And what's about the new scripting system, there are no docs about it?

Simple - add hands to a stering wheel, lower the steering wheel angle, done...

That's how it look's like, made by me:

http://img571.imageshack.us/i/60786741.jpg/
http://img43.imageshack.us/i/14377187.jpg/
http://img28.imageshack.us/i/90041528.jpg/
 
Take it easy, buddy. It's a long-known fact that Nvidia has better support for OpenGL than ATI. This doesn't mean that specific features couldn't be implemented for ATI cards that only work for nVidia cards, its just means some workarounds and whatnot.

Let me counter that question with "If it is a long known fact, why do we still have this problems every time?"

Creating a modern graphics engine is incredibly difficult, and if you don't have a big budget and a sh*tload of different gaming setups with proffessional Q&A people, it is even more difficult. I'm currently working on a cross-platform virtual reality application in my firm and we have a moderate number of developers all around the world and yet it was decided that we use Ogre3D (which is actually quite good 3D engine that runs OpenGL) instead of a custom build in house solution.

I do know that, but the fact that it seems theres noone who tested if new features work on e.g. ATI before means there should be at least a note. This is even more important because there is NO professional Q&A. This also answers the above question I wrote.

Racer has been in development for quite a while now, and I can imagine its codebase being a scary mix of oldschool hackery-code and more modern development techiques.

Isn't that all the more reason to fix all current bugs first before introducing new features? Oh well this has been said like a hundred times already.

Obviously we try our best to support as many systems as possible, but we only have such limited time and resources.
I would love to see all of the latest eyecandy running on any card without a hickup, but surely you cannot expect that we spend all of our time making up for the shortcomings of others.
It speaks for itself that a large gamestudio spends time and money to exclude nobody from excitement for their product, but we do not have that privilege.
I'm very sorry to hear about the problems with ATI cards.

Well, technically speaking it's not a hickup but a complete failure. And your post sounds like an insanely high number of gaming system is solely powered by a single gpu brand.

And the large gamestudios do not do this because they are nice, but because they would simply have a problem with their reputation aswell as possible lost sales - atleast when it comes to computer-based games. We aren't speaking of figures like theres one ati for each thousand of nvidia users.

I already ranted about ATI support WAY before I had an ATI (cause a friend had one) card. And that was not yesterday or the day before yesterday. Just so you don't start thinking that I just got a bad day and wanted to start an all out war for once.

What actually pisses me of more is that it is, yet again, never mentioned that this was not (I just interpret it like this now) tested on ati cards and it isn't even noted anywhere.

Now saying "beta" does't cut it also, cause as a rule of thumb the beta status itself actually means it is for fixing bugs. Alphas are there to introduce new features (like a new shadowing system), but who do I have to tell that.

------

The main problem I want to get at is, over the years in the racer community we had this "omg racer dies" moments (even though it never really died) and people wondered why the user base was not really growing despite racers possibilitys.
I actually don't want to know how much people tried racer, only to be greeted by a nice crash. And experience tells us that just a small fraction of people spend their time nowadays getting something to run when it does not do that out of the box. And I mean it is crashing before it even starts... makes a normal user think the "game" is ****.
Be it cause of ATI cards or to old cards not supporting CG or any other feature you can name.


So if the way racer wants to stay is a, let me call it "niche product" only for the configuration crazy this path might be fine, but if it aims at something "bigger" this is the completely wrong direction.
 
I apologise in advance for the shortness of this post but I'm currently at work and have limited time.

You need to chill the **** out.
If you want to buy a new system for Ruud and Mitch to test out the features with ATI cards by all means, go ahead but *****ing and complaining isn't going to help. Games take a LONG time to develop and obviously there just aren't the resources on a non-profit game to test out all these features. Why not say something constructive? If you aren't happy with betas fine, wait for the final. Betas are released to the public for that reason exactly, for the greater community to test the engine and report any bugs the developers can't get because the game was made in their system.
I have to go but I'll update this post later with more of my thoughts.
Calm the **** down.
 
EOD can stil use ver 0.5 final on his ATI, but I can understand his frustrations as I have been with Racer since ver 0.4.9 and there have been great improvements and a lot of bugs that linger on.

Thanks MitchVL for the info on fences as I can get shadows if I use the "standard v/f" shaders and transparency if I use the "standard_transparent v/f" one but not both shadows and transparency.

Skies gave me fits until I used flags=65, Ver 0.8.8.1 used = 9 and all was good. The sky does not cover all of my big track but I'm working on it. I had to comment out stuff in the geometry.ini file to get it to load.

I'll work on the trees and fences along with glass which is also somewhat of a problem.

Making improvements using the Lambo and Carlswood certainly can lead to things not working with other tracks/cars! Old tracks are way too bright and I can't seem to get the brightness down.

Lots of problems, few solutions! Thats life with Racer!
 
I bought a system configured to run with Racer, using an Nvidia card since that is what Ruud said he had and it works quite well with all other programs I use. Stereo has the right attitude, if you build a new system and want to use an ATI that's great but just remember that Racer is being developed on Nvidia.

The reason all of the new features are being introduced now is that this is meant to BECOME a final version, anyone that expected it to work immediately is going to be disappointed. Each time something is added you have a chance of breaking something, so you might as well get it all out there and kill all the bugs at once.

Adamo90:
I don't think you understand, Racer now has the ability to have fully moving characters and we don't need to kludge it anymore. nice kludge though. :)

Boomer:
If you will use the alpha to coverage shader that is used for the trees at Carlswood, all will be well.

Mitch/Ruud:
Thanks again for the beta, I'm getting a kick out of learning the new features. I will post some new bug reports separately.

Alex Forbin
 
Good work guys :D
Seems to work more or less fine for me, a few minor bugs but nothing i cant live with, i think well need to remember that it cant be perfect straight out the box, since its a continous project we're let in on, which evolves all the time, every change cant happen flawlessly :p

Keep it up!
 
If you want to buy a new system for Ruud and Mitch to test out the features with ATI cards by all means, go ahead but *****ing and complaining isn't going to help.

You certainly didn't read my post. First - I would never buy a grapics card for one game - how crazy, dumb, etc. do you think I am? (I do not want to imply that people who do this are crazy or dumb, but I personally don't buy a grapics card for a single game)
Also you didn't get my point which is pretty much the last two paragraphs.

Complaining does help, look how much people try to "rage" :eek: back at me, makes people angry therefore thinking about it. It also makes one curios to read the original post.

Games take a LONG time to develop and obviously there just aren't the resources on a non-profit game to test out all these features. Why not say something constructive?

I think I recall writing I know this, but things tend to repeat itself I guess.
I was constructive enough at RSC, well I can't proove that now that it is gone - not that I have the need to proove anyone anything here anyway.
Certain problems with new releases where still repeating and it seems nothing was learned from way back.

Also Ruud or Mitch or anyone else could ask one of the more known people which can be trusted with an ATI cards if they can test certain features. As far as I know this never happend, but who knows maybe I am wrong on this one.

If you aren't happy with betas fine, wait for the final. Betas are released to the public for that reason exactly, for the greater community to test the engine and report any bugs the developers can't get because the game was made in their system.

I never said I was not happy (but ofcourse that automatically implies I hate racer from the core), but I am not the person to make you feel warm and fuzzy inside when there are obvious game-breaking bugs. And a game crashing before actually seeing the menu (be it a beta or not) on another gpu brand (I mean honestly there are TWO big brands, not a dozen ones) is a game breaker.

And nowadays a game crashing before even entering the menu is not a good way to make your game known. Let alone getting feedback. It sadly is a nowadays occurence that less and less people really complain. Why - because they don't want to spend their time configuring a game which crashes on start. Think from their perspective - "Game crashes on start - mhh what else crashes and problems might await me".

Chances this people leave and never come back to try the final (and be therefore be a possible contributor to the game - be it through feedback, complains, new cars, tracks or other things) is not as small as some people wish it to be. Nowadays the chance they never come back is rather huge.

I mean we already have a switch and according to the racer.ini and automatic detection of ATI cards, which could atleast note us in the menu "The following features have been deactivated cause they crash the game, please report @ blablabla".

But I guess some people manage to misunterstand this post again.
 
I've tested the 8.9 version
The shadow mapping is realy nice, with some great setting i can run at ~20FPS (1024 x 768) whereas with the 8.8 i was getting ~30/50 FPS (1280 x 1024) and WHITHOUT THE BLOOM
Btw the CSM still need some improvement but it's looks promising!
I want to suggest somes things
When will we have rev_limiter time per car?
And also what about putting the ASL in the car.ini (i've tested on carslwood it's nice )
And the TC is a bit buggy for FWD cars, because when turning at low speed (not more than 20km/h) the TC turn off the throttle and the car finish to stall. Also i think in real cars, the TC takes wheels speed information from the ABS or gearbox, so the min_velocity should take wheel's speed instead of car's speed.
It will be also annoying to update the cg shader of all cars to make them working with the CSM but the render is too nice!
Someone to help me? (now i can only use the lambo or non cg cars with the CSM)
Also what about addition of engine temp variable for the view.ini and an small influence of the performance of the car?
good luck for the 9.0 final! =D
 
To be really brutally honest, over the years I've had ATI and Nvidia cards... and I have an opinion (dangerous haha!)

My friend today recommends an ATI, as they get the best benchmarks per £/$ etc

Tomorrow, if it's an Nvidia, that is what he would recommend.


However, at least for the gaming market that we buy within, Nvidia DO produce better gfx cards with better all-round support in my experience. The last high-end gaming ATI card I bought got on my nerves so much with less support for useful things... yes, things that not most gamers would want, but they were cheaper because they simply didn't offer everything a GFX card SHOULD imo offer.


I think it's good that a game like Racer is showing the glaring issues with ATI's ignorance of support for other API's in their full! Why buy an ATI when it's clearly inferior?
Racer is pretty much showing you how naff an ATI card is... simply buy an Nvidia for your next gfx card.


PS, this choice I made was from ATI being crap generally and deciding not to buy, before Racer NEEDED full-CG support... the fact Nvidia do support CG fully simply backs up my choice that Nvidia will always try provide a fully-featured GFX card and drivers even at the gamer level, making them useful for workstation use etc etc!





As per the movement forward, I'm generally positive for Racer to develop, in a year all this will be water under the bridge and Racer will look more fantastic than it ever has no doubt!
What is frustrating right now is that as someone who tinkers with Racer almost every day, I am finding I spend a disproportionate amount of time staring more and more problems in the face. Things change at every release that simply didn't need to, or if they do, there is no solid logic for it mentioned.

I must have spent at least 24hrs solid over a week trying to work out why flags for my sky box were making my cars hover off the track in one instance, then another time for many hours trying to work out how movables should be set up elegantly in the movables.ini files, and after doing a load of work, the next release saw them back in geometry.ini...
TrackEd that destroys formatting, making it utterly useless. Imagine setting a few properties for a few cone types (small, medium large) at the head of the already large geometry.ini file, and then defining a hundred cone movables elegantly referencing those definitions. Then after using trackEd the file is suddenly 100x bigger, and essentially un-manageable!

Please think about content creators. We are not stupid. After almost a decade of messing with Racer I have a pretty good idea of what a content creator wants and needs wrt to the Racer platform. Rather than ignore us, or change things without consulting us, or even change things and simply not say, just think about telling us your plans and maybe get some feedback first. Or at the very least just give us a more detailed change log and examples of how the new things should work so we don't waste days or weeks labouring over something that will change the next release, or is known to be broken... yes it is a beta, but it wouldn't do any harm to just talk more about what does or doesn't work, or guide our efforts to more value for Racer generally :)


The community puts TONS of hours in. Maybe we need to be better at telling you what we need, a really well moderated bug thread perhaps, some official FAQ's on here that are cross-referenced by the Racer team, and updated or notified where needed when things change. (ie, what flags do I **REALLY** need for a sky box... what shader f/v files should I use, and how should each one be implemented, giving examples)

Simple stuff, we can all work better. Just please take on board what we are saying. Ie, when new shaders that look fantastic and support older content are posted up (Stereo's alpha controlling reflection mapping), it'd be nice to see them included in future releases!

When I say that there is no way to enable live envmapping apart from editing Racer.ini by hand, that means the menu/setup system is lacking. I think most Racer users use Raven, and that says to me that Racers menu is lacking. I bet even the Racer dev team use Raven ;)


Sorry for the mini-rant, I'm positive in my negativity.

I see HUGE potential for Racer, I just want it to be the best it can! When it has worked well in the past, it's been fantastic! Those best times were probably when there was some stasis to Racer. Lets hope we get there soon and see the likes of Stecki or Tops wanting to make their ground-breaking content again for Racer without fear of it all looking pants in 6 months because shaders got changed :(

Dave
 
OK, I got my sky working with the flag number change (lets not even go there as to why this changed)


But then I realised my car wasn't reflecting the sky much... I am using the old sky_v/f shader.

So it worked on Carlswood, hmmm.

Now using the new sky_daynight_v/f and the sky is now showing up in my car reflections.

Is that on purpose, or do we NEED to use the sky_daynight_v/f shader now, and not the old sky_v/f shader?



Also, the Lambo keeps crashing Racer about some $mirror texture not being created or something. Not sure what that is all about, either does it at car selection screen and crashes to windows, or does it when loading a track, but only occasionally.


HDR needs to be set to 1 in the racer.ini, not sure how it got set to 0, but the shader doesn't scale back elegantly. The non-HDR has terrible motion blurring compared to the HDR one...


SLOWLY getting my track to look how it did before. It all seems too bright now so trying to figure out why. Now where it faded to a dark blue on the horizon it goes to an almost too bright white like there is distant snow. Has Mie/Rayleigh settings changed, or their influence in the shaders? Again, would be nice to know if this is an authoring problem with my track sky settings, my shaders for that track specifically, or something else.

Any chance of a more comprehensive changelog so we can track these problems?


Thanks

Dave
 

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