Racer v0.8.31 released!

[Ruud]

Just before the weekend... v0.8.31

Get it at http://www.racer.nl/download/racer0.8.31.zip (75Mb)

Changes:
- Added racer.ini dev.note_ini_unused to check for unread car.ini parameters. See also http://www.racer.nl/tutorial/development.htm
- Color grade shader improved.
- The wind could get stuck in growing infinitely, making particles shoot away after a while
- Differential reworked, since it had a bug (it accepted ratios <1.0).
- Clutch wasn't restored after shifting when autoclutch was 0 in racer.ini and the car.
- Flare colors could dip below 0 (weird colors) when using non-klux flare color values
- Flare default color is now '40 40 40' (was '1 1 1'), see also http://www.racer.nl/tutorial/car_lights.htm
- TrackEd would save splines where lines.paint_end would always be the number of splines, even if you specified less
- TrackEd would overwrite the gfx.sky values in special.ini with generated values (when saving)
- TrackEd still used Newton 2.26, so loading any track would recreate trackcollision.bin. Upgraded to Newton 2.29.
- Flare billboarding now screen-aligned by default; see http://www.racer.nl/tutorial/car_lights.htm#flares
- A multiplayer client pressing Shift-R would get stuck waiting for a race start. Now modified to let Shift-R behave as Shift-F.
- Smoke/grass particles no longer spawn when a wheel is off the ground.
- Traction control gives a warning if a ratio is <=1.0 ; that gives serious jitters.

 

[DavidI]

Another addition I'd like to see in Racer is being able to choose a different spline/geometry/special ini in the track selection screen. It'd also be useful for other tracks, eg Mugello where I could open up the GoKart circuit.
I'm working on a new Broken Springs layout, about 3 x the driving area of the original. The open nature of most of the layout, and the barriers I intend to use, mean I can create a few different track layouts on the one base. I'd like to be able to have spline0.ini, spline1.ini, spline2.ini etc, and geometry0.ini, geometry1.ini etc (maybe also special0.ini etc as well for lots of flexibility), have a section in track.ini to set names for the different layouts (eg. Long Track, Short Track, Reverse Long Track, Jump off Roof track) and which spline & geometry set they belong to. The user can choose from the various names of the groups in Track selection to select a track variation.

Then we can have a lot more variation built into track content very easily by using sets of control files to provide different objects, movables, racing course and environment.

 

[luthobu]

A lot of things are going on with Racer these days. Good things too. I am still able to
follow, as I have learned how to "backport" the shaders to SM2. But I am still plagued
with terrible FPS, even with most settings turned off. So I was wondering if anyone has
a tip on how to REALLY optimize Racer without loosing too much quality.

I have set my GPU to use 4xAA and will not turn that off. Anything less is too poor and
the visuals look like some 80's pixelgame. I did buy a new GPU as suggested in the forum
but since it did not fit the case I was able to get a refund. So no loss there other than that
my hopes got a big dent.

I was able to get good framerates on earlier versions of Racer so that is why I am asking.
Since the newer versions claim to be better and faster I don't understand why the opposite
is happening in my case. Thanks for reading. And sorry for posting an off-topic poem in
a development thread

 

[Some1]

A lot of things are going on with Racer these days. Good things too. I am still able to
follow, as I have learned how to "backport" the shaders to SM2. But I am still plagued
with terrible FPS, even with most settings turned off. So I was wondering if anyone has
a tip on how to REALLY optimize Racer without loosing too much quality.

I have set my GPU to use 4xAA and will not turn that off. Anything less is too poor and
the visuals look like some 80's pixelgame. I did buy a new GPU as suggested in the forum
but since it did not fit the case I was able to get a refund. So no loss there other than that
my hopes got a big dent.

I was able to get good framerates on earlier versions of Racer so that is why I am asking.
Since the newer versions claim to be better and faster I don't understand why the opposite
is happening in my case. Thanks for reading. And sorry for posting an off-topic poem in
a development thread

If you are talking about the good performance you got with non-CG Racer vs CG Racer, then well, there isn't really much you can do other than spend your savings on a new relatively good PC (CPU+GPU+Mobo+RAM+PSU).

Times have moved on, newer hardware supports newer techniques and it does so pretty well.

If you have low end machine, you can't expect to get good framerates with nice graphics. Its either nice graphics or good FPS.

When I didn't yet have a job 5 years ago, it was all about trying to squeeze the most out of my crappy PC. At one point I managed to buy a new GPU that was the fastest AGP card out there. But years later it just didn't cut it anymore, and since I had a job and income, I spent 1000 EUR on a completely new rig and i've been enjoying all games with max settings ever since.

Oh well...

EDIT: Also, I think it would interesting to know, which new-ish games are you able to play on your current system with relatively good graphics and performance.

 

[Penge88]

he he...Cosmo°...same min. THX for the explanation ^^

Well, I tried it and yes, it has very long first gear This new version runs quite well on my old notebook! OMG

 

[Mr Whippy]

Another addition I'd like to see in Racer is being able to choose a different spline/geometry/special ini in the track selection screen. It'd also be useful for other tracks, eg Mugello where I could open up the GoKart circuit.
I'm working on a new Broken Springs layout, about 3 x the driving area of the original. The open nature of most of the layout, and the barriers I intend to use, mean I can create a few different track layouts on the one base. I'd like to be able to have spline0.ini, spline1.ini, spline2.ini etc, and geometry0.ini, geometry1.ini etc (maybe also special0.ini etc as well for lots of flexibility), have a section in track.ini to set names for the different layouts (eg. Long Track, Short Track, Reverse Long Track, Jump off Roof track) and which spline & geometry set they belong to. The user can choose from the various names of the groups in Track selection to select a track variation.

Then we can have a lot more variation built into track content very easily by using sets of control files to provide different objects, movables, racing course and environment.

I think there is going to be skins support for tracks in the skins folder, where you can select different things from in there. Kinda like Raven variants I guess.

OR, you could make batch files and run ini.exe from them to adjust lots of settings...

Lots of options really, but no 'formal' ones as of yet.

Dave

 

[DavidI]

but no 'formal' ones as of yet.

Sounds familiar

 

[DavidI]

My way's just so simple, yet flexible. My issue with Raven's method is that it overwrites files in the base directoy, u have to be careful to note which file ur editing or wham! u lose ur edits.

I meant to edit the previous post, oh well....

 

[boomer541]

The data.cars.default has the min_velocity_ratio=1.0, it s/b=1.0001 as all cars should have that variable set higher than 1.0 or you get a dreaded Qlog error! Also in car.ini files there must be a rule=rear for the brakelights or the flare is on all the time.

Mugello shadows for DavidI.

 

[Stereo]

Just a small suggestion, but it'd be nice to be able to define user-content folders other than \data\, in the same folder as racer.exe. Especially if it could use the Windows environment variables, and thus be something like path="%LOCALAPPDATA%\Racer\", "D:\WIP\", etc.

Not sure how hard it'd be to do this, but in Win 7 \Program Files\ isn't meant to contain stuff the user can edit, and folder permissions are generally not set to allow user modifications without admin permission.

Having something like this combined with starting racer.exe with custom .inis would make mods easier to manage - just bundle them up in a folder, point the ini there (and nowhere else), and all would be well. Or if you want to organize your cars/tracks into fully 0.9.0 compatible, cg-beta compatible, and non-cg folders, you could do that.

 

[Ian Strom]

I agree that we need to be able to change the locations of our cars and tracks while also being able to sort them! That would be awesome.

I dunno about most people but I do not put my games in \Program Files\. I stick them in \Games\ on my apps/games drive.

 

[boomer541]

Tracked Problem:
It lists the total number of splines + 1 (count= 1 more than there s/b) which causes the ai car to NOT move when starting the race and pressing Shift-A. Example: ran tracked did splines with last spline just past the start line count=443 s/b 442 to allow ai car to run. Line numbers ran 0 to 442 and the count=443. Needs to be fixed for the next version.

Also, thanks Ruud for the things you did fix in tracked.

 

[Ruud]

Just a small suggestion, but it'd be nice to be able to define user-content folders other than \data\, in the same folder as racer.exe. Especially if it could use the Windows environment variables, and thus be something like path="%LOCALAPPDATA%\Racer\", "D:\WIP\", etc.

Not sure how hard it'd be to do this, but in Win 7 \Program Files\ isn't meant to contain stuff the user can edit, and folder permissions are generally not set to allow user modifications without admin permission.

Having something like this combined with starting racer.exe with custom .inis would make mods easier to manage - just bundle them up in a folder, point the ini there (and nowhere else), and all would be well. Or if you want to organize your cars/tracks into fully 0.9.0 compatible, cg-beta compatible, and non-cg folders, you could do that.

I never put Racer in c:\program files. I have a c:\sims directory (rather d:\sims, which is on a big data harddisk).
I quit the installer at some point, liking the Mac way better; just drag the directory somewhere on a harddisk of your choice. No problems there with permissions. In fact, I have multiple (dozens!) of Racer version on my system; d:\sims\racer (development), d:\sims\racer_customerX and such. Most of the data is always in the cars & tracks, so to do special versions I just clone a base directory (without cars & tracks) and start from there. Often you need specific racer.ini settings etc, so only moving data/ to another directory would only lead to diverting racer.ini, and not much remains except racer.exe. Not much point in that; just copy the entire directory.

Having extra directories like 090-compatible and such could be done by renaming your data/tracks folder (renaming the desired one to data/tracks). Too much in Racer hangs on the data/ directory name also.

 

[Ruud]

Tracked Problem:
It lists the total number of splines + 1 (count= 1 more than there s/b) which causes the ai car to NOT move when starting the race and pressing Shift-A. Example: ran tracked did splines with last spline just past the start line count=443 s/b 442 to allow ai car to run. Line numbers ran 0 to 442 and the count=443. Needs to be fixed for the next version.

Also, thanks Ruud for the things you did fix in tracked.

(BTW I patched data/cars/default.ini for the traction_control factor (1.001 something), thanks for that).
For the splines, I've tried it in v0.8.31 with Carlswood; I load & save the track. Spline.ini count is 339 (splines 0 upto 338). Paint_end is set to 339 which is one off indeed but doesn't (seem to) hurt. And also, AI ran on that. What track are you using?

 

[boomer541]

Ruud,
I only get the problem with one track, my watkins track apparently has a defect and I'll track it down.

Sorry for the inconvienience.

 

[camsinny]

Fantastic.
Just driving around Ruudskogen and it's just such a pleasure. Everything looks fantastic. While you're driving.

I've noticed this on Carlswood too. Would it be possible to specify if a track camera bases its shadowmap relative to the car or the camera? I know we touched on this awhile ago but it's bleedingly obvious on that first track camera on Carlswood. Drive a lap then watch a replay - the shadows look horrible on that first camera. Now...I know there's issues with swimming shadows and stuff when it's car based on a moving track camera and my proposed solution might in fact make things look worse...but something has to be done about that...shadows on those trackcams look horrible.

Everything else is bloody fantastic.

###EDIT###
Heh...having so much fun in fact that I just ran out of petrol
Also, avg fuel consumption on debug page 7 is wrong. You seem to be dividing by 0 or something
Aaaaaaaand when the wrong way sign comes up the debug info seems to reposition itself.

 

[luthobu]

EDIT: Also, I think it would interesting to know, which new-ish games are you able to play on your current system with relatively good graphics and performance.

Oh, that is an easy one. None. Anything that requires SM3 or above is out of my reach..

 

[boomer541]

Ruud,
Found my problem with tracked. it was the fact that I went past the starting spline which just keeps adding to the spline count. Must stop generating splines at the start spline or it don't work right. Pictures and track used below.

 

[Alex Forbin]

Ruud could you possibly turn off the console feedback when crossing a triggerline? I have made a track with a tunnel and each time I cross a trigger line it causes the console to report it. Also is there any way to control volume or other things with trigger lines?

Thanks
Alex Forbin

 

[camsinny]

IMO in a final (I.e. When we get to 0.9) the console should really be turned off by default. I think I had it turned off and could still input commands somehow...don't know if that's how it's meant to work but try just turning the console off...typically you don't really need it.

 

[Alex Forbin]

IMO in a final (I.e. When we get to 0.9) the console should really be turned off by default. I think I had it turned off and could still input commands somehow...don't know if that's how it's meant to work but try just turning the console off...typically you don't really need it.

I was really thinking of the users that might DL a track like mine and be frustrated by the constant console pop-ups. I use the console myself for things like reloading shaders and setting the time while developing, but I do think the default behavior should be set to off.

Alex Forbin