Racer v0.8.28 released!

[Ruud]

Since X-mas is still so far off. ;-)

Get it at http://www.racer.nl/download/racer0.8.28.zip (83Mb)

This one does seem close to v0.9, except perhaps for some replay enhancements.

Changes (some already posted in the v0.8.27 thread):
- Minimap was painted even if no splines were present
- SMD chase cam shadow focus is now on the car, not near the camera itself
- 3rd shadow split distance reduced to 500m for detail. Last split is now faded out.
- Large car CG offset could get some 3D objects culled incorrectly.
- 'Select car' screen gave car.ini errors which were incorrect (due to fast loading of only the first part of car.ini)
- Force feedback was passed to steering wheel even if steering was not done through that wheel
- resolution.render_aspect didn't work; fixed
- Shadowmapping tweaked again for even less Z correction
- Pacejka Player tweaking lambda values wasn't correct for MF5.2 curves
- Backfire 'likeliness' removed until we get better turbo behavior (>v0.9)
- 'grip 0.5' appeared to also reduce engine torque. Fixed (doubly stored data in the code, as if grip=1).
- Only the first 2 splits are blurred
- Autoclutch RPM now slams the clutch harder around the optimal RPM. Works to get at the optimal torque rpm
when driving off, although it is a bit harsh. Seems ok when I look at g-force graphs though.

 

[Ruud]

Another thing I'd like to see for v0.9, if at all possible, is for ini.exe to be able to edit strings.

Ie,

susp0~susp_front

Is impossible to change with ini.exe

Can we make it so we can do things like

susp0 "susp0~susp_front_stiff"

So we can move from a susp_front >> susp_front_stiff by running a batch file? (I'm doing lots of car config changes via this method

Added for v0.8.29 (probably 0.9.0-RC1 since it *requires* version=090 in all car.ini and track.ini files, so nothing will load except when upgraded!).

 

[killbill10]

One question regarding the CG version:

Are the distorted reflections in the cockpit normal for ATI cards (HD4890)? I'm getting these also on carlswood...

 

[Mr Whippy]

What don't you like about it specifically? The older method also found an rpm at which to accelerate (depending on how much throttle you gave it; the less throttle, the lower the rpm). It would stick to that rpm, holding the clutch partially up, giving a balance of car acceleration forces and engine torque.
Now, the actual max torque is found from the torque.crv and the engine really goes to the optimal rpm (max torque) for acceleration. So basically it's the same thing, only the RPM is now higher. The idea is to get maximum thrust when driving off.

Also, what's wrong with it in higher gears?

Can't think of the maths for it, but all it really needed before this change, was to consider the drivers wish.

Ie, throttle.

If they had a light throttle, say 10%, then use 10% between idle rpm and max_torque rpm, if they used 100%, then use 100% of max_torque rpm, if they used 50% throttle, then use 50% of gap between idle and max_torque rpm.


That would alleviate the revving the balls off the car at 25% throttle just setting off like a newbie driver.

Remember not everyone playing Racer wants to fly off at max acceleration. Sometimes we want to drive around, and when doing that gently, we just want a nice gentle clutch release at lower rpm when using light throttle inputs.


So just use throttle % as a variable on the clutch slip amount?!

Hmmm

Dave

 

[FiftyOrange]

So just use throttle % as a variable on the clutch slip amount

This is a good idea, very real-life.

 

[twister77]

Maybe it should be a car.ini switchable? even controller key/button assigned (toggles on then after one launch or after changing out of 1st resets to off?) or both? Thats more like IRL launch controls work imho.
It may well be a good way to fake CVT as well.

Just another suggestion. Maybe a good place to switch between the new 1st gear type of a launch and the old type would be in the main Racer menu, under Options->Gameplay, as controls in there are related..

 

[Mr Whippy]

Well you still have the old autoclutch rpm setting that works fine.

This new thing is easily avoided if you don't like it.

If this is intended to be launch control, then it's totally wrong in it's implementation anyway.

This is meant to be a nice dynamic automatic clutch, and to be nice and dynamic according to driving style, it needs to consider the throttle position imo.

Dave

 

[Mr Whippy]

Ruud...

Racer.nl docs seems to suggest that ff_gain scales all the ff_ variables together.

However, ff_factor set to 1, and scaling ff_gain from 0 > 50, seems to show no change in the force feedback strength.

All the other ff_variables are set to 0.


I thought ff_gain was to tweak overall feel strength, rather than a sub-set?

Dave

 

[Mr Whippy]

Last one for now.

Brake force to 0 on slipping wheels is making a wheel that skids along under hard braking rotate... ok, it's slow, maybe a rad every 8 seconds, but it's totally noticeable.

Just if this is the result of making a static car stay still better, then the cost appears to have made dynamic behaviour (imo more important), LESS accurate.

Personally I wasn't so fussed about the cars floating around due to 0 rounding errors a bit when stationary, especially if the cost is now dodgy dynamics (or questionable ones!)

Perhaps the floaty fix is something we should do for v0.9 onwards if we can't be sure that the fix is solid and reliable and full understood in it's implications elsewhere?!

Dave

 

[Alexander Knoll]

Ruud, the minimap has still a error....
Ok, i try it to explain.....
I start racer.
Select a car and a track.
Hit free driving and get this:

no minimap....
If i hit F6 to enable the minimap manuall i get this:

the orange collored part with lap and mode went to transparent....still no minimap.
Ok, i hit esc and went back to the main menue, i do noting other than to hit at free driving after some sec. ....
This is what i get:

eh..a minimap^^, but no windows env map...and the orange part is again transparent.....
can you follow me and understand what i want to say?
I know my english is not the best....sry for that...

Alex

EDIT:
Its with all tracks and all cars...

hmm...

EDIT2:
ok...forget the window...this was my fault...shader missed a part...

EDIT3:
sry...last for to day...
i have a QLog too....:

Fri Dec 24 01:39:07 (FATAL): [racer/6980] Exception 0xC0000005, flags 0, Address 0x00490520
(this dialog text is stored in QLOG.txt)

OS-Version: 6.1.7600 () 0x100-0x1

0x00490520 d:\source\trunk\dev_racer\src\lib\rminimap.cpp (line 185): RMiniMap::PaintRoad()
0x00490EAF d:\source\trunk\dev_racer\src\lib\rminimap.cpp (line 473): RMiniMap::Make()
0x00484C20 d:\source\trunk\dev_racer\src\lib\rtrackv.cpp (line 1604): RTrackVRML::Load()
0x00427DCA d:\source\trunk\dev_racer\src\lib\rmanager.cpp (line 2063): RManager::LoadTrack()
0x0054BDF4 d:\source\trunk\dev_racer\src\libu\track.cpp (line 120): rrTrackLoad()
0x004036E8 d:\source\trunk\dev_racer\src\mrun.cpp (line 1713): Setup()
0x0040393E d:\source\trunk\dev_racer\src\mrun.cpp (line 1925): Run()
0x00401504 d:\source\trunk\dev_racer\src\main.cpp (line 222): main()
0x00401573 d:\source\trunk\dev_racer\src\main.cpp (line 229): WinMain()
0x005530FB f:\dd\vctools\crt_bld\self_x86\crt\src\crt0.c (line 263): __tmainCRTStartup()
0x75C73677 [kernel32]: (filename not available): BaseThreadInitThunk
0x77BB9D42 [ntdll]: (filename not available): RtlInitializeExceptionChain
0x77BB9D15 [ntdll]: (filename not available): RtlInitializeExceptionChain

may be you can see whats going wrong....

 

[DavidI]

Just if this is the result of making a static car stay still better, then the cost appears to have made dynamic behaviour (imo more important), LESS accurate.

Personally I wasn't so fussed about the cars floating around due to 0 rounding errors a bit when stationary, especially if the cost is now dodgy dynamics (or questionable ones!)

Perhaps the floaty fix is something we should do for v0.9 onwards if we can't be sure that the fix is solid and reliable and full understood in it's implications elsewhere?!

Dave

I wasn't so worried about the effect per se, but it made me wonder if this could be affecting something else in handling, or whether the issue behind this manifests itself anywhere else?
imho theres still something wrong when u skid or slide, u don't get a long screach at similar pitch like IRL, it seems to cyclicly hunt up & down in pitch. Now what if its not just the audio & grip or something else is also doing that?

 

[DavidI]

Also, the tyre smoke on tar still does strange things. It only happens after a period of time. Do a few laps in the Lambo on Mugello, then screech to a halt near the start of the straight, or do a burnout, and the smoke shoots of in small beams. It may also be related to the cars current velocity. imho this should be fixed pre 090, it really does look odd when it happens.

Dirt & sand clouds don't seem to have the same issues, they look excellent, although still being a bit of a FPS drain.

 

[boomer541]

problems:
After selecting car then track then quick race the mirror and trackmap don't appear!

Mirrors on car still a bit too bright, ok on lambo on carlswood.

Can't see the slide show images in the GUI, just fix the alpha so it is tramsparent or semi-transparent.

My splits:
mapsize=2048 ;1024
; split distances 0 - 3,
splitdist0=20 ;10
splitdist1=80 ;40
splitdist2=800 ;160
splitdist3=1500 ;640

constants.cg in attachment

 

[DavidI]

A present for you all. http://www.racedepartment.com/racer-tracks/45634-mugello-v2-3-cg-beta-1-a.html
Merry Christmas

 

[Mr Whippy]

I wasn't so worried about the effect per se, but it made me wonder if this could be affecting something else in handling, or whether the issue behind this manifests itself anywhere else?
imho theres still something wrong when u skid or slide, u don't get a long screach at similar pitch like IRL, it seems to cyclicly hunt up & down in pitch. Now what if its not just the audio & grip or something else is also doing that?

Indeed.

Like I said with the fix, it's just a new type of wrong

Dave

 

[Ruud]

Ruud, the minimap has still a error....
Ok, i try it to explain.....
I start racer.
Select a car and a track.
Hit free driving and get this:
no minimap....

Do you mean you start without minimap? (did you modify the minimap start state?) I'd expect you'd have to press F6 twice if it was turned on but you didn't see it. Does it also happen on Carlswood/Lambo?

 

[Ruud]

problems:
After selecting car then track then quick race the mirror and trackmap don't appear!

Mirrors on car still a bit too bright, ok on lambo on carlswood.

Can't see the slide show images in the GUI, just fix the alpha so it is tramsparent or semi-transparent.

My splits:
mapsize=2048 ;1024
; split distances 0 - 3,
splitdist0=20 ;10
splitdist1=80 ;40
splitdist2=800 ;160
splitdist3=1500 ;640

constants.cg in attachment

View attachment 33198 View attachment 33199

The mirrors seem to require diffuse=0.1 0.1 0.1. The mirrors.texture.extinction_factor was 2.0, I reduced that to 1.0, not sure what it was in 0.8.28. Not sure it's a bug, it's like reflections that are 16-bit.
As for the split distances, I'm not going to use those. For one, the mapsize is quite heavy, and we just reduced the last split distance to get more resolution in the shadows. I don't think shadows are really necessary for such a long distance; it's all a tradeoff and when would you ever use that shot you used? Shadows are never technically perfect, we just have to aim for the most common situations...

 

[Ruud]

Ruud...

Racer.nl docs seems to suggest that ff_gain scales all the ff_ variables together.

However, ff_factor set to 1, and scaling ff_gain from 0 > 50, seems to show no change in the force feedback strength.

All the other ff_variables are set to 0.


I thought ff_gain was to tweak overall feel strength, rather than a sub-set?

Dave

ff_factor is already a gain, but only on Mz indeed. ff_gain only works on the steering wheel effects (friction/inertia/damping). It does not really seem to make sense to apply it on the Mz forces as well. Or at least, it seems that you want to scale ff_factor independently of the FF effects. Even my G27 starts to grind when using >50% of anything (friction/damping/inertia).

 

[Ruud]

Last one for now.

Brake force to 0 on slipping wheels is making a wheel that skids along under hard braking rotate... ok, it's slow, maybe a rad every 8 seconds, but it's totally noticeable.

Just if this is the result of making a static car stay still better, then the cost appears to have made dynamic behaviour (imo more important), LESS accurate.

Personally I wasn't so fussed about the cars floating around due to 0 rounding errors a bit when stationary, especially if the cost is now dodgy dynamics (or questionable ones!)

Perhaps the floaty fix is something we should do for v0.9 onwards if we can't be sure that the fix is solid and reliable and full understood in it's implications elsewhere?!

Dave

Unfortunately I need the tanh() fix for braking, otherwise braking hard will move the wheels. The diff would need wheel braking torque locking again, which was the bug where the diff sometimes locks up. I'll try a braking torque threshold.

 

[Mr Whippy]

I'm a big fan of long distance shadows.

You have to call time at some point though.

Ultimately Racer is a realtime driving sim/game, and FPS and optimising will ALWAYS be king. Slow-down is the last thing you want when using Racer for what it is really intended for (ie, playing, not pouring over the visuals in too much detail than may be healthy )

I guess if people want to, and can use these better settings, great, but I do worry about older kit right now. My machine is probably 'average' and it can struggle with some of the non-optimised content out there!

I'm looking forward to 6-10 cars on a high quality circuit/road with loads of detail. We are really going to have to start thinking about optimisations LOTS more than we do now...
It's easy to crank up these settings now, with ONE car on a barren track, and kinda get away with it...

What we need to be doing is imagining what we really want to be having in Racer in 6 months time, and right now I'm worried even my machine might struggle with what I envisage

Dave

 

[Ruud]

problems:
Can't see the slide show images in the GUI, just fix the alpha so it is tramsparent or semi-transparent.

The images are a subtle effect; I noticed here on different monitors (30" Apple vs 42" LG TV) that the gamma is so different that the images were hardly visible on the hard-gamma screens. I might go and get a color spider to calibrate my home monitor (I'm doing photography, and it helps as well there) since it could just be monitor settings (I've also seen a machine once where color intensity was way up, and I had to move it down in the nVidia Control Panel just to look normal).
Until I get a calibrated monitor, it's hard to judge these things...

Same goes for TOD settings and the constants.cg gamma (now 1.25).