Welcome to RaceDepartment. 
As RSC has been offline for quite a while, RaceDepartment has been gracious enough to host a temporary Racer forum.
To kick it off, here is Racer v0.8.0. Warning: all things are set to target relatively high-end graphics card. nVidia 7950+ somewhat. Onboard cards will not do.
The download is at http://www.racer.nl/download/racer080.zip (42Mb).
If you have an ATI card, Cg shaders may not work due to a bug in Cg 2.1. Try the patched racer.exe from http://www.racer.nl/download/racer081a_patch.zip (1Mb).
Hope you can enjoy it!
Ruud
The patch (really a preview of v0.8.1, so interesting for nVidia users as well) changes these, although no data files are included you can check out some things already:
- Added envmap.live_track.sides_per_frame to set update count of live envmap
- Car.ini camera<n>.view variables were read, but never used. Removed loading them, they are (and were) obsolete.
- LOD (level of detail) for objects is now adjusted to take into account the camera FOV (normal FOV=50).
- Split fullscreen_shaders directory into LDR and HDR variants (data/renderer/fullscreen_shaders_hdr and _ldr).
- Added car.ini engine.idle_method to avoid throttle being slightly open all the time. See http://www.racer.nl/tutorial/engine.htm
- Now enforcing engine.stall_rpm to be at least 100 rpm less than idle_rpm to enable the new idle_method 1.
- Added engine.braking_torque_curve to specify a curve for the engine braking instead of the linear parameters.
(the Lambo now uses such a curve for demonstration)
- Modified smoke particles to have no velocity. Also increased the brightness somewhat.
- Bloom map was 16-bit, now 8-bit.
- Added car.ini audio.skid audioset based on skid amount (around 0..2). This allows subtle scrub sounds before
going to screeching & screaming.
- Added 'gearwhine_off' audioset for gearwhine under deceleration circumstances.
- Fuel consumption was based on engine output torque, added internal friction (engine braking torque) in fuel use calculations.
- Renamed racer.ini variable 'collision.report_car_trk' to 'collision.report_car_track_collision'
- Added car.ini's reboundstop_len and reboundstop_k for much the same as a bumpstop, only to prevent wheels falling through susp<n>.maxlen
see http://www.racer.nl/tutorial/suspensions.htm#reboundstops
- susp<n>.restlen no longer needs to be smaller than maxlen. It ignored precompression that way.
- Added fuel.rof to overrule the fuel grams/liter parameter. Normally it's around 700 for regular petrol.
- Added views.ini 'invert' field (0/1) which inverts the variable (like 'factor' which multiplies it)
The list of changes since v0.7.3:
- Bugfix: OpenGL3.0 drivers would crash Racer due to a mistake in getting some extension function pointers.
- Bugfix: track's with special.ini gfx.time below 1000 (10am) were not interpreted correctly.
- Bugfix: turning on projected lights no longer kills some 3D dials
- Heavily modified Cg shaders. Also added a lot more. See http://racer.nl/tutorial/gpushader.htm
- Projected lights used alphafunc, which made lights on semi-transparent object pixely.
- Added car.ini's model_reverse_l/r models for true rear lights. This should do away with the views.ini hack to add reverse lights.
- Modified live track envmapping to not do all sides every frame. Lots faster.
- Removed dbg_stats tree in racer.ini (it was obsolete).
- Added 'clouds' script command for Cg-shaded skies, added 'clouds' uniform float parameter for Cg shaders (0..1).
- Also added 'clouds' in a track's special.ini (env.clouds)
- Added resolution.vsync to sync to display frequency or not (0=max fps, 1=sync, >1=set interval)
- Added moving helmet (+pilot body) model option in car.ini. See http://www.racer.nl/tutorial/helmet.htm
- Raised the number of possible flares for each car to 20 (was 10)
- Simple (single-polygon) shadows for car views without a body model are now turned off.
- Removed 'fx.sky_enable' option. The sky is always on.
- Removed 'gfx.reflections' option. Was/is obsolete.
- Added graphics.show_names to be able to indicate driver names floating above cars.
- Added mirrors.texture.fbo setting to render into an offscreen framebuffer object (faster)
- Added mirrors.texture.fbo_samples setting to enable anti-aliasing of the mirror.
- Added HDR rendering basics (renderer.hdr.enable=1). Uses data/renderer/shaders_hdr directory if enabled, shaders_ldr otherwise.
- Added Bloom rendering for HDR mode (renderer.bloom.enable=1).
- Split data/renderer/shaders directory in two: shaders_ldr and shaders_hdr. HDR is the way to go. LDR will be deprecated.
- Added ini.auto_lights setting (0/1) to determine with time-of-day controls a car's light automatically
- Added shader 'reflect' material property for reflective Cg shaders (in the same line as diffuse, ambient, specular etc).
Use this in conjunction with [dyn_]shader_reflective_v/f.cg for example.
- Added car.shd/track.shd 'motion_blur' variable to turn off motion blur velocity map generation for certain shaders (wheels mostly).
- Added auto-exposure settings for HDR rendering (racer.ini:renderer.auto_exposure.*)
- Added fx.sun.auto_time_of_day to track real current (PC) time for the time of day in Racer
- Added fx.sun.fast_time_factor to set time speed. Normally 0 for no time change, 1 for realtime, >1=faster than realtime
- Added fueltank in cars. See data/cars/default/car.ini (fuel.* settings). Currently in alpha. No fuel means no throttle.
- Added fuel view variables for views.ini files (for cars). See http://www.racer.nl/tutorial/fuel.htm for details.
- Added formatting option for views.ini; 'float_1' displays a value with 1 decimal (for example: 123.4).
- Added 'sample_hold' option for view elements to get slow-updating dials (mostly useful for digital dashboards)
- Added fx.sun.flare option to remove sun flare. It doesn't match with the Cg sun position.
As RSC has been offline for quite a while, RaceDepartment has been gracious enough to host a temporary Racer forum.
To kick it off, here is Racer v0.8.0. Warning: all things are set to target relatively high-end graphics card. nVidia 7950+ somewhat. Onboard cards will not do.
The download is at http://www.racer.nl/download/racer080.zip (42Mb).
If you have an ATI card, Cg shaders may not work due to a bug in Cg 2.1. Try the patched racer.exe from http://www.racer.nl/download/racer081a_patch.zip (1Mb).
Hope you can enjoy it!
Ruud
The patch (really a preview of v0.8.1, so interesting for nVidia users as well) changes these, although no data files are included you can check out some things already:
- Added envmap.live_track.sides_per_frame to set update count of live envmap
- Car.ini camera<n>.view variables were read, but never used. Removed loading them, they are (and were) obsolete.
- LOD (level of detail) for objects is now adjusted to take into account the camera FOV (normal FOV=50).
- Split fullscreen_shaders directory into LDR and HDR variants (data/renderer/fullscreen_shaders_hdr and _ldr).
- Added car.ini engine.idle_method to avoid throttle being slightly open all the time. See http://www.racer.nl/tutorial/engine.htm
- Now enforcing engine.stall_rpm to be at least 100 rpm less than idle_rpm to enable the new idle_method 1.
- Added engine.braking_torque_curve to specify a curve for the engine braking instead of the linear parameters.
(the Lambo now uses such a curve for demonstration)
- Modified smoke particles to have no velocity. Also increased the brightness somewhat.
- Bloom map was 16-bit, now 8-bit.
- Added car.ini audio.skid audioset based on skid amount (around 0..2). This allows subtle scrub sounds before
going to screeching & screaming.
- Added 'gearwhine_off' audioset for gearwhine under deceleration circumstances.
- Fuel consumption was based on engine output torque, added internal friction (engine braking torque) in fuel use calculations.
- Renamed racer.ini variable 'collision.report_car_trk' to 'collision.report_car_track_collision'
- Added car.ini's reboundstop_len and reboundstop_k for much the same as a bumpstop, only to prevent wheels falling through susp<n>.maxlen
see http://www.racer.nl/tutorial/suspensions.htm#reboundstops
- susp<n>.restlen no longer needs to be smaller than maxlen. It ignored precompression that way.
- Added fuel.rof to overrule the fuel grams/liter parameter. Normally it's around 700 for regular petrol.
- Added views.ini 'invert' field (0/1) which inverts the variable (like 'factor' which multiplies it)
The list of changes since v0.7.3:
- Bugfix: OpenGL3.0 drivers would crash Racer due to a mistake in getting some extension function pointers.
- Bugfix: track's with special.ini gfx.time below 1000 (10am) were not interpreted correctly.
- Bugfix: turning on projected lights no longer kills some 3D dials
- Heavily modified Cg shaders. Also added a lot more. See http://racer.nl/tutorial/gpushader.htm
- Projected lights used alphafunc, which made lights on semi-transparent object pixely.
- Added car.ini's model_reverse_l/r models for true rear lights. This should do away with the views.ini hack to add reverse lights.
- Modified live track envmapping to not do all sides every frame. Lots faster.
- Removed dbg_stats tree in racer.ini (it was obsolete).
- Added 'clouds' script command for Cg-shaded skies, added 'clouds' uniform float parameter for Cg shaders (0..1).
- Also added 'clouds' in a track's special.ini (env.clouds)
- Added resolution.vsync to sync to display frequency or not (0=max fps, 1=sync, >1=set interval)
- Added moving helmet (+pilot body) model option in car.ini. See http://www.racer.nl/tutorial/helmet.htm
- Raised the number of possible flares for each car to 20 (was 10)
- Simple (single-polygon) shadows for car views without a body model are now turned off.
- Removed 'fx.sky_enable' option. The sky is always on.
- Removed 'gfx.reflections' option. Was/is obsolete.
- Added graphics.show_names to be able to indicate driver names floating above cars.
- Added mirrors.texture.fbo setting to render into an offscreen framebuffer object (faster)
- Added mirrors.texture.fbo_samples setting to enable anti-aliasing of the mirror.
- Added HDR rendering basics (renderer.hdr.enable=1). Uses data/renderer/shaders_hdr directory if enabled, shaders_ldr otherwise.
- Added Bloom rendering for HDR mode (renderer.bloom.enable=1).
- Split data/renderer/shaders directory in two: shaders_ldr and shaders_hdr. HDR is the way to go. LDR will be deprecated.
- Added ini.auto_lights setting (0/1) to determine with time-of-day controls a car's light automatically
- Added shader 'reflect' material property for reflective Cg shaders (in the same line as diffuse, ambient, specular etc).
Use this in conjunction with [dyn_]shader_reflective_v/f.cg for example.
- Added car.shd/track.shd 'motion_blur' variable to turn off motion blur velocity map generation for certain shaders (wheels mostly).
- Added auto-exposure settings for HDR rendering (racer.ini:renderer.auto_exposure.*)
- Added fx.sun.auto_time_of_day to track real current (PC) time for the time of day in Racer
- Added fx.sun.fast_time_factor to set time speed. Normally 0 for no time change, 1 for realtime, >1=faster than realtime
- Added fueltank in cars. See data/cars/default/car.ini (fuel.* settings). Currently in alpha. No fuel means no throttle.
- Added fuel view variables for views.ini files (for cars). See http://www.racer.nl/tutorial/fuel.htm for details.
- Added formatting option for views.ini; 'float_1' displays a value with 1 decimal (for example: 123.4).
- Added 'sample_hold' option for view elements to get slow-updating dials (mostly useful for digital dashboards)
- Added fx.sun.flare option to remove sun flare. It doesn't match with the Cg sun position.
