Beta Testers Wanted

[Punko]

Hi guys,

I have just released my F2000(Beta) for Racer and would like to invite you to give her a few laps.

It is still a bit crude and needs some work still but it will give you an idea what can be done with Racer.

You will need to download version 5 of Racer.

You can get it here:
Racer Home Page


You can download Team Players F2000 for Racer here:
Team Players Racer Forum

It is not as refined as the F2000 Heat version and Racer is not as refined, but it is getting better every version, (Multiplayer now works)

I would like to hear your comments

Thanks
Punko

[cbonsall]

i would be willing but still havent figured out the problem with the tracks

[bobo88]

I'd be willing to also, but can't get the game to work. I click on race, then it's sends me back to the menu! I am interested though!

[PeterV]

I ran the setup and it said it was installing it, the progress bars ran across fine, and then there was nothing at all in the F2000 folder for the car!! So I unistalled and did it again....same thing.
I have no idea where it went. It created the data/car/F2000 folder, so it was heading to the right place.

[Punko]

Strange,,,
I didn't have any problems installing Racer or running it. I did reinstall the F2000 from the download and it works fine, I know others that have also.

On the fresh Racer install you will have to run the config.exe and set it up. for your controller and video.

Also you might stop over at the Racer forum and see if there is somthing in the Tech help section. (although CB didn't get much help ((sorry CB)) I was hoping that you got that fixed. Did you try just using the mouse?

PeterV, It sounds like you may have gotten a bad download (maybe?)

[bobo88]

GREAT WORK, Bob! Sure does look real pretty in "Racer"! I tinkered with the targa files and fixed the tachwheel behind the display so that the grey box does not show!

I have a problem, but I don't think it's yours as the other cars do it too, whenever I change to neutral gear, the car stalls and will not restart. As far as driving goes, Racer has a long way to go to beat heat! The wheel is tooooo sensitive! The brakes are also toooo sensitive. If you spin the car, you just cannot recover at all! I will give Racer it's due. The graphics are top notch!

Oh, to solve my problem, I had to give my firewall permission to pass Racer info thru. Got that info from Racesimcentral forums! Thanks for the tip!

Your car really looks great, just need to get racers' physics up to date!

[PeterV]

I will try another download of it and see what happens. But when it installs I can see all the filenames go by with the progress bars. Too fast to see anything of use though.

And with Racer......I still don't get how all the "ultimate effort" to produce realistic physics comes up with a car that rocks and rolls side to side massively, and porpoises fore and aft (though far less fore and aft than it used to!).
So far I have only had the default car to run, but I assume someone had some input into making that as good as possible?? Seeing it was packaged with Racer.
I just don't understand that part of it.

Anyone looked at NetCar? Another home brew sim project.


PS: I did notice that the download runs fast for about 20% and then slows right down for the rest. Which seems a bit odd. It did that both times downloaded.
AND: The second download of it does the same thing. Totally blank destination folder created. yet the installer says it was all completed.
AND NOW: A different download from BH didn't do anything different either.

[size="1"][ April 09, 2003, 11:40 AM: Message edited by: PeterV ][/size]

[Sel]

I took a quick look at it, I found it drivable but dosn't give the same feel as in Heat.
I carn't really give much feed back as the damn thing keeps locking up my PC.
Racer has improved a little from the last time I tried it but I find the Force Feedback weak and I carn't really feel the car so it's not fair to judge the physics.
Some of the screens are also corrupt so it kind of puts me of maybe the next version will be more stable.

I tried Netcar it has better Forcefeed back but it also has a deadzone on the wheel and I hate that.
Also the car seems to spin more at slower speeds very odd.

For me Live For Speed is much better and more advanced.

[Punko]

Bobo,
on the tach display, I tried messing with trying to get the color right but you probably notice that when you get in the sunlight you still see it. If you fixed it another way let me know how you did it, I will add it to the car.

On the stalling problem, did you restart it? (I think the starter is the S key but I have mine mapped to my one of my wheel buttons.

All those controls for braking, wheel sensitivity, body roll and head roll are all programable by you in the ini files. If you open the Racer.ini (in the main Racer folder) or the Car.ini (in the F2000.folder) using Wordpad you will be able to adjust anything you want. all the physics of the car are in the Car.ini and all the environment var's are in the Racer.ini.

That is one of the things I like about this sim, everything is adjustable to how you like it and it is for the most part Open Source. You will see that I locked the actual 3D mesh but everything else is open to edit.

PeterV, I forgot that there are a lot of guys that run this on Mac's and Linux boxes and when I packed it up I did just like Heat with an installer. some guys with linux are finding that there are no files in the folder also.

I made a zip of the F2000 for download so you may want to give that a try,

F2000_R.zip


Yes as I said Racer isn't really ready for prime time yet (but it is getting there) It is more of a project to play around with. My main reason for getting into it is because I am on the ground floor with a very cool sim and I can actually help in the developement.

I hope that anyone downloading it doesn't think it is anything more than a simulator at this point. Some day it may give all other sims a run for their money. (haha Racer is Free!!!)

But the ease of making tracks and cars is pretty cool.

[Punko]

PeterV,

The rock and roll you are talking about is just the individul car physics not Racer itself. If it is the head movement you see, you can shut that off in your Racer.ini at the end of that file you will see some lines like this:

pov_follow
{
enable=0
min
{
; Speed in m/s (100 m/s=360 km/h), angle in degrees
speed=5
angle=10
}
max
{
speed=50
angle=1
}
}
}

That is the head movement which you can make do anything you want. (mine is shut off with the entry 0) (I think it is off as default but look and see)

If you download different cars you will get different physics. The F2000 has a much stiffer suspension than that 110 Alpine car,,, although it looks good I thought they should have chosen a different car to represent Racer. The movement is also adjustable in the Car.ini file.

The empty F2000 folder you are talking about,,, I do not understand, the only guys that were having that problem was guys running Linux.


If anyone is having a problem running the sim, (dropping to the desktop or just back to the menus) Look in you Qlog.txt in the main Racer folder and look at the end of that file to see what errors you are getting.

[Punko]

Yes the gearing and all the setup does need some work, right now you have to tweak the car.ini file to change any of the setup stuff(you can open the car.ini with wordpad if you want to play around with it). There is someone working on a garage menu for the sim, I have a copy of the program (a bit buggy) (it is a separate exe but will probably be included in the sim at some point.

The sound is the exact sound I am using for the Heat version, the only difference is Racer is only using the raw wave with no manipulation. That will also be fixed at some point.

Actually the sliding thing is the tires, I haven't figured out the pacejka figures yet, Racer is able to model the pacejka (tire data) directly from real world tire data. The Racer community is working on getting a standard tire model so until then we have to use what is out there or try and tweak our own.

There are cars much beter than my F2000, I sugest you download the Caterham7, or the Mercedes CLK DTM cars. I think they are both pretty good feeling cars.

[PeterV]

Thanks for the zip version, that worked of course!!
I can't give too much useful feedback so far, but it is the best Racer car I have come across. It feels good in general, but also feels like I need to do some setup stuff for it because gearing doesn't suit the track and other factors such as wings, springs etc I would think.

I hate the engine whiny sound! Which all the racer cars seem to be the same?
The grip/slide physics don't seem to be right, but that would be Racers doing. Once you get sliding it is almost like being on ice. And it is hard to feel the traction limits, so getting good laps is hard.

[Punko]

Here is a trak I made a quite a while back for Nascar Heat. I was unable to get anyone to help me get it into Heat and have had it sitting on my hard drive for a couple of years.

Since Racer is quite east to make tracks for I decided to try my hand at it.

Here is the track layout, I designed it to be similar to Laguna Seca. It is a high speed 2.5 mile road course.

Download it Here

Punko Seca Virtual Raceway


Enjoy!

[Goresh]

Punko Seca Maybe Oleg will see this and offer to get it into Heat.