Releases

[fudje]

IMO anything done to make keyboard work better should be done in controls, not physics.

[portets]

A grep for Dick Maurer gives(TL creator):
C7
CO
M8
MC
MI
SB
TL
TL2
XG

Are they GPL?

i am almost positive that he said everything he released is under gpl. it was in a post here from a long while back. i hope i'm not wrong though..

[thelusiv]

i am almost positive that he said everything he released is under gpl. it was in a post here from a long while back. i hope i'm not wrong though..

Maybe you could find the post? Search for author "kcid"... http://vdrift.net/Forum/search.php

[Timo 6]

In http://vdrift.net/Forum/viewtopic.php?t=...c&start=15 kcid says

To come back to licensing. I've deleted the license files for the cars/tracks I've made. They are all GPL so the COPYING/License file of Vdrift itself will do fine, that way there won't be a problem with Debian etc.

The parkinglot is progressing fine.

Important bit in bold.

[NaN]

OK, guys. The suspension issue(rollover) is actually a tire model problem. I've switched to Pacejka 89 to fix the take off on curbs bug but got rollover instead. I guess using 96 ? parameters with 89 equation is not a good idea. Though I am not even sure if the original equation is the 96 version.

Just an idea but maybe we should scrap the Pacejka stuff and use a simpler more accessible tire model.

[thelusiv]

Just an idea but maybe we should scrap the Pacejka stuff and use a simpler more accessible tire model.

While that sounds way simpler in the long run, and is more like what most every other driving sim game does these days, it might be several weeks before such a project is completed. What do you think, how big a job is it?

If we could get to a point that is at least as good as the last release, it may be good to go ahead and push a release out and put the tire issue down as a "known issue" with the release notes.

[NaN]

Maybe restrict max camber to about 15 or 30 degrees. Have to look what values work without going haywire on curbs.

[joevenzon]

Maybe restrict max camber to about 15 or 30 degrees. Have to look what values work without going haywire on curbs.

That sounds reasonable -- a short term workaround is fine for now.

Just an idea but maybe we should scrap the Pacejka stuff and use a simpler more accessible tire model.

One possible reference for a simpler equation:
http://phors.locost7.info/phors29.htm

[NaN]

I've checked in a "fix". Tested with CS on weekend and ring2007.

The cars from the last release should be OK:
350Z, 360, CO, CS, F1, G4, LE, M7, MC, MI, SV, T73, TC6, TL2, XS

There is a minor GUI artifact to be fixed. The in-game GUI is masked by HUD (draworder).

[joevenzon]

If you mean the text from the HUD drawing over the in-game pause menu background, that's been happening for a while and in my opinion isn't a release stopper.

[NaN]

If there is nothing else I am OK with a release.

BTW it would be great if we had the binaries before the official announcement for testing.

[thelusiv]

NaN, since you are developing on Windows, will you be doing the Windows packaging? I don't have any MS installs with which to do that. I suppose I could maybe setup a VM, but I imagine you already have most everything setup and could do it more quickly.

I will be working on packages for source + Linux binary very soon. Today and tomorrow I'm fairly busy but later in the week I will have more time, and by Sunday I should have the package building process automated, plus packages ready to test.

[NaN]

Joe is doing the Windows builds.

[progman]

Hi, it seems that the next release is warming up quickly, so before you do it i'd like to point out some aspects.

1: Why the game is so slow even with hardware that runs latest CoD, Crysis, NFS ?
except small tracks, medium and big ones sunk the machine.
despite the fact that render is done directly by opengl, the performance is too bad.
disabling the shaders reduce the stress and makes those big tracks playable, but the particle effect is still there and looks like a big white cloud that covers the view !

2: The coordinate system is a serious issue, as i understood, you're making a right-handed systems: OpenGL, Bullet work with left-handed data asset.
I don't think it's the best approch. it's better to transform once during the load process than to tweak the render and dynamic systems upside down every frame.

3: The car model parts and the materials(textures) should not be hardcoded, but instead specified in the definition file. in fact, what is the purpose of a separate glass model, or what if i want my car to be all-in-one, or what if i don't whant the cubemap reflection inside the car(as it is now!)

4: Merge the track definition files to a single one and should be in XML format, as with car and why not the settings, configs and all the human readable files.

5: Is there a way to completely separate the game engine from the render system, some kind of virtualization or abstraction.

6: Last but not least: why the damn handbrake is not working ?

This list is not exaustive, i'll submit more comming days.
thanks.

PS.
I forgot the most important ! Why you still using that ugly SCON build system !?
there are too many simple, elegant, portable and efficient build systems out there.

[thelusiv]

Hi, it seems that the next release is warming up quickly, so before you do it i'd like to point out some aspects.

Hi, welcome and thanks for your feedback progman. You have brought up a lot of topics and many of them deserve a full thread, or have a thread already.

1: Why the game is so slow even with hardware that runs latest CoD, Crysis, NFS ?
except small tracks, medium and big ones sunk the machine.
despite the fact that render is done directly by opengl, the performance is too bad.

Please quantify this:

• What hardware exactly?
  
• What platform/OS?
  
• What rendering settings are you using in VDrift and in other games?

Is your issue anything like this? http://vdrift.net/Forum/viewtopic.php?t=1374

disabling the shaders reduce the stress and makes those big tracks playable, but the particle effect is still there and looks like a big white cloud that covers the view !

Please provide a screenshot - this sounds like a known bug with the 2010-06-30 release: http://vdrift.net/Forum/viewtopic.php?t=1367

2: The coordinate system is a serious issue, as i understood, you're making a right-handed systems: OpenGL, Bullet work with left-handed data asset.
I don't think it's the best approch. it's better to transform once during the load process than to tweak the render and dynamic systems upside down every frame.

You're correct, the coordinate system is right-handed. Can you point out in the code where you feel the coordinate system conversion is deteriorating performance? Please make a new thread.

3: The car model parts and the materials(textures) should not be hardcoded, but instead specified in the definition file. in fact, what is the purpose of a separate glass model, or what if i want my car to be all-in-one, or what if i don't whant the cubemap reflection inside the car(as it is now!)

Please comment here:
http://vdrift.net/Forum/viewtopic.php?t=1427

4: Merge the track definition files to a single one and should be in XML format, as with car and why not the settings, configs and all the human readable files.

If you have a compelling argument for XML please present it in a separate thread. Back when the .config file format was written, Joe & I both disliked XML for several reasons (bloated, ugly, hard to manage, needs extra libs, VDrift does not have a great need for things like XSLT).

5: Is there a way to completely separate the game engine from the render system, some kind of virtualization or abstraction.

Of course there is, and development has slowly been moving in the direction of decoupling subsystems for a while now. It's a lot of work, so the GAME class is still quite large.

6: Last but not least: why the damn handbrake is not working ?

This belongs in the bugs forum, what release are you using?

This list is not exaustive, i'll submit more comming days.
thanks.

Thanks again for your input. Please create separate threads so that each issue can be discussed separately from others.

I forgot the most important ! Why you still using that ugly SCON build system !?
there are too many simple, elegant, portable and efficient build systems out there.

Which build system would you use and how would it be better? Again, please create a new thread.