The glitch is after you drive 10 minutes straight in BB Stunts 1.1 & MS '91/2/25 the game will freeze unlike BB Stunts 1.0 & MS' 90/12/13 releases. After 10 minutes, the versions above will not prompt you if you want to continue driving, but the versions below will do this. And I tested for GAME.PRE/GAME.RES issue -> It isn't, because using GAME.RES from Stunts 1.1 with the 4-D version, the game will prompt you, but using the other way around (4-D GAME.PRE in Stunts 1.1 as Stunts 1.0 is incompatible) will freeze anyway. So, I discovered partial compatibility with 4-D Sports Driving and Stunts 1.1, but that is another topic
Here is a proof using 4-D Sports Driving with the Hungarian translated Stunts 1.1 GAME.RES file
At the second attachment you can see, tha Stunts 1.0 GAME.PRE is incompatible with Stunts 1.1 but 4-D Sports Driving GAME.PRE is compatible with it
What I can say is that I made a test a couple of years ago with Stunts 1.1 on a different matter and it involved driving past 10 minutes and I don't remember the game having crashed. But probably I should test it again in my computer and see what happens. What I was trying to check was the following:
Stunts 1.0 has a replay format different from that of Stunts 1.1. The latter includes a byte that's always set at 20, which is the number of frames per second and I know this because, if you change it, the rate at which input frames are read from the replay file changes. Sometimes, when a replay is recorded in an old computer that's too slow (like has happened with Stan 286XT), replay auto-submission fails because Stunts runs the game at 10 frames per second on slow computers and apparently saves the replays using this instead, causing replay length to no longer represent the lap with the same basic equation. I knew that at 20 frames per second, you could drive up to 10 minutes, so I guessed that, if you were at 10 frames per second, you would be able to drive up to 20 minutes and get it all recorded as it would take the same number of bytes. So I tested what happened. If I remember correctly, my test on that rate caused a crash, but a prior test on 20fps did not.
Now I'm thinking... is it possible that it was because of this bug and not because of the frame rate? After all, my memories of driving for very long periods of time are mostly from the early days I had Stunts, which was version 1.0. Worth testing again!
I'm gonna try driving with 10 FPS. Stunts 1.0 lets through, the Stunts 1.1 will freeze (Don't be confused with the image above, that's the Stunts 1.0 GAME.PRE with Stunts 1.1)
Yes, using slow simulation speed the game allowed 20 minutes, but in the 13th minute, the car's engine sound became corrupted, at the 14th minute, the timer was removed, so I didn't know, when will the game freeze. This was a bit scary, but did the test anyway.
About the removed timer, I attached a screenshot below
According to replays, this happens, when you load the replay made in slow simulation, change its speed to slow again, then load it. I'm uploading my replay file here, so you can mess around it
I never had problems with driving long tracks. I had one insane long track that took about 45 minutes to complete.
I could not enter the replay though. I thought it was a memory probleem for long replays. Never thought about the replay file..
Send me that track please, I want to test the behavior of 4-D Sports Driving, and Stunts 1.0
HELENS.TRK is just too short, and it's boring driving LM-002 for the fourth time
4-D Sports Driving allows more than 20 minutes
Quote from: GTAMan18 on March 09, 2021, 04:54:00 PM
Send me that track please,
I don't have it anymore. Lost everything twice in my life. But the long tracks all originated from JTK.
Although I could have had a hand in it myself to .
ULTIMA isn't long enough -> Done in 18 minutes, but I want to push the game beyond its limits
Check these..
I found a 20 mins track, but will need to find longer. Or perhaps I'll make the LONGEST Stunts track ever
Take one of the live races. You can drive the lap endlessly because start/finish is on a side track.
Intended to drive with Lamborghini LM-002
Thank to Cas' Bliss, I could copy paste the elements I spent 10 minutes to make a single row of
Of course you can do it with the 20 min track as well if you want less repetitiveness...
Looks like 25 mins is the limit. I'm not done the track yet, but the game won't allow me to continue driving
Did the game force you to stop driving? Or did you enter the replay file and played until the end?
The game forced me to stop driving
Tomorrow I'll try with 10 FPS too. This will likely 50 minutes of racing.
Conclusion: In normal simulation mode, Stunts 1.0, and 4-D Sports Driving lets you drive for 25 minutes, but Stunts 1.1 and 4D Sports Driving freezes after 10 minutes (After 20 minutes with 10 FPS mode). The question is: Why? Is this a bug with Stunts 1.1 source code?
Yes, the maximum is 25 minutes, since technically it would be 27:18.35 (32767 frames * 0.05 seconds/frame), then the time would overflow to -27:18.40 (-32768 frames * 0.05 seconds/frame, using 16-bit signed integers), with 25.00:00 being the nearest "sufficiently rounded" lower number; see here (http://zak.stunts.hu/index.php?page=newsarc&year=2018&month=5) and here (http://forum.stunts.hu/index.php?topic=3409.msg72638#msg72638).
That is a good explanation! We should test it with precise time measurement to verify if this is so. Also, we have to take into account that Stunts uses the old BIOS timer so one "second" in Stunts is surely not exactly equal to one real second. For a short replay, this isn't noticeable, but if you're driving for so long the odds are you'll find some discrepancy between an external, more precise clock and the internal time. The one that should break at exactly the value mentioned by Afullo is the internal clock, so it should display that time in the replay menu if it were possible to go there. Therefore, if measured only with an external clock, we can't be sure of how many frames were actually counted.
One thing we can do is measure how much "real time" it takes for Stunts to record a reachable, but large and well defined amount of time like, for example, eight minutes. Then extrapolate to estimate the actual number of frames when it crashes. It makes sense that the crash occurs as a sudden freeze with no system collapse, which would be the natural thing if it were a For loop starting from a negative number. I'm guessing that, if you were to wait for another 27 minutes to pass, the game would suddenly unfreeze and begin to overwrite the old frames. On the other hand, if it does crash with an error, it meas it is capable of overwriting at "negative" addresses relative to the segment where the frames are being stored.
Following afullo's reasoning, I wouldn't be surprised if the 25 minutes limit were explicitly set in the code as 30000 frames. That would be similar to how the speed limit is set as 245 mph, with a little cushion before the unsigned overflow at 256/65536.
If we could unlock these limits and could drive for infinite amounts of time
I'd race for a day :D
Quote from: GTAMan18 on March 10, 2021, 09:37:08 AM
If we could unlock these limits and could drive for infinite amounts of time
I'd race for a day :D
The 24h of LeStunts
That would be one hell of a live race....
Something like that could be arranged. Or something a little smaller to try. For example, a pipsqueak plays the first 8 minutes in a way similar to that of LeStunts, then the other the pipsqueak in the "live team" is prepared to take over. When the first pipsqueak finishes, the second one starts and the first sends the replay for quick verification and so on. Maybe this could extend up to an hour. The problem is what to do with the partial laps.
Hit escape at 8 min send replay to number 2, then upload it to forum. Nr2 continues on same replay then sends to 3 and uploads to forum. Number 3 drives until the 24 mark and uploads.
Or, 6 minutes 4 people.
That won't work for more than 25 min. But no partial laps..
It could work with the versions of Stunts allowing to get past the 10 minutes threshold, since as shown in May 2018 the latest 10 minutes of race are stored in the replay. So, the partial (6 or 8 minutes) replays can be posted separately and checked after the end of the race.
Amiga version is the same -> 25 minutes limit with all two simulation speeds
Quote from: Daniel3D on March 09, 2021, 09:20:20 PM
Take one of the live races. You can drive the lap endlessly because start/finish is on a side track.
This is gonna off topic, but the opponents are completely idiots in Stunts 1.1, this track proves it. In Stunts 1.0, they can drive actually
Quote from: GTAMan18 on March 11, 2021, 04:50:50 PM
Quote from: Daniel3D on March 09, 2021, 09:20:20 PM
Take one of the live races. You can drive the lap endlessly because start/finish is on a side track.
This is gonna off topic, but the opponents are completely idiots in Stunts 1.1, this track proves it. In Stunts 1.0, they can drive actually
Which track?
Quote from: Daniel3D on March 11, 2021, 06:24:15 PM
Quote from: GTAMan18 on March 11, 2021, 04:50:50 PM
Quote from: Daniel3D on March 09, 2021, 09:20:20 PM
Take one of the live races. You can drive the lap endlessly because start/finish is on a side track.
This is gonna off topic, but the opponents are completely idiots in Stunts 1.1, this track proves it. In Stunts 1.0, they can drive actually
Which track?
CACTUS.TRK
Quote from: GTAMan18 on March 11, 2021, 06:58:33 PM
Quote from: Daniel3D on March 11, 2021, 06:24:15 PM
Quote from: GTAMan18 on March 11, 2021, 04:50:50 PM
Quote from: Daniel3D on March 09, 2021, 09:20:20 PM
Take one of the live races. You can drive the lap endlessly because start/finish is on a side track.
This is gonna off topic, but the opponents are completely idiots in Stunts 1.1, this track proves it. In Stunts 1.0, they can drive actually
Which track?
CACTUS.TRK
:o that's curious.....
You mean my track, the one I made for LeStunts, that I called Cactus Madness or something similar?
Quote from: Cas on March 11, 2021, 08:25:26 PM
You mean my track, the one I made for LeStunts, that I called Cactus Madness or something similar?
Yes, it seems that opponents in 1.0 can drive it but in 1.1 opponents can't...
Uhm... maybe opponent AIs were designed when 1.0 was made and not properly updated when 1.1 was released so opponents sometimes don't "expect" the behaviour of some cars and that's why they fail. Just guessing
Sometimes? Even after restarting the race? Still crashing into the tunnel. Also with the Porsche March Indy, which isn't an addon car
Quote from: GTAMan18 on March 12, 2021, 11:00:26 PM
Sometimes? Even after restarting the race? Still crashing into the tunnel. Also with the Porsche March Indy, which isn't an addon car
The Indy was updated in 1.1. that's why the contest car was created for 1.0
So the contest car should give a similar result in 1.0
As the Indy does in 1.1...
I know it, but 4-D Sports Driving had this version before
Quote from: GTAMan18 on March 12, 2021, 11:07:32 PM
I know it, but 4-D Sports Driving had this version before
I'm not sure we're on the same page here.
But in 1.1 versions the Indy is faster. But I think ai opponents expect it to be like the 1.0 version causing the issue you mentioned.
Quote from: GTAMan18 on March 12, 2021, 11:00:26 PM
Sometimes? Even after restarting the race? Still crashing into the tunnel. Also with the Porsche March Indy, which isn't an addon car
But that's what I think on the basis of the general understanding of the game versions. It's not based on testing on my part. Although I have consulted with JTK's research from the past.
http://stunts.kalpen.de/indyeval.htm (http://stunts.kalpen.de/indyeval.htm)
Quote from: GTAMan18 on March 10, 2021, 10:18:56 PM
Amiga version is the same -> 25 minutes limit with all two simulation speeds
Even the NEC PC-9801. FM Towns version is worse, because it only allows 13 mins and 56 seconds, after that, you'll be dropped to the high scores table
I don't know which version of DOS Stunts I have on disks (the version I currently have installed is off the internet), but growing up, my retail copy would always lock up when the timer flipped to 10 minutes. It didn't bother me that much at the time because almost all tracks I designed and the stock tracks could be easily completed in under 10 minutes. I'd only ever reach 10 minutes if I was fooling around or had made a very convoluted track that wasn't much fun to play anyway. I just figured that the game designers never thought anyone would race on one track for more than 10 minutes.
I'd actually never heard of the pop up screen asking if I wanted to continue racing until seeing this topic just now.
You either had BB Stunts 1.1 or MS 4D Sports Driving 1.1 (1991-2-25)
Looks like I had Stunts 1.1 I remember being able to crash into the roof of tunnels, having opponent tracks, and driving on top of tunnels, which seem to be features that weren't in 1.0 My retail copy said "Stunts" all over it rather than "4D Sports Driving" and was published by Broderbund.
I did have Stunts 1.0 and I do remember the pop up because I liked making super long tracks ;D At the time, I didn't try to make good laps. I rather loved playing Stunts as an endurance game. The idea was trying to finish the track without crashing. So my tracks had lots of obstacles, such as buildings in between ramps.
Another way in which I would enjoy to play Stunts was to purposedly cause interesting crashes. My favourite ones were those in which the car ended up flying very high or spinning in very weird ways or those in which the opponent was involved. I discovered that, if I had the opponent crash first, then I could approach slowly and touching the opponent's car would either cause an immediate crash or I'd be shot up into the sky. I'd often first get stuck there and have to accelerate until one of those two things happened. Not sure if this can be done with Stunts 1.1.