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Count me in.... I've got tons of things in my head and I don't want to forget to feel free to ping me in Telegram all you can! 

Just updated my binary and been quickly testing it (the stable one). I didn't notice anything like the barn issue. If I notice anything similar, I'll save the reply too!

Hi, @HerrNove. Yes, I definitely need to rewrite CarWorks. Unfortunately, I did something I never do when I wrote CarWorks: I used an external library. Now I don't remember where to put the files and how to compile them together anymore, so I can't build it. The library was only used to be able to load and save image formats other than BMP and TGA. What I would have to do is see where it is used and just remove that feature... or have it call ImageMagick instead if available.

The libraries required by FreeBasic I usually get by trying repeatedly to build a program that does graphics. It'll tell me, for example, that it's missing X11, then I do sudo apt install libx11-dev. I try again, then it says it's missing xrender, so I do sudo apt install libxrender-dev and so on until it works. One of the libraries... I don't remember which... you don't have to add the "-dev". But still, you're going to have problems because it will ask you for FBImage. The only way out is to, like I said, find where the code uses it and "unplug" it. I no longer remember how to compile it and I don't remember my own code very well any more either.

Hey!  Welcome, @Xavier!  Indeed, before I met Stunts, I had also come across a Hard Drivin' arcade like what @Duplode mentions and when I got Stunts, I initially thought it was a version of the same game. I remember the Hard Drivin' arcade had something very unique: when nobody was playing and it was in demo mode, the steering wheel would move following the replay actions. Could this be the one you saw?

Hey, Erik. stpeek.com is a DOS TSR program. You need to run it in the DOSBox environment before calling Stunts. For it to work, you'll need to use the binary I provided because each binary has a different offset for the memory, so I'll need to generate a new TSR for each otherwise. I found this one to be relatively light, since the idea is using external graphics

Well, I've tested this with my 3D engine and it works. The speed is not great, but I know there's a lot to optimise there. Some things that can be done with this:

- Show a map of all pipsqueaks in a live race. Note that this does not require changing live racing rules. You'll see when somebody does crash recovery and it'll be like going through pits: other pipsqueaks take over, but then they'll need to stop too. Perfectly normal
- Render the 3D race from any position live. You'll be able to move around and see how a live race is going
- Race with Stunts running, but looking at my renderer screen instead. This implies you can see other pipsqueaks. Some things need to be improve for this to be practical. It's doing some 10 FPS now and wheels still don't look good, but apart from that, it does work, so I intend to measure how much speed is being lost at each layer and then work to optimise
- Practise and create replays while seeing your ghost car from your previous replay. Thanks @alanrotoi for pointing this one out. This again requires some work as described previously
- Have the server automatically monitor where cars are and broadcast which lap each one is on as well as other data
- Allow a race manager to live monitor a replay as it's being produced to confirm authorship later. This one I'm not super enthusiastic about, but it's something that will become possible, so I just wanted to point out that I'm aware of it. In this sense, replay handling could also be controlled. There are some caveats, though: it's impossible to tell if the data you're getting is coming for a replay being played, so you need to have a new track, same thing we do on live races nowadays

He, he... yes. This is more a curiousity than anything at this point. The actual good use for this will be in live races, I think

Wow!  I rarely see these tricks coming. I'm too naïve at Stunts. One very curious thing about Stunts tournaments is that the spectacular tricks and the weirdness that fascinated us when we first got to know Stunts and that made us choose this game in the first place end up being the things we ultimately have to reject in order to have a functioning competition. The more predictable and natural replays are, the more well-behaved and accepted a race is, even if that can make it a little more boring, that is, more like other car games. If Stunts were like those games, would it have been able to compete?

Anyway, I'm not saying we should just let this happen. I agree there has to be a rule to prevent it. I just can't help thinking there should be a way to balance things so that we would occasionally (not all the time) come across the things that make Stunts unique. We haven't been able to achieve this with PG alone, so I guess it must be super hard to do it in general. What I mean with PG is our attempts to prevent PG being always there have caused the Indy to almost never be there and has forced it to only be there when PG is possible, two things that are quite opposite from what we wanted. For DWS, I guess the easy solution is to just not provide two paths when creating tracks. Sad... ha, ha.

  That's a dream to write a book about!

Ha, ha!  Nice! 

Hi, folks!  I've been wanting to do something for a very long time and I thought it was too hard and I didn't have much time, but recently, I decided to try and found I could very well do it. I've already told a few about this, but anyway... here it goes.

In the shared zip file, you will find:
- A DOS TSR program called stpeek.com
- A FreeBasic program called watchpeek.bas and its Debian-based GNU/Linux 64 bit binary as well as its Windows executable
- One of the Stunts builds we're currently using, stuntsp.exe

I'm sharing my binary of Stunts because what I've done currently only works with this binary. I can investigate a little and make it compatible with others, but generally, I can't make it compatible with "any" Stunts binary. It'd be a matter of selecting a few official ones later. So with this one, it works.

To try this, you copy stpeek.com into some directory that will be accessible to you while you're running DOSBox. For example, it could go into the directory of Stunts. I like having Stunts under c:\games\stunts when I start DOSBox and I put this TSR at C:\, but it'll work in any case. Then, you run watchpeek and it will show some numbers. For now, press a key and it will ask you for the path to a track file. Provide the path and it'll display a very crude and bad looking map of that track. Run DOSBox, then stpeek.com. It'll create a file at C:\ (relative to DOSBox) called LIVEDUMP.DAT, so make sure something is mounted at C:\. Then run stunts with stuntsp.exe. Ensure you can see both the DOSBox and the watchpeek windows at the same time and get in to drive a track. You should be able to see your dot following the track. If something fails, please tell me. I would like to see this tested in different environments.

Of course, the whole purpose of this isn't just to have a track map. I can plug this output into anything, for example, my 3D engine. Also, I can create a small server program to gather data from all pipsqueaks that connect to it and you'd be able to see all together on the same track map or in the same 3D realm. See what I mean?  I'll be testing these things soon, but I need to do some calibration to enhance how this works.

Currently, the "connection" is made via disk. The TSR writes to the file within DOSBox and the watcher picks it up by reading the file over and over again. This is not very nice. You can make it better by mounting a RAM drive to run Stunts, but I found that even with a slow hard disk, it's sufficiently fast. I am considering other ways of sending the data outside DOSBox.

Let me know your thoughts!

Alain Il Professore

1. 1:21.60 (1:21.60)
2. 2:36.45 (1:14.85)
3. 3:52.75 (1:16.30)
4. 5:05.85 (1:13.10) - Best lap!
5. 6:23.90 (1:18.05)
6. 7:42.50 (1:18.60)

8:00 in between the ramp down the bridge and the first banked road

Done!

Ah!  This same weekend!  Well, I do have a gathering here, but I think they'll arrive later, so there shouldn't be a problem. If possible, I'd like to pick the yellow one

Fantasy