Messages

Duplode? Will you join?

Slightly hesitant due to possible lack of time... but I won't miss it! After all, USC deadlines will be postponed for a reason  .

Now Fredericia is quite an amusing name - should it mean land of Frederick ?

Sure, we'll be waiting!

Funny, I feel I also miscalculated my opponents 1st chepoint performance, only in the other direction  .

Fine, I guess - not like penalty can be assigned if you don't try to finish the race anyway...

Anyway I would be glad to see Duplode on the track.

Actually I gave this beauty a try, but it seemed pure hell (I still have to learn...). The Online-Help gave me some inspiration, but, four days from deadline, I doubt I'll get to a time worth sending. Thus, USC will be yet another contest I'll debut three months late 

Just reminding: if all else fails, you should consider System Restore... often it works wonders  .

#1, or whatever helps to keep the competition healthy (and Zak is most likely the best guy to listen in this respect). The rulings can be fine-tuned later on, as to avoid never-ending races or excess parallel tracks. As Krys mentioned, a good time to switch would be when ideas for special rules run out (forecast for about... October?). And finally, if you pardon the unelegant (as of now) outsider intromission , I do not see you drivers giving up ZSC... as for this newbie, I hadn't even the chance to join!!

Well, congrats to Mark for his KILLER time, and to Krys and Abu as well! As for me, I'm very flattered with my position... Eagerly waiting for Mark's replay, and for CTG's comments  .

Brillant race, congratulations to all involved! Aside from Krys vs. CTG, the deciding sector was the third one, simpler more pressing in terms of clean cornering... Oh yes, the last-grasp attack of CTG vas very bold  , reagrdless of actual position!

Wow, unexpected twist!

Also, lack of concentration is a pain (though influenza doesn't hep much, I reckon). Guess I'll have just a single last chance before deadline...

Good news and bad news - the good one is I *might* have found a solution for the bug, the bad beign it would involve a slight rule change... Similar problems I had while trying to build a weird dual-way (actually dual-sense) track (problems which also were car-dependent) motivated a couple tests on ZCT75. Results of my laps were (on my XP/DOSBox system, this could be system-dependent as well):

*Acura NSX vs. Clock : Lap does not end
*Acura NSX vs. Otto's NSX : Lap does not end either
*Indy vs. Otto's Indy : Lap does not end as well
*Indy vs. Clock : Something even weirder - I get 0:53 penalty at pitstop!

The penalty was inflicted only when I deviated from the course to run through the spare car - running straight through the pits gave no penalty at all. Seeing this, I aborted the lap and reverted to...

*Acura NSX vs. Clock, without driving through spare car : Lap completed!

Heaven knows what the pathfinding engine of Stunts thinks... anyway, a probably working solution would be to cross the pitlane without getting into the spare car. Of course it would shorten the times a couple seconds, but don't think it would be a big problem ATM. And of course, it makes the track less cute... 

If my motherboard does not bust up till then (real possibility...)

Damn. I keep fingers crossed hoping it won't happen to you.

Sooner or later, it will... It stops about a dozen times during boot/XP loading, then runs for some 3-6 hours before freezing/rebooting or going to a blue screen (I've seen about a dozen diferent ones too), and then remaining very unstable till the next day. At least I can borrow another PC at home, so my situation is not that awful if I get to backup in time and get used to a daltonic monitor (Stunts looks rather sad with gray grass, I tell you).

Felt like providing a couple coments DOS-on-XP emulation...  First of all, I'd advise people to avoid VDMSound altoegether. I used it to play under XP since I can remember, and only tried DOSBox around yesterday (for attempting NoRH-SDR). I never considered any performance issues for never having tried anything else. My initial runs unde DOSBox, however, induced me to some testing - I compared Stunts replay clock to my pulse watch results. Thing is, on my Athlon XP 2000+ with 256MB RAM, DOSBox runs on realtime and with reasonable CPU usage (setup at 12000 cycles), whereas VDM was about 9% slower! I feel cheated now... at least now its possible to race ZakStunts (non-Indy) properly! And BTW, if any newbie chooses to try DOSBox, get (from the official site) the D.O.G forntend (or anything similar). It makes the configuration process trivial...

I would like to send a video on this before Sunday's checkpoint (at last I found time to setup DOSBox!). If my motherboard does not bust up till then (real possibility...), there's a fair chance of me getting a decent (for last place, that is!) lap.