Inner working of Hard Driving, Race Drivin and Foerst Nürburgring?

[CYBERYOGI -CO-Windler]

I see people are reverse engineering the Stunts program code. Are there any projects about the technically similar Hard Drivin series (or even the elusive Foerst Nürburgring)?

Their relation to professional training simulators suggest that they may have hidden modes and features for designing own levels or activate other undocumented things. E.g. the Hard Drivin arcade machine has fully simulated dashboard gauges those look like when there may be much more under the hood. The cockpit version has zooming pixel sprite rocks at the road sides despite there are no other sprites anywhere, nor they exist in the compact version nor Race Drivin. Possibly the team experimented with textures but dropped it by too slow CPU. You can not only roll over road signs or the mooing cow. Details like the long scrolling blue multi-page staff screens in demo mode, the extensive service menus and error messages express that the creators where proud of it and not just did a boring work to rule job.

I wrote more about them here:
https://forum.stunts.hu/index.php?topic=4155.0

- Has anybody analyzed any of these games further?

(Later arcade driving games like Namco's "RidgeRacer" look much more polished and almost glitch free, but lack this experimental eager. Their algorithm just pulls you back onto road by force if you try out any nonsense.)

[Duplode]

Hello and welcome, Cybeyogi! No such project for other racing sims of the era has reached my radar so far. One thing we do know is that the tooling made for the data formats of Stunts can also be used to varying extents with other DSI games, including Mario Andretti's Racing Challenge (which is similar enough to Stunts for it being feasible to e.g. import car graphics from it).

(And yeah, the small details can tell a lot about a game, and are lovely to find. As far as Stunts goes, the corner signs are one I particularly like  Also, as told in your site, those Foerst Nürburgring games make for a fascinating story I had no idea about!)

[CYBERYOGI -CO-Windler]

I remember that in 1980th science tv docus there were footage of serious driving simulators, those 3D graphics made gamers and computer freaks jaw drop, because these were far more advanced than contemporary homecomputers and arcade machines. Unfortunately there is barely info available about the Foerst Nürburgring series. It would be exciting to emulate at least the graphics engine of the early models - and be it only for art purpose. The most comprehensive document I could find is the official company history.

https://www.fahrsimulatoren.eu/images/pdf/Foerst-Firmenhistorie.pdf

This I wrote about it on the MAME forum.
https://forums.bannister.org/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=121096#Post121096

I tried hard to make sense of the technical descriptions, have read patent texts and conclude which photos and screenshots belong to which model, which seems a bit messed up and not always easy to identify. I wrote an essay with an abstract of the history and concluded capabilities of the individual hardware platforms and some relations to other driving simulators and games (see attachment).