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Program Announcements / Roswell Racer - Final build

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Chris K
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Location: Lake Hylia
Posted: 7th Jan 2004 20:43
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Ok - well I think I got the worst bugs.

I have a celeron processor - it could be that.
I have an intel graphics card - its probably that.

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xtom
21
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Joined: 26th Aug 2002
Location: Ireland
Posted: 7th Jan 2004 21:19
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Cool game and excellent graphics, very crisp and clear. I didn't get any of the major bugs above but when I fall off the track it resets me very far back from where I fell which is anoying. Also seems hard to catch up with the other drivers. It would have been nice too if you could drive off the track a little which could slow you down. I don't really like the invisible walls along the track. Overall really great game though.
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AlecM
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Location: Concord, MA
Posted: 7th Jan 2004 21:46
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chris can you get more specific? I want to try and re-produce the system your running it on. Ill likely swap out my graphics card and declock my processor.

Intel processor as in extreme graphics 1 or 2? P3 based celeron or p4? im guessing its a intel 810 chipset with a p3 1ghz and the 4mb integrated graphics. Thats way bellow specs for roswell racer but I will see what I can do.

[P4 2.8C @ 3.03 with an 866mhz FSB:: MSI Neo-2LS running PAT:: 1gb Mushkin PC-3500 DDR High Perf level 2@ 2,2,2 :: ATI Radeon9800ProAIW :: 120Gb SeagateBarracuda 7,200RPM SATA HD :: Antec Plus1080AMG]
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Chris K
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Location: Lake Hylia
Posted: 7th Jan 2004 23:11 Edited at: 7th Jan 2004 23:12
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Okaaaaay, I'm not an amazing computer guy so bear with me :-

- 2.5 GHz Celeron processor (I guess that's p4 based)
- 512MB RAM
- Intel® 82845G Graphics Controller (Intel® 845G Chipset Family) (64MB)
- Windows XP Home

I think those are the only stats that matter, right? I'll just use that program to find out exactly.

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AlecM
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Location: Concord, MA
Posted: 8th Jan 2004 07:00 Edited at: 9th Jan 2004 09:57
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hmm. The processor is plenty fast. Video is really slow. I would guess your video cards causing most of the performance loss (indirectly causing bugs). Hoperfully the timer based movement system will be revised at some point. I don't know how interested ESC is...

[P4 2.8C @ 3.03 with an 866mhz FSB:: MSI Neo-2LS running PAT:: 1gb Mushkin PC-3500 DDR High Perf level 2@ 2,2,2 :: ATI Radeon9800ProAIW :: 120Gb SeagateBarracuda 7,200RPM SATA HD :: Antec Plus1080AMG]
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mm0zct
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Location: scotland-uk
Posted: 9th Jan 2004 17:00
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runs fine on mine, great fun. i fell of the ledge once and it lost me the race lol

http://www.larinar.tk
AMD athlon thoroughbred 2200, 512Mb ram, 40Gb HD, ati saphire radeon 9600 atlantis w/128mb ddr ram, good creative-labs soundcard, cd-rw + dvd drives.
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hexGEAR
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Joined: 3rd Nov 2002
Location: Naytonia
Posted: 9th Jan 2004 17:25
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i'm having simillar problems with chris, but yeah, i guess you could blame it on the video card memory, mine is a 16Mb GF2 low (can you upgrade a laptop?) anyways well done guys, terrific game! hope it really pays off in the results

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BarZoule
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Posted: 10th Jan 2004 08:29
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good graphics !
nice music
but on the programming side...
clearly ESC tried to set everything on the timer, but failed to do so correctly.
When the game starts the camera panning and the count down are TERRIBLY slow. The slipping code and the turning one are greatly affected by small timer errors. One nasty thing is the car angle adjustment that makes the car always wanting to turn right. This is really bad for the gameplay.
Some other funny bugs are the Alien going out of the car when turning, the sometimes absent-when-needed collisions and the AI stupidly turning in circle around a way-point.

About the maps : the first is okay, the second okay too, but the last one is deceiving : exactly like the first one but you can't see where you have to go and always end up in the (invisible) walls or in the pit.

All in all, big potential but it feels like the programming department haven't tested things enough and/or hasn't got enough time.

my specs: p3-450Mhz / TNT2-32mb / RAM:320mb
you'll say my specs are too low, but the frame rate is high enough to let me beleive this can be playable (ie >20, would be more if I could set the resolution to 640x480 )

'Klaatu barada nikto'
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QuothTheRaven
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Location: United States
Posted: 10th Jan 2004 08:57
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The last 5 races I started I started either off the track or floating off it. And the car to car collision is pretty jittery, it's pushed me off the track once.

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CPU
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Joined: 4th Jul 2003
Location: Carlsbad, CA
Posted: 15th Jan 2004 22:15
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Q: I've been starting to work on my own racing game and i was wondering how you did the AI for the other cars, I'm assuming you used waypoints but even then how did you handel other parts of AI such as making them try to pick up powerups and such?

CPU

Sparring - Loved by many, Pefected by few.
I'm going to live forever, or DIE IN THE ATTEMPT!!!"
>>>>> Check out my alienwhere progress in the W.I.P folder! <<<<
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ESC_
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Location: Mass.
Posted: 16th Jan 2004 00:14
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I did indeed use waypoints for the AI racers. I had an editor and made it so that you could lay down two sets of waypoints for the racers, and at the beginning of the race they'd randomly pick one. When they approached a pickup, they'de take it and the random powerup value was placed in an array. The enemy would then wait a certain amount of time and use it.

Yo quiero ser anarquia
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Rob K
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Location: Surrey, United Kingdom
Posted: 16th Jan 2004 00:37
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@ESC / Froggermon

I realise you're both very busy people, but any chance of the existing issues being fixed or possibly the source code being released?

I'm not sure how the car is positioned at the start of the level, but it was sometimes quite a way off. I think the easiest option would have been for the editor to allow for different "classes" of entities - start points, race line, waypoints, powerups etc. Then you could always position them accurately and absolutely.

Also, sometimes it seemed as though things were not reset during races - storing as much as possible in types means fewer arrays are needed, which means that you zero fewer arrays > less chance of forgetting.

Overall, I found that the game worked pretty well and didn't experience any major issues (apart from at the end of the race). It was great fun and I'd put this in the top 3 games played thus far.


BlueGUI Plugin:http://blue.robert-knight.net / BlueIDE http://blueide.sf.net-Free Replacement editor for DBPro
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ESC_
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Posted: 16th Jan 2004 02:10
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"I realise you're both very busy people"

Hehe, right

"I'm not sure how the car is positioned at the start of the level, but it was sometimes quite a way off. I think the easiest option would have been for the editor to allow for different "classes" of entities - start points, race line, waypoints, powerups etc. Then you could always position them accurately and absolutely."

Believe it or not, that's actually how I did it, but for some reason, that bug persisted. I'm pretty sure It had to do with the fact that I was also using the free version of NG's collision .dll
I had been having similar problems repositioning the cart after falling in the pit in the Roswell levels, and it took some 'creative' programming to fix

"Also, sometimes it seemed as though things were not reset during races - storing as much as possible in types means fewer arrays are needed, which means that you zero fewer arrays > less chance of forgetting."

Yes, I was afraid I had missed some things with my cleaning function...

"Overall, I found that the game worked pretty well and didn't experience any major issues (apart from at the end of the race). It was great fun and I'd put this in the top 3 games played thus far."

Thanks

As for having the source released, Froggermon had mentioned it as well. I don't really have a problem with giving it out, except it's probably some of the messiest, garbled, unorganized, uncommented code known to man, and I don't want any newbies reading it and getting any bad habits started....

Yo quiero ser anarquia
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Alkaline
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Joined: 4th Dec 2003
Location: Seattle, Washington
Posted: 16th Jan 2004 02:15
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lol

~Adikt Studios, go to the official site at www.Adikt.dbpcommunity.com~
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PiratSS
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Joined: 18th Oct 2002
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Posted: 16th Jan 2004 05:20
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Verry buggy indeed

Dual AMD Athlon MP 2x1GHZ | IBM 15000Rpm SCSI 73.4 Gb X 2 | e-GeForce Ti4400 | Audigy 2 + 7.1 Surround sound | 17' Monitor | Ugly mouse
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walaber
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Location: Los Angeles, CA
Posted: 16th Jan 2004 05:50
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if your source code is that messy, it probably wouldn't really help anyone... since you seem very open to sharing your solutions, just answering questons about the theory behind the programming solutions would probably be more helpful for everyone. like explaining simply how you did the AI, or the car physics, etc.

I guess you already did explain the car AI though

by the way, fantastic game!! I didn't experience any of the bugs mentioned here so much!

Go Go Gadget DBPRO!
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Rob K
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Joined: 10th Sep 2002
Location: Surrey, United Kingdom
Posted: 16th Jan 2004 21:13
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Quote: "As for having the source released, Froggermon had mentioned it as well. I don't really have a problem with giving it out, except it's probably some of the messiest, garbled, unorganized, uncommented code known to man, and I don't want any newbies reading it and getting any bad habits started..."


Don't worry about that - the examples which come with DBPro will teach newbies all the bad habits they will ever need. - We are all doing this as a hobby after all.
The reason I would like to see the source code is so that I could have a go at making various tweaks and improving the game. With some tweaking this could be made into a pretty useful racing engine.


BlueGUI Plugin:http://blue.robert-knight.net / BlueIDE http://blueide.sf.net-Free Replacement editor for DBPro
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CPU
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Location: Carlsbad, CA
Posted: 16th Jan 2004 22:24
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He he, i think its kinda funny someone else used the free NGdll, i used it for my entry as well, a FPS tho

Sparring - Loved by many, Pefected by few.
I'm going to live forever, or DIE IN THE ATTEMPT!!!"
>>>>> Check out my alienwhere progress in the W.I.P folder! <<<<
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AlecM
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Location: Concord, MA
Posted: 18th Jan 2004 00:44 Edited at: 18th Jan 2004 00:45
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RobK
ESC and I decided we will continue work on roswell racer. I think ESC needs a bit of a breather though. Bugs will be fixed and gameplay should get MUCH better. Also im thinking of some more tracks and have some good ideas to make the current tracks much better. Overall we will polish every thing out much further, grapics, sound, and gameplay.

[P4 2.8C @ 3.03 with an 866mhz FSB:: MSI Neo-2LS running PAT:: 1gb Mushkin PC-3500 DDR High Perf level 2@ 2,2,2 :: ATI Radeon9800ProAIW :: 120Gb SeagateBarracuda 7,200RPM SATA HD :: Antec Plus1080AMG]
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Rpg Cyco
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Posted: 18th Jan 2004 00:57
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Thats great to hear! I will download the current version when I get billed for my Internet service next. I'm over my download limit, lol.

l8ter

Rpg Cyco

http://www.rpgcyco.net | brad@rpgcyco.net
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Rob K
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Posted: 18th Jan 2004 01:01
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@Froggermon

That's great to hear - Roswell Racer is certainly one of the best looking DBPro games - but do take a break


BlueGUI Plugin:http://blue.robert-knight.net / BlueIDE http://blueide.sf.net-Free Replacement editor for DBPro
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Jedive
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Location: Spain
Posted: 18th Jan 2004 14:45
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The screenshots look fantastic! Downloading right now!

== Jedive ==
AthlonXP 1600+, 512MB, GeForce4200, Win2K/DX9, Mandrake Linux 9.1
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AlecM
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Posted: 19th Jan 2004 03:49
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jedive - it will likely be horrible buggy for you. Unless your running near 60fps the bugs come out. I have finally been able to re-create alot of these bugs using FRAPS. When recording with fraps my framerate drops to around 20 and everything goes to hell

[P4 2.8C @ 3.03 with an 866mhz FSB:: MSI Neo-2LS running PAT:: 1gb Mushkin PC-3500 DDR High Perf level 2@ 2,2,2 :: ATI Radeon9800ProAIW :: 120Gb SeagateBarracuda 7,200RPM SATA HD :: Antec Plus1080AMG]
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Dostej
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Posted: 20th Jan 2004 18:31
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I have seen you are using the audiere.dll. Would you give me the dll-calls for these dll. (maybe functions or so). This would be easier to use it for me, cos I´m not so top with dll´s.
Or can you give me a link where I can found the dll calls for DBPro.
(I have the audiere .dll found on the homepage already

GALACTIC X - A very early demo is now available - comments very welcome - http://www.angelfire.com/droid/galacticx/
also my IDE - jaPROe and some snippets
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ESC_
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Posted: 21st Jan 2004 02:23
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Sure. This plug-in was actually made by MushroomHead to interface the the audiere .dll (I think):
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/ravnit.singh/audiere.exe

Yo quiero ser anarquia
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AlecM
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Posted: 21st Jan 2004 05:12
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You know what i just realized? because of the fact that mike and lee couldnt beat any the first level they never had to see the poor track ending problem with the overlaying text

[P4 2.8C @ 3.03 with an 866mhz FSB:: MSI Neo-2LS running PAT:: 1gb Mushkin PC-3500 DDR High Perf level 2@ 2,2,2 :: ATI Radeon9800ProAIW :: 120Gb SeagateBarracuda 7,200RPM SATA HD :: Antec Plus1080AMG]
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walaber
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Posted: 21st Jan 2004 06:24
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lol

yeah it seems like the didn't get past the first level in any of the games

judging from my screenshot, they played my game for about 3~5 minutes

Go Go Gadget DBPRO!
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niels ripper
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Posted: 23rd Jan 2004 06:52
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its good except mine starts in a weird place and it goes extremely slow . once i start is goes very crazy and fast. when i press a direction it will go extremely hard turn that way. but i have to say the graphics are absolutely amazing on that game
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Benjamin
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Posted: 23rd Jan 2004 15:57
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strange, the second level is easyer than the first..

Benjamin R Wharton
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AlecM
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Posted: 23rd Jan 2004 20:38
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petrat: It can be. We had little to no time to playtest and the difficulty can be a bit random

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AluminumPork
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Location: Duluth, MN, USA
Posted: 23rd Jan 2004 23:32
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Hmm... I am truely amazed by the graphics. So crisp. I honestly didn't encounter any of the bugs that have been mentioned, besides being placed in a totally different direction than I should after falling into the pit on the first course. I thought the collision was just fine, but it seemed at though when you crossed the bridge in the first course that you could bounce off the railings without touching them. Oh yeah, I'm not sure if this happens all the time, but I pressed Esc for the in-game menu and then clicked Return to Game, but lost the engine sound effects.

Other than that, perfect. The menu music is AWESOME. Good work.

My system stats are below in my sig.

P4 2.4Ghz HT, 512MB RAM, ATI Radeon 9600 128MB, 19" Viewsonic, 80GB HD, 48x12X48 CD-RW, 16X DVD-ROM
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