Our ReVolt Pub

Posted: **14 Aug 2010, 04:46**

jigebren @ Aug 13 2010, 11:37 PM wrote: Ok, thanks for all your efforts, arto, that's nice (except the typo: Wolf4R instead of WolfR4 ).

Thanks, I fixed it. I'm surprised there wasn't more of those misspellings. I seem to automatically write it as Wolf4R (as in Wolf For Revolt).

Posted: **14 Aug 2010, 08:02**

About custom Battle Tag levels and play stock tracks as Battle Tag:
I see major problems with this.
All posted custom Tags assume folder and files rename to a stock
battle tag level. This has always been a problem with custom Tags.
Some track makers just pack the folder with the stock track folder
name, thus a possible Overwrite of the stock level, or if packed
correctly making the User rename folders.
Also, do to the the nature of Battle Tag using stock tracks as Battle Tag
levels add more problems; they were not designed for tag.
All this should be tested before adding this option to Wolf.

*Edit* How about just naming the damn thing simple: Wolf.
Revolters are a lazy bunch, asking them to type 6 letters instead of
4 might be asking to much of them.

Posted: **14 Aug 2010, 08:47**

Ehm. Custom Battle Tracks don't replace stock ones. They just appear in the battle tag list along with the 4 stock ones.

If existing battle tracks posted are set to overwrite stock ones, it's upto the author to change them.

About playing stock tracks in battle, this is not possible without modifying the tracks and never was mentioned. there is already an option enable all modes for all tracks in wolf, which allows you to load a stock track in battle tag. This is useless as these tracks have no battle stars.
But we could ofcourse update the .fob file of stock tracks with battle stars.

@Jig: The custom stunt and battle track definition and the star progress can be included in the custom.ini itself, why do we need another file(s)?

@Wolf's name: More number of R's = more power. Phoenix has 3 R's. Wolf has 4. If wolf has zero R's, phoenix > wolf. Also, there should be a space between the name of the creature and the R. Source: Greek mythology.

Posted: **14 Aug 2010, 12:53**

arto wrote:Related to Wolf, I'm in the process of adding support for submitting Wolf tracks to RVZT.

Nice to hear about the additions about RVZT, just one question tho. As most of hil's and my tracks already are at RVZT as extreme versions, do you want us to update these zip files (backwards-compatible) or upload them as WolfR4-only tracks?

Posted: **14 Aug 2010, 13:20**

My Wolf enabled tracks are renamed versions of tracks posted here.
For example my Dali track posted here is renamed to WR4-Dali for
the Wolf version. The Wolf version can be raced without WolfR4.exe.

Online the Wolf version and the old version can not be raced together,
having different folder names.

I have not decided yet where and how my Wolf enabled tracks will be posted.
I have four tracks done and four more in the works.

Posted: **14 Aug 2010, 16:41**

urnemanden @ Aug 14 2010, 08:23 AM wrote:
arto wrote:Related to Wolf, I'm in the process of adding support for submitting Wolf tracks to RVZT.
Nice to hear about the additions about RVZT, just one question tho. As most of hil's and my tracks already are at RVZT as extreme versions, do you want us to update these zip files (backwards-compatible) or upload them as WolfR4-only tracks?

If the track works with and without Wolf, and uses the same folder name and is otherwise compatible with the old version (for example in online racing), then I'd prefer replacing the old track. At least that seems the most sensible thing. Me, sjampo or Zach can do track replacements in that case.

Hil's tracks the folder names are different, so of course it would be another upload altogether.

Posted: **16 Aug 2010, 07:09**

arto wrote:I seem to automatically write it as Wolf4R (as in Wolf For Revolt).

Wolf4R (as in Wolf For Revolt) would have been a nice idea too... But I have to admit that I'm usually reading the '4' number in french, which is pronounced "quatre", instead of the english "four", so it never came to my mind.

@hilaire9
I think Huki explained it right: "Custom Battle Tracks don't replace stock ones. They just appear in the battle tag list along with the 4 stock ones."
That's why adding this option to WolfR4 was so interesting IMO. Because any numbers of battle track can be installed at the same time, without having to overwritte any stock battle track. Just adding an empty file named "battle.ini" will make the track detected as a battle one in WolfR4.

About the WolfR4 name, if you want to know the main reason why it's better than a simple Wolf, just picture yourself looking for info/help about this tool and searching "WolfR4" in google, then compare with searching "Wolf"...

huki wrote:The custom stunt and battle track definition and the star progress can be included in the custom.ini itself, why do we need another file(s)?

For a simple reason: Tracks are considered Custom when they have a custom.ini file. But battle tag tracks or stunt tracks are not necessarily "custom", so they have to use another file.

By the way, I think I'll use "stunt.dat" to detect stunt tracks and store star progress (.dat because the file won't be editable with a text editor) and "battle.ini" to detect battle tracks (this file will be left empty).
If you have any suggestion/comment about it, feel free to post it.

And about releasing Wolfed tracks, I just want to point out that WolfR4 is designed so that the track should also be usable without WolfR4 (when the extension of the Wolfed files has been properly modified). I mean that only one single version of the track can be released at once, supporting both re-volt with and without WolfR4.
Of course, it's up to the author to decide what he want to do, but he shouldn't have to release a regular version and a WolfR4 version of the same track.

EDIT: Well, I'm leaving again sooner than expected... I'll be gone for about a week, so I think I should be back around next sunday.

Posted: **16 Aug 2010, 09:49**

If the user wants to download regular version of track and only the wolf version is available, he would have to download a lot of junk files including the #\track folder, custom.ini and a big mp3 file. So if there is enough server space, it is better to allow the user to download regular version or wolf version separately.

Ofcourse, if everyone wants the wolf version (since it is freely available), just the wolf version is enough..

Posted: **24 Aug 2010, 01:49**

Lot of TODOs piling up.. hope you don't get lost in the maze

Multiplayer Game Mode: Re-Volt seems to use Arcade mode automatically for online races. Is it possible to set this to Simulation instead?

Also, it would be nice if you could release the bomb fix soon.

We have been having bomb crashes almost everyday. For info, everyone in the session crashes if bomb is passed to the host (it is not limited to just the player with the bomb).
And it doesnt happen everytime. For example, ghosttown1 is supposed to be crash happy, but we had a lot of "bomb-tag" in ghost town 1 with no crashes.

Posted: **24 Aug 2010, 02:25**

Oh, I was also wondering if it's possible to make Wolf kick users who has changed something on the car or anything else that makes Re-Volt add "(cheat)" after the players name?

Posted: **24 Aug 2010, 05:22**

Huki @ Aug 16 2010, 05:19 AM wrote:If the user wants to download regular version of track and only the wolf version is available, he would have to download a lot of junk files including the #\track folder, custom.ini and a big mp3 file. So if there is enough server space, it is better to allow the user to download regular version or wolf version separately.

Ofcourse, if everyone wants the wolf version (since it is freely available), just the wolf version is enough..

That's quite right, and that was a reason why I wasn't really in favor of adding MP3 support at the beginning.
I don't feel like a MP3 file is essential for a good track. Maybe MP3 shouldn't be included in the track archive but only available as a separate download? I don't know how Zach or Arto feel about that, as it would probably means an extra job to add this option to RVZT.

Lot of TODOs piling up.. hope you don't get lost in the maze laugh.gif

Well, I'm triming the TODO list to keep only the essential, otherwise the list could grow indefinitely.

And I think WolfR4 is quite complete now (I'm talking about the next release, which will add the possibility to have user stunt and battle tracks).

Multiplayer Game Mode: Re-Volt seems to use Arcade mode automatically for online races. Is it possible to set this to Simulation instead?

I'm quite sure it is be possible, but only for the local player. There is no way to be sure that other players use the same mode. So it will be an handicap for the ones who use it if other players don't.
Because of that, I'm not sure implementing such an option would be useful.

About the bomb bug, I'll try to release a new WolfR4 version soon. But I was cleaing a bit the code lately, modifying some parts of the code to make it more consistent, so I have to check that it doesn't mistakenly deactivate any feature.

Oh, I was also wondering if it's possible to make Wolf kick users who has changed something on the car or anything else that makes Re-Volt add "(cheat)" after the players name?

Unfortunately, I don't know if there is a possibility to kick a player, I just know that I don't know how to do it...

Posted: **25 Aug 2010, 05:44**

Here comes the long awaited new WolfR4 version.

Please take a look at this consequential changelog to see what's new here. The main new stuff being the support for user Stunt tracks and Battle tag tracks...

* Rel.10-08-25
Add: User Stunt tracks support:
   WolfR4 will detect Stunt levels when a file named "stunt.dat" exists in
   the track folder (just create an empty file an rename it "stunt.dat").
   Now, if you select Stunt Arena mode, you will be able to select the track
   like in other racing modes (and only the Stunt tracks will be selectable
   in that mode).
   Moreover, user stunt tracks will be properly hidden during the track
   selection in any other race modes, so they won't pollute the regular
   tracks list.
   And last but not least, the stars progression will be keep for each stunt
   track independently (in the "stunt.dat" file).
   For info (for track makers): in theory, the track could have any number
   of stars from 1 up to 64. But using more than 20 stars still has to be
   tested.
Add: User Battle Tag tracks support:
   WolfR4 will detect Battle Tag levels when a file named "battle.ini"
   exists in the track folder (just create an empty file an rename it
   "battle.ini").
   As for User Stunt tracks, User Battle Tag tracks will be properly hidden
   during the track selection in any other race modes.
Add: Bomb pickup fix in online mode:
   Sometime when playing online, re-volt crashes when transmitting the bomb
   pickup to another player.
   This fix doesn't prevent the bug, but at least it prevents re-volt from
   crashing when the bug occurs.
   So keep in mind that this case, the bomb will act strangely: It may not
   be transferable to other players, or the player will get the bomb but
   your car will also explode... but this drawback is still better than a
   re-volt crash...
   A temporary option have been added to the DEV panel to get only Bomb
   pickup during a race (to help testing the above patch).
Add: Battle tag time:
   A nex option to modify the time needed to win in Battle Tag mode. It does
   not allow to select less than 2 min (the default value) to avoid cheating
   and also because I find that 2 minutes is already a bit too short.
Mod: Code cleanup / internal rewrite.
   (Mainly the managing of the current re-volt running state).
Mod: A column in the track list shows some of the track properties (Reverse,
   Stunt or Battle Tag).
Mod: The WolfR4.ini is now just modified when quitting, not fully recreated as
   it was before. That way, new options setting are not lost when using a
   previous WolfR4 version.
Add: A new option to modify the in-car camera height to be close of the top
   of the car instead of following the CoM.
Mod: All re-volt cheats (CARNIVAL, URCO, etc.) have been added to the Race
   options tab.
   Notice: to prevent these cheats from being abusively used, they will
   always be deactivated when WolfR4 starts.

You can download it through my webpage.

@Huki or Urne
The option to force the Bomb pickup (to help to check if the Bomb pickup fix works in online mode) is in the DEV panel.

@Citywalker
The new option to modify the In-car camera is in the Option\Advanced tab. Please tell me what you think about it.

Posted: **25 Aug 2010, 12:16**

Neat, thanks for the update!

Do you have any statistic over how many visit you have on your website daily or something? Could be quite interesting to know.

Posted: **25 Aug 2010, 18:46**

Yep, I can get some automatic statistics about my website, but I'm giving you the result AS IS, because I'm not managing it myself, as I dont know php, etc. :'(

Here is the number of monthly visits (and of pages seen) on my website during the last months.

Now, it has reached an average of 30 visits per day.
The main sources of visitors are Google, RVZT, ORP and Re-Volt the Wiki. Then roughly, we have RVHouse website, and all the other re-volt related forums (except rrr strangely

).
And it seems that each recent release of WolfR4 has been downloaded roughly 120 times.

Posted: **26 Aug 2010, 03:10**

Here is a great news for car makers... but I don't know it will be enough to awake this deadly forum, ahah...

A guy (SebR) asked me recently on RVTT if there was a possibility to have our own car acting like the UFO, or the Panga (turning head). I was conviced it was impossible, or at least very complicated, so I told him we can't.
But I think I just have found a tricky way to do it, and I'm implementing it in WolfR4.
I tried, and it was really fun. It means we can also create flying vehicle, like plane, etc., or for example, a motorcycle with a turning helmet...

And the only thing needed to activate this for a vehicle will be to properly modify the parameters.txt file (and activating the WolfR4 option of course).

See the flying Mouse:

Posted: **26 Aug 2010, 04:00**

Wow! This is really good job Jigebren. You just turned upside down the whole history of Re-Volt!!!

Posted: **26 Aug 2010, 13:22**

Thanks for the latest release. Everything works well here. Well, all except one thing - we still have bomb crashes

I don't know if I already said this but i'm too lazy to check through 700 posts

so here goes..

There are 2 types of bomb crashes - both of them happen randomly and cannot be reproduced. (i dont know why the first type happens in your pc everytime)

Type 1: Player with bomb touches someone else and crashes. The other person is still in the game and no one else is disturbed. This happens mostly in nhood1 and ghost1.
Type 2: Someone with bomb explodes, and almost everyone in the session crashes. This can happen in any track.

Now, type1 is less frequent and causes less harm and type2 is more frequent and crashes almost everyone. Your fix would take care of the first one (not sure, it had not happened to anyone lately.. not even in ghost1 when we had a lot of bomb passes.. see what i mean by less frequent?). Type2 happens almost everyday and in any track.

What makes all this worser is that lot of other things cause similar crashes. Even races without pickups can crash with a high amount of players (only happened few times since there is no large amount of players without pickups

)
Ehm, i'll leave this at that...

Jig wrote:

Multiplayer Game Mode: Re-Volt seems to use Arcade mode automatically for online races. Is it possible to set this to Simulation instead?
I'm quite sure it is be possible, but only for the local player. There is no way to be sure that other players use the same mode. So it will be an handicap for the ones who use it if other players don't.
Because of that, I'm not sure implementing such an option would be useful.

Well, isn't it the same with No Collision race and Random car/track races? (Everyone need to enable the option). Maybe you can use a similar method. "SI" before the player name to activate the option.

Re - Kick/Disconnect Players: Hmm come to think of it.. such an option can solve the Bad Start problem when someone crashes in the previous race, but is left behind.
Crashes and Re-Volt not properly disconnecting crashed players are the 2 major problems in online races

Joining Mid-Session: Re-Volt network source seems to have support for Spectator players and "Joining Late". Can this help?

Posted: **27 Aug 2010, 02:12**

Addition about Bomb Crashes

And there is type3: Today we had a situation in which many players were near each other. One of us got a bomb and as soon as his car turned black Everyone crashed. We didn't give up and tried hosting about 5 to 6 sessions (many different hosts, latest wolf version). Every session crashed in nhood1 or market2! (When someone just gets a bomb or someone is going to explode).
In the final session (before we gave up racing), everyone were passing bombs in nhood1 and there was no crash. Finally all crashed when someone transfered a bomb to host.
We finally tried playing without wolf (as the new bomb fix could be the problem). There was no problem in garden and toyworld1. Just the host crashed in nhood1 (probably just a coincidence). Even after the host crashed, we managed to finish the race

But the test wasn't finished yet. Maybe tomorrow we could play a session with and without wolf...

Posted: **27 Aug 2010, 03:11**

hey, jig, why didn't patched the exe directly? or even use a exe cheating program? why?

pd: when hosting via game directly it can do 12p, but with looby it applies 8 and the opponents counting is always resetting to 8 always, no wolf

Posted: **27 Aug 2010, 03:14**

Huki @ Aug 26 2010, 09:42 PM wrote: Addition about Bomb Crashes

And there is type3: Today we had a situation in which many players were near each other. One of us got a bomb and as soon as his car turned black Everyone crashed. We didn't give up and tried hosting about 5 to 6 sessions (many different hosts, latest wolf version). Every session crashed in nhood1 or market2! (When someone just gets a bomb or someone is going to explode).
In the final session (before we gave up racing), everyone were passing bombs in nhood1 and there was no crash. Finally all crashed when someone transfered a bomb to host.
We finally tried playing without wolf (as the new bomb fix could be the problem). There was no problem in garden and toyworld1. Just the host crashed in nhood1 (probably just a coincidence). Even after the host crashed, we managed to finish the race But the test wasn't finished yet. Maybe tomorrow we could play a session with and without wolf...

and with custom track inside stock can crash too, sm2 and 50% crashed 12p game

Posted: **27 Aug 2010, 03:21**

Re: Bomb Crashes
Well, my patch was indeed only for bomb crashes Type 1 (the only one I was aware of until now, and also the only one about which I have a Dr.Watson log).
I'm not sure we'll be able to find a solution, because the source of the bug seems to be well buried in the depth of the source code.
Isn't there any racer able to capture a Dr. Waston log file? (it's easy on XP, and can also be done on Visa/7, Urne did it). It would help a lot to at least see where the bug occurs.

Just by curisosity, do you know if only the bomb car pickup is affected, or does it also crash with the fake pickup bomb (the clone)?

Re: Multiplayer Game Mode

Huki wrote:Well, isn't it the same with No Collision race and Random car/track races? (Everyone need to enable the option). Maybe you can use a similar method. "SI" before the player name to activate the option. smile.gif

In that case, you wouldn't be able to play with both option activated... And I don't want to abuse of this trick, because of its "heaviness".
In think I could add an option to set this setting for your car, in case you want to make it harder, but you'll have no way to know the setting used by other players.

Huki wrote:Joining Mid-Session: Re-Volt network source seems to have support for Spectator players and "Joining Late". Can this help?

Well, the network code seems to be the part where the difference between the available source code and the compiled binary file is the most noticeable. And unfortunately, all the procedures like ClientJoinLate() or BrowseSessions() , etc. do not exist in the binary file. Either they were added later, or they were not used so they were skipped at compilation.
Now, honestly, there is no hope I can add such features just by patching...
And it's quite the same for Kick/Disconnect Players, I have not a single idea about how to proceed.

Huki wrote:I don't know if I already said this but i'm too lazy to check through 700 posts [...]

Don't know if you have noticed, this topic has been read more than 10'000 times.

I should have to do something to celebrate that... I don't know, maybe show you an allegedly humorous picture rst has done for his phoenix stuff and posted on his forum, where he is using my WolfR4 icon (without asking for my permisson of course

). Quite surprising for a guys who is always talking about honor, ect...

Posted: **27 Aug 2010, 03:38**

jigebren @ Aug 27 2010, 03:21 AM wrote: Just by curisosity, do you know if only the bomb car pickup is affected, or does it also crash with the fake pickup bomb (the clone)?

The clone pickup is not affected, only the car bomb.

I have to agree that the problem is buried deep. Today can be officially called crash day. Every session hosted had crashed in the first or second track. We also crashed right at the starting point when no one got any pickup yet. (Market2).

I should have to do something to celebrate that... I don't know, maybe show you an allegedly humorous picture rst has done for his phoenix stuff and posted on his forum, where he is using my WolfR4 icon (without asking for my permisson of course ). Quite surprising for a guys who is always talking about honor, ect...

Fire bird?

Well, he removed the wolf icon from the picture now since he thought it was "too funny" and the phoenix is "more serious". The original reason why he did that was because of a Wolf logo posted by Antimorph in this topic.
But i wonder how you 2 come to know about each oher's pictures while not visiting the forums...

Posted: **27 Aug 2010, 04:15**

Huki @ Aug 26 2010, 11:08 PM wrote:Today can be officially called crash day. Every session hosted had crashed in the first or second track. We also crashed right at the starting point when no one got any pickup yet. (Market2).

Well, it's quite weird. It could be nice that you test without WolfR4, just to be sure.
And were you using more than 8 players when it crashed (do know it it could be linked to that, as I don't know it the 8 players limit during lobby races were added on purpose or by mistake by Acclaim).

Huki wrote:Fire bird? Well, he removed the wolf icon from the picture now since he thought it was "too funny" and the phoenix is "more serious". The original reason why he did that was because of a Wolf logo posted by Antimorph in this topic.

I remember Antimorph talked about it, but he never posted any logo with any bird in it.
But in fact I don't really care... It even make me laugh, but not in the way it was intended to do.

Huki wrote:But i wonder how you 2 come to know about each oher's pictures while not visiting the forums...

Probably by the same means rst came to know about antimorph's post...

Abc wrote:hey, jig, why didn't patched the exe directly? or even use a exe cheating program? why?

Hem, maybe simply because a lot of stuff has to be done at runtime. For example, the custom track support.
And I don't know any cheating program that would allow to implement all the features implemented in WolfR4. They just can't be as powerful/flexible as using a programming language.

Abc wrote:pd: when hosting via game directly it can do 12p, but with looby it applies 8 and the opponents counting is always resetting to 8 always, no wolf

Yep, that's the normal behaviour of re-volt. That's why the "Set max lobby players to 12" option exists in WolfR4.

Posted: **27 Aug 2010, 11:52**

Re: Bomb Crashes
Sorry Jigebren, but everytime I try capture a log from Dr. Watson, it either doesn't save the log or tells me that the process left memory too fast for it to make a log file (only returns with a negative Windows Error code).

I have not yet tried crashing when someone was taking a fake pickup, but I did try getting a fake pickup just before I was about to explode with a bomb (which just resulted in me not exploding twice). That makes me think that it might not have too much to do with the graphic card being overloaded.

Posted: **27 Aug 2010, 17:23**

ooooh the flying cars/panga head could be very interesting! also Rotors abilitly drive forwards upside down?

im very intrigued and would really like to see it

Posted: **27 Aug 2010, 18:24**

Re: Bomb Crashes
Well, don't spend your time with more testing about this bug for now, I think I get it finally.

(I haven't posted the result yesterday because it was far too late...)
So yesterday, I have decided to examine one by one each step about how the bomb infos are transmitted when playing online. At the same time I was running revolt online (in LAN at home) to examine some values memory.
After having spent a lot of time on it, I finally found a nasty bug in how objects are identified online (looks like an error from the acclaim dev. team).
I think it use to occur in Nhood1 because this track contains several objects like ball, while Market2 don't crash because there is no such objets.
It is likely that it could fix what Huki named bug type 1, 2 and 3, but let's not be too optimistic, and wait for it to be tested...

MOH wrote: ooooh the flying cars/panga head could be very interesting! also Rotors abilitly drive forwards upside down?

I have though about, but I don't think I'll add the rotor stuff, because it's quite complicated, and I don't find this feature as usefull as urco/panga.

im very intrigued and would really like to see it

Maybe I will release it quite soon, as I don't plan to add any other feature to WolfR4 for now (and I think this feature and the bomb bugfix are enough to make a new relase, even if the release date will be quite close to the previous one).

But I still have one question in my mind.
To use the flying car feature, we'll have to set the class to "2=Other" in the following line of the parameters.txt:
Class 0 ; Engine type (0=Elec, 1=Glow, 2=Other)
And for now every car that uses Class = 2 also uses the same engine sound than class = 1 (glow). Maybe it could be better to make all flying vehicules use the UFO engine sound? (I have not tried yet, so I'm not even sure it actually possible). But it will be the same setting for all flying cars, so we have to make a choice: glow or ufo sound?

Posted: **27 Aug 2010, 18:41**

I'd say Glow.

Jigebren, I have some idea. This idea is frustrating for people who have a lot of custom cars. Always, when we download cars, some of them have parameters problems and make the game crash. I mean you start with a good playable custom car, and have the CHANGELING cheat activated. You change cars, until you get to a car with an error, it automatically crashes the game.

Is there any way to add something like a skipper? To open a small window which would say "Can't load 'this' car. Do you prefer to skin to the next one?". And to be something like a list too with the cars that have trouble to know which one to delete, fix and/or report to the car creator.

Think of?

Posted: **27 Aug 2010, 20:55**

Jig - the 'special effect' not mentioned yet, is the 'flexible' sides of the Mystery Car. Also, the Wincars have 'engine type 2' sound - that of a clockwork motor. AFAIK these and the UFO are the only cars to have a special sound.

All these 'specials' are, I presume, tied to the folder name.

Incidentally, these cars are never selected as cpu cars (except in 'random' mode).

Geoff

Posted: **28 Aug 2010, 02:33**

@Miro
Simply not possible. Re-volt has not function to detect invalid car parameters AFAIK. It just crash when it's too late. And I don't feel like implenting in WolfR4 a function to read all parameters for all cars just to check for invalid entries.
It's up to each car maker not to release a car that doesn't work (which if I'm not mistaken means that they have not even tested it before releasing

).

@GWC
Like for the rotor, I'm not sure the "flexible" effect would be very widely used, even if it could probably be fun... And it come to my mind that I'm not even sure there is currently any editor that allows to set the "flexible" property on the mesh.
In fact, I could probably add it, but the real difficulty is to find a special value that can be set in the parameters.txt file to identify the cars that have this "special effect" activated.

All these 'specials' are, I presume, tied to the folder name.

Not directly, but it's quite similar. They're tied to an internal index given by re-volt to each stock cars.

Incidentally, these cars are never selected as cpu cars (except in 'random' mode).

Re-volt has a list of car indexes to skip when selecting cpu cars.

Posted: **28 Aug 2010, 07:16**

Bug in Ghost Car: There seems to be a bug with the ghost car in time trial. When you make a new record, the fastest lap should be recorded for the ghost. (The ghost should finish the lap at the time of your latest record). But my ghost is always slower than my record time. Sometimes even upto 500ms. So even if i am far ahead of my ghost when i finish the lap, i did not beat my record, i only beat my slower ghost. Shortly, the ghost car's time and the actual time to beat are different.
I don't know why a slower lap gets recorded forthe ghost and how it happens (whether a new slower lap overwrites the record lap, or the record lap isn't written in the first place). I hope i explained clear enough.

But i know it happens to everyone using wolf and not just me.
RST had tested that doesn't happen with Phoenix and v1.00/ 0916/ 1207. So either this is a problem with Wolf or he is lying

The reason this was found now is that there has been "Ladder Races" in RRR lately - a championship to get the best time in time trial, racing against our ghosts. RST uses phoenix fo the ghost car, me and stingox use Wolf. The problem happens only in our ghost files (.laplocal files). Maybe stingox can give you his nhood2.laplocal file, where his actual record was around 36:500, but the ghost only finished at 36:900.

Posted: **28 Aug 2010, 13:43**

uhm I tried to open the .laplocal files (using block note) and all records match with the ghost times...

Posted: **28 Aug 2010, 18:00**

Re: Bug in Ghost Car
Now that you said it, I think I have already noticed it once, but never paid too much attention to it (as I was only testing if ghost car appears, I was not really racing).
I don't think it a matter of difference between phoenix/wolf, as we're both only reactivating a hidden re-volt feature, and that's all.
But I would rather think about the options used. At first sight, if you want to do some test, I would suggest to try with/without the 3 following option:
- <Fix 'Go Go' bug> in WolfR4
- fullscreen / windowed mode
- the V-Sync option (in fulscreen only)
And maybe it would be better to deleted the the previous .laplocal file.

About glow or ufo sound for flying vehicle, the question doesn't seem to interest a lot of people, but anyway, I think it will remain the Glow one, as I don't think I can modify it easily. I have spent hours on it yesterday, to discover at the end than I would need one byte more for each instruction I have to patch.

And maybe I could make the Rotor and 'flexible mesh' (like mystery car) efffects available for user cars too, but:
- Rotor, Mystery and UFO effect won't be useable at the same time.
- The CLASS entry of the parameters.txt file for the stock Mystery car and Rotor car will have to be edited.
Please tell me your opinion about it.

Posted: **28 Aug 2010, 19:26**

<Fix 'Go Go' bug> in WolfR4

About this, I 've noticed that bug is still present in time trial mode (not in online races) but is very rare and is just one single "go" and no more in some time trial sessions (absolutely "harmless" he he).

Posted: **29 Aug 2010, 01:36**

uhm I tried to open the .laplocal files (using block note) and all records match with the ghost times...

Ehm, you can only see the string value of your record time (the time that appears under "opponent" in re-volt. You can't see the time in which the ghost finishes.

@jig: I always had gogo and tuxa fixes turned off. So this time i turned it on to test. There was no change in the ghost bug, but now the actual bug is clear. A previous lap gets recorded for the ghost, not your record lap. This is what I did:

1)I deleted any existing .laplocal and .times files.
2) I raced on lap in time trial and made a lot of mistakes and crashes on purpose. 3) At the end, instead of finishing the lap, i repositioned.
4) I raced one more lap without mistakes and got a ghost.
5) In the next lap, used TVTIME and F3 to check the ghost. It made a lot of mistakes and finished 2 minutes after my record time!

So it is not just a time bug, but a ghost bug.
I think the reposition is related to this. I'll see if i can test the same thing with phoenix to confirm if this is a revolt bug or wolf bug.

Edit: I can confirm that the bug is really related to the reposition. Following the same steps i did (and repositioning at the end instead of finishing), you can reproduce the same bug.
Edit2: I tested in Ship1. I am now uploading the ghost file with 2sec difference..

Posted: **29 Aug 2010, 02:46**

Re: Bug in Ghost Car
@Huki

I tried Market2 in time trial, and I think I have the same issue you've reported:
The best time recorded for the ghost was ~15sec. I raced with the same car than the ghost (the toyeca), the ghost started with a noticeable delay, and even if I finished the lap far in front of the ghost car, my time was ~17sec (ie. >15sec, so I didn't beat the ghost).

I also wonder if I would have been able one day to race Market2 in 15sec (the ghost that was recorded), I'm not such a good racer.

So I've deleted the .laplocal and .times files.
And then I have tried several time, with various options activated, and it always worked like a charm. Until now, I've not been able to get a buggy ghost file again...
That's weird.
I also did step by step what you reported in the previous post, and it worked nicely for me.

Also, I have opened the buggy ghost file and a non-buggy one in an hex. editor, and weirdly the buggy file is full of data, while less than a quarter of the file is actually used in the non-buggy one...
Can you also open/check your LapLocal file?

Just by curisosity, Huki, can you tell me what is the recommended shifting value in the WolfR4 Log? And also, did you use Win98 comp. mode?

Posted: **29 Aug 2010, 02:52**

Here I reproduced the bug again in ship1. I made a lot of mistakes, repositioned at the end instead of finishing and the i race correctly and got a good time. The recorded ghost did the same mistakes and stopped at the end (at the point where i repositioned).

You can download it Here...

Just by curisosity, Huki, can you tell me what is the recommended shifting value in the WolfR4 Log? And also, did you use Win98 comp. mode?

Frequency of the high-resolution performance counter: 2539130 (recommended shifting value: 1)
And i tried with and without compatibility.

Posted: **29 Aug 2010, 06:23**

Good/Bad news. This is not a wolf problem. I created a laplocal using 1.00 and 1207 revolt without wolf and then viewed the ghost with wolf/1207. Same bug - previous repositioned lap recorded. It could be good news since wolf is not to blame. Could also be bad news since it is a re-volt bug and so, harder to fix.

Posted: **29 Aug 2010, 07:26**

Yep, I was testing and testing your toytanic ghost, and reading and reading at the source code...
Finally, I try to reproduce the same race than in your ghost. Before the 1st lap is completed, I reposition the car (I waited until the race time is > ~58sec). Then I beat the challenge time, and I got the bug: the ghost car shown after that was the ghost of the 1st lap.

I have no idea yet about the source of the bug, but the fact that I can reproduce it too means at least that:
- it's not linked to your config.
- it's not linked to WolfR4, as I was running re-volt directly under my debugger (I re-activate the ghost feature "by hand").

For info, I can also tell that in the .LapLocal file, it's actually the best time that is recorded, even when the ghost data are not those of the best lap (for example, it's the case in your toytanic ghost). Also, the split times stored in the file corespond to the best lap. Only the data are wrong.
And the memory used to store the ghost data doesn't seem to be reinitialized, so if the ghost is shorter than a previous one, we can find old junk data after the usefull data. But I don't think that it could be the source of the issue...

Posted: **29 Aug 2010, 07:42**

jigebren @ Aug 26 2010, 11:45 PM wrote:
Abc wrote:pd: when hosting via game directly it can do 12p, but with looby it applies 8 and the opponents counting is always resetting to 8 always, no wolf
Yep, that's the normal behaviour of re-volt. That's why the "Set max lobby players to 12" option exists in WolfR4.

but why?

Posted: **29 Aug 2010, 07:45**

jigebren @ Aug 27 2010, 01:54 PM wrote: But I still have one question in my mind.
To use the flying car feature, we'll have to set the class to "2=Other" in the following line of the parameters.txt:
Class 0 ; Engine type (0=Elec, 1=Glow, 2=Other)
And for now every car that uses Class = 2 also uses the same engine sound than class = 1 (glow). Maybe it could be better to make all flying vehicules use the UFO engine sound? (I have not tried yet, so I'm not even sure it actually possible). But it will be the same setting for all flying cars, so we have to make a choice: glow or ufo sound?

jig, about that the ufo haves a special property that permits fly and the car engine is mapped to ufo .wav

Posted: **29 Aug 2010, 19:25**

Re: Bug in Ghost Car
Well, one more re-volt bug to add to the WolfR4 bugfixes list...

1st, here is the clear way to get the bug:
- race in time trial mode a track for which there is no ghost recorded yet (if there is already a ghost car, the bug won't occur).
- reposition the car before having completed the first lap (it can be done right at the beginning of the race, but only after you've crossed the starting line).
- complete a lap to have a new ghost recorded.
Then you'll see that the first lap has been recorded as Ghost instead of the last lap, while all the timers recorded in the ghost correspond to the last lap.

2nd. This bug is a re-volt bug (who had doubt about it?

). I'm pretty sure it is present in all versions of re-volt (I mean v1.00 and v0916 too, not only the v1207). I'm clarifying this point for the people that would tend to say, each time a new bug is discovered, that it is either v1207 or WolfR4's fault...

3rd. I think I have fixed it now. But as it was quite hard to find the place to do it in the binary file, I had to use some tricks, like removing a few unnecessary instructions to make room. So even if I'm quite sure all I did was safe, it still has to be tested to be sure there is no side effect.

4th. Thanks Huki for finding it, and for your report.

Posted: **30 Aug 2010, 06:25**

Now that the we have ended with the Ghost bug (at least until everybody can test the next WolfR4 release), I'd really like to have some point of view about this question:

jigebren wrote:And maybe I could make the Rotor and 'flexible mesh' (like the Mystery car) efffects available for user cars too, but:
- Rotor, Mystery and UFO effect won't be useable at the same time.
- The CLASS entry of the parameters.txt file for the stock Mystery car and Rotor car will have to be edited.
Please tell me your opinion about it.

Otherwise it is likely that I just won't add the Rotor and Mystery effect. But please read carefully the above quote to see advantage/drawback before answering...

And also, I'm thinking about implementing a Default and a Lobby profile in WolfR4, to be sure that we have a clean setup when launching from RVHouse. Does it sound like a necessary feature for you?

Posted: **30 Aug 2010, 13:09**

I would prefer not to edit the stock parameters. Both rotor and mystery do not have the (CHT) extension by default, editing their params will introduce that..

Maybe those 2 effects arent that important. The mystery car's effect is a cloth covering the car, i dont think many will create a car with a cloth covering it

And I don't understand the rotor effect.. wouldn't a car just be able to drive upside down if the wheels are big enough?

But if they are really wanted, i guess (CHT) on 2 cars wouldn't matter..

Jig wrote:And also, I'm thinking about implementing a Default and a Lobby profile in WolfR4

Yes that would be great

Posted: **31 Aug 2010, 04:09**

Huki wrote:The mystery car's effect is a cloth covering the car, i dont think many will create a car with a cloth covering it

Don't know, it could have been used for car/truck with a "soft" top (don't know the proper word in english, I mean, what makes a car a convertible...).

And I don't understand the rotor effect.. wouldn't a car just be able to drive upside down if the wheels are big enough?

No, withtout a special control, when the rotor is upside-down, all command are reversed (left/right), and it goes back when you accelerate. In fact, even if it's quite tough, I find it very fun that way...

Well, for simplicity's sake, I think I won't add the rotor and mystery effect. It would be a bit too tricky for a public tool.

But I'm currently adding support for a Lobby profile. It was longer/harder than expected, but in fact, I'm always expecting things to be longer than expected, so in a sort of way, I can say it was planned...

And it was also the occasion to rewrite and clean-up quite a few part of the WolfR4 code. Let's hope I have not introduced some bugs.

Posted: **31 Aug 2010, 04:25**

why don't add a custom car section like custom track on wolfr4 ?
who let us choose if the car is ufo, panga like and wich sound we want (and perhaps a custom engine sound by car) ... adding a "custom.ini" on car folder may help and don't disturb revolt so much i guess ...

Posted: **31 Aug 2010, 05:46**

sebr @ Aug 30 2010, 11:55 PM wrote:why don't add a custom car section like custom track on wolfr4 ?

Ahah, because I can't simply add it like that...
It's not that simple, and it would imply a lot of work to get some result.
Let's keep in mind that implementing custom cars would be even harder than allowing custom tracks. It's not working the same way at all. For example, there is only one track loaded at one time, so it's easy to swap the files used by this track.
But there is several cars used at the same time, so you can't swap the sound file for 1 car, because it will be swapped for all cars.

The next Wolf release will have support for Panga and UFO effects, and it is very likely that I won't add any other custom feature as far as cars are concerned...

Posted: **31 Aug 2010, 09:37**

jigebren @ Aug 30 2010, 01:55 AM wrote: And also, I'm thinking about implementing a Default and a Lobby profile in WolfR4, to be sure that we have a clean setup when launching from RVHouse. Does it sound like a necessary feature for you?

At least I don't see need for that feature.

Posted: **31 Aug 2010, 18:59**

arto @ Aug 31 2010, 05:07 AM wrote:
jigebren @ Aug 30 2010, 01:55 AM wrote: And also, I'm thinking about implementing a Default and a Lobby profile in WolfR4, to be sure that we have a clean setup when launching from RVHouse. Does it sound like a necessary feature for you?
At least I don't see need for that feature.

Well, the idea was to be sure you can keep a clean setup when WolfR4 is launched from RVHouse. Imagine you have tested all WolfR4 options just before, so you don't remember what you have activated/deactivated. Of course you can use the Default setting button, but let's say you always want to use <Activate 'Random Cars'> without <Add user cars to the random selection> when you play online, then it could be nice to have this registered in a second profile.

But I agree, and I was also sceptical about adding this kind of option, as in a sort of way it also adds complexity and maybe "bloatedness", but it was the occasion for me to clarify some parts of the code. Practice will tell if it is actually usefull at last.

But anyway, it can be deactivated, and by default WolfR4 will use one single profile only (just like before).

Posted: **31 Aug 2010, 20:11**

Yeah, I can see how it can be useful, it's just that I only play online so I probably have no need for it. Anyway, sounds good, maybe even I find use for it if testing something esoteric

.

Posted: **01 Sep 2010, 02:55**

The next Wolf release will have support for Panga and UFO effects, and it is very likely that I won't add any other custom feature as far as cars are concerned...

i hope this includes the ROTOR effects too

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