XRacer: Old News

Wed Jul 14 22:41:07 BST 1999

Version 0.60: Backdrops implemented. Alan Levy has kindly allowed us to use photographs from his website here. I've used one to get a basic snowy backdrop. In spite of my best efforts in GIMP, I can't quite get this to wrap correctly. Anyway, I'm hoping to get higher res snaps from Alan soon, so I'll be able to redo it. Fixed transparent textures. Get the data files. The track is now foggy by default - this will make more sense with scenery added.

Wed Jul 14 20:30:24 BST 1999

Version 0.59: New logo, inspired by Andre Lohan's design. Profiled the code and made some optimizations based on the profile. Added profiling code. Added XRACER_HOME environment variable, which you will need to set to point to data files. Split data files into required and optional. Shield. Powerup display uses textures. Fixed keyboard repeat problem. Various powerups implemented (the AI don't use their powerups, but you can use yours). I realized there's a huge bug in the track model which explains why the craft sit so high on the track. Fix available later. Remember to get the latest data files. Fog support (see track.c).

Sun Jul 11 23:58:12 BST 1999

Version 0.58: Collision detection in arcade mode. New track loading screen. Updated Windows port (Windows binary here). The code and data are now packaged in separate files. I'll tell you when the data files change: otherwise you should just need to get either the code release or (ideally) just the code patch. For this release, you will need to get the data files. Started powerups. Why are glBitmap and glDrawPixels so slow? How do I get alpha blending to work? (Version 0.57 was an intermediate release).

Sun Jul 11 23:34:27 BST 1999

Version 0.56: This version should compile cleanly on BSD.

Sun Jul 11 16:56:14 BST 1999

Version 0.55: Patch from Ilpo which solves the missing loading screen (for those of you not using Mesa). Made the track flatter. Still no resolution to momentum damping bugette.

Sun Jul 11 13:51:32 BST 1999

Version 0.54: Rewrote constant-speed code. This version should be slightly faster and also more accurate.

Sun Jul 11 13:35:09 BST 1999

Version 0.53: Much improved keyboard handling. For some reason, however, keyboard repeat doesn't get restored when the program exits: you might have to do xset r on after playing.

Sat Jul 10 15:02:05 BST 1999

Version 0.52: The arcade mode release. The robotic players are a bit stupid. It'll be a lot better with collision detection and weapons.

Sat Jul 10 11:31:46 BST 1999

Version 0.51: Two patches which improve keyboard and mouse support from Eden Li and Ilpo Ruotsalainen respectively. You'll need to make sure you have GLUT 3.7 or above. I really am going to try and get arcade out by the end of the day ...

Fri Jul 9 20:12:04 BST 1999

Version 0.50: This is a minor patch - just some changes needed to the segment structure before I can commit arcade mode AI. Although I previously announced that mouse support was broken - turns out it wasn't. It was just me unable to remember the correct key to enable the mouse. Display seems a little bit jumpy on this release. I think the constant speed code needs a bit of a rethink (eg. multiply momentum by time length before adding to position?). Track files are now stored compressed.

Thu Jul 8 16:30:25 BST 1999

Version 0.49 released: AIX patch. Joystick users: do ./configure --enable-joystick (Note: 0.48+ have broken mouse support)

Thu Jul 8 12:21:28 BST 1999

Version 0.48 released: Constant speed patch: gameplay should run at a constant speed despite various framerates and load on target machine. (Patched but not checked - if there are any problems, back patch to 0.47 and I'll get a fix out tonight).

Thu Jul 8 00:01:20 BST 1999

Version 0.47 released: Track loading screen replaced black screen of nothingness. Still no arcade mode, I 'fraid.

Wed Jul 7 19:33:23 BST 1999

Version 0.46 released: Just a little patch - Erik Greenwald's patch displays the frame rate in the top right corner when you press 'f'. I get 75 fps just about.

Tue Jul 6 23:50:18 BST 1999

Version 0.45 released: This is not (yet) the arcade mode release. There are other craft now, but they don't go anywhere - they just sit there. A bit more work is needed to make them go somewhere. Other changes: Improved the gameplay so you don't hit the bottom of the track anymore. This release possibly detects if you have getopt_long and copes accordingly. Feedback from FreeBSD and Solaris users welcome. This version may well compile on SGI.

Mon Jul 5 22:42:07 BST 1999

Rich is working on arcade mode (lots of robotic players).

Sun Jul 4 15:28:27 BST 1999

Version 0.44 released: I made the track bigger and faster. Go faster spots on the track now work. Tried to fix some of the problems with craft hitting the track and stopping dead - it's slightly better now, but still not right. Preview track in modeller (makes AC3D work at an acceptable speed). Multiple input files to mktrack so you can combine scenery from different sources. (Version 0.43 has a build problem - get the patch to upgrade).

Sun Jul 4 11:14:35 BST 1999

Version 0.42 released: Mipmapped textures. Keyboard configuration file. Fullscreen mode.

Sat Jul 3 22:54:15 BST 1999

Version 0.41 released: Minor patch fixes sky and depth buffer bug.

Sat Jul 3 19:24:57 BST 1999

Version 0.40 released: There is no new code in this release, but there is pretty complete documentation on how to design your own tracks. Anyone want to have a go? If so, post your intentions on the mailing list. What I really need is to bundle a completed track with scenery and textures while I continue on finishing the game engine.

Sat Jul 3 12:04:18 BST 1999

Version 0.39 released: I've finished the trigger code completely now. Also some much better textures from Andrew Ford.

Sat Jul 3 00:16:30 BST 1999

Version 0.38 released: I've added power-up and go-faster marking on the track. These don't actually do anything at the moment, but that'll be trivial to add soon. Someone is bound to point out that the left and right (chirality :-) of the markings is reversed. I know, and I've fixed the bug, but not bothered to generate a new track yet.

Fri Jul 2 21:50:08 BST 1999

Version 0.37 released: Just a few fixes in this one. A major bug re. visibility of scenery objects is fixed.

Wed Jun 30 23:34:23 BST 1999

Version 0.36 released: A lot has gone on behind the scenes in this release. I've sorted out a bunch of problems with the old track file format and added a separate track description file which allows you to specify extra per-segment information which cannot go into the modeller file. This puts a lot of infrastructure in place for people who want to develop tracks. eg. You can now do scenery with animating textures. The visible changes are rather slight though - the nasty old start light has gone, and it is replaced with a bit of animating scenery. The start and lap times work (almost) correctly too. There's probably not going to be a release tomorrow night (pub night).

Wed Jun 30 17:48:06 BST 1999

Version 0.35 released: I'm not sure if this one even runs (it compiles though). Just wanted to get a couple of patches in there which had been waiting around in my `in queue' for a while; namely CD Audio support and a joystick button fix.

Wed Jun 30 08:38:40 BST 1999

Version 0.34 released: Minor patch: Improved sky textures.

Wed Jun 30 00:05:50 BST 1999

Version 0.33 released: Nothing major in this release. I just added a couple of pieces of scenery and fixed a depth buffer related bug. (Fixed a missing image file in release 0.32).

Tue Jun 29 21:20:43 BST 1999

Version 0.31 released: Redesigned track textures using Perlin noise. Much nicer looking, I'm sure you'll agree. Sky! Actually, the sky doesn't make sense yet without the rest of the scenery, but you get the idea. I smoothed out the bumps in the track that everyone was complaining about and increased the speed a little. Ingo sent me a tidy-up patch which adds getopt_long(3)-style options, fixes version numbers and a lot more.

Tue Jun 29 16:26:04 BST 1999

Version 0.30 released: There is nothing visibly new in this release, but in the back-end I've added some code to generate Perlin noise for more realistic looking textures. Thanks to Andrew Ford for that one. There is also an XRacer mailing list. (This is my first tentative experiment with majordomo, so it may or may not work). To subscribe, just do:


echo "subscribe xracer" | \
  mail -s '' xracer-request@annexia.org

Sun Jun 27 22:44:43 BST 1999

Version 0.29 released: This is just a minor fix for mktrack.c, and also a test of patch files. You should be able to get patches to the latest version below.

Sun Jun 27 20:24:45 BST 1999

Version 0.28 released: I tweaked the game physics quite a bit. You now sit a lot lower down, which gives a greater impression of speed (you're not actually going any faster, though). I also fixed a stupid bug in mktrackmodel, and started designing a new track.

Sun Jun 27 14:41:09 BST 1999

Version 0.27 released: Fixes a few of the broken bits in 0.26.

Sun Jun 27 14:17:38 BST 1999

Version 0.26 released: The major change here is you can now use a modeller such as AC3D to add scenery around the track. This code needs some tidying up, but basically it's all there and it works. I even added a bit of scenery - a start light (but it's not wired up yet - we still have the hacky start lights). Various stuff broke in the move (what did you expect?).

Sat Jun 26 10:43:00 BST 1999

Version 0.25 released: Distribution bugs in 0.23/0.24 ...

Sat Jun 26 10:15:31 BST 1999

Version 0.23 released: This one compiles on Windows (you need Cygwin). Various changes to mouse controls. You can invert the sense of the mouse up and down and change its sensitivity on the fly.

Please when you send me patches, send me unified diffs (see: diff(1)). Anything else wastes my time and yours too, because I'll probably ignore any other format from now on.

Sat Jun 26 00:25:14 BST 1999

Version 0.22 released: No visible changes again, but more changes to mktrackmodel.c. The ``name'' tag in AC3D means that I can attach arbitrary information to quads. This should mean you can design the entire track and scenery in a modeller and import it directly into the game.

Fri Jun 25 23:25:01 BST 1999

Version 0.21 released: No visible changes, but I've moved the track code around so you can export generated tracks into AC3D and edit them there.

Fri Jun 25 17:59:32 BST 1999

Version 0.20 released: There is virtually nothing new in this release (see below though).

A Windows binary of release 0.19 is available here: http://members.xoom.com/bpj1138/xracer-0.19-win9x-bin.zip (update: this link now removed). I'm looking at including the source patches back into the main release so that we can have XRacer for Windows (WinRacer ...?)

I've got my copy of AC3D now, and I'm playing around with it to develop pieces of scenery and experiment with porting scenery into and out of it. This might take a while - I've got to get to grips with the file format used by this modeller and try to write a parser. In the meantime, please send me patches, and I'll put out minor updates as they happen.

Thu Jun 24 11:45:32 BST 1999

I've just forked over 25 quid to buy a copy of the AC3D modeller. Much as I dislike commercial software, and particularly that half commercial / nearly there hybrid of ``shareware'', I have to admit that this the only solid, simple to use modeller for Linux. (I discount Blender which is so unintuitive that I've so far not worked out how to draw even a simple polygon). I've also got a semi-coherent plan about how all the scenery design will work (see here in Postscript format and here for the original FIG file).

Wed Jun 23 22:49:40 BST 1999

Version 0.19 released: Mouse support improved slightly. It now warps and grabs the pointer, allowing you to play on a Voodoo without losing focus on the underlying window. Mouse support is still a little ropey though, so people please send me patches to make it better. I completely rewrote the joystick / keyboard / mouse code to make it a lot less crufty. Keyboard support is broken again. I wrote a simple and temporary time trial mode. The red / green lights are temporary -- I'll throw them away in a few releases time! No more updates until Friday. I'm off down the pub tomorrow night.

Wed Jun 23 20:23:18 BST 1999

Version 0.18 released: Mouse support.

Wed Jun 23 08:28:18 BST 1999

Version 0.17 released: Should compile cleanly on Solaris.

Tue Jun 22 23:03:48 BST 1999

Version 0.16 released: This release includes the beginnings of a time trial mode. Bug fixes.

(Releases 0.14 and 0.15 contained blatant bugs, in case you were wondering.)

Tue Jun 22 21:23:13 BST 1999

Version 0.13 released: This release may compile cleanly on FreeBSD now. Further Bezier curve patches. LCD done using display lists. Fixes build problems in previous version.

A brand new website.

Mon Jun 21 23:10:00 BST 1999

1000 XRacer downloads!


Richard Jones
Last modified: Sat Jul 17 00:29:04 BST 1999