# XRacer: Old News

Tue Jan 18 23:24:24 GMT 2000

Version 0.95.25: Minor update. Removed all `printf`'s and `perror`'s from the code. Tidied up handling of `--verbose` command line argument. Made compiler warnings much more strict, and removed a ton of buggy code which triggered warnings.

Tue Jan 18 21:30:06 GMT 2000

Version 0.95.24: A minor update. Added some more scenery. Some changes to `tracks/simple/control.c`. Fixed RPM builds (slightly more).

Mon Jan 17 23:37:33 GMT 2000

Version 0.95.23: I can't believe that until now I didn't have a link to ssystem from these pages. Well that's rectified now. This program has been around for a few years now. It's a really beautiful solar system simulator. Get it now (it needs Mesa 3.0). OK, there's no new code in this release. I just got RPMs working (maybe - perhaps someone could mail me if they get the RPM to work/not work).

Mon Jan 17 19:24:57 GMT 2000

Version 0.95.22: Nick Lewycky sent another patch in which fixes the mouse controls (actually - makes them work, full stop).

Sun Jan 16 23:17:15 GMT 2000

Version 0.95.21: Just playing with Blender and adding some more scenery to the basic track.

Sun Jan 16 16:16:09 GMT 2000

Version 0.95.20: Added support for textured scenery objects (although the texturing is not quite right at the moment, and drawing large quads seems to make the engine slow down unacceptably). Added debug of segment number. Fixed a build bug.

Sun Jan 16 10:17:18 GMT 2000

Version 0.95.19: Nick Lewycky sent in a patch which fixes the keyboard controls.

Sat Jan 15 16:08:04 GMT 2000

Version 0.95.18: Added code to browse directories and load tracks.

Sun Jan 9 15:27:20 GMT 2000

Version 0.95.17: Laps code imported from 0.94 release.

Sat Jan 8 18:45:44 GMT 2000

Version 0.95.16: Minor patch fixes a warning and CVS problem in previous release.

Sat Jan 8 18:27:44 GMT 2000

Version 0.95.15: It's taken me most of the week to figure out a really annoying bug. I added a skeleton outline for the sound code, but this caused XRacer to consistently lock up the machine every time it ran. Eventually worked out that I was calling exit(3) not _exit(2) in the sound subprocess - deeply confusing Mesa/Glide by calling all the atexit callbacks twice over. Here it is - no sound, but the skeleton for sound is in place. Also updates to the FAQ, craft drawn in background a la Elite, and numerous small updates.

Mon Jan 3 22:42:58 GMT 2000

Version 0.95.14: Added code to store craft in a file, and load them when the game starts up. Added a simple Blender VRML parser, so that (in theory at least) you can draw craft in Blender. This works, to some extent, but it's not really ready for prime-time.

The mailing list, which had been in a state of not-workingness for some time is now working again. To subscribe to it, do this:

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

Sun Jan 2 17:13:24 GMT 2000

Version 0.95.13: No change. Just updating the website.

Sun Jan 2 14:14:25 GMT 2000

Version 0.95.12: Joystick controls work, but the handling is very ropey. It's here.

Sun Jan 2 01:49:40 GMT 2000

Version 0.95.11: Screenshots work again. Added joystick code (but you still can't move around - promise that for the next version). Did lots of cleaning up of the menu code. There are now a few menus you can navigate between. It's here.

Sat Jan 1 17:40:27 GMT 2000

Version 0.95.10: Fixed a few more stupid bugs. FPS calculated correctly now (there was me about to post a message about how slow Mesa 3.1 was :-). Text is the right way up! It's here.

Sat Jan 1 17:15:36 GMT 2000

Version 0.95.9: Pulled in the powerups, panel, LCD code. It's here.

Sat Jan 1 15:57:04 GMT 2000

Version 0.95.8: Happy new year to everyone from London, England! ... We recently got coverage by the folks at linuxgames.com. This is good news, but please note that the 0.95.x releases of XRacer are intermediate, sub-alpha, unplayable versions. I'm rewriting the game engine from scratch now. If you just want to play with the game, try version 0.94 instead.

Tracks and textures on the track are now generated from a Blender-exported file. A tool converts the track description directly into a piece of optimized C code which is called upon to draw the track. The code is stored in the track file. This is how things should work. It avoids all the display list clutter and problems with parsing track files. Also should allow the track scenery to be really dynamic - ie. someone could hack together a track file with animated textures, or even an animated track.

The latest version is here.

Wed Dec 29 21:35:38 GMT 1999

Version 0.95.7: Fixed a lot of physics problems. It's here.

Wed Dec 29 17:17:37 GMT 1999

Version 0.95.6: As usual, getting the physics to work can prove to be a little bit of a problem. It's here.

Tue Dec 28 19:19:43 GMT 1999

Version 0.95.5: Wow. You can see the track now. The distribution file here is a little bit smaller. I removed some intermediate files which had slipped in there by accident.

Tue Dec 28 16:42:08 GMT 1999

Version 0.95.4: More stuff, still no game. It's here.

Mon Dec 27 16:15:11 GMT 1999

Version 0.95.3: Another release for the brave (or should that be foolhardy). Please read the notes about version 0.95.2 first. And yes, I know the text is upside down :-) It's here.

Sun Dec 26 17:18:55 GMT 1999

Version 0.95.2: A few people have asked me for source for the new, rewritten-from-scratch, XRacer. It's here. This version is extremely incomplete. I have only just started the process of copying code over from version 0.94 into this new series. It's probably not worth sending me patches against this version yet. If you want a working playable game, go and download 0.94.

Important XRacer News

Thu Nov 11 13:45:57 GMT 1999

XRacer development is in a temporary lull. There are various reasons for this: Firstly, I was working 25 hours a day completing and deploying the Linux rewrite of SchoolMaster - the world's best and most popular community for schools. It used to run on Notes/NT. 'Nuff said, I think. This is still on-going, but since the system has been successfully deployed and all existing schools transferred across, development is not quite so hectic now.

Secondly, I'm in Tokyo, Japan right now on holiday.

So I hope you will accept my excuses, and now get ready for the good news: refreshed from my holiday, I am full of good ideas for XRacer, and ready to start a substantial rewrite when I get back next week. I even have time off from work to start it.

Modeller: AC3D was becoming something of a liability. We reached the limits of what was possible very quickly, and it was clear to me that development could not continue without a new modeller. In addition, AC3D is not free software in either free beer or free speech senses of the word. I was loathed to force my codevelopers to have to pay to build tracks.

I bought the Blender book, did a few tutorials, and now I'm beginning to get the hang of this very powerful and complete modeller. I am convinced that Blender, although it is free beer and not yet free speech, provides the best way forward for easily and quickly building tracks. For a start, I quickly found out that you could draw a bezier curve (circle, actually), extrude a shape along it and convert it into a mesh. Instant track.

Now Blender is not the ideal tool for the job. One of its main problems is the fact that it is hard to export models in a useful form. In particular, I can think of two features which would be immediately useful: firstly to be able to export the scene objects in complete internal form to a simple ASCII-based format; secondly to be able to export just single objects at a time. Ton has promised to release the source to Blender 2. I hope he decides to do this sooner rather than later so I can add the features I need directly. In the meantime, there seems to be sufficient export capability to allow us to use Blender as a modeller for XRacer with some simple Perl scripts to convert between formats.

Code: The XRacer code base has become rather tangled. I plan to substantially rewrite and clean up the code to make the flow of execution cleaner and more obvious. Also to allow simpler platform-dependent sections to be written (the original code didn't pay any attention to platforms other than Linux, meaning that a Windows-native port is a tricky affair). Fred Brooks said something on the lines of ``plan to throw away the first version ... you will anyway''. Consider the current version to be the first attempt. The second version should get a lot more things right.

Track format: The old track format was a definite mistake. Not only are track files large and slow, but they are not even very flexible or useful. For example, you can't program intelligence into objects - so you couldn't have cars moving along a motorway realistically for example. The new track file format will simply be a shared library (a `.so` file on Unix). The track code will perform everything related to drawing and GL, and hence be able to make intelligent track-specific optimizations such as ...

Display lists & Mesa 3.1: The current implementation is not very intelligent about how it uses display lists. It works well with Mesa 3.0, but as anyone who has tried to run XRacer against Mesa 3.1 will have found out, it fails miserably when display lists are properly implemented. Thanks to a number of comments made on the mailing list, I now have a much better understanding of display lists and how future hardware will be able to optimize them. The new implementation will be built against Mesa 3.1 from the start, and should use display lists somewhat more intelligently where possible.

Mailing list: The mailing list is (or perhaps isn't) down. This is odd. I could swear that I didn't change anything about the sendmail or majordomo configuration, but I'll check. Anyhow, annexia.org is soon going to be moved onto a different machine at work (for general security / isolation reasons), so I will have a chance to build a fresh sendmail and majordomo installation. Things should be back to normal as soon as this happens.

That's all for now. Keep an eye on this space for the next two weeks, and you should see things start to happen again. Thanks for your patience.

Rich. Tokyo, Japan.

Mon Sep 20 20:56:46 BST 1999

Version 0.94: Font and instrument panel scaling patch by Szczepan Kuzniarz. Meanwhile, I've been hard at work learning to use Blender.

Sun Sep 12 14:15:42 BST 1999

Version 0.93: Sound patch: DirectSound is now (possibly) supported on Windows / CygWin platform. The patch comes from courtesy of Bart Jaszcz, thanks to him. Feedback is appreciated (I had to modify the patch heavily, and I don't really have a Windows box to test this on). Integrated a patch from Kai Jan Runte which should allow clean compiles on Solaris 2.5.1. Also some patches from Szczepan Kuzniarz for the Amiga.

This is quite a major code-only patch and it's possible that things have been broken (eg. sound).

Sun Sep 5 12:12:16 BST 1999

Version 0.92: Some patches to fix Solaris compilation (it still doesn't quite compile correctly on Solaris, but it's nearly there). A new Windows binary of version 0.89 is out. New in this binary: sound support and untested network support. Thanks to Bart Jaszcz for this.

Tue Aug 31 23:38:31 BST 1999

Version 0.91: I reversed out the sound changes in 0.90 (which were broken). I still don't know how to use SIGIO (patch anyone!). Anyway, this version can choose to use poll(2) or select(2) at compile time, so it should be much more portable.

Tue Aug 24 21:59:22 BST 1999

Version 0.90: Various autoconf patches. You can now build properly in a separate directory. You can also build with Mesa even if you have another GL library (specify `./configure --disable-GL`). Thanks to Filip Van Raemdonck for these patches. You can also disable ESD support (ie. prefer OSS support if you have it) by specifying `./configure --disable-esd`. I also fiddled with the sound parameters, and this appears to get rid of the latency problems. I also replaced the old poll(2) method used by the sound process with asynchronous SIGIO signals. The theory is that this may make the code more portable to platforms which do not support select/poll of audio devices. However, in practice, it doesn't seem to work! I fear that Linux doesn't support SIGIO on pipes. There's no mention of SIGIO in `/usr/src/linux/fs/pipe.c`, but maybe I'm looking in the wrong place or making the wrong syscalls. Any help here would be useful. The relevant code is in `sound_process.c`.

Fri Aug 20 14:54:33 BST 1999

Version 0.89: Sorry about the few releases recently. As we discussed on the XRacer mailing list this is because of two factors: no one's sending me patches (!) and I've been snowed under at work. At least you'll see Postmaster undergo a fantastic transformation next Monday - I've not been wasting my time. Anyway, this is just a minor patch to see if we can't improve the latency of sound samples. It only affects the OSS (Linux native) sound driver.

Sun Aug 15 12:34:30 BST 1999

Version 0.88: Somewhat broken ESD (E Sound Daemon) support. The sound is choppy even though I set the socket to non-blocking mode by hand.

Wed Aug 11 20:02:03 BST 1999

Version 0.87: This version possibly fixes a problem with the generic sound driver. I need someone to test it on a non-OSS platform (eg. Solaris).

Tue Aug 10 08:31:11 BST 1999

Version 0.86: This fixes a couple of small bugs with the fading in/out of menus.

Mon Aug 9 21:19:57 BST 1999

Version 0.85: Fixed bug with slow menus in previous release. Added some comments about needing to be able to load textures without using mipmaps.

Sun Aug 8 16:34:04 BST 1999

Version 0.84: OK, course over, back to work. There are lots of changes here. Sound effects improved (better wind noise). Menus introduced (implies lots of structural changes to the code and some breakage). Why are menus so slow? There's obviously some GL effect enabled here which shouldn't be. Fixed a bug in text display functions. Tidied up lots of bits of the code.

You need to get the data files again for this release.

Mon Aug 2 19:15:54 BST 1999

Version 0.83: Another slow day in XRacer development (we are slowing down now ... think of the heady pace just a few weeks ago). OK - we have one patch from Ilpo in here which allows you to disable sound at runtime. Run xracer with the `--nosound` (`-q`) option if you have trouble with sound. One user has reported that the backdrop (the mountains) don't appear with the Mesa GLX drivers. Can anyone confirm or deny this? Ilpo is still looking for people who have used the LAN or Internet play options - help him out please chaps.

I'm on a database course (fun) all this week.

Sat Jul 31 17:52:08 BST 1999

Version 0.82: Major fix to track representation. Craft hang lower on the track, and there is less bounce. You need to get the data files with this release. Updated the FAQ.

Sat Jul 31 17:04:58 BST 1999

Version 0.81: Substantially fixed the sky and backdrop code. The backdrop mountains now follow the viewer as you would expect, rather than appearing stationary against the sky. Joe Waters' explanation of display list optimization (see the mailing list) helped a great deal when implementing this.

Thu Jul 29 23:33:43 BST 1999

Version 0.80: A bigger, smoother and better looking mountains texture submitted by Darin Ohashi. Sounds are now smooth (provided you use a Voodoo - any suggestions as to why they still break up on a G220?). More sound effects. You need the latest data file.

Tue Jul 27 23:47:51 BST 1999

Version 0.79: This version has very broken sound support (developers only). Does anyone know why the sound breaks up, or how to persuade OSS to generate continuous sound? This release also contains various other patches.

You need to get the new data files -- they contain the samples. You will also need the `sox` program.

Mon Jul 26 22:55:48 BST 1999

Version 0.78: Alan Levy sent gorgeous high resolution photographs of snowy mountains. Find them in the data source archive, in the directory `images/alanlevy/`. If anyone has enough experience with the GIMP and wants to turn one of two of these images into backdrops and or clean texture maps, please send me a mail. The backdrops need to wrap left-right. The texture maps need to tile in both directions. For the backdrops, it would be helpful if you could remove clouds from the sky and set the sky all to a single colour, or even better produce a separate alpha map the same size as the image (see images/mountains3.jpg and images/mountains3-alpha.jpg to see what I mean by this). Both need to be scaled so that the width and height are powers of 2 (this is a requirement for GL textures).

Meanwhile, I'm still fiddling with the vagaries of the OSS API and database imports.

Mon Jul 26 08:38:34 BST 1999

Version 0.77: I'm still writing the sound code. It still doesn't work. This release contains a small patch from Ilpo so you can specify the paths to search for GL and GLUT libraries. Ilpo appeals for people to try out the network code and post results on the mailing list.

Sun Jul 25 22:47:56 BST 1999

Version 0.76: This just fixes a compilation bug with 0.75.

Sun Jul 25 15:34:41 BST 1999

Version 0.75: This is just a very minor patch. I fiddled with the sound code, but it still isn't close to working. This is just an update to say that the dreaded database export is still ongoing. `annexia.org` and I are working overtime ... so things are still going very slowly on the XRacer front. Bart Jaszcz has put together another Windows binary release. Iota put together a page explaining how to get Voodoo Banshees and XRacer to coexist. I've not put it up yet, but if you want info, mail me in the meantime. I also downloaded Mesa 3.1 beta 2, and (yes) it really doesn't work with XRacer, and I don't know why.

Wed Jul 21 23:16:18 BST 1999

Version 0.74: Patch from Ilpo - beginnings of network game play.

OK - xracer.annexia.org is up and down. I upgraded it today to a Dual Pentium II-450 with 512 MB of RAM, because it is also being used for a huge database export. It still runs out of RAM sometimes half way through the export, so don't expect things to be too stable. The mailing list may also be intermittent for the same reason. There will be no XRacer updates from me until Saturday (except for simple patches that people send me), because of commitments at work (database export, q.v.).

Wed Jul 21 08:53:24 BST 1999

Version 0.73: Fixed bug in texture mapped fonts. Big patch from Ilpo.

Tue Jul 20 19:42:02 BST 1999

Version 0.72: Wireframe mode (toggle with 'l'). Select number of laps and difficulty level with -l and -d on command line. Fix to configure script should detect faulty glut libraries better. I'm working on sound right now.

Mon Jul 19 23:38:30 BST 1999

New screenshots.

Mon Jul 19 22:15:47 BST 1999

There's a FAQ.

Mon Jul 19 19:29:33 BST 1999

Version 0.71: Ilpo sent a patch which moves the architecture dependent stuff into different subdirectories. This seems to work OK on Linux, but I need people to test this out on non-Linux systems, and report back whether it works or not.

Mon Jul 19 08:34:24 BST 1999

Version 0.70: Fixed time trial mode. Tilable mountain range. X11 window name and class. Miscellaneous bug fixes. You need the new data files.

Sun Jul 18 12:02:32 BST 1999

Version 0.69: Fixed laps, lap times and ranks code. Broke time trial mode in the process.

Sun Jul 18 00:52:25 BST 1999

Version 0.68: This release is only for the devoted, and really a chance for me to say where XRacer is heading at the moment. The patch contains lots of fixes from Ilpo (also posted to the mailing list), plus a simple bug fix for the frame counter. I'm aiming to get some sort of 1.0 release out as soon as possible. I think the list of tasks to be completed is something like this:

1. Put together one track with complete scenery. This will be the `snow level' (a cliché, I know).
2. Sound effects (I have code, I really need someone to send me some samples).
3. Powerups: Laser cannon, missiles, mines.
4. Music (just integrate with FreeAmp cleanly and sort out CD play).
5. Gtk-based wrapper front-end.
6. Eight different craft models.
7. Laps, lap times, ranks.
8. Fix all bugs which affect gameplay and can be fixed in a reasonably short time. Leave the rest.

Other features may go in if there's time, and people send reasonably working patches (I'm thinking here of LAN multiplayer mode, of course).

You may wish to update data files for this release - there are some minor changes to track scenery.

By the way, XRacer was 1 month old yesterday. The first code went into CVS on 13th June, and the first release went out on 17th June.

Sat Jul 17 15:15:40 BST 1999

Version 0.67: No, it's not a Mesa artifact. It's a bug in the code. Get this tiny code-only patch to improve the look of the fonts.

Sat Jul 17 15:07:21 BST 1999

Version 0.66: Changed text so it's implemented as textured quads, not bitmaps. This should make things faster on most platforms. Fonts are also now antialiased (although there seems to be a strange artifact with antialiased textures and Mesa). Laps, etc. implemented properly. You'll need to get the latest data file (for the fonts).

Sat Jul 17 00:24:47 BST 1999

Version 0.65: Cleaned up and moved the website.

Sat Jul 17 00:18:33 BST 1999

Version 0.64: Fixed an embarrassing bug with the snow effect. Also improved the general look of the snow.

Fri Jul 16 23:57:23 BST 1999

Version 0.63: Big code cleanup patch from Ilpo. No visible external changes.

Fri Jul 16 21:58:32 BST 1999

Version 0.62: Minor code patch. Snow - it looks a bit crappy. Joystick buttons 3 & 4 are bound.

Thu Jul 15 21:42:55 BST 1999

Version 0.61: This release just contains code patches from Ilpo which appeared on the mailing list. I was won over by his technical arguments in favour of his constant speed patch, so that's back in there. Various other fixes for GL drivers which don't properly support GL_REPLACE for textures.

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!

Last modified: Sun Feb 6 22:19:18 GMT 2000