GTR - An Appreciation

Dev@simbin wrote:

> "Good to
> see you keep up with what the guts of the sim racing community think ie
> ras. Don't take it too hard - I did say I was happy to see this rectified
> immediately! "
>
> Cheers! This does underline the point also - it's actually part of my
> SimBin job description (and I know it is also for some others) to guage
> the wishes of the hardcore fanbase to further improve the product.
>
> Yes, 1.23 is a great improvement in many areas, it isn't until you have
> 800 people in a lobby jumping in and out of races that some issues come to
> light and thankfully the team have knuckled down and resolved them one by
> one. I know that one of our online coders missed christmas to fix some
> things! He put in a 48 hour no-sleep burst starting christmas eve when...
> and he hasn't let us forget it . The final update due out with the
> international release takes it very close to perfection and given the
> myriad variations in connections and systems that's about as good as a
> dev' can hope for. The 'very hard to please' beta testers now feel it's
> the premier online racing experience and there are a few new features
> added because the hardcore fanbase asked for them.
>
> SimBin Devs.
>
>
>
> "Byron Forbes" > wrote in message
>
...
>>
>> "Dev@simbin" > wrote in message
>> ...
>>>
>>> Nothing of the sort was ever said. The primary concern for the team has
>>> been to develop the online side with a view to supporting the hardcore
>>> teams and leagues. That's why the latest patch centres on just that.
>>>
>>
>> Nothing of the sort - and then you go on to point out exactly what I
>> was talking about! LOL.
>>
>> here's a copy of what was quoted earlier in the very thread you point
>> to but earlier in it -
>> http://www.gtr-game.com/forums/index...topic=854&st=0
>>
>> " I will say that the league communities make up a very small
>> proportion of the GTR purchase base, so none of this is essential for the
>> future of GTR. We do though intend to continually add to the GTR
>> experience for ALL fans and as a result look implement as many requested
>> features as we can. The team are constantly monitoring requests and
>> nothing gets missed. "
>>
>> This clearly implies what I said.
>>
>>> You probably refer to a gtr-game 'forum' post by Ian Bell which
>>> responded to a customer stating that SimBin MUST support the leagues to
>>> be successful. Ian responded that given how sales are going, it's not
>>> something SimBin MUST do, but it is something they want to do and are
>>> doing as they want the same features that the league racing hardcore
>>> desire.
>>>
>>> He
>>> http://www.gtr-game.com/forums/index...opic=854&st=40
>>>
>>>
>>
>> See above.
>>
>>
>>> Besides that, Ian has been online asking questions in the lobby only
>>> once, the purpose of which was to ascertain which features the league
>>> racers would want so we at SimBin can code them in.
>>>
>>> Best regards,
>>>
>>> SimBin Dev.
>>>
>>
>> Good on you SimBin Dev. 10/10 for the guts to come in here! Good to
>> see you keep up with what the guts of the sim racing community think ie
>> ras. Don't take it too hard - I did say I was happy to see this rectified
>> immediately! I for one am happy with the step to 1.23. However, the
>> thing does need some more TLC b4 final release of course.
>>

Just send it out to the rest of the world already I feel like a crack
whore waiting for a fix

Mitch
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Uwe Schürkamp wrote:

> On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 11:26:06 +0000 (UTC), Dev@simbin wrote:
>
>> connections and systems that's about as good as a dev' can hope for. The
>> 'very hard to please' beta testers now feel it's the premier online
>> racing experience and there are a few new features added because the
>> hardcore fanbase asked for them.
>
> Good news! Will we see online teams and online driver changes during
> 24h events? Will those show-stopping win98se /ME bugs be fixed?
>
> Cheers,
>
> uwe
>
>

Win98 is non supported product now and the bugs are unlikely to be fixed
Uwe
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On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 16:00:08 GMT, Mitch_A wrote:
>
> Win98 is non supported product now and the bugs are unlikely to be fixed
> Uwe

Well, read the box carefully then. 98se is listed in the "recommended"
section.

uwe


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Uwe Schürkamp wrote:

> On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 16:00:08 GMT, Mitch_A wrote:
>>
>> Win98 is non supported product now and the bugs are unlikely to be fixed
>> Uwe
>
> Well, read the box carefully then. 98se is listed in the "recommended"
> section.
>
> uwe
>
>

Whooosh. Ya missed the win98 joke. Or my jokes really suck
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On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 20:18:21 GMT, Mitch_A wrote:
>
> Whooosh. Ya missed the win98 joke. Or my jokes really suck

Well, sorry for not seeing the humor, but I put a couple of hundreds
of Euros into my machine simply because GTR is a nasty bug parade on
any 98SE / ME system, so for for me it's no laughing matter, esp. when
they (whoever "they" is, but I am quite certain that *nobody* tested
GTR on an ME / 98 SE system online for longer than five minutes) state
right on the fscking box that 98SE / ME is a RECOMMENDED operating
system alongside those other new fancy MS stuff.

Cheers, uwe

PS: Can somebody confirm / deny that any of the most obvious bugs
related to 98se / ME have been fixed by any of the patches? I had to
"upgrade" to XP, obviously 8-P


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Actually, due to lack of official DirectX support, Win98 support is being
removed from the international release. There's just some things that
couldn't be guaranteed with an unsupported OS as the online and lobby code
was advanced.

It works fine in Win ME though, so I'm not sure what the showstopper is
there that was referred to. But the long and short of it is that any gamer
knows that for solid OS support and network code, the latest Ms OS is the
way to go.

SimBin Devs.


"Mitch_A" > wrote in message
m...
> Uwe Schürkamp wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 16:00:08 GMT, Mitch_A wrote:
>>>
>>> Win98 is non supported product now and the bugs are unlikely to be fixed
>>> Uwe
>>
>> Well, read the box carefully then. 98se is listed in the "recommended"
>> section.
>>
>> uwe
>>
>>
>
> Whooosh. Ya missed the win98 joke. Or my jokes really suck
> --
> Remove the nospam. to reply.
>
> Kontact enabled ______

Win ME is a show stopping bug itself

"Dev@simbin" > wrote in message
...
> Actually, due to lack of official DirectX support, Win98 support is being
> removed from the international release. There's just some things that
> couldn't be guaranteed with an unsupported OS as the online and lobby code
> was advanced.
>
> It works fine in Win ME though, so I'm not sure what the showstopper is
> there that was referred to. But the long and short of it is that any gamer
> knows that for solid OS support and network code, the latest Ms OS is the
> way to go.
>
> SimBin Devs.
>
>
> "Mitch_A" > wrote in message
> m...
>> Uwe Schürkamp wrote:
>>
>>> On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 16:00:08 GMT, Mitch_A wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Win98 is non supported product now and the bugs are unlikely to be
>>>> fixed
>>>> Uwe
>>>
>>> Well, read the box carefully then. 98se is listed in the "recommended"
>>> section.
>>>
>>> uwe
>>>
>>>
>>
>> Whooosh. Ya missed the win98 joke. Or my jokes really suck
>> --
>> Remove the nospam. to reply.
>>
>> Kontact enabled ______
>
>

On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 22:56:05 +0000 (UTC), Dev@simbin wrote:
> Actually, due to lack of official DirectX support, Win98 support is being
> removed from the international release. There's just some things that

I guess the German box claiming that both 98SE and ME are considered
recommended operating systems by GTR will become a collector's item
then pretty quickly 8-P

> couldn't be guaranteed with an unsupported OS as the online and lobby code
> was advanced.
>

Funny nobody saw the necessity to check into this before the title
went gold (in Germany at least).

> there that was referred to. But the long and short of it is that any gamer
> knows that for solid OS support and network code, the latest Ms OS is the
> way to go.

Maybe the international publisher (Atari?) should consider putting
this statement on the box ;-)

Show-stopping bugs I remember off the top of my head:

- GTR crashes when selecting the direct-connect multiplayer screen
(CTD)

- GUI / lobby / garage gui buttons will refuse to work after 10-20
minutes of online play (I admit this is the nastiest and hardest to
track of them all as it's not reproducible *all* of the time)

Sorry if I come across a bit pee'd off, and meanwhile I've upgraded to
xp because the company I work for allows usage of an xp pro home
office license, but really I do not understand how those bugs could
have slipped through even alpha testing. Please disregard this message
if the bugs have been fixed by the 1.2.3 release, but I saw nothing in
the readme of that sort.

OTOH it's good to see that GTR enjoys continued support by the SimBin
team, even in this viper pit that is RAS ;-)

All the best,

uwe

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Hi Uwe

We have no reports on the forum or bug list of Direct-connect causing a CTD
with anything other than win98. The lobby disconnect and direct connect
issues were fixed in the last patch.
We did go through a complete test cycle with Win 98 including full
networking tests with an external testing company.
As I say, we have continually advanced the features and code since release,
and with Win 98 not being supported by its makers, it's impossible to
guarantee trouble free networking with it. We aren't including win98 support
in the international release even though it does work with the occasional
Win98 related hiccups.

SimBin


"Uwe Schürkamp" > wrote in message
...
> On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 22:56:05 +0000 (UTC), Dev@simbin wrote:
>> Actually, due to lack of official DirectX support, Win98 support is being
>> removed from the international release. There's just some things that
>
> I guess the German box claiming that both 98SE and ME are considered
> recommended operating systems by GTR will become a collector's item
> then pretty quickly 8-P
>
>> couldn't be guaranteed with an unsupported OS as the online and lobby
>> code
>> was advanced.
>>
>
> Funny nobody saw the necessity to check into this before the title
> went gold (in Germany at least).
>
>> there that was referred to. But the long and short of it is that any
>> gamer
>> knows that for solid OS support and network code, the latest Ms OS is the
>> way to go.
>
> Maybe the international publisher (Atari?) should consider putting
> this statement on the box ;-)
>
> Show-stopping bugs I remember off the top of my head:
>
> - GTR crashes when selecting the direct-connect multiplayer screen
> (CTD)
>
> - GUI / lobby / garage gui buttons will refuse to work after 10-20
> minutes of online play (I admit this is the nastiest and hardest to
> track of them all as it's not reproducible *all* of the time)
>
> Sorry if I come across a bit pee'd off, and meanwhile I've upgraded to
> xp because the company I work for allows usage of an xp pro home
> office license, but really I do not understand how those bugs could
> have slipped through even alpha testing. Please disregard this message
> if the bugs have been fixed by the 1.2.3 release, but I saw nothing in
> the readme of that sort.
>
> OTOH it's good to see that GTR enjoys continued support by the SimBin
> team, even in this viper pit that is RAS ;-)
>
> All the best,
>
> uwe
>
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On Thu, 27 Jan 2005 10:46:56 +0000 (UTC), Dev@simbin wrote:

> We did go through a complete test cycle with Win 98 including full
> networking tests with an external testing company.

Hi Dev,

thanks for your reply and comments. I find the above statement quite
hard to believe, given the bug parade that was 1.0.0.0 or even 1.1.0.0
on 98SE, but then I have no idea how the external testing company
defines a "complete testing cycle": "installed" (check), "runs"
(check), "exits without Crash" (check) <approved ;->

I'll let the matter rest now (or I'll try to ;-), and thanks again for
commenting and explaining simbin's point of view on these issues here
in RAS.

I reported the "gui button bug" numerous times both to 10tacle and
several forums (both official and inoffical), but I never heard back
from anyone except 10tacle support (and that report was pretty much
automated).

I hope you understand the "itch to bitch" on this topic after shelling
out several hundred euros just to get gtr to work reliably on a rig on
which it should have run flawlessly in the first place.

All the best,

uwe

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