NASCAR® Racing 2002 Season PATCH README
1.1.0.1
04/15/02
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
 
[1] WHAT THE PATCH FIXES
[2] HOW TO INSTALL THE PATCH
[3] ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
[4] CONTACTING SIERRA
 
 
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NOTE: The 1.1.x.x version of NASCAR® Racing 2002 Season is not multiplayer compatible with previously released versions.  As a client you will only be able to see and join 1.1.x.x servers, and similarly as a host only 1.1.x.x clients will be able to see and join your server.
 
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[1] WHAT THE PATCH FIXES
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AI:
 
* It is now much easier to bump draft with the AI.
 
* The AI will no longer pile up when many cars pit together (for example, during a caution period).
 
* When qualifying is skipped, each AI driver's parameters will be considered when forming the starting grid, instead of the grid being formed completely randomly.
 
* In a fixed setup race, the AI will now use the fixed setup during qualifying, instead of the host's default qualifying setup.
 
* The pace car will no longer dive back onto pit road under caution if the leader passes it and stays ahead of it as it passes the pit entrance.
 
 
 
MULTIPLAYER:
 
* Servers may now limit Sierra.com races by LPI.
 
* Open servers may now disable the ability for a boss to eject players using the open_server_disable_boss_eject setting in the [SERVER] section of core.ini.  By default this is set to 1, which prevents open server bosses from ejecting players.  Change this setting to 0 if desired.
 
* When a client is ejected or banned from a server, the user name of the person doing the ejecting/banning is given.
 
* The Chatpad Log is now separated for each individual player, and saved in the main NR2002 directory as chatpad_<player_directory>.log
 
* The sierra.com available races screen will now continue to discard chat from people in your muzzle list when you change chat servers.
 
* Clients that retire from a multiplayer race will now be listed appropriately in the standings.
 
* Clients whose connections are dropped before they complete the race, and who do not rejoin the race, will be listed as "Disco" in the standings.
 
* If you muzzle someone's user name by using the Add button to place them into your muzzle list on the sierra.com screen, they will now also be muzzled by their cdkeyid the next time they try to connect to your server.  This keeps them from sneaking back onto your server by creating a new user name.
 
* If you wrecked your car during practice and hit Shift-R to return to the pits, other clients would not see that your car was repaired until you started moving.  They will now see that your car is fixed even if you don't move.
 
* You will no longer receive errant end-of-race messages from a sierra.com registered race server while connecting to it.
 
 
 
RENDERER:
 
* Texture compression is now supported by the OpenGL renderer.
 
* Some improvements were made to the way smoke and dust is drawn.
 
 
 
USER INTERFACE:
 
* The scrollbar for the address book on the main Multiplayer screen will no longer draw over the connection dialog boxes.  
 
* The 'Server Type' heading now sorts Open and Dedicated servers properly in the Available Races table.
 
* Clients in a multiplayer race can now see the latency/quality of other players in the Entries tab on the Race Weekend screen.
 
* The Entries tab on the Race Weekend screen now shows server admins in green, and bosses in gold (disconnected drivers are still shown in red).
 
* The Entries tab on the Race Weekend screen will now show player ratings while the left shift and left control keys are held down.
 
 
 
SOUND:
 
* Improved opponent car engine sounds to produce less crackling.
 
* Improved player car engine sound to reduce popping in mid-RPM range.
 
* Improved tire sounds to reduce popping with some sound card drivers (e.g. SBLive!).
 
* Added a new core.ini setting (force_min_readahead) to address occasional win2k/XP sound driver issue that resulted in much popping/crackling.
 
* Fixed 3D sound issue where some views would have severely muted focus car sounds.
 
* Did *not* fix 3D sound problem where internal (stereo) cockpit sounds will sometimes fail to play for some sound drivers (e.g. SBLive! on XP systems). Users experiencing this problem should not run with 3d sound enabled.
 
* Found an issue where if you had disabled sound, when exiting the game or viewing the win screen the game would appear to lock up, but in actuality it is just doing nothing until the music finishes streaming.  The user can work around this by not having sound disabled and intro/exit sequences enabled at the same time.
 
 
 
MISCELLANEOUS:
 
* Fixed a problem where the game would lock up on the Player Info, Opponent Manager, and Paint Shop screens when using the Direct3D renderer and NVidia Detonator drivers with version 23.11 or later.
 
* You can now continue a championship season after having saved a race during the season.
 
* Your spotter should no longer errantly tell you that you are too far to the left or right if your pit stall is near the end of pit road.
 
* If you have automatic transmission selected and you break a gear, the transmission will now properly skip the broken gear.
 
* The post-race newspaper screen will now use proper suffixes for positions like 21st, 22nd, etc.
 
* Some improvements have been made to the graphical car model.
 
* Fixed a bug in the game's mapping of DirectInput devices which prevented the game from properly identifying some axes when more than one controller was installed.
 
* Fixed a bug at Darlington where the driver in the 43rd pit stall would erroneously receive a black flag when pitting.
 
* Fixed a bug at Kansas where the AI would get unsafe pit entry penalties on pit entry.
 
* Systems with video cards based on the Savage 2000, S3 Savage 4 and ProSavage chipsets should run in D3D with reflections turned off.  Running in OpenGL will result in a crash.