Released New Release Candidate Update - Client 7969457

Discussion in 'News & Notifications' started by Paul Jeffrey, Dec 15, 2021.

  1. Havner

    Havner Registered

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    Ah, that would explain why they don't do any changes to the physics. Because it's difficult...

    EDIT: On the other hand they also barely fix any bugs. Hmm...
     
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  2. Lazza

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    Depends on the physics. I already posted a simple physics thing in this thread.

    The point is, they did some work on the driver labels. So it's not a complete unknown to them. They obviously also spent at least a little time on it. So if they could see how to make them work in VR, why wouldn't they?
     
  3. Havner

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    No, of course. I completely agree with you. They did not make them work in VR because it's simply too difficult for them. No irony here (contrary to my previous post).

    But that begs the question: are they even competent to implement things that are more difficult to do than plain 2d rectangular boards displayed in 3d scene that are visible in VR?
     
  4. Lazza

    Lazza Registered

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    Who answers that? We still don't know how hard that is. Maybe many other wished-for items are easier. Who knows.
     
  5. Havner

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    I do programming for a living. Not some business Java/C# high-level stuff but low level system programming, kernel programming. I have my own share in graphics drivers, OpenGL programming, CUDA (before OpenCL was even a thing) and the like.

    I can GUARANTEE you that anything physics related in that decade old engine is orders of magnitude more difficult than vehicle labels in VR, especially in the engine they modernized themselves (DX11).
     
    Last edited: Dec 17, 2021
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  6. Elcid43

    Elcid43 Registered

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    I would imagine that there is a lot of low hanging fruit that could be taken care of {UI changes/colors) that could make some fairly important changes but I certainly have no idea. I do have to ask though if a member here can make significant and useful changes to the UI, what's going on at S397?
     
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  7. Havner

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    Hmm, now that I think of it, what are the biggest programming tasks they took and finished since they took over ISI?
    - graphics engine: yes, that is a big task, took them years and they *completely* failed to optimize it properly
    - UI: a big task but definitely smaller than graphics engine. And they just reskinned it. With a new technology (web, whatever), but still it's just a reskin, not a redesign.

    Anything else? I came late to the party, I honestly don't know.

    They barely fix any bugs. Any code changes take them months to do. They mainly release new cars and tracks. We always thought that they do so because they need money. Of course, that is a valid reason. But maybe this is the only thing they can do semi-competently?

    Bugs can be easy to fix (e.g. UI), they can be hard to fix (physics). But they don't even bother with simple ones.

    And like I said, anything physics related will be orders of magnitude more difficult than anything they managed to finish till now. And seeing how those things ended up I honestly don't have much hope.
     
  8. Comante

    Comante Registered

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    You say you have programming experience, but you seem to be aboard from very little. The result is that you don't seem to know what you talking about.
    You would be right is RFactor 2 was programmed by some wise guy with an extended care on documentation and programming conventions, maybe with OOP mentality.
    The truth is that RFactor 2 is a mess born on a programming mess made by someone that didn't care at all to program in a clean, clear, readable way. The code in completely interwined and they discovered quite soon that every changes had (and still have) unpredictable reflections on things that have nothing to do with what you are touching. The GUI interface for example was discovered to cause bugs in the graphic engine and if I remember correctly, some part of it influenced even the physics engine.
    I think most of the work they did was to disentangle such mess, solve bugs, and prepare a fundation upon which is possible to add new bricks. Yes this work is invisible, but they corrected a huge amount of bugs and CTDs (in ISI times, RF2 crashed on me almost regularly), RFactor 2 today is incomparably better than it was before Studio 397 took over.
     
  9. Havner

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    I also say that I consider my English skill to be on a communicative level (I'm obviously not native), but I don't have a clue what you wanted to say here.

    EDIT: About the rest of your post. Fine, like I said I came late to the party. If they fixed crashes great. Kudos to them. But I sincerely doubt they untangled anything not related to stuff they were working on (UI, graphics engine) as you don't do such things if you don't need to (e.g. you plan on reworking that) and again, I don't see any improvements (feature wise) outside of graphics and UI (if you can even call that an improvement in regards to UI).
     
    Last edited: Dec 17, 2021
  10. lagg

    lagg Registered

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    As you say, you came late to the party and don't know what S397 had to do.
     
  11. Havner

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    Why won't you shed some light on that then? If you maybe noticed I asked a question above what other bigger programming tasks they took and managed to complete?
     
  12. Comante

    Comante Registered

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  13. Rastas

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    I have fireworks working in 2 tracks,Goodwood Hillclimb,they activate only at night and Pudsey :p 58729744_2346951402245817_482743663961571328_n.jpg 65864104_2392066554400968_7129857204139589632_n.jpg
     
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  14. Havner

    Havner Registered

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    Studio 397 took over in 2016 (according to wiki)

    I skimmed through those news and I barely see anything new I did not know about. Lots of bug fixes (more than we see nowadays). Some minor AI and physics work (heat transfer) and rain effects have been added (but I take this was done together and thanks to the new graphical engine).

    What I didn't realize is that there were unproportionally more roadmap updates (and content releases) than actual new builds. Which only confirms my earlier posts.

    And the fact that you guys cannot name a single thing beyond those I listed.
     
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  15. lagg

    lagg Registered

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    They had to rewrite a big part of all the program. IIRC they spoke about decens of thousands of lines of code and that was the reason for many of the hystoric delays.
    rF2 was wrote in the old spaguetti programming style and they had to change this. I haven't read in any place that they have finished that task.
     
  16. Havner

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    I know you won't take my word for it, but if you have an experienced friend that is a programmer ask him. You DON'T rewrite anything in a legacy code that you don't have to, that don't give you any specific gains/improvements. You do rewrites (and still, the smaller the better) with something specific in mind. I believe that they did some rewrites for graphical engine and for the UI. But i don't believe for a second that they are still rewriting anything for the gains and improvements we might or we might not see in the far future. That is just not the way you treat such a big codebase. You simply do not rewrite the whole engine *only* so it's easier to work on it in the future.

    EDIT: And some simple reasons for that to make it easier for you to believe it:
    1. You usually don't understand half of the code even to read it, much less to rewrite it
    2. Nobody has the manpower to do that
    3. That creates much more bugs than it's worth
    4. The rewritten code base ends up being as big of a spaghetti mess as it was before (only a different flavour).
     
  17. RNelson

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    I am not criticizing you but my experience on this forum is no matter what route they go they will get bashed. Tackle low hanging fruit and get trashed for not tackling the big stuff. Attempt to do 'the big stuff' and it never gets completed soon enough and they have taxed people's patience (none as far as I am aware know exactly what they are working with but are expert at speculating). I wish them success with their endeavor to resurrect this product. And I know leagues use it with success so within some scope of usability the game works. It certainly has flaws and each user has the right to label them as deal breakers or livable.
     
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  18. lagg

    lagg Registered

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    @Havner as you have said, you are "new" here.
    You don't know me and you don't know if i've been programmer (or not) or if i've been consultant and implementer of ERPs (or not) or if i've had my own software company (or not)
    Who knows...
    In any case you know that you are "new" here and don't know what has happened.
     
  19. lagg

    lagg Registered

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    One more thing.
    I'm not defending S397.
    I'm only telling what i've read among years.

    For me, the long term strategy has been wrong.
    IMHO, once they managed "The spaguetti incident" they should had begin to solve bugs and make the program more friendly.
    The result of the current strategy is that it seems that there are no new users, because every thing that you want to do is too hard.
    One "normal" thing in the leagues of comunities is to help users to use and config the program. It's difficult to config devices (now with the wizard is better), config graphics and details to have a good performance of GPU and CPU, install and config plugins and external apps, etc.
    This shouldn't be normal and is a big problem of rF2.
    As long as these things are not solved, theusers will come and leave rF2 in a few days or weeks.
    It's what we see in our league the last years.
     
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  20. Havner

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    ROTFL, Yes, bash me cause I'm new. Truth told I've been playing rFactor 2 since 2018 so taking into consideration Studio 397 took over in 2016 I'm not as new to their work as I initially thought (I thought they took over much earlier before I checked that today). Knowing that I wouldn't even write that I'm late to the party (speaking only about Studio-397 era). Yet the fact that you picked on this simple statement and failed to give me *any* tangible arguments is telling (despite me asking several times).
     

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