News posted in August 2019

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Aug 1

• Cas
  My first replay for this track!
• Cas
  Oops! Editing... I was saying that R4K was down, but it's fixed now. New race just started!
• Stan 286XT
  Latest news from the ZakStunts crew: update
• afullo
  How is it possible to have a penalty time which is not a multiple of 3 seconds?
• Overdrijf
  My guess is Stan doesn't have penalty time. This has been a thing for a few races. @Stan: are you manually entering your penalty time, or is there some sort of automatic error going on?

Aug 2

• Seeker1982
  How is it possible that Duplode managed to jump onto the banked road without losing speed resp. the racing line? I tried dozens of time, but everytime my car sweeps to the left onto the grass and therefor greatly looses speed.
• Seeker1982
  new GAR-lap, very close but it should be legal (at no frame on the grass etc)

Aug 3

• satanziege
  Missed last year, but not this time :-)
• Duplode
  Happy birthday dreadnaut! ? And hello satanziege, long time no see
• Heretic
  Happy birthday! @dreadnaut
• afullo
  Happy birthday mate!
• dreadnaut
  Thank you everyone!
• Duplode
  Belated stewardship note: MOE's GAR lap on ZCT186 isn't actually a valid GAR lap. That means @dosbox92 is the GAR winner of that race. Congratulations!

Aug 4

• Cas
  Happy birthday, Dreadnaut!!!
• Duplode
  The Competition Archive has been updated! Over two decades of cars, tracks and flying laps at your fingertips: http://zak.stunts.hu/dl/competition-archive-2019-preview.zip

Aug 5

• dosbox92
  @Duplode thanks, after 2 years ?
• dosbox92
  So need to update the standing.

Aug 6

• Duplode
  @dosbox92 It's done (I think dreadnaut got there before me). Your replay is in the Archive as it should be, by the way
• Marco
  I won the c216 with a 247 hours replay. So i asked my self what were the ZakStunts endurance replay records . I went back till 2003 and this was the result of the top ten: c73 - 662 hours - CTG c64 - 655 hours - Biker c70 - 605 hours - Gutix c114 - 555 hours - Biker c151 - 516 hours - Biker c180 - 488 hours - Biker c209 - 486 hours - FinRok c84 - 464 hours - Ayrton c149 - 457 hours - Biker c148 - 432 hours - Biker
• afullo
  I led ZCT199 for 243 hours back in February/March 2018, but I did not manage to win the race.
• Duplode
  Nice list, though I think it is missing c171 - Duplode - 579 CTG's ZCT073 record probably won't be broken, as nowadays you can only get at most 26 x 24 = 624 leading hours.
• Marco
  Hi Dup, 579 hours are the entire amount of all your replays in c171. I have considered only the last winning replay
• Duplode
  @Marco Oh, I see. I don't think this particular stat had been compiled before, which makes the list even more interesting
• Cas
  Guys, you'll find that R4K is down. This is the reason: On Dimioca site and free hosting To say it briefly, I'll be solving it in the next few days.

Aug 7

• Duplode
  In the meantime, if you want to join the R4K race right now, you can get the track at this forum thread: 2019-6 (White Leaf Desert)
• Marco
  Duplode started the season
• Cas
  Thanks, Duplode. Sure, if anybody wants to practice with the track, it's there at the forum. You can also post your replays there, only realise that will make them public. I estimate that, by late Friday, I'll have the site up and running again. Oh, and I don't think I have the scoreboard updated enough to post it there, but I'll take a look.

Aug 8

• Seeker1982
  new GAR-time; not my PB which would be a driven low 1:12,x but I have serious trouble keeping my GAR-replays valid since lots of blind corners and nonlinear nature of lots of key-points etc. On the bright side I finally get the hang on the jump onto the banked road. But to be honest I can't remember last time a track being this rage-inducing
• Duplode
  @Seeker1982: ZCT206 with the Indy, perhaps? But indeed, the corner entry lines are tricky to negotiate. I kinda aimed for that, though I wasn't necessarily thinking of GAR... Also, the BMW is a very responsive car, which here is both a blessing and a curse.

Aug 9

• Cas
  Race For Kicks is back up at http://r4k.fnhost.org - Only replays from the last race were lost. I still have mine and I will reupload them. Feel free to do the same, guys!
• afullo
  Thanks! I will race asap, just check a moment timezone data, UTC time in new "Home" posts and on "Current Race" is in fact UTC-4...
• dosbox92
  Hey @Cas! I don't manage to login in r4k! Why? Can you check the eventual problems? Thank you
• afullo
  Did you register after the end of the previous race? Maybe your account has been wiped out in the restoration too.
• Cas
  @dosbox92 - Yes, that is what happens. You signed up later, so now you don't have a user file. Just re-register and you'll be able to post! @afullo - I hadn't seen that. I suppose the web server must be located somewhere on UTC-4 and it defaults to that timezone. I have to find where to change that. But I was pretty sure I had specified "UTC" in the date function. I'll check that. Thanks!

Aug 10

• afullo
  Here: https://www.owler.com/company/fnhost it suggests USA's east coast as headquarters, I don't know how much it is reliable, but indeed eastern daylight time is 4 hours behind UTC...
• Cas
  Yes. I fixed it, already. I was using a function that I thought would return UTC, but was returning local time instead. I changed it and tested it. Now it works
• Cas
  Here goes a GAR lap!
• afullo
  Ok, I see the correct time in "Current Race" too! Has been the deadline postponed to September due to the interruption?
• Cas
  Oops! Wrong month! I'll set it to end on this month, so that next race can start at the beginning of September. Who had asked about posting a guest track?
• afullo
  Acknowledged! If a track can be of some use for you, I can think about one, even if it would be a bit difficult for September...

Aug 11

• Duplode
  This was... not easy.
• Seeker1982
  yes, GAR on this track is not easy at all - to quote Hi-Man: I HAVE THE POWER Edit: just drove a 1:12,30 but had a off-track-moment mid-air
• dreadnaut
  I should stop changing stuff, and get down on the track!
  0:56.97
• Duplode
  This is neat. I wonder how it would like with a smaller car, perhaps side by side with the lap time, for the sake of saving vertical space.
  1:06.64
• dreadnaut
  You probably need to reload the css file with an extra page refresh
• Duplode
  https://shouldiblamecaching.com

Aug 12

• Seeker1982
  this might be the first valid driven 1:11,x GAR-lap in the BMW M3 DTM
  1:04.53

Aug 13

• Duplode
  Random feature of the day: RPLInfo recognises replays from old ZakStunts tracks and applies the appropriate car bonuses.
• GTAManRCR
  @Duplode will this feature be available only today?
• afullo
  I guess it does not make much sense to remove a useful feature just for fun...
• Duplode
  Well, I have only discovered that today; no idea about for how long it has existed
• dreadnaut
  I think about... five years!

Aug 14

• CTG
  BÁÖÜÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖFF!!!!! MINGVA LE VAN FINGVA! Böff dampening: 18.5dB

Aug 15

• afullo
  On my tablet the Ö-s stay all on the same line.

Aug 18

• Overdrijf
  I keep reading the shouldiblamecaching.com down there as shouldiblameracing. Yes, you should always blame racing. Just not enough to stop doing it.

Aug 19

• GTAManRCR
  HAHA LOL
• Seeker1982
  believe it or not, in a GAR-attempt I just drove a 1:10,10 in the BMW DTM However, sadly it was/is not valid since I accidently was off track by a few pixels at 2 points
• Seeker1982
  i wanted to upload an GAR-lap, but everytime I get "Error adding lap to scoreboard" - is this because the lap might be invalid (had curb-moment) ?
• afullo
  I don't think so, GAR checking is done manually to my knowledge.
• Seeker1982
  "Your replay was sent, but an error occurred while adding it to the scoreboard" Still above error message when i try to upload my current GAR-replay which I renamed from "temp" to "insane" and even closed DOSbox

Aug 20

• Duplode
  I have just gotten the same error upon trying to submit a test replay. It looks like a hiccup with the site itself.
• Seeker1982
  i think the name of the replay i tried to send might be the issue; "temp" is quite special since it's often used during processing of data/files; that's why i renamed it to "insane" and even closed dosbox, but it seems the website is stuck
• dreadnaut
  Sorry, I deleted a couple of columns from the database, then went on holiday without updating the corresponding code Nothing to do with file names, it should be back to normal now!
• Seeker1982
  GAR-lap insane2, might be valid but i'm not sure
  1:04.13
• Seeker1982
  GAR-Lap not as fast as my previous one, but 100% valid even though it was very close at multiple points
  1:04.31

Aug 21

• Duplode
  The 1:11.25 isn't valid, as you have flown over fast grass in the frames leading up to 32.45. The 1:11.45 is valid, and impressive still.

Aug 24

• Overdrijf
  10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5...

Aug 25

• Alan Rotoi
  Damn, I never catch the "not public" days. There should be more
• Alan Rotoi
  I lost many races because of that
• Overdrijf
  It might help to have a countdown clock on the scoreboard page itself, rather than just the front page?
• dreadnaut
  Haven't heard from CTG about the track yet, and I forgot to prod him in the past weeks @Alan you don't happen to have your track ready a month earlier?

Aug 26

• afullo
  I can design a track too, in the case it would be needed.
• Overdrijf
  Next year we could get the December track ready by January, so we always have a standby. In other news, anyone else curious for the hidden times?
• afullo
  #metoo
• Marco
  i hope to do not have lost too many points in this race for the championship but i'm quite sure that I will not finish 2nd but in a worse position. Show the hidden , I have not placed hidden
• Marco
  A question, who created the circuit , decides the bonus cars as well ?
• afullo
  Yes; by quoting the rules: "The designer of the competition track used for each actual race can distribute at most +10 and -10 coefficient points amongst the cars to adjust the power of the cars to the specific track design. The value of distributed positive and negative points must be equal. The track designer may also decide not to modify bonuses at all."
• Marco
  So, teorically , this could be an advantage for the circuit maker that can start to train on his circuits earlier than the others.
• afullo
  Yes, but the competition manager can modify some parts of the track at his will before uploading, also in order to prevent the submission of laps performed before the official opening of the race.
• Overdrijf
  Also, you can cheat at GAR racing by using replay handling, at the newbie league by using a smurf account and at the championship by making a bunch of smurf accounts who always finish just a bit slower than you. If you form a team with your own smurfs you could win the team championship as well. *Pause for effect, because the comment system doesn't like empty rows.* Honestly I kind of expect track designers to test their work a few times. At least, that's what I do. Is this corner combination fast enough that it doesn't spoil the flow? Is this straight long enough that you have to break at the next element as I intended? It's not the same for all cars of course, but I like having an idea of what I'm making. Even if Dreadnaut is going to add an extra slalom somewhere in the middle. It's a little unfortunate that you automatically start thinking about clever shortcuts and such, but the really good ones usually escaped a quick inspection anyway.
• afullo
  Of course, also in some sports something similar happens, for example the designing of ski tracks is usually done by trainers, which have interest to favour their athletes...
• Marco
  Yes, i used the term "teorically" because i feel that this is a very super honest community. i think that would be very hard to find a cheater here
• dreadnaut
  Oh, no-one has done yet! Here are the quiet replays!
• Alan Rotoi
  When will be the next track out? As far as I remember I was assigned for September track (zct219).
• Overdrijf
  @Alan_Rotoi: @CTG was planned for this month, but @Dreadnaut hasn't been able to reach him yet. And that's why he asked whether your track was already finished by any chance, so he could switch those two around.
• Overdrijf
  Also, Congratulations to @Marco for a very fast time and staying on schedule for the season win, and to @Duplode for an even faster time and winning this month. (Almost forgot to do more @'s here, had to @it that in.)
• afullo
  I have sent a track to Dreadnaut, in the case.

Aug 27

• Marco
  OMG DUPLODE !!!
• dreadnaut
  Scoreboard confirmed, congratulations to Duplode, Marco, and Overdrijf! ?
• 

  August catch-up

  Hello pipsqueaks, long time no see! Updates have been a bit rare, sorry about that, but that doesn't mean I've forgotten about the smell of burnt rubber.

  August is coming to an end, and we have reached two-thirds of the season: eight tracks on the scoreboard, four left to race on. The season has been varied if not a bit odd. We had ice in June, a tangle of roads in July, and a deceiving track in August: it looked quite flat, but the winning replays show cars flying in every direction!

  Pacific Coast Bouncyway

  The podium for ZCT217 sees Duplode and Marco on the top steps with the Audi Quattro. Both brought to the track a full back of magic carpets, and used them without shame. Have a look at their replays! They also collected almost all the LTB hour between them, meaning an extra three points in total. In third place a more conservative lap by Overdrijf, driving one of his creations, the BMW M3.

  An interesting mix of Audi and BMW fills the rest of the scoreboard: it seems that the new bonus updates are keeping multiple cars in the sweet spot, giving racers more options.

  Returning at the driving seat are also satanziege, and dosbox92. Welcome back, nice to see you around! Join us for the next race too, and let us know how life is going in the shoutbox, or on the forum :)

  The temperature is rising

  Let's zoom out and look at the season standings now! The team line-up shows the Duplode-Overdrijf pair racking up all the points in the mid-season. Cork's Crew is looking strong for the Team Cup, but Rolling Stunts is not too far behind—mainly thanks to the serious effort Seeker1982 is putting up ?

  Slowdrive members are always on the track with good results too, which means they are also fighting for the second step of the podium. In fourth place, Looping Warriors seem to have been busy. Hope we'll see more of Akoss and CTG in the final races of 2019!

  Now to the main championship! After taking a break in 2018, Marco is back with a vengeance ? During this season, he has never stepped off the podium, and he leads now with 101 points, 23 points ahead of... the Duplode-Overdrijf team, both at 78 points, with what is almost the same set of results, albeit shuffled.

  Now, Marco's advantage is likely to decrease as we reach the end of the season, and the three worst results are discarded, but his lead is still impressive! With four races left, do we start whispering about a new champion? Do we dare?

  Four to go

  As we wait for the next track—sorry for the delay!—I'll take the chance to remind you that article and post contributions are always welcome. If anything Stunts-related that comes to your mind, and you want to share it, write it down and let us know!

  Now have fun on the next track, and always fasten your seatbelt!

• Overdrijf
  @the_news_page (nice update by the way!): Me and Duplode do not have the exact same but shuffled results, he has an extra ten for one of my 9's, and I got an extra +1 LTB. But yeah, it's very similar. Although it's the Rolling Stunts guys that I'm really aiming for, of course...

Aug 28

• dreadnaut
  I did write that "it looks like" the same set, not that it is I've edited to avoid confusion though.
• dreadnaut
  And the new track is up! ZCT218 "Swamps" was designed by @Afullo, plus a couple of evil changes from me. Now, mmmmh ?, why does it look familar?
• Duplode
  In addition to everyone else already mentioned here, congratulations to @Seeker1982 for one more fabulous GAR lap.
• dreadnaut
  That's true, I forgot to mention GAR in the news! Does anyone want to look at the numbers? In the meanwhile, here's something to fill the scoreboard.
  1:15.43 A
• Overdrijf
  I feel a little like I'm driving a lawnmower.
  1:06.96
• Stan 286XT
  I look good the race: and I think make GAR lap is impossible becouse if I go on 88 a bug made lap invalid olso I make 88 whit turbo 286! : (
• afullo
  I have always meant that if the lap is considered invalid by the uploader while it is not, handling the replay to return back some frames and then re-complete the lap, does not break GAR rules.
• dreadnaut
  ? Official warning for @Stan286XT ? If you upload replays with the wrong penalty time, they will be deleted. If you need help, ask. — Se carichi replay con il 'penalty time' sbagliato, verranno cancellati. Se hai bisogno di aiuto, chiedi.
• Shoegazing Leo
  Scheisse!
  1:19.98 A
• Alan Rotoi
  So zc218 is out! I'll work in the next track ^_^. Meanwhile I'll try current track. I hope next year "public days" will be shorter
• Shoegazing Leo
  Dyslexic: pubic days...
  1:10.17 A

Aug 29

• dreadnaut
  @Alan I've been thinking about automatic email notifications for important race dates. Do you think that could help you?
• afullo
  Maybe the penalty box could be checked to accept only multiples of 3 while submitting.
• Overdrijf
  Good job Dreadnaut. Had been experimenting a little myself, but hadn't managed a competitive line yet.
  0:57.40
• afullo
  Why did the submission time vanish, leaving only the date on the board? It was of some use also to have a clear idea of the chronological order of the laps.
  0:59.12

Aug 30

• dreadnaut
  Should be fixed now —a side effect of those column changes I made a few weeks ago
• Stan 286XT
  I like too see a track 218 gar!!!!
• Stan 286XT
  Swamps remember me a level of QII! In the trak218 tere are double curve snow in game theris'nt and 8gar tere are an invisible road I am a little too slow becouse 286 is a little to slow to a 586 understund
• afullo
  @dreadnaut: I see the time again, thanks! - @Stan: I don't think there are differences between the map and the actual track; is QII Quake 2? By the way, your penalty time is still inconsistent with the fact that it should be a multiple of 3 seconds.
• Marco
  i don't understand Stan while you use a 286 instead of a modern pc with Dosbox ... I have 286, 386, 486, pentium etc but i use dosbox fort his championship. The 286 is too slow
• Cas
  I understand Stan. Playing Stunts on a true classical PC feels special. We race here because we love the feeling and the nostalgia, so probably the 286 adds even more spice to it In my case, my first PC was a 386, but I don't have it anymore. I probably would race there if I had it. I wonder how Stan copies the replay file to the other PC to post it. I "have" played Stunts on a 286, a friend's PC and yes, it was somewhat slow unless rendering was set pretty low. On my 386 60MHz, it would run smoothly. Anything bigger is the same.

Aug 31

• dreadnaut
  @Stan, submit your replay again *without* penalty time. See warning here: http://zak.stunts.hu/index.php?page=newsarc#day-28
• Marco
  Max Mhz of a 386 was 40 , never been 60.
• Heretic
  :´)
  0:57.68
• Seeker1982
  @Duplode & @Dreadnaut : thanks for the Flowers esp. regarding GAR; regarding the GAR-Stats it feels like I won every GAR-race since I started competing in 2017-7, but correct me if I'm wrong btw: couldn't use my computer since last Thuersday since I was in a clinic Edit1: I looked up my first season I competed - from C192 (Freestyle Fever) to C197 - and I won every GAR-race except C196, where Marco was slightly faster. Edit2: I first played stunts on a real machine as well, beginning in ~1991; it was a 386 SX with 25Mhz and 8(!) of FPM-RAM, and a 14inch SVGA CRT as display, and a removeable 110mb HDD
• Cas
  @Marco - Microprocessors at the time could handle speeds considerably faster than their default. I don't know if this was a worldwide thing, but here, 286s, 386s and 486s always had a turbo button and a display that showed the frequency in use. The frequency that appeared in the manuals was usually the lower one, but everybody would use their computers with the turbo always on. Turbo would only be turned off to play old games that would lose sync. It's funny how this was the typical setting, without any additional fan or refrigeration. My 80386DX would run at 60MHz with turbo and 40MHz without. I hardly ever used the turbo off. A friend of mine had another at 50/30 or maybe 50/25, not sure. We would normally call CPU speeds by the higher one, which was the one we normally used.
• afullo
  I had turbo too, at the time.
• Marco
  @cas, the display of the turbo was not directly related to the real cpu mhz. It was a simply display customizable. The turbo was used to decrease the speed of the cpu disabling the cache and not to let it goes faster than its normal clock. Later in the pentium age we have started to overclock the cpus but this was not done in the age of the 286/386. A 386 maximun mhz was 40mhz but the best one was the 386 dx33 for my point of view. Disabling the turbo button their speed was like a 286
• Marco
  I have a pentium 200mhz and on the display there's written 166 because I have never updated it (there are simply some pins on the display to change the numbers). My 486 dx2 66mhz has a turbo display that show ON instead of 66 . Anyway the turbo was used to slow down the cpu in that age , not to increase the speed that was not possible by turbo button. you are confusing the feature or the period.

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