Thank you for purchasing NASCAR Craftsman Truck Racing.
This document contains last-minute information about NASCAR Craftsman Truck Racing as well as information that pertains to general problems and questions you may have concerning the game or your computer. Should you experience any problems with NASCAR Craftsman Truck Racing, please refer to this file for additional help on answering questions about the game and solving technical difficulties.
The Minimum install of NASCAR Craftsman Truck Racing requires that the CD-ROM be present when the game is launched. If the CD-ROM is not present, the system will display a dialog box prompting you to insert the CD-ROM. When this occurs it is possible that the mouse cursor may become hidden, but after the CD-ROM has been inserted the dialog box may be cleared by pressing ENTER, at which point the game should continue to run normally.
PERFORMANCE ISSUES
It is recommended that you reduce the number of additional applications running in the background while playing NASCAR Craftsman Truck Racing to a bare minimum.
If you experience any problems while running the game, you should obtain and install the latest drivers and firmware for all of your hardware devices.
ENVIRONMENTAL VARIABLES
Certain features of the game can be controlled by altering variables in a configuration file. The game looks for "NCTR.INI" which should be in the directory in which NASCAR Craftsman Truck Racing is installed.
Either version:
SPOTTER_LAPTIMES Use to turn on lap time reporting by default
DOUBLEFILE 0 Use to disable Doublefile restarts
MIRRL Sets default Left mirror value for all tracks
MIRRL Sets default Center mirror value for all tracks
MIRRR Sets default Right mirror value for all tracks
REPLAYLEN Sets memory allocated for replay in Windows versions
3Dfx Specific:
N2FXAA 2 Use to enable AntiAlias
The following line can be added to your system's "AUTOEXEC.BAT" to disable the 3Dfx splash logo that appears when the 3Dfx versions of NASCAR Craftsman Truck Racing are launched:
SET FX_GLIDE_NO_SPLASH = 1
3DFX ISSUES
The 3Dfx version of NASCAR Craftsman Truck Racing allows you to return to your Windows desktop by pressing the Windows key on your keyboard or by pressing ALT-TAB to switch to another active application. Some users may experience problems with the mouse cursor being confined to a small portion of the screen upon returning to the game. This usually can be resolved by repeating the process of switching back to the desktop and then back into the game.
Additionally the text/numeric stamp tool in NASCAR Craftsman Truck Racing's Paint Shop does not work properly in the 3Dfx version.
CONTROLLER ISSUES
NASCAR Craftsman Truck Racing uses 2 different joystick drivers, DirectInput and Generic. Users running under Win98 will only have the selection of DirectInput, while users running under Win95 will have the choice of either driver. Before running the game using the DirectX joystick driver, you should ensure that your controller is properly setup and calibrated in the Win95/98 Game Controllers Control Panel.
NOTE: Those running NASCAR Craftsman Truck Racing on non-Intel machines should NOT use the Generic driver as it may cause the program to fail to load. If this does occur, delete the options.cfg file from your NCTR install directory (by default this will be C:\Sierra\NCTR) to reset the game to the default DirectX joystick driver.
III. GENERAL GAME ISSUES
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CHANGING DRIVER NAME
When you select "New Driver" on the entry list screen you create a new truck file. Click "Info" to get to the info screen for the new driver. Select the "Name" field in the lower left and enter a name. This will allow you to change the large driver name displayed at the top of the screen.
LOADING YOUR PICTURE INTO DRIVER INFO
In the driver info screen there is a button labeled "PCX". This button will allow you to load a picture of yourself, or whatever you want, into the driver info screen. To do so, follow the instructions below.
There is a file in the TRUCKS directory called "blank.pcx". This file has a particular palette and region of the screen for the picture. You will have to use a commercial paint program with palette remapping capabilities, (Deluxe Paint or Adobe Photoshop will work) to get the picture you want in the game.
Load the picture you wish to use into the paint program. Then, load in "blank.pcx" file. Remap your picture to the palette of "blank.pcx" (Consult the paint program documentation for instructions on how to remap pictures).
You must make sure that your picture is only as large as "blank.pcx" (241 wide by 402 high). If the picture is larger, the game screen will turn black when you load the .pcx into Driver Info.
It would be preferable to cut out the picture you want to use and place it on the blue background in "blank.pcx" to give the image a consistent look in the game.
Then, save the file using the name of the truck file you want to match the picture with (e.g. t_player.pcx for using the photo with t_player.trk). Place that new file in the TRUCKS directory.
Start NASCAR Craftsman Truck Racing and go to the entry list screen under Driver Info. Select the driver you wish to change/add the photo to and click on Info. Once at the driver info screen, press the "PCX" button at the bottom of the screen. If you have done the above steps correctly, the picture should appear in the correct area of the screen.
If the picture comes in, but with all the colors messed up, it wasn't remapped correctly. If the screen goes black when you press "PCX", then the picture size was too large.
PAINTSHOP FILENAME ISSUES
NASCAR Craftsman Truck Racing's Paintshop allows you to import and export paintjobs as PCX files. This can be useful if you want to edit the image in an external paint program. The filename used will be an 8 character name based on the first 7 characters of the truck name with a leading X, so for t_player.trk the filename would be Xt_playe.pcx. Note that the name has a limit of 8 characters, so the 9th character (an r in this case) is removed.
MAXIMUM NUMBER OF TRUCK FILES
The maximum number of truck files that will be available to you in the Driver Info screen is 128. You can work around th
