EnigmA Amiga Run 1995 November

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Text File | 1995-08-25 | 13KB | 291 lines

SplitTime v1.1 by Rene Smit 25 Aug 1995 This document gives a brief description of SplitTime, a public domain utility made in assembler for use with World Circuit/Formula One Grandprix. If you have any comments, buglists or suggestions feel free to mail me, my email address is: R.Smit@twi.tudelft.nl If you like this program please send me a Pentium so that I can play f1gp v2. I am a 6th year student and am studying Computer Science, but most of the time I am playing f1gp :) . I am competing in both the Amiga F1GP Hall of Fame and the F1GP PC HOF, with id RS. Disclaimer ---------- I hereby state that I am not responsible for any damage or loss of data, whether or not caused by using SplitTime. You may copy SplitTime to everyone as long as you include this doc file and PrintSplits. The original lha file contains the following files: - SplitTime - SplitTime.doc - PrintSplits *********************************************************************** What is SplitTime? ------------------ SplitTime is a utility that displays split times at every quarter of a track while you drive F1GP (so you need that game to use it). Not only the splittimes are displayed, but also the best splittimes before they show up (like on TV). Note that I use 3 split times on every track and that they are exactly at 25%, 50% and 75%, while on TV they now use only 2 split times (intermediates) at specific points on the track. Why do I need it? ----------------- This utility let's you know how well you're on your way while driving a lap, so you don't have to drive the whole lap before knowing if you drove well. Normally, you have your own physical markers and locations at which you look at the timer to know how fast you're on your way, but now you can forget those and use these very accurate splittimes instead. If you finish a lap and forget the split times you drove, don't worry, they can be viewed in the SplitTime window, as well as some other info. Is this all? ------------ No, this is not all. Besides showing (best) splittimes it also keeps track of the best split differences, calculated by looking at the time between two consecutive splittimes. The four best differences are always remembered and from these, a virtual best laptime is calculated, which means that you are able to see what time you could have driven if you had done a perfect lap. All times can be saved to disk so nothing will be lost. This means that once you have improved a splittime you will see it on your display from then on every time you are gonna play f1gp again. The car number is saved with each split difference, so if more people are driving with the same datafile and they use different car numbers, you can see to whom each split difference belongs. Also, the lap in which it was driven is stored so you can see in which lap you drive a certain part best and determine how you can best warm up your tyres. What do I require? ------------------ Any Amiga and F1GP by Microprose. People using kickstart 1.x will miss the commandline options, and will have default options. It is compatible with the European F1GP, World Circuit and the A600 WWW version. How do I start it? ------------------ Start this program after f1gp is run and it shows 'please wait'. It is also possible to run it without f1gp, in which case only the times can be viewed, but it's better to use PrintSplits for that (see below). SplitTime should be called as a cli command with the following synopsis: SplitTime NAME,DELAY/N,AUTOUPDATE/S,QUIT/S,LEFT/N,TOP/N,QUIET/S If an error occurs during commandline parsing, default options will be used. This is what each option does (KS 2.0+ only): NAME Specify filename for the datafile. If not specified, the filename s:SplitTime.dat will be used. If the file does not exist, it will be created when the data is saved from within the program. Old versions will be converted. DELAY/N Display suspend delay, the time that the (split)time is shown on the dashboard before it's replace by the clock again. Default 5 seconds (the game originally uses 10 secs for the laptime). It may not be negative or more than 10 seconds. AUTOUPDATE/S If specified, SplitTime wil automatically update the window contents if an improvement has been made while you were driving. Kickstart 1.x users will have this enabled. QUIT/S If specified, SplitTime will automatically quit if f1gp quits. The data will be saved before it does so. Kickstart 1.x users will have this enabled. LEFT/N Specify left offset for window. TOP/N Specify top offset for window. QUIET/S Tell SplitTime to shut up. Disabled for kickstart 1.x. How do I use it? ---------------- When f1gp is found it opens window. The window will be full of '--:--.---' lines when you start it, but after driving a lap they will already be filled with times. At the top is a line that tells you the name of the currently selected track ('not selected' at first). The bottom line will give you some info about what's going on. In between there is the real data. There are six columns: SPLIT, CAR, LAP, BEST DIFF, BEST TIME and LAST TIME. The SPLIT column contains the split number for each row. There are four rows (1/4 ... 4/4). The CAR and LAP columns contain the car number and lap number with and in which each best split difference is done. The lap is always 2 or higher since the first lap is a warm-up lap. The BEST DIFF column shows you the best split difference, i.e. it shows how much time it took to drive the corresponding quarter of the track, and this only gets updated when it's improved. The BEST TIME column contains the best split time at each quarter of the track. The one at the bottom will match your best laptime, and for this one additional info is being stored (although not shown) like the setup, traction control on or off, and more. This info can be viewed with the external split data viewer PrintSplits (use the VERBOSE option). The column most to the right, LAST TIME, contains the split times that have been driven the last time. Once you cross the first split with your car they will be cleared again. Below that is a line that tells you the virtual best lap. This is actually the sum of the four best split differences and it gives you an indication what time you could have driven if you drove all best parts in one go after each other. This will almost always be a faster time than your own record since most of the time you don't drive a lap without making a small mistake. The more you drive on a track, the less it is being updated as it approaches your limit for that circuit. As you drive laps and switch back to the workbench to look at the SplitTime window, you can click the mouse button in the window or press <return> while it is selected to get an update of your times. If the AUTOUPDATE option was specified, the times will already be updated when you switch to the workbench. You'll see that the improved times will be highlighted in order to help you notice where you drove better than the previous time. This highlighting will only work if the same track was selected the previous time. Note that the autoupdate updates the times when the system is enable, i.e after you press <esc>, so only times that have been updated the last time will be highlighted with AUTOUPDATE on. The window doesn't have any buttons, but every command can be given by pressing a key while the window is activated. For normal use you don't even have to touch a key, as clicking the mousebutton on the window will select the track that you just drove on (if you did so) and will update all the times. The times are saved automatically when f1gp quits and the QUIT option has been specified when you started SplitTime. If you didn't, then the times can only be saved with the 's' key or have them saved automatically when you quit by pressing the <escape> key. There are no filerequesters, but the data will be saved to s:SplitTime.dat or to the file that was specified on the commandline. The same goes for the 'load' command ('l' key). If you want to quit but don't want to save the data you can use the close button of the window, or use ctrl-c in the shell you started SplitTime from. Here is the list of keystrokes: 1..9a..g select a track: 1=Phoenix, 2=Interlagos, ..., g=Adelaide. crsr up select first track (Phoenix). crsr down select last track (Adelaide). crsr left select previous track. crsr right select next track. 's' save all data to disk. 'l' load all data (no questions asked). <return> update display (or click the mousebutton in the window). <del> clear all times of currently selected track (you will be asked for confirmation, press 'y' to confirm). F1-F4 will erase the corresponding split difference. F6-F9 same as F1-F4, but will erase a split time. <esc> save (if something has changed) all data and quit. Kickstart 1.x users won't be able to use the cursor keys or the function keys. This may be fixed in a next version. What about my old datafile? --------------------------- If you have used SplitTime v1.0 you have probably a datafile for it. SplitTime v1.1 can load the old datafile, but it won't have the new data I added (setup and stuff). If you save it again, it will be converted to a v1.1 datafile (which is even smaller than the old one). How do I print the data? ------------------------ I have made an external print program named PrintSplits which will print your data to standard output (use the redirection option or the copy to clipboard option of the shell to get it into a file). Usage: PrintSplits NAME,TRACK/N,ALL/S,VERBOSE/S,LIST/S NAME name of the datafile. TRACK/N track number of which you want to print the data. ALL/S if specified, data will be printed for all tracks. VERBOSE/S if specified, some extra information will be printed like the setup and horsepower used for the best lap (4th split time). It will also print if traction control was on or off. LIST/S if specified, only a list of all the tracks with each track number will be printed, so you can see what number to specify for a track. Some notes about using SplitTime -------------------------------- Sometimes the split time is clocked in the middle of a corner. This can be annoying since the time then depends on the moment you brake for the corner. For example, if you brake too late into the corner, the split time will be good, but the next split time will probably be a bad one since you exit the badly taken corner with lower speed. Such split times mess up the virtual record a bit in a way that it tells you that you can drive a certain time, but that it's not the case in reality. Of course it's possible for me to change the locations at which the splits are clocked, but I wanted to keep them this way because then they would be the same as on the pc. I may have changed it though in a next version. Whenever you mess up a split time or difference like this, you are able to clear each individual difference with keys F1 to F4, and each split time with keys F5 to F9 (not with kickstart 1.x). Or clear everything in one go with the <del> key. When driving with different setups, frame frates or other configurations the virtual record can be affected also. It is advised to use a different datafile for each configuration so you can always compare the virtual record or individual split times/differences. It is better _not_ to quit and/or (re)start SplitTime in the middle of a session. Although nothing serious can go wrong it is possible that the best laptime the game keeps track of will be erased by SplitTime, or the other way round. The fourth splittime that SplitTime remembers is not really the laptime itself you drive, it's the laptime that f1gp takes as the best laptime. In some cases you can fool SplitTime, e.g. you drive from the pits backwards on the track, then forwards over the finish line (ofcourse it's not likely you do this every time). In this case SplitTime takes the first split time as the best lap because that's the one that is displayed on the dashboard as being a best lap. Such a situation may also happen when loading a game into the middle of a lap, so be careful if you do that. Although everything seemed to work fine in a race, the split differences could be traced for the wrong car in a multiplayer game. Also, it showed the wrong time as the best split time. For these reasons there are no split times during a race, I hope I can fix it in a next version. People I want to thank ---------------------- Thanks go to: - Grant Reeve for helping me on the way with hacking f1gp, testing this program and inspiring me in ytalks during the night with complete utter nonsense :) - Oliver Roberts for helping me developing this util, testing, putting this program on his web page and allowing me to use his code to detect f1gp in memory. - Edo Nijmeijer for testing and allowance to use this program for driving records in his Amiga HOF. - Dave Gymer who is always standby for help with anything that has something to do with f1gp, and without whom I would never have played f1gp. - Maarten van Schouwen for beta testing. - Trevor Kellaway who made Splittim on the pc which gave me the idea to code it for the Amiga.