"Super Touring" - Official Announcement

Official Announcement From Elite: (6th July '98)

Quoted text (7 lines)

>I've just downloaded the "pre-alpha" version of Elite's Super Touring >Car. Aspects of it look quite promising - especially the graphics - it's >one of the few sims/racing games that render the cars in real-time to >any great effect. Anyone know anything about release dates, what the >final version will include, whether they will they get the backing of a >championship organisation, will they model real cars and circuits etc ? >PJ

Thank you for your comments with respect to the "Super Touring(TM)" demo, version 001 (of 11th May '98) and / or version 002 (of 22nd May '98.) These versions are the very first pre-Alpha releases. As such they're known to be highly unstable / incompatible. Problems which you are likely to experience include:- Incompatibility with any 3D accelerator which lacks any of the following:- 1) Z Buffer, 2) Table Fog, 3) Bi-Linear filtering, 4) Blend modes support for: a) Alpha blending, b) Additive blending, c) Subtractive blending, and 5) Per-Vertex coloured interpolates. Incompatibility with any control device, other than keyboard. Instability (fatal crash bugs) arising from deficiencies in the 'tyre-smoke' feature. Additionally you may experience some dissatisfaction with the vehicles' control. We have identified this as arising through inadequacies in the then current choice of camera options, and deficiencies in the simulation parameters which were adopted at the time that the demos were 'frozen'. Improvement will be evident in the NEW "Super Touring(TM)" demo (version 003), which we anticipate releasing around the end of July. Whilst the minimum system spec. for 30fps performance is a 233MHz P2 with 4MB accelerator and Direct X5, we have received reports that the pre-Alpha releases operate satisfactorily with 200MHz P1 with 4MB accelerator and Direct X5. We hope to optimise the program to ensure that at 'code release', 30fps is achievable with this slightly lower system spec. Outline information concerning our plans for the future direction / development of "Super Touring(TM)" are included in the .doc files which accompanied the demos which are still available from www.elite-systems.co.uk Elite Systems Ltd. Anchor House, Anchor Road, Aldridge, Walsall, West Midlands, England. WS9 8PW. Tel.: +44 (0) 1922 455852. Fax.: + 44 (0) 1922 743029. Web-site: www.elite-systems.co.uk

It runs acceptably on my P166 with an STB Lightspeed 128 and a Diamond Monster 1 3DFX. My only gripe is the keyboard control. Any way to get my JS/wheel working in the current demo?

And it runs okay on my 200MHz P5 overdrive + Orchid Righteous Voodoo 1. I agree about keyboard control. Also seems impossible to make the car spin even in the rain. PJ

Quoted text (7 lines)

> > we have received reports that the > >pre-Alpha releases operate satisfactorily with 200MHz P1 with 4MB > >accelerator and Direct X5. > It runs acceptably on my P166 with an STB Lightspeed 128 and a Diamond Monster > 1 3DFX. My only gripe is the keyboard control. Any way to get my JS/wheel > working in the current demo?