QUOTE (gohara @ 14 Feb 2009, 18:57)
<{POST_SNAPBACK}>Nice software, Bruce.
Regarding the sounds, will it always announce :"Driver 1 driving car 1", stc. or do you have plans to personalize the sound according to the actual car number and/or driver name?
Also, for the other sounds, do you have stock sounds for lap crossings or do we just insert our own.
(I don't have it hooked up to the lap counter yet, but it looks great at first inspection)
Thanks for your efforts,
Gary
You can add driver name sound files right now. When you enter/edit driver information you can add a sound file. I plan on adding a sound description file for cars as well in the next release (not the version going up tonight/tomorrow, but in a few days). That one would only play at the race start. Unlike driver names which can be played during the race if you choose to. On short tracks, you may want to turn off some of the in-race sounds.
I like the pre-race announcements quite a bit. At my analog club, someone always has to announce who's in what lane for the next race. If you have sound files assigned to each driver in the database (doesn't take very long using sound recorder in Windows), the software lets you know. That's why I'm going to include a car description file as well. Some of the people who race here in my basement have no clue what the difference is between an Audi R10 and a Porsche Spyder. But they'll know the 'yellow #6 Porsche' from the 'silver #8 Audi'. It'll make race night run smoother.
There are stock sounds for lap, best lap, and leader lap. You can use them or add your own. There are one or two extra lap sounds included.
In a PM you asked about pace car laps. You can count laps for the pace car and for ghost cars if you want to, or you can ignore them. If you do count them, it's your option whether they have to finish the race or not.
I plan on packaging another release tonight or tomorrow. This one includes the ability to count multiple ghost cars. It is not flawless, becasue the lap counter itself won't retain information about more than one ghost crossing. So if two ghost cars cross without the software querying the lap counter in between, the first crossing is lost. In practice this means that two ghosts crossing within ~.05 seconds of each other will count as one car. Not perfect, but it does make it easier to race solo against several ghosts. And you can always add the lap in by pressing the '7' key on the keyboard. Not very easy to do that if you're racing solo- but if you have enough people for a race marshall, it's doable.
If you haven't hooked it up yet- make sure you get the
latest version. And check back tomorrow- there should be another version up, and the comm package is more stable and reliable than in any past releases.