14 April 2011: Sepang

I had a look on the server logs, and everything seems to be fine there. Since we've been using that server for a lot of races without any problem, I'm a bit surprised about what happened yesterday.
I wonder if everyone in server A had the netKar PRO v1.3 Beta "B". I'm still a bit suspicious about it since I found strange that the we didn't had any problems on the other servers with the same configuration.

What we had before in the first v1.3 beta ("A") was something similar. CTD for other drivers without any apparent reason.

can you please check if you have the file readme_1.3_beta_B.txt in your nk folder? or check if, when you load a track, you will see nks.exe v1.3.0.294 on the bottom right of your screen.

In any case there will be no penalty in case we find the "guilty"! Actually we will appreciate very much if you will let us know. Maybe just sen d me a PM if you prefer.

puoi spiegarlo anche in italiano cosa dobbiamo cercare?
non mi è chiaro grazie

I had v1.3B as always (1.3 Beta with the CTD fix, Hikki xxx294) on a WinXP Pro OS -all official updates installed, ...-, and no CTD even in yestersdays race.

Another idea: In rain with many cars NkPro's graphic engine gets in trouble sometimes, framerate in wet drops even in free practice when playing several minutes and then gets better again (performance goes up and down), so I turned off the v-mirror and the performance was fluend all the time in race.. (but before that the engine freezed for a moment sometimes). Probably people who discovered a CTD had some performance issues in this race, which messed up some internal timing/syncronisation with the server and resulting in a crash of the programm ? (just an idea)

davide zardin wrote:puoi spiegarlo anche in italiano cosa dobbiamo cercare?
non mi è chiaro grazie

controlla se hai la versione v1.3 beta B. quando carica il circuito indica v1,3.0,294 (in basso a destra)

MikaRaymond wrote:Piers - the whole server caused people to crash on different laps, so it had nothing to do with driver error. i was comfortably in the lead and because of the crash, it means people who were 30 or 40 seconds behind get the points. i dont think thats fair.

I understand what the problem was. And you didn't finish through no fault of your own. But what about the guy who did drive 25 laps and did finish first? Does two 'unfair' make a fair?

lets not forget were all here to gain maximum points

Not all of us. I'm here to have fun. I'm sure that must be true for other back markers too. I'm not going to challenge for any championship so if it were about points I'd probably not bother.

If a flock of seagulls landed on the track in China on Sunday and took out the front half of the grid - do you think they would say "hey that's not fair, let's rewrite the result"? We PLAY simulated racing and part of our equipment is flakey x86 machines running flakey windows OS's running a bit of a flakey (obviously) racing simulator. It failed. Unlucky - but hey, that's life. Sometimes it's tough.

Mika just think of it this way. Sure this time freezing the results from lap 12 might be ok because you were way out in front. But what happens when the results are not so clear. Then say different drivers CTD next time, but it's not so clear on who would finish where. But say one of the guy who was in the lead CTD's. But it's not clear on would have won the race. What do you do then? It wouldn't be fair for any driver. That's why it would be unfair to freeze the results when you CTD'ed.


Either discard the points for all races at sepang or keep it as is, seems to be the only fair thing to do.

ti confermo che anche io ho versione 1.3-B e che quando carica le piste la versione è 1.3.0.294

attenzione sabato notte verso 1:50 è crashato nella stessa maniera il server con shangai
era con il sole quindi il crash è non è dovuto alla pioggia
penso sia stato il server benche il mio client fosse crashato poi ho provato a rientrare subito e nada...
alle 2 era di nuovo up

hehe, i can see where youre all coming from. it is a real shame that it happened because it was a very interesting race. i respect everyones opinion so not gonna bother "arguing the other half" because itll get us nowhere of course theres always 2 sides. guess we just have to wait to see what the admins say!

Yesterday we had a long team meeting to decide what should be our approach on penalties.
Please read carefully this topic.
In the next days we will communicate penalties for the previous races.

We took a decision also on the results of Sepang race group A, in which a lot of drivers got a CTD (Crash To Desktop) during the race.
We decided to leave the results the way they are. Changing results applying a rule that is not stated in our rules would be fair for anyone.

It's a pity that so many people had problems, and I hope we will find the reason for that. As I said before, I really doubt it's a server problem, because the server didn't crashed, and few drivers managed to be there until the end. Further more we are used this server for a long time without problems. I'm very suspicious about the software version on the client. I hope that everyone could make sure to have the latest version installed (netKar PRO v1.3 Beta "B").

After a long discussion on the penalties, we decided to penalized the following drivers.
We have been quite lax on the way we penalized. In some cases, in fact, if we would have followed our rules blindly some of the drivers would have been penalized even more.
For us is important that everyone to follow our rules, that we are repeating every race during the briefing and in our forum.


Please note -5 point are really nothing compared to the amount of point you can gain in a race, or to the points the other driver loose in case you kick him out.
Penalties are just a way for us to remind you that you need to drive carefully. This will help everyone to enjoy our championship and have fun together.

Small note on the incident on the red zone. Incidents in which the other driver gets out of race, will be always penalized.

We decided to give a warning for Mika's incident at T1, because it's the first incident like this, and we want to show everyone that this will be the way we will penalize from now on.

Incident in the red zone will be always penalized.


In case there will be one more incident on the red zone for the driver with warning, he will be penalized for both incidents.


Melbourne:
A:
Mika_Raymond -5 chat + disconnect for repair. Warning for the incident at T1 (-10 in case of one more incident at T1 in the next race)
Martin_Oconnor -5 chat
Kamran_Choudhry -5 disconnect for repair

Sepang
B:
Ulus_Ulusalonur -5 disconnect for repair
Matt_Dawson -5 disconnect for repair
Igor_Barmashoff -5 disconnect for repair

was there a CTD in group B or C? if so, please send me the replay. thanks