NASCAR Racing Released for Mac OS

NASCAR Racing, the title first released for MS-DOS in 1994, was today released on the Mac. It includes a number of feature upgrades such as the 1996 carset (including Dale Earnhardt), mouse control for steering, voice control of setup, tire and fuel changes during pit stops, an unlimited framerate and the ability to directly export replays as Quicktime movies. You can download the demo to check it out for yourself, and I have included the full v1.0 readme file at the bottom of this news post so you can see the system requirements direct from the developers.

Screenshots:

Readme from Mac release CD:

NASCAR Racing for the Macintosh 1.0.0

In order for you to receive the best possible performance, Sierra has included additional technical tips and game information that was not available when the documentation was printed. The following supplemental information should be considered part of the game documentation. However, Sierra makes no warranty, either express or implied, as to the accuracy, effectiveness, or completeness of the information contained in this documentation.

SIERRA ON-LINE, INC. DOES NOT WARRANTY OR PROMISE THAT THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL WORK WITH ANY OR ALL COMPUTER SYSTEMS. SIERRA DOES NOT ASSUME ANY LIABILITY, EITHER INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL, FOR THE USE OF THE INFORMATION HEREIN, INCLUDING ANY AND ALL DAMAGE TO OR LOST USE OF COMPUTER HARDWARE OR SOFTWARE PRODUCTS, LOSS OF WARRANTIES, OR LOST DATA BY THE CUSTUOMER OR ANY THIRD PARTY. NO ORAL OR WRITTEN INFORMATION OR ADVICE GIVEN BY SIERRA, IT’S EMPLOYEES, DISTRIBUTORS, DEALER OR AGENTS SHALL CHANGE THE RESTRICTION OF LIABILITY OR CREATE ANY NEW WARRANTIES. IN NO CASE SHALL SIERRA’S LIABILITY EXCEED THE PURCHASE PRICE OF THE SIERRA SOFTWARE PRODUCT.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INSTALLATION PROCEDURES
RECOMMENDED FOR BEST PERFORMANCE
MANUAL ADDENDUM
LEGAL INFORMATION
IF YOU STILL HAVE PROBLEMS…

INSTALLATION PROCEDURES

Minimum Installation
The minimum installation copies only the most essential files to your hard drive, it requires 10MB of disk space. Because it needs to access information from the CD it does require the CD to be in your CD-ROM drive while you play the game. The minimum install also runs more slowly than the full install when loading track data. Gameplay, once at the track will not be slower. The directions below will describe the installation process.

-Insert the NASCAR Racing for Macintosh CD into your CD-ROM drive.
A window will open with the NASCAR Racing Minimal Install folder in it.

-Copy the NASCAR Racing Minimal Install folder to your hard drive.

-To run the game, be sure the NASCAR Racing CD is in the drive then open the NASCAR Racing Minimal Install folder on your hard drive and double click on the NASCAR Racing program icon.

Full Installation
The full installation copies all files to your hard drive for the best performance when changing tracks. It requires 40 MB of disk space. With the full install you do not have to have the CD in the drive to play the game. The directions below describe the installation process.

-Insert the NASCAR Racing for Macintosh CD into your CD-ROM drive.
A window will open with the NASCAR Racing Full Install folder in it.

-Copy the NASCAR Racing Full Install folder to your hard drive.

-To run the game, open the NASCAR Racing Full Install folder on your hard drive and double
click on the NASCAR Racing program icon.

MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS

Apple Power Macintosh 6100 60mhz minimum (PowerPC 601/90 or faster; MacOS v7.5.3)
16 MB RAM (8MB free)
System 7.1 or later
Sound Manager 3.1
Plain Talk 1.51 (For speech recognition)
256 color display
Joystick or steering device (recommended)
You must set your monitor to 256 colors for NASCAR Racing to run properly.
The file ObjectSupportLib needs to be in your computer’s Extensions folder. Some older systems may not have this file. If you do not have this file you can copy it from the NASCAR Racing CD to your computer’s Extensions folder which is inside the System Folder. You will find the file in the “ObjectSupportLib Folder” on the NASCAR Racing CD.

RECOMMENDED FOR BEST PERFORMANCE

The best way to get started in NASCAR Racing is to check a few things before you launch the program. You can drive using the keyboard or with the mouse, however an analog joystick or steering wheel controller are recommended for top performance (most “gamepad” -type controllers, such as the Gravis Gamepad, are digital controllers. Using them is like using keyboard keys). NASCAR Racing supports and recognizes the latest Macintosh joysticks from the leading joystick controller companies (CH Products, Gravis and Thrustmaster). We recommend using your joystick in NASCAR Racing if you already have one, and purchasing one to use with the game if you don’t. You won’t regret it.

Joystick Setup

If you don’t have a joystick or steering wheel, but will be driving with the mouse or keyboard, you can skip ahead to the section on Setting Controls.

In order to use your joystick in NASCAR Racing, you’ll need to make sure that it’s Control Panel or Extensions are installed and loaded on your system. If you are unsure of how to check this, please consult the documentation that came with your joystick or contact your joystick’s manufacturer.

Most joystick control panels have a way to add or select a game to a list of games in your joystick control panel. NASCAR Racing directly supports all CH Products, Gravis and Thrustmaster joysticks. If you have another type of joystick you should use the joystick’s control panel to configure it for NASCAR Racing. If you are unsure of how to do this, please consult the documentation that came with your joystick or contact your joystick’s manufacturer.

Once you’ve completed this step, restart your computer and launch NASCAR Racing. If your joystick is recognized by NASCAR Racing, you will be prompted to calibrate it. Move the joystick to its furthest extents in all directions and then release it, letting it center itself. Some joysticks have dials or screws you can adjust to fine-tune their centering. If your joystick has such features you should use them to center your joystick as carefully as possible. Then hit “OK” with the mouse to finish calibrating your joystick.

Setting Controls

NASCAR Racing will go through the Introduction sequence. After you finish watching the intro sequence, you can dismiss it by hitting the mouse button or any key from the keyboard. Then, from the Main Menu, select Set Controls from the Options Menu. This will bring up the dialog box where you can specify which controls you wish to drive with. For example, many people prefer to drive with the horizontal axis of the joystick as steering left and right, the trigger button as the gas, the thumb button as the brake, and pulling the joystick toward them as reverse. For mouse or keyboard steering you’ll need to click the Modify button to setup your controls accordingly. NASCAR Racing defaults to mouse steering, so that is what will be active the first time you launch it. Note to Thrustmaster FCS users : Due to limitations of the Thrustmaster driver, NASCAR Racing will not know if you have a joystick or a steering device attached. So when you start the game the program will ask you to calibrate your steering wheel. The FCS will still work with NASCAR Racing. The Joystick Left/Right will be seen by NASCAR Racing as Steering Wheel left and right. NASCAR Racing will not see the Forward/ Back motion of your joystick. In order to get your Joysticks buttons to work you need to set them to keyboard characters in the Thrustware program and use the “extend” feature to simulate continuously holding down a key. See the instructions for Thrustware and for the FCS for more information.

Framerate Issues

You own a powerful Macintosh. The PowerPC Macintosh family of computers are much faster than Macs were a few years ago. The PowerPC processor is significantly more powerful than the old 68K processors were. Unfortunately, not all PowerPC chips are created equal. The 604 chip is currently the fastest PowerPC, followed by the 601 and 603, respectively. At the time of this writing, NASCAR Racing has been extensively tested on all these processors in several configurations. What we have found is that the gameplay on some of the older entry-level Performas and PowerMacs running 601 or 603 chips at less than 100 MHz is not as fluid as PowerPCs running at 100 MHz or higher. The PowerPC 604 chip is by far the fastest machine on which we have tested NASCAR Racing.

What Does All This Mean?

What this means is that if you own a slower PowerPC, you may want to adjust several options in NASCAR Racing to increase your framerate. Framerate is a term used to describe the number of full-screen “frames” your computer can draw per second. Framerate is measured in terms of frames per second (fps). To give you an idea for comparison, film and video run between 24-30 frames per second, respectively. The more things a computer has to draw on the screen and the more complex their textures are, the slower the framerate. Sound also has an effect on framerate because the computer needs to process the sounds it’s making at the same time as it is drawing what’s on the screen.

Fortunately, NASCAR Racing makes it possible to for you to adjust your graphic and sound options to a level your machine can handle. If you have a fast machine(604 or 601@100+ MHz), running NASCAR Racing with most textures and sounds playing probably won’t impact framerate too much. Some things to try if you have a slower framerate are:

Make sure that your Monitor’s color depth is set to 256 colors. Anything higher will have negative impact on your framerate.

Shutting off more of the graphic options. Grass Texture and Asphalt Textures have a huge impact on framerate. Shutting them off will make NASCAR Racing run faster.

In the Advanced section of the graphics dialog you can set the framerate at which objects set to automatic will shut off or turn on. The left framerate threshold slider controls when objects will be shut off and the right slider controls when objects will turn on. Note: If you set these sliders too close together you may experience a flicker as the objects turn on and off. You can eliminate this by separating the two sliders more. There is also a Detail Priority List. Objects on the top of the list will be the last to shut off.

Decreasing the number of cars drawn ahead and behind in the Graphics Dialog will help to increase framerate.

Reducing the number of engine sounds heard (chosen by setting the “Heard” value in the Sound dialog) will also impact your framerate; the fewer engine sounds your computer needs to play, the more processor time it can devote to framerate.

Running NASCAR Racing at a lower resolution–Lower resolutions increase framerate. Select the resolution you want in the Graphics dialog options. 320×200 pixels is the lowest resolution you can run NASCAR Racing in, and 640×480 pixels is the highest. 640×400 is a compromise between the two extremes of resolution; it is not as small as 320×200, but is blockier than 640×480.

Note: You should set the Sound Out in your Sound Control Panel to the lowest possible frequency. Most Macs automatically default to 44 kHz, but NASCAR Racing doesn’t need this high of a sound frequency. If you need more framerate, check this option and set it to the lowest possible frequency. 11 kHz is ideal, but most Macs only go as low as 22 kHz. If you are unsure of how to set this option, consult the documents or manuals that came with your Macintosh.

Speech Technologies by Apple Computer, Inc.
Apple, PlainTalk, and QuickTime are registered trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc.

MANUAL ADDENDUM

CHAMPIONSHIP SEASON POINTS
The point scoring was incorrectly reported in the manual. These are the correct values:
1st..175 2nd..170 3rd..165 4th..160
5th..155 6th..150 7th..146 8th..142
9th..138 10th..134 11th..130 12th..127
13th..124 14th..121 15th..118 16th..115
17th..112 18th..109 19th..106 20th..103
21st..100 22nd…97 23rd…94 24th…91
25th…88 26th…85 27th…82 28th…79
29th…76 30th…73 31st…70 32nd…67
33rd…64 34th…61 35th…58 36th…55
37th…52 38th…49 39th…46 40th…43

In Addition, five bonus points are awarded to each driver who leads the race for at least one lap. Another five-point bonus is issued to the one driver who leads the most laps during the race.

SAVING A REPLAY AS QUICKTIME
It is possible to save a replay as a QuickTime movie. Just go to the Save or Save As menu item and choose the pull down item “Save As:”. You will have the choice to save as a QuickTime movie. You should remember that for every minute of replay it takes about 10MB of hard drive space.

TWO PLAYER NOTES

CONNECTING VIA APPLETALK/LOCALTALK
NASCAR Racing supports two player connections over an AppleTalk or a LocalTalk network. First you must have a working network connection established-see your owner’s manual for information on setting up a network. From the NASCAR communications menu choose “Connect via” Network. Now go to the Multiplayer menu and have one player choose sponsor. The other player will see the sponsor’s name in the window of the Multiplayer menu. Now all the joiner has to do is click on the name and hit OK. NOTE: Any network traffic on your network will cause interference with the multiplayer connection.

MODEM PROBLEMS
It is possible for your modems to fail to disconnect after a two player modem connection. If this happens you can simply turn off your external modem, or if you have an internal modem you can restart your computer.

If you use a U.S. Robotics Courier HST modem, you may get a failure to initialize after a successful connection. You must restart your computer before you can reconnect.

CREATING AN INIT STRING FOR AN UNSUPPORTED MODEM
In order to connect properly NASCAR needs to set up your modem before you try to connect. The modem is set up by an init string which includes a series of commands to set your modem’s error correction and data compression to off. Due to the wide variety of modems on the market it is impossible to include init strings for every modem type. If you need to develop an init string for an unsupported modem you should consult your modem manual. You want the init string to shut off error correction and data compression. You also need to set the modem to run at the correct speed. For example, in the init string:

AT\n0%c0s37=7

the AT is the prefix for the Hayes AT command set, the command \n0 would shuts off error correction, the command %c0 shuts off data compression, and the command s37=7 would set the modem to 9600 baud. Commands will vary by modem type. In order to have a successful connection you also need to set the communications parameters to match on both systems. The standard set of 9600 baud, 8 data bits, 1 stop bit should work in every case, but the must match the other players settings or multiplayer will not connect.

LEGAL INFORMATION

This entire work is copyright (c)1996 Sierra On-Line Inc.
Contains technology described in U.S. Patent applications
including 598,174 and 658,297 and 5,377,997 and 5,430,835
All Rights Reserved.

SIERRA ON-LINE, INC. DOES NOT WARRANTY OR PROMISE THAT THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL WORK WITH ANY OR ALL COMPUTER SYSTEMS. SIERRA DOES NOT ASSUME ANY LIABILITY, EITHER INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL, FOR THE USE OF THE INFORMATION HEREIN, INCLUDING ANY AND ALL DAMAGE TO OR LOST USE OF COMPUTER HARDWARE OR SOFTWARE PRODUCTS, LOSS OF WARRANTIES, OR LOST DATA BY THE CUSTUOMER OR ANY THIRD PARTY. NO ORAL OR WRITTEN INFORMATION OR ADVICE GIVEN BY SIERRA, IT’S EMPLOYEES, DISTRIBUTORS, DEALER OR AGENTS SHALL CHANGE THE RESTRICTION OF LIABILITY OR CREATE ANY NEW WARRANTIES. IN NO CASE SHALL SIERRA’S LIABILITY EXCEED THE PURCHASE PRICE OF THE SIERRA SOFTWARE PRODUCT.

BY USING THIS SOFTWARE, YOU ARE AGREEING TO BE BOUND
BY THE TERMS OF THIS LICENSE.

Sierra On-Line End User License Agreement

This software is copyrighted. This software and documentation is licensed to you by Sierra On-Line. You may copy it onto a computer for your own personal use and you may make back up copies of the software to protect your software against loss. This software may be used by more than one person, and may be freely moved from one computer location to another provided that there is no possibility of the software being used at one location or on one computer while it is being used at another. The software can not legally be used by two different people in different places at the same time. You may not modify, network, rent, lease, loan, distribute the software or create derivative works based upon the software in whole or in part, and you may not electronically transmit the software from one computer to another or over a network.

This End User License Agreement grants you a limited license to use the Redistributable Code licensed to Sierra On-Line, Inc. by Microsoft Corporation, Inc. together with Microsoft operating system products. All intellectual property rights in Microsoft’s Redistributable Code contained in this product belong exclusively to Microsoft Corporation, Inc.

Limited Warranty

Sierra warrants the diskette(s) to be free of defects in materials and workmanship for a period of 90 days from the date of purchase. Sierra On-Line’s entire liability and your exclusive remedy will be replacement of the disk .

SIERRA ON-LINE SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIMS ALL OTHER WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY IMPLIED WARRANTY OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

This limited warranty gives you specific legal rights; you may have others which may vary from state to state. Some states do not allow the exclusion of incidental or consequential damages, or the limitation on how long an implied warranty lasts, so some of the above may not apply to you.

IF YOU STILL HAVE PROBLEMS…

If you continue to experience any problems with NASCAR Racing for the Mac, or if you have any questions, our Technical Support Department will be more than happy to assist you. You can reach Technical Support at (206) 644-4343 between 8:15 am and 4:45 p.m., Monday through Friday. We can also be reached by fax at (206) 644-7697 or by mail at the following address:

Sierra On-Line Technical Support
PO Box 85006
Bellevue, WA 98015-8506

In Europe, please contact our office in England. The Customer Service number is (0118)920-9111, between 9:00 am and 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. The fax number is (0118)987-5603. Customer Service can also be reached at the following address:

Sierra On-Line Limited
2 Beacontree Plaza
Gillette Way
Reading, Berkshire
RG2 0Bs United Kingdom

You can also contact our Technical Support Team on one of the following services:

Sierra BBS (206) 644-0112
CompuServe GO SIERRA
America Online KEYWORD SIERRA
Internet support@sierra.com