Speed!
We have tamed the mighty multi-core processors. This has led to a big bump in performance. We have also been optimizing quite a lot of the code in order to get it running faster on slower PCs. For example we have a 4 year old PC ( pentium D 2.66Ghz dual core and a 7900GT ). Impressive for 4 years ago, but starting to feel it's age now. It is running ORC at around 200FPS with 21 cars. Of course, the “real” graphics haven't been added yet, but it's a good start. If you want to see the gory details, visit Ash's blog
Networking
We have also been battling to get the network bandwidth down as low as possible while still having smooth movement from the cars. We have started to get good results. 800Kbits/sec for 20 cars at the moment (LFS is around 1200Kbits/sec for 20 cars). Of course we will probably add more data as we add more features, but it's heading in the right direction. Hopefully this will allow users to host 20 cars from a 1Mbit upload connection (like Ash's O2 broadband!)
Car Handling
Gregor has been doing some of his physics wizardry with the physics params. He has been using values from a real-world car in order to create a very realistic experience. The results are feeling good, it's fun and challenging to drive. A couple of bugs with Aerodynamics and anti-rollbars were also squashed.
Menus
Lynsay has been working hard on skinning the remaining parts of the menus. This was mostly the garage menus where you can choose your car components and setups. This is pretty much finished and looking good. We just need to put it into the game.
More Shadows
We have made some faster shadows in order for slower machines to keep high framerates. It is a more static way of doing it, but it works fairly well. Here is a video of it in action!
If anyone is interested in the day to day ugly details of the game follow AshMcConnell on twitter. For just the big news notifications follow RacingChamp on twitter or join the facebook group