by Tuffy » Sun Feb 20, 2011 11:17 am
Thank you much for stopping by to clean me up a bit. I did resolve some of this after leaving you guys last night and will explain below. Your first link, the getting started steps over at Heat Finder is the kind of thing that I was looking for here. Yes, I have seen something similar here on the signup page, but the one at HF goes as far as the Mod Launcher. It's in that area that my problems resided last night. I really HAD downloaded the correct mod, but never got it to kick off, either from the desktop icon or directly from within the folder. After leaving you guys, I downloaded it again and it worked fine. The only thing that I did differently was to also download "nhrlcup". I'm not sure what that is, as opposed to "nhrlc11". I don't think it has anything to do with it, but I can conceive of that being a prereq for the season mod, which worked fine after this download. Yes, it was in the correct place the first time; just one of those PC things, I suppose. Anyway, my "run-the-mod" problem appears to be resolved, at least for the Cup. I will download the "Mod Launcher" after seeing that in the HF link and that should help, too. I suppose trying the other season mods makes sense.
As for the setups and such, there was no problem with them....EXCEPT that I had to move them into the correct folder once I got the mod running. Since I was just running NH, I had them right for that. In my defense, it was my expectation that a mod such as the season one would "modify" the program on my PC. I might describe this one as a separate application that USES some of the original files. Of course, that makes perfect sense, but I sure don't see it explained that way anywhere on this site; that's the value of the HF link that you sent in making that more obvious. Yes, I have seen some posts in the forum that make more sense now with that clearer understanding, but they didn't do it for me thinking that the mod would just modify the program that I was/would run. Hope that makes some sense.
Anyway, where I AM weak is my understanding of the car graphics stuff. I understand the file concepts, but think I need to create one and download one to see how they fit in with in-game versions. I had not touched that area; that IS the part in which I had no experience. (Question about car selection at tracks, but separate from this discussion) The bring-it-with me approach is the way I'd like to go, but thought I could just select at the track, and probably can, when there with the mod running. Any help on the car graphics will be met with a much less defensive appreciation than my normal all-too-human defensive "here's what happened" discussion such as this one. I hope you and others understand. I'll play with the files in this area today.
Back to the basic subject: I, of course, had a basic server problem at the time that I created this topic. It was my own stupid typo in recording the IP address and I had obviously resolved that by the time I saw you guys at the track. Other than those stupid old-man mistakes, I understand the concept of servers, although the Ventrillo one still seems to have me stumped, probably another mistake on my part, but not in the area of understanding. It doesn't matter for now, I guess. Since that was a pretty basic obstacle to reaching you guys at the track where I could uncover others such as actually RUNNING the mod, that was the way I titled this topic.
With only minor defensiveness, I'm realy NOT new to Heat itself. I just had never competed with anyone but my adult son on the local network and picked up a lot of bad driving habits that way. It will take some interactive practice, but I accept my shortcomings in that regard and hope to improve. That's the bottom line on that, but two things gnaw at me a little on the subject. The first is that I'm adding to my problems by using the faster setups from lepage. That leaves me learning more about car handling at the same time I'm learning to be more careful in racing interactions with others. If I don't like my progress, I might have to ease up on the setups and do it in two steps. Honest feedback is appreciated, which leads me to my 2nd thought. I know you guys understand the guilt-by-expectations possibilities and I accept that as the way it is in all of life. Still, it's tough to be the low-quality one and have the "he wrecked again" fingers when someone else is guilty. I dearly look forward to learning enough and earning enough acceptance to pleasantly debate some of that. I spun once last night, failed to hold my line a time or two, and slowed slightly once or twice....all MY mistakes. However, I WAS
popped several times.......Nice to have the mods working so I will be able to see who those guys are...
I'm running a decent PC with decent graphics. It's a Dell with a 930 I7 processor and 12MB of memory and an ATI 5870. It benchmarks 58+ in the game,k so all seems fine in that regard. It is running 64-bit Win 7 and I haven't run into any admin priv problems with the files yet, though it does tell me that it is going to require it, it all seems to have worked fine working with the setups, etc.
As a newcomer wading in, I'd have to offer the feedback that we could use some extended version of the info on the signup page. Of course, the number of people that you are working with may make it just as easy to accomplish on a case-by-case basis. That has the advantage of requiring more research/learning from we newcomers, which has to be a good thing, I would think. It does make me expect to have questions every step of the way though. For the sake of discussion, I'll try to list some of those here. Both the answers (that I don't have) and the thought of where-was-I-supposed-to-have-seen-that would be my purpose. In no particular order:
1. Other than close to race time, when is the server open for interactive practice? Since I didn't work out the correct IP address until 10pm, the answer might be supposed to be obvious to me.
2. How do I know which car I can select AT the track? Actually having been there with the mod RUNNING would probably greatly enlighten me, huh?
3. How do I chat while on the track? I was told last night, but where was I supposed to have seen that? I'm thinking that it's THIS kind of thing that you were thinking talking about general Heat experience. Maybe more general online experience is a prereq for racing here; I couldn't argue with that and it would keep folks like me from dumping those kinds of questions on you guys.
Thanks again for taking the time to reply here. I think that your links to HF is THE key for me. Much of what I would ask about are really general online racing questions and the place to learn much of that is there. Please keep me in mind if a practice opportunity there or here pops up. I thought Daytona was a good place for me to start working on my interaction skills, but guess we're moving on to Atlanta now. Please pardon any of my defensiveness; I'm new in lots of ways but as sensitive to criticism as the next old guy....
It's progress for me; I'll owe a round of Buds and Pepsi soon, I hope, and will have some willing to drink them with me.
Thank you much for stopping by to clean me up a bit. I did resolve some of this after leaving you guys last night and will explain below. Your first link, the getting started steps over at Heat Finder is the kind of thing that I was looking for here. Yes, I have seen something similar here on the signup page, but the one at HF goes as far as the Mod Launcher. It's in that area that my problems resided last night. I really HAD downloaded the correct mod, but never got it to kick off, either from the desktop icon or directly from within the folder. After leaving you guys, I downloaded it again and it worked fine. The only thing that I did differently was to also download "nhrlcup". I'm not sure what that is, as opposed to "nhrlc11". I don't think it has anything to do with it, but I can conceive of that being a prereq for the season mod, which worked fine after this download. Yes, it was in the correct place the first time; just one of those PC things, I suppose. Anyway, my "run-the-mod" problem appears to be resolved, at least for the Cup. I will download the "Mod Launcher" after seeing that in the HF link and that should help, too. I suppose trying the other season mods makes sense.
As for the setups and such, there was no problem with them....EXCEPT that I had to move them into the correct folder once I got the mod running. Since I was just running NH, I had them right for that. In my defense, it was my expectation that a mod such as the season one would "modify" the program on my PC. I might describe this one as a separate application that USES some of the original files. Of course, that makes perfect sense, but I sure don't see it explained that way anywhere on this site; that's the value of the HF link that you sent in making that more obvious. Yes, I have seen some posts in the forum that make more sense now with that clearer understanding, but they didn't do it for me thinking that the mod would just modify the program that I was/would run. Hope that makes some sense.
Anyway, where I AM weak is my understanding of the car graphics stuff. I understand the file concepts, but think I need to create one and download one to see how they fit in with in-game versions. I had not touched that area; that IS the part in which I had no experience. (Question about car selection at tracks, but separate from this discussion) The bring-it-with me approach is the way I'd like to go, but thought I could just select at the track, and probably can, when there with the mod running. Any help on the car graphics will be met with a much less defensive appreciation than my normal all-too-human defensive "here's what happened" discussion such as this one. I hope you and others understand. I'll play with the files in this area today.
Back to the basic subject: I, of course, had a basic server problem at the time that I created this topic. It was my own stupid typo in recording the IP address and I had obviously resolved that by the time I saw you guys at the track. Other than those stupid old-man mistakes, I understand the concept of servers, although the Ventrillo one still seems to have me stumped, probably another mistake on my part, but not in the area of understanding. It doesn't matter for now, I guess. Since that was a pretty basic obstacle to reaching you guys at the track where I could uncover others such as actually RUNNING the mod, that was the way I titled this topic.
With only minor defensiveness, I'm realy NOT new to Heat itself. I just had never competed with anyone but my adult son on the local network and picked up a lot of bad driving habits that way. It will take some interactive practice, but I accept my shortcomings in that regard and hope to improve. That's the bottom line on that, but two things gnaw at me a little on the subject. The first is that I'm adding to my problems by using the faster setups from lepage. That leaves me learning more about car handling at the same time I'm learning to be more careful in racing interactions with others. If I don't like my progress, I might have to ease up on the setups and do it in two steps. Honest feedback is appreciated, which leads me to my 2nd thought. I know you guys understand the guilt-by-expectations possibilities and I accept that as the way it is in all of life. Still, it's tough to be the low-quality one and have the "he wrecked again" fingers when someone else is guilty. I dearly look forward to learning enough and earning enough acceptance to pleasantly debate some of that. I spun once last night, failed to hold my line a time or two, and slowed slightly once or twice....all MY mistakes. However, I WAS
popped several times.......Nice to have the mods working so I will be able to see who those guys are... :D
I'm running a decent PC with decent graphics. It's a Dell with a 930 I7 processor and 12MB of memory and an ATI 5870. It benchmarks 58+ in the game,k so all seems fine in that regard. It is running 64-bit Win 7 and I haven't run into any admin priv problems with the files yet, though it does tell me that it is going to require it, it all seems to have worked fine working with the setups, etc.
As a newcomer wading in, I'd have to offer the feedback that we could use some extended version of the info on the signup page. Of course, the number of people that you are working with may make it just as easy to accomplish on a case-by-case basis. That has the advantage of requiring more research/learning from we newcomers, which has to be a good thing, I would think. It does make me expect to have questions every step of the way though. For the sake of discussion, I'll try to list some of those here. Both the answers (that I don't have) and the thought of where-was-I-supposed-to-have-seen-that would be my purpose. In no particular order:
1. Other than close to race time, when is the server open for interactive practice? Since I didn't work out the correct IP address until 10pm, the answer might be supposed to be obvious to me.
2. How do I know which car I can select AT the track? Actually having been there with the mod RUNNING would probably greatly enlighten me, huh?
3. How do I chat while on the track? I was told last night, but where was I supposed to have seen that? I'm thinking that it's THIS kind of thing that you were thinking talking about general Heat experience. Maybe more general online experience is a prereq for racing here; I couldn't argue with that and it would keep folks like me from dumping those kinds of questions on you guys.
Thanks again for taking the time to reply here. I think that your links to HF is THE key for me. Much of what I would ask about are really general online racing questions and the place to learn much of that is there. Please keep me in mind if a practice opportunity there or here pops up. I thought Daytona was a good place for me to start working on my interaction skills, but guess we're moving on to Atlanta now. Please pardon any of my defensiveness; I'm new in lots of ways but as sensitive to criticism as the next old guy.... :-| It's progress for me; I'll owe a round of Buds and Pepsi soon, I hope, and will have some willing to drink them with me.