Car World

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Support open graphics drivers!

Open Source or Free Software drivers are important because they enable the hardware to work out of the box on all Free operating systems, including Linux, they guarantee that the support for the hardware will not be discontinued so long as there are people using it, they guarante that functionnality of the hardware is not arbitrarily limited by factors such as market segmentation, Digital Restrictions Management or anticompetitive mesures, they guarante the customer can choose the platform he uses even if he is presently tied to Windows.
This is why, I belive that responsible consumers should purchase, whenever possible, hardware with open drivers because there is no conceivable downside for the consumer, it empowers him to use his purchase as he sees fit.
One day all PC hardware will have open drivers, that day users will never need to install a driver again.
For this reason, in march 2007, I setup a pledge to support manufacturers who release open graphics drivers. Since then, (as of december 2009) nVidia has maintained it's position with closed/obfuscated drivers while ATI/AMD has published specifications and encouraged Open Source driver development for their hardware. I therefore encourage anyone looking to purchase a graphics card to avoid nVidia hardware and favor AMD/ATI hardware.

About CarWorld

CarWorld is a small driving simulator/demo I use to test various things of interest. It was mostly developed when I was a student. It is released with the full source code under the GNU General Public License.

Where I am now

I am now working at OKTAL where I work on SCANeR Studio a vehicle dynamics evaluation tool and full scale driving simulator. We also promote the use of Road XML an open format to describe road networks.

The rendering

The two top pictures represent an slightly older version (0.072) but graphically similar of CarWorld as it was presented for my project. 0.072 includes an OpenGL based renderer allowing

file input and displaying of texture mapped models with interpolated surface normals, real time projected shadows (as seen in the dino lights example).
background object
on screen command line to modify visual and simulation parameters

The mechanics

based on classical mechanics
uses standard metrics (Newtons, meters, seconds...)
there are no constraints on the environment surface
variable length time increments and variable increment number means "CarWorld time" is not dependent on frame rate.
adjustable simulation specs include: metrics, mass, moment of inertia around rotation axis, suspension pre load, compression damping, rebound damping, engine torque output, air friction, surface friction.

Screenshots



more screenshots and ports

What CarWorld needs to run

Some versions of CarWorld have been tested on Linux, HP-UNIX, IRIX and Windows95/98/NT/2k/XP/Vista/7, Mac OSX and BeOS but it should however compile under any OS with OpenGL and supported by the SDL. I develop under Windows and Linux. It uses the SDL librairy

for Windows you will need the C/C++ runtime libraries msvcr90.dll and msvcp90.dll
for Linux, install the SDL and SDL_image rpms/debs.

history

0.245: (16/12/09) fixed crash on exit, missing textures on first launch, incorrect vehicle lighting
0.243: (28/06/06) compiles with gcc 4.1, no more warnings compiling with Visual Studio .Net 2005 (8.0)
0.242: (08/06/06) compiles with Visual Studio .Net 2005 (8.0) and gcc 4.0.4
0.239: (07/04/04) Ported to SDL, compiles with VC6 and gcc 3.3.1, server mode does not work
0.223: (20/09/00) Networked mode now works under Windows95/98 (problem under NT...)
0.222: (19/07/00) truck straightened out, rpm package target added to makefile
0.219: (15/06/00) DirectX force feedback
0.215: (19/04/00) slightly better network support, first BeOS port, applied patches sent in
0.205: preliminary support for networked gaming (under UNIX/Linux only for now)
0.198: bug fixes, support for Linux joystick etc...
0.190: first release

SourceForge: developer web page
Developers: documentation generated by doxygen
author/feed back: email Marcus Hewat
back to Marcus Hewat's home page
OKTAL where I am currently working on Callas/Prosper a vehicle dynamics evaluation tool and driving simulator.

Download

Download carworld