| | | Free game, there's "United Forever" which also has other environments and modes, but this "Stadium" racing seems to be exactly the thing I like.
You can jump on online servers, each of which seems to host any one bizarre custom track at a time--but these are largely really hard to understand; they can also embed custom licensed music tracks so that's not so great for recording sessions for YouTube. |
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| paleface 23:17:36 05/26/23 [title updated] |
| | | https://tmnf.exchange/
^ Has tons of downloadable tracks; you can even run them directly from a button in their description page, without downloading them.
There's a wait for generating lightmaps on the larger ones (and many are HUGE); can Cancel to skip it, then the track is quite bright.
Downloaded tracks go in
C:\Users\[username]\Documents\TrackMania\Tracks |
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| | | I found "trackpacks" which appear to be conversions of tracks from TrackMania Turbo and TT DS. They seem all right!
Of other just user made tracks I tried, even when searching by the most awarded and such, I only found one that was sort of remotely playable. ; ) I mean I'm sure the others are great and all if you're a wizard. I need some way to sort by non-wizard tracks. Hm there IS the difficulty rating... |
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| | | No that doesn't work because the one I was able to complete, ESL-Hockolicious, was rated at a high difficulty, 4/5. It was the first one that came up under "Classic," but others from there that I've tried have been uh confusing.
You can delete tracks directly from the game's track browser, which is handy! : D And it has a Refresh button, also handy! : D |
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| | | Those "TT" packs:
https://tmnf.exchange/trackpackshow/10509901
https://tmnf.exchange/trackpackshow/10509934
https://tmnf.exchange/trackpackshow/10509968
https://tmnf.exchange/trackpackshow/10510008
https://tmnf.exchange/trackpackshow/10510040
https://tmnf.exchange/trackpackshow/10497784 |
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| | | | Nice to have a driving game that's just gas and steering. : D |
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| | | Can get for free from Steam, can also download from official site:
http://files.trackmaniaforever.com/tmnationsforever_setup.exe |
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| | | The official site version reads custom tracks from a different directory:
C:\Users\[username]\Documents\TMForever\Tracks |
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| | | | It must be fairly easy to miss at least one of Hockolicious' 14 invisible checkpoints, because about half the time when I hit the finish, it didn't trigger! |
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| | | | Turning is smoother with vsync on, guess I'll stick with that. |
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| | | Oh wait, there are boost pads in the game--there's one immediately in front of the start point in Hockolicious, for instance: that black surface with the big yellow arrows pointing forward.
I got another lock on the ad screen after the start of the game--this seems to be when it's scanned the downloaded tracks, but this time I couldn't find duplicates in there; I moved them out in sections, re-running again, and once I'd put them all in again, it still ran without locking, so...dunno.
I got another lock NOT on that screen, but when hitting Start on the controller to try to bring up the menu during a race. Uh-oh.
I've switched to "Enable Fullscreen GDI" in the configuration app, under "Compatibility." I THINK this is a pre- or at least non-D3D rendering mode. The launcher settings thing tells you it's incompatible with the Antialiasing setting--but I'm able to force antialiasing for the game through the Nvidia Control Panel; and this way I even get about 30 more fps, from ~170 to ~197--not that it will matter all that much since I'm sticking with vsync on.
Hopefully that will avoid the lockup that had been forcing me to reboot or near-reboot. I thought I'd thought of another way to get out of it but now I've forgotten what my idea there was, drat. Anyway yeah, GDI, hopefully non-lock-uppy. |
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| | | Oh false alarm on the framerate jump, I'm getting pretty much the same now without Fullscreen GDI. : P So maybe it isn't actually doing much, I dunno!
One last thing I could try if necessary would be the "Emulate mouse pointer" or whatever it is in Compatibility. ... Although that leaves a glitched hourglass graphic hanging off the mouse pointer, so maybe that isn't quite working right either. My thought was maybe it would let me close the banner ad where I locked up twice but eh it doesn't really feel like it would and probably wouldn't apply to the pause menu lockup anyway. |
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| | | Oh man! I tried some good ol' TrackMania Nations Forever after a 3.5-hour session of Trackmania (2020 Steam/PC) there's something about the camera or something--even in first-person/cockpit--in TM2020 that makes me dizzy/woozy/nauseous; it DOESN'T happen in TMNF, where you've got sharper handling and a tangible tires-on-asphalt feel to the driving.
So I had to uninstall Trackmania 2020, it was really making me feel ill. = oo
I wonder if...maybe it was partly to do with having to switch from the game's FXAA to TAA to avoid frame drops. Also had to turn reflections down.
Maybe I'll reinstall and just set it on low-ish detail and FXAA and see if that's any less nauseating.
But also another problem with the game for me is that a lot of the tracks are obviously not designed for driving using the lower-slung cockpit/bumper camera, because you just can't see a lot of the turns well at all in that view; so I had to switch to the elevated 3rd person chase camera thing, which definitely has a sorta sea-sicking slow yaw to it when turning.
Okay, reinstalled and ran in "Fast" (ie Low) detail, and it was a bit sharper (MSAA), but the queasy drifty sensation when turning or getting air or well almost any time I was driving was still there.
So yeah I can't play TM2020. = o |
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| | | Ack to be clear, those paragraphs above about TAA, FXAA, tracks designed for chase cam, and MSAA, were about Trackmania (2020)!
Not about TrackMania Nations Forever. I still have that installed. ^ _^ |
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