HOF2Lap Limitations and Future Plans
First off, let me say that I'm not a fan of Geoff Crammond; the phrase
I normally use to describe people like him who write superficially good
code is "a triumph of ingenuity over intelligence", that is, his basic
designs are poorly thought out but his clearly very creative mind somehow
manages to code around this and the result is something almost but not
quite brilliant. The reason I'm telling you this is so that you understand
the perverse file format which is a GP2 hot lap has made life very difficult
for me whilst writing HOF2Lap and is the central cause of the program's
limitations.
Technical explanations for these problems appear in Gizmo's
GP2 FAQ as part of the HOF2Lap Home Page. Please read that document
before sending a bug report.
Okay, on to the actual problems (for which there is a
solution
now).
-
If you drive two or more laps in succession, and save a hot lap which is
slower than a following lap, HOF2Lap cannot find the correct lap time and
will instead display the faster time. This is most noticable if you try
to save the last lap of race (but that's not actually useful anyway!).
Note that whilst it's possible to use this "feature" to fool HOF2Lap into
producing "false" authcodes, the actual replay when viewed is still correct.
In general, HOF2Lap is not viable for arbitrary race laps.
-
Qualifying laps which are disqualified (because you cross the line at the
end of lap number 12 when you should have returned to the pits) cannot
be displayed correctly.
-
HOF2Lap may be unpredictable if multiple drivers are selected.
-
More limits are described in
the FAQ.
Solution
The solution is to improve the hotlap file structure. GP2Lap does exactly
this by adding vital data to the file from within GP2. Since it has access
to all of GP2's real-time internal data, the whole problem of not having
all the needed data in the hotlap is solved. Of course, original hotlaps
will still have the same problems mentioned above. To make use of the new
hotlap structure, it's necessary to use GP2Lap with GP2 while driving and
saving your laps. See the
GP2Lap
home page for more details.
Things to do
The current version of HOF2Lap has a few limitations which can and will
be corrected in future versions:
-
Use the setup in it's encoded version. At the moment, if you enter the
pits and alter your setup, then save a hot lap before you exit the pits
again, the setup listed will be wrong.
HOF2Lap is untested during linked play. It may work fine.
I also have yet to publicly release any code for interpreting the authentication
codes produced by HOF2Lap. My recommendation to those running hot lap and
race competitions is to ask competitors to send in actual hot laps, and
for HOF2Lap to be used to check each lap.