News Archive - 2015

Just wanted to take a moment to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, and a happy new year! Not much to report this month, mostly behind the scenes upgrades/fixed. 4×4 Evo is verified to indeed be working 100% on Windows 10, and Fengo is still hard at work on a new intro video. So far it’s shaping up to be pretty awesome, and will be included in the next patch when ready.

On the Monster Truck Madness side of things, some pretty awesome things seem to be in the works from the fine people over at MTM2.com. With luck they may be doing some patches of a similar nature of their own soon.

Hopefully those of us stateside have recovered from a turkey coma and shopping fever from the darkest of Fridays at this point. Not much news to report, minor tweaks/fixes here an there and attempting to ramp up for a patch release this month hopefully. Should have some more information up soon!

Thanks to Fengo over at Vales, he managed to recover a copy of what was thought to be a long lost demo. Originally a 2003 promotional demo of 4×4 Evo 2 for both the Tomb Raider movie, and the Jeep Wrangler. It provides a unique one off mission and is likely the last version of the game released. Get it now from the downloads section!

A bug was identified a few days ago where all series tracks are being listed as invalid. The fix for this is being researched right now, we should have an update available in a few days fixing this critical issue.

Took longer than expected to attain access to a connection capable of uploading the corrected files. Changelog is the same as the prior release, and offers massive improvements in MTM track compatibility!

Certain critical startup issues were identified, and while they have been resolved. New files will be uploaded within the next 24 hours. They resolve the following issues:

-FIX: Wrong render DLLs included originally, could cause startup crashes
-FIX: Full-screen re-enabled
-MTM: If no file extension is detected, it will be assumed that it’s an MTM .BIN model that was incorrectly put into the POD file.
-MTM: Added invalid model detection. More track compatibility until the issues is resolved

Newest patch is out, it fixes quite a few existing bugs. Get it now from the downloads section!

Changelog:
-FEATURE: Added nightfrog’s CPU ID code
-FIX: Loading screen in OpenGL now shows something besides black
-FIX: Joysticks should work, was broke in attempt to fix a memory leak.
-GAMESPY: Gamespy is working again!!! Thanks to the folks at openspy.net for making this a reality.
-UI: Added “Other” controls binding menus
-UI: Fixed track name repeating bug in replay UI
-UI: Adjusted alignment of text items
-UI: Finally fixed the key binding issues
-UI: Moved large scroll bar to the left of the screen
-UI: Fixed camera menus
-VISUAL: Fixed issue where all parts were visually enabled, despite them not being installed
-VISUAL: Suspension now renders correctly, shock length is determined by suspension travel.
-OTHER: Nightfrog’s been busy on the Linux port, numerous behind the scenes changes most of this isn’t visible to the end user but it’s a lot of work and deserves some notice.

Make a large amount of progress this week, most of the UI and control issues have been resolved as has the new suspension model. Just attempting to knock out some more testing before release an we should be good to go.

Working on getting another patch out within the next day or so. This should restore the now once more working GameSpy support through the use of OpenSpy, fix joystick support, and other minor tweaks. The Dreamcast version of 4x4Evo 2 is still moving along slowly, mostly just memory optimization to free up texture memory so we can have the on-screen map.

Thanks to some work by Sponji he discovered that there is an open-source implementation of GameSpy available called OpenSpy. This will be implemented in the next patch, however if you want to use it in 4x4Evo it can be added via hex-editor. Instructions will be added later.

Going to put some effort into getting Evo 2, or at least a portion of it ported to DC. This should be interesting.

Thanks to Impulse at Dreamcast-talk.com for saving the original download awhile back, I had since lost it. Thanks to both him, and some recent interest at Assemblergames.com it is once again in the download section.

NOTE: DO NOT INSTALL THIS OVER YOUR EXISTING INSTALLATION! THIS IS STANDALONE!

Been sitting on this for way too long, it’s nowhere near done but here it is. From here on hopefully we’ll return to making small monthly patches. Despite some bugs however, this is still a massive update. Check out the changes below:

-CAMERA: Move quadrotor cam to 250 units distance

-CAMERA: Set near clipping plane on quadrotor to 0.5, and blimp to 128

-CAMERA: Front and rear suspension camera P/Y/R is no longer reversed

-EDITOR: Version 8 SIT files, track splines optional in game on non-MTM tracks

-FEATURE: Added COLLADA DAE model support (NOTE: UV MAPPING NOT SUPPORTED YET/BUGGY)

-FIX: Memory leak fixed (Courtesy of Nightfrog)

-FIX: Found instance where a non-standard .BIN model was causing transparency crash in Zoon Moon

-FIX: Rear-steering was always on with analog control

-FIX: Random menus freeze resolved (Unknown if new issues will arise)

-FIX: Startup crash isolated, no proper fix yet. Run 4x4Revo_NoJoy if you have this issue.

-PHYSICS: Automatic torque table generation for Version 10+ trucks

-PHYSICS: Corrected issue where setting a truck to full oversteer provided traction advantage

-PHYSICS: Added truck camber settings.

-TEST: Truck Editor UI implemented, like goggles it does nothing.

-VISUAL: MTM1/2 ground boxes show all 6 correct textures now

-VISUAL: Maximum BigVis render distance changed from 80 to 160

-VISUAL: Tweaks to snow to improve appearance

-VISUAL: More suspension model work

-VISUAL: Model scaling bug fixed, no more pancakes

-VISUAL: MTM1/2 ground boxes show all 6 correct textures now

-VISUAL: Fixed veggie rendering

-PHYSICS/OTHER: Implemented Pontiacman’s (Sorry it took so long!), Dreamcast Patch 002, and many other tweaks

-UI/PHYSICS: Removed option for New/Old physics, too hard to maintain seperation. (Speed 125%, ground friction %15 strength)

-UI: Automatic transmission has it’s own indication now

-UI: Dyno chart fixes

-UI: Integrated author info, author description, and truck description to vehicle display screens

-UI: Added dyno graph on single player truck selection screen

-UI: Removed GameSpy, it’s likely dead forever.

-UI: Removed mission tracks from MP list

-UI: Quadrotor HUD work

-UI: Showroom has all text re-enabled

-UI: Options to change MP UI colors. (Courtesy of Nightfrog)

-UI: Reverted to original intro until it can be resized to 640×480

-UI: Replay was repeating track name FOREVER until it crashed of course not too long after.

-UI: Issue with background being offset

-UNTESTED: Version 1 SMB support enabled

-OTHER: Better misc error messages

-OTHER: Version 10 TRK files implemented

-OTHER: Removed tunngle support

-OTHER: Conversion of x86 assembly to C/C++ for future porting (Courtesy of Nightfrog)

-OTHER: XML test support added, for future additions

-OTHER: Removed Steam test files, will not be added.

-OTHER: Removed multiplayer menus music, this never existed but it would always try to find it.

-OTHER: More specific error reporting for corrupt models issues

-OTHER: All tracks now go in the tracks folder

Currently in the process of applying some changes that were done long ago, and implementing the new torque curve system. There are a lot of trucks to update, so of course this will take some time as well as implementing a lot of corrections that were in the Dreamcast patch, and changes Pontiacman performed awhile back.

After some light discussion, it’s been decided to release patch 011 as is. At which point hopefully we can resume the small minor patches that were happening prior to this. It will likely be a bit painful, but hey it’s coming finally!

Found the GameCube version of Evo 2 at a local game store, so in honor of such I set it up in an era correct manner in hopes to play though it some to find any other differences that might have been missed. For those not in the know, this was the final retail build of Evo 2. It also has the manual in it still, hopefully should get some scans of it up soon.

Just got hold of a bottom of the line Windows 8.1 powered tablet for testing. And I’m happy to report the game does indeed run on it, no finagling needed. However there is near no way to interface with the game short of an external keyboard at the moment. It’s likely it will remain this way for awhile, but still it’s pretty awesome to see.

Vales.com is having some issues at the moment, hopefully this will be resolved soon. 4×4 Evolution Brasil was also having issues with their forums as well. Not much in the way of time for updates so far this month, hopefully can finish out DAE support while some issues with UV mapping get sorted.

On a sad note, Satoru Iwata of Nintendo passed away on 11 July, 2015 may he rest in peace. Few people had as much impact on the world of gaming as he did.

COLLADA DAE support is partially implemented! While this is likely the least impressive screenshot ever, this is quite a big deal and allows us the break free from from using ZModeler 1 to export SMF files. Suffice it to say this is not even remotely backwards compatible with Vanilla Evo or MTM. UV mapping should be sorted quite soon, and hopefully a public beta of patch 011 will follow soon so everyone can try and break it.

Started work on adding support for Collada DAE files, what does this mean. The eventual phasing out of SMF files if successful, as only ZModeler 1 supports working with that format. Nightfrog has continued to plug away at cross-platform compatibility. Still a long road, but as always work continues.

Reworking the method we use to update .TRK files to something much more user friendly. Will be implementing a lot of PontiacMan’s work from last year (Sorry it took so long!) correcting errors in the .TRK files. Nightfrog has still been hard at work on general optimization, and diving head first into the dark rabbit hole of assembly. Also implementing Ford style twin-I beam suspension as well, should look pretty darn cool for those fans of prerunners.

While this has near nothing to do with 4×4 Evolution, besides the terrain engine. It would only be right to post about it given the support from TRI in allowing this project to be what it is, and hopefully can be. The game has been ported by it’s original author it features widescreen art, touch controls, and improved render distances among other fixes. More information can be had here:

Get Terminal Velocity here!