Misplaced Pages

Racer (simulator)

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages)
The topic of this article may not meet Misplaced Pages's notability guidelines for products and services. Please help to demonstrate the notability of the topic by citing reliable secondary sources that are independent of the topic and provide significant coverage of it beyond a mere trivial mention. If notability cannot be shown, the article is likely to be merged, redirected, or deleted.
Find sources: "Racer" simulator – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (August 2015) (Learn how and when to remove this message)
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
Find sources: "Racer" simulator – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (December 2013) (Learn how and when to remove this message)
(Learn how and when to remove this message)

2012 video game
Racer Free Car Simulator
Developer(s)Ruud van Gaal
Publisher(s)Dolphinity
Designer(s)Ruud van Gaal
EngineOpenGL
Platform(s)Microsoft Windows, Linux, Mac OS X
Release9 August 2012
Genre(s)Sim racing
Mode(s)Single-player, multiplayer

Racer, fully named Racer Free Car Simulator, is a freeware and source available video game simulator that runs on Microsoft Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.

Although Racer started out as a driving simulator, it also has features that are usually seen in racing games, such as racing against AI cars, or against human opponents in multiplayer mode. Its weak points, when compared with commercial racing games, is the absence of wear/damage physics or a career mode.

History

The first version of Racer was released on 29 August 2000. Over the years, a community has grown around Racer. The software itself is maintained exclusively by creator Ruud van Gaal. An important characteristic of Racer is its openness; the formats for cars, tracks and other data are documented. Furthermore, tools to aid in car and track creation are part of the release. As a result, a large number of cars has been created and published, in a large variety: Formula One, GT, vintage, trucks, daily drivers, luxury sedans, and even a shopping trolley has been modeled. Likewise, tracks are available in various types, from true racing circuits to drag strips, mountain roads, and even a car park.

Licensing

The Racer software is free, in the sense of freeware for non-commercial users. While the source code of an older version (0.5) was made available under GPL, later versions are not under an open-source license. The cars and tracks have various forms of license, but can all be downloaded for free.

Whilst one of the strengths of Racer is its open file format, perhaps one of its weaknesses is its closed-source stance and development team. The Racer community contributes to testing and suggesting features that should be added, but the development side of Racer is much based on the amount of time the developers have to contribute towards it. This translates to infrequent updates of varying quality, but updates are often feature-rich and inspire a new burst of energy into the development and modification of cars and tracks.

See also

References

  1. van Gaal, Ruud (9 May 2003). "Racer source code will be published". Amiga News. Retrieved 10 January 2023.
  2. "The Source Code". racer.nl. 13 November 2012. Retrieved 10 January 2023.

External links

Categories: