Rendition card

[sharangad]

Could you try this?
https://nirvtek.com/downloads/RReady.Alp...923.001.7z
MD5: 7bd574b8299e3d1f19479dc87a0525ec

I had to shift down the blue component by one bit. I'll sort it out tomorrow.

[checkpoint10]

The latest Alpha seems to work as expected. Thank you!

The color 000000 (and only that color) from the Pennzoil car is now transparent.



It works on this wall texture where I just marked it up with some black pixels.



Custom front wing:

[sharangad]

The latest Alpha seems to work as expected. Thank you!

The color 000000 (and only that color) from the Pennzoil car is now transparent.



It works on this wall texture where I just marked it up with some black pixels.



Custom front wing:

There might be a problem with colours other than black, particularly with the blue component. I'll take another look at it tonight.

Also the low resolution of the textures might produce large holes in the geometry though it does look OK in the last pic.

[CowtownBob]

With this installed, it will effect all tracks and carsets whether they have moving scenery or different looking wings or whatever, right?

I can see how it can easily be done with carsets since they only use part of the 256 color palette so you can choose something else for your invisible color, but be careful with tracks; they can not only utilize the full 256 color space, they each have their own individual palette. Even IF they all have one (maybe, maybe not) finding a common unused palette index among all tracks... well, good luck. So maybe there would need to be an .ini file for each track, indicating the invisible color index. And of course, somehow to read the .ini and implement the changes.

[sharangad]

With this installed, it will effect all tracks and carsets whether they have moving scenery or different looking wings or whatever, right?

I can see how it can easily be done with carsets since they only use part of the 256 color palette so you can choose something else for your invisible color, but be careful with tracks; they can not only utilize the full 256 color space, they each have their own individual palette. Even IF they all have one (maybe, maybe not) finding a common unused palette index among all tracks... well, good luck. So maybe there would need to be an .ini file for each track, indicating the invisible color index. And of course, somehow to read the .ini and implement the changes.

I can do that from dosbox-rendition. Every time a sunny.pcx file is accessed as a file or in a dat, I can look for the ini. This could maybe be used for translucent polygons as well , well like tinted glass. Future work for sure.

[sharangad]

I've got a strange bug with a user on a laptop with a gtx1660. He had issues with the store based version, it turned out to be a bad install. For some reason the game looks like this with both the Alpha and the store based version and I have no idea what's causing this:

[sharangad]

Partially back in business:

https://nirvtek.com/downloads/RReady.Alp...120.001.7z
MD5: a24d11a3bbfb96882f8089d973c9ed3c

https://nirvtek.com/downloads/RReady.Alp...120.002.7z
MD5: 60eb37963add010606826a144d004737

- joystick multithreading can be moved to its own thread:
[joystick]
multithreaded=true (This is the default). 
This reduces the input latency and guarantees 200 joystick polls per second at the cost of an extra CPU thread. Previously the joystick was polled at best once every 20 ms provided no other SDL events (like keyboard processing) were present. If there were any events, they all needed to be dealt with before joystick processing, adding to latency.
- Preliminary support for XInput joysticks
- Run dosbox-rendition and close it. Click view log. It should list the available joysticks like this:
2025/11/20|7:25:11.757 Available Joysticks
2025/11/20|7:25:11.757 0 is Controller (Gamepad F310)
2025/11/20|7:25:11.757 1 is Controller (XBOX 360 For Windows)
2025/11/20|7:25:11.757 2 is XInput Controller (player #1)
2025/11/20|7:25:11.757 3 is XInput Controller (player #2)

To use an Xbox controller:
joysticktype  = 4axis
usejoystickids = true
joystickids = 3  (to use player#2's controller) OR
joystickids = 2  (to use player#1's controller)

For two player
joysticktype  = 2axis
usejoystickids = true
joystickids = 3 ,2 (to use player#2's controller as stick one and player#1's controller as stick two)

There's also :
axesmapping=0,1,2,3
for a 4-axis controller this maps stick 1 and stick 2 as x1, y1 and x2, y2. To use the triggers as axis 3 this should be set to:
axesmapping=0,1,4,3
This makes stick axis 4 (triggers) function as the third axis.

For an xbox controller, the mmsystem/directinput nodes such as sticks #0 and  #1 can be used, but axismapping would have to be adjusted. By default for a 360 controller, axis #2 is mapped to the triggers.
axesmapping=0,1,4,3 OR axesmapping=0,1,3,4 should work.

[sharangad]

The nirvtek.com site has been hacked (again). The hosting provider has recommended a clean start. The hack appears to have originated from an older wordpress site, not the current one. The hacker or hackers appears to have been sending out explicit spam using the admin email and some of the scripts they used to login can't be deleted. So the site will be down and moved to a fresh server over the next few days.

Merry christmas (or whatever you celebrate the end of the year with)!

[EDIT] Rebuilt and should be fine now.

[sharangad]

Sorry for the lack of widescreen. I've run into a few snags and need to rework some stuff. I'm also looking at offload acceleration, to speed up ICR2-Rendy in CPU intensive situations, by rewriting parts of the game with native code and running it Dosbox. I don't know whether this will eliminate the slowdown, but I live in hope.

***************************************************
RReady Alpha (January 06, 2026, 1.0.46) (Fully tested Alpha Release)
***************************************************
https://nirvtek.com/downloads/RReady.Alp...106.001.7z
MD5: be306ffa6e2dac8601207e58f396bc01

- Grand Prix Legends transparency issues with windscreen fixed
- Eurofigher 2000+ gamma correction functional but not quite 100%.
- Native support for XInput controllers (SDL1) and axis remapping (Dosbox-Rendition)
- Joystick polling can be done on a separate thread for improved performance (requires multi-core CPU)(Dosbox-Rendition)
- FIFO performance improvements (Dosbox-Rendition)
- Improved compatibility with standard VGA apps (Both Dosboxen)
- Support OPL-3 ‘nuked’ core FM synthesis (Dosbox-Rendition)
-      Descent II menu textures corrected and performance boost, though still quite slow.
-      ICR2 transparency will work, if enabled in rendition.cfg.

This should be live on the store within the next 2-3 days.

[EDIT] This release has a bug which could dosbox-rendition to crash to the desktop at startup with a wheel connected. To correct this in dosbox-Rendition.conf (RLauncher->Dos tab->Dosbox-Rendition settings) add or modify the following 3 lines under the [joystick] section:
[joystick]

multithreaded = false
usejoystickids = true
joystickids = 0

[checkpoint10]

- ICR2 transparency will work, if enabled in rendition.cfg.

This should be live on the store within the next 2-3 days.

Looking forward to doing more experimentation with ICR2 transparency. Thanks for including this!