Revisional Differences

This is a sub-page of TrackMania (2003).

Initial Release (1.0.0)#

Released November 21st, 2003 in France¹ and 28th in the UK.²
The first full version of the game.

Update 1 (1.1.0)#

Released December 12th, 2003.³
This update contains a lot of changes. A full change log is included with the update.

TrackMania Update 1.1
List of corrections/new features:

Main corrections:
- the special copper bonuses(series and campaign) are now correctly allocated. Older profiles benefit from an automatic copper update)
- the wheel/joypad does not get blocked anymore in network games with bad ping
- better synchronisation during connection to a network game



Main new features:
- general improvements of the replay studio: see the file "replay editing - documentation.txt"
- the choice of challenges for a multiplayer game now respects the click order rather than the alphabetical order
- in multiplayer network/rounds, a player who joins can now start to play immediatly
- in multiplayer network/time attack, the winning rule has been simplified: the player with the best time wins.
- in multiplayer network/team mode, it is now possible to see the players in the different teams in the "change team" menu
- new functionality: "online news"...
- Key auto repeat feature for the cursor (hold arrow keys or move button)
- at the end of multiplayer-round races, you can switch between two cameras by pressing the race car camera keys 1 and 2. The camera 1 is the standard follow camera, and the camera 2 is a free camera that you can move with car driving controls and rotate by moving the mouse with the right mouse button down.



Other corrections/new features:
Launcher:
- the launcher is not launched automatically anymore when the cd is inserted during the protection check
- the configuration preset "best performance" has been optimized
- advanced thumbnail "Audio": possibility to limit the max number of sounds played simultaneously
- advanced thumbnail "Display": option to force cpu/gpu synchro (avoids display lags), recommanded settings if you experiment display lags: "immediate".
- new advanced thumbnail "Game": some advanced game display settings (display smoke, level of detail of opponents, projectors on/off...). Also a new option (activated by default) to hide opponents when they are too close to the player's car
- new advanced thumbnail: "Inputs" allows to define the sensivity and the "deadzone" of an analog controller.

Profile:
- the special copper bonuses are not erroneously allocated anymore after changing the current profile
- If a new profile is created and the associated score file already exists, the score file is overwritten and replaced with an empty score file.
- When a new profile is created, random skins are chosen for the cars.

Menus:
- If a challenge can not be loaded in the editor because of missing blocks, a dialog box now indicates the missing blocks and their amount
- you can now buy ten blocs at once in the catalog by holding "Alt" while clicking.
- No more strange caracters in the flattened list of online players
- If the login/password/key is erroneous during the online connexion, the registration box is displayed again the next time the game is launched
- The time fields can now hold a value greater than 1:00:00
- The number of allowed characters for the skin names is now limited

Editor:
- The F1 shorcut has been re-activated
- the thumbnails are now framed when focused
- icons and thumbnails are now framed when selected
- in the track editor, the car's spawning direction is now related to the camera's direction
- the cursor's height is now correctly re-aligned with big blocks
- the helpers are now hidden by default in pure races
- It is now possible to add more than one example of the eighth block allocated for a puzzle
- helper problem with the left air looping solved

Race:
- the time offset between a player and a ghost is now displayed at every checkpoint
- the chat remains opened/closed when the track changes
- a key allows to hide/show the ghost
- multiplayer local mode: a challenge can be validated during a game (allows to reload it directly)
- multiplayer local mode: the best ghost does not remain from one game to the next anymore
- multiplayer local mode: you can now play with up to 8 players instead of 4
- multiplayer modes : player names are truncated if they are too long
- multiplayer network time attack mode: the remaining time countdown is now always displayed

Replays:
- no more crashes when multiple replays are selected, among which some validate and others don't
- dialog box asking for confirmation before overwritting an existing replay
- bench replay : generates a bench***.tx file in the bench folder which contains informations about display performances.
- fix of problems that could make validation fail on valid replays
- the save dialog now starts with the good replay name

Display:
- the ghost does not have a random color on certain machines
- In the Rally environement, cars now stop when they fall in the water
- aerial skidmarks problem fixed

Sound:
- the sound does not bug anymore during the loading of a level on some sound cards.
- better sound quality for the ghost
- automatic limitation of the number of sounds playerd on sound cards without hardware acceleration

Controls:
- no more direction bugs when multiple joysticks are plugged
- the wheel is now taken into account at the very beginning of the race

Network:
- the "ingame" dialog box does not block a network game anymore
- the default number of online players in a game has been lowered to 6, to allow a better connection quality with standard network connections
- a time/round limit set to 0 allows infinite play time on a track
- in time attack, the respawn key now resets the player if he didn't go through a checkpoint(automatically sets the timer to 0)
- the unique identifier of a player is now displayed near their nicknames in the "kick" and "buddies" dialog boxes
- No more "dummy" names in the player list when switching from team mode to rounds mode
- solved a bug if the user entered an empty password

Data:
- G3 puzzle corrected
- Alpine Turbo Middle block : collision problem solved
- Alpine Canyon Cross block : display problem solved
- Alpine Finish block : pylons added
- Speed Road to Tilted block: removed a hole
- Speed Bi Slope block : pylons removed
- Speed Tilt TShape Air/Ground block : collision problem solved
- Rally Start Low block is now available in the editor
- Rally Road Low block : flying trees lowered to the ground
- Rally Pont Levis block : shadow projector added
- Rally Castle Bridge Air block : vertex lineup problem solved
- Rally Road Low Block : shader problem in PC0 solved
- Rally Start/Checkpoints/Finish Blocks : color change to reflect the standard helpers color
- Rally Houses Blocks: texture problem on some houses solved

Update 2 (1.2.5)#

Also known as the "Power Up!" update. Released April 2nd, 2004.⁴
This update contains a lot of changes. A full change log is included with the update.

TrackMania Update 1.2
List of corrections/new features:

Main new features:
- Added 40+ new blocks
- Added an underground construction mode for tunnels
- New solo mode: Survival
- Solo/Race mode: the time to beat is now represented by a ghost
- New presentation of the online interface
- Management of avatars: small customizable pictures representing the player during multiplayer races. They are automatically transmitted when playing online.
- New copper management system
- Added some backgrounds around the construction zone
- Updated the menus presentation.


Main corrections:
- Corrected the "election" bug, which occasionnaly caused the server to crash and the other players to be disconnected when changing the track.
- Corrected the "direction" bug, which caused erroneous inputs to occur with analogic peripherals (joypads, driving wheels...)


Other corrections/new features:
Launcher:
- Button "Apply safe mode": automatically sets advanced settings to the safest configuration, at the cost of some display performance and quality
- Possibility to deactivate avatar transfer when you are the server (avoids some lag when transfering avatars if you have a small bandwidth)
- Vertex process: default: hardware. Switching to software mode can solve some display problems with defective graphic card drivers, at the cost of performance.
- You can now set a resolution for fullscreen mode and another one for windowed mode

Profile :
- Management of avatars: small customizable pictures representing the player during multiplayer races. They are automatically transmitted when 
- It is possible to deactivate the display of avatars in the profile setting.

Menus :
- Suppressed the shop (see editor)
- Added a rolling demo mode
- The price of the tracks in coppers is displayed in the track lists. Tracks created before the 1.2 update do not have a price by default (price displayed:"???")
- Multiplayer races: added a new race result dialog box 
- New presentation of the online interface

Race :
- Solo/Race mode: the time to beat is now represented by a ghost
- Solo/Race mode: the difficulty of the medals has been toned down for the first series, and slightly increased for some races in the last series. Scores realised with versions prior to 1.2 are fully compatible.
- multiplayer modes: display of events during the game (player joined/left the game, crossed the finish line...)
- local multiplayer: the last 4 bars are now displayed correctly
- local multiplayer/create: the profile used for track creation is now always the profile that was active when entering the mode.
- Puzzle: corrected a bug with defective walls in the F2 puzzle

Editor :
- Added an underground construction mode for tunnels. The underground mode is automatically activated when selecting an underground block and moving the cursor in a mountain/hill
- New transition blocks: they can only be placed on the frontier between two zones, and allow to draw a continuous road between different zones
- Added an help window automatically displayed the first time you enter the editor mode. You can display it again by cmicking on the question mark on the upper right border of the screen.
- Possibility to lock challenges with a password (password button located over the medal times). If you enter a password for a challenge, the game will ask for this password when trying to edit this challenge.
- New copper management system: the player has a given amout of coppers for every environment, and those coppers are spent during the edition of the challenge, every time a block is placed.
- It is not possible to edit a challenge whose price is higher than the amount of coppers the player owns. There is an exception to this rule: in order to allow players to always load challenges he created before the update, it is always possible to load a challenge if the player is its author.
- Optimisation of the challenge file format (their size has been decreased).
(To see the copper value of a pre 1.2-challenge and optimize its size, just load it and save it with an updated game)
- Switching from the terraformer to the classical block editor now keeps the state of the help grid (visible/hidden)
- Corrected a bug which allowed to place ground versions of a block in the air
- The block helpers are always displayed now


Replays :
- New replay keys for slow motion, fast forward and cutting.
- Corrected the replay validation (could be defective when recorder during lag)

Sound :
- Reverberation effect in the tunnels
- The sound of the engine has been reactivated in first person camera
- Corrected the bug of the sounds that were occasionnaly cut

Controls :
- Corrected the "direction" bug, which caused erroneous inputs to occur with analogic peripherals (joypads, driving wheels...)
- Pedals can now be used to accelerate/deccelerate

Network :
- Management of avatars: small customizable pictures representing the player during multiplayer races. They are automatically transmitted when playing online.
- New informations available in the dialog box allowing to join a game: list of the tracks played, their environment, duration and price in coppers
- Possibility to download the current challenge (automatically saved in the "challenges\downloaded\author name" directory)
- Server creation: possibility to deactivate the challenge download for the other players
- Server creation: possiblity to set a chat time at the end of every match (during the display of the result dialog box). The players can chat during that time, or press the right mouse button to skip this phase
- Remove rarely used search criterias (groups, age, level)
- The server can go into spectator mode: he does not take part in the races, and is not signaled as a player in the server list (for example an 8 player match with only the server will be listed as a match with 0/7 players.
- Possibility to report player abuse. Warning! This option must be used with parsimony, and only in serious cases.

Datas:
- More than 40 new blocks distributed in the 3 environments. Including tunnels, transition roads and road signs for every environment.
- The rally car's look has been slightly revised.

References#