So I decided to brave Windows (bum bum bummmmmmm) to compile the latest STK and post it here, so those interested can see what progress has been made in STK since 0.9.2. (And then spent a while this morning re-installing GRUB after Windows 8 overwrote it PURPOSEFULLY. Yes, PURPOSEFULLY. Selecting to boot from grubx64.efi in my BIOS/UEFI's boot menu just booted Windows. THEY MESSED WITH THE "ubuntu" FOLDER OF MY EFI PARTITION SO MY COMPUTER WOULD BOOT STRAIGHT INTO WINDOWS!
I'm not happy with M$ right now, in case you didn't notice.
It's not even like Win8 works right, Firefox stopped being able to connect to the Internet after a while (maybe they were trying to get me to use IE? *shudders*)
EDIT: Now cross-compiling on Ubuntu.
Anyways, a tiny, very incomplete summary of what's new in STK since 0.9.2 (please note that many of these features are
not finished yet, and
might not be included in STK 0.9.3):
PERFORMANCE: Hugely reduced loading times, reduced RAM and Video RAM usage, improvements to the renderer such as Hardware Skinning and smaller tweaks, and more....
NEW TRACKS: "Cornfield Crossing" (done), "Ravenbridge Mansion" (close to done, hidden by default, enable "Artist Debug Mode" to try it), and "Ciudad Catalina" (Work-In-Progress)
NEW KARTS: Wilber and Hexly have much better karts now.
New cutscene: GPwin (
https://jacobspctuneup.tk/gpwin.webm)
Renderer fixes: The non-advanced pipeline has had a lot of fixes (vegetation shows correctly, colors don't look so "bleached"), and the fallback OpenGL 2.1 pipeline has had a LOT of fixes to the point where it is usable, most notably transparency is fixed.
3-Strikes Battle now has "Spare Tire karts" on bigger arenas, running into these karts will give you an extra live.The camera gitter bug has been eliminated, the camera run smoothly now even if framerates are inconsistent (this was a BIG issue for me until it was fixed)
Physics have been improved, hitting a wall while in a narrow corridor won't make you bounce back and forth uncontrollably between the walls anymore
Cannons now work properly, noticeable in Oliver's Math Class and Cornfield Crossing.
Karts now have exhaust and headlightsResets onto the side track at the beginning of Cocoa Temple work now: This was SO ANNOYING, but is now fixed, as the walldriving branch was merged.
Screen recording: press CTL+PrntScr to start recording
More improvements and fixes than I can list or even remember:
1,568 commits! (
https://github.com/supertuxkart/stk-code/compare/0.9.2-branch...master minus the 66 commits that were committed separately on both the master and 0.9.2 branches)
265 bugs closed! (
https://github.com/supertuxkart/stk-code/issues?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Aissue%20closed%3A%3E2016-06-26%20)
53 PRs merged! (
https://github.com/supertuxkart/stk-code/pulls?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Apr%20merged%3A%3E2016-06-26%20)
In other words, so many fixes and improvements that 0.9.2 seems old, slow, bug-ridden, etc. Don't believe me? Try it yourself.
Downloads: (Updated 07/22/17)
Windows: https://1drv.ms/u/s!Aj1l-ur_25hWgRK7cxhJgb0gwTRI (yes, I know, Microsoft = evil, privacy violations, etc., but I'm sharing it with the world anyways, so it's OK if they have it. Doing the grunt work of hosting the file is the least they can do after what they did to my computer.
macOS: If someone wants to give me a Mac, I'll happily compile STK on it.
Linux: I didn't compile a build specifically for this post, but check out this script I made to always have the latest version:
https://code.launchpad.net/~asdfghrbljzmkd/+archive/ubuntu/stk-testHope you enjoy!
Contributor to/fan of STK (Upstreamed Cartoon theme, numerous random big fixes/tweaks)