Allycrash???...At Castle Hill Trevor runs the meet weekly with Alycat and I have not come across any problems with his software. Everything runs smoothly. (This system was used for all four Club challenges...no hicups)

There is the problem though, it always works flawlessly for club meets all over the country. But when a big meet comes up.. Bang.

From everyone i speak to who knows what they are doing with Alycrash say the program is reasonable if all the bells and whistles are turned off, and if the user is aware of things.

People like Trev know the program inside out so quite often are able to diagnose and correct the problem without the rest of us plebs noticing.

IMO the program should not be that complex that it requires this additional knowledge to operate.

TJ resolves the issues before it becomes a major problem and is very experienced at how not to cause issues. Ive ran meetings many times and seen what can happen, like an episode of Twighlight Zone lol.

Combine Allycat with a non conforming PC and u really get issues, proper testing needs to be done before any big meeting.

Its just like any program out there...

The simple ones work fine and don't let you do anything good. The complex ones allow any and everything to be configured and changed but also are prone to probs.

Its unlikely that you can get a program that is stable (especially in widoz) and has excellent options too.

......

Would just like to say that the organisers who have or will have problems are not holding racers at ransom to make them leave late it is up to them...........


someone needs to design a program and cp to work yogether so probs do not incur.....
a
As to the event i left early on sunday as to 10 hour drive ,and would like to thank the guys at kambah for a top event......

[maybe the clubs should up the entry fees to all racers at all events so they can pay for the MEGA EXPENSIVE programs along with all the other expenses of keeping a club in existance.
Major race meetings, entry should be $70 to $100
Club meetings should be $20 to $40

I see you didn't read the whole post...

All four club challenge rounds!!!

I dont know how big one of those meets are, in Adelaide that would be 30 ppl..

In Sydney it was close to 100 entries for all rounds with regrade in the last and three A finals in all rounds plus TCS for the past 6 years with no problems. Castle Hill enduro for the past 9 years with last two years going over 4 hours of continues racing do I have to go on. Now stop product bashing and get back to the question that Mad Mackem started with.

here's my 2 cents

totally unfair to blame windows -- purely sloppy code or user error.



to execute the required code to run "competition RC software" in real time requires no more than a pentium200 - so there's no need for multi GHZ pc's either (but of course they're nice to have)

don't you guys get bored of having the same discussion after a major race meet?

this is like a windows vrs linux discussion!

and there's nothing like a good linux v windows flame either might i say...

anyhoo - since i've been considered something of a computer enthusiast since about 1980.. the thread subject caught my attention immediately , considering it is posted on a RC forum.
Thus was prepared to offer opinions based on my own experiences..

I've run a large network of PC's for a number of years and i can only say fairly that 99.99% of the time when an application crashes , it's because of poor code or failing hardware..

security issues are a different matter though and thats why we have service packs I guess.

Trevor is right, this is not supposed to be about slagging products or people. Simply to discuss if there is a better, more reliable means of counting laps.

I do realise that certain people have more experience in running this software tahn others. If Trevor had these problems every Friday at Castle Hill, I for one would not have been racing there for so many years.

I guess my point is that the software should run itself and not require the presence of a "Guru" to keep the meeting on track.

Someone referred to the bells and whistles causing the problems. If that is the case, why have them? Do we really need different starting tones? Does the software heave to give the placings during the race? Do we need our names across the PA when we enter?

I know computers can be a pain in the backside but it seems that stuff ups are becomming the norm at major events when I believe they should be a rarity. If we just accept the fact that it will happen then things will not improve.

Most drivers on Sunday had 20 mins of racing and were at the track for 12 hours or more. I am sure this could be improved.

Its interesting what you say because I have seen other programs other than the one I use start to develop the same problems of delayed timing but only since upgraded versions have been installed, more bells and whistles as you say.
I am having problems with one of my computers at the moment due to ram, but before that it was running fine and had done of many years but it was due to I think the amount of space on the operating system hard drive which slowed the processing power. Even though the program was on an different hard drive it still effected it. I have reformated the whole computer hard drive and have only two partitions in it now. With the ram problems fixed ( I hope ) I will start testing the program to see if it misses any laps with the computer cleaned up. Will get back to you. I haven't change the program because there is nothing wrong with it the reason I know is that the same version is in the second computer and it has been running fine since TCS last year.