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As the title suggests, TORCS is a free and open-source racing simulator available for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X. I'll list here some of its features:
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As the title suggests, TORCS is a free and open-source racing simulator available for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X. I'll list here some of its features:
- 3D graphics using OpenGL
- 42 different car models
- 30 racing tracks
- 6 racing types
- different camera angles
Torcs 1.3.1
The graphics are a little old, but the racing experience is pretty neat. TORCS comes only with single player mode, offering several racing modes, like Quick Race, Non-Championship Race, Endurance Race, Championship, Challenge Race and Practice.
The official website offers links to several more tracks, cars and robots (AI drivers), like this or this. You can install these new tracks and car models by downloading and extracting the archive for each, and then copying the tracks in:
/usr/share/games/torcs/cars/ (for cars)
/usr/share/games/torcs/tracks/road/ (for road tracks)
/usr/share/games/torcs/tracks/oval/ (for oval tracks)
/usr/share/games/torcs/tracks/dirt/ (for dirt tracks)
Replace the path with the one where TORCS is installed if you compiled it manually and used a different installation prefix.
One of the beautiful features that really impressed me is the possibility to increase or decrease how the time passes. For example, pressing Shift++ (Shift and +) will increase the time, and thus making the speed look like it has doubled or tripled. To go back to normal time, just press the - (minus) key. The feeling is amazing!
I encountered crashes (output in console was segmentation fault) several times when starting a new race, I guess this is a small problem, but it does not happen often. Hopefully this will be fixed in 1.3.2.
Overall, TORCS is pretty decent for a racing simulator, with one minus being the old graphics, but otherwise, it can keep you busy for hours. Full Story |
