5th Gear

[gblake]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

I'd like to thank Blake and the rest of the 5th Gear team for not releasing the software until after my first exams.

Folks,

In addition to doing Chris a favor , we had a few thing to iron out; but...

I am going to stick my neck out and say that the initial release is literally hours away (should be less than [Edit] 48 [/Edit]). We have it "built", We are in the process of getting it onto/into a couple of download sites. Watch this thread for a link announcment.

If you are at the San Antonio or New Jersey Regionals LM folks are going to set up 5th Gear there.

I'm bracing my self for the inevitable flood of bug reports and requests for improvements - Go ahead and fire away once you have used it a little bit - First releases can always use improvement.

After a quick search in this thread, please post new bugs/requests here and David, Jim and I will get to them as soon as we can.

Blake

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by gblake

(should be less than [Edit] 48 [/Edit])

I see what you did there. Sneaky.

[Deetman]

LM had our 5th Gear logomotion running all day Friday and will again be set up all day Saturday at the New Jersey regional. Stop by and be one of the first to try it out! (We also have some cool prizes too!) The San Antonio Regional should also have 5th Gear running Saturday.

As with any first release there are some issues to overcome but the 5th Gear team has done a great job getting this ready. Hopefully they'll be comfortable with a public release soon so more people can try it out. I know many people asked today if they could get Logomotion yet.

As a side note... Blake I sent an e-mail (work address) out about half an hour ago with some of the issues we encountered today. No show stoppers thankfully.

[Bjenks548]

Anyone have the link were I can get the 5th gear download? Sounds like it was working at the regionals.

[gblake]

Originally Posted by Bjenks548

Anyone have the link were I can get the 5th gear download? Sounds like it was working at the regionals.

We have submitted requests to have it posted on both the WPI Think Tank and a public-facing Lockheed Martin site. We are waiting for the admins at both locations to approve the requests and thereby let the public (you) begin downloading it.

[ghostmachine360]

Mr. Ross, do you know if they're exhibiting the 5th Gear software at the Peachtree Regional again? We, over at CircuitRunners Robotics, have been the ones helping to set up and run the 5th Gear program for 2009 & 2010 at Peachtree with LM, but we haven't heard anything from LM, GeorgiaFIRST, or Jim Rundquist.

[gblake]

Originally Posted by ghostmachine360

Mr. Ross, do you know if they're exhibiting the 5th Gear software at the Peachtree Regional again? We, over at CircuitRunners Robotics, have been the ones helping to set up and run the 5th Gear program for 2009 & 2010 at Peachtree with LM, but we haven't heard anything from LM, GeorgiaFIRST, or Jim Rundquist.

With all the hectic fun of FRC build season, I can certainly understand if you haven't heard anything directly from Jim, but fear not; he has been writing code for the simulator this year (feel free to ask him why he either created or didn't already fix any bugs you find); and he has the Peachtree Regional in his sights.

So, "Yes", at Peachtree 5th Gear will be available for fun and for challenging other teams/mascots to contests in its vritual world.

Blake
PS: THANK YOU Circuit Runners for all of your help at the World Championships that were hosted in Atlanta. That will be a tough act to follow now that the Worlds will be in St Louis.

[Chris is me]

I'm (not so) patiently awaiting this software's release, hoping that we can use it for driver training before our regional this Thursday.

How long do you anticipate it will take to get approved on one of the two websites? If someone were to provide temporary public hosting for the file, would you be willing to pass it along?

[gblake]

Folks,

Go here (WPI's Think Tank pages) now for the initial 2011 5th Gear release: http://thinktank.wpi.edu/article/141

Once again - A BIG THANK YOU to WPI for their generous donation of downloading services that complement our LM download site.

Ignore the "2010" in the Think Tank page title (we need to change it from 2010 to 2011).

Please take notes on bugs you find, but also please give us a chance to post a list of known bugs (soon) before we fill this thread with duplicates. Once we put up our list, if you have more bugs/requests to add, then please do post them here. We expect a modest number of those reports. Like you guys & gals building the robots, we very nearly have to ship/release as soon as we finish coding and modeling; so our testing plans often get the short end of the stick...

Enjoy!

Blake
PS: If you want to tell us you like 5th Gear; or especially if your team thinks it is a useful strategy/planning tool, or is a useful practice tool for drivers, coaches, and/or scouts; you have my permission to post those messages any time - no need to wait!

[indubitably]

I like 5th Gear and think it is a useful strategy/planning tool, as well as a useful practice tool for drivers, coaches, and/or scouts.

[2829ron]

Thanks for the hard work! There, I said it after it was done this time

Thanx,

David

[Rangel]

Originally Posted by gblake

Folks,

Go here (WPI's Think Tank pages) now for the initial 2011 5th Gear release: http://thinktank.wpi.edu/article/141

Once again - A BIG THANK YOU to WPI for their generous donation of downloading services that complement our LM download site.

Ignore the "2010" in the Think Tank page title (we need to change it from 2010 to 2011).

Please take notes on bugs you find, but also please give us a chance to post a list of known bugs (soon) before we fill this thread with duplicates. Once we put up our list, if you have more bugs/requests to add, then please do post them here. We expect a modest number of those reports. Like you guys & gals building the robots, we very nearly have to ship/release as soon as we finish coding and modeling; so our testing plans often get the short end of the stick...

Enjoy!

Blake
PS: If you want to tell us you like 5th Gear; or especially if your team thinks it is a useful strategy/planning tool, or is a useful practice tool for drivers, coaches, and/or scouts; you have my permission to post those messages any time - no need to wait!

Hey I installed 5th gear, installed the latest drivers and whenever I try to start a server, the game crashes and asks me to install the latest drivers and they are the latest.

[Chris is me]

Don't worry Blake, I already have tons of bug reports for you. At least one for every FRC game, actually.

In all seriousness, thanks a ton for the release. I'm glad you guys implemented so many good new features like autonomous mode, "revolving" server / clients so you don't have to restart, and the ability to quit mid match.

[Deetman]

NOTE TO EVERYONE INSTALLING:

If you are using the installation instruction linked on the WPI Think Tank page, the link to the XNA redistributable in the document is the WRONG version. 5th Gear needs the 3.1 XNA redistributable and the 3.0 redistributable is the one linked in the document. The correct XNA redistributable is at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/e...1-98EB3E799EF2

Installing 3.0 on my machine caused 5th Gear to not open at all. Installing 3.1 fixed this problem immediately.

Rangel - this could be causing your error.

[gblake]

Originally Posted by Rangel(kf7fdb)

Hey I installed 5th gear, installed the latest drivers and whenever I try to start a server, the game crashes and asks me to install the latest drivers and they are the latest.

You don't always want the latest drivers the OEMs (Microsoft, Nvidia, etc.) produced - You do want the "latest" drivers 5th Gear expects. Let's see if that is the cause of your symptom.

I/we are using:

.Net 3.5 SP1. You can get it from here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/e...displaylang=en

DirectX 9.0c. You can get it from here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/e...1-50ceb6d8fa8d

You need to use XNA 3.1. You can get it (actually you an MS installer package) from here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/e...1-98eb3e799ef2

You need to use Nvidia PhysX 9.10.0513. You can get it from here:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/physx-9...13-driver.html

Xbox controller (we use WIRED, not wireless, controllers) drivers are found here: http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/do...ategory=gaming
We have not tested using wireless controllers.

Notice that (for example) .Net 3.5 SP1 isn't the latest .Net version Microsoft offers. If you use later or earlier versions, you are diverging from what we develop on. Later versions of it (or of any of the other pre-reqs) should offer "backward" compatability, but I wouldn't bet my paycheck on it.

Let us/me know how this stacks up against what is in your computer and/or what happens if you switch to using exactly what I listed above.

Blake