08214: harddriv, racedriv: Drift makes car skid too long

ID	Category [?]	Severity [?]	Reproducibility	Date Submitted	Last Update
08214	Gameplay	Major	Always	Feb 18, 2022, 08:12	Feb 27, 2022, 08:44

Tester	CYBERYOGI -CO-Windler	View Status	Public	Platform	MAME (Official Binary)
Assigned To		Resolution	Open	OS	Windows 10/11 (64-bit)
Status [?]	Acknowledged			Driver	atari/harddriv.cpp
Version	0.240	Fixed in Version		Build	64-bit
		Fixed in Git Commit		Github Pull Request #

Summary	08214: harddriv, racedriv: Drift makes car skid too long
Description	The steering in the Atari arcade games "Hard Drivin" and "Race Drivin" in MAME behaves odd. Once the car started to drift for a while and left the road, it often keeps spinning (even on the grass) like a carousel and becomes very hard to control for the rest of the game like driving on ice. This can only be stopped by braking the car to complete halt (0 mph). I am not entirely sure if this is a MAME or game bug, or if this was even intentional game design, simulating excessive tyre wear or other car damage affecting steering - possibly exaggerated as a penalty for bad players. But arcade videos on Youtube show that on the real machine the car seems to be still controllable. (I control it by mouse on a slightly underpowered laptop with 1.6GHz Core2Duo and Intel graphics. The game plays well but often at about 90% speed. Setting steering wheel sensitivity "6" works best.) Strange is that seems to happen mainly in the cockpit versions. The upright versions AFAIK don't skid forever on grass, so this seems to be a MAME bug. I suspect that the car physics DSP somehow gets out of sync with the game engine or isn't resetted properly. It feels like when it acts like a state machine that by driving faults (strong steering at too high velocity/offroad) switches into a "strong skidding" mode which is intended to be switched back to regular driving mode when the car slows down enough (possibly by resetting that chip with a special signal??) but fails. Please fix this.
Steps To Reproduce	Try to drive too fast until the car drifts and leaves the road in a curve. The car will keep skidding like mad on grass (also when driving back onto road) untill you brake it fully down to 0 mph.
Additional Information
Github Commit

Flags
Regression Version
Affected Sets / Systems	harddriv, racedriv

Attached Files	harddriv.cfg.7z (1,594 bytes) Feb 27, 2022, 08:35 Uploaded by CYBERYOGI -CO-Windler my controls settings (configured for mouse).

No.19798 Fujix Administrator Feb 19, 2022, 06:37	Please write down the set name. Fixed the report.
No.19807 CYBERYOGI -CO-Windler Viewer Feb 20, 2022, 05:18 edited on: Feb 20, 2022, 05:20	I don't have MAME on this PC I am visiting the forum with. AFAIK it happens in cockpit versions (of Race Drivin and Hard Drivin - happens always in the MAME default romset) while the compacts behave better. (Skidding is supposed to end when running slow enough again and not need to fully brake to 0 mph.)
No.19849 Fujix Administrator Feb 26, 2022, 04:13	Could you post a replay inp file or something to confirm your report? Just saying "something is wrong" won't help developers to know what is wrong and how it should be. We need more evidence or something to reproduce what you experienced. And someday, if you notice that something you reported has been fixed, don't forget to report it here.
No.19850 Augusto Tester Feb 26, 2022, 04:18	The issue have any detail related with slapstick protection ?
No.19854 CYBERYOGI -CO-Windler Viewer Feb 27, 2022, 08:44 edited on: Feb 27, 2022, 08:58	I have added my controls CFG files for Hard Drivin/Race Drivin related games (for playing with mouse+keyboard). Important is that the pedals (configured as digital inputs) and shift stick always stay centered after MAME startup. so shifter is "N" and brake pedal is stuck (halfway?) down and needs to be pressed once to make the car accelerate properly. AFAIK quitting to the MAME main menu and selecting a different game keeps those controls in correct position. Only after exiting MAME completely (to desktop) and returning to those games the pedal needs to be pressed again. Important is here that in MAME controls config particularly the brake needs to be set to a very high increment speed, else the emulated pedal stays down for too long, which prevents (ABS style) manual stutter braking in curves and so makes the car skid off the road. While this is not the main problem (which starts only after the car reached maximum skid intensity), it helps to reduce the risk of ending there by avoiding to drift offroad.