Reporting problems

This page will give you a good idea of how to report problems to the project in a useful way.

Before reporting

Here are some things you should do before reporting issues to us:

• Make sure you've got the latest version of VDrift from the VDrift homepage.
• Read the release notes for the version of VDrift you are using, and the platform you are running it on. Be sure to check the Known Issues section.
• Make sure you've got the latest drivers installed for your video card.
• Find a way to reproduce the problem, if you can.
• Search the forums for topics already containing your problem. At least read through the most recent Help and Bugs posts to make sure this isn't already being discussed. If it's a big problem, the likelihood is that there's a topic about on the front page of the site.

Tips for reporting problems

If you've done everything above, and still have a problem, report the issue in the Help or Bugs forums, following these tips:

• Put a meaningful title on your thread.
  • "Please help me" or "problem with game" do not tell us anything at all. You need not say that there's a problem, after all you are in the Help forum.
  • Here are examples of good topics: "Car won't shift gears", "lap is not triggered", "AI car turns wrong way", "HUD is not drawn". These topics are all short, but tell us what the topic is about before we read it. It is also much easier to search through topics when they have good titles.
• Make sure you provide every bit of information you know, even if you think we might not need to know it. This will help us reproduce and fix the problem faster.
  • Always include details about your hardware, operating system and library versions. This helps us tell where the problem lies. We can't help or begin to debug a problem until we know where it is. There are many more things that cause problems besides the game code - problems can be caused by hardware (including CPU, memory, video card, sound card, video memory), operating system, drivers (for video and sound, mainly), or the libraries used on your system (this applies mainly to Linux and FreeBSD).
  • Give as many details about how to reproduce it as possible.
  • If you can, include a screenshot of your problem. We provide space in our gallery where you can upload your shots.
• Use your very best English. It's the only language we all understand. The better you write, the easier and quicker it is for us to understand your problem. We understand if you make a few mistakes, but please do your best.
  • If you are not a native English speaker, we will do our very best to understand you.
  • If you are a native English speaker, we should not have to spend extra time trying to decipher your post, just because you are too lazy to spell correctly and use correct grammar and punctuation.
  • These things are sometimes hard to describe. Take your time and write as much as you need to tell us about your problem.
• Check back regularly after reporting a problem. We may have questions or possible solutions, as well as tests we may need you to run so we can discover more about how the game runs on your system. Try to respond as quickly as possible, and we'll do the same.

Examples of reports

Here's a bad example of a bug report:

Topic: HELP OH NO!!!!!!
when i start up the game it shows some stuff and then goes away what do i do how do u fix it

Here's a good example of a bug report:

Topic: Crash in latest Windows release
Hi, I downloaded the full version of VDrift for Windows (version 2007-03-23) and it crashes
whenever I try to start a new game. The menus all function correctly. My system is Windows XP
SP2, P4 2 GHz CPU, 1 GB RAM and GeForce 5600 video card with nVidia drivers 9.4.3.2.