TORCS

Development of TORCS began in 1997 by Eric Espié and Christophe Guionneau as a 2D game called Racing Car Simulator (RCS). It was influenced by and based on RARS (Robot Auto Racing Simulator).[https://books.google.com/books?id=29N9AwAAQBAJ&dq=rars+torcs&pg=PA99 Evolved to Win] by Moshe Sipper, {{ISBN|978-1-4709-7283-7}} (2011) When Espié and Guionneau acquired a 3dfx graphics card for game development, they made the first 3D version of the simulator with OpenGL and renamed it Open Racing Car Simulator (ORCS) so as not to be confused with the Revision Control System.

The early versions of ORCS did not include cars with engines, making the game a Soap Box Derby-style, downhill racing simulation. When engines and engine sounds were eventually added, the simulation was given its final name, TORCS, as the name seemed more relevant to automobiles given its similarity to the word torque.

Later, Guionneau added multiple camera angles during game-play. Guionneau developed much of the original graphics code in TORCS and eventually added texture mapping to give more detail to the cars. Espié then worked on piecing together and finalizing code for release.{{cite web|url=http://torcs.cvs.sourceforge.net/torcs/torcs/torcs/doc/history/history.txt?revision=1.1&view=markup |title=TORCS project history|work=SourceForge.net}}

The current main developers of TORCS are Bernhard Wymann (project leader), Christos Dimitrakakis (simulation, sound, AI) and Andrew Sumner (graphics, tracks). Aside from bugfixes and maintenance of TORCS code, the next features planned include network multiplayer mode, improved physics engine, enhanced car interior detail, and replays.{{cite web|url=http://torcs.sourceforge.net/index.php?name=Sections&op=viewarticle&artid=30#c1_5|title=TORCS FAQ: "What are the future plans?"|date=6 February 2020}}

In December 2000 CNN placed TORCS among the "Top 10 Linux games for the holidays".[https://web.archive.org/web/20041206174427/http://archives.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/12/20/linux.games.idg/index.html Top 10 Linux games for the holidays] by Lee Anderson on cnn.com (December 20, 2000, archived) Linux Journal considered TORCS to be the best open source driving game in their October 18, 2007 issue, highlighting the ability for players to design their own cars, realistic graphics and vehicle handling.{{cite web | last = Diehl | first = Mike | title = Free Games for Linux | work = Linux Journal | date = 2007-10-18 | url = http://www.linuxjournal.com/node/1000435 | accessdate = 2007-12-04}} The game has gained substantial popularity; between 2000 and 2017, it was downloaded over 2.9 million times via SourceForge.net alone.[https://sourceforge.net/projects/torcs/files/stats/timeline?dates=2000-03-19+to+2017-05-25 stats 2000-03-19+to+2017-05-25] on sourceforge.net

The TORCS Racing Board hosts a competition on its website among players in the TORCS community. Unlike traditional network multiplayer events in which players compete in real-time on local network or Internet-connected clients simultaneously, the TORCS Racing Board is a competition between artificial intelligence "robots" developed and uploaded by users.

Faculty from the University of Würzburg and Politecnico di Milano host two AI competitions, the Simulated Car Racing Championship and the Demolition Derby Competition; the latter uses a patched TORCS server.{{citation|url=http://www.coboslab.psychologie.uni-wuerzburg.de/competitions/|title=Simulated Car Racing Competition 2010: Demolition Derby|author=COBOSLAB, University of Würzburg |accessdate=2010-04-03 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20100406033332/http://www.coboslab.psychologie.uni-wuerzburg.de/competitions|archivedate=2010-04-06}}

TORCS has been forked into several projects, for example Speed Dreams,{{cite web|title=Speed Dreams home page|url=https://www.speed-dreams.net/en/}} originally known as Torcs-NG.

Due to its openness, modularity and extensibility, TORCS has been adopted as a base for many research projects; examples include automated computation of car setups, human-assisted algorithmic generation of tracks and the application of several computing techniques (e.g. genetic programming) to different aspects of robot driving. Since 2008, TORCS has also played an important role in various research fields within the IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Games, where it appears as a base for 4 to 6 projects every year.

According to the [http://torcs.sourceforge.net/index.php?name=Sections&op=viewarticle&artid=30#c6_2 TORCS FAQ] the current version of TORCS should be cited as "B. Wymann, E. Espié, C. Guionneau, C. Dimitrakakis, R. Coulom, A. Sumner. TORCS: The Open Racing Car Simulator, vX.X.X, 20XX."

{{Portal|Video games}}

• List of open source games
• VDrift, another cross-platform, open source driving simulation
• X Motor Racing, TORCS compatible UDP interface
• Speed Dreams, TORCS fork under active development

{{Reflist|30em}}

{{Commonscat|TORCS}}

• [http://torcs.sourceforge.net/index.php TORCS website]
• {{usurped|1=[https://archive.today/20130414112510/http://www.berniw.org/trb/index.php The TORCS Racing Board]}}

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